Sure, getting together with 40 of your best friends and leading an epic raid on the alternate faction's capitol city can be
fun, but I have to say that there's fun to be had
doing things all by yourself, too.
Some classes were soloing Onyxia at level 70 -- and it seems like
just about everyone can solo her at or near level 80. (For those thinking of trying this yourself -- it's good fun and not a bad amount of gold for the effort.)
Zul'Gurub and
Ahn'Qiraj (the 20-man wing, at least) have both been cleared (mostly) by a lone player. Karazhan has been
cleared with a group of 3 -- though in our post-
Wrath world, I'd imagine that everything save Netherspite could be easily managed with less. (And at some point even Netherspite is bound to be overcome by brute force.)
To solo or not to solo, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Hunters (who sometimes seem to think they have a monopoly on soloing content) or to take arms against a sea of dragons (dragons, elementals, demons -- we're not picky), and by opposing, earn epic (albeit under-level) loot. So, tell us, what have you soloed lately?
Tags: onyxia, raid, raiding, solo, solo-instances, solo-onyxia, solo-raid, soloing
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Classes
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Dec 23rd 2008 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Hamma Dec 23rd 2008 8:29AM
I remember when the King was there back in the day. You could go down into one of the underground areas and there he was just standing there.. of course he was a shadow of his current self.. the current King I would hope could fight his way out of there.
It wasn't always protected by as many elites and random things as it is now.
vazhkatsi Dec 24th 2008 2:57AM
actually, i just finished that quest ghain, and now it actually ahs an ending other than the cliffhanger
Amaxe Dec 23rd 2008 8:19AM
My guild is casual, so most of the work is done soloing except when we organize an event (with the new calendar system we are getting better at it). I had help running certain instances getting to 60 [I had an account with a 70 Warrior, quit for a year then came back and had to catch up on a new account] but a lot of what I did from 1-80 was soloed, instances primarily being done for quest awards or item drops or (during the 70 plateau) social farming of Kara (we never did BT or the 25 QD instance or the similar ones)
Occasionally I will take part in a PUG to complete a quest I can't solo or to try something new (Bear raid, Archiverus 25)
Zarfay Dec 23rd 2008 6:45PM
Unless you are your own best firend wouldn't it be 39 best friends?
Raefax Dec 23rd 2008 8:25AM
I'm a prot pally, needless to say I have a lot of cheap tricks i can use to reset the playing field over and over again, so I decided to try out karazhan. I didn't have much of a problem soloing the huntsman and then went on to moroes, where I had my hands full with the 4 adds and moroes himself. but once I got the adds down it was fun to use a rotation of bubble/bop/wings to keep myself up and eventually 15 minutes later kill moroes. Thanx to bubble I never got above 3 bleed stacks. I then got lazy and skimped out on the rest of kara, though I doubt itd be any harder maybe the ones with bigger quirks or magic damage.
atomicstrawberry Dec 23rd 2008 8:23AM
I play on an RP server and am not in a guild (nor have I ever been) so the possibility that I might be able to finally have a chance at getting the awesome Judgement Armor set is rather enticing. Although I'm not sure if Ragnaros is soloable yet?
Odoyle Dec 23rd 2008 8:24AM
Ony, ZG, AQ20, Kara up to Opera (only tried BBW once; seemed doable but it was tedious and I was tired).
Swiss Dec 23rd 2008 8:28AM
Currently leveling a DK (level 76 atm) for the sole purpose of soloing level 60 raid content. Why? Money.
DK Forum Topic: (Soloing ZG + AQ20 = 2000g a week)
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13275301294
That is 2000 gold per week guaranteed if you can solo the bosses due to gold drops from the bosses and vendored items.
Hamma Dec 23rd 2008 8:35AM
hmm I may have to venture in there and take a look around.
Cyrus Dec 23rd 2008 10:42AM
After reading the first few pages of that thread, that amount of gold seems so easy that I half-expect them to nerf the drops. If you skip the trash mobs, most level 80s seriously could solo all the bosses in ZG and AQ20 in less than four hours, probably about two hours once you get it down. That's 1000g at the very least. A full 25 daily quests would probably take longer and reward about half that much gold, not counting whatever boe drops and vendor trash you get. Sure, dailies give you rep you can't get from the old raids, but there are enough gold sinks in the game at this point that gold is a lot more valuable than rep with certain factions. I'd better start doing this now on my main in case Blizzard nerfs the gold drop amounts...
styopa Dec 23rd 2008 8:30AM
The other day I wanted to get the UBRS key, and decided to drag my 70's through LBRS...that was a blast!
First, it was a nice way to experience old content. Used to run LBRS almost every week until we were 'daring' enough to go for UBRS (lol), and hadn't been in there for years. It was so much fun, like going back to an old school or something.
Second, it was even mildly challenging. First did it as a hunter, and that was pretty easy. But as the warrior, without any ability to aggro dump and subject to each boss' specials/knockback/stun whatever (geez, when I was 60 I couldn't HIT a lvl 70 much less hope my specials would work so reliably...cheaters...) it was actually a challenge, especially with runners (ugh).
Thirdly, it wasn't unprofitable. After repairs, even the warrior came out probably 8-10g ahead. Longest rep quest...evar. Seriously though, the runecloth and other level-specific drops that ended up as DE mats, etc all ended up in the AH and probably netted me 20g. Plus Bracers of Valor for my pally alt. :)
Granted, it's probably not for the content-addicted, who have to be dying every three pulls or they don't feel challenged. I found it a very pleasurable experience.
Threeve Dec 23rd 2008 8:41AM
I'm a discipline priest and I tried out Onyxia this past week. On my first attempt I got her to about 60% and panicced in phase 2 when I got my second round of whelps.
Second attempt I got phase 2 down to doing the whelps indefinitely (figured out they come every 2 minutes, same timer as Power Infusion luckily), it just takes a long time because I have to mostly wand Ony to save mana.
Unfortunately I aggroed a guard at about 43%, but about the same time my other raid member stupidly left the group and I managed to survive long enough to get ported back to dalaran.
Then I brought back a 73ish level warrior buddy and we two manned her in no time. So I'll try again solo next week I guess.
Ekimus Dec 23rd 2008 8:38AM
I'll be soloing Ony on a regular basis after patch 3.0.8, thanks to the change to Protector of the Pack for druids.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if they nerfed the amount of gold she drops.
Mohrlock Dec 23rd 2008 8:44AM
Chances are they don't... AQ20 bosses were still dropping 32-36g a hit for me :)
Kaeh Dec 23rd 2008 8:45AM
@T
We have been putting our money together from each kill, I guess that wasn't clear. We both go do onyxia at the same time to see who does it faster :).. we are working on hakkar though..
BillDoor Dec 23rd 2008 8:49AM
So, this may seem dumb, but what's the trick for solo'ing raid content? Do you invite some poor guy, convert to raid, enter the instance and kick him from raid?
npanth Dec 23rd 2008 5:17PM
I solo a lot of instances, it's my principal way of making money in the game. I just got the classic dungeonmaster achievement last night and soloed every instance. I have a 70+ priest and hunter, so soloing instances is sometimes the only way I get to see what they look like on the inside. I like grouping up for instances, but soloing or running a lower level friend through an instance can be a lot of fun, too. My biggest problem is that I've been tagged as a runner who doesn't charge on my server, so I get a half dozen /tell everytime I log in with my hunter. I'm never going to get that mechano-hog running teens through dead mines...
Cetha Dec 23rd 2008 8:59AM
my only 80 currently is a mage, and I always feel like I'm too squishy to solo a lot of instances...any mages out there have tips/tricks for doing that?
GJ Dec 23rd 2008 9:25AM
I've soloed some content when I was 70. Right now I'm frostfire raid spec, so I'm not gonna even try to do that.
Mage 80 can solo The Nexus boss that gives red hat (normal nexus).
We are squishy, but when you use right spec, not as squishy as one may think. I can't see fire mage soloing anything, but deep frost is very good spec for that. You need:
- Ice Barrier that gives you rebuffable +3000 hp, which in low level instances is a lot of hp.
- Water Elemental - this is very important talent, if you pop elemental at beginning of the fight it can tank for you while you unload your dps on mob/boss
- talents that shorten cooldowns on ice block, water elemental, etc.
Remember that using mirror images gives you big aggro debuff, so basically if you are being attacked and pop your images, the mobs will switch attacks from you to them.
Another necessary thing for soloing is glyph that gives your evocation +60% hp in addition to +60% mana.
Cetha Dec 23rd 2008 9:41AM
Now I want the servers back up so I can try my hand at Grand Magus Telestra!