Learning To Go It Alone

Just like the title says here, I've been learning how to survive soloing some of these "mount dropping" bosses. I had a few "firsts" yesterday.

See, while I've been in ZG a few times now, I've never just gone in alone to try and solo any boss but Gahz'ranka. I failed miserably the first time I tried the fight. There's ONE ability that Gahz has that was really just messing me up. The ability is called "Massive Geyser" and it shoots you high up in the air...then you plummet and take massive amounts of fall damage. That is what killed me the first time I tried to solo this boss. I was hellbent and determined to get the Tome of Polymorph: Turtle for the mages I love so much, so rather than give up after one attempt, I decided I'd give it another go.

I had read on an old "raid strategy" guide that the best thing was to have your tank fight Gahz'ranka under water...so, I positioned myself in such a way that the Massive Geyser would send me into the air, but I'd still land in the water when I come back down. Taking ZERO fall damage makes this boss nothing more than a lengthy spankfest. I had gone into Zul'Gurub last week (Wednesday, I think) with Shadowmuse. We effortlessly took down the Tiger and Raptor mount bosses and called it a night. I decided that I wanted to try and summon Gahz'ranka (I got the achievement Deadliest Catch, btw) and see if he/she/it would drop the tome for me. No such luck, but I did learn how to solo this boss with ease.

Yesterday, I went back in to kill the three bosses again, but I decided to try it alone. I mean, if it's just me and a mount drops...no competition right? I was surprised at how easy they were to take down.

At any rate, no mounts dropped but I did get the Tome of Polymorph: Turtle from Gahz. I offered it to my husband for his mage, but he didn't seem all that interested in it. I'll probably give it to my own little mage so that when she hits level 60, she's got something fun to play with in PvP.

Why would I say this is for PvP only? Well, it's become increasingly rare to see any polymorph flavored crowd control in our current end-game world. It's pretty sad. That's one of the cool abilities that mages have, and it seems like they're making more and more of each classes CC abilities obsolete. I'm going to leave it at that because I have a "gripe" session coming up in one of my next posts. The moral of the story right now is that I was pretty excited to see this drop. I mean, even if I don't give it to my own mage, I'm sure it's worth at least a small chunk of gold.

Moving on...

I've been trying to figure out how to solo Heroic: Magister's Terrace. There's a chance that the Swift White Hawkstrider will drop from Kael'Thas Sunstrider. What would be better than a Night Elf on a Blood Elf's mount? I mean, seriously...it's incredibly cool. And, I have the Orb of the Sin'dorei from previous farming runs. So, I mean, I could probably confuse some horde in a BG if I really put my mind to it. Sounds entertaining to me!

I suppose the raptor mount would work also...hmm... well, I'll have to see which one decides to drop first.

Wow...I just took a pretty big detour...sorry about that. Back to the topic at hand. Kael'Thas Sunstrider...

Now, I'm the type who'll try to solo just about anything. No, it's not to prove how "leet" I am. I do it because it's fun. I've been working on trying to solo Heroic Magister's Terrace for months now. Most of the time, I'd get to Vexallus and get splattered there and have to stop, as I couldn't get past him. He hits hard, the sparks put a nasty DoT on you...bleh.

However...last week, I FINALLY managed to get past Vex. I wiped once on him, ran back and tried again and got him down. Feeling pretty victorious, I prowled in and took down the Priestess and her little posse.

I really figured Kael'thas would be no problem at all. I cleared the trash leading up to him, still had a flask on from a raid earlier, at some AP buff food and figured..."Let's DO this!"

I know that you HAVE to get Kael to 50% within the first 60 seconds of the fight, or he pyroblasts, doing 55K damage...and unless you're a paladin capable of bubbling your ass through that...it's going to destroy you. Well, the first time in there...I got him to 51% and couldn't break through his little bubble fast enough to avoid the Pyroblast. He killed me.

Knowing how close I was, I figured I'd try opening up in kitty and change up the rotation a little. I only got him to 55%. He pyroblasted again and I died. I waited until my husband got on later to take him down. With the two of us, it's really easy.

For those of you who don't quite know me very well...I'm stubborn and determined. When I set my mind on doing something, I'll do it if it kills me. I KNOW I can take Kael down by myself. I've seen dozens of videos from other folks boasting about how they can solo him. I know it's possible, and I know I can do it.

I thought of a million different things to try. I decided I'd try again yesterday and for the first time, was able to bring Kael'Thas down SOLO. *throws a huge party* Hell yes! No mount, but still... This will keep me from only being able to try this run when I have a friend with me. So that's good news.

I was just reading over this post, realizing how scattered and incoherent it is...You'll have to bear with me today. I'm still sick as a dog and the cold medicine I've been taking is making my head so very foggy...

At any rate, I'll post some strategies and how to get the lure for Gahz'ranka a little bit later. For now, I have to go get some coffee. :)