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Solo-man

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Recently, I've taken to soloing old-world raids since my guild is small and I usually can't play much during the evening when they're raiding. I did AQ20 all the way to the end, skipping a couple bosses, which was pretty easy. Often the trash is harder than the bosses, due to weird mechanics like eating you alive. (It's actually possible to solo those things as a tank paladin, you just have to stay at max range and hit exorcism and avenger's shield.)

The Molten Core trash is fairly easy, and the temptation to skip it often leads you to pulling 5-6 mobs. The Firelords are among the worst, as they spawn an add that multiplies like bacteria if you don't kill it quick. Plus, they silence you for 20 seconds, locking me out of everything but Hammer of the Righteous. Core Hound packs are probably the most annoying trash, as all 5 or so have to die with in 10 seconds or they get rezzed by their brethren.

I learned to not underestimate the power of the protection paladin. At one point, I accidentally pulled 2 Molten Destroyers, two Ancient Core Hounds (different from the packs), two Lava Annihilators, and a Firelord. The mobs are so big, I couldn't reliably target the firelord adds, and I let them get out of control. I was about to give up, but as it was a long run back, I decided to fight it out and get as many of them down as I could. I focused on the Firelord first, but by the time I got him down I was almost dead due to lack of Holy Shield, Sacred Shield and extra heals from Judgment of Light, and there were probably fifty adds spawned (at least, they were so overlapped I couldn't begin to count them). However, with my buffs back up, I noticed my health creeping back up--apparently with the fire resist aura, nearly all of the adds' attacks missed. They also have a despawn timer; after about 2 minutes they all died, and about five minutes later I finished off the rest of the mobs. That was exhilarating, especially because the run back from MC sucks.

I can't emphasize enough how powerful Sacred Shield is for soloing this stuff. With it up, I was able to heal myself to full just from Seal/Judgment of Light from -20k health. While fighting 6 trash mobs and 50+ Lava Spawns. In about 45 seconds.

I got a boss down, Garr, as I'm considering farming Thunderfury. Quite easy. Baron Geddon should be next--video time:

If you look at the armory link in the video, you'll see that this guy has very good gear, much better than mine. That means I'll have to build a fire resistance set to have a chance at success. More coming.

The oddest thing about this old stuff is that though you get little or no rewards (seriously, the MC trash drops nothing at least half the time), I had an absolutely fabulous time. Why is that? To be continued.
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