Soloing Old Content

[SodiumChloride]

my ilvl is 441. not sure if thats low or not. no enchants. my problem isnt damage it's the damage they are doing to me. is it possible to just dps them down without kiting them? my reaction time isnt what it used to be and kiting isnt as easy as it was a year or two ago for me. i equipped the staff and was still getting either stunned spelllocked before i could use its effect.(going to go demonology and see if that helps.)

How to use the staff,

- Loot staff
- Equip staff
- Right-click staff WHILE IT'S EQUIPPED. DO NOT UNEQIP STAFF.
- Check to see you have the 15 min protection buff
- Stare blankly at Kael'thas while waiting for him to start the next phrase (optional)
- Kill advisers but sac pet before last one dies - just to be safe.
- Burn Kael'thas until he flys up into the air ending the phrase
- Uneqip staff and re-equip regular raid weapons

PS: BTW the staff only protects you from stun, disorient and silences. You can still get knockbacked and feared.

[GrkSiNNer]

Been running all of the older stuff BC and back as Destruction, bang out the the eye and others in no time at all.

[Vulcanasm]

Been running all of the older stuff BC and back as Destruction, bang out the the eye and others in no time at all.

...yeah, I'm increasingly less certain of this "go Aff or go home" approach to old content. I solo'd Sarth +3 25-man last night as Destruction, and had only minor difficulty (mainly "it was late and I was tired"). I don't think I could have done that as Affliction, even if I knew the spec well.

[Twilight Cultist]

...yeah, I'm increasingly less certain of this "go Aff or go home" approach to old content. I solo'd Sarth +3 25-man last night as Destruction, and had only minor difficulty (mainly "it was late and I was tired"). I don't think I could have done that as Affliction, even if I knew the spec well.

Affy is slighting stronger for fights with heavy pet damage (talking about Cata content). But destro can still solo anything affy can with a little more gear.

[breadisfunny]

okay what are the best tier 2,3,4 talents for soloing? the op is obsolete. i have tier 1,5,6 picked out.

[Twilight Cultist]

okay what are the best tier 2,3,4 talents for soloing? the op is obsolete. i have tier 1,5,6 picked out.

I only solo as destro so i can't speak for affy, but the talents I go with are Mortal Coil, Soul Link, Burning Rush.

[Vulcanasm]

okay what are the best tier 2,3,4 talents for soloing? the op is obsolete. i have tier 1,5,6 picked out.

Which spec?

As Destro: Tier 2 is practically not used, the other two are all about your play style.
Tier 2: While you *can* find highly situational uses for all of them, I wouldn't treat them as staple abilities of any solo build. I use them heavily in PVP, but PVE soloing? Practically never. I guess go Shadowfury if an encounter has adds, Mortal Coil otherwise. I can find no PVE use for Howl of Terror. In general, if you have a lot of little adds beating on you, put a Rain of Fire on yourself for embers -- don't fear them off. (Big adds generally are immune to fear)
Tier 3: I nearly always have Dark Bargain -- even when I got my felfire, despite every guide saying Sacrificial Pact was better. But...some people swear by Soul Link, and in some cases I can see that. This is a matter of your play style and the encounter. Bring some tomes in case you don't like your choice for whatever project you're soloing.
Tier 4: I've never used anything but Unbound Will, and I can't think of any good reason to even experiment with the other two -- especially not for soloing.

---------- Post added 2013-04-18 at 04:34 PM ----------

Affy is slighting stronger for fights with heavy pet damage (talking about Cata content). But destro can still solo anything affy can with a little more gear.

Yeah, that's about what I'd expect. I haven't tried to solo any Cata content. I can see the instant pet heal becoming essential, though.

[breadisfunny]

going to try soloing it as demonolgy as was suggested earlier.so the question about talents would be for demonolgy. is it any different than destruction? i've found shadowfury useless as adds in the eye seem to be immune to stuns......or maybe the circle isnt in the right place.
sorry if these questions sound dumb. i'm just returning to the game after a 6 month hiatus and everything seems completely different.

also having problems with getting the staff to work. right clicking the staff after equipping it doesnt do anything.

[Twilight Cultist]

BTW ysen, how did you come across the Sou Leech/Void Shield behavior? I never noticed haha, and if I did I would have used that to my advantage in all my solos >.<. Now that I know about it, im going to attempt some more difficult fights that I was reluctant to try.

[SodiumChloride]

going to try soloing it as demonolgy as was suggested earlier.so the question about talents would be for demonolgy. is it any different than destruction? i've found shadowfury useless as adds in the eye seem to be immune to stuns......or maybe the circle isnt in the right place.
sorry if these questions sound dumb. i'm just returning to the game after a 6 month hiatus and everything seems completely different.

also having problems with getting the staff to work. right clicking the staff after equipping it doesnt do anything.

Are you even looting and using he right staff?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=30313/st...disintegration

[breadisfunny]

yep thats the staff im using it isnt working. i equip it, right click it and nothing happens if there is a passive buff instead of active now it isnt doing anything because the advisors still continue to stun,disorient,silence. i made sure to go over and loot the staff myself and select it from my bags and equip it. am i supposed to be using the buff before they ressurect?

[SodiumChloride]

yep thats the staff im using it isnt working. i equip it, right click it and nothing happens if there is a passive buff instead of active now it isnt doing anything because the advisors still continue to stun,disorient,silence. i made sure to go over and loot the staff myself and select it from my bags and equip it. am i supposed to be using the buff before they ressurect?

Yes. It's not a PVP trinket. It makes you immune to the CC but doesn't break them to my knowledge.

[Vulcanasm]

going to try soloing it as demonolgy as was suggested earlier.so the question about talents would be for demonolgy. is it any different than destruction? i've found shadowfury useless as adds in the eye seem to be immune to stuns......or maybe the circle isnt in the right place.
sorry if these questions sound dumb. i'm just returning to the game after a 6 month hiatus and everything seems completely different.

also having problems with getting the staff to work. right clicking the staff after equipping it doesnt do anything.

I have the easiest time on Kael'thas as Destro with Demonic Sacrifice. First, do what they said. Equip and use the staff. Make a macro, if need be:
#showtooltip
/equip Staff of Disintegration
/use Staff of Disintegration

I use my Voidwalker to tank until I'm down to the last respawned advisor, then I sacrifice it.

[jaymzkerten]

yep thats the staff im using it isnt working. i equip it, right click it and nothing happens if there is a passive buff instead of active now it isnt doing anything because the advisors still continue to stun,disorient,silence. i made sure to go over and loot the staff myself and select it from my bags and equip it. am i supposed to be using the buff before they ressurect?

Yes you should activate the buff before they rez. It has a 15 minute duration, which is more than enough to get you through the phase, and if you wait until after they rez you probably already have some CC coming your way. I'm not sure what your dps is looking like and how fast you are getting the weapons down, but ideally if you get all the weapons down before p3 starts you can buy some time to heal up while you get the staff ready.

[Deleted]

BTW ysen, how did you come across the Sou Leech/Void Shield behavior? I never noticed haha, and if I did I would have used that to my advantage in all my solos >.<. Now that I know about it, im going to attempt some more difficult fights that I was reluctant to try.

Found that totally by accident when soloing Halion 25, because the fight is so low dmg I noticed that the boss couldn't break my pet's Soul Leech and that his Void Shield was always at 3 stacks.
So yeah, this trick is so awesome that destruction becomes my favorite soloing spec. Constant -60% dmg reduction >> -30% dmg reduction from SB:HF + normal Void Shield. And of course you have Ember Tap.
Even for heavy hitting bosses, here's Ragnaros soloed as destruction:

Notice how my pet get 22 stacks of the debuff in phase 1 and how easily he (we) survived Thanks to Soul Link my pet only takes a fraction of the damage so it's even easier to build him a Soul Leech shield high enough to fully absorb every next hit.
For me it was way easier than affliction. I'm thinking that lots of harder bosses are doable that way. The main point is that that "pet-shielding" scales with your dps, whereas affliction pet-healing only scales with your health.

[breadisfunny]

Yes you should activate the buff before they rez. It has a 15 minute duration, which is more than enough to get you through the phase, and if you wait until after they rez you probably already have some CC coming your way. I'm not sure what your dps is looking like and how fast you are getting the weapons down, but ideally if you get all the weapons down before p3 starts you can buy some time to heal up while you get the staff ready.

it must not be too good then because i only manage to get them down about 10 secs or just before they rez. once i didnt get them down till just after they had already rezzed.am getting better at it. which of the tier 4 talents would you suggest for soloing? not sure which is more beneficial. dark bargain looks nice but so does sacrificial pact. soul link doesnt look too shabby either. would like a second opinion.

[zsun]

it must not be too good then because i only manage to get them down about 10 secs or just before they rez. once i didnt get them down till just after they had already rezzed.am getting better at it. which of the tier 4 talents would you suggest for soloing? not sure which is more beneficial. dark bargain looks nice but so does sacrificial pact. soul link doesnt look too shabby either. would like a second opinion.

If you get the weapons down only 10 seconds before they res.. or even did not get them down at all before they res, then you may have your weapon kill priorities wrong. There is a weapon in there (Cosmic Infuser) that can heal as well as the shield (Phaseshift Bulwark) that can interrupt. You should focus down those weapons if necessary. Another issue may be your DPS being low. Are you popping potions/flasks/food? Or using your DPS cooldowns during that phase? If low DPS is the issue, then you probably WILL have some pressure against the 4 advisors after they rez, even WITH the immunity buff from the staff. And also if your dps is low on the weapons, equipping that staff will make it even lower.

[SodiumChloride]

As zsun says, kill the healer first while kiting the interrupter.

They don't have much HP, you should be bursting them down with low CD DPS CDs.

You might also want to gear up a bit more since, if I recall right, you are <450 ilvl. Run heroics for 463 ilvl drops and LFR when you can.

I normally bust the weapons down under 10 secs as a frost mage. Then it's a few minutes of waiting for the next phrase ...

PS: The DPS lost from using the staff hurts a lot. Until recently, much easier with ToT LFR gear, I get dangerously low on HP during the first Kael'thas phrase.

[Geegeez]

So it seems that in 5.3 they will be nerfing Fathom-Lord Karathress' Cataclysmic Bolt to make him a little bit more soloable for mana-users. I remember I tried clearing SSC at ilvl 440-ish when I first hit 90 and failed hard on FLK. Tried him again as Destro and got him no problem this time around, and I'm glad I got him before the nerf.

Just for the hell of it I decided to knock out Vashj as well. It took me awhile because I forgot about the mechanics of the fight. I think I let her grow to about 100 stacks before I finally got all the tainted cores. That made the fight a little more difficult than necessary but she went down as well. Thankfully she dropped the head token so my T5 transmog pieces are complete.

[Vulcanasm]

So it seems that in 5.3 they will be nerfing Fathom-Lord Karathress' Cataclysmic Bolt to make him a little bit more soloable for mana-users. I remember I tried clearing SSC at ilvl 440-ish when I first hit 90 and failed hard on FLK. Tried him again as Destro and got him no problem this time around, and I'm glad I got him before the nerf.

Just for the hell of it I decided to knock out Vashj as well. It took me awhile because I forgot about the mechanics of the fight. I think I let her grow to about 100 stacks before I finally got all the tainted cores. That made the fight a little more difficult than necessary but she went down as well. Thankfully she dropped the head token so my T5 transmog pieces are complete.

Heh. I wish they weren't nerfing Karathress quite so badly. The burst required to kill him before Cataclysm Bolt destroys you is a really easy way to gauge your gear.