I am having trouble soloing on Timeless Isle.

[Deleted]

Hello!

i've recently returned to the game from a long hiatus.
i played as a shadowpriest in TBC. i quit in wotlk and now i am back.

I leveled my priest to 90 and got myself an ok ilvl of 525. but i am having trouble soloing!
on the timeless isle i am having a very difficult time soloing elites most of the time i end the fights with me just being one hit away from being killed.
i get that these mobs are supposed to be tough, but around me i see people with an lower ilvl than me having almost no problems dealing with these mobs.

i don't know what i am doing wrong. are there any experienced shadowpriests that can help me out a bit here?

[Deleted]

Here's the issue the way I understand it: the elites on the Isle are either intended to be killed fast, or to be outlasted. Most DPS have enough burst to kill them before they kill you. However, as a shadowpriest, you naturally take longer to down them, because you don't have much burst outside of shadowfiend and devouring plague. Fiend has a 3 minute CD, and Plague about a 24 second CD which also can't be used on pull. so you need to outlast them.

The attacks that oneshot you are avoidable on most enemies. the other attacks can be outhealed if you know what you're doing. remember, you have a bunch of heals you can use on yourself, both talented and normal.

[Deleted]

yeah i have a shadowpriest to, they are way nerfed atm, and its not a good class to grind anymore, and in raids u dont do as much damage as rest of the casters, sorry but its your class

[Lurien]

Calamari has it spot on.
Its all about the TI buffs Chi-Ji shrine buff alone is awesome, add in the damage buff from Singing Crystal and Book of Ages and the healing of Dew of Eternal Morning and soloing all but the high HP Ordon elites easy.

[Calamari]

Edit: Doi for copy pastaing own message after being replied to. :P

Farmed Shao Hao to exalted solo as shadow at a pretty miserable 530 ilvl, so I can give you few tips:

1. Get Chi-Ji's Shrine buff, it nearly doubles your dps so is a must if you are going to farm for a while, but for the 20 elite daily Xuen and Yu-Lon will do as well.
2. Keep buffing yourself with Singing Crytal, Book of Ages, Dew of Eternal Morning (very common drops from all mobs on the isle) and the 5% food buffs scattered all over the isle, these combined with shrines are HUGE
3. All the elites require you to move alot, so speccing into FDCL, DI, Void Tendrils and Angelic Feathers is a good idea
4. Nearly all the elites (except for high priests of Ordos and tougher rares) can be rooted with Void Tendrils
5. Use Divine Star and Glyph of Renew to have a steady source of self healing
6. You can use Shadow Friend and Mindbender as "offtanks" by summoning them and Fading, if you really need a healing break for example
7. If you are farming Shao Hao rep, then a good spot is the camp of Kiln Masters and Flamebound Chanters just north of Leafmender (Firewalker Ruins would be fantastic but is usually overfarmed), little competition and lots of space, otherwise the Sanctuary of Ordos works as well but has very tight space

Good luck!

[Deleted]

If you are in danger, remember that void tendrils will often save you since most mobs only hit in melee. On gulp frogs it also makes it possible to make the stacks fall off. If instead you have issues in avoiding cones of damage, i.e. you see the cone on the ground but you are unable to move away before you get one shot, then it's not a gear problem. Unfortunately there's very little time to move away from these cones (I would expect that short warning in a raid fight, not from farmable mobs...) and if your latency is high you will die without any chance, even with better gear.

[Velerios]

Good tips from Calamari. But if it is too tough for you, you should try Holy Priest! With Chastise-Chakra your dps is decent enough to kill easily all enemys on the island, and since in chastise you don't use mana for dps, you always have enough mana for healing. (and don't even try disc; since you are healing everyone with atonement except yourself)

My spec for it:
Void Tendrils
Angelic Feather
From Darkness Comes Light
Desperate Prayer
Twist of Fate
Divine Star

You make more dps with mindbender, but with FDCL you have enough instant-flashheals to be always alive. And one extra-tip: before pulling an enemy lay down one angelic feather near you; if there is one special attack take the feather and run away.

[Deja Thoris]

You have the toolset, you just need to use it.

Try to get to new pulls with as many orbs as possible, abuse the hell out of void tendrils and fear. Keep your power word shield up and renew as much as possible. This should easily allow you to outlast most mobs.

[Hilltopperpete]

Big bump for the isle buffs- use all 3 consumables, eat the little fruits every 10 minutes and to heal up quick, and get the Chi-Ji or Yu'lon buff. Go inside that cave on the North side and click on the blue crystals on the ground until you get the Crystal of Insanity- might take 30 seconds, it might take 30 minutes, but it's +500 to all stats (Intellect/Spirit/Stam relevant) that you can always use, and it's just another cushion!

Don't use FDCL for shadow, especially when you're trying to burst single mobs down. Over the 10 seconds or less it takes to kill things, it's about a 100% DPS increase to (properly) use Solace and Insanity (tier 3) and always pair that with Divine Insight (Tier 5) and Divine Star for soloing (Tier 6). Your Shadowfiend does a ton of damage, you can use it every time you need to kill something with over 3M health.

(Solace and) Insanity supercharges your mind flay into a massive burst after using Devouring Plague with 3 shadow orbs (it works with less, but not ideal - try to always execute things with SW:D so you can have 2-3 shadow orbs when you attack a new thing- the rotation for elites is as follows (assumes starting with 2-3 shadow orbs:

Mind Blast - SW:P - Vampiric Touch - Devouring Plague - Mind Flay (Insanity buff when you use DP) - Interrupt Mind Flay channel and cast again before Devouring Plague expires (this allows you to have a full channel of Mind Flay buffed with Insanity) - Use Instant Mind Blasts - hard cast Mind Blast - Keep up dots - execute with Shadow Word: Death- press twice if it's near execute and try to finish with 2-3 orbs for the next fight. Use Divine Star as needed for a heal and a damage skill, but don't interrupt Mind Flay: Insanity channels for anything except generating shadow orbs or using Divine Star/PW:S to keep yourself from dying. When you're doing lots of damage, you can also use Vampiric Embrace- don't dink around trying to flash heal all the time- just kill things faster and you won't have any trouble surviving.

Devouring Plague heals you for a TON, as does Divine Star, if you're still having trouble, throw a PW:S on yourself before pulling things. If you still come close to dying a lot, you can use Spectral Guise (Tier 4) as a kind of Shadowmeld- hit it and you get a copy of yourself that things start whacking on- you can then speed boost talent and just run away to a place you're out of combat. I prefer Body and Soul because it's one less button to worry about and it's more likely to keep you from dying from the initial charge you if you get ganked, but Angelic Feathers are fine too. Spectral Guise is especially helpful if you get charged by the annoying Yaungol upstairs when you don't really want to fight them- just hit it and speed boost away.

[zorkuus]

I don't know what you're doing wrong. I had no trouble whatsoever on my Shadow the day I dinged 90 (and all it had was maybe half 496 timeless gear I had gathered with other toons). My guess is you're standing on easily avoidable "onehit" abilities.

[Souflikar]

Are you remembering to move? One thing to remember is possibly a little movement and timing. Most if not all the elites have some type of high damage burst that if you are standing right in front of them, you'll get stunned or knocked back taking lots of damage. I see so many decent ilvl toons just standing there taking a beating when all they have to do is just move a little.

[Telwar]

Big bump for the isle buffs- use all 3 consumables, eat the little fruits every 10 minutes and to heal up quick, and get the Chi-Ji or Yu'lon buff. Go inside that cave on the North side and click on the blue crystals on the ground until you get the Crystal of Insanity- might take 30 seconds, it might take 30 minutes, but it's +500 to all stats (Intellect/Spirit/Stam relevant) that you can always use, and it's just another cushion!

Upvote for using all self-buffs available. The Crystal of Insanity is a really good flask-analogue, but it doesn't last through death, and has a 15m CD. Try not to die more often than that.

As you kill more things w/o dying, you'll get a reasonable buffer of the buff items. Ideally, you'll be an armor crafter, gatherer, and archaeologist for a good supply. Otherwise, use the reward from the kill-20-elite daily to stockpile what you're short on.

You may also want to group; not only do kills come faster and easier, but you'll die less often and can handle bigger stuff.

[Osmeric]

Are you remembering to move?

For example, the cranes. Don't stand in the cone attack they telegraph.

[GKLeatherCraft]

Clothies can have a very hard time, I found out the hard way, I go there on my Guardian Druid and I don't have to move out of anything, I do, But it's not essential, I can even live through the punishment of Cinderfall, But then I went there on my mage, got lazy and BAM, Dead As others have said, Buffs!! Buffs buffs buffs, there are so many and getting them all increases your DMG by an insane amount, Good luck!

[kenn9530]

Good tips from Calamari. But if it is too tough for you, you should try Holy Priest! With Chastise-Chakra your dps is decent enough to kill easily all enemys on the island, and since in chastise you don't use mana for dps, you always have enough mana for healing. (and don't even try disc; since you are healing everyone with atonement except yourself)

My spec for it:
Void Tendrils
Angelic Feather
From Darkness Comes Light
Desperate Prayer
Twist of Fate
Divine Star

You make more dps with mindbender, but with FDCL you have enough instant-flashheals to be always alive. And one extra-tip: before pulling an enemy lay down one angelic feather near you; if there is one special attack take the feather and run away.

nothing wrong with disc i can kill most things on the isle solo and have no problems with healing, can even stand in aoe and fire crap without the need to move, disc is much better than holy for dps wise and the very little healing you will need to do.

[Buxton McGraff]

I'm in full Grievous PVP gear and I cut through elite mobs in no time.

[Socialhealer]

Clothies can have a very hard time, I found out the hard way, I go there on my Guardian Druid and I don't have to move out of anything, I do, But it's not essential, I can even live through the punishment of Cinderfall, But then I went there on my mage, got lazy and BAM, Dead As others have said, Buffs!! Buffs buffs buffs, there are so many and getting them all increases your DMG by an insane amount, Good luck!

high priest of ordos would like to have a world with you, it's not going to be long until 1.1million flame hits send any tank to the graveyard after a short while :P

[Thelxi]

Insanity is amazing for bursting down mobs since you get orbs back from executing. Spriests have one of the best single target mob grinding burst out there. Don't hesitate to use DP with 2 instead of 3 orbs either.

Also interact with stones until you get the chiji buff, and use the consumables that drop.

[NuLogic]

I messed around with my crappy shadow priest I think it's 515(thanks ordos) right now. Shield and devouring plague keep me at full health just fine.

[Osmeric]

There are three major consumables that drop, and you can use all three at once (and they do not interfere with food/flasks). All are nice.