The change is likely made so that two Hunters can't tank Razuvious any longer. If carefully done you could have one Priest pull him to a position where Hunter 1 could Distract him, then 4 seconds later Hunter 2 would Distract and the two would play aggropong with him (with careful attention to his little pauses to target other raiders). Nobody really getting damage and the healers going DPS save for the one raidhealer. I bet Blizzard didn't like that kind of 'thinking outside the box'.

What are people's thoughts on the value of Imp Revive Pet in a BM build for soloing old instances? If your pet dies during a fight is there even enough time to recover your pet or is the wipe inevitable? It's included in both the builds in this thread but I'm wondering if something like this build would be more effective.

It is more of a convenience in my opinion. Can't say i ever ressed pet during combat after it was killed (strictly talking about soloing old content, not lvl 80 raids), but perhaps there are situations where it might be worth it.

Sorry, I don't recall their genders, but I did drain Thekal only. I DPSed Lor'khan below 50%, so that she would heal herself only. So basically, I tried to keep Thekal OOM and Lor'khan below 50% interrupting her heals.

This thread's title/topic is "Hunters: Soloing old instances for fun and profit". Fun is subjective. (I think anyone doing this is doing it for the fun and challenge.) Profit doesn't need to be subjective. What instances are most profitable? This information is a bit difficult to derive. Speed, efficiency, and damage-in is one factor. The more concrete element of $ from a boss used to be a lookup against wowhead or thotbott, however many "old" instances had their gold drop amounts nerfed. Is there any profit motive anymore?

Most definately, Onyxia still drops 50-60 gold in cash and another 20-30 gold in loot (this can vary a lot from all cloth to plate, weapons and offhands). And it takes all of 13 minutes or so to down her.
While a superfarmer could potentially outdo that profitmargin (if we include transit), how many of us could 'survive' that? What wins is the fun, but the profits are not bad at all and well worth it on it's own.

Is Gaz soloable as BM at 80?

Earlier in this thread someone had a brief strat for it, not sure what spec he used. I do my ZG runs with a partner though, so I can't speak from experience.

Curious as to whether anyone has tried using pummel on the Thekal fight yet. I've been using a turtle because the half damage every 30 seconds is incredible...I've noticed, however, that intimidation can stop the heals; I assume pummel can too? If so there would be no need for the drain OR the split DPS tactics. I'd test it myself but I just did Thekal today with the split DPS tactic before I thought of using my guerrilla.

Yes. I've soloed him as both BM and SV with minimal difficulty.

Gazh Ranka is a very easy fight yes, especially for a BM hunter. Tank and spank fight, with an aggro reset approximately every 30 seconds, so just when FD gets off cooldown. As far as profit goes; ZG bosses drop aroun 20-25g each, plus vendor stuff. Bijous that drop off ZG trash sell for about 30g a piece on my server (and i get around 5-6 bijous each run, even though i try to skip as much trash as possible). AQ20 bosses drop same amount of money, plus the class books that vendor for 10g each (and i think a 'full AQ20 run' drops about 10 of these books). I can't really analyze the efficiency in making money, which boss is the most profitable when looking at money/time.

Something else: I just soloed Attumen (first boss Karazhan) for the first time. Phase 1 is the hard phase, p2 is trivial. The combined damage of Attumen and his horse in phase 1 are barely outbalanced by all the healing you do on your pet. It is in fact the damage on your pet which will slowly beat the healing; you have to depend on luck a bit where your pet avoids some of the swings of Attumen and his horse. Nuke horse to 25% (and i really mean nuke, you want to get out of p1 as fast as possible, plus nuking equals more healing), and once you enter p2 the damage on pet becomes alot more manageable, still not to be underestimated ofcourse.
The curse is something you will just have to deal with, it reduces your damage and as such the healing on your pet (naturally i am assuming here that anyone who bothers trying to solo Attumen has at least got 2xt5), even though the curse can be dispelled on your pet ofcourse.

Went a bit further after Attumen, one try on Moroes just to get an impression, seems not doable for me. Same with Maiden; damage on pet is manageable, but you can only survive 2 Holy Fires at most. Perhaps some resistance gear is required for that? Not gonna bother.

I haven't replaced my old tankpet so I ran a ZG with Pummel.

Pummel can definately be used, but I just ended up not bothering. On Thekal I just carefully drain them down. On the Bat I failed. For some reason my pet absolutely refused to use Pummel... So there I was slowly getting burned while she was at 100% life and my Viper drains only having her at 50% mana. I couldn't be bothered to go back. I guess you have to make a macro that turns it on rather than casts it.

As a little sidenote, Mandokir is easily done without any special action. The new Glyph of Mending is more than enough to keep a Tenacity pet up during both the Sunders and his enrage. Just be careful of yourself though. Be liberal with both FD and Deterrance (same applies to Thekal).

I did Bat boss once now after patch 3.1
Our viper sting, though an incredibly powerful mana regen tool now, is severely weakened for fights like the bat boss. I used same tactic i used pre 3.1; just drain her mana before p2 begins, though it takes a long time now (10 minutes at least i would guess), it makes p2 the exact same it was before 3.1 meaning she wont heal. Also, you mention 'there I was slowly getting burned', what do you mean by this? Did you take damage in p1 in some way? All possible damage in that phase can be prevented, and p2 remains a simple nuke phase.

I have used it a couple times in ZG. Once on the raptor boss, my pet died midway through because of me not healing him enough, so I got teleported at the bottom. I popped deterrence, rezzed pet, used last stand, and pet taunt and it was like he never died. Similar thing happened on the spider boss's trash.

I am using the new mend Pet glyphe + BM tank specc (hunter & pet-turtle).
It is very easy now to do all the BC heroic instances solo.
Tiger & Raptor Encounter at ZG is easy going..
Turtle Pet is kinda cool.. shieldwall every 40sec, Pet heal ticks for 2,3k
The new pet talent heals the pet on growl for 2% life + Bloodthirsty. Using also (2) T5. Thunderstomp pulls good aggro.

I did ZG today and the Viper Sting and Pummel (Gorilla) changes were pretty big for this.

I used Viper constantly rather than Serpent as a means to regen mana. The mana draining was so slow is wasn't worth it for that purpose.

On High Priestess Jeklik (Bat) rather than drain 100% of her mana, you can have the Gorilla Pummel her heals instead. During phase 2, turn the Gorillas abilities off auto cast so he'll have plenty of energy to do so. Her heal seems to be on a 20 second timer at it's shortest, which gives 21 second Pummel (with Longetivity), just enough time to interrupt due to the long cast time (4 seconds).

For High Priest Thekal (Tiger), make a focus frame for Lor'Khan to make Pummeling heals easier. I didn't need to turn abilities off auto cast for this one.


Also, Improved Revive Pet is one of the most useless talents you could take. If by chance a pet dies, you're better off Feigning and resetting imo.

For me the Pummel on auto cast have worked on a few heals. Did this happen to you as well?

Right, so for those with a gorilla the bat boss is trivial since you have an interupt now, for those without (me, didnt use a gorilla before 3.1, not gonna bother with one now) will have to use the long boring drain tactic, but its just one fight. I have used a bear to solo ZG/Onyxia/AQ20 plus heroic MgT and the occasional boss in MC for some time now and never relied on Thunderstomp. Now that i have it it's a nice addition though, especially combined with the bear's Swipe

Though it is highly weakened. I would say it does perhaps 70% of the damage and the threat might have been reduced as well.

True, but it is still nice for MgT/ZG trash to prevent me getting aggro through Mend Pet. On a single target fight you wouldnt depend on the thunderstomp anyway, so in other words; it does its job.

Tested the guerrilla on Thekal, the pummel doesn't help at all. She will stop casting her heal, yes, but will simply cast it 5 seconds later. And if you intimidate that heal, she will cast again 5 seconds later. Better to have the turtle damage reduction for me (I don't have 2xt5 yet =( )

Fire bombs
I just FD'd and my pet could stand on its own for quite some time and when I see the bats dropping the first bomb on my pet I stand up and use bandage.

Mind Flay
Pretty sure you can outrange it with Hawk Eye

Heals
Just keep Viper Sting up on High Priestess Jeklik