Soloing Northrend: Gundrak

Gundrak

You start off at the top of a long and totally unnecessary staircase that leads down into a pool of water. Jump. Even if you miss the water, the fall won't kill you, and that is what Tranquility is for. You'll come to a small ledge with two snakes on it.



Cat up and prowl past them, down into the Pit of Indiana Jones' Worst Nightmares. Ignore the patrolling snakes, and get yourself all the way over to the altar and Slad'ran. If you fight him at the very edge of the water, you don't need to worry about aggroing the snakes, although the ones he summons are sort of annoying. Snake Wrap is scary mean. Kill the snakes as fast as you can, and don't do the fight in cat like I did (and died). Pop Barkskin if you do get Snake Wrapped to minimize the damage.

Fudge. I died again. How is this happening?

Ok. Blow all your freaking cooldowns. Or, alternatively, kill the freaking trash in the room and pull him up the stairs.

...

The trash killed me. :(

Ok. Crowd control. Yeah.

Mutter mutter stupid snakes mutter mutter 20 gold mutter mutter mutter.

Oh. $%#&.

Ok. Buff food, drums, self buffs...

NO. NO. YOU'RE KIDDING ME. I SOLOED $#%^ing HALLS OF LIGHTNING!

Ok. Ok. No more damn snake boss. Drakkari Colossus. That should be easier.



I refuse to use a Flask of Stoneblood. This should not be this hard. Don't stand in puddles, burn the boss....mmmk. Let's see how this goes...

#$^%. It pulls the trash. /sigh

I...I...I...

I give up. /sniffle

If you do manage to solo this confounded place, especially Slad'ran, let me know how you did it. He and I have unfinished business to attend to...

Soloing Northrend: Drak'tharon Keep

I'm not going to be posting much for another week, while exams are going on. I had a bit of time today, though so here is the next installment in my series.

Drak'tharon Keep



As usual, run in and buff up. Get your bearings (Hah! Bear-ings! Get it?, shift into cat, and start stealthing.



You can easily make it all the way to the Room of Pulls That Make Your Healer go "OH #&*#!" without having to dirty your claws. Be careful to edge around to the backs of mobs on the stairs, and wait for all the undead trolls to run down.



Now, there are two ways to do the Room of Pulls That Make Your Healer go "OH #&*#!", the boring way and the fun way. The boring way is to pull mobs back carefully with Faerie Fire and Growl. The fun way is to charge into the middle of the room while screaming "LEEROY!" and slaughter them all after popping all your cooldowns.

Guess which way I picked?





You may find yourself at slightly low health after this. I was at about 4k. Since you aren't ever going to be using caster spells, you feral tank you, feel free to blow all your mana healing yourself and then use innervate. Now, for Trollgore.



He's easy. Tank and spank. Swipe to take care of the adds. Go to sleep. Really. I even went into cat form so he would go down faster.



Sneaksneaksneak through the spider room, take up position on the stairs, and throw a faerie fire at Novos.



Sit on the stairs, swiping adds, until the first necromancer spawns. Go kill him, toddle back to the stairs, and resume killing adds. The little, non-elite adds hit like soft pillows. They only dangerous in numbers. Once all of the crystals are down, engage Novos. You won't have much rage, because he's a caster, so I recommend shifting to cat form if you are impatient (like me). Don't stand in the blizzards, and soon you'll have a dead Lich at your feet.



More sneaking! Imagine that! Get through the bat room, and out into the courtyard. Since you're following my guide, I'm assuming that you want to solo every boss, so we're going to be taking a little detour for King Dred. Start slaughtering the raptors in his area.



You can kill the first two before he paths back your way, if you're quick. Ocne they are gone, feel free to pull him. I never had another raptor aggro. Save Beserk for the fear, otherwise this is a tank and spank if you have Improved Leader of the Pack (which you should).



From here, you can sneak all the way to the Prophet Tharon'ja.



This fight is also easy. Heck, this whole instance is easier than Ahn'kanet. Stay out of green poison puddles, and save berserk until after her turns you into a skeleton. Bash Drain Life if you want.



Congratulations on soloing Drak'tharon keep!

Soloing Northrend: Ahn'kahet, the Old Kingdom

I write these posts as I'm doing the instance, so at this moment I have no idea if I'm going to survive. I guess that there's only one way to find out!

Ahn'kahet, the Old Kingdom

This place is so truly, truly cool. I wish Blizzard had actually implemented it as a zone. I like the blue spectral bats a lot, too.



Buff up and run down the spiderwebs. Go into cat. Survey your surroundings. Now bypass all those 20k damage shadowbolts with ease. There are no beginning guards in normal Ahn'kahet.



No huge ugly flesh-constructs either. At least, not yet.



Stick to the edges, and you'll easily make your way to some annoying swarmers. And the first boss, of course. Elder Nadox is fairly simple--swipe the adds into oblivion and shift your focus to the guardian as soon as it spawns, just like on heroic mode.



Here, Brood Plague is the greatest threat, dealing over 1000 damage every 3 seconds. And it's a disease, so you can't cure it.



I got to around 30k health, but he went down without me having to use more than Barkskin.



Onwards, now, to the second of the Cullens, Prince Taldaram. You will have to kill the second and third groups of Plundering Geists, as they go up the web ramps to the orbs that dispel this boss' shield. The groups of four guarding the orbs are mildly threatening--they do a lot of magic damage. Maul and swipe will destroy them before your health drops far enough to be worrying, however.



Kill them, pop the orbs, and sneak your way to the San'alyn. Time to see if that blood drain still works when you're solo...

Well. It does. And he killed me, just like his brother. /sigh

I'll try again, for your sake!




YES! YES! Mark of the Wild made all the difference, as did a good survival instincts+frenzied regeneration+runic healing potion.It was damn close. I have 2k hitpoints when he keeled over. But at least I can keep going through Ahn'kahet!

/happy dance

Sneak your way to Jedoga Shadowseeker, say a brief prayer, and dive in. Try and use Barkskin right after the worshiper gets sacrificed-it's almost impossible to kill them in time. I found her extremely easier--much more so than Taladram.



Onto the final boss!



If you tank Herald Volazj in the absolute western corner of the room, you do not have to do the trash. Barkskin during Mind Flay, and if you're getting low on health, root your double during the insanity and heal yourself up. It can't do much damage, anyhow.



That's it! Grats on soloing Ahn'kahet!

Soloing Northrend: Azol Nerub

EDIT: Pictures aren't working on this post. I'll try to get them up as soon as possible.



Here we go again!

Azol Nerub

I've always found AZ to be particularly beautiful. The lost remnants of an ancient, eight-legged civilization and all that. Unfortunately, now that it's fallen to the Scourge, it's time for me to break out the bug spray and go spider squashing.


The first pull is simple. One caster, one melee. I hate the Webspinners (that web is a nightmare like Keleseth's ice blocks) so they're going to die first.


Be warned. Without a party, that web wrap in an unbreakable 9 second stun. It can be lethal.

Kill the spinner, then the skirmisher, then the warrior at the entrance to the Azol Nerub Baggage Check.




On Krik'thar's groups, just follow the basic pattern of taking down casters, melee, DPS, warriors, and then the bosses with AOE. There is not much time to eat between waves, but a quick Tranquillity can help if you are at critical health.

Edit: If there are no webspinners, kill the bosses first. They can web you too.




Krik'thir himself is cake. Swipe the adds, bash Mind Flay, and he's down.



Now, tiptoe into room of Spidery Spiderful Spiderness. Don't fall off the bridge unless you want to get eater by Anub'ar crushers. I don't advise using the cheat to despawn the mobs. They'll start coming back before you can kill Hadronox, since your bear DPS is fairly low.



Don't stand in poison. Put abolish poison up when...you know, she poisons you. Wait for her to kill the adds first. She's fairly easy.





Now ruuuuuun down the ramp and jump in the hole. Smashing the spiderlings is optional, but highly therapeutic.







Weeeeeeeee!





Hop out, dry yourself off, and lumber over to Anub'arak's two special friends. Scary, aren't they?

Haha :D Keep scurrying down the path, and sneak into the Tiny Circular Platform Suspended In The Middle Of A Huge Cavern But Yet You Can Still Apparently Burrow Through It Without Falling To Your death. TCPSITMOAHCBYYCSABTIWFTYD for short.


Because I mean, really, if you're burrowing in there you're essentially stuck inside a giant soup bowl. And when you're a massive mutant spider thing, that's going to be hard to maneuver in. However Anub'arak does it, this fight is still a dificult test of endurance. Dodge every single Pound, without question. You'll need the health for the add phases. Swipe will take care of the little adds, while focusing fire on the big ones will bring them down fairly quickly. This is a tough fight. You may wipe once or twice. Don't get hit by spikes either.


Thank you for reading! Next up.../drumroll...Ahn'kanet!

Oh you know you want to watch me start screaming in horror :D

Soloing Northrend: The Nexus

*waves all 'round*

The Nexus

It's a heck of a long flight to get here. Seriously. Get a book or something.

I do think, however, that Coldarra is very pretty. See, here's Laia swooping in on Shatterscale!

Zone in and buff thyself, young druid. The creepy masquerade mask is optional.


Go kitty, hit prowl, and take the first left. The patrolling Azure Warders/Magi can detect stealth, so hug the walls.

Hang on...he's awfully tough....




Oh. Heh. Make sure it's not on heroic. Even on normal, he managed to find me, though. Remember, skinners, you can skin almost everything here. I got several stacks of leather.
Now, it's time to sneak past the patrolling mage and his pack of dogs. And guess what? they detect stealth too. Wait in an alcove for them to pass you, then you can avoid them without aggroing.
The doggies may turn to growl at you in the alcove, but you're perfectly safe. Next is the Room of Way Too Much Air Conditioning.


These are all very easy to stealth by, but we want the boss, don't we?
If you are very, very careful, you can get right behind and tank him and his adds against the wall.
Kill the priests first. Spam Mangle with Berserk up and they should crumple like paper.
Got him! Unlike his heroic counterpart, though, Mr. Horde Commander only drops a green. Pathetic.
Sneak out of the Room of Way Too Much Air Conditioning, past another set of patrolling doggies and up a short tunnel. They aggroed on me, though :(
Now, we're in the YMCA-Young Mage's Club of Azeroth.
They're all a bit high off of all the latent magical energy, so they are quite easy to sneak past. Even the bodyguards to Miss Telestra's "Private Area" aren't very alert. Get behind the Grand Magus, and begin the process of clawing her into tiny shreds. You can strafe to avoid Firebomb, but it's really not necessary.

Chew on her until she splits, then burn down the copies: Frost, Fire, then Arcane. You can even heal up a bit while she's reforming. Also, I would save Berserk...you can avoid her guards, but you might get thrown into them when she does her Nether Chains thingy.
After that, tiptoe out of the YMCA and down another corridor, complete with another set of patrolling doggies. This corridor is extremely wide, so the dogs should be easy to avoid.
Now we come to the Cavern of Ten Thousand Sparkles.
You can stealth past everything here, as long as you are careful to give even the scrawniest mob a respectful berth. Beware of falling off the edge like I did.

Prowl your way up to Anomalous. The portal thing might shock you-run up the ramp a bit and Shadowmeld (or kill them). Enjoy the scenery. Then kill Anomalous- he does a good bit of magic damage, but swipe, glyph of maul, and berserk will slaughter the portals.

I advise taking the long way down-you might not make the jump while Prowling. Turn left, then go straight ahead, past the mana elemental and group of dragons, and into the Woods of Glowingness. The little trees here are EXTREMELY annoying, but they can be avoided.
Go all the way to Ormorok and squash him. He can reflect Faerie Fire when Spell Reflect is up. Drag him up into the icy tunnel to avoid having to kill his guards. Also, try to not get hit by ice spikes-you'll take 8000 falling damage.
Now, it's only a matter of prowling to poor Keristraza's room. You need to kill the patroller in there- he can detect stealth. So can the guards in the adjacent hallways.
Final boss time! Hop like a freaking madman, here, and shift out and immediately back into bear to break Crystal Chains. You're going to be taking a considerable amount of magic damage-consider using barkskin and any trinkets you have. Survival Instincts+Frenzied Regeneration should be saved for a serious emergency. (Actually, I lied. I barely lost 4,000 health :D )
There you have it! Good luck on your solo journey!