Editor’s Note: I’d like to welcome Shoot from Nightmare Asylum as another guest writer on Eyes of the Beast. Shoot has many world first hunter solo achievements under his belt. He is also one of the raid leaders of Team Hunter, the all-hunter raid group currently tearing its way through heroic MoP raids.
Hello, my name is Shoot and I’m a hunter raider and soloist in the WoW community.
Many WoW players in the community are enjoying the Warlords of Draenor beta raid testing and leveling, but a lot of people are curious what soloing is like and how the item squish affects it. Let’s start off by taking a look at older content on the live servers and compare it to beta servers from a hunter perspective.
Soloing on Live
- Tier 10 and lower: Bosses are fairly easy to solo and do not require a high amount of gear or damage.
- Tiers 11 – 13 (Cataclysm): Bosses are soloable; some bosses require mechanics that must be followed, but some bosses are still an all out damagefest and do not require much awareness or gear. Any boss in 25H is generally very difficult and requires a high amount of gear and special tactics.
- Tiers 14 – 16 (MoP): Most bosses are impossible to solo as a hunter. Currently there have only been two Mists of Pandaria raid bosses that were soloed by a hunter in 10 normal. You can watch those videos below.
Feng the Accursed
The Spirit Kings
Soloing on the Warlords Beta
- Tier 10 and lower: You will have no issues as a level 100 annihilating everything in your path. You have a massive damage buff due to being 20 levels above the content.
- Tiers 11 – 13 (Cataclysm): As a level 100 taking on Cataclysm content you will get a massive damage buff as well. You should be able to easily take on any boss, even in 25H, and have little to no difficulty.
- Tiers 14 – 16: This is where the difficulty begins. Similar to how some Cataclysm bosses are on live now, this is your new set of challenges as a level 100 attempting to solo content. Unlike tier 13 and lower bosses, you do not have a damage buff and bosses (boss per boss basis) can swing very hard. Bosses will almost always require special tactics to successfully kill.
Level 100 Beta: Elegon
Level 100 Beta: The Stone Guards
Level 100 Beta: Blade Lord Ta’yak
The 3 bosses above were soloed on a level 100 pre-made in ilvl 660 PvP gear.
So where does that leave us? We can expect that as Mythic/PvE gear becomes available we could potentially see hunters soloing more and more T14 and above content. MoP bosses at level 100 provide a fun and unique challenge. As a soloist, I have enjoyed testing out most of the T14 content on a level 100. T15 (Throne of Thunder) remains locked due to the instance not existing on the beta because of server load.
What pets should I bring for soloing in Warlords of Draenor?
As many soloists know, the turtle and the spirit beast were the top two choices for soloing in MoP. The turtle for his powerful Shell Shield cooldown and the spirit beasts for their Spirit Mend in fights where you needed healing. I am sorry to say, turtle lovers, but your dear friend has been replaced. The shale spider is now the top choice for a tank pet. Not only does it provide 5% Stats and 5% Crit, but it also wields the Solid Shell (same spell as the turtle under a different name). Spirit Beasts will still probably be the other top choice for soloing due to keeping their Spirit Mend.
To learn more about soloing in Warlords of Draenor as a hunter and keep up to date on the status of soloing for hunters you can check out my stream channel over at Hitbox or on Youtube.
Welcome aboard Shoot!
The prospect of being able to farm the Elegon mount solo is a nice one. 😀 Thanks for the post, Shoot.
I am so looking forward to solo farming Elegon. I miss when Attumen, KT, etc when it actually took skill or the ZG raid using viper sting/ feign death on Jin’do. I have encountered too many pugs for Elegon where the RL will ninja log once looted and you have to watch to make sure they didn’t change off need/greed. Does T5 work at all in WOD?
“Tier 10 and lower: You will have no issues as a level 100 annihilating everything in your path. You have a massive damage buff due to being 10 levels above the content.”
Isnt that 20 levels?
I should’ve caught that. 😀 I’ll edit it.
Also can verify the damage buff is indeed massive. You hit for as hard as you would as a level 100 if the item squish never happened. 1+ million Kill Commands, etc.
Awesome! A post from Shoot (bow down mortals). Looking forward to applying these tips in WOD.
Oh man, I think I just abandoned Glimmer too – thinking it was just not as useful and freeing up Stable space. I’ll be glad to get get her back!! 🙂 Any word on if the Gyreworms are going to be in the same family??
Muffinus vaguely alluded to changing Shale Spiders to Shale Beasts, but there’s nothing definite. If they did, I would imagine Gyreworms would be added.
The name of the Turtle skill is “Shell Shield”
The name of the Shale Spider skill is “Solid Shell”
The effect is the same…
“but it also wields the Solid Shell (same spell as the turtle under a different name)”
Thanks, Shoot! This is very, very relevant to my interests. 🙂
Hello and thanks for the videos Shoot!
PD: I <3 your bow
I have to say, I’m pretty jealous about that now unobtainable bow.
What bow is that?
Any word on being able to solo MoP World Bosses, at least Sha of Anger and Galleon?
Sha of Anger is a possibility; I’ve put in some on it but not enough to have conclusive results. Galleon is not possible in current gear on the pre-mades (ilvl 660) due to berserk; though probably at some point in the future will be possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjZme2U4Ad4 Sha of Anger confirmed possible
How does the new “Mend Pet” now being a channel spell, rather than an instant heal over time one, work while soloing? I would assume this would bring down soloing significantly. What have you found?
New Mend Pet isn’t a channel; Mend Pet/Revive Pet are just merged; still functions as it did on live;
The macro below I have found is helpful. If your pet is dead it will cast revive pet (which is effectively a channel); if your pet is alive it will just cast mend pet which just costs 1 GCD.
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/cast Revive Pet
/cast Mend Pet
Ah ok, I assumed they changed both to a channel spell from the tooltip. Thanks for the correction.
Hi there.
Been soloing Elegon weekly since I reached 100 for my hunter (saved a 4/6 progress on the raid).
I found Barrage extremely useful for dealing with the six energy caches. You may also try to time it to kill last energy cache later, to give a bit more time for Barrage to finish the cooldown. That way you can use it again when for more rounds of the energy caches. Not sure about Powershot though.
And yeah, I also used a spirit beast (hence BM).