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Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons

Blood Pact Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons MON

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill beats up internet dragons for fun, for mounts, and maybe as a little catharsis.


I've already done some Raiding with Leashes vanilla raid posts. The next logical step would be Burning Crusade soloing, but I've tried and failed to make a glorified loot list more interesting to read, since BC content tends to be more "walk in and win" nowadays than an actual soloing contest.

So, while I wrangle out an adventure in tiers four to six, I will talk about killing dragons solo as a warlock in order to grab dragon mounts.

I'm not talking about dragons that require friends by your side to complete: e.g., Deathwing's two dragon mounts, Ultraxion's mount, completing a dragonstick, or Al'Akir's dragon drop. Al'Akir has actually been soloed before by a warlock, but you'll need friends in order to clear his genie council first. I'm talking dragons you can go beat up by yourself.




How to kill your dragon

In Stonecore, Slabhide drops the Vitreous Stone Drake on either normal or heroic Stonecore in Deepholm. The worst of it is Corborus's trash, actually. It involved some multidotting, a few Shadowfury uses, and a little bit of kiting dancing from my 496 affliction sans minion in the heroic version. The heroic version has 85-elite trash and 87-elite bosses; the normal has 82- or 83-elite trash and 84-elite bosses.

Corborus is a dance. On heroic, you'll need to AoE his shard mobs; on normal, the shards stay inanimate and can be ignored. My raid geared self managed to kill him in 32 seconds before he submerged, but your mileage may vary.

When you get to Slabhide's slalom, avoid the dark circles as you run down. If Slabhide pouts and disappears if you beat him down to the bottom, just back up the path a little and reapproach to get him to show his face. Move out of his lava fissures on both modes and stand behind a spike when he does his Crystal Storm, if you're doing it on heroic.

Altairus may drop the Drake of the North Wind in normal or heroic Vortex Pinnacle, which lies in the far southeast of Uldum. Get out your Banish if you want to use crowd control on the trash; only the Cloud Princes will be immune to CC. Vortex Pinnacle pairs with Stonecore for mob levels.

Ertan is largely a tank-n-spank for casters like us. Even in heroic, she won't hit you for very much at all (only around 13-17k per hit). Hit the Howling Gale orbs with a few Fel Flames to pass by; DoTting them up doesn't hit fast enough to cancel the blowback swirly. Young Storm Dragons also tend to melee very heavily, so consider bringing a voidwalker along if you're not not comfortable with your gear.

As for Altairus: just avoid the vortexes if you're playing on heroic (or do get caught, for a chance to grab a golden orb!), and jump on the hasty side regardless of mode.

When it comes to soloing raids with a choice between raid sizes, I always assume the 10-man version. 25-man raids tend to up the damage quite a lot and may be more trouble solo than they are worth.

Blood Pact Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons MON

Onyxia got upgraded from level 60 to level 80 for WoW's 5th Anniversary, and now she drops a version of herself as a mount. At least, that's what I'm told; between her and Attumen, I'm ready to swear the mount doesn't exist.

I use a voidwalker to tank her, but I've done the fight in all three specs. Destruction is by far the fastest to drop her with -- all those whelps make for such great ember generation! At 90 in lower raid gear, you should get She Deep Breathes More as you'll get her to land for her third phase before she even breathes at all. You'll win More Dots! by default; higher gear levels will drop her within one minute. Many Whelps! Handle It! involves burningly rushing down the sides where her whelp eggs are before you do enough damage to cause her to land.

Ony will also drop fun items like lookalike tier 2 helms, a grimoire that summon skeletons, a polearm that makes another polearm, a 22-slot bag, and, of course, her head.

Malygos in the Eye of Eternity will drop the Blue Drake or the Azure Drake, sometimes both. If you've never been to the Eye of Eternity without involving Thrall, it's in the Nexus complex in Coldarra in Borean Tundra, and it's the green portal up high, not either of the purple portals below. Other cool drops include Maly's weapon table: Greatstaff of the Nexus, Hailstorm, Black Ice.

Maly probably doesn't actually require a pet to tank, but I prefer to keep him stationary for his first phase while I chase sparks (stand in the puddle!). In his vortex, you can only use instant-casts since you are technically moving. At 50%, Maly will fly off to leave you with the scions, who are hovering on discs. Two Nexus Lords will come to battle you on the platform; kill one to take a disc with a vehicle jump-on arrow. When you're in the air (jump up, like taking off with a flying mount), Maly's breath won't hurt you, and you can cast while moving.

When you've defeated all the scions, Malygos destroys the platform -- but you are rescued by a red dragon who is a vehicle for your phase with Malygos. Just remember 1-1-2-3, to strafe out of the lightning cloud Malygos spits at you, and you'll defeat him easily. By virtue of soloing, you'll blow through Maly's achievements: less than 9 players, defeating him in 6 minutes or less, and Denyin' the Scion. The 6-minute achiev may or may not be a stretch depending on your gear.

Blood Pact Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons MON

Sartharion will drop the Black Drake in 10-man Obsidian Sanctum and the Twilight Drake in the 25-man version -- but only if you do Sarth with all three mini-boss drakes up (also known as Sarth-3D). You'll also get the titles (Name) of the Nightfall and Twilight Vanquisher (Name) if you complete a Sarth-3D run of the respective raid size.

That's fine, since you can't really do one of the drakes due to mechanics and despawning anyway unless you bring some serious firepower. Sarth-3D is and has almost always been a straight zerg, so bring your best.

You'll start by clearing out all the trash in the entire Sanctum, except the blue twilight drake mini-bosses. Just run around them; if you pull one, either run out or die to reset them. If you leave any trash up, they will all pull when you pull Sartharion himself in the middle.

84k DPS will guarantee a kill before Tenebron lands, but if she lands, you should be finishing Sarth off before she rips your voidwalker and you to pieces. Blow every cooldown you have and dodge the lava wall to win a dragon mount and a bag.

Kill a dragon just because you can

Halion the Twilight Destroyer doesn't drop a dragon mount, or any mount at all. But he's a dragon, sitting in his lair, and he's completely doable by a solo warlock in both normal and heroic 10-mans. Ruby Sanctum is left from the meeting stone when facing Obsidian Sanctum's entrance.

Within Ruby Sanctum, you have to kill three dragonflight bosses before Halion himself will appear. The biggest problem in the trash is when the fat Commander does an ally-buffing battle roar, which means the combined damage of all the mobs will hurt for a bit. Kill that one first, then the others at your leisure.

Baltharus used to require taking advantage of his pathing in order to kill him, but with a voidlord by my side, I didn't have any issues besides almost dying a few times. Saviana Ragefire is across from Baltharus, and all she really does nowadays is breathe on you and fear you some. General Zarithrian will cause you the most trouble, if any, for his adds can get annoying if you let them. In my raid gear (496 ilvl), however, he went down pretty easily.

Blood Pact Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons MON

Halion has three phases regardless of mode. I faced him with a voidlord by my side in my 496 affliction raid gear; your mileage may vary, but he's mostly a dancing fight rather than a firepower fight. My voidlord tanked Halion (with a bit of Soulburn: Health Funnel help from me) while I poured on the damage.

The first phase doesn't really matter, as you're not really in it long enough. At 75%, Halion shifts into the shadow realm, and so should you with the portal he leaves behind. Here, you'll need to constantly move around Halion as occasionally he'll light up the two shadow orbs in an insta-kill beam. On heroic, there are four shadow orbs, and it lights up in a cross rather than a straight line. The usual raid strat back in the day was to hang with the melee on Halion's back left leg, as the cutter-beam orbs will circle clockwise.

At 50%, Halion goes back to existing in both realms, and while current progression would split up the raid to balance a damage, you will just stay "below" in the shadow realm, continuing the cutter-orb dance. Halion will phase in and out of the realm, but you'll defeat him by eventually out-damaging his regeneration. There's no special achievement besides the "Hey, you did it!" ones, but he's a dragon, and therefore needs to be killed once a week.


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.