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A lonely Draenei's diary

Okay, so now's the time when I'm finally putting this together. I knew there is already a guide on the US forums, but it lacks precise stuff and more generally I believe it is the only guide up to date anyway and the community clearly lacks this kind of guides.
I'm doing this because :
- I'm tired of people who think we're doing amazing stuff. Our only merit (by our, I mean everyone who is doing that, even if we're more or less 2 "famous" names who often pop up) is that we have the idea before most people. But that's it. YOU can very much do it, it does not require some kind of magical skill or anything.
- I want to do something that hopefully will last and help some people a little. Even if it only helps one of two people, that's always that.


I had already made a guide one year ago, which was publihed on the Millenium website, but it was exclusively in french, you can always find it here and here if you are interested in Karazhan or MC bosses.

But now, our soloing possibilites have greatly expanded and we can explore a lot more zones. In this guide, I will hopefully talk about everything which is doable for the exception of Heroic instances which don't require a guide. Heroic instances are mostly about numbers and there are no strange mechanics usually.


First, let's talk about consumables. Consumables you should have (and use) are Drums of the Forgotten Kings, Drums of the Wild, Runescroll of Fortitude, 40 Str/Stamina food, as well as Flasks (AP or HP depending on the situation. Some bosses might be better to do with a 50 all resistance flask - Lesser Flask of Resistance)
For the very extreme bosses such as Archimonde, you might want to farm Crystal Wields from an Un'Goro quest, that reduces your target's armor by 200 and is a small but good DPS increase. Farming them is quite boring though, so don't waste them.

Second, here are the main specs used :

Blood DPS: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jcEGqc0IcdobssthxZ0g:Gpd
Blood Survival: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0E0qchIsfRbssthxZ0g:ipd
Unholy GhoulTank: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jcEuoc0cobZZzg0hxfbxcuzzuc:pbh
Unholy Survival: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0EuocbcoZhoZzg0hxbbgcuzzuc:pbd
Unholy DPS: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0ErocZZ0g0hxcbxcuLzuIVo:pdb


Obviously, a few variations happen here and there about some talents, or about glyphs.. I will usually tell you when to switch stuff around. I think the names of the specs are quite explicit and I'll just refer to them that way.


AQ40: Viscidus
Ok, I'm starting badly, since the spec will not even be one of the five I just mentioned.
The spec is here, and every non-spent talent point can be allocated anywhere as it doesn't matter at all.
You'll have to play as dual wield with as fast weapons as possible. Both weapons should be enchanted with Fallen Crusader and NOT Razorice.
Viscidus is immune to disease, so you can't death strike. You'll have to rely on passive healing from Blood Presence, Fallen Crusader, Rune Tap, etc.

You can find a video guide here. You'll have to use an addon such as Recount in order to count the number of Icy Touches you cast. Viscidus will freeze after your 200th Icy Touch. You should stop at 199 exactly, then get the boss under 5%. This shall take quite some time. Once this is done, switch into Unholy Presence, then wait for a Bloodworms x4 proc. As soon as you get that proc, use Army of the Dead and Raise Dead, and only after they've all risen from the ground, use Icy Touch. Viscidus will freeze, and your aim is now to deal as much physical attacks as possible in a short time. With AoTD, Bloodworms, haste/dualwield spec and everything combined, this is doable reliably without any sort of luck involved.
You can always equip a bit of Haste or Hit gear if you have some good items, for more melee attacks.


Ysondre, Lethon, Taerar, Emeriss :

They're listed in order of difficulty
The used spec will be GhoulTank, and I'll explain here the easiest strategy, I don't want to do into details for the most complicated one.
Your ghoul should tank the boss. Heal your pet with Ghoul Frenzy. Do not forget using every possible consumable (Drums, Runescrolls, etc) you have, because it double dips on ghoul's health.
You should avoid going in front of the boss as much as you can, unless he just used his breath ability (we all know dragons have asthma so they never breathe twice in a row)

Important notes : You should be in Blood or Unholy Presence, that's why the spec has some points into Subversion (aggro reduction). You can do an icy touch from time to time (14% atk speed reduction) or even deal a little damage as long as you are sure that you won't get aggro. If you ever get aggro, the ghoul will never get it again especially if the fight has lasted for long.

You should dodge the Sleep Powder clouds by running around the boss, you can also use the map to your advantage and jump from somewhere so that the cloud goes all the way around, etc. Be creative.
Rune Tap glyph allows you to instantly heal your ghoul for 10% of its health.
Against Taerar, always be cautious about his fear. If you are unlucky, it could get you right into a sleep cloud, and it could alsomake you go too far away from your ghoul and make it despawn.
In Hinterlands and Ashenvale, aggroing trash mobs happens frequently.
Against Emeriss, every 25% she'll cast a debuff that deals 100% of the target's health over 10 secs. Keep your IBF, AMZ or AMS (at least one of them) up for that time, as well as your ghoul's Huddle. Blow everything you an to keep your ghoul alive. Do not hesitate using Death Coils on it but keep weary of the breath.
Never forget rebuffing Horn of Winter close enough to your ghoul so the fight goes faster.


AQ40: Kri/Yauj/Vem

Same thing as above. Video here.
Your ghoul should tank the little one, aka Vem.
Princess Yauj can cast (huge) heals on everyone so she should be your number one priority to kill. AoE dps is worthless as whenever a boss dies, the other ones go back to full health.
Equippng a PvP or Wintergrasp trinket is very helpful in order to counter the unavoidable AoE fears.
The startegy is about tanking Vem out of range from his charge, which also has a knockback effect that would make you out of interrupt range for Yauj's heals. Swap into Blood or Unholy Presence (both are fine) so you don't get aggro from Ghoul fRenzy or your own healing.
Vem's range is about 20-30 yards. But Yauj has an instant AoE fear. You don't want to be too close nor too far away from Vem (entering charge range or ghoul despawning, respectively) and you should generally try to stay at Ghoul Frenzy's max range which is a nice sweet spot.

Interrupt every heal you can. Once in a while, there will be nothing you can do about it (fear heal right off the bat). If Yauj is low on health, be ready for this and blow your PvP trinket when needed. It's really pointless to use it if Yauj is at nearly full health though, that'd just be a wasted cd.
Do not forget that Strangulate can be used as a ranged interrupt, just after a fear for example.
Do not hesitate equipping DPS gear (which will make the fight a lot easier), the mobs aren't dealing that much damage.
The real difficulty of the fight is about killing Yauj in a small amount of time. The encounter has a 15 minutes enrage timer, which is more than enough to complete it, but if you let too many heals go through, even if you manage to kill Yauj you will never kill the other 2 ones in time, and they'll just enrage when you thought you had won.
Do not hesitate to reset the fight if it just lasts for too long - all you need to do is to leave the room. Can be frustrating to do with all the fear/kbs.


AQ40: Fankriss

Just hit the boss. It's mostly a number fight. An Unholy spec axed on survival does the trick for him. You can take 4 points out of some talents and grab Outbreak+ Scourge Strike if you really want to, using Scourge Strike instead of Death Strike when the healing debuff stacks to 100%.
Hit the worms as soon as they pop, it's your absolute number one priority. Keep your ghoul stun for critical moments such as when you're stunned and a worm goes into berzerk mode.
Aside from that, nothing special. The best way to make the fight easier is to keep a good DPS and make it a quick fight. Prolonging the fight won't do you any good.


AQ40: Huhuran

Nothing special, again. Mostly a number fight. Either you have enough gear or you don't. You can use a Lesser Flask of Resistance here. You can also start the fight in Blood Presence in order to gain a little DPS (so poison stacks a little less)

Another strategy (which I never needed as zerging was enough, but might help if you have trouble) consists in make your ghoul tank and bring the boss down as much as possible before it dies (do not get aggro). It's basically the same thing except that you'll fight a weaker version of the boss and start getting poison stacks at let's say 70% instead of 100%. Poison stacks are really what kills you anyway.
Be way about Huhuran's silence which last for very long.
I don't remember exactly what debuff is from the poison type in all these debuffs, but there's one you can dispel with Purification Potion.


AQ40: Ouro

You can't wipe, really. You'll need to get past the twins, though... and if you want to get past them.... I guess that's what all this new integration to Faceb.... friend list is about.


Karazhan: Curator

It's quite old, but I didn't describe it in my old guide (couldn't do it back then). Simply use death strike on the sparks that spawn. You might want to use Chains of Ice instead of Icy Touch in order to apply FF wihout dealing any damage, as sparks have very little HP.


Karazhan: Netherspite

Same as above, quite old and couldn't do it back then. Equip as much DPS gear as you can, get all beams, and zerg it before it gets beams itself and regens back to full. Do not hesitate strafing a little because the red beam won't do you any good if you stay in it for TOO long, the 2 most imorta ones are blue/green anyway. Aside from that, kill him in under 1 minute and you should be fine.


ZA: Nalorakk

This boss required quite a lot of gear back then, I guess nowadays he's pretty trivial. The most adapted spec will be a Blood one but Unholy will perfectly do the trick.
You should keep CDs for every bear phase (unless you magically dodge every Mangle debuff during the human phase). He'll just demolish you in bear phase so it's really all about your CDs. Don't blow them all in the first bear phase, you don't need them all, and you will have to go through at least 4 bear phases anyway.


Akil'Zon is quite simple as long as you manage to reset the nature debuff stacks he's applying on you regularly. Use AMS when it's a few seconds from fading. Aside from that, keep a good DPS up and spam Pestilence like you never did so you kill as much birds as you can.
DPS wasn't that hard to get back then so it really shouldn't a problem now with all the gear avaialble.

Jan'alai is a joke. You can't wipe on Jan'Alai. If you somehow wipe on Jan'Alai I have no idea how you even managed to read everything up to here.


Halazzi is probably the boss the requires the most gear in all of ZA, but he's not that hard as long as you kill totems quickly. The most adapted spec is a Blood one, again, but Unholy will perfectly do the trick once more.
It's really all about focusing totems ASAP.


ZA: Malacrass

Here's a boss where a spec is mandatory, and that is Unholy. The video guide is here.

This fight can either be a hard one or a cakewalk. It all depends on you. He only has 2 annoying abilities, which are the ones he'll steal to our class:
-Death and Decay. He'll literally spam that. It's annoying and deals quite nice damage.
- Mark of Blood. Heals for boss for 4% anytime you hit him while the mark is up (dots excluded). I don't really need to explain why this can ruin an attempt if you don't pay attention.

First, kill all the adds. This shouldn't be a problem at all. Focus the healer if there's one (blood elf female)
Second, fight Malacrass. Here's the good news : he can cast the mark on either you or your ghoul and will never cast a second one unless the first one fades.
So you'll have to watch out the debuff duration. Stop hitting just before he puts a new mark, then attack or set your ghoul to attack accordingly. It's long, it's annoying when you get the mark 4 times in a row, but it's not like you have a choice.

Small note : When you have the mark, you can refresh diseases with GoD without healing the boss as long as you don't trigger a melee white hit. Pestilence + removing your target at the same time works wonders.
And now to conclude ZA....


ZA: Zul'jin

He's very easy as Unholy (makes phase 3 quicker). He'll try intimidating you by transforming into various animals (bear, dragonhawk... worse, he even has a troll form). But since you've killed plenty of these animals since you're level 2, you should be well prepared and not have any problem whatsoever with him.

Jokes aside, he's really easy. He really doesn't have any ability that can kill you : even if you stand in the fire, the fire only ticks for what ? 2000 ? 3000 ?

The only annoying or dangerous phase is phase 3. Avoid the tornadoes and don't get locked up in a corner as they'll probably kill you. Run around until your ghoul deals enough damage to the boss (60 -> 40%) and he gets into phase 4.

IBF or AMS allows you to avoid getting stunned in phase 2. Now stop slacking in ZA and go somewhere else, such as Maghteridon's Lair.


Magtheridon

It's currently not doable to kill a channeler before they heal themselves. The fight is all about killing Magtheridon while the 5 challeners (and their infernos) are alive. Don't worry, it's prefectly doable and actually they don't hit for much damage at all.
It's mostly a tank & spank fight and the only interesting notes I'll tell about this fight is that you might have a trouble with enrage if your DPS is very, very low.
There is also a noteworthy bug which causes the boss to despawn. A known way to counter that bug is to stand in a corner, completely against a wall, and not move for the whole duration of the fight.
As another sidenote, this is probably one of the most lucrative dungeons in terms of gold/time spent.


Gruul


Nothing much to say there. The only trick you can do is switching into Blood Presence at the begining so you gain a little DPS, then switch back into Frost when Gruul starts getting to many growths. Avoid AoE damage, obviously. I'm not sure Gruul really deserves a place here seeing Maulgar isn't even soloable... But hey. I said I'd list everything.


BT: Supremus

Another tank & spank. I'll stop after this one, I swear. Blood spec is the best for this one. Enrage timer is 15 minutes. There isn't any strategy aside from not taking damage from volcanoes in p2, and that you should stay in melee range regardless of p2. Beating the enrage timer (3500+ DPS) is your main concern so equip a bit of DPS gear if required. It's basically the same thing as other gear checks, except bigger, harder hits than the previous ones and he has more health. It's still not a gear check as hard as the more extreme ones described later in this guide, but he's still quite a nice step above most bosses. But you can't solo Naj'entus.... so bring friends for him.


TK: Al'ar

Phase 1 is boring but actually the most mportant part of the encounter. Basically, all you do until 50% is simply DPS'ing the boss (and following him around on the platforms) and dps every add that spawn so you don't get overwhelmed. After 50%, you should stop DPSing the adds and keep them alive. Refrain from using pestilence as much as you can and only kill an add if you really do not have anything else in range you can use Death Strike on.
The aim of this strategy is to beat the enrage timer in p2 (2M+ hp, 10 minutes). Whenever a add dies, Al'ar loses some percentage of its health, and the more adds you can kill right off the bat in p2, the less health Al'ar has.
During p2, be wary of the armor debuff which will make you quite vulnerable if you're unlucky with avoidance. You can't counter that debuff, just be careful.
You don't really need to equip DPS gear but a piece or two (let's say a DBW or something) might help. Any spec can work for this encounter.


SSC: Morogrim

Easiest boss to solo in SSC. He'll just take a lot of time and will spawn a lot of agrlgrgrgrglgrglrglrlgrlglrglrglrlgrlgrlgrlglr (guess what I mean by that?) that you'll simply AoE down with pestilence and blood boil. Any spec works here. The easiest way is to tank him next to a door (on the Naga side) so that the bombs that spawn while under 20% explode by themselves without hitting you.


SSC: Lurker

This boss has an awful lot of HP and will submerge over and over. FYI, my first kill took over... 50 minutes...
An Unholy spec is recommaned as Lurker "spams" a little knockback effect which can target your ghoul instead of you.

During phase 1, always hide underwater when Lurker uses Water Spout. Water Spout has always been an amzing ability (most popular user being Choice Scarf Kyogre...) and WoW makes no exception.
If you kill every trash pack on the platforms above, there will be a debuff dealing a little bit of damage when you step in the water. If you don't kill all the trash mobs, some fish will spawn and attack you. Pick your poison, I guess. Fish deals an awful lot more damage than the debuff, but then you don't need to clear all the trash packs.
The strategy is mostly about the add spawn in p2. You won't be able to kill every possible ranged spawn, but killing one is enough and makes you safe. Bring the melee nagas next to a platform where ranged nagas are standing, and try hitting them with Pestilence. Normally they should die from that, finish them off with a Death Coil or two if that isn't the case.

Some ranged nagas will remain on the other platforms but as long as you don't kill them, no more will spawn on these platforms. They'll only respawn on the platform where you killed them, and you can just do it over and over.
Cleaning one platform out of three seems like the best compromise to me. Some people do not kill anything at all but using Pestilence that way doesn't change anything but make your life easier.


SSC: Leotheras

One of the hardest bosses you can solo atm. As with every hard/strange boss, here's the vid I made of it.
This boss is done in nearly full DPS gear, with one of two tank items (just the bare minimum to survive. I used Festergut's belt as well as Corroded Skeleton Key and nothing more). I do not see anyone killing him without insane gear (277 everywhere) or Shadowmourne, or a complete new strategy which allows you to survive more than one p2, while tanking it yourself.
The spec is an Unholy DPS spec in which you should get Outbreak and Scourge Strike.

The boss has 3 phases, the 3rd being at 15%. The two other phases are alternating between an humanoid and a demon phase. Aggro is reset at every transition.

Humanoid phase is simple. The boss deals quite pitiful damage and has no ability whatsoever aside from a whirlwind during which he'll deal the same damage as before. It's the phase during which you'll have to deal as much damage as possible, and that's why you get Scourge Strike and should be alternating between this and Death Strike depending on your health.
I don't use GoD and use Glyph of Icy Touch instead for that particular fight. It's a good DPS increase and GoD is next to useless here.
Use any boss mod so you can see the demon phase timer and apply your diseases in such a way that they'll fade right before demon phase starts.

You should stop DPS'ing right before the demon phase and let your ghoul get aggro when it resets. The boss will spam a bolt as long as you're in range, you should run out of range ASAP.
When you won't be in range any more, the boss will stop casting his bolts and start meleeing the ghoul. Since you're in full DPS gear, your ghoul will take quite a lot of damage and will lose health quite fast even through Ghoul Frenzy.
You can regen 10% through IT or PS+Death strike on the demon that will spawn. Do not bother applying all diseases as IT+PS WILL kill the demon. You can always try Chains of Ice to apply FF, instead of IT.

When your ghoul will be close to dying or the humanoid phase is close, come back into melee range and give as much dps as you can. Take some risks. Do not be reckless either, as the boss can quickly put an end to your attempt if you accumulate too much fire debuffs. It also depends on your number of cooldowns available, your health, etc.... act accordingly.
This will go until 15%. At 15% a demon will spawn while Leotheras remains in humanoid form - you should send your ghoul tank the demon immediately (one or two bolts will still be cast on you regardless). Tank Leotheras close enough for Ghoul Frenzy but out of range from the bolts. Here, it's simple. Either :
- The demon kills your ghoul, then starts following you and you die ineviatably after a more or less long time
- Leotheras enrages because your DPS is too low
- You kill him before he kills you.

Important trick : Jumping sometimes allow to not to take damage nor the debuff from the bolt cast by the demon. So.... jump.


Sartharion

If you have people that are ready to get tagged into the instance and kill every miniboss as well as every trash mob with you, then you can try to solo Sartharion. 245+ gear is required more or less.
Spec can be either Blood or Unholy axed towards survival, both works.
You can pick your poison. Either enrage becomes "hard", or surviving becomes hard. This is a lot amplified on this boss comparatively to other bosses, so swap in DPS gear if you have troubles with enrage but don't go overboard. I think you can easily beat the enrage timer anyway without swapping any DPS gear at all.
You should aim for around 2700-2800 single target DPS which is really doable with current gear. Every piece of tank gear you'll keep over a DPS gear one is some more margin of error for adds.
When flame waves appear, do everything you can so that not only you don't take the wave, but adds shouldn't either. Use Death Grip when necessary to get the mobs out of the way. I'd rather take a wave myself (and blow a CD) and not let the adds take one than the opposite.
Aside from that, there's nothing much to say really. It's all about managing the waves and if you ever get an "enraged" add (ie add takes a flame wave), either kill them quickly (if multiple ones got the enrage buff) or simply wait (if only a one one took the buff).
The DPS requirement is not really hard any more so you can fully concentrate on the waves.



Hyjal :

(video here)

Get an Unholy DPS spec for the 4 first bosses. Full tank gear for trash waves, and some mix of DPS and Tank gear for bosses (it's up to you to know which items are good for you and which aren't.... and yeah, if you overestimate your DPS or survival capacity you're going to do the 8 trash waves over and over again until you find the good combo.)

You could switch into a Blood Spec for every boss aside from Rage Winterchill but you have a limited time before the boss comes and engages the fight so I'm not sure this is really a great idea. It works well enough as Unholy.
Flask of Endless Rage for every boss.

A general concept you should always keep in mind : Save the NPCs, save the world. You absolutely need them for either bosses (Jaina's base) or trash waves (Thrall's base).
As a general rule, try to pull every trash wave into NPCs. You have to be wary about th eAbominations since their AoE will kill them quickly, if there's too many abominations try to seperate them (running will separate them) and bring them down quickly.

Particular notes for trash waves :
IBF makes you immune to the abomination mini stun.
Rage Winterchill, wave 6 : Kill at least one of the 6 (!!!) abominations before pulling back all the wave Jaina's base. Or they'll kill some footmans.
Purification Potion works wonder for removing Banshee's curse which reduces your chance to hit by 66% for 5 minutes.
Anetheron, wave 7 to 8. Watch closely the banshee's curse on your Ghoul and dismiss it immediately when it wears off. Purification Potion works on you but not on your ghoul, if you don't then some banshee from wave 8 will put a curse back on your ghoul.. When you'll summon back your ghoul after trash wave 8, your ghoul will still have all your buffs (drums, food, etc)
A Purification Potion has to be used after Anetheron's 8th trash wave to clear the curse from yourself, unless you're very lucky and didn't receive one.
For every flying wave (Gargoyles, Frost Wyrms), abuse the exceptional aggro egenration from Icy Touch. You can basically use it as a taunt. Save the NPCs!
In the orc base, the tauren warriors have an AoE stun they'll spam on trash waves. It makes surviing SO much easier and always try to pack every wave onto taurens.
Purification Potion is still useful in the orc base. Really, try to make a lot of them before entering Hyjal. I can't say how important this is.
Try to be careful with Infernals in the final trash waves. Their AE might kill the taurens. They shouldn't and it never happened to me, but you never know.
Frost Wyrms will come closer to the ground if you go out of range from their frost breath while holding aggro.


Now onto bosses, which all have 3M hp (Archimonde has 3,2 but fight stops at 10%) and a 10 minute enrage timer :


Rage Winterchill

DPS Unholy spec is mandatory. You should equip a bit more DPS gear than usual but keep enough HP so you don't die in some unlucky frost tomb chain.
IBF makes you immune to frost tombs, so use it intelligently.
You can't stay in the Death and Decay and have to come out of it ASAP. The zone is huge and a lot larger than the one you can see on your screen.
Refresh Ghoul Frenzy on your Ghoul during Death and Decay. Even with its passive AoE reduction, it'll take a lot of damage.
Your goal is to optimize DPS time. Every friendly NPC will die after the first death & decay (aside from the 3 elven priests that'll just spam smite, do not run into them so they stay out of range from DnD). You should wait until the very last moment beore aggroing the boss and try to get help rom all the friendly NPCs as fast as you can. A good objective is to put Rage at 85% before the first DnD. If you can manage to do that, you have a nice start.
In order to still maximize your DPS time, use AMS ONLY for death & decay. Try refreshing your diseases right before leaving melee range. Spam Death Coil with the RP generated by AMS. Use your second AoTD during DnD.
I manage to do roughly 3K1 dps on the boss (which is quite high considering the mechanics of the fight) and sometimes have trouble with enrage when doing the instance. It's really one of the hardest bosses (in terms of DPS requirement) you'll ever encounter for now.


Anetheron

Either Unholy or Blood DPS specs work. The key to the fight is to make NPCs spread in a way that :
- all of them are not being damaged Carrion Swarm
- all of them are out of range of the Inferno's pulsing AoE that would kill them very fast otherwise. Even Jaina can die quickly to that AoE.

You should get a positioning that minimizes carrion swarm damage, and you should get aggro onto spawning infernos before they land (and possibly stun you). If you have aggro instantly, they won't move and won't deal damage to friendly NPCs (who will keep DPS'ing the boss)

The pull, once again, is the most important part. Wait until the very last moment before pulling, and get your friendly NPCs to help ASAP. You should NEVER move while an Inferno is spawned (unless really necessary). Kill the infernos ASAP, they're the real damage dealers here.
Once Anetheron starts spawning infernos, you won't have a lot of time between 2 of them so there are chances that your positioning right before the first one will be your definitive positioning. I can't insist enough on the importance of the pull.

Ideal positioning could be drawn that way :

Kill every inferno that spawns until the boss has roughly the same hp as them, then obviously finish the boss. You can always try your luck by tanking multiple infernos, but that's very risky and only do that if you're really short on the enrage timer (which shouldn't happen regardless of your personal DPS unless you're really AFKing or you're just doing it wrong about managing NPCs which will probably be the main reason of wiping.)


Kaz'rogal is a trash mob. I kill him in 5 minutes which is half the of enrage timer, and he never brings me under 80% hp. He's just a big trash mob, really.

Azgalor

Same as Kaz'rogal, except you'll have to run around so the NPCs help you as long as possible (their DPS helps making the fight easier and you'll need them if you want to beat the enrage easily). All NPCs will die after a while, but hopefully late enough so that DPS isn't a problem. Your only concern should be about making Thrall survive, so let him out of the rain of fire ASAP. You shouldn't be concerned when Thrall hits 50% or even 80% - you should be concerned about that from the very beginning of the fight.


Archimonde

Archimonde, who's the pinnacle of DK soloing at the time I'm writing this guide, needs a very particular spec and really amazing gear, even more amazing than Leotheras which was already very regarding concerning gear.

The strategy isn't that complex. You should use AMS and Lichborne against the casted AE fear, stay out the the fire, and watch out for bad surprises in your back or at your sides (some more fire).
The spec is really weird. Do not ask how I made up that spec, it doesn't even get Rune Tap, but it really maximises everything you can get for every single talent point. Yes, Improved Blood Presence is a better point per point investment than Rune Tap when you need DPS. Just copy it... it works. Here is the spec : http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0EGV00IcdRfostGx0dZ0g:pGd
Theorically you need 4800 DPS (while surviving the boss...). Every single succesfull kill I've done I always had 5K+. You need to be at least a few seconds confortable because a fear WILL happen at some point (you can't avoid them all)
The difficulty is really about beating that enrage timer which is so, so tight. Your rotation should be as close to perfect as possible, you should adapt to your avoidance as much as possible and try to stay as high in health as possible (Blood Gorged), use Hysteria/DRW with defensive cooldowns to compense for the HP loss, etcetc.

The most important part is about being as reactive as possible for AMS'ing the fear casts, because his fear cooldown is shorter than your AMS cooldown. The more reactive you are, the greater your chances that AMS will be up just as he casts the next fear increases, and yes, a mere half-second could be the difference between a kill and an enrage.
You WILL take fears; That's where Lichborne helps. At some point you'll take one without Lichborne nor AMS and that's DPS you're losing, as well as getting destroyed (no more heals + no avoidance + curse = your HP drops like Titanic.)
At 10%, which is 2,9M hp later, Malfurion will blow the horn of Cenarius and yay! you won. Good luck.


Finally, to end this guide, some additional notes :

- I managed to put Sapphiron at 49%. He enrages too fast, unfortunately (15 minutes). The key of the fight is to use every single cd you have (including corroded skeleton key, I literally mean everything) to mitigate Life Drain damage. You shouldn't have a problem surviving so it's really the key to reducing Sapphiron's self healing.
Running around allows you not to take damage from Blizzard.

- I put Kil'Jaeden at 79% (enrage, 15 minutes). Survival is HARDCORE, you should counter the 1sec Fire Boom cast with AMS (once every two, or once every three depending on your luck) perfecty, there are lots of small details you should do correctly. He also does small KBs I don't remember seeing at level 70 but I didn't find a way to avoid them (I'm standing at max melee range.). When Sinister Reflections spawn at 85% you should start running like crazy as long as KilJaeden channels his Shadow Spikes (if you get hit, you get a 50% mortal strike.) and bringing down the Reflections should be your #1 priority.
This boss is absolute fun, but unfortunately you'll need friends to clear Sunwell for you.
You can kill the shadow orbs with Pestilence (mouseover deathcoil macro helps too)

- Flame Leviathan 10 is obviously soloable, even with one tower up. The next challenge is about doing it with TWO towers! Cataclysm will probably make us able to do the 25 man version, or the 4 towers version in 10, and I'm even wondering if the 25 man version isn't already soloable.

- You can kill faction leaders (who roughly all have the same stats) if you take away the mechanic that spawns lots of angry ret paladins whenever you try to solo them. I took a lot of time to understand how to pull Sylvanas correctly and the only answer is that you shouldn't attempt to do her on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. That's pretty stupid, but the BG weekend NPCs create something that makes all the warmasters come to you at someoint during the encounter, while that never happens when you do it during the week. Have fun staying up late at 4am (disables the ret paladin spawning mechanic) during the week, though.

- I managed to stay up to 6 minutes~ alive versus Malygos, which was around 85%. I did this as Blood spec, as Unholy you can probably survive up to the enrage timer (I think). It's quite fun to deal with the Power sparks and everything, so if you're looking for fun try it out!

- I didn't say how to kill Saurfang. That's a personal challenge, and I won't tell! It's probably easy now, but I still think he can quickly kill anyone who isn't prepared. The only thing I might say to help you is that you should never cast Horn of Winter.


Here, this guide is (hopefully) complete. Since I'm not really good at closing posts, I'll just end up like that.
If you have any suggestion (or even a better strategy for a few bosses!) feel free to tell me about it.
If you think this should be posted elsewhere (mainly wow forums), either inform me or just go ahead and do it. :)
Hoping this will help as many people as possible and possibly answer some of the frequent questions I get.

6 commentaires:

  1. Good read, Mionelol. Sadly I think I'll have to wait until Cataclysm before I can kill a few of these bosses myself. :)

    Symphonia

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  2. I have been trying a few stuff on the beta myself, and it's soooooo bad I'm really depressed.
    I can barely solo Heroic Forge of Souls with a premade DK (full 251 gear).
    :(:(

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  3. I've been worried about a few of the Death Knight changes I've read. Is it the new rune cooldowns that make it so bad?

    P.S. If you have anything like MSN, AIM, etc. send me an email at renderjr@gmail.com so that we can chat! I don't think we can use battle.net across US/EU. :(

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  4. The new rune system is just awful. Awful isn't enough of a word.

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  5. As a small heads up, I could now transfer on Beta my own DK instead of some shitty premade, and the first thing I did was soloing Al'ar. I did have a few "woops" moments (but didn't wipe), and the kill took a little longer than expected, but the Masteries aren't introduced at all (100% life shield gg) and I couldn't even train Runic Empowerment (which is OP as Blood). The only thing that might be bad is our DPS, but I don't have recount so I can't be sure. If anything, Cata is a big buff (except versus magical damage dealers, which will be tough to solo since life shield won't absorb anyting)

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  6. 2nd note, forgot : This was done as 80 with the exact same gear I have on live, I didn't use my leveled DK. I transfered my DK 2 times so I'll keep this DK at 80 for testing only. I'll be sure to try out new bosses as soon as Masteries are introduced back ingame!

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Wut is this?

Ca, c'est le nouveau blog de Mione, version new gen, comprendre par là qu'il s'agit du retour de la vengeance du blog en rose tout moche, mais en plus joli, et surtout sans le rose (enfin... yen a moins)

Tant que j'y suis.
FC Brawl : 0860-5450-4164 (j'accepte tous les challenges, même si ca lag)
FC Pearl : A demander en PM, seulement pour les coupains !