Soloing, when did it start?

[bals]

BC was probably when it really took off, when that one hunter stacked healing gear and solo'd the world boss dragons.
Otherwise people have been trying to do hard/difficult things by themselves since the beginning of time in MMOs

[Tmbryant91]

He killed Kazzak in 2-3 seconds.
Reckoning was hot-fixed the same day :P

Don't forget the day that Fury Warriors could 1-2 bosses.


Also, Mages could solo Naxx if they kept spell stealing Bone Armor or whatever it's called.

[kaiadam]

I think the first solo of any raid content was that Chinese mage who blizzard farmed the Zul'Gurub crocs. I tried it myself and it was fairly lucrative, somewhere like 300g/hour and that was a lot of gold back in classic.

Edit:
Wow, found this 7 year old video of the guy I mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16l2kJPM0D0

[Frozenbeef]

I started soloing when they removed the raid entry requirement so i could go in freely without relying on other people (seriously i can't believe it took them so long to remove it >.<)

[Volitar]

Back in the day I leveled my Mage only through AOE grinding and soloing hard mobs. Shame it doesn't exist anymore.

[Pugbot]

Hi there,

as the soloing community has been growing extremly and everyone seems to fear the item squish, I just wanted to ask, when did the massive soloing of old content start? I'm pretty sure during TBC it was nearly impossible to solo any raid content (I had a level 70 mage with T4 and when I tried soloing BRD, I just got kicked my ass) or am I missing something? And as a second question: when did you personally start to solo old (raid) content?

Bye
Keashaa

Soloing has been around since Vanilla, since probably before the majority of the community even hit 60. Once you were 50+ you could solo trash in Scarlet Monastery and make good money. Also there was the random world elites that could be solo'd and would drop good money. Rogues could stealth through dungeons and get to bosses/trash they wanted. I remember soloing the fire elemental boss in BRD for essence of fire I think, you just had to run around his circle and kite him. Druids could really derp it up because all they had to do with him was run and spam moonfire.
Also back in Vanilla and BC there were a lot of mechanics that could be abused, rogues could dodge certain raid bosses all day, you could exploit wall jumping, hunters/warlocks with their pets could beat a lot of stuff. When feral became a viable talent tree in TBC druids were quite OP in some aspects of soloing.

Anyways I could go on and on, but soloing has been around since WoW has been around, since any MMO game has been around really. In Ultima Online you could solo their version of top tier bosses and spawn encounters that were designed for groups. For anybody who played it, wraith warrior with life leech weap against Darkfather in doom, or a mage could handle most champ spawns with slayer spellbooks.

I personally started soloing raid content in WotLK is the earliest I remember, I may have done it in TBC but I can't remember with what and against who, I know I solo'd the old Ony, certain bosses in the old ZG and the 20 man AQ, but I honestly can't remember if that started in TBC or Wrath.

[Cyrops]

Don't forget the day that Fury Warriors could 1-2 bosses.


Also, Mages could solo Naxx if they kept spell stealing Bone Armor or whatever it's called.

wat fury warrior bug? I somehow miss all the crazy bugs, didn't really follow the news that much back in the day. Only saw the Kazzak video because a roommate found it.


I personally started soloing in vanilla when I needed gold at level 60, was running low level dungeons, not very profittable. Azshara BElfs area was THE farming spot.

[Apollet]

First I ever personally saw was a 57 Paladin soloing Eranikus in Sunken Temple (probably one of the hardest leveling bosses at the time) and it took him 15 min, but auto attack with blessing of light, seal of wisdom, and judgement of wisdom allowed him to heal up.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Mmm...probably cata that I started soloing stuff. Before that there wasn't much reason to, then xmog comes and I want all the tier sets I destroyed (I still need to finish t5 for my pally, then I'll be satisfied with his xmog sets and can start to work on my poor shammy who has no decent looking gear). Now I'm running 10H firelands solo (though I wasn't able to kill worms before rag solo, had a friend come in to help me with those and just finish up the instance). Come t16 I might start seeing what of t14 I can solo.

[Deleted]

I remember boosting people through Deadmines at level 50 or something like that. Might have been earlier, might have been later, but it was a huge accomplishment for a new Gnome Mage with no previous experience in WoW.

[RickJamesLich]

Solo'ing has been around since close to the start, I remember hearing about all sorts of rogues that would go into the BRD bar for the barman shanker. Of course as the game went on, a lot more classes are viable for solo'ing stuff, especially older content. I hear prot pallies could solo onyxia in BC (never saw a video though). On my lvl 60 pally I'm 4/9 in MC, completely solo lol.

[Tmbryant91]

wat fury warrior bug? I somehow miss all the crazy bugs, didn't really follow the news that much back in the day. Only saw the Kazzak video because a roommate found it.


I personally started soloing in vanilla when I needed gold at level 60, was running low level dungeons, not very profittable. Azshara BElfs area was THE farming spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU82JNpZErQ

[Velthy]

I started in early WotLK, to get ZG mounts and stuff. Probably most of the people started to get something cool, and not have to share it with anyone.

[Misuteri]

Really? Some of these solo examples are really kind of easy. I solo'd BRD, LBRS and Scholomance in BC and I never felt it noteworthy. Scholomance I had on farm and could make 500g a run with DE/cloth/recipe drops, during BC that was big money.

Soloing has been around since the game was launched. It's just a matter of what you consider to be noteworthy.

[Trubo]

As others said Vanilla had enough content to solo: I remember farming SFK for weapons to twink a 19 Rogue before I quit the game. Recently though I've just been soloing bosses that can drop mounts though before the gold nerf I'd clear easier raids for drops and a decent chunk of cash.

[even]

It started in Vanilla, when Rogues went Dark Iron Ore farming in MC and a Paladin solo'ed Doomlord Kazzak. And on a small scale: Doing 5-man elite group quests solo

[Deleted]

Without bugs and overgearing content in WOTLK.

[Aoyi]

Soloing has always been around. Its become more popularized with Youtube and Twitch, but there have always been those who seek out greater challenges in games. Hell, I was pushin to see what content I could solo even back in FFXI (notoriously unfriendly for soloers game) just because I liked the challenge. Its why Brawler's Guild is one of my favorite MOP features. I still love to raid. There's nothing wrong with group content. Sometimes I just like to go in and see what I can do on my own.

[Teph]

The main part is, that Blizzard is quite cool about abusing game mechanics/finding exploits or some other stuff to solo something. Either they are ok with it or they fix it, but they dont ban you for it.

Not like some other companies that ban you asap for their incompetance.

[ihatepeople]

Started soloing when they introduced Transmog, I didn't have a desire to before that.