Much of the information in this front page is out of date. Boss links and item drops from raids can still be used, but specialization/talent guides and boss kills are months behind. Check thread posts for more up-to-date information and discussion.
Hello and welcome to the druid soloing guide!
If you've killed something that's not on the list, please post about it and I'll add it in. The more information you can give, the better. If you think I've made a mistake somewhere, or would like to suggest a better way of doing a boss, feel free. I've been wrong in the past, and I'd like this guide to be as accurate as possible.
Now, let's get started!
Specializations and Talents
Presumably, you know the basics of your spec. So, this section will focus on differences while soloing.
I'm not going to be playing resto for anything but gimmick fights. I won't be writing up anything for it, but if it becomes popular somehow, I could add in something for it.
Guardian
"Takes on the form of a mighty bear to absorb damage and protect allies."
Important Abilities:
Vengeance: Causes you to gain AP from taking damage. The exact functions of this are a bit complicated, but basically the more damage you take, the more AP you'll have. When incoming damage is high, this will also determine the healing you get from Frenzied Regen.
Frenzied Regeneration: While not specific to Guardians, it is the only spec that will be using this ability often. This is your primary use of rage as a guardian while soloing, so bind it somewhere easy to reach.
Savage Defense: Part of a bear's mitigation toolkit. This suffers in solo play because it competes with FR. Still, it can be useful when you have too much rage (e.g. during berserk), or if there's some sort of dodgeable debuff (such as halfus's MS effect).
Tier 15 2-piece bonus: This makes SD a more interesting choice. Roughly speaking, it's worthwhile against any multi-target boss (think Shannox with his 2 dogs), and quick-swinging bosses. It's still not useful against bosses with significant unavoidable magic damage, so just because you have the bonus doesn't mean you need to use it.
Soloing notes:
The tank spec for druids. As the description implies, this spec will be focusing mostly on bear form, providing higher armor and better survivability than the other specs. Vengeance also makes it an offensive force in bear form, something other specs can't say.
This spec is also flooded in cooldowns. Get used to using them. There's almost nothing that you can't survive as long as you have the cooldowns you need available.
Guardian is far and away the best choice against bosses that melee for significant damage. The armor benefit and sustainable healing from FR are too good to pass up, and the high incoming damage brings its DPS up to par. It may not be the best choice for lower levels of incoming damage, but then again, those bosses are usually not the most difficult either, so it should work just fine.
This will be my main spec this expansion, and likely the main spec I'll be using for soloing. Expect most of the bosses to focus on Guardian soloing.
Gearing:
I'm favoring a high RPS/DPS build (i.e, Hit/Exp(15%) caps and crit) for the increased healing and shorter fights.
Agility is pretty good as a DPS stat since you aren't necessarily swimming in vengeance AP (like you would be in a raid), but it's still not that great for survival.
Stamina increases FR heals when below a certain level of vengeance. As far as I've seen, you're typically above that level of vengeance if you're getting killed. So I probably wouldn't stack this unless I needed it to survive a mechanic I want to soak for vengeance, but I appreciate having it on gear.
In general you just want high Ilvl stuff. Just about any stat you can get will help close the gap between incoming damage and the amount you can heal with FR.
Talents:
Green: Recommended
Yellow: Situational or Acceptable substitutes
Red: Not recommended
T15: Feline Swiftness and Wild Charge are both good choices. Pick whichever suits the fight better, or just whichever you prefer.
Displacer Beast is a good escape, but removes all vengeance and rage, and requires 2 gcds to use (1 to use, 1 to shift back). Use only if it's valuable, not a good general-purpose talent.
T30: Nature's Swiftness is the most versatile, however its healing is only competitive with Renewal, while costing GCDs and being weaker burst. Primarily useful for the utility spells you can instant cast, and not the healing.
Renewal is off the GCD, and works well with bear's higher HP and Might of Ursoc. It does have a long CD, though.
Cenarion Ward in 5.2 is a very strong heal. It's worth by far the most HPS of the tier, however its GCD cost lowers its usefulness a bit. Still a strong talent.
T60: Incarnation is a good defensive and offensive CD, and a shorter CD taunt can be situationally useful.
Force of Nature can taunt some bosses, and can be very handy on occasion for stacking debuffs or if pets are useful. They're worthless against bosses immune to their taunt, though.
Soul of the Forest is a small, passive RPS increase. Compared to Incarnation, it's just not that great.
T90: Nature's Vigil is a very strong healing CD, while also being a strong offensive CD. The 5.2 buff makes this even more valuable for any soloer.
Heart of the Wild gives a decent passive buff, but its on-use is situational. It can be handy for some fights, so keep it in mind, but NV is better for most situations.
Special note HotW cat is exceptionally good solo DPS (particularly with agility procs/potions/etc.), and makes this talent very good for farming older raids where bosses die in about a minute.
Dream of Cenarius is absolute crap for bears. Amounts to a 30% increase to your T30 talent.
T45 and T75: Pick whatever you want. If you see some talent being useful for a certain boss, go for it.
Feral
"Takes on the form of a great cat to deal damage with bleeds and bites."
Important abilities:
Predatory Swiftness: Provides a chance for a free, usable in form, instant cast spell whenever you use finishers. The main way for cats to keep themselves alive while solo, as it allows for a good amount of mana-free healing.
Glyph of Cat Form: Not really a spec ability, but it's the mandatory glyph for Cat soloing. It increases all of the healing that you do by 20%, except in those situations where you can safely drop Cat Form to heal.
Glyph of Ferocious Bite: Also a very good glyph. If you're having survival issues, use it.
Might of Ursoc: It exists, and it's a quick heal for 30% of your health (you get to keep the health when leaving bear form).
Soloing Notes:
When solo, Feral plays much like it would normally. The only real changes are A: you're forced to be in front of your target, and B: you're going to want to spend PS procs on healing touch on yourself, as part of staying alive.
I don't really have much to say about Feral atm. It feels about as good as Balance; which is best will more likely come down to preference, which is better for a specific encounter, or which you have better gear for.
Compared to Balance, Feral is going to do better DPS against harder hitting bosses. This is pretty obvious, since it spends less time healing. However, it can't really cast heals effectively, so its HPS is going to be pretty strongly capped at what you can do with PS/glyphs/L30 talents, where Balance might be able to spike its HPS up higher and better react to the boss fight.
Compared to Guardian, it's better DPS at low incoming damage, but capable of surviving much less.
One nice thing to note is that Incarnation+Prowl will actually drop you from combat. If a fight's turning south, you can get into stealth and reset it without dying. It's a handy little perk for people taking Incarnation.
Gearing:
Agility>all, looks like. Agility seems to be the top DPS stat atm, while also buffing up your healing, and your dodge (not well, but it's something). Otherwise, secondary stats look fairly balanced in terms of DPS, so I'd pick anything but Mastery (since it's the only one that doesn't allow extra finishers). I'd imagine normal raid gearing is perfectly acceptable, though.
Talents:
Green: Recommended
Yellow: Situational or Acceptable substitutes
Red: Not recommended
T15: Feline Swiftness, Displacer Beast, and Wild Charge are all good choices. Pick whichever suits the fight better, or just whichever you prefer.
Roughly speaking, FS for large, constant movement, DB for escaping melee range, WC for getting back to melee range.
T30: Nature's Swiftness is the most versatile, while still being worth a solid heal. It also gives 2 charges of DoC.
Renewal is off the GCD, but feral has free GCDs. Not affected by glyph of cat form. It's a larger heal than NS, but available half as often, and does not give DoC charges.
Cenarion Ward is a strong heal in 5.2, making it the #1 choice for HPS. It still does not give DoC charges, however.
T60: Soul of the Forest gives energy on finishers, thus allowing more attacks and more finishers. More finishers means more PS procs and more healing. Overall a good talent, both offensively and defensively.
Incarnation is an ok burst CD, particularly against enemies above 80% health. If burst is all you care about, take it. It also allows for prowl to be used in combat as a way to vanish and reset a fight gone bad.
Force of Nature summons treants that can stun. They do fine offensively, but outside of the stun they aren't effective defensively. Good if you want a temporary pet for some mechanic, otherwise I'd recommend SotF.
T90: Dream of Cenarius will buff every heal you cast. Without doubt a strong talent for long-term healing, while still having offensive benefit.
Nature's Vigil on a short CD is very powerful. Not quite as good for berserk burst anymore, but still a strong talent for high-damage phases, and now usable twice as often!
Heart of the Wild gives a decent passive buff, but not to the level DoC does. It's on-use can be powerful though, especially considering it buffs the heals you'd be casting anyway. Useful if you can put the on-use to work, otherwise not great.
T45 and T75: Pick whatever you want. If you see some talent being useful for a certain boss, go for it.
Balance
"Can take on the form of a powerful Moonkin, balancing the power of Arcane and Nature magic to destroy enemies at a distance."
Important Abilities:
Eclipse: It's everything to a boomkin in a raid, so it should be no surprise that it plays a large role in boomkin soloing. Eclipse affects how much damage you can do. Eclipse is your primary source of mana regen. Eclipse gives a short haste buff that can be used for improved damage or healing. You'll need to keep track of your eclipse meter, and you need to keep it cycling if you want to be capable of any respectable damage or healing.
Astral Communion: Used to "pre-pot" an eclipse, preferably right before the pull so you benefit from the 15% haste buff as well. Also useful to force an eclipse during downtime in a fight (for mana regen, mostly), or to cycle eclipses without dealing damage (to set up burst before switching phases, for example).
Glyph of the Moonbeast: Moonkin form is far too important to drop every time you need to heal. You're going to be casting heals very often when soloing as a Balance druid, so this glyph is mandatory.
Might of Ursoc: It exists, and it's a quick heal for 30% of your health (you get to keep the health when leaving bear form).
Soloing Notes:
The ranged DPS spec for druids, which alone makes it a good choice for certain encounters that have particularly melee-unfriendly mechanics (think striders on Vashj). Since 5.0, it's also become capable of pretty strong healing, and it's actually capable of sustaining that healing for quite a while, unlike Feral or Guardian. Unfortunately, healing as balance interrupts your DPS, so its DPS output against hard-hitting bosses suffers.
A typical boss fight will consist of face-tanking a boss while healing through its damage and DPSing whenever you find the time. DPSing is important, as each time you reach an eclipse state you regain 35% of your mana. Keep in mind that Balance is actually capable of DPSing from range, and decent DPS on the move, so kiting a boss is an option.
Another important aspect of Balance solo is the high burst it is capable of. If one phase of a boss is particularly dangerous, it's probably a good idea to have an eclipse ready for that phase (preferably lunar atm), and try and burn through that phase as quickly as possible, using Barkskin for pushback protection and damage reduction, as well as Celestial Alignment and Incarnation (if you have it) for the extra damage. At 90, with Nature's Vigil available, this should become even more powerful as you're recieving heals from the damage you do.
Get used to your health bouncing around a lot. You can heal well, but you're lacking in damage reduction.
Gearing:
To come later.
Talents:
Green: Recommended
Yellow: Situational or Acceptable substitutes
Red: Not recommended
T15: Feline Swiftness is my personal favorite, I found it generally more useful for getting around and kiting.
Wild Charge is on the GCD in moonkin form, making it a bad disengage. If you like it, don't let me stop you from taking it, I just don't like it.
Displacer Beast is a good escape, but costs two GCDs to use (one to use, one to shift back). Use it if an escape is needed or helpful.
T30: Nature's Swiftness is the most versatile, while still being worth a solid heal. It also gives 2 charges of DoC.
Renewal is off the GCD and is a sizable heal, but it's only available every 2-minutes.
Cenarion Ward is the prime choice for HPS. does not give DoC charges, but is worth more healing than NS overall.
T60: Incarnation is a very strong burst DPS CD. Works very well with other CDs to give balance some serious firepower every 3 minutes.
Soul of the Forest makes eclipses cycle faster. It's handy for mana conservation, and is an ok DPS increase.
Force of Nature summons treants with wrath. They're ok, and with Balance struggling to find time to DPS between heals can be good for DPS. I wouldn't take them unless pets work well with the fight, though.
T90: Dream of Cenarius can buff most heals you cast, as well as your DoTs which make up a large portion of solo DPS.
Nature's Vigil times well with Balance's other CDs (incarnation and celestial allignment) allowing very high burst every 3 minutes. Now usable twice as often for extra healing goodness.
Heart of the Wild gives a decent passive buff, but not to the level DoC does. It does have a good on-use, buffing the heals you'd be doing anyway, but unless you can put that use to good work, I wouldn't take it.
T45 and T75: Pick whatever you want. If you see some talent being useful for a certain boss, go for it. I personally like typhoon+Ursol's Vortex, since it allows easy AoE kiting.
LIST OF BOSSES
Note: This list is primarily tailored to
Guardian specced druids. If you want to know about a particular boss for the other specs, make a post here.
Unless otherwise mentioned, bosses are done on their easiest difficulty.
TL;DR VERSION
Vanilla: All bosses killable
Burning Crusade: All bosses killable
Wrath of the Lich King: All bosses killable on 10N, most on 25.
Cataclysm: BWD: 4/6 (all but Maloriak, Nefarian)
BoT: 4/5 (all but Sinestra)
Tot4W: 2/2
Firelands: 6/7 (all but Ragnaros)
DS: 3/8 (Morchok, Yor'sahj, Zon'ozz)
"Easy" |
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Bosses should not pose a significant challenge. You may wipe if you don't know mechanics, but otherwise you should be able to do them consistently. |
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"Medium" |
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Bosses should take some time to figure out how to deal with the mechanics. They should take some effort and probably a few wipes to learn, but should be consistently doable when you've figured it out. |
"Hard" |
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Bosses are several steps above the rest. They may take a specific gearing strategy or spec, or simply are above and beyond in terms of dps and survival (read: gear) requirements. They may also have significant RNG components to them. Expect many wipes while learning and executing these bosses. |
"Filler" |
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Either I don't know or I haven't updated it yet. |
Obviously an "Easy" Ulduar boss will be harder than an "Easy" MC boss. However, if you're doing the instance in appropriate gear, neither should take many wipes or much effort. Bosses that are in between are listed as such. If you feel my recommendations are off, feel free to let me know.
Vanilla
Molten Core
Loot:
Bindings of the Windseeker - Garr
Bindings of the Windseeker - Baron Geddon
Eye of Sulfuras - Ragnaros
Blackwing Lair
Loot:
Elementium Ingot - Blackwing Technicians: Material for
Thunderfury
Razorgore the Untamed
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Channel in bear form (for the armor). Kill eggs and put any nearby dragons to sleep. If you're dying: Drop channel and aoe. If he's dying: Drop channel and heal (to pull threat). Renewal is a good burst of threat if needed. |
Vaelastrasz the Corrupt |
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DPS race. You are given infinite rage/energy/mana. |
Broodlord Lashlayer |
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Tank by the gate to avoid suppression debuff. |
Firemaw |
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Ebonroc |
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Heals for 25k upon landing a melee swing. |
Flamegor |
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Chromaggus |
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Getting all 5 afflictions at once MCs you. |
Nefarian |
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He forces you into Cat form often, so be ready. |
Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj
Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
loot:
Red Qiraji Resonating Crystal and several other AQ-only mounts - trash mobs
The Prophet Skeram
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Battleguard Sartura |
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Fankriss the Unyielding |
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Princess Huhuran |
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Vek'lor & Vek'nilash |
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DPS check. Easy at 90. Make sure to only attack the one you can damage (melee for feral/guardian, caster for Boomkin). Before they die, hit the other one to get loot for both (re-tag them if they teleport, it drops threat). |
C'Thun |
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In the stomach, kill both flesh tentacles, then kill the main boss. |
Bug Trio: Yauj, Vem, Kri |
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Yauj first, as she heals. |
Viscidus |
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First, bring him to 1 health. Then, do frost damage with something (elemental force enchant, Brunnhildar Harpoon, etc). Finally, get in cat form and melee/mangle it while frozen. |
Ouro |
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The Burning Crusade
Karazhan
Loot:
Fiery Warhorse's Reins - Attumen the Huntsman
Gruul’s Lair
Magtheridon’s Lair
Magtheridon |
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Tank him up against a wall to avoid evade bugging |
Serpentshrine Cavern
Hydross the Unstable
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Move him away from his start if damage gets too high. |
The Lurker Below
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Avoid the spout, or suffer the long swim back to the fight. |
Leotheras the Blind
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It's not too hard to kill him before demon phase, or at least before demon phase stacks its cast too much. |
Fathom-Lord Karathress
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Don't have a mana bar. It might even be smart for balance to do this in bear. Burn Caribdis first. |
Morogrim Tidewalker
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Lady Vashj
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Balance Only. Stay away from striders. Make sure water eles don't reach her too often, but a few stacks won't hurt. |
Tempest Keep, The Eye
Loot: Ashes of Al'ar - Kael'thas Sunstrider
Void Reaver
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Spams a silence. Casters beware. |
Al'ar
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I think flame quills is still dangerous. If he's flying to the center, jump down. |
High Astromancer Solarian
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On trash: Kill MC'ing mobs (center mob in patrols) quickly to prevent the packs from resetting |
Kael'thas Sunstrider
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Loot and use the legendary staff. Prevents most CC in phases 3 onward. |
The Battle of Mount Hyjal
Rage Winterchill
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DnD is %health based. Move out fast, and don't hesitate to cast heals to survive. |
Anetheron
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Simple tank and spank. Try to reduce incoming damage to lower his healing (use SD). |
Kaz'rogal
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Azgalor
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I would avoid pets just in case he decides to cast doom on you. |
Archimonde
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Don’t let him near the tree or he’ll reset. |
Black Temple
Loot: Warglaive of Azzinoth,
Warglaive of Azzinoth - Illidan Stormrage
Sunwell Plateau
Loot:
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury - Kil'jaeden
Wrath of the Lich King
The Obsidian Sanctum
Loot:
Reins of the Black Drake - Sartharion (3 drakes alive, 10 man)
Reins of the Twilight Drake - Sartharion (3 drakes alive, 25 man)
Sartharion
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~40k DPS needed on 10 for 3 drakes. Kill drakes (Shadron especially) for an easier fight. Preferably bring a DPS spec |
Tenebron
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Shadron
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Must kill him before his portal spawns if alone. Slightly larger DPS check than just doing Sarth+3d |
Vesperon
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Naxxramas
The Eye of Eternity
Loot:
Reins of the Azure Drake,
Reins of the Blue Drake - Malygos (10 or 25)
Malygos |
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Phase 3 rotation: 1-1-2-3 repeat. Rest is a light DPS check. |
Vault of Archavon
Loot: Reins of the Grand Black War Mammoth (and alliance equivalent) - All bosses.
Ulduar
Loot:
Fragment of Val'anyr - any 25-man Boss. HM drops more.
Mimiron's Head - Yogg+0. 25 only.
Flame Leviathan
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Spam Pyrite from a demolisher. |
Ignis the Furnace Master |
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Point him into the water. If you're getting overwhelmed, point him away and shatter golems. |
Razorscale |
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Drag her to the friendly dwarves in phase 2. She'll switch and attack them when she stuns you, however, Lacerate and Thrash will pull threat while you're stunned. Be careful not to have either bleeds or HoTs up when you're about to reach 5 stacks in p2, or she will target you while you're stunned and kill you. |
XT-002 Deconstructor |
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A few CDs during tantrums are all you need. |
Assembly of Iron |
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Steelbreaker first makes for an easy fight. |
Kologarn |
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Easy. 2nd easiest to kill on 25, Leviathan being the first. |
Auriaya |
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Burn the sanctum sentries quickly. |
Freya |
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Don't let the big tree silence you; get under mushrooms in that phase. Kill the groups of 3 adds all together, or they'll respawn. |
Hodir |
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When he casts flash freeze, move out of the big circles, then get back on top of the snowdrifts that spawn. Otherwise, you die. |
Mimiron |
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Rockets still one-shot. In p4, all parts must die together. The head can be reached with AoE moves like thrash or swipe, as well as berserk. |
Thorim |
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General Vezax |
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Move out of shadow crash puddles, as they reduce healing. If you don't want HM, kill one of the crystals early. |
Yogg-Saron |
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AoE constrictor tentacles (swipe, thrash, shrooms, probably starfall). In phase 2, go for the corruptor tentacles first. We can't dispel their dangerous casts (Apathy, Black Plague). Do the brain room quickly, killing the brain in 1 phase. Then mop up remaining tentacles in p3.
Feral or Balance is most likely superior to Guardian here. |
Algalon the Observer |
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If your debuff reaches 5, you wipe. Once you get to around 31s with 4 stacks, get in cat and start kiting with dash. Continue running and using speed boosts until it drops.
Otherwise burst hard. He does hit pretty hard on DPS specs, so be careful if you're in one. For Guardian, HotW burst can be very helpful. |
Trial of the Crusader
Northrend Beasts
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FoN can soak Impale stacks. Try to kill Acidmaw before he submerges. |
Lord Jaraxxus |
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Be sure to kill those portals/volcanoes if doing it on heroic. |
Faction Champions |
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50% Mortal Strike, CCs, Interrupts, heals, etc. Try and blow one or two up early, it'll make the whole thing much easier. |
Twin Val'kyr: Fjola & Eydis |
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Don't panic if they heal, it's pretty easy to DPS through that. Interrupt if you can, of course. |
Anub'arak
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Don't panic in P3. Yes, Leeching swarm heals him, but it's hardly enough to worry about. Don't let yourself drop too low on health, or you'll be dead next time he freezes you. |
Icecrown Citadel
Loot:
Invincible's Reins - The Lich King (25-heroic).
Lord Marrowgar
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Tank&Spank. FoN will probably get you impaled and killed. |
Lady Deathwhisper
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Dispel curses. Kill any and all adds that spawn as soon as they spawn. |
Gunship Battle |
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Deathbringer Saurfang |
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Savage Defense is good here. It limits his Rune of Blood healing. Use it as much as you can without dying. |
Festergut |
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Video. Use FoN to soak stacks, and kill him before you reach 10. Much easier DPS check at 90. |
Rotface |
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Professor Putricide |
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Tank&Spank. Mechanics just don't happen when you're alone. I wouldn't risk FoN. |
Blood Prince Council |
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Only attack the one with health. They melee pretty hard, so DPS specs beware. |
Blood-Queen Lana'thel |
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She will bite you if you're alone, so expect a serious DPS check (with pretty much guaranteed survival). |
Valithria Dreamwalker |
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You have to heal her to full. HotW and a caster weapon is very handy here. |
Sindragosa |
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Heroic Video. Heroic will require cooldowns for her air phase. |
The Lich King |
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Heroic Video. Engineering is actually not necessary, it's possible to just tank the phase 1 adds and kill them without plague. It's a bit fun to heal through, though. |
The Ruby Sanctum
Baltharus the Warborn
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Saviana Ragefire |
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Tank&Spank. Time to heal if needed when she flies off. You can dispel her enrage. |
General Zarithrian |
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Wreck him with HotW, or just tank&spank. |
Halion
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Pick a realm, and DPS him. If you push him into the other realm too much (~30% corporeality) switch realms and DPS in the other. The DPS check is not rough even without much of a DPS buff, even being doable at 50% (normal) corporeality. |
Onyxia's Lair
Loot: Reins of the Onyxian Drake - Onyxia (10 or 25)
Onyxia
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Melee AoE abilities can reach her while she's flying. |
Cataclysm
Baradin Hold
Bastion of Twilight
Halfus Wyrmbreaker
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If slate is active, he can be pretty tricky, requiring good use of Savage Defense and the drake's stun to keep stacks low/drop them, and having a decent berserk timer depending on the other drakes active. Without slate? He's a joke. |
Valiona and Theralion |
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Against Valiona: CD for Blackouts, and constantly move around if shadow bolts are an issue. Against Theralion: Move out of fire. Easy, just takes ~44k DPS. |
Twilight Ascendant Council |
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Ignacious+Feludius: Don't stand close to Glaciate, either interrupt rising flames or run away to avoid the supercharged flame torrent. Bring both below 25% together with NV+Berserk, and you should be able to bring both to around 21-22%.
Terrastra+Arion: Easy to survive, mechanics can be ignored without much risk. Bring terrastra to ~37%, Arion to ~26-27%, then wait for harden skin to cast. Burn Terrastra while it's active, and you can bring him well below 25% (17% on my kill).
Monstrosity: Hold off on CDs as long as you can, damage ramps up the longer this goes. Move him so the puddles don't grow too big, and burn him fast.
(Ilvl: 486) |
Cho'gall |
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Also a gearcheck encounter, done at 498. Unless significantly overgeared, you'll likely get 3 blood phases before 25%. Use Thrash, SD, typhoon, berserk, whatever's at your disposal to not reach 25 corruption until the 3rd blood phase.
Finally, after the 3rd blood phase, wait for corruption to tick up to 100, then Inc+NV and burn Cho'gall down as far as you can. NV will heal you despite being at 100 corruption. Kill any eyestalks that spawn, but otherwise burn Cho'gall as quickly as possible.
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4onvNJms7Us |
Sinestra |
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Blackwing Descent
Magmaw
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Easy enough, just make sure you're facing him when he mangles you, or the head can be behind you while you're being eaten. You can just stay away from him between mangles, the head phases+initial phase should give you enough time to kill him before berserk. |
Omnotron Defense System |
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Tank and Spank, mostly. Don't trigger the shields, move them out of power conductors, and stay out of poison clouds. |
Maloriak |
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Remedy is going to heal him. A lot. |
Atramedes |
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His trash is harder. The left side is easy, for the right side; HotW and destroy the execution sentence guy. The rest will gain the ability, but it does not 1-shot, and with all 3 casting it at once, you won't die to the stun. |
Chimaeron
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Or random might be a better difficulty setting. Kite as much as you can in between melee swings; if you delay his attacks long enough, he'll only do 1 double attack per massacre, and it'll be much easier to survive.
NV is required, make sure it's available for the final 20%, as its healing will ignore mortality's 99% reduction. Renewal, LotP, and MoU can all also be used for healing in this phase. |
Nefarian |
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Throne of the Four Winds
Loot: Reins of the Drake of the South Wind - Al'Akir (10 or 25)
Firelands
Loot: Flametalon of Alysrazor - Alysrazor (10 or 25)
Smoldering Egg of Millagazor - Ragnaros (10 or 25)
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest - All Bosses (Quest)
Shannox
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Not too bad with 490+ilvl. The bleed is friendly fire (I don't know why either) so no vengeance. Faerie Swarm on Riplimb+Feline Swiftness work well to reset the bleed, though using a speed boost to get away from Shannox before Rip sprints back is strongly recommended. I found every other spear throw was good timing for resetting the bleed.
Ideally push him below 30% with NV+Berserk+SD while the dogs are nearly dead (so that berserk will kill them). The dogs will enrage, giving extra vengeance, and NV+Berserk will heal through that easily. It's just tank&spank from then on. |
Beth'tilac |
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When no one's downstairs, Drones bug and stay in the corner, and spiderlings stay by them. Before phase 2, you want all spinners down, and Beth nearly dead. One way to do this would be taunting all 6 of the first spinners, tanking upstairs through the first devastation, and hopping down during the 2nd devastation with Incarnation up to taunt the remaining 12. Whatever you do, just make it happen.
It may be a good idea to jump down for the last spiderling spawn as well. Depending on where they spawn, Beth can eat some of them before they make it to the corner.
Beth herself is not too dangerous. It may help to use CDs for widow's kiss, but that's it. |
Alysrazor |
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Balance Video (pre 5.0, but the strategy should still work). Consider HotW for the tornado phase healing.
If she's despawning on you, that means she got out of combat during Molting. Stay close to her at all times and constantly be attacking her. On the first set of feathers in the fight, wait until the last one to get your 3rd stack. |
Lord Rhyolith |
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Turning can be challenging. It'll take quite a few attempts to nail down what you are and aren't capable of doing while turning. Meanwhile, letting a volcano shoot at you is devastating, so you need to be quick about hitting them.
Gets much easier with gear. |
Baleroc |
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I'd recommend getting 25 stacks from alysrazor before pulling.
Killed post-berserk at ilvl 500. A gearcheck with significant RNG in blade selection and dodge luck.
Decimation blade gives more vengeance the more HP you have for it, and the more CDs (barkskin, SI) used, though they don't reduce its damage. It still might be best just to use SD and hope to dodge them, however. Decide whether you can survive and soak them for vengeance or need to dodge them whenever you get them. |
Majordomo Staghelm |
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~510 ilvl, but the major requirement is the t15 2piece bonus. It eventually devolves into backing up while spamming AoE moves and alternating SD to gain stacks/FR to use them.
Oh, and he hurts. My average FR heal was 239k |
Ragnaros
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Dragon Soul
Loot: Reins of the Blazing Drake - Madness of Deathwing (10 or 25)
Life-Binder's Handmaiden - Madness of Deathwing (10 or 25, heroic only)
Experiment 12-B - Ultraxion (10 or 25)
Mists of Pandaria
Will be dungeon runs for mounts, and any raids that are so poorly designed we can solo them while they're current!