[5.0 Edition] The Druid Soloing Guide

[Antefex]

After recently returning to my druid, i just anted to say thank you for this guide, its very helpful indeed keep it up.

[Arctagon]

Not the biggest deal since he was skippable, but it'll be nice for people who wanted transmog off him, and to say that everything pre-cata is killable .

I don't like bosses that aren't killable due to mechanics, and I also like being able to kill as many bosses as possible, so this change is very welcome to me.

[Thallya]

Hello there fellow Druids,
I've been successfully soloing pretty much everything I could as a Boomkin (ilvl 492) for quite some time, but I have recently decided to switch to Guardian in order to farm Val'anyr. But, pretty fast, I have noticed that my gear was seriously lacking (currently ilvl 460ish), and eventhough I do manage some bosses, others cause me some problems.
Now I was wondering if you could give me some insight on which bosses you are currently soloing in Ulduar 25, and at which ilvl you're doing that.
Any tips are welcome!

[Braindwen]

I was wondering if you could give me some insight on which bosses you are currently soloing in Ulduar 25, and at which ilvl you're doing that.
Any tips are welcome!

I recall the first four being pretty easy (I'd recommend HotW for razorscale if you do her as guardian, it makes it much easier to get her down when she's grounded). Kologarn's very easy, to the point of being doable at 85.

Iron council shouldn't be too bad if you go for steelbreaker first, he's still the only one that hurts. Auriaya should be pretty easy. Hodir is a bit of a DPS check, so I doubt you could do him in that guardian gear, though he'd probably be doable as balance tbh. I'd imagine freya is doable, and I'm honestly not sure about thorim or mimiron (I could probably kill them at my ilvl... but at 460, I'm guessing not).

I haven't done much of ulduar since hitting 90, though. That's all based on one run I did .

[Wannoob]

Hodir is a bit of a DPS check, so I doubt you could do him in that guardian gear

You have my speech, I did Hodir25 with ilvl 490, about two months ago. Don't forget HoTW

[deva1984]

Thank you for the tips!

I've come back to patchwerk when I had ~483 gears, although without any version of gaolei. It was much easier, but still a intenstive fight.

[Regen]

Anyone mind typing up a quick explanation for Halfus Wyrmbreaker in BoT? My "week" doesn't have slate up so it should be super easy? I can't for the life of me live long enough to even get one drake down, not to mention even put a dent in him. I have it set to 10 normal and my gear is the gear in my sig.

[Braindwen]

Anyone mind typing up a quick explanation for Halfus Wyrmbreaker in BoT? My "week" doesn't have slate up so it should be super easy? I can't for the life of me live long enough to even get one drake down, not to mention even put a dent in him. I have it set to 10 normal and my gear is the gear in my sig.

I don't actually remember the ilvl I was in when I first did Halfus, but yeah, he shouldn't be too bad. If nether and time are up, release both of them on the pull. Whelps are also not a bad idea to get out early. You pretty much just spam CDs through the initial part until you can kill off the drakes.

Speaking of CDs, I hope that guardian talent setup wasn't what you were using. Soul of the Forest is just terrible compared to Incarnation (especially in fights like this where the difficulty is all right at the beginning), Cenarion Ward is somewhat lacking compared to the other two options, and Heart of the Wild isn't really useful for Halfus (especially since Nature's Vigil is so useful. NV+Berserk and spamming savage defense with all that rage is pretty much a full heal and 30 seconds of immortality).

It might just be gear though. I think I was around 485 when I first started up on BoT, and while I had 0 issue with no-slate Halfus then, a full tier ilvl difference would have a huge impact.

[Regen]

Okay I'll edit those things and give it another stab. I didn't even consider my talent setup and what that was doing to me.

[Braindwen]

I am happy to finally have that down .

Will probably get around to updating the front page after raid tonight. The good news is 5.2 was a pretty major buff patch for us, even without the obvious gear inflation.

[Ysilla]

Just wanted to throw this out to you, as it might be of some interest:

Just a small update this, which should hopefully come as good news... A last minute fix was made to patch 5.2.0 that should allow players to solo the Kalecgos encounter in The Sunwell :-) (Source)

Can still bug and reset quite easily, but I confirm we can solo him now. Not sure about this but I think he did reset because I didn't kill the second boss quick enough, so you may need dps gear/spec.

[Braindwen]

Can still bug and reset quite easily, but I confirm we can solo him now. Not sure about this but I think he did reset because I didn't kill the second boss quick enough, so you may need dps gear/spec.

Not sure if I missed something, but I just killed Kalec->killed Sathrovar and didn't have any despawning trouble. Does the debuff that keeps you in the demon realm still have a timer or something?

Either way, no need for a DPS spec. HotW=dps spec'd for plenty of time to kill Sath.

[Arctagon]

[video=youtube;cqZ9L0jpbPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZ9L0jpbPE&list=UUb-5ZQAuKoZc0ItG0DiePgQ&index=1[video]

I am happy to finally have that down .

Will probably get around to updating the front page after raid tonight. The good news is 5.2 was a pretty major buff patch for us, even without the obvious gear inflation.

Congrats on the kill, Braindwen. The patch's buff was all that was needed to get this down? How far in did you come before 5.2? Also, are you referring to the FR scaling buff when you say 'major buff'?

[Braindwen]

Congrats on the kill, Braindwen. The patch's buff was all that was needed to get this down? How far in did you come before 5.2? Also, are you referring to the FR scaling buff when you say 'major buff'?

NV change, mostly. I also replaced one trinket, and found out I could avoid hurricane by timing the jump right.
In 5.1 I was killing anshal, getting over to rohash, killing rohash, and dying on the way back to anshal.

The major buff in 5.2 to me is the NV change. FR is nice, but eh, a lot of times we're not even using the AP formula for it, and the stamina formula is unchanged. Funnily enough, NV ends up being my highest heal on a lot of fights now (Conclave included. Healing breakdown there was roughly 35% NV, 30% FR, 25% LotP, 10% Renewal.)

[Arctagon]

Meh, I just had a dumb moment. I just read 'scales 10% more efficiently' and moved on, not thinking about the fact that the AP formula is used after the stamina one. I haven't got any gear from Throne of Thunder yet, but I'll get the VP trinket on Wednesday, which looks really nice.

Hah, I had honestly completely forgotten about NV and its change in 5.2. I didn't realize how much of a buff it was from Guardian perspective. I definitely need to try it out.

On another note, have someone been able to solo Hex Lord Malacress in Zul'Aman? It's a heroic dungeon boss from Cata, I know, but he's actually not that easy. When he uses Siphon Soul, he gets Moonfire and Lifebloom. Lifebloom heals him for 10% on the last tick and the Moonfire dot stacks. At around 15 stacks the dot ticks for around 100k. I have obviously not tried this with NV, so I can't say whether I'd be able to do it or not yet, but the solo difficulty of the boss is far over the average heroic dungeon boss from Cata (and so is Nalorakk, thanks to his 500% increased damage taken debuff).

[Arctagon]

I noticed something while soloing the other day. Frenzied Regeneration healed for much more than usual. It isn't before now that I got around to taking a closer look at it.

According to the FR formula prior to 5.2, I need 61546 AP from Vengeance in order for the AP formula to take over, assuming self-buffed. While I was soloing that day, I was nowhere near those numbers. I was barely over 40k Vengeance. I checked again right now on a very fitting fight: Patchwerk 25-man. After I got him down to <5% health for the frenzy, I waited for a while, then killed him. At ~45k AP from Vengeance, FR would heal for ~100k (64160 from the stamina formula). Even at just a little bit over 30k Vengeance during the fight, I could see how the number on the FR tooltip fluctuated up and down along with Vengeance. Sure, the AP formula for FR was buffed in 5.2, but there's no way it has this much of an impact. In fact, I should still need 58629 AP from Vengeance in order for the AP formula to take over.

Has anybody else noticed the increased potency in FR?

[Braindwen]

I noticed something while soloing the other day. Frenzied Regeneration healed for much more than usual. It isn't before now that I got around to taking a closer look at it.

According to the FR formula prior to 5.2, I need 61546 AP from Vengeance in order for the AP formula to take over, assuming self-buffed. While I was soloing that day, I was nowhere near those numbers. I was barely over 40k Vengeance. I checked again right now on a very fitting fight: Patchwerk 25-man. After I got him down to <5% health for the frenzy, I waited for a while, then killed him. At ~45k AP from Vengeance, FR would heal for ~100k (64160 from the stamina formula). Even at just a little bit over 30k Vengeance during the fight, I could see how the number on the FR tooltip fluctuated up and down along with Vengeance. Sure, the AP formula for FR was buffed in 5.2, but there's no way it has this much of an impact. In fact, I should still need 58629 AP from Vengeance in order for the AP formula to take over.

Has anybody else noticed the increased potency in FR?

61546 AP...
You had 49000 stamina?!?!

5.1: max(2x(AP-2xAgi),2.5xstam)
5.2: max(2.2x(AP-2xAgi),2.5xstam)

So it should heal for 2.2x your vengeance, or 2.5x your stamina, whichever's larger.

[Arctagon]

I forgot to subtract my own AP (which is the most obvious thing to do). I never seem to learn that me and maths in the middle of the night doesn't go very well together...

While AP ≥ (Sta * 2.5 / 2.2) + Agi * 2 is the total amount of AP needed, one needs to subtract the current AP from the character sheet from that amount in order to get the amount of AP needed from Vengeance. With that in mind, I need 28811 for the AP formula to take over while self-buffed, versus 31728 prior to 5.2. Still, I swear I've seen the AP formula require way more Vengeance for it to take over earlier. Either that, or my mind was playing tricks on me.

2.2 * Vengeance is incorrect, though.

[Braindwen]

2.2 * Vengeance is incorrect, though.

Technically it is, but only because of a tiny amount of base AP, AP from strength, the 10% AP raid buff (not that that matters for solo), and the t14-4pc if that's equipped.

You do get 2.2xVengeance added to FR, though.

Also, t15-2pc=Majordomo dead. Didn't record, probably will next week for cinders farming.
And 29% on Rag in 2 tries, so I'll probably be giving that some more tries in the near future.

[SilverSnake]

Just popping in to give my thanks for the excellent guide in the OP. Been going out and soloing more content thanks to the guide. Last weekend I did [Earth, Wind and Fire (10-man)] solo as guardian. It's rough, but with good gear (ilvl 512) I did it on my second try with plenty of health left at the end.

Also, Patchwerk 25-man just before that, I got a bunch of trash adding that I forgot to clear and it was a close call, but I managed it. Didn't manage to out-dps Gluth's healing even as feral though, will have to come back to him at a later point.