I’ve been spending time soloing old instances recently, and given the lack of hunter specific resources out there (as opposed to Death Knights, Paladins and Warriors) I thought I’d bring the topic up here to discuss mechanics, talent builds, pet choices and builds, strategies, macros and all the other tricks of the trade for those who like to spend their out-of-raid hours farming gold/rep/that illusive mount.

I’ll start with my pet project at the moment, High Priest Thekal (Zul’Gurub). Anybody familiar with the fight will know that Thekal comes with 4 adds in the first phase – two non elite tigers, an elite shaman Zealot Lor’Khan and an elite rogue Zealot Zath. The trick to phase one is that Thekal and the two adds need to die within a few seconds of eachother in order to have Thekal enter phase 2.

This is the build I’ve been experimenting with: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

In this build I've avoided many damage boosting talents in order to gain as much pet survivability as possible whilst also ensuring that there's a steady supply of focus to my pet to ensure uptime of special abilities and focus dumps. As solo farming multi-mob pulls relies heavily on volley spam I'm also considering experimenting with going a little higher in the MM tree for Barrage, but I'm not sure whether the extra points I'd have to spend getting there are of much value considering what I'd lose in the BM tree.

Utilizing an 80 gorilla, this is the pet build I’ve been testing: Pet Calculator - Wowhead

You’ll note with the pet build that it’s purely for physical damage mitigation as there’s little magic damage in the encounter, and I also picked up Lionhearted to reduce the amount of time my pet is incapacitated when he’s blinded.

I also wear 2 set Tier 5 (hands and legs) for the set bonus: [Rift Stalker Gauntlets]

The bosses themselves don’t hit very hard. Mend Pet and the T5 2 set bonus is more than enough to keep my pet alive. The problem is Zealot Lor’Khan periodically heals the lowest health member, and with a gorilla the only interrupt (of sorts) I have is Intimidation, which has proved to be rather unreliable. I tried using a spore bat for Nether Shock (28 sec cooldown talented) but the problem was that the Sporebat cannot hold agro on all the mobs with the constant healing going on, without constantly tabbing and attacking everything which is a massive detriment to dps time.

The strat that I’m working on at the moment is as follows:

1) Pull boss + adds to pet
2) Kill first non-elite tiger
3) DPS second non-elite tiger down to 70%
4) Chain spam volley over the top of the group.

The point to that is not to interrupt the heals, but to force Lor’Khan to heal an insignificant target. With the non-elite tiger always having the lowest HP the heals are predictable, allowing me to volley down the mobs slowly but surely.

The group is tanked about 15 yards from me so I’m out of range of blinds, and whenever my pet gets blinded I generally eat a few hits (allowing mend pet to tick a few times to bring my pets health back up), feign death, allow my pet to regain agro and then bandage. Generally bandage seems to come off cooldown every time my pet gets blinded so I keep my HP up that way. If things get hairy, pop BW so my pet doesn’t get stunned.

I’m still working on this strat, best I’ve been so far is all mobs circa 15%, but some unlucky movement by my pet after a blind to uncleared mobs caused two axe-throwers and a whole bunch of tiger cubs to become engaged - resulting in my pets fast demise. At this stage I think the plan of attack at 10% will be to wait until the tiger is healed, pop BW, intimidate Lor’Khan and attempt to burn all three down with chain volley spam. The jury’s out though, there may be a better way of doing it.

I'd love to hear other peoples experiences with ZG and particularly solo farming MC, Onyxia and AQ20 if you've ventured that far.

I did some poking around ZG as well and managed to down a few bosses. I used the same spec as the OP more or less though my Gorilla was 75 so he was missing a couple points.

Bloodlord: Took a while but was doable with some bandages. Burn the raptor down and then get ready to blow cooldowns until Enrage wears off. My pet came very close to dying at this part though he might have done a little better if he was 80. After the enrage, it was smooth sailing, with the occasional bandage after my pet was feared or he hit me a couple times during the focus thing (Mend Pet seemed to trigger it).

Bat Aspect: Very easy after I figured out to mana burn her. While she's in bat, Viper Sting until she's OOM, which will take a few minutes, then just burn her down. The bat adds were easy to AOE, though I found that if you feign while they're on you they just despawn. During Troll phase, she can heal whenever she's above 200 mana, so keep Viper Sting ready. Stay out of the fire bombs and bandage when needed.

Snake Aspect: Very easy, nothing special. The snake adds at the start have very little health and died in a few seconds of AOE. Just burn him after that.

Tiger Aspect: I wasn't able to get passed phase 1 either. I got them all a bit low but the random damage on me from when my pet was blinded or gouged (the gouge is a threat wipe too I believe) was too much to keep up with for how slow the boss mobs were going down. Maybe if you drained Lor'khan's mana until she was OOM and then burned Thekal?

Panther Aspect: I don't think this is possible. The mark on you makes all the panthers focus on you and they have just enough health to not die to Explosive Trap and a single Volley. They only hit for 15-30 damage but with 15+ on you it adds up. I was able to kill them all but I was completely empty at the end, and with repeated reapplying of the Mark on you, there's no time to bandage.

Hakkar: Without all aspects down I don't think this is doable. The threat wiping gouge and frenzy are just too much to keep up with. I got him to 80% during one try but with a dead pet. Until someone figures out how to kill Panther and Tiger aspects, this probably isn't possible to solo.

I didn't even try Jin'do or the Spider Aspect. Killing Spider wouldn't make Hakkar any easier as it's just a stun that I didn't even notice.

Tiger is very simple if you drain Lor'khan - using the same spec as OP, just kill the two tiger adds, and just apply strady damage to each mob while keeping Viper up every cooldown. Once Lor'khan is OOM, equalize their hp and bring out Volley. The aggro wipes aren't an issue - be at max range from the pet, FD will be up for most aggro wipes, and the ones that FD is not up for, you can Deterrence (even easier now, I did it when Deterrence has half the cooldown and twicethe mitigation). You won't take more than half your HP in damage or so, and you can just bandage up. Phase two is a joke, just be careful not to get knocked outsize the room by his aoe.

The only other raid I've tried is AQ20 - Buru, Rajaxx, Moam, and Ayamiss are either not doable or not worth the trouble.

Fankriss is very, very easy, just run around him in circles and you'll never eat the sand trap.

Ossirian is doable, but hard - you need to time things well and err on the size of caution. He will kill your pet in several swings when he's enraged, so the key is to keep him in range of the crystals at all times. When I did it, I would time it so I was near a new crystal when his debuff was down to 15-20 seconds, to give myself margin for error. There's a number of thing that can go wrong: he can choose to use his Cyclone (aggro drop) on the pet and chase you, he can knock your pet back and run out of crystal range, you can run into a roaming tornado, etc. You will occasionally take damage when he drops aggro and FD is down, so pots/bandages are a very good idea. Not very difficult, but it takes concentration as a single mistake will usually kill you.

Do you have a solution to the bugged crystals? After a while it becomes hard to not get one that doesn't give him a debuff. Or at least I have had that issue.

I've done some soloing with a Gorilla pet and 2 piece T5. Using this spec for myself and this spec for the pet. Although, first time I did AQ20 I forgot to equip T5, so it isn't needed for those bosses I've cleared.

Bat boss: Hold the dps and drain her from mana before she changes form. Feign whenever bat adds come and they'll despawn. After she's drained just nuke and step out of fire whenever you get hit by it.

Snake boss: Kill adds first and kill the boss. Very easy.

Spider boss: Pull from maximum range and try to stay at that during the whole fight to reduce chances of poison on yourself. Feign adds to the pet if there comes more than 1, otherwise use trap and melee. Kill adds before they grow. During spider form your pet will be webbed, use BM, Feign, Deterrence and Master's Call to get boss back to the pet.

Bloodlord: Kill raptor first and then Bloodlord. Nothing hard about it really. If your pet does get gibbed during enrage, you can easily resurrect it before you die yourself.

Tiger: Kill small tigers first, drain the shaman and dps them all low, after which you can volley. Phase 2 is easy.

Panther: Volley kills adds very efficiently. Whenever you get low on mana or health use AotV, mend pet and feign. Adds don't come out when you're feigned and your pet can stay alive for very long against the boss. When your bandage debuff has run out you can stand up and bandage before the adds get to you and then volley the pack down. I got her down on my first try, so shouldn't be hard.

Hakkar: With aspects down it's just a matter of staying below your pet on threat and nuking the boss down.


Kurinnaxx: Send pet in, stand behind the bug and strafe after every couple of shots to avoid sand trap. Mend pet isn't affected by the healing debuff.

Rajaxx: Kill the leader first in the trash packs. Hold back after every knockback on the boss so your pet gets aggro after threat wipe.

Moam: Just drain and nuke, very simple. Adds go down very fast.

Ossirian: Usual tactic of pulling him to the crystals for debuffs. If you wipe, run through the whole area and click all crystals which haven't despawned yet, since they will get bugged if they stay up for the next try. Pay special attention to the starting crystal, I had 12 bugged crystals up there at some point. Ptherwise it's just hoping that everything works out.


Onyxia: Phases 1 and 3 are easy. During phase 2 nuke as much as you can, bandage when she starts casting fireball on your pet. Avoid deep breaths as usual and remember that you can stay feigned for quite long to let the bandage debuff run out.

Green, what pet(s) do you use for which bosses?
As I am planning on doing as much as I can myself and I've read that for Onyxia (don't know about others) a ferocity pet is much better than my gorriladin.

I used a gorilla for all of those. Haven't even considered using a ferocity pet, but now that you mention it, it might make Onyxia phase 2 go faster, which means less time for her to Deep Breath.

The reason I mentioned it is because (from my knowledge) you spend most of P2 pretending to be dead, and a ferocity pet's Bloodthirsty keeps itself up more.

That may be true but a Tenacity pet with Roar of Sacrifice will allow the hunter themself to stay up and dps which would bring about a much shorter phase 2.

This isn't true, the debuff most certainly does affect Mend Pet. Tried to solo Kurinaxx not minutes ago.

can someone give a good gold table for the bosses? and which bosses are most profitable, considering the 3.08 gold drop nerf.