How to: Naxxramas (1)

Probably my most important soloing guide.
Naxxramas is entirely soloable by hunter, some bosses have even been killed in 25-man.
It's also the most profitable raid. My best 13/16 (no KT, Razuvious and Maexxna) speed farming (read: bugging whenever possible) clean took me 1 hour and a half for 2200 gold. Beats killing 10 mobs for the three hundred twenty seventh time.
Most bosses have two methods: the legit one and the bugging, farming one. Both will be covered in this guide.

You will want five pets for farming, two turtle/beetles, two foxes, and one pure dps pet.

PLAGUE QUARTER
Trivial. Noth and heigan killable in 25-man too.

Noth
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 1/5

You can use a pure dps pet.
Legit method: dps the boss when he's on the ground, and the adds when he's on the balconny. He will sometimes blink, resetting his aggro.

Bug: you can FD when skeletons aggro you to despawn them.

Heigan
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 1/5

Better use a fox.
Never get within 20 yards of him to avoid his plague. Keep your pet alive, and tank him on the platform.
During the floor phase, you can outheal the eruption damage. But during the safety dance, you better dance to be safe.

Loatheb
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 1/5

Tank and dps. You have a 3-second window to heal your pet every 20 seconds (your survival isn't in danger... and your pets not really). Spore give you a hell of a buff, so kill them while they're near you once in a while (explosive trap works wonders) to speed thinks up.

If you're going for the spore loser achievement, simply deactivate thunderstomp and put your pet on passive before sending him on Loatheb.

ARACHNID QUARTER
Spiders. Why couldn't it have been butterflies?

Anub'rekhan
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 2/5

Use a turtle.
Legit Method: Best place to tank him is the entrance door, so your pet won't be bumped around. When he bumps you, disengage to avoid damage, if you need to.
Stay at maximum range for his locus swarm, and use pet CD redution. Misdirect the crypt guards and focus them down. Also kill the scarabs when they spawn.

Bug: If you're tanking Anub where I suggested, simply FD when the crypt guards aggro you to despawn them.

Faerlina
Gear: 1/5
Strategy: 1/5

Really use a tanking pet.
Focus Faerlina while avoiding the fire zones. When she frenzies, kill an add. You can trap one add to reduce incoming damage. With sufficient gear, you can survive her enrage.

Maexxna
Gear: 2/5
Strategy 2/5

You will need 2/2 in improved mend pet.
She will launch her first cocoon 20 seconds into the fight, then every 40 seconds: feign death before she does.
Deal with the spiderlings with a multishot or explosive trap.

She will frenzy at 30%. Keep dps cooldowns for this phase.

Malygos 25 down

So, Malygos 25 man... I couldn't beat his enrage timer, so I merely survived it.

Phase 1:
Goals: survive, get him to 50% at the last vortex before berserk.

Malygos will attack your pet. Don't stand in front of him because of his breath.
He will launch arcane bolts at you - drums of the wild and prismatic elixir greatly reduce incoming damage, chimera shot is enough to heal yourself.
The goal is to dps him fast and hard.

The fight repeats as follow after:
1-Vortex: summon your pet, dps malygos. You might want to use a misdirection.
2-Once you land, make your pet attack and feign death. Destroy the power spark, and get in it.
3-Blow rapid fire if there are more than 3 minutes before the berserk.
4-Ignore the second power spark unless you can stack it with the other.
5-Feign death as soon as it leaves cooldown to make sure it's available after the next vortex.

With this tactic, I could get him to phase 2 with 370 gear (365 gun).

If you're doing rather good, you might consider to slow dps at 53%, using chimera shot to self-heal. Slowly bring him to 50,49% (so it shows 50% if you're using percentage). Once he launches his last vortex, dps him hard. He should land, enrage, than fly up (he might try a hit or two - deterrence can be safe). He must enrage before the adds spawn.

Phase 2:
Goals: survive the Scions. Survive the bolwfish test.


Dps as much as you can, unless you need to bandage.
Now, avoid getting killed by the scions. For that, do not FD too soon or too late: wait until the nexus lords gain aggro on you to feign death.
Then choose a Nexus lord, put your pet on him, without growl or misdirection, and dps while running, with rapid fire.
You should be able to dps and heal your pet this way.

When the Nexus lords use haste, feign death as soon as it comes off cooldown and finish the Nexus lord quick. Hop on the disk and fly up, possibly on a scion, before the deep breath (50K/second).

Now, you can ignore the nexus lords. They are extremely slow. The scions, however... They can and will aggro you if you get near them. So choose the nearest Scion, kill him. Then the nearest one, and so on. If you notice a scion attacking you, kill him right away. You can bandage while moving on the disk.

Then kill two of the three remaining lords.
Now starts the Bowlfish phase.
For more or less 25 minutes, you have to pretend you're a fish in a bowl, circling endlessly in a closed, blue space. Don't get bored. Don't Afk. Don't kill the last add. Nothing.
Just avoid going too low, Malygos's deep breath still hurts.

Phase 3:
Goals: survive, dps, don't lose your concentration (like I did near the end).
Once Malygos stops being red, kill the last add.
Do not stay within 30 yards of Malygos!

Do it exactly like in 10-man normal: stack 5 HoT, then 1-1-2-3 while avoiding static fields (try staying at maximum range).

When you are low on health, use 1-1-4-3 (would 1-4-3 work?) to heal yourself up. Once you're at 100% health, start attacking again.
Rinse and repeat.


It's a very good idea to practise on Malygos 10-man, especially to understand when a scion will aggro you and when it won't.

Marksmanship soloing guide: part 3 - abilities and macros

Basic macro to use once you log in:

/console CameraDistanceMaxFactor 4

Since dps can be an issue and lots of movement required, it is good to macro your shots.

Example:
Instant/standing shots:

#showtooltip chimera shot (or other shot)
/castsequence reset=1 !Aspect of the hawk, null
/cast chimera shot (or other shot)

Steady shot while moving:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/startattack
/castsequence reset=1 !Aspect of the Fox, null
/cast Steady Shot

For multi-npc fights:
/target guy you want to use that ability on
/cast ability or tell your pet to attack
/targetlasttarget

example:

/target stormcaller brundir
/stopcasting
/cast silencing shot
/targetlasttarget

BEWARE: this will target the nearest enemy with that name. So if you macro it with multi-shot to attack the detonating lashers while soloing Freya, and there are 9 adds on your pet and 1 on you, you will cast multi-shot on the on attacking you (and see a great "target too close").


Pet switching
Evil. But sometimes necessary.
Your pet is going to die! Nooooo!

Step 1: Dismiss pet. Run.
Step 2: summon other/same pet.  Send him to attack.  Cast misdirection, score a hit or two, Mend pet. Once he has healed to full, Feign death. Re-misdirect, and you should be good.

The Misdirection macro:

#showtooltip misdirection
/cast [@focus,help][@pet,exists] Misdirection
/focus beetle
/focus gorilla
/focus turtle
/focus wolf
/focus fox (or whatever names your pets have)
/targetlastenemy


The /focus part is necessary if you use the pet focus to check his health/buffs/debuffs in fights.

Snake trap: if used for the pet switch, use before dismissing, FD as soon as possible, and do not attract aggro to the pet before he heals to full.
It can also be used for trap/FD/raise pet.
No point of using it if the boss has an AoE

To be familiar with these switches, check Patchwerk/Iron council videos.

Concussive shot: can be useful for kiting, some adds can be dazed.
Scatter shot: gives you the time needed to use freezing trap.
Freezing trap: can be useful
Frost trap: can be useful for kiting
Explosive trap: can be useful for low-health fast-moving adds (maexxna's spiderlings).

Tranquilizing shot: dispels not only enrage effects, but also magic ones. Remember.
Distracting shot: works on some bosses, allowing you to kite them between you and your pet.

Master's Call: Besides the de-root effect, it an be useful to:
-get the pet out of the bad stuff
-get the pet where you want him to be
-get the pet out of melee range of bosses: put yourself at maximum range, master's call, disengage, run, and your pet will get a few precious seconds without taking damage.

Master's call macro:

make sure your pet is in follow

#showtooltip master's call
/target Durendil (name of character)
/cast master's call
/targetlastenemy
/petpassive

The /stopcast macros, because you really don't want some abilities to wait a second or two

/stopcasting

/cast silencing shot

or /cast feign death

or /cast deterrence

or /cast disengage

or /cast tranquilizing shot

If you have any questions, use the comments

Marksmanship soloing guide: part 2 - pets

The choice of pets:
Cunning pets  are nearly useless as far as soloing is concerned, unlees the boss hits like a depressive kitten useless.

Tenacity pets are the most used pets because of their superior tanking capabilities

Ferocity pets can be useful if, for a reason or another, you don't need extensive healing or you cannot use mend pet because of line of sight/distance issues.

Tenacity pet talents:
Basic tanking spec: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/pet-calculator#Pp01!!ZkahaZgdZg!

Abilities:
-Charge is great because bosses/adds usually run faster than players. It can be replaced by Boar's speed.
-Thunderstomp is mandatory.
-Last stand is a life-saver CD if anything goes wrong or a boss frenzies, or can be used if pet rotations are in order
-Roar of sacrifice actually serves as a damage reduction CD for the hunter
-Taunt is a tricky ability - it doesn't work on all bosses, but it can be very useful: taunt + FD offers good lead on aggro, making you lose less dps. Besides, some bosses despawn when you FD, so taunt is the only solution to pet switching.
-Intervene: I seldom use intervene, so it's better to read about it on http://outdps.com/2011/11/16/hunter-damage-reduction-cooldowns/#more-4803




Ferocity pet talents:
Basic survival spec: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/pet-calculator#zp00!gVggaaZjWd!!

Abilities:
-Dash is far more interesting than charge
-Serpent swiftness and Bloodthirsty maximize self-heal for your pet.
-Lick your wounds is better used manually near 10% health, because if automatic he will use it at 50% health. It can also be used as a way to gain a lot of aggro.
-Heart of the phoenix allows you to survive an error. It can also be used as a second self-heal (though with aggro drop, so better keep it for times of great need).


Best pets:
Sporebat! (sorry, I just had to say it)

Tenacity:
Turtle/Beetle: best reduction cooldowns. They can be used as soon as possible against easy bosses, or in time with burst damage.
Bear: same overall reduction than turtle, if the boss does linear, physical damage.
Gorilla: 30-second cooldown interrupt.

Ferocity:
Fox/Tallstrider: best survivability
Moth: 1-minute cooldown interrupt

To be continued...

Marksmanship Soloing Guide: part 1 - Hunter Talents

Hello.
People have started asking me about a guide to soloing. As I never play BM, I will only be able to help you for the marksmanship part.

Now, Marksmanship offers the best hunter survival, good pet survival (though BM pets have lesser  cooldowns on their abilities) and great versatility thanks to readiness.  The long rotation also allows you to use misdirection and mend pet to avoid without loosing too much dps.

All- Around talent build, made to solo a maximum of bosses.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#Yc01!Ygg!SekdkebQgd!j!ZYfRklN
This build features all marksmanship talents except 3 (see below), the necessary spirit bond and the +15% stamina.

Other interesting talents:
Marksmanship: Concussive Barrage: used in conjunction with bombardment to kite multiple adds (example: Freya's detonating lashers).
Resistance is futile: extremely low dps gain (bosses hardly move), but still better than bombardment in a no-multiple-adds fight.
Marked for death: nearly worthless

BM: improved mend pet: necessary for some bosses (maexxna, iron council...). However, it forces you to lose 10% stamina.

SV: Pathing if you don't have trouble surviving but have trouble beating the enrage timer.

For those who ask themselves the question, Spirit bond is far more important than hunter vs wild.

Glyphs: Steady shot because it's often used, chimera shot to maximise hunter survival and arcane shot because hardcasting aimed shot is hard when you must use other abilities like tranqshot, feign death, mend pet, misdirection...

Mending and Misdirection are required. Then, it's free choice. I personally ue disengage because I use it often.

The feign death glyph is the only important minor one.


Rotation: standard marksmanship rotation using arcane shot. However, you must also use mend pet and lots of other abilities, while trying to maintain improved steady shot.

Problem: do not use a rotation where mend pet is followed by chimera shot: the cooldown and the HoT will end at the same time, making you lose the benefit of the glyph. If survival isn't an issue, but your pet can't afford a second without mend pet once in a while, you can simply change glyphs and the problem is solved. Or lose a little dps.

To be continued...

How to: Serpentshrine Cavern

Serpentshrine Cavern is the second tier-5 raid. Bosses there drop 250 gold, and it features one of the most challenging soloings, Lady Vashj!

Hydross
Gear: 1/5
Strategy: 1/5

All of his damage is elemental in nature: drums of forgotten kings + prismatic elixir works better than fat loot as far as damage control goes.

Now, with a prismatic elixir you shouldn't need to change phases. If you do, remember that his poison form has a very nasty debuff that reduces healing and damage done, it is better to switch back to water phase once all adds are dead.

Lurker Below
Gear: 1/5 (the fishing pole)
Strategy: 1/5

You will need a fishing pole to fish him. Very easy to forget.
Jump in the water when he spouts (or run clockwise on his platform) to avoid being bumped. You can also disengage right after being bumped to, at worst, find yourself 20 yards away from land.
If fishes attack you, FD to get rid of them.
Kill the adds quickly, remeber he spouts as soon as he gets up.

Morogrim
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 0/5

You can FD to get rid of the murlocs and disengage to avoid fall damage.

Leotheras
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 2/5

In phase 1, he wil sometimes whirlwind. Cope with it. In demon form, he will hit you with a stacking debuff. But if you go at maximum range, he will hit your pet for ridiculously low damage.
Pop your cooldowns after he splits. And kill the inner demons!

Karathress
Gear: 2/5
Strategy: 2/5

Avoid the tornados. Keep the aggro of the 4 mobs on your pet.
Kill Caribdis first while interrupting her heals, then Sharkiss to get rid of his pets. Finish Tidalvess and dps Karathress down.

Lady Vashj
Gear: 5/5 (you want to one-shot elementals with auto-shot)
Strategy: 5/5 (no room for mistakes)

Phase 1: dps, keep your cooldowns.

Phase 2: Put you pet in the middle of the room on defensive (to avoid getting too far from it).
You do not want to do nothing at any given time. You must kill as many water elementals as yu can.
If a naga spawns, misdirect him to your pet.
Striders are the main wipe reason: when they are on your pet, they fear it until it gets too far from you.
If they reach you, try is over. They are slowable with concussive shot. Use dps CDs on these.
When a tainted elemental spawns, quickly find it and kill it (watch the poison bolt trajectory). If you don't, it will despawn and respawn later. Loot him, and destroy one of the pillars.

Priority:
Tainted elementals = Striders > elementals > naga

Phase 3: kill any remaining adds, avoid poison patches, keep your pet alive (if you switch, remember to use deterrence, she will hit like a truck). The more buffs she has, the harder this phase is.

How to: Tempest Keep: The Eye

The Eye is known to be a beautiful instance. Bosses ther drop a lot of gold, and Kael'thas can be farmed for the epic phoenix flying mount.
For each boss, you will need to clean the room.

Al'ar
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 1/5

Use a ferocity pet with dash on manual cast.

Phase 1: Get on the ledge and dps Al'ar. When he switches platforms, use your pet's dash. Feign death to get rid of the little phoenix, or kill it. If he goes high into the air, jump down.

Phase 2: Once Al'ar is down, go to the middle of the room and wait for its rebirth. Dps the boss while avoiding flame patches. Once he meteors, kill the little phoenixes and resume on the boss.

Solarian
Gear: 1/5
Strategy: 2/5

Using Drums of Forgotten kings works wonder here - damage will be greatly reduced.

When she's alone simply dps her while standing close to your pet, as to avoid it despawning when you are thrown into the air.
When she summons her adds, misdirect and feign death. Once all adds are on your pet, kill them with multi-shot. When she reappears, kill the priests and return to the boss.

Phase 2 is a tank and spank.

Void reaver
Gear: 0/5
Strategy: 1/5

There are two ways to kill him:
With sufficient gear, you won't ever need to heal your ferocity pet (fox works best). In that case, simply tank and spank without avoiding the orbs.

If not, run around him in a large circle.

Kael'thas
Gear: 2/5
Strategy: 4/5

Phase 1: Use any pet you wish.
Kill Thaladred and Sanguinar in the southern end of the room, and Capernian as near as possible to her spawn point.
Dps Telonicus to 50%, then wait for his remote toy. If it's on your pet, finish him after putting a frost trap on the cosmic infuser's spawn point. If it's on you, finish him when he's the debuff ends.

Dismiss pet and summon a remote toy- free Tenacity pet. Get ready for phase 2.

Phase 2: Feign death to have all weapons attack your pet. Pop dps cooldowns and kill the melee weapons first (but not the shield), then the cosmic infuser (if the trap failed, kill it first). Then, kill the staff, loot it, equip it and use it. Finish the bow and dps the shield while the advisors haven't rezzed.
If your dps is too low to dps the shield, it can be frost trapped through phases 3,4 and 5.

Phase 3: Misdirect Capernian to your pet. Send your pet on Sanguinar. Run around to avoir Telonicus's bombs and Thaladred's melee hits. Stay 30 yars away from Sanguinar to avoid his fears.
When Capernian uses conflagration on your pet, feign death. Finish her, then kill Sanguinar to get rid of the fears. Thaladred comes next.
If you have time, dps Telonicus. Just prior to his death, or to Kael'thas's activation, dismiss your pet and summon a ferocity one. While between one of the two statues and the wall. Quickly finish telonicus if you can.

Phase 4: Misdirect the boss on your pet, interrupt his fireball, then get out of his line of sight.
He will sometimes yell "obey me" or "bow to my will": if you are in line of sight, you will be MC'd. If not, you will get 30 seconds of dps time, and the possibility to heal your pet (note: if done well, you can put your pet between the northern foot of the statue and the wall, and it may put you in a position where you can heal your pet without being in Kael's line of sight).
Stay within 30 yards of your pet. If you are too far and it's disoriented, feign death to get the boss back on your pet.
When a phoenix spawns, kill him then destroy the egg.
Avoid the 120K damage from the flamestrike.

When Kael'thas uses his shock barrier, he will use 3 pyroblasts in a row, and no MC. Dps him, and use a mend pet just after the third before hiding out of his line of sight.

At 50%, he goes in phase 5.
Phase 5: no MC, dps him as much as you want. When you are in the air, avoid at all costs the violet orbs and their tentacles: they reduce your stats.