Spiritual Guidance: Revisiting The Burning Crusade and Wrath, solo
by Fox Van Allen 
Sep 14th 2011 at 7:00PM
To be fair, it's incredibly easy to get bored with current content. Sure, things like the Molten Front and Firelands are fun and exciting for a while, but several months later when you find yourself running the same content over and over ... well.
I'm always looking for new and different things to do with my shadow priest. Last year, when I started getting bored with Icecrown Citadel, I started running heroic Magisters' Terrace solo, farming it for all sorts of goodies inside that I never wound up getting when the content was relevant. It turns out that soloing that stuff was a lot of fun, and judging by the emails I got after, a lot of you agreed with me.
Some of you have been pressuring me to update that article for Cataclysm. Obviously, a lot has changed. Mainly, we've gotten stronger, but we've also got a few new tools at our disposal. Soloing Magisters' Terrace is old news. This time around, we're going to solo some more intimidating content: Wrath heroics and BC raids.
For those who have never tried soloing a raid instance before, ask a friend to join a group with you on an alt they don't plan to run content on for a while. (Remember, being in a raid group halts all progress towards completing quests.) Once they join, press the O key, go to the raid tab, and choose "convert to raid." Your friend is then free to log off -- his alt will stay in the party, and you'll be able to enter any raid you want.
Before you start any content on your own, whether it be a 10-man raid or 5-man instance, be sure to stop off at the Auction House first and stock up on buff items. You'll want, at a minimum:
- A stack or two of food. Grab something that offers a +90 intellect and stamina buff, like Fortune Cookies or Severed Sagefish Head.
- A Flask of the Draconic Mind. The +300 intellect buff means more damage, and more damage means (importantly!) more self-healing through Vampiric Embrace. It also persists through death, which is super-useful if you're going to be dying a lot.
- Some may find it situationally useful to trade the Flask of the Draconic Mind for a Scroll of Intellect IX and Prismatic Elixir to help protect against magic-using enemies.
- A few Volcanic Potions are always welcome, especially for pre-potting before pulling a particularly difficult boss.
Karazhan
Why you want to do it Karazhan has some tier 4 tokens and a lot of other interesting-looking cloth gear you might want to stock up on for transmogrification. Attumen the Horseman also drops the Fiery Warhorse's Reins, a pretty sweet mount that you won't have to /roll against anybody to get. Also, you may want the rep with The Violet Eye to grab an achievement if you don't already have it.
Karazhan is the gigantic tower located in lonely Deadwind Pass in Eastern Kingdoms. If you're looking to get your feet wet in some solo content, Karazhan is a good place to start. The raid instance launched with The Burning Crusade in 2007, and because it's a 10-man raid (as opposed to a 25-man), it's the easiest of all the BC raid instances.
I advise clearing out your bags of everything but the essentials before you head into Kara. There will be a lot of cloth drops, greens (i.e., BC-era enchanting mats), gray trash drops you can vendor, and even some crafting patterns and epics. Running Kara isn't as lucrative as it used to be, but you can still clear several hundred gold worth of cash and prizes, if not a thousand or more, in one run.
In Kara, like many other raid instances in the game, a large number of trash mobs are tied to the bosses such that if you aggro the boss, all the trash will come running. Given that a lot of mobs are low-health (and since Mind Sear tears s*** up for real), this isn't necessarily going to doom you, but you generally want to clear out all the trash mobs leading up to a boss before pulling the boss. No point in making matters harder than they are.
For trash, as well as bosses where you'll face off against adds (accidentally pulled or otherwise), Mind Sear is your best friend. Bosses here generally aren't that tough if you're at level 85 and have decent gear. Just be sure to use Power Word: Shield early and often (best paired with Glyph of Power Word: Shield and Improved Power Word: Shield when soloing for some bonus healing), and use your cooldowns when you can. Having a few Mythical Healing Potions on hand for use in a clutch can be very handy, too.
Bosses aren't difficult here -- consider this your training grounds for other content. One key trick to master: The Shadowfiend Fade. After calling your Shadowfiend, casting Fade will send the pack of enemies after your shadowy friend instead of you. (We salute your sacrifice, dark, sinewy friend!) This gives you time to cast actual heals if needed, let Vampiric Embrace restore some life, clear debuffs (Dispel, Cure Disease), and push you closer time-wise to your next available PW:S cooldown.
A special note of warning: The Mana Feeders that are infesting The Menagerie are immune to magical attacks. And to make matters worse, they drain your mana on successful attack, preventing yourself from healing through a large pull. Getting past these guys requires a lot of patience and very small, limited pulls.
Wrath heroics
Why you want to do it For the challenge! Also, you'll wind up with a ton of valuable Frostweave Cloth, Wrath-era enchanting mats (or better yet, hundreds of gold worth of vendorable items), and a chance at the elusive Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake that you've only seen drop that one time and that dude who wasn't even in your guild won it and FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffnnnn. You'll also get minor amounts of honor (7 or 8 per boss) if your faction holds Wintergrasp. (People still participate in that?)
I've had a lot of fun soloing Wrath heroics this past week. (Best part: I finally got Consumption Junction, which quite honestly is about impossible not to get while soloing Drak'tharon.) Again, the difficulty level here is pretty mild -- this is something that just about any level 85 shadow priest can do. Some trash pulls are difficult, but if you play smart, bosses go down pretty easy.
My biggest piece of advice? Focus fire down your enemies rather than trying to AOE them down. The sooner you take damage-dealers out of the picture, the better. And remember, these enemies are level 80, so you'll still be able to benefit from Spirit Tap if you finish with Shadow Word: Death.
The Next Challenge: Serpentshrine Cavern
Why you want to do it For the ultimate in solo challenges. Because it's 2.5 times as difficult as Karazhan (that's how it works, right?). You'll get some interesting BC-era items from the trash, like Pattern: Boots of the Long Road, and if you can actually get Hydross down, you'll score 250 gold and some assorted epics to either vendor or save for transmogrification.
I put this out there as a challenge to exceptionally well-geared shadow priests: Head into 25-man Serpentshrine Cavern raid and see how far you can get. I've made a small handful of attempts on the raid myself -- specifically, against the first boss, Hydross the Unstable. It's a real challenge, to be sure.
An effort like this requires you to be at the top of your game and take advantage of every buff and bonus you can. Pre-pot and pre-PW:S before the pull. Use a Prismatic Elixir and Scroll of Intellect IX to mitigate spell damage -- the former does help a lot. You might even want to play around with your talents and glyphs. (Consider talents like Inner Sanctum, which reduce the magic damage you take.)
My strategy is this: Get all those DOTs on Hydross quickly, and then Mind Sear him to take care of the adds he summons. From here, it's a game of stamina. The Shadowfiend Fade technique (see above) works wonders here and gives you a much-needed breath of air in the middle of the fight. Backing away from him while you're casting your instant-cast spells is another good technique to limit damage -- he'll get slightly fewer attacks in on you as a result of his moving too. Dispersion works well when you're well into the fight and need to restore some mana; casting PW:S immediately before guarantees you'll also come out of your Dispersed state with more health than you went into it with.
Success here depends on whether or not you can think like a tank; trying to burn this guy down without strategy will only leave you dead. If you move him away from the towers flanking him in his starting position (recommended on pull), he'll enter his nature phase, where he deals nature damage and applies a stacking debuff on you, Mark of Corruption, every 15 seconds. When that 30-second debuff grows to the point that you're taking 50% extra damage from nature attacks, you need to drag Hydross back under the water beams to force a frost phase, where he ceases nature attacks. At that point, a frost-based debuff, Mark of Hydross, starts to build. When that gets to 50%, pull him back out.
Be careful -- each time you phase change, you'll spawn four elementals that need to be AOEed down immediately. You'll also need to be cautious with your Shadowfiend -- Hydross will gain bonus abilities (including a 4-second stun every 7 seconds while in his frost phase and a healing reduction debuff in his nature phase) when it's present.
Can you beat him? If so, congratulations -- you've just done the work of 25 men. Who needs tanks, anyway?
Are you more interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? We've got more for shadow priests, from Shadow Priest 101 to a list of every monster worth mind controlling and strategies for raiding Blackwing Descent.
I put this out there as a challenge to exceptionally well-geared shadow priests: Head into 25-man Serpentshrine Cavern raid and see how far you can get. I've made a small handful of attempts on the raid myself -- specifically, against the first boss, Hydross the Unstable. It's a real challenge, to be sure.An effort like this requires you to be at the top of your game and take advantage of every buff and bonus you can. Pre-pot and pre-PW:S before the pull. Use a Prismatic Elixir and Scroll of Intellect IX to mitigate spell damage -- the former does help a lot. You might even want to play around with your talents and glyphs. (Consider talents like Inner Sanctum, which reduce the magic damage you take.)
My strategy is this: Get all those DOTs on Hydross quickly, and then Mind Sear him to take care of the adds he summons. From here, it's a game of stamina. The Shadowfiend Fade technique (see above) works wonders here and gives you a much-needed breath of air in the middle of the fight. Backing away from him while you're casting your instant-cast spells is another good technique to limit damage -- he'll get slightly fewer attacks in on you as a result of his moving too. Dispersion works well when you're well into the fight and need to restore some mana; casting PW:S immediately before guarantees you'll also come out of your Dispersed state with more health than you went into it with.
Success here depends on whether or not you can think like a tank; trying to burn this guy down without strategy will only leave you dead. If you move him away from the towers flanking him in his starting position (recommended on pull), he'll enter his nature phase, where he deals nature damage and applies a stacking debuff on you, Mark of Corruption, every 15 seconds. When that 30-second debuff grows to the point that you're taking 50% extra damage from nature attacks, you need to drag Hydross back under the water beams to force a frost phase, where he ceases nature attacks. At that point, a frost-based debuff, Mark of Hydross, starts to build. When that gets to 50%, pull him back out.
Be careful -- each time you phase change, you'll spawn four elementals that need to be AOEed down immediately. You'll also need to be cautious with your Shadowfiend -- Hydross will gain bonus abilities (including a 4-second stun every 7 seconds while in his frost phase and a healing reduction debuff in his nature phase) when it's present.
Can you beat him? If so, congratulations -- you've just done the work of 25 men. Who needs tanks, anyway?
Are you more interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? We've got more for shadow priests, from Shadow Priest 101 to a list of every monster worth mind controlling and strategies for raiding Blackwing Descent.Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Homeschool Sep 14th 2011 7:14PM
Important notes: In a lot of these older dungeons, you can bypass trash that would have been unavoidable at the time. (Great chance to use Mind Soothe.) For example, in SSC, you can hop onto the lake (Levitate) and get all the way to the other side without pulling anything, thus skipping all the trash out here.
For getting into raids, I actually make my own raid group, an option that's now available since
Homeschool Sep 14th 2011 7:18PM
(Should have known that the less-than symbol would break my post. Whoops. Continued from above...)
For getting into raids, I actually make my own raid group, an option that's now available since under-20 trial accounts went F2P. Just sign up for a new trial/F2P account, (use the same Battle.net login for ease,) and level any old character to level 10. While these F2P accounts are pretty limited, you CAN accept invites, and - once hitting level 10 - be part of raid groups. Just open two copies of WoW at the same time, log in with each of your accounts, and have your main-account character invite the F2P newbie. Convert to Raid, and... voila! Solo raid formation.
Fox Van Allen Sep 14th 2011 7:45PM
Oh, that's a really cool tip. Much better than just running content after your raid night and locking all your friends to SSC. ;D
Homeschool Sep 14th 2011 7:54PM
I should also mention that the rest of what's written in the article applies then. You can log out (or close entirely) the second copy, and the level-10 character will stay in your raid group (albeit as an Offline-r.) Great if your system chokes a little on running too copies of WoW.
Homeschool Sep 14th 2011 7:55PM
Yes, running "too" copies.
Bah. "Two".
Malenx Sep 14th 2011 7:57PM
That's awesome, i would never have thought to do that, thanks.
kingoomieiii Sep 15th 2011 9:33AM
What you can also do, if you don't want to make a friend swap to an alt, is YOU swap to an alt. Have a guildie invite your alt and convert, you get on your main and join the raid, and your guildie can leave.
Hawk Sep 26th 2011 9:57AM
Thank you so much for this tip.. this is going to make things so much easier.
Bellajtok Sep 14th 2011 7:23PM
For a bunch of extra resistance, ask a Druid or pally friend for kings or mark. If you promise to let your Druid friend have DI next raid, you can be very very confident they will want to help.
Zankoku Sep 14th 2011 7:45PM
if you dont have a druid or pally friend, go to the AH and pick up some drums!
Fox Van Allen Sep 14th 2011 11:24PM
I don't think Drums work at level 85 -- only 80.
Arrowsmith Sep 15th 2011 12:42AM
Nope, the Drums work, Fox. Go ahead and try some out for yourself and then update the article with that extra piece of advice (you can also cite DK, Warlock, and Hunter solo vids on Youtube, as their buff bars tend to show Blessing of Forgotten Kings if you know what to look for).
Boosh Sep 14th 2011 7:52PM
I made it to the last boss in serpentshrine solo my first time and several times since. I haven't gone in a while but I still haven't defeated him.
Joshua Ochs Sep 14th 2011 7:57PM
If you're going to solo Karazhan, note that the Chess event is a real bitch due to its mechanics.
Piper Sep 14th 2011 8:22PM
Pop the leader's heroism right away, hop out, get into the caster, move the caster in line with the enemy king and start blasting away. When Medivh cheats either move then abandon, or just abandon your caster and move your leader out of the fire. Just stay with the leader at that point popping hero every time it is off cooldown and attack any close enemies. Nine times out of ten I'll one shot chess.
At least if you wipe you don't die. :)
oakleykid120 Sep 15th 2011 3:00AM
it's been a long time since i've actually failed at soloing chess the first attempt and i do kara every week. i have an extremely easy strategy. grab the king to start, pop bloodlust, dismiss, grab the peon in front of the king. move him forward. dismiss. grab the king. spam bloodlust until something walks in range. cleave it down. eventually the king will walk up to yours and you just zerg him down. when medivh cheats you can move forward to avoid it since the peon is moved.
sunflowers4488 Sep 14th 2011 8:11PM
Nice tips!! I think one of my favorite old content fights to tackle solo is Kael'thas. Long, stressful, and so worth it.
Mark Sep 14th 2011 8:28PM
Can we do that!!?! Ha I just got my fiery warhorse from soloing Kara and was pretty sad because I really want the bird but thought it would be danm near impossible to solo it.
Fox Van Allen Sep 14th 2011 11:30PM
I've actually been playing around a lot in there solo, and I find a lot of those encounters to be incredibly difficult on account of all the adds. I'm not sure they're soloable at this point yet, but I'd love for someone to prove me wrong. :>
sdlorimor Sep 14th 2011 8:31PM
Other bosses in SSC are soloable. I haven't tried Hydross, but I have solo'ed the Lurker Below (hint: ignore the naga archers). I also solo'ed Leotheras the Blind, the demon hunter boss. Fun fight.
I have not tried Morgrim Tidewalker, but I believe that is soloable as well. The fight with the 4 Nagas (1 of which gets powers from the others as they die) is not soloable by a discipline priest. And I don't believe Vashj is soloable by anyone because of encounter design.
In Tempest Keep you can solo Al'ar the Phoenix. Void Reaver is not solo'able because of his AoE silence effect, and the warlock boss (whose name eludes me) is not solo'able because discipline priests have no interupts and cannot outdps the healing from the adds.