Vexiona Tactics and Strategy guide

Before you start reading the strategy, we advise you to look at the abilities of Vexiona, in our encounter journal pages.

• 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.

• 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.
• 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.

• 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.
• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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.

For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.

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.

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 starts when the boss reaches 40% health. No more adds spawn in this phase, which lasts until the boss dies.

For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Vexiona Encounter Journal page.

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.

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.