Hex Lord Malacrass (original)

Hex Lord Malacrass is the fifth boss in Zul'Aman, the final obstacle before the raid can do battle with Zul'jin.

A devious plan
Information taken from worldofwarcraft.com

''Malacrass had studied the Zandalari high priests and their ability to call upon the favor of the animal gods. He also knew that the elves had magically bound one of the mighty naaru, using it to channel the power of the Light into their own ranks. Malacrass had devised a similar plan: to seal the power of the animal gods within the bodies of the Amani's strongest warriors. Zul'jin quickly approved the plan and lent his full support. Malacrass experimented tirelessly and succeeded in imbuing four warriors with the essence of mighty animal gods: the lynx, dragonhawk, bear, and eagle. Some adventurers fear that Malacrass may have bound a fifth, even darker essence within his own soul....''

The Fight
Hex-lord has 4 adds (described in more detail below). Each add is a different mob type and has differing abilities and will need to be CC'd, off-tanked, or killed.

During the entire fight, the Hex Lord will melee damage his highest threat target for (amount?). He will also use an ability called Soul Drain which gives him several abilities from a single class for 30 seconds (described in more detail below). After his Soul Drain buff wears off he will lose his class abilities, stop melee dps, and cast Spirit Bolts on all members of the raid. As soon as he is done with the Spirit Bolts, he will immediately cast Soul Drain and gain a different classes' abilities (unless he drains the same class or player, which is not uncommon) for 30 seconds. Alternating between the Soul Drain phase and the Spirit Bolt phase is basically the entire fight. After the Hex Lord reaches 80%, his Soul Drain also gives him a stackable buff which increases his size and the damage of his melee, Soul Drain abilities, and Spirit Bolts. The longer you take to kill him, the harder he becomes.

Key factors of the fight are:
 * Dealing with the adds quickly
 * Keeping the raid topped off before spirit bolts
 * Learning how to deal with each different class ability
 * Healers maintaining enough mana throughout the entire fight
 * Maintaining sufficient DPS, which affects nearly every aspect of the fight

Adds
He starts with 4 random adds, much like Moroes from Karazhan. There will always be a sap/sheepable, hibernatable, banishable, and shacklable mob but additional CC types may come in to play as well. Possible adds are:

Far Left (Humanoid) Left (Hibernatable) Right (Banishable) Far Right (Shacklable)
 * Thurg - An ogre melee. Sap, trap or polymorph can be used. Thurg has some magic resistance and will often break polymorph and traps early.
 * Alyson Antille - A blood elf priest. Can be polymorphed or sapped.  Her heals need to be interrupted.
 * Lord Raadan - A dragonkin which uses flamebreath and thunderclap. Can be slept or trapped.  Due to his AoE abilities killing him is highly recommended.
 * Slither - A serpent with a poison bolt volley. Can be slept or polymorphed.
 * Gazakroth - An imp. Chain casts fireballs.  Banish or kill it quickly. He has no aggro list and will target players at random.
 * Fenstalker - A swampwalker type elemental. Can be banished or trapped. Casts Volatile Infection on a player, dealing 1885 to 2115 Nature damage to nearby allies every 5 sec for 30 seconds.
 * Darkheart - An undead wraith melee with an AoE Fear. Can be shackled or feared by a Paladin (Turn Evil).
 * Koragg - An undead wight. Can be shackled or feared by a paladin. Casts knockback and a 20 yard AoE curse Cold Stare which deals 1414 to 1586 Frost damage if spell or ability is used.

Spirit Bolts
Every 30 secs, Malacrass uses this ability, which deals 450 shadow damage to every member of the raid every 0.5 sec for 10 seconds. Can be resisted, but is not subject to line of sight. It increases in damage with each Soul Drain. Testing has shown that Dampen Magic/Amplify Magic does not change the overall damage for a Spirit Bolt volley. Therefore, Amplify Magic can be placed on the raid and the damage taken from the Spirit Bolts will not increase, thereby providing a nice increase to raid healing. The downside is that certain stolen class abilities (like a mage's) appear to do extra damage to Amplified targets. (Additional testing is desired over anecdotal evidence.) A Paladin's Concentration Aura (especially improved with talent points) is invaluable for allowing the raid healers to avoid pushback from the bolts.


 * Rogues can CoS, Pallies can bubble, Warlocks can Shadow Ward, and Mages can Ice-block to avoid damage from Spirit Bolts. Rogues MUST use Cloak of Shadows before Spirit Bolt begins channeling or it will not nullify the damage. Druids can use Barkskin to reduce the damage and cast without interruption but due to the 1 minute cooldown of Barkskin they can only use it for every 2nd spirit bolt volley.


 * At the initial pull, warlocks can use Rank 1 banish (for 20 seconds) on the demon or elemental add in order to provide time to re-banish it before the first spirit bolts occurs. If Rank 2 banish is used, it tends to wear off directly when Spirit Bolts starts, which makes it difficult to re-banish the add due to the pushback caused by the bolts. After the initial cycle of spirit bolts, this timing becomes less reliable because of lost time while banishing.


 * For warlocks, the Nether Protection talent is incredibly useful for this fight. Normally it will cause the warlock to be immune to most of the spirit bolts, drastically reducing damage taken, healing needed, and spell pushback. It is worth noting that if the warlock is specced fully into Nether Protection, they can actually become immune to the Spirit Bolts for at least four seconds, making re-banishing during Spirit Bolts much, much easier, as well as easing the work of the healers. With three talent points into Nether protection, the warlock will have a 30% chance to become immune to shadow damage; with Hex Lord casting bolts every .5 seconds, Nether Protection usually procs quite often.


 * Shadow Resistance is also a useful asset in this fight if available. The priest buff Prayer of Shadow Protection or the paladin's Shadow Resistance Aura can offer 70 resistance these do NOT stack but they can stack up with Flask of Chromatic Wonder and any other shadow resistance gear. With the buffs and the Flask and Medallion of Karabor around 145 Shadow Resistance is obtainable which can practically reduce the spirit bolt's damage to around 60%. However it is not advised to downgear oneself too much in favor for resistance as the lack of other primary stats reduces overal the effectiveness of the team.


 * It is also worth noting that if Hex Lord is in priest form and he is mind controlling a player then that player is marked friendly to him and will not be targeted by spirit bolts as long as the mind control lasts. While it is strongly NOT advised to leave mind control on a player in this case there can be exeptions to time the dispel after the spirit bolts.

Soul Drains
Immediately after Malacrass finishes casting Spirit Bolts, he uses Soul Drain. Soul Drain is a channeled debuff that is placed on a random member of the raid. The person drained will not suffer any direct penalties, but Malacrass will gain some abilities from the target's class, which are outlined below. He has these abilities for 30 secs until he starts casting Spirit Bolts again, after which he will Soul Drain another (or the same) class. This continues for the rest of the fight.


 * Note: All heals can and should be interrupted by Kick/Pummel/Shield Bash/Counterspell/Wind Shear/etc.

Strategy


Before starting the fight establish control methods and kill order for the adds present. Some raids may find it more useful to maintain crowd control on one or more adds through out the fight, while others will have enough DPS to kill all adds before beginning DPS on Malacrass. Note that Malacrass does not start stacking the Power Drain debuffs until his health reaches 80%. If the stacking debuffs are a problem, kill all four adds before attacking Malacrass. The raid will then not have to spend mana, casting time, and cooldowns keeping adds controlled.

Focus on quickly killing the adds. Be careful not to start killing AoE-attack capable adds (like Slither) during Spirit Bolts.

Spirit Bolts will be cast every 30 seconds and last 10 seconds. Spirit Bolts can not be avoided via line of sight. Rogues should focus on using Cloak of Shadows to mitigate some of this damage.

Following Spirit Bolts, Malacrass will select a new target for Soul Drain randomly from the raid.

Tips for specific class Soul Drains

 * Death Knight - Remove Blood Plague as necessary, and dispel Mark of Blood whenever a damage dealer is debuffed with it. Anyone that gets Mark of Blood should stop attacking until it is removed. Everyone has to run out of Death and Decay whenever it is cast in their area.
 * Druid - Melee will need to watch their health due to thorns. Purge the Lifebloom quickly and dispel Moonfire as soon as possible.
 * Hunter - Melee need to avoid traps, this is a high DPS phase because (if traps are avoided correctly) only the tank will take damage.
 * Mage - It may be advisable to coordinate an interruption cycle among interrupt capable raid members to prevent spell casts. Light tank damage.
 * Paladin - Have a ranged interrupter focus on heals as Malacrass will often use Consecrate before healing. Dispel or Spellsteal Avenging Wrath and avoid Consecration.
 * Priest - Mind Control must be dispelled quickly. Heal interrupts must take priority.  If you have more than two interrupters, assign one person to Mind Blast.
 * Rogue - Heavy Tank damage phase but raid DPS can open up. Dispel poisons to optimize heals and Disarm Malacrass.
 * Shaman - Fire Nova Totems must be killed as quickly as possible. Establish a split interrupt rotation for the heal and chain lightning (Rogue/Shaman on Heal, Warrior on Chain Lightning).
 * Warlock - Remove Curse of Doom, be careful not to dispel Unstable Affliction and move out of Rain of Fire spawns.
 * Warrior - While warrior form he is susceptible to Disarm this is suggested to be done at the start of Whirlwind. Non-tank Melee absolutely must move out of Whirlwind. Tanks should burn avoidance trinkets to avoid Mortal Strike as much as possible.

Power Drain
After dropping Malacrass to 80% health he will begin to use Power Drain once every 30 seconds, increasing his size and damage by 10% and reducing all player's damage/healing by 1%. Once Malacrass begins Power Draining the DPS race begins because he will eventually become buffed enough to wipe your raid during Spirit Bolts.

Additional Tips

 * Mages can Spell Steal the Lifebloom and Avenging Wrath from Malacrass.
 * Elemental Shaman are excellent interrupters for this fight because they can out-range Whirlwind, Consecration, and Fire Nova Totems.
 * If a healing Shaman is in the group, gathering up during Spirit Bolts will increase the efficiency of Chain Heal.
 * Restoration Shamans should place Earth Shield on themselves before Spirit Bolts to reduce damage pushback on heals.
 * All Priests should use Prayer of Mending during Spirit Bolts and Circle of Healing works very well as well.
 * Rogues - Hex Lord is immune to mind-numbing poison, but wounding poison works.

Quotes
Timer begins:
 * yell

Timer progression:
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Timer soon ended:
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Timer ended:
 * yell
 * yell

Aggro:
 * yell

Death of an add:
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Casts Spirit Bolts:
 * yell

Soul Siphon:
 * yell

Power Drain:
 * yell

Killing a player:
 * yell
 * yell

Enrage:
 * yell

Death:
 * yell