Blood Pact: Knocking out Naxxramas for pets and more

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill has too much fun standing in floor fire while in Metamorphosis trying to get Deadly Boss Mods to yell warnings in Demonic.

I have to admit, the Mists of Pandaria reason for soloing old raids is trying to match my minion's weapons to Matthew Rossi's warrior columns. Unfortunately, the only thing I have is Ashkandi. My new mission is to get Reclaimed Ashkandi for a complete Wrathguard set to properly mock warriors with.

You've probably read how to spec for old raids and you might have your own Ashkandi (or two) from visiting old Blackwing Lair for some pets. Now, let's finish up Raiding with Leashes and other achievements in Naxxramas.

Should you complete all of Naxx, not just the pet drop wings, you will get The Dedicated Few, simply because 1 is less than 9. Patchwerk still beats me to a pulp on 25man, so I would recommend 10man if you're soloing. All three specs can sneeze in tier 14 normal gear and win, though some fights ask for a tanky pet. In Naxxramas, you'll find tier 7 (tier 7.5 for 25man) gear, which is a redo of tier 3 from the original Naxxramas.

Necromancer's Build-A-Bear: Stitched Pup

The Construct Quarter contains Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, and Thaddius. Gluth has a 13% chance to drop Gluth's Bone, which is the Stitched Pup battle pet.

Patchwerk is the boss the simplest DPS simulation scenario is named for. He's a tank and spank fight, though he'll still wallop you if you're not careful. When going up against him in affliction or demonology, I bring along a voidlord, but as destruction with Ember Tap, you can often tank him yourself. Kill him in three minutes or less to Make Quick Werk of Him. You can do the frogger slimes if you want, or you can put a Demonic Gateway across the way to skip it entirely.

Grobbulus is next; he will occasionally spawn a growing pool of poison mist which tickles at this point. You can drag or kite him up the stairs as you kill him. He spawns slimes if you're not quick enough to kill him, but pets or AoE damage can easily kill these.

Getting from Grobbulus's room to Gluth involves walking along a pipe that's over the entrance room to the Quarter. Sometimes, Grobbulus will have spawned a slime down there, which will put you in combat. If you want to kill the slime, put your Demonic Circle up on the pipe, jump down and kill the slime, then port back up. Be careful not to fall off! Finally, the big, glowing, green pipe that you run through to get to Gluth has a big hole on the left at the end, so stick to the right.

Gluth's particular mechanic is that he will eat the zombies that come chasing after you, and these zombies will heal him for a bit. To kill Gluth as a solo encounter, back him up against the door (way, way opposite the pipe you jumped from), and go to town on him. Patch 5.1 nerfed the heal the zombies give him, but as a pure DPS class, you should be able to pour on the overdamage regardless. Use a blueberry minion if the tanky debuff he gives gets a bit too much.

Finish off the quarter with Thaddius, Feugen, and Stalagg. Feugen and Stalagg must be killed within 15 seconds of each other, otherwise the one that died will respawn at full health. The encounter originally forces a tank switch by throwing the tank to the other construct, and once such switch will occur for you by the time Feugen runs to Stalagg's ramp. Kill them together, then use Burning Rush to jump to Thaddius's platform off Stalagg's platform. If killing Thaddius with a pet, just stand away from your pet to get the Shocking! achievement; otherwise you'll just get Subtraction.

Do you have Arachnophobia?

If you have the phobia, I'm sorry; but if you don't have the achievement, then it's really easy to get nowadays. In the Arachnid Quarter there's actually only one and a half spider bosses -- I'm not sure if we can really count a nerubian as an arachnid. The end boss Maexxna has a 14% chance to drop a Dusty Clutch of Eggs, which learns you the Giant Bone Spider battle pet.

Start out with Anub'Rekhan (not to be confused with Anub'arak!). He summons an add that you should kill (though, often and especially as destruction, I kill him before the add appears), and he may throw you way up in the air. Use the Demonic Circle against the knockup effect, but otherwise burn him down.

The timer for Arachnophobia starts with his death, and you'll move on to Grand Widow Faerlina. You can go for her achievement if you want by not killing any of her adds until she is dead, or you can obliterate all her adds and then kill her. Her Rain of Fire will hurt for more than her melee swings will, but you can just run out of it easily.

Before you engage Maexxna, switch to a non-pet spec. Having a pet out will engage her normal mechanics where she traps a player -- it will always be you -- in a web up on the walls. Your pet still won't have the DPS to get you out in time after spending half of it running over to you. Go truly solo and DPS her down, saving Unending Resolve for her miniberserk at 30% if you really need it.

Why, I'd be deblighted to plague with you

In the Plague Quarter, the final boss Loatheb has a 14% chance to drop Blighted Spore, which teaches the Fungal Abomination pet to players.

First up is Noth, who isn't so special anymore. He used to teleport up to an unreachable spot mid-fight and summon adds for you to kill, but now you can easily kill him before he teleports away.

Heigan's achievement involves the coolest floor-dodging in the game. The only sad part about soloing him is that you likely won't have a tank to keep him far enough away to keep his slowing debuff off you, restricting you to instant casts. If you do want to go through the hassle of pet-tanking him away, I think the debuff's range is 20 yards.

After you Fel Flame down all the eye stalks in the following hallway and AoE the maggots dead, you'll come to Loatheb. Loatheb hits for beans, but he has an aura that blocks most of your healing for most of the time. The spores that come out will grant you a ton of crit, but if you choose not to kill them, you can get an achievement.

Salute the fastest Shadow Bolt casting ever

The Military Quarter doesn't have any pet to offer, but I like to return to Gothik the Harvester and show off my instant-cast shadow bolts, since back in Wrath I would stare in awe at what haste he must've had to cast that quickly.

First up is Instructor Razuvious, for whom you will definitely need a voidlord to tank him. Razuvious is still a bit of an RNG fight where he can hit like a truck quite randomly. His two adds can either be mind-controlled with the orbs (and you can tank him with the adds), but as a pet class, using anything that's vehicle-like means your pet despawns, so I wouldn't recommend it. Just kill the adds and then kill him.

After the hallway of weapons and some more death knight mobs is my old friend Gothik. You pull him by shooting something at him, but he won't come down to play until you've beaten back 19 waves of adds and their 19 waves of ghosts. The gates will open up and let an onslaught of ghostly adds in about halfway through; everything dies in a few hits.

Finally, you'll face off against the Four Horsemen, who have been making bets on your survival throughout the Quarter. I'm surprised Blizzard did not take the opportunity to make an undead flower battle pet called the Slack-Jawed Daffodil for this Quarter of Naxx. Thane and Baron will run to their corners at first and then later follow you back; Zeliek and Lady Blaumeux won't budge from their corners. Kill them all within 15 seconds of each other to get an achievement.

I still want the Last Laugh

My holy paladin has wanted it since transmogrification and the pizza slicer in the Hour of Twilight 5mans. To get to it, you have to kill a dragon and a skeleton king.

The dragon is Sapphiron, who has a really cool spawning animation on the first pull only of every fresh raid ID. The big thing with the dragon is the blizzard that will slowly chase you around the room and that moment when he flies into the air to put an ice block on you. Pet or not, you'll always be the target of the ice block and therefore safe from his breath otherwise. I joined The Hundred Club when spell resistances were still in the game, so I'm not sure if you'll automatically earn that achievement or not. Assuming it still works, you should, since warlocks don't have any innate spell resistance buffs or passives.

Finally, there's the big necromancer himself, Kel'Thuzad. If you Just Can't Get Enough of those abominations, pull 4 full corners in addition to what normally comes out to bite. Move out of his pool of blue shadowy stuff if he spawns it on you; otherwise, it's simple a tank and spank now.

Blood Pact is a weekly column detailing DOTs, demons and all the dastardly deeds done by warlocks. We'll coach you in the fine art of staying alive, help pick the best target for Dark Intent, and steer you through tier 13 set bonuses.