Vexiona Tactics and Strategy guide
Welcome to our strategy and tactics guide for Vexiona in Ny'alotha. Here, we tell you all you need to know to defeat this boss. We also include a role by role breakdown of the strategy, so that you can quickly see what you need to do depending on your role: DPS, tanks, or healers.
Read Before
Before you start reading the strategy, we advise you to look at the abilities of Vexiona, in our encounter journal pages.
Fight Overview
- This is a three-phase fight.
- Phases One and Two are similar, they alternate over and over, and you will face the boss and various types of adds.
- Phase Three starts when the boss reaches 40% health; no more adds are present and the fight is a race to the finish before the raid dies.
- The fight is primarily about add and debuff management.
- The main aspect is that tanks (ideally no on else) are debuffed by
Void Corruption, a permanent stacking debuff that can only be removed
if the player picks up and uses an orb that drops when a certain add is
killed.
- The main aspect is that tanks (ideally no on else) are debuffed by
Fight Summary / TL;DR
Tanks
- During Phase One
- Have one tank pick up Vexiona and one pick up the
Void Ascendant.
- Vexiona must always be faced away from the raid.
- The Void Ascendant must be faced away from other players and
into Fanatical Cultists when it casts
Annihilation.
- A designated tank (the one with high stacks of Void Corruption
should pick up the orb left behind when the Void Ascendant dies and use it
to clear their corruption stacks.
- Perform a tank switch to keep the Void Corruption stacks
manageable.
- Pick up the Fanatical Cultists when they spawn, and tank them next to Vexiona.
- Have one tank pick up Vexiona and one pick up the
Void Ascendant.
- During Phase Two
- Continue tanking the adds as before (Vexiona cannot be tanked at this time).
- During Phase Three
- Tank the boss in the same way as during Phase One. No adds spawn during
this phase, and Void Corruption cannot be cleared (unless you have
saved an orb effect), so perform tank swaps to keep the Void Corruption
stacks manageable.
- Tank the boss in the same way as during Phase One. No adds spawn during
this phase, and
Healers
- During Phase One
- Be very careful with tank damage during this phase.
- The tank with Void Corruption stacks will take high damage
before they can clear their stacks.
- The Void Ascendant tank will need to be dispelled during this
add's cast of Annihilation, and you can expect them to take high
damage.
- Vexiona's tank needs to be topped up and kept healthy when
Despair is being cast, as otherwise 
Shattered Resolve can
greatly harm the raid.
- The tank with
- Be very careful with tank damage during this phase.
- During Phase Two
- Continue handling the add-healing as during Phase One. Vexiona is not present during this phase and does not damage any tank.
- During Phase Three
- Coordinate with other healers to chain cooldowns and keep the raid alive through this very healing-intensive phase of the fight.
DPS
- During Phase One
- DPS Vexiona.
- Kill any adds present quickly.
- During Phase Two
- Kill the adds.
- During Phase Three
- Use cooldowns and burn down the boss as quickly as possible.
Everyone
- During Phase One
- Do not pick up the
Gift of the Void orbs left behind
Void Ascendant adds when they die; tanks need these orbs. - Stay spread out (at least 10 yards) to prevent damage from
Encroaching Shadows. If affected by Encroaching Shadows, move out of
the raid and drop the void zone in a safe location. - Interrupt Spellbound Ritualists'
Void Bolt when
possible.
- Do not pick up the
- During Phase Two
- Make sure to avoid being hit by Vexiona's
Twilight Decimator
(look at where she is flying in the air to tell where she will fire it). - Remain spread out to minimize the damage from
Encroaching Shadows, and place the void zone resulting from this
in a safe location if you are affected by it.
- Make sure to avoid being hit by Vexiona's
- During Phase Three
- Stack up with the rest of the raid (to avoid the effects of
Terrifying Presence. - Stay stacked up while running out of the boss's proximity when
Heart of Darkness is being cast. - Remain stacked in order to soak
Desolation. - If affected by Encroaching Shadows, move out of the raid
immediately and drop your void zone in a safe location.
- Stack up with the rest of the raid (to avoid the effects of
Phase One
Phase One lasts until Vexiona reaches 100 Energy, at which point she goes into Phase Two for approximately 1 minute. After this, Phase One restarts and this cycle continues until Vexiona reaches 40% health.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.
Notes
The main thing to understand is how 
Void Corruption,
Gift of the Void, and 
Annihilation work.
Anyone in a cone in front of Vexiona, so ideally only tanks, will be hit
by 
Twilight Breath and debuffed with Void Corruption, which
lasts indefinitely, stacks, and deals Shadow damage every 3 seconds. Eventually,
this will kill the target, and there is only way (other than dying) to remove
the debuff: Gift of the Void.
When a Void Ascendant add is killed, it drops an orb that can be
picked up by a player, granting them an extra action button for a one-time use
of Gift of the Void. This ability channels the same
Annihilation beam that the Void Ascendants use,
but which also clears that player's stacks of
Void Corruption.
Strategy
Tanking
Tanks play an important role during this phase of the fight. To begin with,
you will want one tank to pick up the Void Ascendant that is present
on the pull, while the other takes Vexiona. Once the Void Ascendant is killed,
Vexiona's tank (who by now will have some Void Corruption stacks)
should pick up the Gift of the Void orb in order to be able to clear his
stacks, and the tanks should perform a switch.
Precisely when tanks need to clear their Void Corruption stacks will remain to be seen once we experience the live fight and see how it is tuned. If the damage is manageable, the use of the orb can be saved for later on in the fight, in order to remove as many stacks as possible with a single use.
For dealing with Vexiona's 
Despair, the tanks do not need to
switch, and instead the active tank should use some defensive cooldowns to
help the healers keep their health as high as possible.
Regarding positioning, there are two important considerations.
- Vexiona should always be facing away from other raid members, since having players be hit by her breath attack can be devastating.
- The Void Ascendant adds need to be faced in such a way that their
Annihilation frontal beam does not hit any raid members, but
hits as many Fanatical Cultists as possible.
- The Fanatical Cultists and Spellbound Ritualists should, when possible, be brought over next to Vexiona.
The tank using Gift of the Void to clear their Void Corruption
stacks should also aim the beam in such a way that it does not hit any other
players, but again they should try to aim it at as many
Fanatical Cultists as possible.
Note that the debuff applied by the Annihilation beam hitting the
tank can be dispelled. Ideally, healers should dispel this at some point around
the middle of the cast, to keep the damage the tank takes manageable.
Handling Adds
All the adds should be focused down and killed when they are alive. Tanks should be keeping them in cleaving range of Vexiona.
Interrupting the Souldbound Ritualists' casts of
Void Bolt is important (although not crucial) to reducing
incoming damage.
Any Fanatical Cultists that live long enough will transform into
Void Ascendants. In our experience, it is best to kill them off before
this happens, as the Void Ascendant present at the start of the fight and the
one that spawns at the start of each Phase Two should theoretically provide
enough Gift of the Void orbs to manage Void Corruption.
Other Concerns
This phase is all about proper killing of the adds and about the tanks'
ability to position enemies correctly, as well as clearing their
Void Corruption stacks before it becomes too much.
Players will also need to be spread out at least 9 yards apart at all
times, as otherwise they risk taking unnecessary damage from the
Encroaching Shadows ability that Vexiona casts. Players affected by
this need to move away from the rest of the raid and drop their void zones in
a safe location.
Phase Two
During Phase Two, Vexiona flies up into the air and uses her
Twilight Decimator breath attack three times, over the course of
about 60 seconds, after which she lands again and Phase One resumes.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.
Notes
The Twilight Decimator breath can target one of 3 "slices" of the
fighting area. There is no set pattern to which areas are targeted, and the
boss appears to prefer targeting the area in which most of the raid is
located. There is nothing preventing her from hitting the same area
multiple times during the same Phase Two.
It is easy to tell where the breath will hit because the boss positions herself there in preparation for it.
Strategy
During this phase Vexiona cannot be tanked or attacked, so the raid must simply focus on the adds and handle them in the same way as during Phase One.
Encroaching Shadows is still used during this phase, so the raid
should remain spread out and handle things the same way as before.
Phase Three
Phase Three starts when the boss reaches 40% health. No more adds spawn in this phase, which lasts until the boss dies.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.
Notes
As you might be able to tell from the abilities, all raid members at risk
of receiving Void Corruption stacks throughout this phase (and will,
as some sources are unavoidable), and there is no way to get rid of the
stacks. This means that this phase is a race to kill the boss before the
raid becomes unhealable.
Strategy
Since no adds are present anymore in this phase, this is the moment to focus on Vexiona and kill her as quickly as possible.
Tanks can try to save a Gift of the Void orb effect from a previous
phase, as you transition into Phase Three, which should be used at some
point to clear their Void Corruption and make healing slightly easier overall
in this phase.
Players are encouraged to stack up during this phase, primarily due to
Terrifying Presence. On Heroic mode, stacking up is also the
recommended way to deal with 
Desolation (the more players in the
radius, the better, but you need to ensure that at least 3 players are
hit).
Whenever Vexiona casts 
Heart of Darkness, everyone in the raid will
have to run away from her, but you must still make sure to be stacked
together doing so. This is because any player that is too far from any other
allies when this cast goes off will be feared and receive additional
corruption.
This means that only Encroaching Shadows deters stacking up.
Unlike in previous phases, players should remain stacked up even if this
means taking damage from the initial cast of the ability, and then
run out of the raid and drop their void zone at a safe
location before stacking up again.
This is a heavy DPS burn phase, so we recommend using
Heroism/
Bloodlust/
Time Warp here. Healers will also
need to communicate and work together to chain cooldowns and keep the raid
alive towards the very end.
Loot
Spec by Spec Advice for Ny'alotha
| Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter | Mage | Monk |
| Paladin | Priest | Rogue |
| Shaman | Warlock | Warrior |
Changelog
- 19 Jan. 2020: Guide added.
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