How to Beat Vexie and the Geargrinders in WoW: The War Within

Unless you’re queued into LFR, Vexie and her gang of rabid mechanics will be the first encounter in the new Liberation of Undermine raid. It’s a simple fight but it can get messy at higher difficulties, so here’s how to beat Vexie and the Geargrinders in WoW: The War Within

How to Beat Vexie and the Geargrinders on Normal in WoW: The War Within

First off, once you’ve cleared the trash in the immediate area the boss will ride in and do a few donuts in the area before settling down. If it hits you it will instantly kill you, so do yourself a favor and back right up to the Incontinental Hotel. Once you begin the encounter proper, Tanks should grab Vexie’s attention and stand with their back against the wall to minimize the knockback from her tankbuster (helpfully named the Tank Buster). You’ll need to swap Tanks after each buster, and healers will want to watch out for the ramping raid damage that accompanies it, but otherwise there isn’t too much for Tanks to worry about until Heroic.

For everyone else, the main mechanic of this fight involves the armor plating on Vexie’s tank which starts at around 4 stacks. While the plating remains, the boss will slowly gain energy until it begins spewing raid-wiping damage at 100%. To stop that from happening, and to get a boosted damage period, players will need to slay the biker enemies that spawn before jumping on their newly-vacated bikes and ramming into the boss. Each hit will remove one stack of plating, but also pulse some damage into the raid so space out your hits if your healers are struggling.

While you wait for the armor to be stripped, your main concern will be dodging several damaging effects while doing consistent damage. The aforementioned bikes will charge around the arena in straight lines, knocking back and damaging anything they hit, while the boss itself will launch rockets and bombs at players periodically. Spew Oil will put a purple circle around you, while Incendiary Fire will drop several fiery AoE’s on your position, both of which will require you to get away from the group to minimize damage.

Once enough bikes have crashed into the boss, its armor will be stripped and the second phase will begin. It takes 100% increased damage at this time so pop any and all big damage cooldowns to maximize your output. At the same time, Vexie will call several mechanics over to help speed up her repairs and end the phase early, so you’ll want to stun and interrupt them as much as possible without sacrificing too much damage. After about 45 seconds, depending on how many repairs go through, the boss will be up and running again and the first phase repeats. Continue with the same strategy until you destroy the Geargrinder, after which Vexie herself will pop out for you to quickly kill. Do so, and you’ll have defeated Vexie and the Geargrinders in WoW: The War Within.

How to Beat Vexie and the Geargrinders on Heroic in WoW: The War Within

On the Heroic difficulty of Liberation of Undermine, Vexie and the Geargrinders add some serious fuel to the fire. There’s naturally a big bump in general damage and the Geargrinder itself will have 6 stacks of plating to strip instead of 4, but the really big change is the addition of pools of oil that will be left on the ground after the Tank Buster and Spew Oil attacks. These not only do a hefty amount of damage while you stand in them, but they also stop any bikes charging through them from hitting the boss so it’s imperative to have them placed well or cleared up as much as possible.

Tanks will need to hold the boss near the edge of the arena and move along once the Tank Buster and oil come out, while players targeted with the purple circle will need to run to drop their oil at another edge away from where the tanks are heading. Thankfully, you can clear these patches of oil by leading the trail of shells from Incendiary Fire through it, so keep an eye on the nearest patch of oil in case you get targeted by that ability. Healers will need to pay some extra attention to them as well, as both the oil and fire rockets hurt a lot. But if you can manage the oil spills and maximize your damage during the second phase, you should be able to defeat Vexie and the Gear Grinders in WoW: The War Within‘s Heroic Liberation of Undermine raid.

If you enjoyed this guide or found it useful, feel free to check out some of Siliconera’s other guides on How to Beat Rik Reverb or How to Beat the Cauldron of Carnage encounter.

World of Warcraft and The War Within expansion are immediately available on both PC and Mac.