The second encounter in the Trial of the Crusader is against a very large, angry Eredar called:

My opinions on this boss encounter are somewhat skewed because of the circumstances under which I fought him. On 10-man, he was an absolute breeze, and I found myself seriously questioning the rumors that I’d heard about it being a “healing-intensive” encounter. My second run-in with the big red guy was on 25-man, and it was a nightmare. I’ve since realized, though, that this was less about Jaraxxus and more about the raid. First, we didn’t know about dispelling Nether Power. We thought his Fel Lightning was one-shotting people because it must chain the way Thorim’s does. But in fact it does not. Even after we figured that out, we had a sort of off-raid that night, which meant that we had only two mages to dispel the aforementioned Nether Power, and we had NO REPLENISHMENT. It was rough.

Happily, with proper raid buffs and dispellers, Jaraxxus is not bad at all. On with the show!

Jaraxxus has a variety of abilities that have minimal bearing on a holy paladin’s routine. He buffs himself with Nether Power, which must be dispelled. He casts Fel Fireball, which must be interrupted. He summons two types of add: Infernals and Mistresses of Pain, which must be tanked. But there are still a number of his abilities that we can do something about.

The first and simplest is Touch of Jaraxxus. It’s a magic debuff that seems (in my experience, anyway) to only be placed on his primary aggro target. We just need to dispel it as soon as possible, so it doesn’t spread too many curses.

The second ability to watch for is Incinerate Flesh. This will be cast on a random raid member throughout the fight. I would strongly recommend that you add this debuff to your list of tracked debuffs, whether on Grid, Healbot, or specific tracking add-on. It works like an absorption bubble that absorbs healing instead of damage. The amount that it can absorb fluctuates based on the difficulty setting of the encounter (30k on 10-man normal, 40k on 10-man heroic, 60k on 25-man normal, and a whopping 85k on 25-man heroic.) Once you’ve thrown enough healing its way, the “bubble” will pop harmlessly and the target will resume doing full damage. If, however, you do not pop the bubble by doing the requisite amount of healing after 12 seconds, the target will explode and deal pulses of damage to the raid. You want to avoid this whenever possible.

The nasty thing about this particular debuff is that, as holy paladins, we’re a great option for healing it. Our “big heal” is spammable (unlike Penance, for example), and we tend to gear and spec to maximize our ability to spam it. Why is this nasty? Because the heals are “Absorbed,” which means they don’t transfer via Beacon of Light. It’s a pain, but Jaraxxus’ tank damage is generally not so severe that we can’t afford to Holy Light the Incinerated Flesh a couple times, even without Beacon transfer.

Legion Flame is another debuff to be aware of, as you’ll probably catch it at least once or twice during the encounter. The debuff lasts six seconds and spawns fire under you. However, in my very limited experience, it seems to behave strangely. Whether due to graphical latency or design, the fire doesn’t spawn immediately, and if you spend all six seconds running to the back of the arena, your whole trail will light up with fire when the debuff expires. The important thing is that you do not stand still, and that you do not run the fire through other people.

Finally, there’s Fel Lightning. Your raid should spread out in the usual fashion for dealing with Chain Lightning-style abilities, but as I mentioned in the into, this is not Thorim’s lightning. It doesn’t grow stronger with each jump. It’s very manageable damage, so long as Jaraxxus doesn’t have too many stacks of Nether Power up when he casts it.

And that’s pretty much it for Jaraxxus. Except… his adds have a few tricks of their own.

Mistress’ Kiss is an ability that should worry any holy paladin that reads its description. I certainly was. Unlike every other healing class, we only have access to a single spell school (holy.) If we get this debuff, our only options are to rely on instant spells for the duration, bubble out of it, pop Aura Mastery with Concentration Aura, or just suck it up and eat the interrupt. Unfortunately, I can’t give any first-hand advice as to which of these is the best choice, since I never got the debuff, in 10- or 25-man. And the weird thing? Neither did any of the other healers I talked to. I’ve got nothin’.

Spinning Pain Spike does damage equal to a percentage of the target’s health. That percentage fluctuates with difficulty setting, but on all settings, it’s pretty serious. This, along with Incinerate Flesh above, is something you’ll want to track, because massive damage will follow the three-second “You’re being targeted!” debuff. Power Word: Shield is really the ace in the hole for dealing with this ability, but we can still prime a heal to help with the damage that gets through.

The only other thing of note won’t affect you directly, but you still need to know about it: Shivan Slash. This will keep the damage on the Mistress’ offtank even higher and spikier than the damage on Jaraxxus’ tank. Something to be aware of, both in selecting your spells and your healing assignments.

Fel Inferno is the only thing to really worry about with regard to the Infernals that Jaraxxus will spawn. All it means is that you should always try to be 15 yards away from them.

Now let’s talk about our cooldowns. There’s a lot of raid damage, but it’s all very spiky and hard to predict. This means mitigation cooldowns like Aura Mastery (you’ll notice that most of the damage is Fire, so rock the FR aura if you can) and Divine Sacrifice don’t have an easy “USE ME NOW” moment. If you find yourself forced to bubble, say due to Mistress’ Kiss, then go ahead and use Divine Sacrifice then, while the bubble is up anyway. If infernals start AOEing the raid due to poor placement, it’s another good time to pop something.

Damage will be highest while a Mistress of Pain is active, so if you’re being conservative with Divine Plea, wait until one of them has just died. Based on my limited testing (in a replenishment-free post-battlerez environment of pure chaos) it is mostly safe to melee Jaraxxus for Seal of Wisdom procs. His Fel Lightning seems to always prioritize ranged targets before melee targets. The only time it’s not safe is if Infernals are in range, or if a portal is opening (they cause AOE damage as well.)

Aaand… that’s about it for Big Red. Looking forward to playing with the Faction Champions this coming week, which you’ll be able to read all about in the third installment of this series.

Tagged as Holy Paladin, Trial of the Crusader + Categorized as Paladin, Paladin, Paladin Perspective