Neckar Unrivaled

Well not really in a night, last night took the time to do some soloing in Zul’Gurub. For those of you who don’t know what Zul’Gurub is, its a level 60 raid in World of Warcraft. For a level 80 hunter hell any level 80 its more or less a walk in the part. It does drop some loot for your epic level 60 set. I have only seen one thing drop for a hunter in the 3-4 times I have done it.

Anyways, last night I log-in and took my time going in and downing the first few bosses. The first time I had done this raid was with a friend in the guild, he wasn’t 80 yet, I believe he was level 75 or something. Well I was able to solo the first boss, High Priest Venoxis easy and down him after some time. The next boss Bloodlord Mandokir, which drops Swift Razzashi Raptor (still have not gotten it) was also easy cakes, taking some time to down due to the fact my gear set is mostly all PVP with enchants and stacking stamina gems to my gear so I have a really low hit rating and a very low attack power (Around 2.5K). So my DPS is really low and most of the damage done is by my pet.

High Priestess Mar’li, which changes into a spider every now and then was the one boss I could not down by myself the first time that I had tried. The only way I was able to get her down, as my friend switch to his level 80 Death Knight, and we where able to do the rest of the raid as that. A later time we went once my friend had got his pally to 80 we had another 80 Death Knight with us, so it was easier. Well this time I was alone, and I end up dying 3 times in trying to down her, but I did get her down. The first time I had a hell of a time due to the fact she summoned Spiders adds and I tried to down them and the boss. The next time I tried to down her and just drop traps in front of me and kept all my DPS on High Priestess Mar’li and end up getting too low by the adds and got unlucky when she web my pet, was unable to break it (Master’s Call was on cool-down) and all my threat dumps where on cool-down and was at about 10% health.

Well on the last try, I end up switching full to my DPS gear, which drop my health own form 33K to about 20-19K and my pet form 32K to 20K. This time I was more watchful in my threat and made sure to dump it every time she charged me, and made sure that I kept all my DPS on her, while dealing with the adds with traps and every now and then dropping a Volley on them, making sure to pull the adds to her. Seeing as my pet doesn’t really take much damage in these fights. So I was able to down her and I was really happy about that. So I know now what I need to do to down her, so the next time I go in, I should have a much easier time to down her.

The next boss, my friend was for sure I could not solo this. High Priest Thekal which has a really hard first phase. Basically you have to down him and the two adds all at the same time. Because if you don’t, they will just come right back up at full health. For a hunter this might seem like a hard deal and let me tell you, this fight took me over an hour to do. Yes over an hour. I should have clocked it, but I knew what I had to do and I spent most of the fight target switching to the one with highest health and trying to down them all at once with Volley, even running it to drop a trap to cause more AOE on them.

Let’s just say that they started to heal each other as two of them, Thekal and one of the adds has a mana pool and was casting heals on each other, making this even harder. Only a few times did my pet drop below 50% health due ot me forgetting to keep mend pet up. I was lucky not to wipe on this as I had the very first time me and my friend tried to do this, which we did down them after the 2nd time trying. I got them all down and timed it just right. It’s about 10secs between the first one going down before they start to come back. Which case I was able to time it and hit all my cool downs like Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath when they started going down.

Another little trick that made this fight a bit easier on me was the two casters I kept putting up Viper Sting on them, and over the fight I end up draining their mana pools. I noticed that when they went down and came back up at full health their mana pools did not recover, this prevent them form casting heals on each other. I sadly forgot to take a screenshot of downing this boss. I will make sure to do so the next time I go in.

The next fight I end up having a hell of a time due to the massive amount of adds that came out. High Priestess Arlokk is my current project to down solo. She is easy to go down two man due to one is able to deal with the adds and the other deal with the boss. I was able the first time keep my pet on her, my friend was DPSing her and I took care of the adds. Well solo I had a big problem and before long I was over taken with at least 40 of them, they just kept coming and I got her down I believe about 50% well maybe 60% was closer to true and I end up dying as a result form the adds all over me.

The last boss I went to try to solo was Hakkar. Which for whatever reason I could not seem to get a good footing on the boss to down him. He mind controls which was causing me issues. The boss end up resetting 4 times on me. My guess is that he was stunning my pet, and when this happen while I was mind control there was no threat to him and he went back to his start position. I tried doing this with all my DPS gear on but the same effect, the mind control was a big problem and keeping my threat to my pet was also hard. I don’t recall having this much of a problem when I had done this the first time. However they where not solo, the first time was 2-man and then 3-man. So likely at this point I’m seeing the only way of being able to down him solo is with at least one more person. I don’t think he can be solo due to the mind control and resets, I was only able to get him down to about 90%. It seemed that once my mana dropped to almost nothing, switching to Aspect of the Viper to regain it caused him to mind control me and switch me out of it and wasting cool downs and traps that wasted my mana pool more.

So there you have, a level 80 Hunter can solo Zul’Gurub. Personally this raid is very easy and my main goal is to basically be able to farm Bloodlord Mandokir for the mount. I’m not sure if I want to spend over an hour to down the tiger boss for the mount due to the fact it takes me so long to do it. Maybe if I upgrade my PVP gear and get some other gear I like to get I might be able to do this faster but as of right now the 1% drop rate, the 3 day lock out time to do it again and the fight time itself doesn’t seem so worth it to me for the mount, the other mount is much easier to do. I also didn’t do the other bosses as I called after Hakkar, maybe next time I’ll go in and down the other bosses. I’ll also be sure to take much more screenshots the next time around.

Happy Hunting