High Priest Venoxis (Classic)

High Priest Venoxis
Gender	Male
Race	Zandalari troll (Humanoid)
Level	?? Boss
Class	Priest
Resource	Mana
Reaction	Alliance Horde
Location	Zul'Gurub
Status	Deceased
Zul'Gurub (Classic)
High Priestess Jeklik; High Priest Venoxis; High Priestess Mar'li; Bloodlord Mandokir; Gahz'ranka (summoned); High Priest Thekal; High Priestess Arlokk; Jin'do the Hexxer; Hakkar the Soulflayer	(lore); (lore); (lore); (lore); (lore); (lore); (lore); (lore); (lore)
	Edge of Madness
Gri'lek (summoned); Hazza'rah (summoned); Renataki (summoned); Wushoolay (summoned)	(lore); (lore); (lore); (lore)
	NPCs
	Zanza the Restless
	Loot

For lore and character history, see High Priest Venoxis. For strategy on the boss encounter introduced with Patch 4.1, see High Priest Venoxis (tactics).

High Priest Venoxis' two forms.

High Priest Venoxis is the High Priest of the snake loa Hethiss.

He is one of five High Priest encounters in Zul'Gurub, and is generally considered the second encounter of the instance.

Until defeated, Venoxis empowers Hakkar with Aspect of Venoxis, allowing him to cast a poison bolt volley that deals stacking damage over time.

Abilities

Phase One: Priest Form

Venoxis engages the fight with four Razzashi Cobras, each with 15,260 health. These cannot be pulled prior to the encounter, but are susceptible to crowd control.

High Priest Venoxis

Dispel Magic — Dispels 1 magic effect off a nearby add. 100 yard range. Venoxis cannot dispel himself.
Holy Fire — Consumes an enemy in flames, burning it for 2203 to 2297 Fire damage and inflicting an additional 125 Fire damage every 2 sec. over 8 sec.
Holy Nova — Inflicts 875 to 1125 Holy damage to nearby enemies and heals Venoxis and any nearby adds for 1750 to 2250.
Holy Wrath — Causes 300 Holy damage to the target and chains to nearby targets, dealing 30% more damage per jump.
Renew — Heals for 2000 every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Venoxis may cast this on himself or his adds.

Razzashi Cobra

Poison — Applies when striking in melee. Deals 133 damage every 3 seconds, stacking up to 10 times.
Spit — Ranged poison with knock back. Inflicts ~1850 Nature damage. 30 yard range.

Phase Two: Serpent Form

At 50% remaining health, High Priest Venoxis transforms into a snake, increasing his physical damage done by 75%, losing his phase one abilities and gaining new abilities.

Poison Cloud — Venoxis will frequently drop a poison cloud onto the ground beneath him, dealing 500 damage every second to anyone in the effect.
Venom Spit — Spits poison at a random enemy within 30 yards, causing 1500 to 2500 damage and an additional 200 damage every 2 sec for 10 sec. Stacks up to 3 times. 1.5 second cast.
Virulent Poison — 25% chance on hit to proc a poison DoT, causing 210 damage every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

At 25% health, Venoxis gains the ability to summon parasitic serpents.

Summon Parasitic Serpent — Summons a parasitic serpent that charges an enemy. If the serpent reaches an enemy it "infests" them with Parasitic Serpent.
- Parasitic Serpent — Deals 300 Nature damage every 2 sec for 10 sec. Not dispellable.

Strategy

The High Priest isn't too hard, despite his recent buff in 1.9.

The first thing about this boss is getting to him and clearing out the entire room but him and his snakes. You will need this room. After you have killed all the other enemies in the room, get your MT and offtanks in the room, along with any CCers. This works best with at least 2 tanks, and 2-3 Mages or Druids. Get the rest of the raid directly outside the room, like this: outside the room
The next step is to have your offtank pull, so all the adds will come down to him. The main tank must immediately pull the High Priest off the OT or he will likely die. The OT must pull the adds to the rest of his raid, killing them one at a time. Sheep 3, sleep 3, [Blind], [Freezing Trap], whatever you have; the point is to have only one fighting at a time. Take them down quickly and move onto the next one, allowing the OT to break CC.
Next, you all run in to where the MT is tanking the boss. (He should be tanked near the bonfire for best results.) When the snake adds are dead, get within shooting range of the boss and unload anything you want on him while conserving some mana (meaning wands, bows, dots, low mana cost spells). Do this so that the High Priest won't use his Holy Wrath spell (a cranked-up chain lightning form of [Holy Nova]) to hit people, even those far away. This can easily wipe a raid.
Now, you MUST get rid of his mana and keep it gone the entire remaining fight to prevent Venoxis using his defense spells. With one hunter putting on a [Viper Sting], use Warlocks to [Drain Mana], Priests to [Mana Burn] and any other way you can think of. Do not melee until he is without mana. Circle around him like this to get rid of his mana: Mana draining
When all of his mana is gone, DPS with all melee you have, until he hits 50% health. Keep him away from casters, against a wall like this: DPSing him when no mana Keep him there, and back away at 50-55% because he will turn into his snake form and create a poison cloud. You won't enjoy it.
Next thing is to stay away from him. Everyone but the MT must stay at least 25 yards from him. No melee. At this time, you will have to be de-poisoning the MT and healing him like crazy. If he falls without a [Soulstone], you will probably wipe. See this: Ranged DPS snake form You will be doing all the ranged DPS you can. Use your arrows, use your speed cooldowns, use your mana. Kill him quickly or your tank can drop.
At roughly 20% your other Warriors may want to use [Bloodrage], run in and [Execute] in between Poison Clouds; this will do extra damage and drop him faster.

Alternate Strategy

Set up crowd control for 3 of the 4 adds and have the main tank body pull Venoxis by standing on the right side of the steps and being careful not to go in too far. The Mages immediately pick up their 3 Sheeps and a Hunter pulls in the marked add to the group (where an offtank is waiting). (We usually have the group stand near the campfire, with the tank along the right wall as you walk into the area.)
Take each add down individually. Once all 4 adds have been dealt with (they go down very fast) then everyone sets up to do range DPS only, because Venoxis will do a nasty AoE attack to all in melee range. (We don't bother with mana draining, just keep all heals on the tank and all DPS outside of the range of his AoE.)
At 50% he will turn into a snake and immediately drop a poison cloud. This conversion is crucial; all heals should remain on the main tank. The MT's job at this point is to run out of the Poison Cloud when it drops.
After the first poison cloud expires, we send in our melee DPS to unload.
Keep an eye on Venoxis's hands; when he raises them above his head, that means he has just cast Poison Cloud and you need to move out of that area ASAP. If everyone pays attention and moves out of the cloud (especially the tank), this boss is easy.

Strategy Notes

While following either of these strategies, keep these notes in mind:

You don't really need to kill all the adds. You can Crowd control the 4 adds. If possible, the whole fight long. For that you will need any combination of mages/druids (sheep/sleep). If not, just OT each add and kill it.
Holy Wrath can be avoided. If you keep no more than three people meleeing him (or anywhere near him for that matter), he will not spazz out and cast Holy Wrath.
Holy Wrath can be minimized. It only jumps about 10 feet at a time, so if everyone is EITHER at melee range or at maximum range, only melee will be hit. If you have powerful melee DPS, this can be worth it. Just don't send pets in.
Poison cloud can be cured. However, there are some warnings. If you stand in the cloud while being cured, the cloud will repoison you. Furthermore, if you are depending on the Poison Cleansing Totem, you are bound to run out of the reach by the time it could have saved you. The best advice would be for one healer to be on curing duty and he/she should cure only when the tank has gotten out of the cloud. This should save at least 2.5K health (500dmg per second, 10 second buff), and can make a big difference (in theory).
Venoxis will occasionally cast Renew on himself. The renew is dispellable, and it will help take him down faster if a priest watches for the renew to remove it.

Quotes

Serpent form: High Priest Venoxis yells: Let the coils of hate unfurl!

Death: High Priest Venoxis yells: Ssserenity... at lassst!

Loot

Primal Hakkari armor tokens
Item	Class
[Primal Hakkari Armsplint]	Rogue, Shaman, Warrior
[Primal Hakkari Bindings]	Hunter, Mage, Paladin
[Primal Hakkari Stanchion]	Druid, Priest, Warlock
[Primal Hakkari Girdle]	Rogue, Shaman, Warrior
[Primal Hakkari Shawl]	Hunter, Mage, Paladin
[Primal Hakkari Sash]	Druid, Priest, Warlock
[Primal Hakkari Aegis]	Rogue, Hunter, Priest
[Primal Hakkari Kossack]	Mage, Warlock, Warrior
[Primal Hakkari Tabard]	Druid, Paladin, Shaman

Venoxis' Drops
Item
[Fang of Venoxis]
[Runed Bloodstained Hauberk]
[Blooddrenched Footpads]
[Zanzil's Band]
[Zulian Stone Axe]
[Zulian Tigerhide Cloak]

Shared High Priest Drops
Item
[Band of Servitude]
[Seal of the Gurubashi Berserker]
[Belt of Untapped Power]
[Blooddrenched Mask]
[Cloak of the Hakkari Worshippers]
[Gloves of the Tormented]
[Might of the Tribe]
[Sacrificial Gauntlets]
[Zulian Headdress]
[Zulian Scepter of Rites]
[Channeler's Head]