How exactly do Zohaqan's buffs work?

I've gotten conflicting orders from PUG leaders on how to fight Zohaqan (Sandswept Isles final djinn).

Most players say standing in his blue power circles heals him.Some players say shooting through his blue power circles heals him.The wiki says he heals because he casts a healing buff, and the blue circles are just movement & attack speed debuff zones.

Some players further say you need to use boon-stripping effects to stop his healing, but I thought those only stripped boons of the standard, orange-icon variety.

I've tried mousing over Zohaqan's special buff effects during the fight but the icons fluctuate constantly and there's no way to keep the text on the screen. :/

Help!

His water armor buff (health regen+condi cleanse per sec.) seems to always be active, and there doesn't seem to be a way to remove it. I don't know what causes his stacking buff, but it seems to go away when you break his bar. (does anyone know what this buff does?)

The pet theory we came up with in map chat a while ago was he gains Water Armour stacks by having entities standing in his blue fields. No clue if this is actually what happens, since entities means pets/clones/minions/anything and everything. I haven't ever tested the theory by soloing Zohaqan and just avoiding everything to see if he did still gain stacks or not.

His other buff just amplifies the power of his Ice storm. Water Armour is what stacks, which reduces damage taken per stack. As for being able to strip, it is possible that it works like the Blue Vale Guardian's debuff, which isn't a traditional "orange" buff but can still be stripped. As mentioned, it is very difficult to see if it's being stripped due to constantly being re-applied.