As we discussed in Extreme Soloing Basics, the most important things in extreme soloing is you pet healing, and pet damage mitigation. And you increase your pet healing by having more stamina. Thus all of our choices for extreme soloing are based on those two criteria.
Exteme Solo Gear
To be honest, I don’t actually have a lot of gear specifically for extreme soloing — I mostly just use my raid gear with a few key pieces swapped out.
Your first goal is to have 132 resilience. Combined with pet talents, this will make your pet immune to crits from bosses.
Your next goal is the old BC Tier 5 Riftstalker set. You want two pieces of tier 5 gear, because the two piece set bonus is that you heal your pet for 15% of the damage that you do. The healing from this is massive. You can get your tier 5 gear from Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Caverns, and you’ll need a group of about 10 people to blow through them. Any two pieces will do, but if you have a choice, I’d recommend the smaller pieces, since you get larger stats from pieces like chest.
Tier 5 is not necessary for all extreme soloing — I certainly did UK, Nexus, and Onyxia without it. However, there is a lot of Molten Core that either requires it, or is made substantially easier with it.
Now, PVP gear in general is very stamina heavy and good for extreme soloing because of it. In particular I’d recommend getting a PVP helm and legs – not only do these pieces carry a lot of stamina, but there are also key gems and enchants you can get for these pieces.
Tier 7/7.5 hasa nice 2-piece set bonus that increases your pet damage by 5% – however this doesn’t increase pet healing or mitigation, so it’s not essential.
The tier 1 set has a 3-piece bonus that increases your mend pet effect by 10% and range by 50%. Thus far I haven’t found a situation in which this is worth it. The incredible stat loss from having three pieces of level 60 gear just isn’t worth the 10% healing bonus.
Exteme Solo Gems
As you can imagine, stamina is your big gem choice for extreme soloing, thus Solid Sky Sapphire is your main choice for solo-specific gear.
Your meta gem is also an important choice. I strongly favor the Invigorating Earthsiege Diamond because of its ability to actually heal you, the hunter. This will only heal you for around 415 per minute (or a bit less) but that can add up to a big difference in some long fights. Your other meta gem option is the Austere Earthsiege Diamond.
Extreme Solo Enchants
Enchants for extreme soloing are pretty straight forward: look for the stamina enchants. The biggest one you’re going to get is for your leg slot where you can put the Frosthide Leg Armor on it (or Jormungar Leg Armor if you’re pinching coppers).
Also, if you’re an engineer you can use your Mind Amplification Dish for your helm.
Extreme Solo Consumables
Consumables can make a massive difference in your pet’s overall health, which increases survivability and pet healing. Remember to buff your own health, as your pet will get a portion of your health in addition to helth effects for the pet.
- Runescroll of Fortitude — gives the entire party (you and your pet) 165 stamina. The best survivability buff you can get.
- Spiced Mammoth Treats for your pet.
- Mega Mammoth Meal for yourself.
- Drums of the Wild for you and your pet.
- Drums of Forgotten Kings for you and your pet.
- Flask of Endless Rage is purely optional, and just helps you to kill stuff faster.
The End Result
When I’m doing extreme soloing, I have several variations of extreme solo gear. I have a dps set for easier stuff that just gives me 2 tier 5 and my 132 resilience to make my pet crit immune. At that gear level my pet has 23-25k health. Wearing all of my stamina gear (which is only maybe half my gear slots) and fully buffed with consumables, I can get my pet up to 30k health.
At that health level I find most things are pretty easily soloable and it’s just a matter of strategy and execution. At lower health levels a lot is still soloable but just requires more attention paid to pet health (I solod nexus and onyxia with 19k pet health).
Nice Frost, Good guide. Everything I need to start this unknown thing called “Extreme Soloing” haha.
very nice i am glad to know this for future content
Great guide frost. Just one question though. What kind of weapon would be good for soloing? I’m leaning toward the “Relentless Gladiator’s Herbet”, because of the stamina.
Anything with high stamina is good. I just use my raiding polarm from ulduar.
Not unlike my tanking gear, which stresses stamina as well. Unfortunately I don’t quite have Frost’s unbuffed HP, because I can’t afford to dip into the SV tree for the extra stam. Though I may experiment with it depending on how much pet threat was improved in 3.2. 23K health pre-group-buffs sounds so tempting, since I’m currently fighting just to get him to 20K.
Those PvP 2-handers are annoying though. I refuse to do arena just for tanking/soloing gear. But yeah, there’s a few good stamina staffs/polearms from raids, and a half-decent one from the Argent Tourney as well.
I’m enjoying these soloing bits, though. Not that I plan to try them (I realize my limits) but it’s fun to see it done, knowing hunters are capable of it.
I should stress that the 23k is *not* unbuffed. I have my food, pet food, and stam scroll for me and pet to reach that number.
I have a question: When you say “10 people to blow through it” does that mean, 10 people to get it done really fast with little-to-no down time, and that me and 2-3 other friends can just start running them if we wanted, but it might be a bit harder. Or you really need 10 people or else your going to have a rough night
Sorry, should have clarified. Still, 20K pet health eludes me (not by much anymore, though), even when we’re both well-fed. Those SV points are pretty awesome.
Hi Frost, all these soloing articles is cool and all but can you put one up that involves the new best raiding spec post patch 3.2? I’ve been dying to here your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Oh god, someone named Frostlover. I know what I’ll be hearing about all through tonight’s raid…
Mekk: you probably want around 10 people. At a guess I’d say it would probably be doable with only 7 or so.
Thanks frost/arth im on the right track now. with thoes 15 pet tank pieces i have stuffed in my backpack buffed and ready to roll flash and i are sitting at 26900/29800. with 7.6% hit. still need to get 2x T5 though. that is with the ES/MHB. your guides are a breath of fresh air..
time to go re learn MC.
cheers guys.
Nice post Frost , looks like im going back to outland for tanking gear if i can just get myself away from uldar and heroics for a second lol these badges are dropping like flys. Anyone else finding the Trial of the Champion Heroic is bugging out lately ? we got kicked of our horses the other night while 1 of the bosses was still riding weird hey!, then when the boss and 12 adds came out we tried to pull a set of 3 and everytime all 12 came which is not normal , even tried misdirection to the tank just seemed the whole room pulled and we wiped 3 times, they also seemed to have more hitpoints and do alot more damage too. On the 4th go it went back to normal and we cruised through it like normal just was very upsetting knowing that we cruise through this dungeon normally and i feel sorry for the new comes cause if you didn’t know it was bugged it could put you of it for life let alone the repair bill.
Thanks for the awesome guide, has confirmed a few things I was going for already (i.e. re-enchanting my old Tier 7.5 legs with a stam patch, and using a pair of pvp gloves from vault with a stam gem/patch, also to pick up 2 pieces of Tier 5 if I can), nice to know I’m not just noobing around too much :p
Question about enchants / gems. Are you raiding with stam enchants / gems?
You would be silly raiding with stamina gems and stamina enchants this is only for PVP, extreme soloing or tanking otherwise its hit, crtical, attack power and agility depending on your spec . My SV spec is a Agility junky but keep your hit at least a minimum of 200 and a max of 263 hit which is your cap before anything else. I find with 204-209 hit rating I miss 4 shots in a naxaramas run all 4 quarters, however with the hit converting to your pet now it might be worth losing some attack power so the pet can’t be parry or dodge from front attacks by hitting the hit cap but i have not tested the result yet.
No, I do not use stam gems/enchants on my raiding gear — any extreme solo specific gear I put the stam on. Otherwise I use my raiding gear with agility gems.
Are there any crafted or non raid alternatives to the gear you have specified? I want to solo everything, always, PERIOD and it seems a little ironic that in order to effectively do that you need to do shed loads of raiding first – which for me is total torture (and ain’t gonna happen)!
In the spirit of TOTAL soloing, is there any chance of a gear/weapon guide that does not include raid items?
Actually Xeala you’re better off *without* raid gear – I just wear my raid gear because I’m too lazy to get solo-specific gear. In general you want to look at pvp gear or just high stamina gear.
The two pieces of T5 is pretty irreplaceable though. You can solo a lot of stuff without it, but some stuff will always remain out of your reach without the set bonus.
I have a pvp set with some hatefuls and some deadly and such and I have 22k but my damage isn’t as much as it obviously would be in my raiding gear should I just go for the thing with the most stamina in this case or should I just leave out my hatefuls and put the t5 in and just have all raid sept for deadly’s and t5 gear
PvP gear isn’t too hard to get, between VoA and WG weekly quests rewarding 10k honor, however, as I look at weapons, there are some nice options with strength and/or defense that shouldn’t be too hard to get, assuming the group will let you pick it up. I’m looking at a few Ony drops or tanking guns that would be nice for stacking stamina, unless I’m lucky enough to get to pick up some arena weapons.
What do you think about these options? Are they worth fighting for or just pick up any high stamina hunter weapons and call it good?
2t5, PVP gear, frost resistance gear (extremely hi in stamina), stamina gems, enchants and voila: me unbuffed 33k pet 30k. It does take ages to kill anyone:) but Your pet looks undestructible:)
A piece of gear that I find very useful for this, that is if you are able to get it from a tank or off-spec tank is The Black Heart from the Black Knight in TotC Reg.
I have a question though…. On our pet stats, would you consider a 400 boost in health is favorable over a 100 drop in armor?
Is 2x Rimefang’s Claw (tanking sword) good for your pet?
if so, what enchants should I put?
What kind of stats are we gemming and enchanting for? Are we looking for stamina, hit, crit?
PartyOne, I believe you want stamina, stamina, and, of course, stamina.
just throw some stamina in your bag incase you need some more.
hide it in your beard if you have to
Trying to get a grp for the T5 gear is an epic journey in itself. Seems practically hopeless. Hard to find any interest, and the explanation for why an 80 wants this gear, well non-hunters just DON’T get it, heck 1/2 the hunters don’t get it.
Frost, here’s a thought , see if you can work up a guide to solo two pieces of T5 WITHOUT using T5? Is that possible? Like Dansonsdorf I cant seem to find anyone willing to help me get it and am starting to think that soloing is the only way its gonna happen? Or do you think that the T5 pieces are too hard to get solo without the bonus from 2pc T5?
I have looked over the T5 sources, and even with the 2 pc gear it would be daunting. Without it, I just don’t see happening. We need some sort of “Hunter Outreach” program, to help those in need! LOL Not all of us are in guilds, and even then you get the craziest responses. 1st: why do you want that? 2nd: why do you want to do that? 3rd: what’s the point of doing that? 5th: ( disgruntled hunter says) screw it, lets go farm badges with the rest of the lemmings! AND THEN we can stand around in a gleaming column of light in Dal. or the Iforge, and make lowbs say oooohh and aahhhh look at his neato gear, he’s BIG!! FAIL!
This is happening to me too
.
.
No joy finding a group wanting to run TK or SC.
Also like Dansonsdorf,people just dont understand why i want to get these pieces,
i can almost hear them sniggering.Trying to explain to individuals is hard enough but a pug raid is much much worse and sadly my guild is not big enough/capable of running these too help.
Hunter Outreach sounds excellent ! Im in
If you were lucky enough to get the brewfest mug trinkets, i suggest those. +170 stam each. (I’m going to try to upgrade one to the 264 trinket with +228 stam). I’ll have to look into that T5 set and see if it’s worth trading out some 232/251 pvp gear for that healing bonus. Since my pet is just about 29k HP, my mend pet heals for a pretty good amount. A good fun test of your solo-ing abilities is to do stockades… yes, that level 20-something instance in SW… A good fun test is to pull the entire instance in a single run. It’s more than just grabbing everyone and throw down and AOE, with knockback effects and disarm, you’ll have to stop, transfer the mobs aggro to your pet (carefully as to not kill the mob) and continue to the next wing. Easiest way to do this is to keep your pet on passive, then switch to defensive, let him do a thunderstomp to get aggro, then put on passive again. It’s a good test of your threat mitigation. Try it, it’s fun!
Quoting from article:
The tier 1 set has a 3-piece bonus that increases your mend pet effect by 10% and range by 50%. Thus far I haven’t found a situation in which this is worth it. The incredible stat loss from having three pieces of level 60 gear just isn’t worth the 10% healing bonus.
I did find a situation in which this is worth it!
It is not about the 10% healing bonus on this set, but rather the 50% range increase on Mend Pet.
In order to kill Terestian Illhoof in Karazhan you have to be way out of shooting range to avoid getting caught in Demon Chains.
The only way to nail this guy down is to let your pet dps Illhoof (I use a Wolf, but any ferocity pet with the right spec should do) while you dps down the endless stream of tiny imps that spawn from the portal.
Ofcourse you will also be wearing your 2 pieces of T5 so you heal your pet, but you need Mend Pet up as well and the T1 bonus makes sure you can do that while staying out of range of Illhoof.
What is your suggestion for someone to achieve the 132 Res, but doesn’t arena / pvp ? (I do have 1100+ stone keeper’s shards, though)
Maybe dumb question, but is the 132 resilience still required? Not sure where to look for this mechanic to verify. Thanks
Another dumb question: Do we still need to be hit-capped, or is all we care about with gems/enchants purely stamina?
@Dasfreshmaker: Two pieces of PVP gear are sufficient. I had to wait for my T5 set to drop to choose where to spend my honor points (or shards).
@Bier: Yes, it is required.
@justarb: Problem is, if you’re not hit-capped, your pet isn’t too, and his threat/aggro/dps is less. You hit less, so you heal it less (if you have the T5 set on). Last, mobs last longer… and if you’re not over the “magic ratio” (your pet heals more than it is hit for), it will spell death for your pet at last. So… it is really better to be hit-capped.
Luckily, Focused Aim seem fixed even for pets now, so you can have less hit rating on your gear if you spec into it.
This was touched on in an earlier post, but I didn’t see a clear answer to the question. So, is there craftable armor that is good for this extreme-soloing spec? What tree would you specialize in Leatherworking if your goal was extreme soloing, or at the very least pet-tanking? And one last question, I bought a bunch of gems on the AH last night and got some for really cheap that are +12 armor pen, but now I am thinking I remember reading that armor pen doesn’t matter until you’re hit capped, can someone clarify for me? This is on my BM spec. Thanks!
So been doin mc/zg/kara etc the last while.. but decided to try push it abit more… follwing the guide, after buffs my turtle is sitting around 34/35k hp.
At what stage should we start worrying about our crit.. considering the loss its taking from stam gems and such.
Just hit 34.5k hp on the turtle tonight \o/
I’m at 232 and my pet is still getting critical hit almost all the time. Did they change that in a recent patch?
Hey Frost, I was just curious to your opinion on the Beast Tamer’s Shoulders from Hyjal? Do you still think they are worth using in lvl 80 pet tanking set?
I am at that point where I wanna have fun and grind gold before cata!!! This guide is awesome but needs an update, gearwise. Anyone capable of including the new pvp sets and t9-t10 combos?
might also be worth to pick up the two 170+ stam trinkets during brewfest, those two and the rest of my soloing gear puts my turtle at 40k hp
The information posted here is current just prior to Patch 4.0
As we all know, Extreme Solo is going to become very tricky or even DOOMED! when Cata smacks us with it’s foundation shattering changes if Frostheim’s posts on Scattered Shots are anything to go by. So in light of this horrid revelation, I took it upon myself to experience this most exciting and challenging of hunter PvE action before it fell into the realms of myth and legend.
With the help of some very bored players on my realm, I got the last piece of T5 gear I needed from TK, regemmed my PvP gear, swapped out some enchants and glyphs and finished leveling up my turtle tank.
Now I am by no means the most skilled player, but I know my class abilities and spec and I am careful and methodical. I suck at PvP so all my gear is either emblem aquired or won from VoA 25. My Extreme Solo goals were not that ambitious as to attempt WotLK content. I kept to Heroic BC content to finish achievements and get some experience under my belt. I am only listing case specific stuff here as your normal raid gear, gems and enchants are perfectly suitable otherwise. This is the end result and it is all based on Frostheim’s advice and the information posted on this website. I will also explain the reasons for my choices at the end.
Gear:
Relentless Gladiator’s Chain Helm with an Austere Earthsiege Diamond as my meta and a Bright Cardinal Ruby to get the socket bonus. Enchanted with Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator.
T5 Rift Stalker Shoulders with 2 Bright Cardinal Rubys to get the socket bonus. Enchanted with Greater Inscription of the Gladiator.
Longstrider’s Vest with a Bright Cardinal Ruby, a Wicked Ametrine and a Solid Majestic Zircon. Enchanted with Powerful Stats.
T5 Rift Stalker Hands. Enchanted with “Crusher”
Relentless Gladiator’s Chain Leggings with a Bright Cardinal Ruby and a Solid Majestic Zircon to get the socket bonus. Enchanted with Jormungar Leg Reinforcements.
Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory. Enchanted with Mighty Armor.
Glyphs:
Glyph of Bestial Wrath
Glyph of the Beast
Glyph of Mending
Glyph of Feign Death
Glyph of Mend Pet
Glyph of Revive Pet
I use Frostheim’s Molten Core Talent Build and also the buffs items he has suggested.
I am a great believer in the socket bonus and I gem for it whenever I can. I believe Blizzard gives us a socket bonus for a reason and it’s up to us to figure out the best way to gem for it. Often times (and with only a few exceptions) I have found it’s actually better for my dps than not gemming for the bonus. I have also found that this applies to my soloing.
When fully buffed, my turtle has 35.5 k HP and I’m at around 35.3k HP. Funny how that works… The two piece T5 gives me my pet healing boost and even though I have the gimped dps talent build, the stats and bonus I get from the two piece Relentless set, my 264 chest and the remainder of my standard raid gear (which currently is still gemmed with ArP) still gives me plenty of dps and damage to make the T5 bonus really power and make my choice of not gemming so much stamina a non-issue. Certainly if I was doing UK, Nexus or VH my choice may have been an issue, but that’s not what I was going for.
I use these specific pieces and nothing else will do. I HAD to have these. No other gear combination could match the stats and bonuses of this one. I get better stats from my 264 chest that only a few other chest pieces that only come from ICC (that I just couldn’t get my hands on) could outmatch, and the Relentless PvP chest just couldn’t do it.
The PvP helm and leg combo gave me an extra 100 Resilience and 50 extra AP came in very handy too. I only use the PvP cloak to get me hit capped, but it’s stats and my chosen enchant do their part there too.
I actually discovered with my meta that when it proccd not only did it heal me, but also my turtle. Hmm…
I get that my Glyphs come from the pet tanking article here on WHU, but the way I see it, my pet is my tank and I have had great success with these glyphs. The Glyph of Mending is very, very handy.
All of this is built to do what Frostheim suggested – mitigate damage and improve healing to my pet – and certainly my stuff does this. So far I have solo’d all the Vanilla and Heroic BC dungeons with the exception of Arcatraz because of the last boss’s fight mechanic. I know when I’m in a loosing battle and I’m just not that good to be able to handle him. I realise that I could get more HP on my pet by completely gemming and enchanting stamina – maybe even reaching the magic 40 k HP and possibly be able to solo Normal UK, Nexus and VH – but truthfully, I’m just not interested. I’d rather do it with my friends and Guild. But geez it’s fun and self satisfying when you pull it off…
Edit: The Meta Gem in my helm is actually an Invigorating Earthsiege Diamond, not an Austere as posted. This is an error on my part caused by sleep deprivation.
Hey there, was wondering what items, gems and enchants we should be looking at now for 4.2 and beyond. I can’t seem to locate an updated thread for this. I have pretty much copied the MM Ext Solo build and the pet build for my turtle. I threw my own glyphs on there because I didn’t see specific ones to choose. I did solo Serpentshrines Leo and The Eyes Void Reaver for my 2pc T5 last night so I have those pieces.
I am assuming its the above but in data form. So thats Cata PVP Helm and Legs with their respectable Tank Enchants(stam & ago for legs) with Stam gems in place and the tank stam and armor meta. Any help would be appreciated.
Cata form* silly auto correct.