Hello fellow Hunters! With Warlords well under way now, between the buzz of raiding and constant pruning of my Garrison I’ve found the time to finally sit down with some encounters from the previous expansion and crank out some sought after solos. More specifically the more lucrative ones – mount drops! If you’re looking for a fun and rewarding challenge in your spare time, I highly encourage everyone to try some of these out.

This guide will assume you know the basic soloing practices for more advanced content (if you need to brush up, you can do so here and here) as you’ll find yourself making use of many of those practices while tackling these encounters. Note that you may choose to follow all, some, or none of the strategy to suit your playstyle and/or gear as solos are often dynamic.

I’ve ordered the encounters to, in my opinion, easiest to hardest. Let’s get crackin’.

Nalak, the Storm Lord

Relatively straightforward and more or less of a tank and spank, Nalak only has a few abilities you need to pay mind to:

– Static Shield - Nalak’s passive debuff, coming too close to him will result in lightning bolts being repeatedly shot at your character. Just maintain a safe distance, roughly 30 yards, and you won’t have to deal with this ability.

– Arc Nova – Nalak’s large, melee knockback. You should never be close enough to Nalak for this to be an issue, but it does present us with a unique scenario. Your pet does get knocked back, and in the event that the positioning for some reason just isn’t right, your pet will get knocked far enough out of range and despawn. This can usually be recovered by a quick Call Pet to Feign Death – but if you want to prevent this altogether, just watch to see which way your pet will go and try to follow (it doesn’t have to be by very much either)

– Lightning Tether and Stormcloud – Two damaging abilities that can be passively healed through with Spirit Bond, these should never be overwhelming unless you find yourself too close to the boss and taking Static Shield hits in addition to these two.

Elegon

This is a fun one. Elegon has a number of mechanics that will put your solo skills to the test (and also has an incredible looking mount).

Elegon is a multiple phase encounter:

Phase 1: Tank and Spank

Before we get into mechanics I want to note that the floor acts as a buff/debuff zone. While you’re inside the pylon circle, you will deal 50% increased damage, the caveat to this though is that the longer you stay inside the more damage you take over time. Extended stays inside the zone can prove deadly, and it as advised to consider resetting your stacks by running outside (or jumping the sweet spot if you know the trick) at least once. The only danger in this phase is disregarding both mechanics at the same time, but you should have a relatively easy time with them.

– Celestial Protectors - Elegon will periodically summon an add that should ideally be tanked by your pet. You can either cleave or single target it down, just note that when it dies it will deal a small amount of  damage to you, in addition to the percentage added by being inside the pylon circle.

– Celestial Breath - Elegon’s frontal cone breath that you’d rather not take, just make sure that on the pull he isn’t facing you and you should be fine for the rest of the fight. He’s a bit transparent, as all Astral Cloud Serpents are I suppose.

Phase 2: Damage Time

At 85 and 50 percent health Elegon goes into a phase where he can take stacking amounts of increased damage. Success in this phase can be determined by how much damage you deal to the summoned adds.

– Energy Charges - Bits of Elegon himself, 6 of these are summoned every time Elegon finishes his channeled cast. I advise saving Barrage for this as often as possible. Pro tip: If you are willing to keep the Celestial Protector from the previous phase up, you can easily cleave off of him with Multi-Shots and Beast Cleaves. For every wave of these you defeat, Elegon takes an additional 10% damage.

Once you can no longer keep up with the adds and one connects to a pylon, the phase is over and you will need to move off the platform and onto the floor.

Phase 3: Such Beautiful Lights

Defeat all 6 raised pylons while dodging the sparks and tanking their summoned adds to push Nalak back into his tank and spank and damaging phases again. Once you complete another cycle (of Phases 1 and 2), Elegon will enter his final phase where he will deal increasing damage – this is a burn phase, simply nuke him down and keep an eye on your health if needed.

Galleon

Rather challenging on beta but accessible now, Galleon is an encounter where you’ll see a bit more damage intake on both you and your pet over the previous bosses.

- Stomp – Galleon stomps the ground dealing a moderate amount of physical damage in addition to a small stun. Can be Deterred.

– Cannon Barrage – Galleon’s frontal attack, just be sure to be positioned at his sides.

- Salyin Warmongers - Passively, atop Galleon’s back these adds will shoot down arrows that deal fire damage to you. Roughly every 45 seconds a pack of them will jump down and will need to be quickly MD’d to your pet and cleaved down, I don’t advise leaving them up for too long.

If the damage intake is too high, you can snipe Kill Shots on the Salyin Warmongers to make use of the 15% HP heal bonus, highly recommended.

Sha of Anger

Perhaps a confusing one at first glance, Sha is nothing more than bit of movement, minor pet management, and a little bit of patience.

-  Mind Control – The most exhausting mechanic on this fight, it will end up being more a nuisance than a challenge. Sha will mind control you for 30 seconds, where you will turn and attack your pet. Be sure to cast Mend Pet before each MC, just to keep your pet from dipping to dangerous levels while your are incapacitated (and dealing damage) for such a long time. Unfortunately the uptime you’ll have on Sha between MC’s isn’t that long, so be sure to save your cooldowns for these short DPS periods.

– Ire and Bitter Thoughts – Periodically Sha will also summon Ire adds, and where they land forms a Bitter Thought. Standing inside Bitter Thoughts is a complete silence, so be sure to move. Just note that there will be several of these, and can sometimes be hard to see against the desecrated ground. The Ire adds deal moderate physical damage, and should be collected by your pet to be cleaved down. Barrage makes quick work of them.

The only deadly combination here is going into the Mind Control with you and the Ire adds attacking your pet. Be sure to clean up before each MC and you should have him down in no time.

Ji-kun

More of a tank and spank with a few mechanics sprinkled in than anything else, it’s more of a struggle reaching this point in the instance than it is defeating her.

Nests:

For my kill, I stayed full time on the platform. After being admittedly unprepared for the first Down Draft and knocked off, I was still in combat with our avian friend. With this in mind, I believe it possible to do nest duty for a large increase in damage for the rest of the fight.

Simply drop down and kill the first nest only (you know the one), collect a feather and grab the subsequent Feed Young globule to kick things off. Repeat as needed per Feed Young and you should chop a great deal of time off from your kill.

- Down Draft – Wings of majesty flap furiously in the air, pushing you back with gale force winds. Running against it will result in your ejection from the platform (and potentially a good deal of damage if during Quills). I found the easiest way to handle this was a 180-degree disengage in the proper direction. Rocket boosts could work just as well. For added ease, make sure you are on the longest stretch of platform from center to edge.

– Quills – Ji-kun’s big damaging ability, it is mostly passively healed with Spirit Bond. You can opt to use a spirit beast heal here, or minor defensive cooldown. Deterrence might be a bit of an overkill unless later on in the fight when you are approaching a soft enrage.

- Hatchlings – Since no nests, barred from the first one given your chosen strategy, are being killed, hatchlings from the nests will soon grow into juveniles. These will increase as the fight goes on. From high above, they shoot down moderate physical damage. Dealing with these in addition to quills late in the fight may call for more drastic mitigating and healing plays.

Horridon

“Welcome weaklings, to the rebirth of the Zandalari empire! Now, witness the true might of the Beast Ward. D’akala di’chuka HORRIDON! Kalimaste!” – War-God Jalak

My personal favorite solo on this list, Horridon is longer, more tedious encounter with a mix of mechanics and a great burn phase.

Troll Tribes

The first two gates are easy enough. Position Horridon accordingly for easy add pickup and cleave down as necessary. Adds > Horridon for the most part. Be careful you don’t push Horridon too hard (you’ll see why soon).

– Drakarri Champions & Warriors – When you make it to the third gate, the Drakarri tribe of Northrend put up a fair fight. These two lesser adds will apply a nasty Disease on you if you take a melee swing from them. It can stack high if left unattended (17, don’t ask) and will start to pack a punch past the first few applications. Given that it lasts for 5 minutes, you want nothing to do with these guys. Kite/MD accordingly.

- Zandalari Dinomancers – Once you are a ways through each gate, a Dinomancer will drop down from the stands and begin a chanelled heal on Horridon. Interrupt it (or not, at least for a time – see later) and pick up the orb he drops after reaching 50% HP to move onto the next tribal gate.

Once dealing with all four gates, it’s time to engage Horridon directly.

Jalak will enter the fray when Horridon reaches 30% HP. You do not want this to happen while dealing with gates. Jalak + Horridon + troll tribe is a recipe for disaster. If you find yourself reaching this threshold, be a lot more mindful of where your damage is going, or allow a Dinomancer to get a fair bit of his healing cast off

- War-God Jalak – One mean troll, he deals a boatload of physical damage. Have your pet pick up Jalak and be ready to use defensive cooldowns like Last Stand and Shell Shield. By this time, your pet will have high stacks of Horridon’s tank debuff, in addition to dealing with another heavy hitter. Kill Jalak quickly. This will push Horridon into his enrage, on my first kill I had my pet die at this point, just be careful – rez/kite/feign/MD if necessary. From here on out you burn Horridon and keep an eye on your pet.

Oondasta

King of the Dinosaurs, Oondasta is the ultimate test of self-healing and damage dealing.

- Growing Fury – Even starting off, Oondasta means business. Every 30 seconds he’ll increase all damage done by 10%, stacking. Which just so happens to affect two of his nastiest abilities.

- Spitfire Beam – A frequent, heavy hitting spell that needs to be passively healed through, Spirit Mended, or handled with defensive cooldowns. This will be the primary source of damage on yourself.

- Crush - Not only will this deal a fair amount of damage to your pet, this ability also stacks with itself in addition to Growing Fury. To top it all off, it reduces armor by 25%.

- Frill Blast – This will ruin your attempt if it catches you, a fatal blast in a 180-degree radius – just position yourself near Oondasta’s hind legs to avoid it all together.

Cycle necessary defensive cooldowns on your pet. I recommend a spirit beast for this one. Often the Spirit Mend would go on myself or my pet, given the situation. If the damage on yourself becomes too much, engage one of the nearby Zandalari Beastmasters to snipe Kill Shots on for the 15% HP heal as well, there are a few nearby.