Changing Gears
This is something you will have to get used to. Here's a list of differences things you are going to want to think about to adjust your gameplay.
1. Sustain. In PVE you must remember it's all about sustain. You need staying power in every department to solo things. Even burstiness can be and should be quantified into an expectation for your character. This means you don't want to build for surprise burst, like you do in PvP. You are going to want a lot more sustainable staying power, the Tankability. You don't have the luxury of having healers to pull your fat out of the fire, or just insta ressing and getting back on the field quickly. I break characters functionality down into 3 basics: Damage, Tankability, & Healing. You can add other things to these, but these are the Big 3.
2. Playing alone. This might sound silly, but it actually takes a while to get used to playing alone. You need to monitor your health, damage, and damage taken or effects received very sharply. Again, there is no backup to cover you if things go south. Pet classes get a bit of a break on this.
3. Situatonal Awareness. This is the same in PvP. You must really watch your surroundings. Is there a mob around that corner? Is there a pat that come around here? Which of those mobs heal, which ones crowd control me? Which mob should be focused. Where can I safely pull these mobs to? Where is there Line of Sight I can use to keep from taking too much damage from ranged effects? Is there a spot I can run to and jump off causing the mobs to take a different path since they don't jump? These are all skills you might have to sharpen up on. Modern wow doesn't cause players to hone these skills much these days.
4. Mob behavior. Mobs and bosses have behaviors. You have to learn them. What abilities are they using? When, why and how do they use them? How can I take advantage of this behavior, or what do I need to do to survive this behavior? Keep this in mind when you are doing the run.
5. Be prepared. Repair your gear, bring all the consumes you need. Bring backup gear with you. Read up on bosses or dungeons if you are unfamiliar, or run them in a group to familiarize yourself with the content.
6. Bug awareness. The game to this day is still riddled with many bugs. They might be simple terrain glitches to broken mob or boss abilities. You have to become aware of them, if you discover one, try to figure a way around it.
The Big 3 - Damage Done, Healing Done, and Tankiness.
Solo players must have a solid understanding of these 3 things. Doing so will help sharpen your gameplay taking it to the next level. All fights are governed by these 3 factors. Your damage determines how long a mob can live. Your tankiness determines how long you can live vs a mob. Your healing determines how well you can recover from a mob's damage output. Essentially these 3 factors are subject to a rate of change, and you will develop a feel for the flow from mob to mob, instance to instance, boss to boss.
How are these determined?
1. Damage Output. Perhaps the simplest of them, this is quite literally your damage overall based on your Primary stat, Secondary Stats, and your special attacks. Melee users also use the "white attacks" in conjunction with the aforementioned. Basic stuff I know. Where it gets more intricate is finding out how they are effected by your secondary stats, or by various abilities. These change from class to class and spec to spec. They can even change situation to situation requring different gear sets.
No matter what the deal is, if you have a Damage Meter addon you can check your output. In my experience I recommend an average of 150dps single target for a comfortable run. You won't take too long to kill mobs or bosses. You should be able to down a boss in under 3 minutes with that average.
2. Healing Done. A simple output, just like damage output but in reverse. We are getting into interesting territory here now, because your healing output determines how well you bounce back from mob damage. Let's say I'm facing Immol'thar and he's hitting my toon for approximately 260 damage per hit, and he's swinging at me every 2.6 seconds, his output against me is 100 dps.(This is not counting crits, it's a hypothetical that has relevant numbers to the encounter however). What this means is that in order for me to finish the encounter in that vaccum example I gave above, I need to maintain HPS equal to or better than his exact dps or better in order to live through, and deal enough damage to defeat him. You're Healing Done can't be determined until after Tankiness is determined, so you can arrive at the "How much damage am I taking?". Use a Damage Meters addon to find this out, or just check your combat log with "What happened to me?"
3. Tankiness. My favorite. This one is not quite so simple and consists of several parts that combine to determine it.
Health - The most basic part is Health, determined by Stamina and other abilities. Your Health represents the maximum amount of damage you can sustain before getting killed. Simply put you need enough to withstand punishment you can't do anything about without dying (such as getting stunned and getting clipped for 1k+ damage from Rammstein), and give you enough time to recover that damage with Healing Done.
Mitigation - Next is Mitigation. Mitigation comes from Armor, Blocking if you can do it, and other passive abilities such as Consecration. Mitigation reduces the amount of damage you should take down to a new level.
Armor - Armor and abilities are straightforward physical damage reduction.
Block - Blocking is a bit more complicated, but you can calculate it's value by taking the chance to block and multiplying it agains the damage reduced for a final value of what the block is worth in terms of overall mitigation.
Avoidance - Avoidance represents your toons ability to simply not take an attack. It consists of Dodge, Parry, and Avoidance the stat. Avoidance cannot be relied on alone to survive attacks. Theoretically you could have 99% avoidance and 100 hp. It only takes 1 hit from a boss to kill you even though you should avoid most of the hits. You can use your avoidance as part of the Tankiness formula by taking it's % value into your total. Eg, I have 20% avoidance overall, therefore I take 20% less total or overall damage from a boss than I would if I had 0% avoidance. Do not use this as part of your mitigation, they are different. Mitigation is for hits taken, not hits avoided.
Total - Factor all of the above to determine your Tankiness. If I have 3000 Health, 40% Mitigation from armor, 20% from block, and 20% from Avoidance, I am able to Tank down 80% of my targets damage output. Health factors in after this to determine how long you can keep that up for. If you were to really get into this, you could calculate each bosses damage outpout, and determine a perfect threshold for each encounter, this is why I suggest higher health thresholds for particular bosses (famously Rammstein, or Magistrate Bart). Remember that Immol'thar example from above? If he was dealing 100 dps to me (260 per hit after mitigation), I should last exactly 30 seconds without healing at all if I had 3,000 health and 0 avoidance. If I had 20% avoidance I could expect 6 more seconds of life potentially. If I had 4,000 health I could last about 48 seconds w/o healing.
Other Factors
There are other factors to consider so make sure to adjust your gameplay accordingly. You might fight a boss that does heavy magical damage. Physical damage mitigation is not going to help you here, so remember to adjust your Tankiness accordingly. Some factors belong to you, such as interrupting abilities. Some classes don't have an interrupt, or situational interrupts. These can be factored into mitigation as long as you apply them properly. I do not feel that things like this belong in the main formula, as they tend to be fight specific, but you can calculate them in for approximate ideas. Eg, X boss hits me with a spell for 300 damage every 6 seconds. Every 15 seconds I can interrupt it. In the course of one minute this boss will deal 3000 damage to me. I can shave that damage down to 1800 if I interrupt it every single time perfectly, thereby granting myself an extra 40% mitigation for that scenario.
Putting it all Together
It should be apparent now that the 3 Factors I have explained above work in tandem with each other. You are not required to be godly in all 3 areas in order to excel in a solo run. In fact you really only need to hit a baseline across the board in order to pull it off. What I mean by this is let's say that we rate each factor on a scale of 1-10+. If you were to have at least a 5 in each category, than you can do most of the run. Hard bosses are going to require you to be above average in at least one category if you are only average in the other two categories.
You mean I can actually determine my toons rank with a rating?
Absolutlely! In fact, this can also be used to determine a classes Rank and Tier.
Rating & Ranking your Toon
Based on my experience soloing the content I have arrived at a basic guideline for you to follow for level 20 twinking in Shadowlands.
Damage Points - For every 20 dps you can do, give yourself 1 Damage Point. Eg, I can do 150 dps on X character on most fights, my character has a Damage Rank of 7.5. My other character only does 100 dps, therefore they have a Rating of 5 Damage Points.
Healing Points - For every 20 Hps you can do, give yourself 1 Healing Point. Eg, I can do 150 Hps on X character on average, my character has a Healing Rating of 7.5. My other character only does 100 hps, therefore they have a Rating of 5 Damage Points
Tank Points - For every 10% of damage you can mitigate or avoid, give yourself 1 Rank Point. For every 400 Health you have, give yourself 1 Rank Point. Add them together and divide it by 2. Eg, you have 60% total mitigation + Avoidance, giving you 6 Rank Points. You have 3200 Health, giving you 8 Rank Points. You get 14 after adding them together, so now 14/2 = 7. You have a Tank Rating of 7.
It sounds like the classes can be organized into tiers, is this true?
Yes. Some classes are just better suited or situated than other classes are. There is more that goes into the final determination of a class than the Rating and Ranking I described above, but it is a huge part of that determination.
What are the other factors?
1. Ease of use. How easy is the class to pilot. Is the learning curve high or low? Is it an easy entry level with a low skill bar, or high skill bar? Does it have way too many buttons to push, or have just a few?
2. Gearing Investment/Gear Dependency. How easy is it to gear the class. Is the class viable with standard gear, hard to farm gear, or ridiculous RNG gear. This also includes gems and enchantments. This includes specialty gear, if you're class needs specialty gear to be viable expect it to be bottom tier.
3. Crowd Control Abilities & Interrupts. These make your life easier, and can actually be factored into mitigation. I will not get into that here, although I gave a bit of an example above. They are not as important as you would think sometimes because they may not work against a boss (crowd control is negligible on bosses for example).
4. Quality of Life. This is how annoying is it to play the character, and do things like travel or skip mobs in instances (such as with stealth); other neat features. Quality of life is important because it does factor into something we don't bring up much, which is mental fatigue and time played.
5. Pet/Minion/Summons. Does the class have access to a Pet/Minion, and if so how powerful is it, and how long does it last.
6. Profession Dependency. Just how important is it to have your professions with the class to be successful in the run.
7. Consumable Dependency. As above, but with consumables.
8. Exploit Dependency. If you're class is exploit dependent whether it's through gear, enchants, or some other game function, than the class should not be considered to be viable. Because it's viable but only with this factor the class would be ranked just above unviable, and therefore be bottom tier.
9. Emergency Buttons. Does the class have emergency buttons to give you another shot when the chips are about to go down? Eg, Divine Shield, Feign Death, etc.
10. "Cataclysm Mode". What the heck is this? I've never heard of this before. This my friend is a bug. I am going to talk about it later, don't worry.
11. "Class Favoritism". I've nerver heard of this either. What is this? This my friend, is yet another bug. I will also talk about it later.
How impactual are these other Factors?
They are impactual enough. Some of them are much more of a factor, therefore they do not have equal weights. Some things may be worth more less to the person playing the class as well. Eg, a class that is easy for one player might be harder for another, so the value will change.
What are the factors listed there that are the most impactual?
That would be Pets/Minions, Gear Dependency, and Exploit Dependency, Cataclysm Mode, and Class Favoritism.
I see. What do you think the current Tiers are for PVE than, and what qualifies you to rank them?
I am the first person to complete the challenge on 6 different level 20s in Shadowlands for the first time ever, and have a fair understanding of the game and its numbers. I've written alot about them and hope my work and willingness to share with the community speaks for itself!
. I will not say my rankings are the be all/end all. The game changes all the time, and new discoveries are found all the time. Sometimes things go away that make things impossible from that point on as well. This is just my ranking based on the criterion I listed above for PVE content, and my own personal experience with the different classes. I would still like to test some other classes out, at a casual pace over the course of the rest of the year to further refine this suggested tier list. Feel free to rank them however you like
.
Tiering List
1. S+ Tier - Warlock/Hunter. These classes trivialize much of the content by presenting overpowered pets, and the ability to heal the pets and/or themselves, and fight at range. They do not require heavy gear investment, heavy gem/enchant investment, and have lower dependency on outside factors than other classes do. They are far less profession dependent than other classes as well. They both possess some crowd control as well. Certain fights are much easier with pets, no way around it. These classes are essentially 2 characters, and their combined scores with their pets easily push them past 30 Points. The biggest advantage for warlock is how easy it is to tank with the Voidwalker when properly geared, and how easily it can heal it's pet. He can hold down up to 8 elite mobs at a time as long as you pay attention. Hunters pets are great, but they won't perform as amazingly based on that difference alone in a solo run. Hunters have great bags of tricks up their sleeves however, and can feign out of danger at anytime as long as they are not in too deep. Both classes are amazing.
Warlock (All specs) (lock/pet).
Damage Rating: 10/2
Healing Rating: 10/1
Tankiness: 5.5/10.
Total Rating: 38.5.
Hunter(All specs) (hunt/pet).
Damage Rating: 10/3.
Healing Rating: 1.5(self)4(Healing Pet),1(Pet)2 if Survival,
Tankiness: 4.5, X (pet dependent, 5-10).
Total Rating: 30/32.5.
2. S Tier - Paladin. No surprise here, this class scores above average to godly across the board with Damage, Healing, and Tanking in my book. It has supreme emergency buttons with Divine Shield and Lay on Hands. It's greatest weakness is limited ranged ability and no pet/minion. It's also a bit slow.
Paladin (Protection)
Damage Rating: 10
Healing Rating: 12
Tankiness: 10
Total Rating: 32.
3. A Tier - Shaman. Shaman possesses what I consider to be just average tankiness, but what it lacks there, it more than makes up for healing. Damage values are above average, but expect that to move around on you a lot based on how much healing you need to do. Since you are stuck healing so much on some fights dps goes down moreso than with other classes that are tankier. The class enjoys some of the best heals, and highest mobility you can have while playing the game. It features excellent control and has spell interrupts, and is able to dps while moving.
Shaman (Restoration)
Damage Rating: 6
Healing Rating: 13-15
Tankiness: 5
Total Rating: 24-26.
4. B Tier - Druid. Druid has amazing health and excellent armor values, damage is above average for the class, and heals are slightly below average. Part of the issue with healing is that you must pop out of form, basically cutting your armor in half while you do so. This means you have to account for the higher damage taken while healing if you couldn't get any breathing room and is tough spot to be in. Druids are able to remove curses and poisons, which is good, and are able to pull from range and do light damage at range as guardian. They enjoy the best mobility in the game imo and are masters of attrition. Druid suffers from being part of Group B as of the time of this writing, due to the CFB (see below).
Druid (Guardian)
Damage Rating: 7.5
Healing Rating: 4
Tankiness: 9
Total Rating: 20.5
5. C Tier - Death Knight. DK is a favorite class of mine. It brings good damage, excellent control with Chains of Ice, and Mind Freeze, and has so much going for it in the anti caster department. The class also benefits from being able to switch to Unholy for large amounts of time, and benefitting from a permanent but weak buddy in addition to your temporary summons. The class lacks mobility, and although damage and tankiness are decent, the healing is very poor (around a 3.5 or 4 without a lot of outside help), making this a hard class to pilot for some encounters. They cannot remove a lot of effects, although Anti-Magic Shield will help here and there. The class really needs to crutch on some items like Orb of Torment, and I recommend farming other goodies up like Baron Rivendare's blade, Pit Fighter, and Parjesh's Medallion. Having these items brings your Healing Points up to a 5 in my book.
Death Knight (Blood/Unholy)
Damage Rating: 7/8
Healing Rating: 5
Tankiness: 7
Total Rating: 19.5
6. D Tier - Monk. I love monks, seriously. They have good single target damage, and great AOE in general, and they have fair heals. Sadly at this level they can't get Stagger running efficiently enough and are missing a lot of ways to reduce damage better. I feel their base mitigation is on the poor end, and they aren't able to juice up their avoidance even with Elusive Brawler well enough to make up the difference. Brewmasters can't remove any sorts of effects at this level either, although they have a good stun and spell interrupt, which is solid. This being said, I don't feel the class is in a position to do a run without an exploit use of an enchantment in general, they just lack far too much in the tankiness department, and the heals are sub par. I could be wrong, but even so the run would be insanely hard based on my experience with them.
Monk (Brewmaster)
Damage Rating: 6.5/9.5(Aoe)
Healing Rating: 3.5
Tankiness: 6.5
Total Rating: 16.5.
7. E Tier - E tier is untested. I have many theories about what is viable. I think that the challenge can be done with every class, if you have the right gear, and are very patient. The viability of each class is in question, as it comes down to intense RNG farming, specific item farming for certain builds, and exploit use however. I do not think this is true of every class that I didn't cover above, but it's largey true. I have an expectation that players will pull some of them off very soon, hopefully after reading through this guide!
Ok, so if you think the rest are viable, what tier do you think they go, or what is the order of viability?
I won't really tier them because that requires a lot of testing, although I have my thoughts on it. I would say that the classes listed in order of viability are Demon Hunter, Priest, Warrior, Rogue/Mage. There is another issue at play with these last few classes(not all of them, but most of them) that causes a further complication for doing solo stuff, I will discuss this later.
Do you plan on attempting these?
I might, but I am working on doing a level 30 project. I will attempt them at a casual pace, although it would be awesome to see another player nail one of these classes as a world first!
Thresholds
Do you have any recommended thresholds of numbers for me to follow in order to get started?
In a way I do, they are somewhat visible based on the rating system I presented. They are going to change from class to class, and I did cover them in each guide that I wrote from my solo challenges. I won't go into them here, you should be at threshold simply by gearing up, and then gemming/enchanting properly. Also, playstyle matters as well. You might not play the same way I do, and will want to set your toon up a bit differently. As a general rule I suggest a minimum total score of 20 based on my ranking system, and you should be in good shape.
Discoveries/Bugs/Exploits
I heard there are a lot of bugs, and you mentioned some above...
Yes, there are several important discoveries I made. I am going to share them with you and the community here to improve everyone's gameplay experience.
Class Favoritism Bug(CFB)
This bug I discovered by trying every class at level 20. What I discovered is that the classes appear on what I believe are two tables. We will call one Group A, and the other Group B.
Group A is the favored group. When you choose this class and do solo material, mobs will spawn with less health in instances, and do less damage to you when they attack. In general they are just weaker.
What?!
Yes, sadly this is true.
Group B classes will cause mobs to spawn with more health and deal more damage when they do instances solo.
Here is a table I concocted, using Stockades and Deadmines as an example.
.......................................Group A HP......Group B HP
Stockades Elite Mob HP........2,859.............3,257
Hogger...............................22,207...........23,814
Deadmines Elite Mob HP.......3,825..............4,356
Glubtuk..............................20,012............22,795
As you can see there is a noticeable difference here. Overall there is usuallya bout a 12% difference, although sometimes it can be less. I discovered this bug when I started my druid.
What classes are in Group B?
Druid, Warrior, Rogue, and Demon Hunter.
Cataclysm Mode/Chromie Time Bug
I affectionately call this bug the Cataclysm Mode Bug (CMB), as I first discovered it while doing my run with druid as well. Similar to the bug above, but even worse. If you fail to exit Chromie Time, you have essentially engaged a new level of difficulty in the game. This takes me back to my Diablo days haha, and I consider this bug to essentially be the Hell/Inferno mode of the level 20 solo runs, hence I always refer to it as Cataclysm Mode. I completed my first Solo Classic Dungeonmaster with this bug engaged.
The bug causes the mobs to have more HP and hit harder.
You've got to be kidding me...
Nope. Here are some charts with data to look at.
..........................................
Normal Time HP........Chromie Time HP
Stockades Elite Mob HP.............2,859....................3,639
Randolph................................17,323..................22,207
Hogger...................................22,207..................26,802
Deadmines Elite Mob HP............3,825...................3,825*
Glubtuk....................................20,012................25,471
As you can see here, the difference is larger, on average about 22% of a difference. The bug itself occasionally bugs out, and will not change some mobs HP values. It always works on bosses however according to my observations.
So I hate to ask, but do both bugs interact with each other?
Sadly, yes they do. If you are playing a Class B like druid, and you engage Cataclysm Mode, you are not going to like the result. Just as a quick example, Glubtok has 29,013 HP which is about a 31% difference.
In my book, only S tier classes can pass the challenge in Cataclysm Mode.
Forever Legion Bug
This bug is well known, and I consider it to be more of an exploit. I discovered this bug on my druid run as well. I don't suggest using it, but if you find yourself stuck on a run it can make a difference and help push you over the hump.
Remember that Broken Shore quest from the beginning? You probably found you can't get all those sweet buffs after you complete it. Just talk to the archiver in the Violet Citadel to replay the quest. Once you do you can access that phase again. Make sure you don't complete the quest or you'll have to revisit the archivist again. Essentially you do it for the buffs. 30% Armor buff, 1 hour persistent through death +5 Versatility food, and a minor bump to damage from a random proc holy effect.
Wow... those things make a massive difference. Are there any other bugs you discovered?
I didn't discover anymore massive game sweeping bugs, but I did discover a slew of minor bugs while doing each run. I took care to list a lot of them in my reports on each class that I've done so far so I won't list them here.
Dungeons by Difficulty for Classic Dungeonmaster
Ok so I think I'm ready to tackle this challenge. What is the list of dungeons by difficulty?
I would recommend something along the following lines based on my experience.
- Deadmines
- Shadowfang Keep
- Wailing Caverns
- Scarlet Monastery
- Gnomeregan
- Uldaman
- Black Fathom Deeps
- Razorfen Downs
- Zul'Farrak
- Stockades
- Maraudon(s)
- Scholomance
- Sunken Temple
- Lower Black Rock Spire
- Razorfen Kraul (Roogug, otherwise pretty easy).
- Dire Maul (E,N,W)
- Blackrock Depths
- Strath Live
- Strath Undead
Roadblock Bosses
I
see, thanks! One more thing, I have a problem with my current run, I've been unable to complete the challenge because I'm stuck on Jammal'an, and Baronness Anastari. They keep causing me to reset the fights due to them being bugged...and some of these other bosses summon a lot of adds or just deal too much damage. What do I do?
I see. Some of these fights are very difficult or are bugged and very frustrating. Let me tell you what I know...
Jammal'an
Strategy - Jammal'an is a pain because he has a bit of a broken pattern that you see him do. He will use earthgrab totem, hex you (this turns you into the zombie and then becomes a curse) if you are in range/line of sight, and he will cast flame strike. The first thing you need to do is make sure your Ghost Iron dragonling is on CD, this usually takes about 1 minute from it's last phase out. If you don't have one you will want something like Elementium Dragonling instead. Engage him from as far away as you can, and get your pseudo pet to engage him. When this happens you want to run to your left if you are facing his area and line of sight him. Make sure you have your Dialog volume up and listen for "Join Us". Once he does this run out and engage him. From here you are going to want to work the corner area and pillar hump. He should genearlly drop Earthbind Totem, then after a bit use Flamestrike. After this you can be sure that "Join Us" will follow. Make sure to run away when he FS's and use the corner. I suggest running all the way around the second part of the wall that juts out. You need to develop a sense of time and distance so it will take a lot of tries unless you get lucky. He will usually follow a strange travel path but make his way over if you didn't get too far away, and start the pattern again. Once he gets low, he will additionally add regrowth into his pattern, usually before flamestrike. This is where it gets tricky because he sometimes will "Join Us" after the regrowth (remember you should be running away now), and other times he will Flame Strike and "Join Us". What I can tell you is that there is a certain amount of time he does this sequence in whether it's Pattern A or Pattern B, and they are usually the same amount of time, so just get out of his Line of Sight. If you do this perfectly, you can kill him.
Complications to the fight - What I described sounds easy, but he tends to complicate the fight. Sometimes he breaks the pattern for no reason apparently, other times he will adjust his timing window and delay using "Join Us" as he chases you to the new area. Make sure to try and stall him out as long as you can without resetting him to provoke that Join us out of him. If he runs out of mana (a new development in my book), you are actually in trouble because he is going to start spamming "Join Us" a lot more.
Workarounds - Use a pet. If you are not a pet using class, but you are a healing class, you are in luck. Go farm the Terracotta Warrior off of John-Dar from Mists of Pandaria. This little buddy has 1,000ish HP, and will taunt. He can soak up "Join Us" from Jammal'an. You want to make sure you focus him and heal him, he takes a lot of damage especially when transformed. Using this method is the easiest way to do the fight if you don't have a pet of your own. Warlock, Hunter, and Unholy DK trivialize this fight. You can also use Speed to workaround the fight. If you are ranged you can ranged kite him around the middle room, but you have to be pretty fast. I used this method in conjunction with the main method I described on my druid due to druids fast ground speed. You will want to stop periodically to provoke him to cast stuff perhaps, or you can just go for a full run/kite and wear him down. It is possible to also use target dummies to draw his attention when you get transformed. Make sure if you are going to use these that you drop the (eg, Assassin DUmmy tinker) and get away from it, so you dont' blow it up right away. These methods can work in clutch, like say you took a curse but he's down pretty low and you just need to deal another 10% damage to him. I'm not gonna lie, he's a killer for some classes and is my most hated boss for non-pet classes.
Baroness Anastarii
Strategy - Baroness is actually extremely easy. I was able to deduce the nature of her bug and determine a workaround for it that will work for any class. Do not use any pets whatsoever, not even Ghost Iron Dragonling. You want to engage her and let her beat you down to less than 50% of your HP. Never raise your HP for any reason over 50%. You might want to take off your critical gear or minimize it. Make sure you are very aware of how much you will heal for. Remember, some classes experience a bug and heal for more than normal when facing her as well. Once you are under 50% she will no longer Possess you. You are free to beat her down, but you must be careful not to get past 50% or she will usually instantly possess you and reset the fight.
Anub'Rhekan
Strategy - He will cut your armor in half and web/range you alot of the time. Make sure you kill the add he drops because it will actually hit you for substantial damage with his debuff. Make sure to pull him around the corner(s) to do the fight, this will cause him to adjust more when he does his web so you can have an easier time getting him back into melee range if you are melee. This fight is not very hard and quite straightforward, but it's a good checkpoint to see how you will do against Magistrate Barthalas and Ramstein.
Magistrate Barthalas
Strategy - Bump up against a wall and tank him. Be prepared to get slapped and remember he has a stacking buff that has no limit, a stun, and he will consistently interrupt your casts, so be careful trying to heal yourself. Don't let yourself get too low. Fighting him is very straightforward, but he is yet another checkpoint to see how you will do against Ramstein. He can be harder than Ramstein for some classes, so be warned.
Ramstein
Strategy - Rammstein is your Patchwerk. I am sorry to say this. You must actually have enough muster to pass the fight. He is minorly bugged and will ignore any effects that cause you to ignore his stuns, so keep this in mind. He is a bit on the slow end, so it is possible to stack up speed or run away (shaman, druid), and heal when the going gets tough. Just watch yourself. He tends to hit for about 300ish on my plate users, and literally just requires staying power. Don't cheat yourself on DPS in favor of tanking unless it's hopeless for you. I've been hit by stunlock combos before for over 1200, and then follow ups for 300 apiece in plate. Always keep yourself topped off whenever possible, especially if your HP is on the lower side of things.
Immol'Thar
Strategy - Immol'thar is pretty tough, he hits for mid 200's on my geared plate users, spawns adds that slow your attack and movement tremendously, and he debuffs you with an effect that causes you to take 44 more damage per hit. Don't forget he Frenzies for a +60% haste bonus on attacks, and will randomly teleport you causing you take take a lot of falling damage. Essentially the strat is easy, engage, kill adds, and pray. If you get lucky you won't take much teleporting, I had a run where he teleported me only once. There are ways around it, but most of them are pretty janky. Immo, like Rammstein represents a checkpoint wall. You need to hit benchmarks to pass this fight, and you have to pay attention and kill every add asap. Keep yourself topped off as much as possible with healing.
Roogug
Strategy - Roogug is particularly bad if you are primarily a caster, but defeating him is easy. Clear the entire area on both sides of the gully on the way to him and trigger all the rope traps. When you get to him focus down his adds right away, make sure to clear his totems for the early part of the fight. At some point he is going to start getting a big haste/damage buff that permanently stacks up to 3 times. You want to pound him down as much as you can and probably need to run away by stack 2 or 3 for sure. Hop off the ledge, this will cause him to run down the ramp. Heal yourself, and deal ranged damage to him when you can, and begin to run away. Go to the start of the ramp and return back to the other side of the ramp (kite him back and forth). He will take little breaks to drop totems, especially if you do some pausing in your kiting. Don't try to toe to toe with because he we will beat you to a pulp. The only class I did him with toe to toe was paladin, and this required bubble and LoH with a little running away. He doesn't have a lot of HP so you don't have to do this for very long.
Ambassador Flamelash
Strategy - Pull him from his room back to the area you just cleared. This will give you time to handle his adds. The adds beef him up pretty fast. Try to position him so you are between him and the adds, and zoom your camera out. I recommend using bombs and frag belt tinker for this fight (mandatory if you are a shaman for eg). Try to engage the mobs with anything you can before they get to you, even taunt will work. Once engaged quickly kill them. Sneak pot shots in on Ambassador whenever you can. He is surprisingly difficult for some classes, and not an issue for others. This is a common trend in soloing.
Wyrmthalak
Strategy - Wyrmthalak is easy. Tank him against the wall and do your thing. When he summons his two adds, if you can CC one do so, and whether you can or can't, make a bee line for the ledge. This will cause all of them to follow you by running down the ramp. Heal up if you can and try to focus down one add, or CC and focus the other one. Even if you have to do it in pot shots and multiple ledge jumps, this is the way. Usually you will take too much damage if you stay in against Wyrmy and both mobs.
Emperor Daagran
Strategy - Clear the area, "kill" Princess. Make sure you melee Emperor periodically if you are not a melee class, otherwise he will permastun you and you will die. You can perform a small exploit here by killing all the mobs but the elite one right before the throne. If you beat the elite mob on your left down to "run away" mode, he will run up to the throne and won't pull princess, but he will pull the emperor. You can wait for Emp to get to you, and proceed as normal without interference from Princess. This is not a hard fight, but does have some bugginess so I wanted to touch base with it.
Other
Most of the rest of the other boss fights are generally easy and don't have much going on in the way of bugs. Some fights are pretty add heavy, or feature a powerful add or two. Make sure you handle those adds first. If it's a lot of adds like with General Angerforge, use the terrain to your advantage. Get to the stairs and hop down, make em chase you while you heal, cc, and focus important mobs down. Soloing requires situational awareness, but you already knew that
. Some fights feature gimmicks, especially in later xpacs, so be sure to learn the mechanics of those gimmicks to make your life easier (Parjesh, Rattlegore, come to mind).
Conclusion
I hope you all enjoyed this read! I am going to make ammendations to the guide as time passes, and more classes are tested out, and maybe pretty it up a bit(maybe hehe). It was a lot of work and a long road to test these classes out, and write this guide, which was about 3 months in the making. It is with great pleasure I can introduce this guide to you all, and help improve everyone's gaming experience. I am not going to lie, I am pretty tired after doing all this and need a break from the 20 scene a bit. I will be shifting into a more casual mode and work on things throughout the year, as my life allows. I also want to do a single class level 30 challenge for myself and see how that pans out.
As always, feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions. Insights are always welcome. I wish you all the best in your continued journeys in Azeroth.
As always, God bless, Good luck, and Happy Gaming friends!
PS. I want to give a shout out to everyone who helped out by giving me any insights they had. My good friend
@DragonMaze helped me test out a lot of these bugs, and my gaming buddy Optimus stocked me hardcore with consumables for the runs. I want to thank you all for desiring my work, and it's a pleasure to help everyone.
