Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Lady Vashj <Coilfang Matron>

Serpentshrine CavernHydross the UnstableThe Lurker BelowLeotheras the BlindFathom-Lord KarathressMorogrim TidewalkerLady VashjLady VashjSerpentshrine CavernCoilfang Reservoir

This NPC can be found in Serpentshrine Cavern (2).

Quotes (14)

Guides

Battle Pets
and Where
to Find Them

Beyond Bloody
Rare: Vanilla to
Cataclysm Rare Spawns

Patch 5.3 New
Battle Pets and
Pet Battle Changes

Comments

Comment by Hallian

She hit the main tank of Nihilum for 7000 damage. I guess like most bosses the strategy is more important then boss HP, once you get your tacs right she'll go down and you will live. However, this boss seems to be very bugged and 'nearly impossible' according to Nihilum. Their latest news reports they got her down to 25%.

Comment by ique

She has 5,300,000 HP not 4,300,000
mana is right

Comment by Prowler

Dropped last night from vash http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30110#00z

Comment by Siim97

Lady Vashj is able to play as in Warcraft 3 frozen throne she helps Kael'Thas with the undeads.

Comment by Kepesk

Why does it say she drops kara lootz ^_^

Comment by Moshimoshi

Going to the top of the stairs of her platform will cause her to aggro, so mind your step.

Comment by Toldry

not that her <guild name> is coilfang matron.

matron:
1.a married woman, esp. one who is mature and staid or dignified and has an established social position.
2.a woman who has charge of the domestic affairs of a hospital, prison, or other institution.
3.a woman serving as a guard, warden, or attendant for women or girls, as in a prison.

i wonder....

Comment by Lightophile

Sad to report this, but some guilds are killing her with a cheat.

A trick which involves a "pre-fight" to get four players stationed at the four pillars with four cores, then logging out with the cores. Then the raid wipes and starts over. As soon as they get into phase two, the four cheaters log in again, and use the cores, making the phase two, and the whole battle, very easy.

truely sad, but some guilds choose this for free epics.. just like another chess event... :(

Comment by Kindinos

Interesting Lore factoid: There were 7 vials of eternity. 3 were used to create the new well of eternity. 1 was given to Kael'thas, and another given to Lady Vashj. This leaves 2 vials unaccounted for. It is possible that the other 2 vials have been used to re-energize the sunwell which was sucked dry of its energies when Arthas revived Kel'thuzad.

Comment by Exavier

If you're tasked with side coverage, note that on-kill trinkets can trigger off the deaths of the Enchanted/Tainted Water Elementals. For example, the Skyguard Silver Cross and, even better, the Power-Infused Mushroom can be utilized well in this encounter, and considering phase 2 is the biggest bump for most guilds, it may well be worth taking up a trinket slot.

Comment by crimsonhead

Also http://www.wowhead.com/?item=26055 will work as well...900 Mana gained back sure is a nice thing....

picked up at Auchenai Crypts, Shirrak the Dead Watcher

Comment by sadrogue

Don't look into her eyes, she'll turn you to stone!

Don't show anyone her head either, you might turn them to stone also.

No reference to Perseus and Medusa here...

Comment by Vlad

A macro you can use to announce your throws to raid and whisper the person you try to throw at if he is OOR:
/run local i,t,m,n,u=31088,"target",SendChatMessage n=GetItemInfo(i)if GetItemCount(i)>0 then u=UnitName(t)if 1==IsItemInRange(i,t)then m(u.." got "..n,"RAID")else m("OOR for "..n,"WHISPER",nil,u or" ")Minimap:PingLocation(0,0)end end
/use item:31088

Alternatively you could add a function to a addon of yours (if you know how to make addons), like this:
function myvashjmacro()
local itemid = 31088
if GetItemCount(itemid) > 0 then
local item = GetItemInfo(itemid)
local t = "target"
local tname = UnitName(t)
if not tname then return end
if IsItemInRange(itemid, t) == 1 then
SendChatMessage("YOU HAVE THE "..item..", GO GO!", "WHISPER", nil, tname)
SendChatMessage("---> "..tname.." got "..item.." <---", "RAID")
else
SendChatMessage("You are out of my range, come closer (minimap ping) so I can throw the "..item.." to you!", "WHISPER", nil, tname)
Minimap:PingLocation(0,0)
end
end
end

Then you can have a shorter macro, like this:
#showtooltip
/run myvashjmacro()
/use item:31088

Updated for 4.0.6 and now does not error like it always used to when you have no target and such.

Comment by noselasd

Trying to figure out if any Enchanted Elementals reached Vashj - anyone knows what exactly to look for in the combat log ?

Comment by Gorgonnus

Most likely a reference to Medusa...with the snakes for hair, to bad she don't turn people into stone.

Comment by Grevener

Does anyone know if Main looting the cores still works? cause im watching a video where they changed the item type im guessing to common (IE white) and whenever they killed one, it would auto loot it to a person and they just use it right next to it... If somone has tryed this and it hasn't worked, please say. If it does work and no one uses it, Theres the idea :)

Comment by ANTRagnarok

a handy thing for the horde: get http://www.wowhead.com/?item=4941#comments:id=254391 for the striders, every raid member can use it and it lasts 10 seconds, its just awsome

Comment by Aneth0r

Whenever my guild kills her, at the end in the combat log it says "22:26'54.750 Lady Vashj's Death misses Lady Vashj" http://wowwebstats.com/j64ba4vexpcvs?s=13058-13756&bl=13754
I don't know what it means, but hopefully it's not another Kael'Thas situation. >.> "Attack from Naga Planet?"

Comment by leirhen

how can we get to the place where vashj is?? where is the way to get there???

Comment by eye84u

/use Tainted Core
/y <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/s <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE THE CORE !!!", "WHISPER", "Orcish", UnitName("target"));

Comment by Yarthort

Little bit of lore. Lady Vashj, like the other Naga, were one highborn (elfs) who were corrupted by the demon lord Sargeras to open a portal in the Well of Eternity, when the Well was destroyed the entire place where the Well was sunk into the ocean, the Well's waters were so powerful, when it was destroyed, it split apart Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and in the middle causing a big never ending storm called the Maelstorm. (The big swerly whirlpool in the middle of the Azeroth WoW map). Insted of drowning the highborn who sunk with the Well were turned into Naga. Which stayed in the water for 10,000 years until summoned by Illidan. She later found Prince Kael'thas and recruted him to serve Illidan. She and Kael helped Illidan attempt to destroy the Lich King at his base in Northrend. She resides in Coilfang's Serpent Shrine Cavern to attempt to build a third well of eternity for Illidan.

Comment by Naecken

Lady Vasj was th most favoured handmaid of Queen Azshara, Queen and the most beautiful of Night Elves. If you read the War of the Ancients you will find that that sundering of the Well of eternity and summoning of Sargeras and the burning legion to azeroth was made under influence by the old gods as a plot to make them escape their prison (enprisoned by the titans after loosing the war against them).
This was ultimately stoped by (nameing the most importat character)

Rhonin: A human mage who will probably be the leader of the Kirin Tor in Northrend. You can war Rhonins robe in wow I think

Malfurion Stormrage: Illidans twinbrother and the first druid. Trained by the demigod Cenarius. He can now be found in the Emerald Dream (possibly a future expansion for wow)

Illidan Stormrage: I think you know this guy but at this time he was also a student of cenarius, just not as dedicated as Malfurion and therefor not as succesful wich made Illidan turn back to the arcane magics of the Nightelf wich he ultimately mastered almost to perfection. Illidans bigest problem was probably that he would do anything the destroy the burning legion wich ultimately led to his downfall.

Tyrande Whisperwind: Childhood friend and beloved by the Stormrage twins. The competition for her love was ultimately won by Malfurion wich could also ben a reason for Illidans future deeds. Tyrande is now the highpriestess of the Sisters of Elune and can be found in Darnassus.

Krasus. The humanoid form of the red Dragon Korialstrasz, the mate of the red dragon aspect Alexstrazsa. His fang can be looted as a weapon in Wow.

Broxigar: An Orc Warrior who sacrificed himself entering the portal to the demonworld giveing his companions time to shut down the portal, he even succeeded in injure Sargeras with his Mighty Axe, crafted by Malfurion and the demigod Cenarius. You can loot his ring in Wow and hopefully his Axe will turn up at some point in the future ^^

When the Well Collapsed, the old gods whispered to Azsara and offered to save her life. She accepted and those the naga were created. Azsara now is the leader of the Naga and are rumored to be the final boss of the Maelstorm, A raid instance in WotLK.

Took all this from my head so I could have forgoten about someone but I´m sure people can fill out the missing information. =)

Comment by Once

Can the entangle be removed with Cloak of Shadows?

Comment by bonevader

mysterious statue on bloodcurse isle which has nothing but female naga on it. it's big and weird. idk if there's a questline associated with it cuz i never quested in the area, being a dwarf and all.

Comment by bonevader

mysterious statue on bloodcurse isle which has nothing but female naga on it. it's big and weird. idk if there's a questline associated with it cuz i never quested in the area, being a dwarf and all.

Comment by Drajanuma

After the patch, having warrior offtanks stand relatively far away can be effective.

Warrior taunt now has a 20 yrd range, thus she can be taunted from afar, and the warrior Warbringer Ability will cause their Charge and Intercept abilities to break any snares, such as the Entangling Roots she casts.

Comment by Linithia

A pug I was in just downed Vashj after 6 attempts. Best way to do cores we found was to do FFA, then switch immediately to Master Loot after she's dead. This way loot is not ninja'd, and cores can be picked up really quickly.

Comment by Mecantar

These are her quotes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4k0STq8GYs

Kind of feel sad when you kill her, doesn't it?

Comment by JaygoVoodoo

so do you actually kill lady vashj in serpentshrine cavern?

Comment by lovechia

In Lore, she wielded a special longbow, Frostfathom, which was crafted over 10.000 years ago and enchanted by Azshara herself.

However it made no appearance in the game.

Comment by maluchrider

Why did blizzard add a j to her name? It was Lady Vash in Warcraft 3 ,if I remember correctly..

Comment by Artex

The voice of Lady Vashj was provided by Barbara Goodson in both WC3 and in WoW.

Comment by Nzall

i heard there was a bug or something that effectively stopped a kill on her. and Nihilum exploited another bug to kill her after they wiped at 12 %.

what bugs were those and how did nihilum use them? i would really like to know.

edit: she instead of they...

Comment by nyctric

First defeated by Nihilum of Magtheridon on the 29th of March, 2007.

Comment by Bullfrogg

Vashj makes her triumphant return as a boss in the Trail of Champions!
She can be summoned while fighting Argent Confessor Paletress.

Comment by idrith

Her design is obviously based on the mythological monster Medusa, which was portayed with snake hair and wielding a bow in the original "Clash of the Titans" (I'm not talking about the crappy remake).

Comment by imakui

A group of 4 of my guildies and I just downed her for fun. She's rather quite easy now, since 3 dps can put out the same damage as a group of 17 dps back in the day. The most difficult part was getting the striders down, but a hunter and I got that covered.

Comment by calianna

Can you go straight to Lady Vashj? Or are there certain bosses which must be killed?

Comment by hubbard

this snake is in wc3 ft

Comment by auredria

My guild and I have been tryin to down this boss for a while now, no tainted cores have dropped at all, loot is at ffa, and there are barely any tainted elementals. Is this a glitch or what?

Comment by Nobbel

Guides explaining on how to solo a few bosses of Serpentshrine Cavern.
Hydross the Unstable & The Lurker Below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VyAjFXvvzU
Morogrim Tidewalker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haZi95DDDJw
Leotheras the Blind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9K6HueIzrE
There is one more boss that can be done but not by me. He is called:
Fathom-Lord Karathress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9K6HueIzrE
Lady Vashj is impossible even at 85.

Nobbel 85 Paladin

Comment by blall

What is the minimum number of players you need to beat Vash?

Comment by sqrly

Be nice to know, during phase two the adds constantly fear you

Comment by Marloss

No, there is only one type of add that will fear you, and that is the Coilfang Strider, due to its fear aura. They spawn once every minute and need to be kited and killed from range.

Read the article on top before posting, it usually says things like that.

Comment by Coldbear

http://web.archive.org/web/20070421235332/http://www.nihilum.co.uk/news/41/

As we mentioned in a previous update we have been working very hard on the Lady Random. I mean the Lady Vashj encounter. It used to be enjoyable until we discovered how broken everything is, especially in phase 3.

Please fix your buggy, non-tested, totally random encounters. It's not surprising yet again we find ourselves at the end boss of an instance only to find the encounter untested and as random as Kungens lucky 100 sided dice.

In her current state the encounter is like trying to kill Kel'Thuzad, C'Thun and Magtheridon at the same time when theyve just come back from a night out in Amsterdam. Add all the random factors to the encounter and no matter if all 25 of us play like superstars there is still a higher chance to wipe then to acually win.

Comment by Grizlor

In theory she might be soloable by a warlock with loot-a-rang + teleport to get the cores up top. Still, it'd be a hell of a fight.

Comment by starhawk7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ0RNtz0dzU

Vashj 2-manned by BM hunters. Made easier by the fact that it is possible to move with the cores.

Comment by loriendriel

Impossible to kill. The tainted elementals never spawn even if you go underwater to look fo them, All you find down there are a bunch of paranas and a watery grave even at 85. Went in a group with a perfect heals and tank and a load of dps and she was always stuck on phase 2. The tainted core never drops, so don't waste your time looking for it.

Comment by wikkedhead

Still impossible as Assassination rogue.
I had Recup up 100% of the time, but the nonstop fearbombing will slowly be your death, as the elites and forked lightning chip away more than you can heal.

Comment by daret9056

To be clear. Tainted cores no longer root you when you carry them.

It would be interesting to see how many classes are capable of soloing her.

Comment by Faell

Tried her today as an 85 Moonkin with no success. Even with being able to move with the Tainted Cores I don't think many classes / specs will find her soloable.

The Tainted Elementals don't move up the platform like the other elementals so you actually have to go to them quickly, otherwise they teleport to another location. If you leave to kill a Tainted Elemental at least a few of the Enchanted Elementals will usually reach Vashj.

The Nagas have an annoying Hamstring, though you can shapeshift out of it.

The Coilfang Striders are what really make this encounter annoying. They will keep you feared almost constantly so they have to die quickly. Expect more Enchanted Elementals to reach Vashj while dealing with these.

I did manage to reach phase three but she had so many stacks from the Enchant Elementals reaching her that she quickly disposed of me.

However, the fight is easily duoable so just bring a friend. Being able to move with the Tainted Cores and being able to access her now without having to kill all the former bosses should make it easy to find someone willing to help you.

Comment by kabookiejoe

my bet will be on death knights soloing her

Comment by Mortenz

Soloed as a 85 MM Hunter in mostly 378 Firelands gear. The hard part here is obviously Phase 2, you have to be somewhat lucky to get Tained elementals to spawn close to you so you can reach the first 4 elementals, shortening the phase. Vashj had a lot of Surge buffs which increased her damage, but it was healable whily my Turtle pet was tanking.

Misdirect all adds to your pet, and kill them while also trying to kill off usual elementals, while also looking for Tainted. It's a really fun fight to solo, and I can now call myself a proud soloer of all TBC end tier bosses :D

Phase 3 is just nuke boss down, no issues there.

Comment by Professori

Just tryed to solo this on my blood dk used 357 ilvl dps gear.
Only buff I used besides obvious Horn of Winter was Prismatic Elixir to reduce lightning damage she deals. Recount shows that on my last try lasting exactly 15 minutes I resisted 736k nature damage out of 1394k (~52.8%) so I really advice you to use these if you can't get nature resistance any other way.

Phase 1.

Not so hard but very very annoying since she constantly stuns (Shock Blast) and roots (Entangle) you so half of the time you just stand there. I was able to keep myself +90% all the time just using normal Death Strike spam.

Phase 2.

After my first try I didn't even bother try killing Enchanted Elemental cause there was just too many of them to handle. That leads to Surge stacking to 99 increasing her size and damage 990% but that wasn't such a big deal since Forked Lightning was still only hitting me 15-20k and thanks to Prismatic Elixir I resisted about half of it.
Tricky part in P2 was Tainted Elemental always spawning very far away from me and since they only last for 15 seconds I missed most of them because I was either slowed by Coilfang Elites Hamstring or I had to pop Anti-Magic Shell (Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell is big help) and nuke down Coilfang Strider so I wouldnt get chain feared by Panic. Coilfang Strider can be slowed btw if you are already close to Tainted Elemental and want to get Tainted Core before killing it.
Despite being able to fight my way to several (6-8) Tainted Core and returning it to the pole that breaks the beam between boss and pole I was too slow and they seemed for some reason refresh faster than I could break all four beams.

If I had any level 70+ player that can kill Tainted Elemental run Tainted Core to the poles and survive damage she deals with Forked Lightning P2 would be cake and instead of fighting 12 min and still having 4 beams going to boss I could try what P3 feels like.

If someone figures way to get P2 done by DK solo please share. Or maybe i just need better gear to kill all those distractions between me and Tainted Core. Jeklik's Smasher Isn't really best one to do it.

Comment by starburn

2 manned her as Prot Pally and Ele Shammy (as of patch 4.3)

Gears: 373ilvl

Method:

Phase 1: Nothing much, tank and spank. (Elemental shaman recommended to put grounding totem to prevent stuns - note: very helpful for p3)

Phase 2: We ignored all the Enchanted Elemental(this will get Lady Vashj to 99% stacks and grow larger eventually).
Both of us will take care of each of the half region to watch for Tainted Elementals. (sort it out yourself)

Call out timers for tainted elemental and to look out.

Pally tanks the nagas and watch for tainted elemental on his area.
Elemental shaman dps/kite the Coilfang Strider(which fears at close range) and watch for tainted elemental. (I used earthbind totem and unleashed element glyph so i can easily 2shot the strider while moving) tip for elemental shaman on tainted elementals, when you spot the tainted elemental, go ghost wolf and hit Earth Shock(easily one shot)

Please note that tainted elemental only appears for 15seconds, so be quick to spot and hit it.

Pally has to be quick to get the naga if shaman is in aggro(righteous defence on shammy or shammy runs to pally in ghost wolf form)

Phase 3:

This time you have unlock the cores, Lady Vashj will be fighting against you. She grew with the stacks from enchanted elementals.
Note: The stuns can easily hit you VERY hard(shock blast).
Shaman recommended to put grounding totem and this can save your tank ALOT of damage.
By that time, she should be down. Remember to put your grounding totem down again once CD is up.

Pop Hero/Lust, elemental, heal the tank abit if needed.

Profit

Comment by Lostedge

Can probably be soloed as Death Knight.

Collect cores from Tainted Elementals that spawn near the edge of water. You can spot them as they use green slimy bolts to shoot you. Run to them as quickly as you can.

Coilfang Strider. You can use lichborne and anti-magic shell to avoid being feared.

Nagas could almost be ignored and they replenish your health nicely. Too bad they slow you down / hamstring.

Managed to get to 3rd phase with full health, but as Lady Vashj was buffed he got rid of me surpisinly fast. My quess is that if you use army of undead before using the last tainted core, you could prolly kill it. Also save the cooldowns for the 3rd phase.

Tanking gear will also help, as I was using 390 PvP gear as blood spec.

Comment by scpovey

As of patch 4.3 the looting needs to be set to FFA loot for the cores. Don't forget to change it back after attaining all four.

Comment by Esploratore

Noob dk here, lady vashj can be done with dps gear and like 50-70 stacks if you are skilled and can manage elementals, striders, nagas and above all tainted elementals at the same time.

I personally kill elementals with icy touch\\death coil\\death and decay\\melee attacks, when a strider comes I use anti-magic shell and nuke it; if I fail at amsing I still have lichborne, which also lasts longer; for the nagas I kite them and nuke, usually I don't get slowed, and my fail is at the tainted elementals, I always come there too late.

Result: lady vashj always gets to 99 stacks (the max), this evening I tried 4-5 times, often I got to p3 but it was hard to outheal her 20k nature hits on p2, and ofc wiped on p3 not because of the melee hits, more or less outhealable even in dps gear, but the static shock... 80k, maybe more, followed by a 4 sec stun, which means that also you get 20-25k hits.

Wiped at 1 million once, other times didn't even get to p3, the last attempt but one was in tank gear, managed to get her to 250k using cds to heal back after static shock.

I was about to give up, as I knew that I would have never managed to let her get less stacks, since she had 99 already when I got 2\\4 tainted cores, lol.

Then I remembered I had 17 prismatic elixirs, these reduce damage from all schools by 1\\8, and since most of the damage here, included static shock is nature... this also meant easier survivability in p2 at 99 stacks.

So again, full tank gear and prismatic elixir; I didn't ignore the elementals, still tried to kill them, but no result, 99 stacks.

Killed nagas and striders as usual, got the last tainted core and let p3 start, vashj at 1,5 millions as always.

A naga still came, nuked him first, then got hit by static shock, so after that I used vampiric blood, rune tap, blood tap to heal back, other than death strike, ofc.

I was also lucky with timing, used ams thinking another static shock was about to come, got hit around 15k, and no stun, so it was actually a shock.

In tank gear her melee damage is really completely outhealed, so I only had to heal back from that 70k or so static shock + stun and some melee hits following.

I used icebound fortitude after another static shock, and for the following one, ghoul + death pact + empower rune weapon.

Anti-magic shell was ready again, so I used it to mitigate a bit again the nature damage.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/72/85dksolosladyvashj389ta.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/207/vashj310k.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/205/vashjalmostdead.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/vashjdead.jpg/

Very challenging boss, doing it each week now, and as killing elementals for me is useless, I will just ignore them and kill nagas\\striders and take tainted cores, lol.

Dps item level: 392; tank item level: 389, this tank gear is enough to outheal all stacks.

Comment by uinea

Soloed as a Boomkin, ilvl approx 397 (all healing gear with one dps trink)

Spec: Whatever you want, as long as you have Lunar Shower so you dont go oom from spamming Moon/Sunfire. Will also be very helpful when it comes to quickly getting the Naga/Striders down.

Encounter: Pull her, dps her as usually (should take about 2min before she decides to bubble). STAND WHERE SHE IS, from there you can reach all the possible adds that will want to kill you/buff her (except for the Tained Elementals), so you can just spam your moonfire on them killing them fast.
When you will start getting hit by poison bolts, run to the side where the bolts are coming from, kill, loot, unlock, repeat.
Dont panic if you let a few elementals thru, it won't kill you! And remember to throw a Lifebloom or Rejuvenation on yourself every now and then ;)

I reccomend typing in /timer and starting it as you start the encounter. Every 50sec, a new Tainted Elemental will spawn, every minute there will be a Strider fearing the $%^& out of you. Lunar Shower is very useful here, if you dot the Striders/Naga adds with Moonfire and Insect Swarm, it will take them seconds to die (and they will only have time to fear you once).
I also reccomend addons that show enemy cast bars (like Omen), it makes it a LOT easier to notice the Tainted Elementals that despawn after 15seconds

Good Luck :)

Comment by Lilyi

Soloable by shadow priests now in 5.0.4 at level 85.

Pre-cast fear ward near the end of phase 1 in case a strider gets near you.
Use mind blast to build orbs on elementals phase 2 so you can quickly kill striders and nagas with 3 orb DP. Use mind flay to kill elementals when not building orbs.
When there is no tainted core to kill/pick up, stand directly in the center at all times.
As soon as a tainted sentry spawns, immediately run to kill it. Do not wait at all. Disperse to clear hamstring if you need to and cancel it early to kill the sentry. Use angelic feathers to get to it faster. Try to kill elementals near vashj with SWP as you run back in to use the core, but only if you're ok on mana.
Use the engineer's Loot-A-Rang to pick up cores from max range if you're an engineer.
If a strider is getting kind of close to you, cast mindbender and fade (FDCL isn't very good for this fight). The pet will get feared, but the strider will still chase it around long enough for you to kill it.
Only use renew to maintain your hp in phase 2, and only when you need the full renew. Shielding is a waste of mana.
Use inner will in phase 2, and glyph inner sanctum.
Hit vampiric embrace when you go into phase 3 to catch up on hp while you finish off remaining elementals.

Vashj had 9 stacks of the elemental absorb buff when I killed her.

Comment by TOM4E

where to find this raid instance

Comment by jcwitte1788

I solo'd this boss last night as a 90 warrior, ilvl 463. I am protection specced, and having is a must, because it basically makes you immune to death during the 2nd phase, as the damage mobs do doesn't make up for the self-healing. It takes a long time during the 2nd phase, as the Tainted Elementals spawn far away, and they despawn somewhat quickly. Could take up to 5 minutes or so.

During last phase, pop cool-downs to mitigate damage, as she does hit hard with the buff she gets during phase 2, which I had up to 99 stacks because it took so long.

Not too difficult, just be on your toes!

Comment by AventuraPL

Soloed Lady Vashj as a Demo Warlock with Wrathguard.

Tactic:
Boss and adds should be tanked by a Wrathguard. The first phase is very easy - just dps Lady Vashj. The second phase (at 70% of Boss HP) is more difficult. Vashj becomes immune to your dmg and adds starts to spawn. Try to kill as many Enchanted Elementals as you can, because if they reach to Lady Vashj, they increases her dmg done for the rest of the fight. You have to watch out for Tainted Elemental. He despawns after 15 seconds, so you need to quickly reach him (use Burning Rush). This add will cast Poison Spit on you, so you will know where he spawned. Tainted Elementals drops a Tainted Core when killed, which you will need to disable all 4 Shield Generators (1 Tainted Core = 1 disabled Shield Generator). Put Corruption on Coilfang Elite and Strider, and let your minion to kill them. Remember to stay away from Coilfang Strider, otherwise you will be feared. After deactivating all 4 Shield Generators (3rd phase), Lady Vashj is again vulnerable to your dmg. Now try to keep alive Wrathguard and nuke the Boss. Remember to not stand in poison on the ground! Good Luck and Have Fun!

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUtE2NMUj1Q

Comment by IceDDZ

90 Prot Warrior (ilvl 460) with Second Wind

As a high level Engineer, you can use your Goblin !@#$%^ to get to the platform with the switch for the draw bridge without fighting any unnecessary mobs. Just jump off the elevator on it's way down and pop your ^&*!@#.

Phase 1: Just burn her down without an issue.
Phase 2: Keep using Shield Slam to generate rage for Shield Barrier, it saves your life when she has 50-99 stacks of the buff. Keep your enemy target frame clear so when the Tainted Elemental spawns, it tries to hit you no matter where you are. This will let you know if it's spawned, once targeted, ensure you have "Target" shown on your mini map. Play the fight like normal, disabling the pillars with the Tainted Cores.
Phase 3: This got somewhat hairy. Be sure to use your CDs to keep you alive, if you're in a pool of poison, stunned, rooted and being slammed with Forked Lightning, it's rough. Ensure you get your Shield Slams in when you can to pop Shield Barrier when you aren't stunned.

Overall, Phase 3 is where you will most likely die. Since Second Wind will keep you alive throughout Phase 2.

Comment by Hotsuma

I was just able to solo this as a rogue, though it took a little bit of prep

1) take a healing potion or a stack, it'll come in handy
2)You're gonna have to take shuriken toss as a talent, and then you're going to make 2 macros

/targetexact Enchanted Elemental
/cast Shuriken Toss

and

/targetexact Coilfang Strider
/cast Shuriken Toss

these are going to be used in phase 2
3)I would take glyph of Recuperate, its an extra 2000hp per tick

I did this as combat so I'll give you my strat from that

PHASE 1: Not much to worry about shes going to stun and rot you a few times, I try to pull her away from the center and down a ways for some additional damage before she starts phase 2 because she has to run back to the center to begin it, once she approaches about 3M HP left, try to land a rupter and then hit killing spree to do a little bit more damage before phase change, this'll help you out in phase 3, if you're lucky she'll be at around 2.3M hp left

PHASE 2: Here's where we put the macros to use, you'll spend about a minute in the center with nothing to do and just get shocked for about 2k damage until the elementals start building up. You're going to want to spam that macro that targets the Enchanted elementals, 1 shuriken toss will kill each one and it'll target the next as long as its in your LOS/Range. When the Naga comes at you stop for a moment and DPS him then continue on the elementals. when the tainted comes up, wait for the first Strider and focus on that with the other macro otherwise it will fear you into oblivion. now you'll need to look for the tainted elemental and you can generally tell where it is if you zoom the camra out a ways and try to see where the green globs are coming from and I would recommend using sprint to get to it as quickly as possible before it changes locations, you can add another macro to hit the tainted elemental but thats up to you, loot it and hit one of the pillars, you'll need 3 more to finish the phase

PHASE 3: before going into this phase make sure that Vashj is below 35 charges (even that might be too much) if she is I would recommend vanishing and restarting. Also before going into this phase watch the timers and see if a strider is about to spawn, if you're still about 10 seconds away from one, go ahead and hit the last pillar. Now the adds stop spawning but that doesn't mean they disappear so you're gonna want to continue to spam your macro to kill enchanted elementals til they all die, then switch to vashj. shes gonna hit harder depending on how many elementals you let hit her and she will stun and root you like in phase 1, you want to kill her as quickly as possible after the elemntals are down. so use your killing spree first, then hit your adrenaline rush/shadow blades with cloak of shadow(she likes to stun while you pop all your cooldowns), if your health gets low use the health pot and keep recuperate up

Other key points:
- Always keep recuperate on you, after you kill an enchanted elemental you can put it on, its still healing you need
- I used leech poison/deadly as well, keeping yourself alive is the main point here so take whatever else you think you might need to survive (glyph of evasion doesn't work too well once she has you stunned
- The strider is a higher priority than anything else, that fear will completely dominate you but if you find yourself in a situation where he snuck up on you, use killing spree to finish him without getting feared
- don't use the health potion until phase 3, I did this without any buffs so those might help too, but I would recommend not using the agility potion over a health pot in phase 3
- other things about talents I used combat readiness to mitgate the damage on phase 3 right at the start and was probably the best option, now I also had shadow step, but maybe burst of speed could have been better used here, haven't experimented with it much

Comment by Solarknight

I have been trying to solo Lady Vashj without success so far. I am a 90 BM hunter with iLvl 484. My professions are Alchemy and Herbalism because I need the heals while soloing (that's my main mode of playing).

As a hunter, I have lots of advantages. I can track elementals which allows me to quickly see which elementals are getting close to Vashj. I have a pet that should (see disadvantages later) kill Striders and Nagas. The elementals are easily one-shoted. If a bunch get close to Vashj, I can just target her and use Multishot.

The disadvantages is my pet. It seems that Bliz is constantly changing how pets act in combat and right now it takes a couple secs for the pet to change targets automatically, which, while one-shoting the elementals is fine, but as I put Serpent Sting on the Striders and Nagas, my pet won't come over to help unless I tell it to because I need to continue killing elementals. this is frustrating, but not as much as the Tainted Elementals. For some reason, my pet thinks that these guys are the biggest threat. My pet has killed these before I even know its there many times. It confused me for quite awhile as to why I wasn't seeing them for long periods of time until I found one, was running up to it, but didn't have it targeted yet, then I see my pet run across the screen and one-shot it, ruining my chance to loot it.

Healing is the most important aspect. And as a hunter, we suck at it. If possible, try and have some Healthstones (if you handed used them in LFR). Have your Zen Alchemist Stone equipped, if you are an Alchemist of course, and save using your healing potion until the start of phase three. If you are going to use bandages, make sure there are no elementals near Vashj, as each time they get to her, she hits you with lightning, interrupting it.

So, my next try will be without my pet during phase two, as it is a pain to constantly try and control it instead of focusing on the task at hand. I will post an update as to whether it works or not.

Comment by lac9090

Just solo'ed as an Ele Shaman on my first try Patch 5.1

Phase 1:
Just pop Ascendance and nuke until P2.

Phase 2:
Focus the Coilfang Strider when it spawns and use Tremor Totem if you get hit by the fear. Look for the poison bolts and kill the Tainted Elemental asap. Disable a pillar and repeat. The Coilfang Elite wasn't much of an issue, just kill it while waiting for the next elemental to spawn.

Phase 3:
Right before you disable the last pillar, use Bloodlust. When the boss is vulnerable again, Flame Shock, pop Ascendance and Ancestral Guidance then nuke away. The boss will go down in no time.

I honestly had no idea what I was doing when I started the fight. Phase 2 got too hectic and soon I stopped killing the Enchanted Elementals and let the boss reach max (99) stacks. Healing Stream Totem and Stone Bulwark Totem easily countered the damage she did though. When I was about to start Phase 3 I knew the boss was going to hit hard so I was ready to pop all my CD's and nuke. Ancestral Guidance is probably the only thing that saved me. I would imagine other classes without self heals will have a difficult time with this boss.

Comment by Zokai

This is in response to Hotsuma's post (Solo as 90 rogue):

Not sure why Hotsuma was down-rated. I didn't read his post before I did this fight, but I came here to give some of tips on soloing Lady Vashj and found that he already gave some great information.

This was difficult for me to solo as a 90 rogue, so I wanted to share a few more tips and information that may be helpful for some other rogues. I went assassination for this with deadly/leeching, and I also used the recuperate glyph for some extra healing.

My talents were:
Shadow Focus
Combat Readiness
Leeching Poison
Preparation
Prey on the Weak
Shuriken Toss

For gear, all I had was the season 12 Dreadful Gladiator's gear that you buy with honor points (and it was enchanted/gemmed for pvp). I also had the Malevolent Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy that was bought with conquest points. I also had a Zen Alchemist Stone and the Dreadful Gladiator's Insignia of Conquest for my trinkets (you can't use the pvp medallion trinket to get out of Lady Vashj's stuns). Also, my hit rating was about 4% and my expertise was about 3%. The pvp set bonus that applied crippling poison to the target was really nice to kite/kill the striders.

For weapons I had the Wind-Reaver's Dagger of Quick Strikes and Liuyang's Light-Lit Longshank. Both were enchanted with Colossus. This enchant procs quite often, so it absorbed a lot of the damage over the course of this fight, especially from Lady Vashj's attacks during phase 2.

Like Hotsuma mentioned – in phase 1, pull her far from the center. I actually pulled her back across the water. I did this so that as she moved back towards the center for phase 2, she would take several more ticks from my deadly poison. I was able to get her down around 2.8 million HP before she became immune for phase 2.

In phase 2 keeping the elementals from reaching Lady Vashj is very important (obviously). I really wish I had the first macro that Hotsuma posted because manually targeting the elementals was exhausting (it's too easy to target Lady Vashj on accident). Here is the macro he posted:

/targetexact Enchanted Elemental
/cast Shuriken Toss

Using a macro like that would have been a LOT easier. The timing between each spawn of the Tainted Elementals is about the same as your sprint cool-down. The moment you see their green goo being thrown at you, stop whatever you are doing and sprint to the elemental. Don't forget to use the tainted core on the pillar. I forgot to once, and since there can only be one tainted core at a time, a new Tainted Elemental wouldn't drop another one (wasted a lot of time).

In phase 3 Lady Vashj had over 40 charges at the start (the time that I actually killed her). With Hotsuma's macro, it would have been easier ot keep it lower than that. I would recommend using the last tainted core RIGHT after killing a Strider and Naga. This keeps you from having to deal with them while focusing on Lady Vashj. As soon as phase 3 started I popped shadow blades and evasion. I wanted to get a 5-point rupture on her ASAP for energy regen, and then a 5-point recuperate. I also used cloak of shadows pretty quickly so that I could get some dps on her (I'm not 100% sure, but it seemed like she couldn't stun me when it was activated, but I just don't know for sure). After that, I used preparation to re-set evasion and CoS. Immediately after getting out of her first stun I used Combat Readiness. It then became a race to kill her before she killed me. I used a potion, but it would have been nice to have a healthstone as well.

I did this fight about a dozen times before I was able to kill Lady Vashj. Running back after dieing became very frustrating, but it sure felt great when I was finally able to solo this boss! This just isn't easy for a rogue (due to phase 3 damage from Lady Vashj).

Comment by PanzersSkywall

BM Hunter 465 Item Level - Spirit Beast pet / Spirit Bond talent

P1: Easy DPS

P2: Save deterrence as a "forward blink" to get the tainted elementals ASAP. Spirit Bond and Spirit Beast heal negates her damage, don't worry too much with stopping the elementals.

P3: Keep Mend Pet at all times, pop every cooldowns in the book.

Enjoy!

Comment by Rocky4209

If you have a pet out during this fight and you get attacked by a tainted elemental, your pet WILL aggro to it and kill it. If this happens, you won't be able to loot it and the fight will break. You HAVE to either die or run all the way out.

Comment by Aggronaught

As a warrior, or any melee, you do not need any special tactics to down this boss. My health didnt even drop below 50% (I used a health pot around 60% and defensive cds in p3). The key is to have enough dps to minimize the stuns she does (if you don't have tremor totem), its especially important in p3 as the stacks will be high.

I soloed it as a ilvl 490 SMF warrior, DPS her down in p1 (had a single static blast this phase last week and 0 this week), 2nd phase is a little tricky, you can either ignore the elementals and deal with high periodic dmg throughout p2 and high damage in p3 or clear as much as you can and don't let her gain too many stacks. I decided to focus on adds as much as I can, the striders have an AURA fear within 8yrd range, but very low hp so u can 2 shot them. At this point its all about waiting for tainted elementals to spawn..kill it asap loot core and disable the generators (you can only have 1 core at a time so don't forget to disable the generators asap before you kill next one anyway) once all 4 generators are down, well if you do this right vashj will be hovering around 40 stacks..and that is 400% more damage in p2 and your hp will be in the 150-170k range. You can pop a CD/health pots to get back up at tbe beginning of p3 and just burn her down, because the static shocks will be doing quite a bit of damage now as well as her shoot.

you can obviously ignore adds and let vashj to get to 99 stacks if you have self heals or some way to get back hp at this point this boss is trivial anyway.

Comment by Ewwieeman

Just solo'd as a 90 blood dk with item level 483 gear. First phase just smack, smack, smack. Second phase Icebound Fortitude, Anti-magic shell, and Lichborne are invaluable. As soon as any npc spawns that isn't an elemental, kill them, it will make life much easier. What I found during this phase it there is a clockwise rotation of the core dropping elementals, so basically all you have to do as a dk is keep your health up and hang out in the next section to wait for them. Phase three, more smacking, easy as pie.

Comment by Bahthalend

okay WTF is with the tainted elementals despawning right when i get to them? just had her gain about 40 stacks because I had to play whack-a-mole with the last one.

Comment by angrylittlepanda

Seems that using Roll or Flying Serpent Kick as a monk causes the tainted elementals to despawn.

Comment by Furydeath

Well tried this on my monk went for a core as a Strider spawns on me and fear's me into the water then feared again and "falls" to the floor of the water and then is just chain fear under water while fish eat me.

Comment by Komari

Solo'd as a 90 Frost Mage, ilvl 496, but not without a learning curve. The item level on this really is insignificant honestly once you hit 90, save for burning her a bit faster. Your 80-100k DPS that you are so proud of will get cut down because of the many other things to keep you distracted from just burning her. Wiped 3 times learning the fight itself before I brought her down.

Phase 1: Just a routine tank and spank. Keep your ice barrier up at all times and your Invocation ready (with Glyph of Evocation for healing yourself) as she will do some minor damage to you.

Phase 2: I found letting her get to 99 stacks was just too much to handle come Phase 3, even at 496...she just does too much damage. So use a simple Frost Lance to take out as many elementals as you can to keep the stacks down. On the kill I think I managed to keep her in the high 50's or low 60's. Again, Ice Barrier and Invocation are handy and the pet freeze is invaluable for killing the striders quickly and avoiding their fear ability. Blink to the tainted elementals quickly and take them down. As noted, there are definitely moments when they just fade away and you have to wait 5-10 seconds before they respawn...nothing you can do, just go back to killing elementals before the tainted one shows itself again. They'll give their position away by firing this rainbow of green crap at you from down below. Frozen Orb is a friend here as the elementals are many and the Fingers of Frost procs can help down large ads very quickly to help you keep stacks down. Rinse and repeat until all 4 are down. I highly recommend a fresh Ice Barrier and Invocation to have yourself at 100% health when starting Phase 3 and a full shield up.

Phase 3: Instantly pop Time Warp, try and pop Icy Veins/Alter Time combo with a Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost proc if you can, Mirror Image for some damage mitigation. She WILL kill your pet and you will lose your ability to proc Fingers of Frost for a moment, so keep an eye on the pet health and either Frostbolt to keep it up, or just let it die and instantly resummon it once it goes down. There was a sharp DPS drop once the pet died, so I had to be Johnny-On-The-Spot bringing it back. She will eat through your Ice Barrier, so have that ready to hit again as well. She will also stun lock you for a few seconds, making your Ice Barrier uptime all the more important. After all that, you should have her down.

All in all, a fun and challenging fight to learn and get through. But at least mages and clothies can rest knowing she can be brought down, it just takes some figuring out the best approach to minimize her damage in the 3rd phase.

Best of luck!

Comment by jd234

Soloing as melee is probably harder than as ranged. Make a macro to target the tainted ones (/tar taint is lawls). A big part for me seemed to be how lucky or unlucky I was with the fears and snares. Save your CDs until phase 3. If you're a night elf, keep shadowmeld handy for a do-over.

Comment by Beranis

Lady Vashj took a heavy pounding with some Patch 5.3 nerfs.

Coilfang Strider's Panic ability now activates every 4 seconds, up from every 2 seconds.
Shock Blast's stun effect is now a Stun mechanic.
Tainted Elementals now despawn after 20 seconds, up from 15 seconds.

Less fears, more time to get to the Water Elementals for Phase 2, and you can break off the stun from Shock Blast. First the rooting nerf from 4.2, now this.

Comment by BMHunterDelaini

Just finished this fight as a BM Hunter with 338k (ilvl 464).

How I did it was used a Spirit Beast, PvP Trinket, and Herbalism.

Phase 1 - Its a piece of cake. Just DPS her at your leisure because she isn't going to kill you and you aren't going to kill her.

Phase 2 - This phase took forever! For whatever reason I wasn't able to loot all of the Tainted Elemental's that I killed; nor was I fast enough to get all of the ones that spawned. I let her get to 99 Stacks - popping Spirit Mend whenever is was up and I also used the Life Spirits that I had and Lifeblood to give me that small heal that was needed in case Spirit Mend was on cooldown. I killed every Elite add that came out - especially the coilfang striders that came out as they are the ones that fear. During phase 2 I also kept my pet on passive so they would stay by my side for the heal. I used Beastial Wrath and the PvP Trinket to get out of any of the fears if I wasn't able to kill a Strider fast enough. It took about 10 minutes to get all of the Tainted core's but I wasn't even close to dying the entire time.

Phase 3 - I popped Stampede, Dire Beast, Murder of Crows, Quilen Statuette, Explosive Trap, Snake Trap to burst her down. I also activated my pets Last Stand while making sure to have mend pet up - as my pet was taking a beating because of the stacks - however as long as you make sure to keep the heals up - everything should go smoothly.

Good luck everybody!

Comment by Enixor

The trick for getting to the tainted in time is to stand in the center when she spawns and then look for the flying green blobs that the tainted throws. You don't have much time to get to it but if you start in the center you should be able to get there in time to kill.

Comment by ladyofthemasque

I can confirm that her elemental absorption % damage increase caps out at 99 absorbed, 990% damage increase...and that it is possible for a lvl 90 shammy to solo it. I watched it...while lying there as a lvl 72 smear on the floor, an early casualty of the fight... >.>*

Comment by millstoneman

just a quick note to say don't bother soloing until after 5.3. after 3 hours and numerous attempts as a 90 hunter ilevel486 I gave up. dps in phase 1 is easy. however phase 2 problem is the fear and spawn times and distances of the taited elems. even though on most attempts I got 4 cores and disabled the lightning posts when she.attacks at 990% unless you are a healer you will struggle. my pet died within seconds and I had Life Spirit it didn't take her long to down me. gonna wait till nerf now

Comment by maoli

Solo'd this on my boomkin and unholy DK. My best advice would be to just kill elementals while you wait between tainted cores. She never got over 60 stacks even when one despawned on me. Toss out your aoes and instant cast on them while you wait.

Comment by Ozlem

lvl90 hunter solo guide & lvl90 mage solo guide
(as in not a duo running it, as in either a hunter or a mage running it solo (-_＼) )

HUNTERS ヾ(*´∇`)ﾉ|) ---> --->

Phase 1 is a cake walk. Don't blow your CDs here. Just burn her down to P2.

Phase 2 is the issue because of her buffing up. In this phase she becomes immune and the elements super charge her damage, she still stacks to 99 as of 5.3.

On Phase 2:

Hunters, be BM and use spirit beast for those extra heals (found the spirit beast's healing more effective then Chimera shot but each to their own.)
Have a healing pot, use buff food. Try and save healing pot till P3.
Zoom camera out so you can see the whole platform.
Hunters, let elements reach her, you're kidding yourself if you think by the end she wont get to 99 stacks because they keep multiplying and reaching her towards the end. I rather save my focus to burn the striders and naga.
Watch for the green blobs, that's the tainted element. Run over, kill, loot, click on zappy pole, rinse repeat until phase 3
Always send dire beasts and pet onto the strider first and naga second (if they're up the same time.) also don't forget to drop traps on them as it makes it easier.

Phase 3

Pop all CDs, use pots (and any other self healing perk) and burn her down. At 99 stacks she will melt pets quick so heal them through as much as you can.

(For those wondering if a sub 90 hunters can run this solo, yes you can! I scraped by on my lvl85 in DS gear but i did have 3 lock stones as well as a spirit pet who I macro'd it's heals to me and my racial self heal and bandages and lifeblood and pots.... so I had a lot of extra heals heading my way and I just go int with 3% of my life to spare.)

MAGES ヾ(*´∇`)ﾉ.:*・°☆.:*

Phase 1 is a cake walk. Don't blow your CDs here. Just burn her down to P2.

Phase 2 is the issue because of her buffing up. In this phase she becomes immune and the elements super charge her damage, she still stacks to 99 as of 5.3. However unlike hunters if you DoT enough elements inbetween tainted ones she will only get about 22 stacks which makes P3 easier.

On Phase 2:

Mages, be frost and use your defensive spells during phase 2 until you have all tainted cores.
Mages have Nethertempst, run around DoTing the elements in between tainted elements, most I had her stack was 22.
Have a healing pot, use buff food. Try and save healing pot till P3.
Zoom camera out so you can see the whole platform.
Watch for the green blobs, that's the tainted element. Run over, kill, loot, click on zappy pole, rinse repeat until phase 3
Just nethertempst the striders and naga and blink away from them.

Phase 3

Pop all CDs, use pots (and any other self healing perk) and burn her down. At 99 stacks she will melt elements quick you might be in a situation where you need to resummon your elemental 2-3times if she is at 99 stacks.

(For those wondering if a sub 90 mages can run this solo, yes you can! I only have one other mage at lvl 88 and she was in part dungeon blues part quest greens/blues and she did it fine, kept NT up on elementals and Vashj only got to 72 stacks.)

Comment by UtesDad

For those looking to kill Lady Vashj post-5.3 for the pet Dripping Strider Egg, here are a few helpful tidbits:

You do not have to kill any other bosses in SSC before you can kill her. In other words, you can enter the instance and head straight to her.

Phase 1 - A piece of cake, just DPS her down.

Phase 2 - She will become unattackable and spawn continuous waves of Enchanted Elementals. If these elementals reach her, they give her a stacking buff that increases her damage done for the rest of the fight, so try to kill as many as you can. During phase 2, she will continue to attack you but she will be unattackable. In order to make her attackable, you will need to collect Tainted Core from Tainted Elemental. Only Tainted Elementals will drop those. They will spawn slowly (~every 30/45 seconds or so) along the farthest edges of the platform, but you will need to get to them fast as they despawn relatively quickly (~15 seconds). A "/tar tainted" macro will be very helpful. They have very little health so killing them won't be a problem, but getting to them quickly is key. They shoot green poison bolts at you which can help find where they are located or see when one has spawned. As you collect the cores, you will be able to deactivate the four towers surrounding her and she will become attackable. There are other adds that spawn during this phase, but they are relatively negligible. The fel striders can fear you and the naga can hamstring you to slow you down, but the health of these adds is so low that they can be one or two-shot by a level 90 even using aoe abilities. You should be killing as many Enchanted Elementals as you can anyway so these are just another thing to kill quickly.

Phase 3 - Depending on how well you did in phase 2, she will have gained many stacks of the buff. It stacks to 99, potentially increasing her damage by 990%. With large stacks of the buff, her damage is no longer negligible, even to a level 90. This phase will be a race between you trying to stay alive as you dps her down. Use any dps and survivability cooldowns you have, and you should be able to finish her off before she kills you.

This was my experience as a 90 Fire Mage, other classes mileage or experience may vary.

5/28/13 - Edited to include information from other commenters.

Comment by Ecwfrk

A couple tips to soloing her not mentioned:
After you kill and loot a Core from a Tainted Elemental, make sure you use it to deactivate a pillar ASAP. If you hold on to the core and kill another Tainted Elemental, that elemental will be unlootable. It will appear to have loot but no loot window will come up when you try to loot it.

Also, try to avoid engaging the Strider's near the pillars. Several times when I got feared near a pillar, instead of being sent running away I Instead stood in place, getting chain feared, unable to take any actions. If it happens you'll need a fear breaking ability (Trinket, Bubble, etc) or you die.

Comment by Moonie1

To kill the Tainted Elementals easier, create a /target tainted macro and spam that. When you target a live Tainted, set it as your focus and it will show up on your mini map. Much easier and faster than randomly checking the sides or watching for poison bolts coming your way.

Comment by Synapto

Soloing at Level 90, Phase 1 is an absolutely trivial tank & spank.

Phase 2, she becomes immune and you must loot Tainted Cores off the Tainted Elementals. The problems with these are that they spawn in random spots on the outside of the platform, take a long time between respawns, and despawn very quickly.

The best way to reach these mobs before they despawn is to stand in the middle with Vashj. When a Tainted Elemental appears (only one at a time), it will hurl a green bolt that you can trace back to it's starting spot. RUN over there and kill it, loot the core and click one of the immunity pillars to deactivate it, all as quickly as you can.

Rinse & repeat another 3 times.

Standing in the middle also has the advantage that you can try to AoE the normal elementals before they reach Vashj, helping to keep her stacking damage buff as low as possible. Unfortunately, by the time you've deactivated the 4th pillar, that damage buff will be very high, as every elemental that reaches her applies a stack.

Phase 3 is also a tank & spank, but with the added nasty of that damage buff which Vashj built up during Phase 2. Make no mistake, this can kill a level 90 easily, especially when combined with the dreaded stun that she will cast all too often. It is basically a race for survival at this point, so be ready with all of your survival cooldowns. You WILL need a reasonable amount of self healing.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, if you want to do any other bosses, do them before Vashj, because you can't run back out of her area once you're in.

Comment by Aloak

As a priest, I first tried to do it as shadow. But I failed 2 times with mana problems.

I decided to go as disc , didn't do so well during P2 as she ended with 99 stacks but I could survive through P3 using all my CDs and got her at my first attempt.

Comment by Mairin

510 BM hunter with a tenacity spirit beast (*hug Cheesy*), spirit bond and glyph of animal bond.

Since I've never done SSC this far in back in the day I had no idea of the mechanics going in so like any good huntard I threw everything but the kitchen sink at her until the phase 2 shield kicked in. Ok no problem, she has 4 shield buffs there's 4 pillar thingies, I should probably go click them. Requires a tainted core? Ok, now where would I get one of those from? Tabbed out went looking for the info, came back to find she was at 99 stacks and pretty sizeable although still with the self healing I don't think I dipped below 90% health. At that point I just ignored the enchanted elementals, ranged down the nagas, strider and tainted, looted the cores and finished it off. Including the initial confusion, tabbing out to research and waiting on cores it was about 15 minutes total which was vastly longer than it needed to be but at least with this configuration you can pretty much take as long as you like post 5.3 without risk of death even without any kind of pots or bandages.

Comment by grafspe806

any one else having ploblems looting the tainted elementals ?

Comment by Balthazor

I had trouble with this as a Rogue, but eventually found a relatively easy way to do it solo.

I had the most success temporarily re-speccing into Shuriken Toss and Burst of Speed.

Burst of Speed gets you moving around the area as fast as necessary to find the Tainted Elementals before they de-spawn.

Shuriken Toss's ranged autoattacks while moving lets you one or two-shot the elemental adds at range, letting you easily keep their numbers down even when you are energy starved. And it gives you a 30 yard reach to hit the Tainted Elementals when you get in range, rather than having to rely on getting into melee range, which wastes times. If you haven't tried Shuriken Toss, try it, it was an amazing difference. ST ranged autoattacks don't use energy, so you can just keep tab targeting elementals and they go down quickly.

I was able to keep Vash's stacks to 30 or so, get the first four Tainted without any of them despawning, and kill her using this method.

Keep recup up as much as necessary so that when her immunity falls you have a decent amount of health.

Cloak through Static Shock as much as possible, as when you get stunned you don't dodge, and you end up taking a decent amount of melee damage. You'll need a little health cushion to survive the 4 second stun.

I also found leeching poison's shiv effect to be handy to help get my health up during this final bit (5% health back every 10 seconds, on top of recup.)

Comment by Moonie1

As a Shadowpriest:

Phase 1, burn her down fast. Phase 2, mind flay the normal elementals when you are waiting on a tainted as PW:S uses too much mana. Phase 3, burn her down fast. Disperse during stun if needed.

As Boomkin:

This was alot rougher than on my shadowpriests. Phase 1, burn. Phase 2, I had to moonfire or sunfire the adds down at a constant rate in order to prevent stacks on Vashj. At 99 stacks, she would deal too much damage during the stuns in the last phase, so its key to prevent as many stacks as possible between tainted spawns. Phase 3, there is where I died each time. She would finish me off during a stun. So I wore my pvp trinket and used it when she stunned me while I was under 50% health. I also shifted to cat to get out of the root when she threw poison under me at the same time. The pvp trinket was the deciding factor in being able to do this as a boomkin for me.

Comment by Vorh

If you have some kind of passive that damages attackers like lightning shield, turn it off. For me it was 1 shooting the tainted elementals and not letting me loot them.

Comment by Zombiology

Soloable as a level 90 Shadow Priest:

Build up your Devouring Plague to 5 orbs before going in. Once aggro'd, hit her with Shadowfiend, Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Mind Blast. Once she gets to where you can't hit her, stand in the middle and cast Halo when there are a bunch of elementals around her. Just watch out for the Tainted Elemental throwing the poison bolts and magic feather toward them and hit them with Shadow Word: Pain, which should insta-kill them so you can pick up the cores and shut down the pillars. Down the nagas and striders any time you see them as quickly as you can. When all her pillars are down just blast her down as quickly as you can, easily done.

Comment by ghb412

Soloable as a level 90 hunter.

I have a very under geared hunter, ilvl 443, haven't even bothered with many enchants, etc.

The strategy I have used to solo this, which made this fight VERY easy for me, was to use a tenacity pet (of course), preferably the type with the "harden carapace" ability (like the beetle). Make sure you slot Spirit Bond as a talent. Put the pet on passive, then direct the pet to attack Lady Vashj. This will keep the pet on Lady Vashj through the whole fight.

At phase 2 (when the Enchanted Elementals start coming), I just completely ignore them, and hang out near the edges of the platform close to the water (avoid the water though, as it does damage over time). Lady Vashj gets up to full stacks, but Spirit Bond kept my health almost always at full, when I stayed close to the edge of the platform. Keep looking for the Tainted Elementals near the water's edge. They don't spawn frequently, so be patient. You can completely ignore the Enchanted Elementals, but kill the fel striders and naga as they come up (since they fear and slow). Each time you kill a Tainted Elemental, use the Tainted Core on the pillars.

After the 4 pillars are down, run up to her (your pet should still be on her) and pew pew for all you're worth. Use all cool downs and make sure you have Mend Pet up constantly. I did this fight twice so far, with an under geared hunter, and I finished it easily.

Hope this helps you hunters!

Comment by Hidyeon

Anyone had problem looting Tainted Elementals when soloing Lady Vashj? I could loot the first Elemental after that I killed five more elementals and couldn't loot any of them. I was on monk btw and didn't have Xuen up either at those times. It was really annoying. Had to kill myself to get out.

Comment by NeuromanteGoblin

Lvl 90 DK Blood Solo:
This is not a very hard fight, but it's very long, a bit annoying at times, and requires patience and perseverance.
Phase One: Straight spank. I use Army of the Dead here because I'm lazy but it's not required, in fact you may want to use it on Phase 3 at least to sac one of the minions to Death Pact, but beware you may be stuned then and not be able to cast it.
Phast Two: This is where the fight gets interesting and requires some planning. I specc'ed some specific talents for this one: Lichborne, Death's Advance and Desecrated Ground are pretty much mandatory.
I don't care about the blue elementals, I won't be able to stop Lady Vashj from getting 99 stacks, so I just kill some if they near to pool some Runic Power but that's it, don't sweat it.
The key to this phase is to get to the darned Tainted Elemental before they despawn. Beware, this is much easier said than done. To do that, I use Death's Advance for the sole purpose of moving to them fast enough. I never used Death's to get away from the Stalkers, or to get to use the Tainted Core on the chain link, just to get to those elementals real quick. Inevitably you'll miss some, but don't worry, they will respawn just as fast as they despawn.
Now, you'll have to deal with the Coilfang Strider and the Coilfang Elite, because between the Fear and the Hamstring they cast it's really hard to get to the Tainted Elementals. You'll have to make quick decisions here: if you see where the elemental is, hit Death's Advance and go for it asap. If you don't see it or hasn't spawned, go for the Strider and the Naga, hit Lichborne or Desecrated Ground (try to mix them, because one of them will be on CD usually) and dps them down fast so you have a clear path to the Tainted Elemental. Don't forget to use your usual defensive cooldowns here: Anti-Magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, Death Pact, etc. One useful tip: while Lady Vash'j is immune during this phase, she is still attackable, if you find yourself low on life use Death Strike on her to gain life and charge your shield. Above all, don't panic, don't rush it: if the Elemental is on the other side of the room and the Strider is coming towards you, it is much safer to forget about the elemental and kill the strider, because you most likely won't get to the elemental on time. Take your time, and wait for the right moment to use Death's Advance.
Phase Three: After you use the four cores, Lady Vash'j is vulnerable again. Pop dps cooldowns and potions if you have them, Army if you didn't use it already, and hit her fast. The key here is to stay alive, using all your defensive cooldowns. Don't forget to use Icebound too, to avoid stuns.

Comment by digitalutopia1

Alternative level 90 MM Hunter strat.

First off a few character details: 461 ilvl, gemmed, enchanted, flasked, reforged, and lw bracer enchant.

Talents: Focus, Spirit Bond, Blink Strikes

Pet: ferocity Set on PASSIVE. This is important, because if your pet is on Assist, or Defensive, it will eat the Tainted Elemental before you can kill it - and then you won't be able to loot.

Next, a few useful macros

This one will allow you to quickly target and dispose of a tainted elemental. I set this to the keybind: Ctrl+Mouse wheel Up.

/tar taint
/startattack
/cast Arcane Shot

This one will help you with almost everything else during Phase 2. By default, it will target the enchanted water elementals, start your auto attack, and cast Arcane Shot if it can - unless there's a coilfang strider up, as that's the ultimate priority target during this phase. If that thing gets near you, you're going to have a bad time.

I had this keybound to Ctrl+ Mouse wheel down.

/tar enchant
/tar Coilfang Strider
/startattack
/cast Arcane Shot

Finally, while kitty is dutifully following you around, and staying out of trouble - you can spare him to handle the last stumbling block (nearly literally - considering the Hamstring :p) of Phase 2: The Coilfang Elite Naga.

I suggest you bind this to some Ctrl modified combo, to minimize awkward key combinations (This way you can just hold down Ctrl through the entirety of the phase)

/petattack

Once kitty is done with his snack, he'll return without any further issues.

This lets you maintain your concentration on limiting the number of elementals that get to Vashj and getting those tainted cores, without getting yourself swamped in distractions. You're going to be running around a lot, so the less you have to actually turn around to mow something down, the easier it will be.

General Strategy

If you haven't already - get your flask and food taken care of.

1) pre-pot if you have one just before reaching the top of the stairs, and send kitty off to greet Vashj.

2) Blow every single offensive cooldown you have - for the most burst you can muster. For best results, you should try to do your highest burst attacks around the 75% mark. The reason is, that it takes her a couple of seconds for her to put her shield up, at the beginning of phase 2. If you do enough burst damage while phase 2 is starting, you're likely to bring her down that much further below 70% by the time she becomes immune.

3) During Phase 2, follow the suggestions above. Set your pet on passive, and send him to take care of the Elites for you, while you're looking out for striders, killing tainted elementals, and mowing down as many enchanted elementals as you can. With the above macros, this phase becomes a cakewalk.

4) By Phase 3, all your cooldowns should be up. If you successfully pre-potted (before entering combat), you can use another pot now. At this point, switch your pet to Assist, blow your cooldowns, and burn her down.

Final note:
It's possible at this level, that your tenacity pet will do enough damage to kill the Elites in a timely manner. This might come in handy during Phase 3, as if you Misdirect/let your pet get aggro first, he'll be taking nearly all the damage in this phase.

During my attempt with ferocity pet, kitty died right at the end, despite attempting to hit Heal Pet as much as I could, and of course with Spirit Bond. This of course means I still had a bit of leeway if my DPS was lower - but with no pet, things would start getting a bit dicey before too long.

Comment by Punman

I just solo'd this boss on my Ret Paladin. The hardest part for me as a melee was phase 2, because human paladins just aren't very fast. There are some great write-ups here, so I will try not to repeat too much of what is posted, just some tips on melee classes trying this fight.

Tip#1. Be able to heal in some way. Be it with spell or potion. First aid bandages aren't very useful here, as you will be interrupted during the heal, sometimes as soon as you start.

Tip#2. Right after killing the tainted elemental and looting the core, use it on a shield tower right away. I found that these were hard to target, but also found out certain points of the shield tower weren't able to be targeted, so move your cursor around to the front and it usually targets easily.

Tip#3. For some reason, as the fight progresses, enemies were harder to target for some reason. Be sure you have a key bound to nearest enemy and use it if this happens to you. The critter that uses fear will also pose a challenge if this targeting glitch happens to you, so be sure to remain cool and use the bound key. It happened to me both times I fought this boss.

Tip#4. Always move. This seems like a no brainer, but it seemed I never missed a tainted as long as I was doing circles at the top of the step around the boss. Notice the angle of the tainted elemental's arcing poison shot, and move towards it. This makes finding them very easy.

Tip#5. Staying at least at half health if possible is a great way to win with no real problems. If you can heal fully after the 3rd shield tower, you should be able to finish the fight with no more heals. And of course use all your specials the second the 4th and final shield tower is brought down. The annoying adds do not stop spawning either, so be careful you aren't caught in a fear chain if you let too many Strider's spawn. Just keep up the momentum and kill the adds the second they appear. Having just 2 strider's allowed to live can cause you to lose the fight, so be careful.

Tip#6. I normally use a two-handed weapon, but that can be a bit slow in this fight. I didn't have a spare one-handed on me. If you have a one handed weapon, the adds will drop a lot faster, allowing you to hit and move much quicker. I suggest you bring a one-handed to the fight if you find two-handed to be too slow. Plus you get some extra defense against her attacks with the shield.

Tip#7. Last but not least, if you have any kind of ranged spell, use that to take down the tainted. This way you won't have to run all the way to them to get the kill. Sure makes it a lot easier when you're de-buffed with the hamstring spell from the naga.

Good luck, I hope this may help some of you.

Punman

Comment by ClearlyConfused

Just Solo'ed ole' Vashj as a ilvl 501 Guardian druid.

Pretty simple - bring her down a bit then she goes to phase 2. This is when &*!@ get real.

Outline
She goes invincible in Phase 2 and the only way to get rid of her shield is to get 4 tainted cores from Tainted Elementals that show up during parts of the encounter. Since this raid was originally meant for 25 people it is basically impossible for you to kill every Enchanted Elemental (which buffs her attack by % for every elemental that touches the shield) so you WILL end up with an obscenely high buff stack on Vashj.

Strategy
Phase 1: attack her a bit until she goes into the middle and puts her shield on.

Phase 2: Stalkers are first priority since they fear. Kill them quick.
Find/kill Tainted Elementals, LOOT, and bring the Tainted Core back to the middle to click a totem and stop that channel. Rinse repeat 3 more times.

Phase 3: Pop O-#$%^s and collect lewts.
NOTE: I got vashj out of shield with 99 stacks of buff on her (that increases her damage by 999%) so NEVER, I repeat, NEVER break form.

Comment by Jadoko

Recently solo'd this as a Fury Warrior. It certainly isn't easy in Phase 3, because she is fond of rooting you, and then hitting you for a ton of damage with her various ranged abilities. Her Shoot was doing around 50k, with me already worn down to 150k from Phase 2.

A few things to keep in mind if you intend on doing this as a Warrior in Phase 2 and 3, which are the important phases:

*Phase 2*
-Berserker Rage nullifies the Stalker's AoE Fear spam long enough for you to kill it, which you should ASAP. It's super annoying.

-Use Charge on the normal Elementals to quickly move around the arena while Heroic Leap is on cooldown. Double Time is a great talent for mobility, so switch to this, at least for this fight.

-In between Tainted Elemental spawns, sit near Vashj and try to take down as many of the normal Elementals as best you can. If she reaches 80+ Stacks, the fight may be lost, because she will Stun/Root you in Phase 3 and deal about 75+k damage with her arrows alone.

*Phase 3*
-You can spec into Bladestorm and render yourself immune to the Stun/Root effects for a short time, and/or spec into Avatar to break out of existing roots and give you a very useful damage buff.

-Save your CDs for the very end, when you really need them. Pop your DPS CDs at the start, and use Die by the Sword and Rallying Cry only when you know you can't afford to take any more damage to maximize the amount of time you have to DPS her down.

It wasn't the easiest solo encounter for me, but hopefully this will help any other Warriors wanting to bring the Lady down for a shot at the pet.

Comment by nirv

I made a video tutorial for 5.3 with commentary for soloing Lady Vashj on a Hunter if you're having problems getting through it.

It is available in 720p, 1080p, and 1600p.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6lIvpcWTqM&hd=1

Comment by Paddyjack

Graveyard run hits you for 1000000000 damage to your willingness to learn the fight. You die slowly inside

Comment by diddlywhat

The run back to this boss is dreadful.

Even worse if elevator boss catches you off guard and makes you do it again >.<

Comment by adcantu

Just solod as resto druid.

I found that in phase 2, if I used hurricane center right on her, the elementals would die before giving her the buff. So I just camped right on her keeping hurricane up, only stopping to kill the striders and the tainted elementals.

When I saw the tainted elementals I would displacer beast towards them, then sprint back to the middle. By the time I got all 4 towers down, she had 31 stacks, I went feral again and used heart of the wild to dps her down.

Comment by hiramloram

One-shot soloed as a 525 Destro lock.

Had only done this fight once before, years ago with some 80s. Did very badly in pretty much every respect - allowed many enchanted elementals to reach her and missed several tainted spawns. I didn't use targeting macros for the adds but in retrospect I definitely would recommend them.

I didn't check to see how many stacks she had, but she was huge - and yet I was never in any real danger of dying. I didn't have to use a single defensive CD. It seems from other comments that some classes are still having trouble soloing this, but I'm guessing 5.4 gear will make this fight very manageable for almost everybody.

Comment by Rocknight

Soloed as Fury Warrior with i-level 500. This took me four attempts as I was being too defensive in my strategy. The way I got it in the end it was really all about the burst DPS in Phase 3 and nothing else. During Phase 2 on the successful attempt I basically ignored the elementals and allowed her to reach full stacks, concentrating only on gathering the Tainted Cores and clearing away the Coilfang Striders and Coilfang Elites as they appeared. I also did not worry about my own health during that phase and wore pure DPS gear, no safety net tanking gear. Second Wind kept my health steady at around 30-35% until Phase 3 kicked in and then quite late in the final phase I used Rallying Cry and Demoralizing Banner to cling on a little longer.

Before you remove the final defence pillar, make sure all your cooldowns are available and you have plenty of rage. Also it is a good idea to make sure that a Coilfang Strider (the evil fearing ones) has recently been killed. The last thing you want is another one popping up just as you hit your big cooldowns as happened to me on one attempt. Then get ready to put out as much damage as you possibly can as soon as you have removed the last defence. For my class that meant take a potion, use Avatar, Skull Banner and Recklessness (which I had all macroed together), hit Colossus Smash and take advantage of the damage window from that. If you fight in Berserker Stance you will have plenty of rage coming back from the incoming damage so Heroic Strike can be spammed along with other abilities.

Immediately after the Colossus Smash window hit Bladestorm to give you a little more un-stunned time and this is hopefully enough to get into her sub-20% health range, now pop Rallying Cry as you'll be pretty low health yourself by now and then spam Executes. You probably will still spend some time stunned but if you smash your keyboard hard enough you'll kill her before she kills you.

The worst thing actually about the fight was the Coilfang Striders and their fear - I found them hard to target and hard to spot creeping up on you amid the chaos, so I ended up having to make a /tar Coilfang Strider macro which I kept hitting when I knew one was coming soon. As soon as you have it targeted Charge to stun it then kill it quickly. The other elite can be pretty much killed at your own pace as Second Wind will heal you quicker than it damages you.

Comment by Dragoniel

Pretty much impossible to solo as feral druid, don't waste your time.

Comment by Durahl

Personal advice from someone who just downed her after one wipe and an extremely annoying time to get back to her for a second attempt:

Zoom out as much as possible!

The one thing that keeps this fight prolonging are the Tainted Elemental in Phase 2 holding on to the Tainted Core you need for shutting down the four pillars to progress into Phase 3.
Missing one or more of these because you didn't see it past the ridge of the platform can decide about life and death during Phase 3.

I pretty much ignored the other Elementals swarming towards her on my second attempt and focused on getting the Tainted Elemental while occasionally taking care of Coilfang Elite's and the highly annoying Coilfang Strider's to maintain buffs and selfheal procs.

If you, like I did, keep mostly ignoring the Enchanted Elemental's during Phase 2 prepare to burst her down as fast as possible in Phase 3 while keeping your HP topped aswell.
I carelessly let her get me down to ~60% HP when suddenly she Shock Blasted and finished me off during the 5sec Stun which caused my wipe during the first attempt.

Comment by zoomgofstr

Item Level 511 Affliction Warlock. Solo'd her after several wipes. I set my minion to passive and tab targeted the Coilfang Striders and Coilfang Elites. When the minion was on Assist he was killing the Tainted Elemental before I could get to them. Phase 3 was pretty easy using Soulburn and Health Funnel to keep the Voidlord alive and kept the dots up.

Comment by Cklomps

Wasnt able to kill vashj on a fairly well geard 90 rogue.

Comment by digitalsoda

If you can't beat her don't feel bad. She has one of the most bull*!@# luck based rng on the tainted spawns.

Comment by Manishtusu

The tainted elementals no longer despawn that quickly (or at all, though that would require further testing) from my recent observations. I used to wait for them to spawn near me, ignoring mobs on the other side of the room, so that I would not run around like an idiot trying to catch one.

So far, I've killed her 2 times since 5.4 went live, and on both kills a faraway add just kept shooting poison bolt at me and I could easily dispatch it in time. No more annoying disappearing elementals.

Comment by S4njuro

Solo'ed her as a boomkin for the second week in a row. It took me two tries each time the RNG in 3rd phase can be really rough, i.e. if you get hit hard, stunned and then poison dropped underneath you, you're done....
Recommend focusing 100% on the tainted elementals, I killed her both times with her fully powered up. (I'm in all Tyrannical gear btw). Just need to use every CD you have and make sure you are healed up before pushing into 3rd phase and preferably make sure the Strider and other add are dead (I don't think they spawn once you push). I seem to spend about half of my time healing and half DPSing, Heart of the Wild is a life saver, which I use once all of my other CDs are gone, but once that wears off your dead if she is not....
Good luck ^.^

Comment by theDdarkness

Just soloed her on my lvl 90 lock ilvl. 476. she got up to 99 stacks, final phase became a rotation of heal self, heal voidlord, instacast spell, repeat.

Comment by aogo

Soloing as a rogue was easy.

Keep up feint (perma reduction on damage).
Keep up recuperate (generate CP on anything that moves).
Focus Vashj (not required)
Drop target (hit escape) if you have vashj as your target. Once the tainted elementals hit you, you will autotarget them. Make sure to have "Target" as displayed on your minimap. Kill the coilfang and striders quickly. You can preemptively cast cloak to avoid the fear from the striders.

Also make sure you know you can't try to wait and get 4 tainted cores. You have to bring down a pillar before more tainted cores drop. That cost me ~15 tainted elementals.

Comment by isalda

Just did Lady Vashj and found an easy way to kill her, just lure her to the water and nuke her down as fast as u can.
i killed her in phase one, so i avoided phase 2 and 3 and it wasnt so hard to do either.

- Destro Lock Ilvl 560

Comment by Dravenor

Boring

Comment by guylau

As a Fury warrior of 515ilvl gear, I have finally solo this boss after 4 failed attempt and figure it out how to do it.
As mentioned in the post before, the key is in phrase 2, which you shouldn't miss any tainted elemental, set a macro of /target tainted will be a great help. The tainted element will spawn after 30-45 sec in phrase 2, and with a 30-45 sec interval. Don't bother to kill any add except the fear mobs and elite, or unless it is on the way when you reaching tainted. If your gear lvl is high enough, you probably can afford to miss a few tainted without problem.
It is really annoying and frustrating when you fail for the first few times with a long corpse run when you think it is a piece of cake for a lvl 90.

Comment by Lunacruentus

Engineers: I been grinding Lady Vaj for the last pet of Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition, and just discovered that Goblin Glider in the lift shaft gets me almost to the platform where you open the bridge to the scaly lady.

Wait at the top of the lift until it's nearing the bottom, then jump and engage the Glider just before you see the lift shaft open up to cavern.

I discovered this by accident when I fell in the shaft today and was initially quite pleased - it's an annoying run if you just need this last boss.

Then, after more than 8 weeks, the stupid snake woman finally dropped Dripping Strider Egg, so I won't be back!

Comment by Shdwhealer

As a Hunter -- Use a spirit beast DPS pet. The pet's tanking is useless and the DPS can help keep off the naga and striders. The spirit beast heals, especially if using a heal macro such as:
/cast Spirit Mend
are a big bonus, and can allow you to concentrate less on killing the regular elementals and more on finding the Tainted ones. Also use the macro
/tar Tainted
But watch your pet -- if he strays too far away, he may be going after the Tainted. If he gets to it before you do, no looting. Keep him close and be ready to call him back. Using healing spells and pots etc, including Exileration, can allow you to ignore most of the regular elementals and focus solely on the Tainted ones.

Comment by volatar

I figured out a method that works (with some practice) that lets you kill her in just the first phase. I did this as a hunter - solo. This also requires high dps. If doing solo, it will work best as a ranged class with speed buffs. If doing as a group, people would need to be spread along the path I will mention.

I pulled her out of her lair and onto the bridge connecting the platforms to her lair. I then went on to burning her down using my cooldowns and pushing her into starting the 2nd phase. She can't start the 2nd phase unless she is in the middle of her area, so that means you can continue to dps her as she is running back. She also takes a bit of time to get back because of pathing issues in there for pets and mobs. She doesn't take a straight path when she reaches her lair. She paths right and has to work her way down then back up her platform from the side. That gives you some extra time. The only problem is that she is very fast when she is running back. If soloing, you will need some kind of speed boost (I used aspect of the cheetah/pack since I'm not being attacked.) Do not attempt to chase her down and attack. She is just too fast. You need to just cut her off while she is taking the scenic route and then burn her quick before she reaches the middle when she comes back into range.

My idea if using multiple people is to have them spread along the path to attack and follow as much as they can as she is running. I would personally use ranged for attacking as she is running and melee for the beginning to push her health down to start 2nd phase. Dots would be best for when she is running back unless you have some instant cast attacks.

It took me a few tries to get it to work. I also learned if you pull her out too far, she will start evading and bug out when she starts 2nd phase.

Hope this idea helps other people. Good luck and happy hunting!

Comment by Undreadll

Although this fight is very easy with decent LFR gear or better, I found a way to make it a tad easier for WW Monks.

During the elemental phase send a Storm, Earth, and Fire spirit to attack Lady Vashj. It won't hurt her but every time the elementals get close to her you can easily kill them with a Spinning Crane Kick no matter where you are.

Comment by fbxxkl

As a Shaman do not run Elemental shield. If the Tainted elemental's hit you you will not be able to loo them when they die to lightning shield proc.

Comment by Hoplowe

Lady Vashj is not so much a difficult fight as she is a long and tedious one. You spend most of the fight waiting for the Tainted Elementals to spawn, being feared and swatting away mobs.

As an ilvl 480 BM hunter, I was able to solo her on my first try. I used the Spirit Bond talent as well as Glyph of Mending and Animal Bond. The pet I used was a Shale Spider, though to be honest you could probably do this with any pet.

The mechanics are simple enough. DPS her down with your pet in Tank until she summons four statues - this happens at roughly the halfway point. Waves of Entranced Elementals will appear and grant her extra strength, maxing out at 99. These elementals aren't worth worrying about at 7k HP each - in fact I'm pretty sure they don't even generate aggro - though every so often, stronger mobs will be summoned. While these shouldn't be a threat in terms of your health (Animal and Spirit Bond together should be enough to keep you comfortably alive), they are annoying in that they distract you from your real goal.

The Tainted Elementals have the same HP as the normal elementals, but they actually attack you. The first notice you'll have that one has spawned will probably be a green glob being shot at you from some direction. The moment you notice that, either dismiss or make damn well sure that your pet is busy tanking Vashj for you. If your pet decides to heroically defend its master from the new threat, you don't get the precious Orb that it drops and your pet spends the night in the doghouse.

These elementals spawn fairly rarely, so don't let your pet nab a single one unless you enjoy watching Vashj thrash around.

You will need to nab four of these orbs in total to shut off all four of her immunity inducing statues. After that, DPS her down.

tl;dr First/Third phases are easy, just shoot to kill. Second Phase is also easy but a boring as hell slog as you wait for the spawns.

Comment by thilithedruid

Tried a few times as a cat, died plenty in Phase 2. Figured out that I needed a Fear break for the Striders, got the PVP trinket, but it still took so long to get past Phase 2, that I but I wasn't able to kill her fast enough in Phase 3. Switched to Bear, and did it on the first try. Phase 2 took even longer than as a cat, but the survivability of the Bear meant that I never got below 90% HP, even though it seemed like the fight lasted forever.

The most frustrating part of Phase 2 is that the Tainted Elementals despawn after a really short amount of time. I must have missed at least half of them before I collected the needed 4 Tainted Cores.

Update: I think life would have been significantly easier had I written a macro targeting the Striders. After a while, Vashj becomes so big that any mob you try to target using your mouse ends up targeting her, so I wasted a lot of time trying to and failing to target the Striders, and then of course, getting feared. The Fear break trinket is a must.

Comment by Chalgar

Solo'd today as ilvl479 Assassination Rogue.

Everything was a simple burn down except Lady Vashj. During Phase 2 I had to keep Recup up as much as possible, burned one potion, and used two bandages. In Phase 3, I nearly died (~10%), but managed to Dispatch my way to victory. I recommend equipping a trinket to deal with Fear, and spec'ing for Burst of Speed and Shuriken Toss.

I read some comments to make a macro for targeting the Tainted Elementals, and I did, but it didn't provide any use in the end. Lady Vashj was up to the 99 stack just after I had the third pillar down.

Each time a Coilfang Strider and Coilfang Elite spawned, I would focus to burn it down for combo points to fuel my Recup (and avoid too much fearing).

Comment by BscorpobBx5

How to skip phase 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BK7t-si7uE

Comment by Briandris

The Tainted Elementals seem bugged the last 2 weeks. They keep despawning as soon as I target them. Also, DBM's timers seem off. I've been doing this weekly for months now and the last 2 weeks I've been wiping 3 and 4 times before I get a successful kill. Anyone else having these issues?

Comment by ninedays257

Solo'd 5/14/2014 with a 496 shadow priest. Get the mastery for Angelic Feathers for the movement increase (80% for 6 sec!) and swiftness potions are nice.

Fear ward before initiating and keep that baby on cooldown! In phase 2 the fen striders have a 3 sec fear that can be brutally chained at points.

Phase 1 just dps to 70% but don't blow heavy mana spells, mana is crucial for next phase

Phase 2 create a macro /tar tainted this will target the tainted cores when clicked. I also recommend switching from Inner fire to Inner will, for the mana on instant casts AND the movement speed increase. Run around tabbing targets and shadow word; pain them. A sign that the tainted are up is that they shoot green poison at you, the moment you see that click your macro(if you haven't already been spamming it!). Once you kill a tainted, loot and use the orb on a pillar IMMEDIATELY, nothing is worse than killing a tainted only to realize you have a UNIQUE core already in your inventory. Don't forget to continually kill the adds before they reach her as that buff can be pretty brutal above 75. Also the other add types, fen strider and naga, have annoying abilities so stop and kill them, only takes a few seconds but if you let them accumulate they can screw up your day.

Phase 3 is just a dps race to get her down as fast as you possibly can and PRAY she didn't get to many stacks. At this point everything is incredibly hectic, just keep calm and focus her down. Ignore minor adds but the other guys will still be there and they can still make things difficult for you.

On a final note, I DO NOT recommend soloing this as a sp unless you want a massive headache. It is a pain in the a** and not worth it. Just get even one more person and if loot is the issue just turn on master loot or what not. Really no class is great at soloing this boss, she is just better with 2+ and fortunately you can run straight in to her without doing the other bosses so it is usually pretty easy to grab someone for 5 minutes.

Comment by AliasWit

Someone beat me to it, but unless you're lucky, you're going to be frustrated trying to solo this boss. You have to have a way to boost speed in order to get to a tainted elemental on the exact other side of the platform from you because the random number generator said that's where it should be (which will despawn the moment you get to it, btw), a way to mitigate the huge damage, and a way to either kill the striders *fast* or break the fear.

No problem!

12 tries, 1 win, with 5% health remaining, only because I was standing right next to 2 tainted elementals when they spawned. And, lucky me, the Helm token I was looking for for transmog didn't drop. oh well.

EDIT: Seriously, see if you can find someone to go with you. Any single one of: a little extra healing or a little extra minion control or someone grabbing a tainted on the opposite side of the platform would mean an instant win. So, so close and so so frustrating.

Comment by Thrallscream

Just soloed this dame as a Disc 503ilvl. I tried 4 times as a shadow and kept running out of mana trying to maintain the stacks. Was pointless since she gets 99 anyway lol. So i went disc and decided I was gonna heal through the damage and use Power Word: Solace mostly to keep mana up. Worked like a charm.

Just Power Word Solace elementals every time.
When naga or striders come burn with running Penance and Pain.
Keep eye open for tainted ele. and bubble run to them asap.
Use Halo on cool down standing right in the middle of Vash to try and keep her stacks down.
Burn her when your last core has unlocked the pillar.
She hits like a tank but she can't burn through our heals at this level. I was still over half mana with Hymn on Reserve.

Don't worry about her getting stacks even at 99 you can still out heal her if you play it safe and smart. Then just go to town with Evangelism stacked.

Good luck!

Save yourself the time and DO NOT GO SHADOW (See ninedays257's comment below) unless you A) love a challenge and/or B) have BIS.

Comment by coolcat00011

Soloed this girl barely on a level 90 monk. Use Storm, Earth, and Fire on Lady Vashj, and keep using Spinning Crane Kick to clear away the elementals. Focus the tainted elementals whenever they spawn to find them. Touch of Death Striders on cooldown to make your life easier.

Comment by demordon

Solo-ing this boss is frustrating at level 90 (even with good gear). She becomes immune as other replies have stated and it literally took me 12 mins to get the cores to make her not immune.

Even with 99 stacks her damaged wasn't scary but there are adds who fear and stun you and one of them decided to fear me continuously for about 2 minutes straight and I eventually died. I couldn't break the fears to get close to the boss (as melee) and just hit her a couple of times.

I almost threw my computer out the window...

Comment by Falathel

I seen that a lot of people have trouble doing this fight on a shadow priest, so here I will give you my talents I use, and how I defeated her. Keep in mind you don't have to use all of these talents, but some of them I highly recommend. (I am also level 90, ilvl 547, but I know lower ilvl can do it if they use their CDs effectively)

Talents
First Tier: Doesn't matter adds cannot be feared/rooted
Second Tier: Angelic Feather (I would count this as required to get to the tainted elements quickly)
Third Tier: From Darkness Comes Light
Fourth Tier: Desperate Prayer (Comes in handy if she gets high stacks)
Fifth Tier: Divine Insight (Good to help kill adds)
Sixth Tier: Halo (Personally this is optional, Halo has a long cool down but kills several adds. Divine Star has a short cool down but is limited in range and direction. I haven't tried cascade out, but if you have leave a reply)

My Strategy
First phase
I do my regular rotation, apply dots, mind blast, mind flay, till I get three orbs then use Devour Plague. (If you took Divine Insight use your Mind Blast procs!)

Second phase
Things get can get tricky and frankly annoying. It takes a bit for the Tainted Elemental to appear, but like above says you can see the poison bolts it sends in the air. (I also noticed that every time a Tainted Elemental spawned so did another add)

This is where Angelic Feather came in use, as it provides a massive speed increase which will help you get to that elemental faster. The large Coilfang Stalker will fear you, and it can fear you over and over again. (One of my encounters I got feared 3 times in a row, once into the water and then two times I got feared under the platform and had to swim back to the edge.) For these I stay as far away from them as possible, and put SW:P on them. (It kills them rather fast, and I don't have to stop to cast and get the chance to be feared. I also read you can trinket out of fear, but I never let them get close enough to fear me. So if you have trouble with it, I would suggest buying a trinket.) Same with the Naga adds, which will put Hamstring on you (Slows your movement speed by 90%).

I don't worry too much about the blue elements that gives her stacks. If you keep up PW:S on you at all times, the damage isn't too great. I just focus mostly on bursting the Stalker and the Naga, while quickly killing the Tainted Elemental. Tainted Elemental has around 4k health, so all you have to do is SW:P it and it one shots it.

Also watch your health, if you're like me and ignore the blue elementals she will get to 99 stacks. Throw a renew and keep PW:S up. If your health drops and you're low on mana use your defensive CD. (Which is why I chose Desperate Prayer, because it is essentially the Oh &*!@ Heal)

Third Phase
After all the power cores are down, I throw up a shadow fiend (usually by third phase my mana is low) then go through my regular rotation. Remember to watch your health, because at 99 stacks she hits like a truck!

Another thing I noticed is that, as she begins to grow larger because of her stacks, targeting adds and clicking on the little power things becomes increasingly difficult, because her hit box becomes rather large. (More like covers the whole top of the platform) So just make sure that you have the right enemy targeted and you don't keep SW:P the boss :P

Of course different gear will vary how you attempt this boss, and I personally have a lot of spirit (10,898). If you have a lot of mana problems, I suggest bringing a Master Mana Potion. You can only use 1 of these in the fight, so keep it until you really need it. (I would suggest using it around second phase, because third phase you can use your Shadowfiend.) If you really need help managing your mana use Flask of the Falling Leaves(Gives you 1000 to spirit) If you need help with dps, then use Flask of the Warm Sun (Gives you 1000 intellect) and use Volcanic Potions!

Have fun and good luck!

Comment by Lowenhart

Attention all soloers:

Even if you are a geared 90, stay away. If you're like me, and were farming rep in the other Coilfang dungeons and decided to get a quick 10 achievement points since you were there already...DON'T.

This fight is such a colossal pain the ass that it's not even worth figuring out how to finish it. I gave up after dying the second time since I realized that killing all the Tainted Elementals was going to be next to impossible. AND THE RUN BACK TAKES >5 MINUTES. Who thinks this is worth the time anymore? This is coming from a guy that bothered to learn to solo the Razorgore fight in BWL just for a xmog.

I ended up taking rez sickness the second time, and repairs cost me 142g. I had to spend all the money I made off loot in the other 3 heroic Coilfang runs just to cover the repair cost of this satanic Naga. GET REAL, VASHJ.

/ragequit

Comment by Zyrashana

If you have sufficient self-healing ability to survive max (99) stacks of Vashj's damage buff, you can solo this. As others have indicated it's a matter of patience. I've done this as a prot paladin, can't predict how it'll work for other classes but none of it is paladin specific.

Consider equipping a PvP trinket. It'll allow you to break out of an annoying fear situation in phase 2 at least once.
Tank & spank phase 1.
In phase 2, your highest priority should be to kill every Coilfang Strider as soon as it spawns. Although they're easy to spot, they're not always easy to target due to Vashj's growing hitbox, so either have a /tar Coilfang Strider macro or have that command in your chat history (alt+up arrow). You will likely be feared, but if you focus DPS on the strider as soon as it appears, hopefully no more than 1-2 times, after which you won't have to worry about any fears for almost a minute.
Having a /tar Tainted macro for finding tainted elementals is obviously a must if you don't have a better way of locating them. If it's still too tricky for you to find them, add /script SetRaidTarget(“target”,8); to the macro to also stick a skull on it: this will be visible even through the platform.
If you have trouble looting due to Vashj's hitbox, run to the bottom of the platform and tilt the camera to be as low as possible.
Don't sweat it if a tainted element despawns before you can get to it: as long as you can keep yourself alive and the striders dead, there is no rush. More elementals will spawn and eventually one will be close enough.
Before you use the 4th core and start phase 3, unless you killed a strider very recently, wait for another to spawn, kill it, and break her shield right afterwards. This way there's no risk of ending up getting feared around in phase 3 while being hit by a 99-damage-stack boss (which might end up being a bit much for some even at 90).
Tank & spank phase 3.

I wiped on my first attempt due to chain fear + too much incoming damage after phase 3 started, but following the above strategy it turned out to be a cakewalk.

Comment by vagary

a word to the wise. don't think you'll be fine on this fight because at ilvl ~473, spirit bond outdoes even 99 stacks of her buff and a billion adds. you will get chain feared behind a pillar and be unable to use the character stuck options (due to being feared) and unable to keep the help window open long enough to submit a ticket.

Comment by Thunderbuns77

Not only is the runback atrocious, so is the elevator boss. Jesus.

Comment by SHO57

tried to solo(wasn't in a group) today on a 90 frost DK, was going fine at first, killing most of the elementals before she could absorb them and bursting the walkers before they feared. But for some reason every time I killed a tainted elemental, it couldn't be looted. Not even a bag icon on mouse over or nothing. So I eventually had to just let her kill me so I could get out...

Comment by soukougnan

Solo by SP iLvl 544.
No worries really, I just followed the hints with "/tar tainted".
The striders and Naga are not what they used to be, although fear still is annoying.
I was feard once, and never hamstred.

Keep in mind that since the stat squish, the numbers here no longer apply regarding the health pool of the Lady.
I accidentally nuked her at the middle of the platform during phase 1, so she didn't get to move until phase 3.

Comment by erutanjaxon

Solo'd as a ilvl 570 Boomkin post patch 6.0:

Before you fight:
- Make sure you are NOT glyphed into Glyph of Guided Stars. You actually want the "pull everything" Starfall going.

1. Start the encounter, and nuke as normal.
2. Once she goes into immune phase and the elementals start, just run around the platform, and cast Starfall. Once it expires, hit it again. You should be able to do this three times before you start the cooldown of it. Once cooldown comes off, start hitting it again. This will kill all the adds as they come up to her, significantly reducing the amount of stacks she gets.
3. For Stalkers, just throw a moonfire/sunfire dot on them.
4. As you run around the platform with your Starfall, be looking for the Tainted Elementals at the bottom of the stairs. The /tar tainted macro works well.
5. Kill them, loot them, and come up to deactivate.
6. Rinse and repeat this 4 times, the immune buff will drop, and you're free to pewpew her until she's dead.

Things to note:
- Her damage does not hit hard. With the killing of elementals with your Starfall, it should keep this in check.
- Just spam the moonfire/sunfire on the non-elemental adds, and they'll drop quickly too.

Comment by kiljoi

A word for any shamans soloing her post 6.0, take off lightning shield, it will 1 shot the tainted elementals and you won't be able to loot the cores.

Comment by Donitadunes

You can skip the time consuming phase if you burst her down really quick, I did it in 3 sec, didn't even know it was possible.

Lady Vashj <Coilfang Matron>

Quotes (14)

Guides

Related

Contribute