Killin' a Demon Lord (Heroic Jaraxxus)

So, we talked about the first boss in Trial of the Grand Crusader, might as well follow the theme for the duration. I know Icecrown looms, but heroic ToC is still a prize that's eluded a great many warlocks.

Demons, portals, summoning, green fire, gnomes pulling agro and getting killed. Everything a warlock could want in a fight, right?

Specs
There's really no two ways about this fight: It's destruction's playground. There's only one significant DPS check, and that's killing portals within the strict time limit before a second mistress appears. Affliction can't muster the DPS fast enough, and demonology will have limited use of it's DPS boosting tricks. Not to say demo doesn't still have it's place as a support spec, of course.


Macros
An important macro you'll want:

/target [nodead] Nether Portal
/target [nodead] Infernal Volcano

These are both high priority MUST DIE NOW targets. It may be advisable to tie /cast immolate to this macro so you'll launch directly into your rotation with a single action. You can even get fancy and have a single macro with two modifiers to cast immolate on Jaraxxus or the current priority target. Note that the [nodead] modifier isn't just for show - even though they leave no visible corpse, you can target dead volcanoes and portals, and it can mess with the macro if you don't exclude dead targets. There's no need to have two separate macros, if by some freak scenario you have a portal and a volcano alive at the same time, you're going to wipe, and it's going to be spectacular.

There's lots of other targets to kill in the fight, Felflame Infernal, Mistress of Pain, and Lord Jaraxxus himself, but none of them are extremely urgent, the DPS check is not meaningful at all, except on the portals.

You'll also need to deal with a special debuff. This debuff will inturrupt whatever your next cast is and lock that school. The easy way to deal with this is to trick it into locking out a shadowbolt by doing this to your incinerate macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Shadowbolt; Incinerate

Swap the two as needed - you want the second to be your primary filler nuke.

Threat
If your tank is a rage-based class, be aware that Jaraxxus is a pansy. He doesn't hit as hard or quickly as other bosses in the zone, and if you're inturrupting all of his fel fireballs, the tank's rage can be a pretty limited commodity.  DPS on Jaraxxus is not at all urgent, don't blow your wad and need to soul shatter. If you do get threat capped on him, just bugger off for a bit, you'll want soul shatter for a Mistress emergency, not Jaraxxus.

Phase 1

As Wilfred Fizzlebang takes all afternoon to introduce the fight, be happy that if you wipe, you don't have to watch this again. That's the pain everybody who spent weeks wiping on Kael'thas once knew.

There's no reason to spread out while it's just Jaraxxus at all. His fel lightning ability jumps a long way, and doesn't increase damage each jump (if you're getting killed by it, dispellers aren't getting Nether Power dispelled fast enough), it's going to chain regardless. Stay close to him, you want to be in range of any possible portal or volcano spawn.

When you get legion flame, remember to move - each tick drops a fire under you, and if you stay put for even a couple ticks, you'll be taking tons of damage. When you get Incinerate Flesh, all the healing you get will be absorbed to remove the debuff, but this is actually a good time to life tap, you'll always get a few hits of overhealing. You can also use deathcoil or a healthstone to help beat the debuff, but it shouldn't be necessary (any passive healing like siphon life or soul leech also contributes, but again shouldn't be necessary).


Phase 2 (Portals and Volcanoes)
Watch timers like a hawk. 10-15 seconds before a portal or volcano spawns, drop conflagrate and chaos bolt from your rotation. Your DPS will tank for a bit, but remember: DPS on Jaraxxus is not urgent by any measure.

When the new target spawns, hit your target macro and launch immediately into a burst combo with both your cooldowns. Volcanoes are not quite so tight as portals (if you're a bit slow you may get four infernals instead of five, but that's not as bad as getting two mistresses instead of one).

Add Phase
Mistress
This is where you'll want to hang on to soul shatter, though it probably won't be needed - when one spawns, you'll have just blown your burst on the portal. They do two things to worry about. The first is Pain Spike, a sort of spinning body slam. This does massive damage based on your maximum HP, and if you happen to get it while you have legion flame, it's pretty much a death sentence, you'll drop one or two fires and then get body slammed right into them with the DoT still ticking.

The more important one is Mistress' Kiss. If you get this, the next spell you cast will be inturrupted and you'll be locked out of that school for 8 seconds. The best way to deal with this is to eat it with a shadow bolt to keep your fire school clear (or incinerate to keep your shadow school clear). This is where the shift modified macro I included above comes into play.

Mistresses are where you as a caster get in DPS time on Jaraxxus, as well. They go down faster than infernals, and leave plenty of time to burn Jaraxxus before you have to worry about saving cooldowns for the next volcano.

Infernals
Infernals are easy to deal with, but slower. You'll actually want to be more spread out on these, and if you see one turn into a meteor and streak for you, haul ass out of there, doesn't really matter where. You'll take a good chunk of damage from the meteor, but if you hang around you'll be getting hammered with about 2500 dps worth of AOE fire. Ranged should try to focus fire on the infernals with assist targets or raid icons, but it's easy to outrange the primary target. If that happens, DPS what you can reach rather than chasing the main infernal down, just be careful about threat.

Melee isn't going to be on infernals, between them running around and having all sorts of close range AOE, and with all the running around, the infernals can be a check of their own. If you have any hope of beating the second Mistress spawn from a portal, infernals should be no problem, but just be aware of the Nether Portal timer when you finish with the infernals, you won't have much time on Jaraxxus and you'll want to have your best burst ready for the portal. You'll also want to make sure to collapse back close enough to Jaraxxus to ensure a clean switch to the portal when it comes up.

The Profit
3 Emblems of Triumph is never something to sneeze at, even if you're past the high costs and have all your 245 tier 9 set, this is still 1/5 of a Crusader Orb, which will cover many a repair bill on the AH.

Loot wise, Jaraxxus has a short list, and an even shorter list of appealing loot.

Soothing Touch are a fine pair of spirit/haste pants. You're much more likely to want tier 9 in that slot, but if you get the 4 piece bonus through other slots, this is your best option for the 5th.

Talisman of Heedless Sins/Symbol of Transgression is one of only two offhand options in the zone, neither of which are really ideal. This option is hit/crit, the alternative is spirit/crit off twins.

And... that's it. The ring, Darkmender, is MP5. There's a shortage of 258 rings, but Firestorm Ring from heroic 10 man is superior to Darkmender, and it has hit. Any build without suppression will have a tight hit situation if you get close to all 258 gear.

Solace, the trinket, has a lot of spellpower, but if you roll on this MP5 version of Eye of the Broodmother you're a bad person and should feel bad.