High Priest Venoxis (tactics)

High Priest Venoxis is one, if not the first, boss players can encounter in the level 85 version of Zul'Gurub. He can still be found at his old location inside the instance.

Background
High Priest Venoxis is the High Priest of the Primal God Hethiss, the snake god.

Adventure Guide
''Originally sent to kill Hakkar, Venoxis became enslaved to the murderous entitiy before falling to Azeroth's heroes. Through the efforts of the Soulflayer's agents, Venoxis has been ripped from the spirit world and ordered to defend Zul'Gurub with his venomous serpentine minions.''

Stage Two: The Mortal Coil Unwinds
After a set period of time, High Priest Venoxis transforms into an avatar of Hethiss, the snake god.

Stage Three: Bloodvenom!
High Priest Venoxis moves to his altar, absorbs all of the Pools of Acrid Tears in the room, and then casts Bloodvenom. After Bloodvenom ends, Venoxis enters a state of Venom Withdrawal and then returns to stage one.

Strategy
A large portion of the damage in this battle can be avoided. This fight requires concentration and thought to positioning of players and the boss.

Phase 1
Venoxis should be positioned so that melee players can place themselves behind the boss without taking damage from the maze walls or other damaging elements. Ranged players should go to differnet parts of the maze and maximise the distance between themselves and the tank/melee players in order to minimize travelling time when breaking the link. Any player affected by Toxic Link should stop casting and move away from the connected player as soon as possible. Whispers of Hethiss can and should be inturrupted for every cast, this may require 2 people to rotate inturrupts.

Phase 2
Pool of Acrid Tears will spawn around the area, the tank should be aware of any near the boss so that he can be moved to prevent damage being taken from then. When Venoxis begins casting Breath of Hethiss the tank and any players within 15 yards of the boss must ensure that they are behind him before the cast finishes. At the end of Phase 2 Venoxis will head back to where he started, players should head to a 'dead end' part of the maze to allow the maximum movement area for Bloodvenom.

Phase 3
When Venoxis summons the tendrils for Bloodvenom, players must be kite these and avoid other party members as the tendrils deal AoE damage to anyone in range. There will be one tendril summoned for each party member who is alive. A sound strategy is to stand still and wait for the tendrils to appear before running; exiting the maze before the tendrils appear will cause one to appear at the entrance and moving before the tendrils are summoned can cause a tendril to follow a player that is already running from one, both of which can cause unnecessary damage. Abilities such as Ice Block or Divine Shield can prevent the damage being taken in an emergency. Players must be careful not to touch the walls of the maze, as doing so will cause roughly 50k nature damage per second. Keep this in mind if you plan to jump over the maze edges as the effect is slightly larger than the graphic. When Venoxis gets weakend from Venom Withdrawl, burn him with everything you've got. After this debuff dissipates phase 1 will start again.

Related Achievements

 * It's Not Easy Being Green

Quotes

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Killing a Player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Casting Bloodvenom
 * yell


 * Transform
 * yell


 * Casting Word of Hethiss
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * Unused quotes
 * yell