The most general definition of soloing is defeating content designed or intended for several players on your own. This can encompass quests, achievements, dungeons and raids. Anything done by a single character without outside assistance can be called soloing. In the World of Warcraft community however soloing usually means either casual soloing or extreme soloing.
Casual soloingCasual soloing is soloing lowly challenging content. It can consist of achievements, mounts and transmogrification on past expansion bosses, or an even a single elite monster. Mostly seen by those who solo for profit and a little fun. Soloing is part of this category if most of the following conditions are met:
- there is little preparation needed and few adaptations to talents or gear
- the chance of dying or failure is low
- the soloer is really overgeared
- the number of tries required is small - it shouldn't take more than a few hours
An example is farming
Siege of Orgrimmar for
Kor'kron Juggernaut. If you have no idea what you're doing it can be hard, but by reading a simple guide anyone with easily attainable gear should be able to farm it.
Since casual soloing is already subject to many guides, the later sections will mostly focus on extreme soloing.
Extreme soloingThe simplest way to define extreme soloing is soloing, but hard. Extreme soloers display mastery of their class and the ability to adapt their gameplay to the enemy. The challenges they face require careful preparation and leave little room for error. The difference with casual soloing is the difficulty, which increases the requirements on the character and the player. For example, soloing
Halls of Valor on Mythic can be considered extreme soloing for a mage in 940 gear, but the exact same run for a hunter in 970 gear is casual soloing.
Another part of extreme soloing is pushing - whether it is for a world first or class world first. Unlike non-pushing extreme soloing, where you still have guides and examples to follow, these soloers are the trailblazers who create the strategies. This kind of soloing is extreme pushed to its limits, where the soloers must investigate the mechanics of a boss, use all the tools of their classes and come up with new and usually innovative ideas just to get that first kill.
In order to have your pet survive, you must manage its health. First things first: pets inherit part of your stats, so versatility, leech, armor, and others function the same as they would on your hunter.
To reduce damage taken, the only non-pet specific ability is
Misdirection with the trait
Hunter's Advantage. If you don't need it for aggro, use it as a damage reduction.
All heals coming from the hunter are percentage-based.
Mend Pet heals 5% health per 2 seconds, and you want to use it as part of your rotation. If you can afford it, use it when you are focus starved or when you would use
Cobra Shot or
Multi-Shot, but not at max focus or during burst. If pet survival is tight, it takes priority over anything other than
Kill Command.
Exhilaration is a lay on hands for the pet, giving it a second health bar. Make sure to use it before it dies or it will be wasted - pets usually take constant, spread out damage, so with practice using it at the last possible moment becomes easy.
Since most of the healing a pet takes is dependent on his health, its resistance is very dependent on stamina.
Finally, pets have a decent dodge chance - about 25% with
Natural Reflexes.
If your pet dies, it is time to revive it. The objective here is to avoid getting a melee hit, especially since it can crit.
Your tool is
Revive Pet. Two seconds cast, affected by haste. It completely heals your pet, so sometimes timing your pets death is a valid strategy. You will have to
Feign Death before the rez, or after.
After: if you can, take your distance. Against stunnable mobs, stunning them while you rez is a good option.
Disengage can help you get away. You can also rez while the boss is casting. If all else fails,
Aspect of the Turtle can buy you time.
Before: only works if the boss has other targets, such as
Hati. While he hits his other target you can revive the pet and send it back. Note that this will probably result in a dead
Hati, making you lose dps. Whatever the situation, having your pet die will usually cost dps.
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