Two Bosses Enter: Vaelastrasz vs. Illidan

Posted Jan 6th 2008 1:06PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Bosses, Talents, Two Bosses Enter

Two Bosses Enter is recovering from a long holiday season full of booze and raiding -- and attempting to get back to its regular weekend schedule. So while our last match (Kel'Thuzad vs. Archimonde -- it's a close one, folks, so jump in and cast your vote!) isn't over until Monday, we're going to get right on to our next match. This week we have Vaelastrasz the Corrupt -- powerful member of the Red Dragonflight, corrupted by Nefarian to fight off heroes trying to enter Blackwing Lair -- and Illidan Stormrage -- Night Elf turned demon who now rules over the Black Temple. Join in our series of fantasy deathmatches by reading up on these bosses and casting your vote on which of the two would win out in a fight.

Illidan has a wide array of abilities at his disposal to wipe out any opposition. He's capable of heavy melee damage, high fire and shadow damage, and can summon a variety of minions to keep you occupied. Illidan's abilities at the start of the fight are as follows:

Shear reduces the health of his main target by 60%
Illidan will occasionally jump into the air and land in a patch of highly damaging blue flame
Illidan will randomly target players to cast a parasites debuff on, which does shadow damage over time and then summons two parasites to attack the target
Draw soul does heavy fire damage to targets in front of Illidan and heals Illidan

For phase 2, Illidan offers a different range of ways to kill you:

Illidan will summon two massive fire elementals, the Flames of Azzinoth
Every 30 seconds, Illidan will sweep an eye beam across the platform, doing heavy fire damage and leaving a trail of damaging fire behind it
Illidan shoots fireballs that do splash damage
Dark Barrage does heavy shadow damage to a random target, though it's rarely cast

For phase 3, Illidan acts nearly the same as phase 1, only with the addition of agonizing flames, a fire spell that does damage on initial impact and damage over time afterwards.

For phase 4 (a quick phase, at 30 seconds long), Illidan will unleash the demon within. He turns into a black demon with powerful abilities, but is unable to move. During this phase, he'll cast:

Shadow blast, a high damage shadow attack with splash damage
Flame burst, an AoE fire-based DoT that does splash damage
Aura of dread does a high amount of shadow damage over time as well as increasing the damage taken by shadow spells (stacks)

Phase 5 is like phase 3, only with the addition of the following:

Maiev Shadowsong joins the fight -- and though we usually don't consider adds for fights, I'm keeping Maiev in this fight because Illidan is just incredibly powerful. (And Maiev would be hunting him down whether he was in the Black Temple or dueling outside of Orgrimmar.)
Illidan can enrage, randomly.

For those of you familiar with the fight, you'll notice something missing -- this is because we aren't considering instant-kill abilities. In a one-on-one encounter, they make the fight predictable and dull.

I doubt many people visit Vaelastrasz in Blackwing Lair these days, but there was a time when he was the bane of many a raid group attempting to progress. But just because he's in an old-world raid dungeon doesn't mean he's a pushover. Vaelastrasz hits his targets with heavy fire and melee damage, using the following abilities in combat:

Fire Nova: an AoE fire attack
Flame Breath: a frontal AoE fire attack
Cleave: a standard cleave, but with a twist -- it chains from target to target

Though the short list of abilities may make this fight sound simple, it's anything but. However, the amount of damage Vael dishes out cannot be understated -- he would be quite unbeatable by player raids were it not for the fact that before fight, he gives a buff providing his opponents (essentially) unlimited mana, energy, and rage regeneration for three minutes. Without this buff, it would be unlikely that a player would be able to do enough damage to bring him down, meaning the enconter is on a timer. (Why, you ask, does he do this? Though Nefarian has corrupted him, but he is still attempting to struggle against Nefarian's dominance. Whether, in battling Illidan, we would see Vaelastrasz as a corrupted puppet of Nefarian or not, I leave to you.)

So there you have it -- we have two bosses who pose immense challenges player raids, but against one another may not have much difficulty Who wins and who loses in this epic battle? It's nearly time for you to to tell us, but before that, a reminder: we're considering these two bosses with approximately equal health and approximately equal damage output capabilities. We aren't making this into a math equation of who's got more health than who, so when you cast your vote, cast it on fighting style, not highest level.

Tags: black-temple, blackwing-lair, illidan, two-bosses-enter, vaelastrasz

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

1-06-2008 @ 1:13PM

Nyttyn said...

second to vote, first to comment, and illidan would so win.

1-06-2008 @ 1:18PM

Eternalpayn said...

What kind of question is this? Really...

1-06-2008 @ 1:26PM

Rashi said...

Lets see, 100% to 40% Health in 1 blow.

Then lots of DoTs, massive AoE, Summon Adds, and Drain Life.

Hmmm, sorry Vael, though I love Red Dragons, I think you loose.

1-06-2008 @ 1:28PM

Ghen said...

Sorry Vael, Illidan is the harder raid boss if all things are equal in terms of level and damage.

1-06-2008 @ 1:31PM

Knucker said...

since vael starts off at 30% health would this instantly kill him or would it bring him down 5%? or are we assuming that vael has 100% health here?

1-06-2008 @ 1:32PM

Knucker said...

er, i was referring to the attack that reduces health by 60%

1-06-2008 @ 1:31PM

owlbear said...

forgot Burning Adrenaline?....gg ili :)

1-06-2008 @ 1:38PM

George M. said...

Vaelastrasz destroyed Guilds. True story.

1-06-2008 @ 1:49PM

Nati said...

Isn't Vael also immune to fire damage?

And it's decidedly unfair to remove Burning Adrenaline from Vael and let Illidan keep Shear.

1-06-2008 @ 1:57PM

Elmo said...

Illidan would win this one easy.
especially 60% health debuff is nasty

and all illidans random target attacks are on Vael so...

1-06-2008 @ 2:07PM

TeragX said...

The only person Illidan cant defeat is Arthas....and a raiding guild with full epics....

1-06-2008 @ 2:12PM

Kikr said...

Illidan's a fruitcake... Vael would win :)

1-06-2008 @ 3:38PM

Deusmortis said...

I see two ways that this can go: Include Shear or Do Not Include Shear. If we let Illidan keep Shear, forget this whole contest, because NOTHING would beat him. If we give him Shear for this fight, I'm giving Vael Burning Adrenaline, letting him win in under a minute.

Assuming no Shear and no Essence of the Red (non-corrupt Vael), this fight is fairly close, I think. I don't remember if we never used fire because the spec was terrible Pre-BC, or if Vael was in any way resistant. If he is fire resistant (or immune) he wins easily.

I'm going to give Vael my vote, since he was a more difficult encounter, even at 30% health.

1-06-2008 @ 5:26PM

Mel said...

*bah*

Illidan would SO make a croc-handbag out of the red one.

1-06-2008 @ 6:28PM

whitebrow said...

vael easy

60% sheer would put vael hp same as in bwl.

fight starts and illidan gets BA and has 1 minute to kill vael.
vael immune to fire Oo

sorry not happening.

1-06-2008 @ 7:24PM

TheKarmaPolice said...

You forgot the STAPLE of the Vael fight...the reason he was the bane of guilds during most of his "career"...

Burning adrenaline

Taken from wowwiki:

Damage done increased by 100%. Attack speed increased by 100%. Spells become instant cast. Reduces max health by 5% every second; eventually causes player to die.
Vael only casts Burning Adrenaline in two scenarios: He will cast it on random mana users throughout the fight and he will cast it on the current tank every 45 seconds. 1 tank killed every 45 seconds for 3 minutes --> 3 / 0.75 = 4 tanks. When the MT is afflicted, healers must be ready to transition to the next tank while keeping the old one up at the same time until the debuff kills him. Thus, the fight requires 4 tanks in a threat-building queue. An acceptable scenario is the first tank going up and applying 3 Sunders before the second tank moves in, who applies 3 Sunders before the next tank comes in, and so forth.
The first person to get Burning Adrenaline should hold back from generating threat. However, as the fight continues, the tanks are able to apply threat by spamming every threat-generating ability available in addition to spamming Execute with nearly-full rage bars (once Vael gets below 20% health). Once in the safe position, players are free to go hog-wild doing damage as its mathematically impossible to catch up to the tank if he/she is doing their job.
When mana-using raid members are afflicted, they must move away to a designated area or bomb the raid with a 4376 to 5624 AoE blast. Non mana users will not be afflicted unless they are currently tanking Vaelastrasz. Note that ice blocks or divine shield will not prevent this debuff from killing the player.

I mean come on...that spell is his thing...it's the reason you need about 3 to 4 tanks, and the reason the encounter is on a timer

1-06-2008 @ 8:25PM

dk said...

Vaels Burning Adreneline is NOT an "instant-kill" ability, but an ability that would kill the oppenent eventually, guaranteed.

"...this is because we aren't considering instant-kill abilities."

So why not include it?

1-06-2008 @ 9:21PM

Zeplar said...

Sheer is a semi-instant-kill ability, seriously, any ability that affects a large percentage (over 10%, say) is overpowered in 1vs1. You need to think these things through before you post the fight, 'Liz, or else this is going to get boring mighty quickly. /shear next boss /shear next boss

1-06-2008 @ 9:21PM

Zeplar said...

shear* /spellingdies

1-06-2008 @ 10:18PM

Astos said...

Hands down, Illidan would win this fight. There should be no doubt in anyone minds who would win.

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