Shifting Perspectives: Feral soloing Ulduar and other dragons in the 4.3 era

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we discuss proper defrosting techniques for animal fur.

As you'll recall, last week we decided that we might need something to do while we're waiting to explore Pandaria, so we decided to go kill things solo in Northrend. Soloing Naxxramas, save a few encounters, isn't too much of a challenge. But Onyxia? Malygos? Ulduar, even? Now we're talking ... or dying -- frequently, as the case may be, while testing these strategies. (If you need a quick primer on how to get up to speed with bearcat soloing, check out the Naxxramas article.)

Onyxia

(Tree form not recommended for soloing Oxyxia. Highly flammable.)

Even though Onyxia isn't located in Northrend, her new level 80 form was introduced in patch 3.2.2 as part of World of Warcraft's fifth anniversary celebration. The fight's a bit tedious but easily doable solo for those looking to relive the classic encounter, or just to fill in their list of achievements. (Onyxia's Lair and She Deep Breaths More are soloable, though you'll still need some friends to help with Many Whelps! Handle It! or More Dots!).

The fight is split into three phases. During phases 1 and 3, you'll be fighting Onyxia on the ground, and things couldn't be easier. Phase 2 is where things get slightly tricky. It starts when she hits 65% HP; she'll turn, run to the entrance of her chamber, and take off into the air. Go cat, Dash to keep up, and get all your bleeds plus as much damage as possible in now, before she gets airborne.

Once she's up, the only way to damage her is by chipping away with Faerie Fire or using an AoE directly beneath her, and she changes position fairly often. You'll be using AoEs quite liberally anway, due to the Whelps and Lair Guards, so just follow her around and work her down. You only have to get her to 40% to bring her down, but expect this phase to take four times as long as the other phases. Easy (but tedious).

Malygos

In contrast to Onyxia, Malygos is a quite engaging fight solo. The fairly tight Berserk timer (10 minutes) means you've really got to push your DPS, but survivability is still key.

For phase 1, keep Maly in the middle of his platform. Sparks will periodically fly in; you need to kill these, as they will drop a +50% damage zone that you can stand in. You need this to make the enrage timer, so don't miss any sparks. Periodically during this phase, Malygos will stop attacking you, move to the center, and cast Vortex; use this time to go cat and get bleeds up. While in the Vortex itself, HoT up. Phase 1 ends at 50%; keep hitting him as long as you can, then HoT up.

In phase 2, two melee and two ranged adds will come after you. They do very high damage, so pop Berserk to take out the melee adds (stay in a bubble to reduce the ranged damage), then grab a platform to fly up and kill the ranged guys in Cat. Use your damage-reducing CDs proactively here; try to avoid having to stop DPS to heal.

Once the adds are down, the platform shatters and you grab a Ruby Drake to do the final phase. If you've never done this before, just follow a Flame Spike x2, Engulf in Flames, Revivify rotation, and you'll be fine. Don't worry about Life Burst, Blazing Speed, or Flame Shield. Just make sure to move out of the electric fields, stay out of Maly's melee range, and not let your Engulf stacks drop -- any of those will end your attempt prematurely. Medium.

Ulduar

Ulduar: the best instance in the game, and the pinnacle of soloing in our current gear. If you haven't ever been here, you're in for a treat.

Flame Leviathan Talk to Brann to start normal mode. Hop in a demolisher, drive it all the way down (you can ignore the towers), kill any attacking trash, hit the pad for a repair, then kill the trash at the end to bring FL in. Stack Pyrite to 9, fire a few cannon shots, stack to 10, and watch him fall over. Easy. For hard modes, I've done up to two towers using multiple vehicles; three is probably doable, but four is just too much HP.

Ignis Clear the trash along one side, then pull him, park your furry butt in one of the pools of water, and grind him down. Medium, optional boss.

Razorscale Two-phase fight. In phase 1, a bunch of vrykul adds will spawn and attack the dwarves. AoE them down, and watch for the harpoon turrets to be built. Activate them, go Cat, and burn down Razorscale while she's on the ground. After she takes off, heal up and repeat. Depending on how lucky you get with dwarf timing, you should be able to bring her down permanently in two passes.

For phase 2, things get tricky due to Fuse Armor. Once this stacks to five, you're completely helpless until it wears off. Happily, she'll drop all her aggro on you at this point, so if you're tanking her near a dwarf, she'll start hitting that instead. You have to make sure you don't get back on her aggro table before it wears off, though, so stop using Lacerate, Frenzied Regeneration, and any other DoTs/HoTs at a three-stack of Fuse Armor. Medium, optional boss.

XT-002 Kill the trash in the corners, or it will aggro at some point during the fight. Tank XT wherever and work him down to 75%, using CDs for the Tympanic Tantrum. At 75%, he stops attacking and his heart comes out; go Cat and burst it down as much as possible. If you can do enough heart damage, he'll drop to sub-50% and immediately trigger another heart phase; rinse and repeat. Ignore the adds. Easy.

Assembly of Iron Without a dispeller, this fight is quite tough because you have to soak all the Falcon ... er ... Fusion Punch damage. I'd want heroic Dragon Soul gear before taking this on. If you want to try, kill Steelbreaker while dragging him out of Runes of Power (and putting yourself in), then kite and heal while killing Molgeim while keeping Brundir focused for interrupts. Yeah, it's kinda like that. Very hard, optional boss.

Kologarn Not much of a threat, as long as you stay in melee range. Feel free to just kill him and ignore the arms (for an achievement) or ignore him and just kill the arms (for a different achievement); just make sure you kill the Rubble adds, since they can hurt. Easy.

Auriaya Pop Berserk to burn down the Sanctum Sentries at the start. Save all CDs for Sonic Screech reducing/healing. (It's Physical, so you want to be in Bear whien it goes off.) Feel free to run away and HoT while she casts Sentinel Blast. Kill the Feral Defender when it spawns, as stuns are bad. Medium, optional boss.

Freya Clear out the trash on the right side of the river and all three Elders before the pull. She'll spawn three types of adds, twice. The Snaplasher/Stormlasher/elemental have to be killed within 12 seconds of each other. The Ancient Protector can just be nuked, but note you have to stay near a mushroom. Finally, the lashers can be AoE'ed, but use a cooldown to reduce the detonation damage. Easy to medium.

Hodir Before the fight starts, find Missy and tag her with a raid mark. You'll want to break her out every time she gets frozen; she'll break out the rest of the helper NPCs by herself. The enrage timer is a concern, so you'll want to go cat and get DoTs up every time he casts Flash Freeze. Just make sure you get on the snowdrift before the cast finishes, or the fight's over. Keep moving/jumping as much as possible to mitigate Biting Cold and avoid the falling ice, though you'll inevitably soak some due to Freeze. Save CDs for Frozen Blows. Medium.

Mimiron Best boss in the game, bar none (though Algalon is close). Even though you can skip straight to him now, you owe it to yourself to see his trash and ride the train, at least once. Phase 1: A hard push to kill him before he kills you, as Napalm Shell and Plasma Blast will hurt, significantly. A good balance of Cat and Bear with great gear is required. Run out and heal for Shock Blast. Luckily, this is the toughest phase. Phase 2: Easy, just heal up during Spinning Up. Phase 3: Tougher, but doable; use the Magnetic Cores to bring down the head for melee damage. Hardest part is placing them. Phase 4: Everything has to die together; luckily, Berserk does chain to the head. Heal during Shock Blast and Spinning Up. Very hard.

Thorim Mostly impossible solo, so just round up a friend for this one. You'll definitely want Thorim's help for Yogg-Saron.

General Vezax If you can kill Razuvious in Naxxramas, you can do Gen V. Interrupt Searing Flames, kite out of the Shadow Crashes, and stay near a wall so you don't lose time due to knockbacks. Oh, and kill at least one vapor so you don't accidentally activate hard mode (oops). Medium.

Yogg-Saron The final battle, and surprisingly doable. Phase 1: Kill guardians near Yogg, dodge clouds, and save CDs for when you get Sara's Fervor. Phase 2: Kill constrictor and corruptor tentacles ASAP. When the portal opens, hop in, kill the skulls, then nuke the brain; using Berserk here, you should be able to kill the brain in one go. Phase 3: Finish off any tentacles left, then burn the boss, killing guardians as they spawn. Use sanity wells as necessary. Medium-hard.

Algalon Don't make me laugh.

Looking for the latest and greatest in feral cat druid guides? Shifting Perspectives has the answers! Check out our guide to soloing instances and raids, as well as our top gear recommendations and feral guides to the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple and the Fall of Deathwing.