Soloing Throne of Thunder as Enhancement

Throne of Thunder is an instance that's been mostly soloable by Enhancement since 6.1, depending on the amount of gear one had and how nicely RNG on Jin'rokh wanted to play. 6.2 has brought some nice quality of life changes to the soloing scene, mainly with Jin'rokh himself, making this instance a little less of a hassle to solo.

In this post I've included all of my ToT soloing videos, up through Ji-Kun. At this time Durumu does far too much damage to allow non-tanks such as ourselves to survive, but thankfully us mount hunters only really need up to Ji-kun anyways. So unless you're someone who's missing a raid drop pet from one of the later bosses or are looking to get your mits on some transmog that drops from a later boss, you're in luck.

What are the benefits of soloing ToT?
- Transmog! As long as you're not after an item off of the Council of Elders (loot drops currently do not exist for some reason - bug), this place has some pretty nifty items that have a troll vibe to them.
- Mounts! There are two rather neat looking mounts to gain from this instance.
Spawn of Horridon - 1.7% chance and drops from Horridon.
Clutch of Ji-Kun - 1.8% chance and drops from Ji-Kun.
- Pets! There are several pets that can be collected in this instance.
Living Sandling - 4% drop chance and comes from the trash between Horridon and Council of Elders.
Ji-Kun Hatchling - .94% drop chance and comes from Ji-Kun herself.
Son of Animus - 1.13% drop chance and comes from Dark Animus. While you're currently unable to solo your way through Durumu and Dark Animus, it's worth a mention since it will be possible someday. For now, bring a (tank and possibly healer) friend!
- Toys! Okay, there's only one toy that drops from this instance, but it's a fun and incredibly rare one.
Gastropod Shell - .69% chance to drop and comes off of the Gastropods (aka Gary!) between Megaera and Ji-Kun. His name is Jerry.
- Achievements! There are numerous achievements in this instance, which when all completed award Glory of the Thundering Raider. At the time of this post *most* of the achievements are not soloable, or at least not easily soloable. Cage Match, One-Up, and Head Case are your best bets for now. Heroics modes are out, and several other achievements will require at least 1-2 other people.
2/1/2016 Edit: It's now possible to solo Heroic ToT up until Durumu, who seems to be still impossible for non-tank classes, even on normal.

How do I do the thing?
Take a gander at the following videos. I've put how to tips on the videos themselves (it's text, not VO, sorry!) that should lead you in the right direction. As always, I'm happy to answer any and all questions either on this post, on the videos themselves, or on Twitter.

Jin'rokh

Horridon

Council of Elders

Tortos

Megaera

Gary

Ji-Kun

Good luck, have fun, and may drop luck be on your side!

Happy Winter Veil/New Year!

<3

Healing As Enhancement

New visitors! Please be aware that much has changed since this post was written. WoD has changed off healing capabilities drastically. Expect an updated guide somewhere in the near future.

If you're just now returning to the game, or if you're leveling an enhancement shaman for the first time, you may be wondering "How the heck do I heal?" Enhancement healing is relatively simple, yet can seem a bit complex at times to the untrained shaman.

Some of you old-timers may be wondering about where the heck Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave ran off to. Well, both of these spells have decided to get permanently hitched to our restoration brothers and sisters, effectively dumping us. That's right, our only actively cast healing spells are now Healing Surge, Chain Heal, and Healing Rain. I see you giving Healing Surge the stink eye; try not to judge it quite yet, it's more potent than it looks.

Please note that I will only be covering the spell modifiers (mainly talents and glyphs, not necessarily procs/secondary stat scaling) that directly effect healing. There are several other glyphs/talents that boost resistances and help to dispel, but I will not be including those within this article.

Healing Surge

Unless you're hard casting Healing Surge for some odd reason, this spell is more than adequate for the pinch healing that you'll need during leveling/soloing/raiding. Trust me, this spell has been saving my shaman butt for months now. Check out these modifiers that makes Healing Surge more potent for us.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Surge will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.
3) Echo of Elements - This talent can cause your Healing Surge to "echo," effectively casting Healing Surge a second time without any extra effort from you or resource cost. Both the original spell an the echoed spell can crit independently.

Might not be so bad, eh? Now let's break down some of our other healing abilities.

Chain Heal

Chain Heal is not a spell commonly cast by an enhancement shaman unless said shaman is within proximity of several raid mates and their healers are struggling. Remember, it is your job as a dps to do damage, not play healing hero. In the event that your healers are oom, you may use Chain Heal and Healing Rain as last ditch efforts to save your raid team long enough to make a kill. If you need to save yourself in the event that you accidentally stood in the bad though, use Healing Surge. Chain Heal doesn't heal for a ton single-target, and can unfortunately only bounce so far.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Surge will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.
3) Echo of Elements - This talent can cause your Chain Heal to "echo," effectively casting Chain Heal a second time without any extra effort from you or resource cost. Crits will behave as if you had cast Chain Heal twice, meaning they'll do their own thing regardless of what the original spell did.

Healing Rain

Much like Chain Heal, Healing Rain is not a spell commonly cast by an enhancement shaman unless said shaman is within proximity of several raid mates and their healers are struggling. Healing Rain can help to stabilize a group's health, though overall doesn't do a ton of healing. Remember, it is your job as a dps to do damage, not play healing hero. In the event that your healers are oom, you may use Chain Heal and Healing Rain as last ditch efforts to save your raid team long enough to make a kill. If you need to save yourself in the event that you accidentally stood in the bad though, use Healing Surge.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Rain will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Conductivity - Causes the duration of Healing Rain to be extended when certain abilities are used; more on this later.
3) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.

Patch 5.4 Edit: Healing Rain is no longer affected by the glyph Healing Storm. Due to this change, Healing Rain's effectiveness has been severely nerfed for Enhancement.


Healing Stream Totem
This totem has been a healing staple for us shaman for quite some time now. While it has had a bit of a makeover since Cataclysm, this totem can still put out a good little bit of healing. Currently this totem is a single target smart heal, and prefers to target those in the shaman's group who have the lowest health. The Mists of Pandaria version only lasts for 15 seconds at a time and has a cooldown, but said cooldown is relatively short (30 seconds). If you're in dire need of a second Healing Stream Totem, and fast, you may reset the cooldown if you're specced into Call of the Elements (3 minute cooldown on this talent).

Modified by:
1) Call of the Elements - Resets the 30 second cooldown on this totem. Usable once every 3 minutes.
2) Rushing Streams - Causes your Healing Stream to heal two targets (up from one) for an increased healing amount of 15% per tick.
3) Totemic Persistence - Allows you to have up to two totems per school activated at the same time (Healing Stream + Healing Tide = Whoa totem healing, Batman)


Healing Tide Totem
It's a totem and it's a "major" healing cooldown! As of patch 5.4, Healing Tide Totem is now a baseline ability for all of the shaman specializations, as opposed to being a talent choice prior to this patch. More healing utility for us, huzzah! This bad boy is great for re-stabilizing the raid in a pinch, or even saving your own butt in a soloing situation.

Modified by:
1) Passive talents that only Restoration has which boosts all of their healing, including totems.
2) Haste plateaus, which Enhancement doesn't shoot for.
3) Totemic Persistence - Allows you to have up to two totems per school activated at the same time. (Healing Stream + Healing Tide = Whoa totem healing, Batman)


Ancestral Guidance
This particular talent currently offers us dps shaman types the biggest bang for our talent point...assuming we can swat at things. Ancestral Guidance yields the highest output while we are in our Ascendance form, though please keep in mind that tying the two together may result in a complete waste of Ancestral Guidance, unless there's an increased damage taken and received phase, such as the gas phase on Will of the Emperor normal mode. For soloing purposes however, if you happen to pop AG while in Ascendance, you could very well see yourself go from nearly dead to full very quickly. Stormstrike/Stormblast, Lava Lash, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lighting, the initial impact of shocks (meaning NOT Flame Shock's tick, just the impact when you first cast it), and Fire Nova all essentially become means of healing through this talent for a short duration.

Modified by:
1) The use of dps cooldowns in conjunction with this ability.


Conductivity
This talent has received a major overhaul with patch 5.4. Conductivity now extends the life of our Healing Rain by 4 seconds each time Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock, or Stormstrike is cast. The Healing Rain has a maximum duration of 40 seconds. Between this change and the removal of Healing Rain from our Healing Storm glyph, this talent has pretty much become useless for us Enhancement types.


Feral Spirits
That's right, even our wolves heal us! Just us though, they really don't like anyone else. Every time they attack, 150% of the damage they deal heals both them and us. Pretty neat, eh? But that's not all! If you have Glyph of Feral Spirit in, they deal another 40% in healing, which is to say pretty darn potent. Yeah that's right, our wolves aren't just a little damage cooldown that looks all flashy, but they're also a fairly decent self healing cooldown as well. Pretty hard to take us down when we have our wolf pals out!

Modified by:
1) Glyph of Feral Spirit
2) Mastery - The Feral Spirits attack using a spell called Spirit Bite, which deals nature damage. Due to our Enhancement Mastery, the more mastery we have, the stronger our wolves will attack. The stronger their attacks, the more healing we receive.
3) Battlegear of the Witch Doctor (4pc) - Tier 15 (Throne of Thunder) The cooldown of your Feral Spirits is reduced by 8 sec each time Windfury Weapon is triggered.
4) Assurance of Consequence - This is a trinket that comes from the Sha of Pride in Siege of Orgrimmar. Our wolves are one of the cooldowns affected by this trinket.


Glyph of Flame Shock
You will personally be healed by 30% of the damage your Flame Shock does. If you were to spread your Flame Shock via Lava Lash and had multiple Flame Shocks rolling at once, you'll receive healing from those Flame Shocks.

For single target, this glyph isn't all that powerful. However, in situations where you're able to spread your Flame Shock around, it does a decent little bit of healing. I find myself running this glyph often enough (though generally one of the first I switch out if utility calls) because hey, extra passive healing is always nice.



That's everything we have currently. So let's break it down into simple terms, going by what is typically specced for and glyphed:

Personal/Single Target Healing: Healing Surge, Feral Spirits, Healing Stream Totem, Flame Shock (with glyph)
Party/Raid Healing: Chain Heal, Healing Rain (not ideal), Healing Stream Totem, Ancestral Guidance (or Healing Tide Totem)
Healing Glyphs: Feral Spirit, Healing Storm, Flame Shock

Also, don't forget your professions and racials. If you're an herbalist, Lifeblood can help you out in a pinch (plus the extra haste is pretty neat) and if you just so happen to be a Draenei, Gift of the Naaru can restore 20% of your (or a friend's, or Tsulong's) health to you (or your friend, or Tsulong even) over the duration of 15 seconds. Can't beat free healing!


I hope this article has helped you out some, even if it is rather lengthy. Remember, enhancement shamans have a ton of healing utility within our bag of tricks, so there's no need to feel helpless if you're hurting!

How To Enhance: Combat Openers and the Cooldown Toolkit

Whatever it is you do, be it raiding, PvP, brawling, or soloing, knowing how and when to use your DPS burst capabilities - regardless of your class - can often mean the difference between a win and a corpse run.

Once upon a time, enhancement was known for its turtle-like damage. Slow, steady, always statically dependable. It didn't have that fancy thing called "burst" and often suffered on certain gimmick fights *coughspinecough* because of this. Those days are no more though. We shaman are now the kings and queens of mean burst, and how to get the most out of this bursting capability is what I'd like to talk about today.

First, let's cover which abilities actually give us our high burst.

Primary
Ascendance - Our big "lolol I WIN" button. This is pretty much our biggest source of burst these days, and the best part is that it can be used at range. Super handy for certain situations, like say for the air phase on Onyxia or the head on Mimiron.
Heroism/Bloodlust - Tasty, tasty haste! Generally this is considered a raid cooldown, but for soloing it can be either an "I WIN" button or can be saved as a panic button.
Stormlash Totem - Oh Stormlash Totem, allow me to sing you a song of my love! While this is a very potent raid cooldown, it is also a humungous personal cooldown, given how it weaves together with Windfury, our special attacks, and our auto attacks.
Fire Elemental Totem - Big Red is now a viable DPS cooldown for us! He slices, he dices! Oh wait...no. He just burns all the things. He'll happily apply Searing Flames stacks for you, making your Lava Lash hit harder, plus he can do okayish AoE, provided he has something to actually hit (he's kind of completely useless on Lei Shi's Hide phase). This guy is a pretty nice bursty CD, so use him often! You can have him out even more often if you have him glyphed, but it's not recommended to do this unless you're a Troll. Even if you're a Troll, you only may want to do this if you're elemental, or maybe even a restoration shaman regardless of race. Maybe.
Feral Spirit - Our beloved pups, how silly you two are! These guys aren't the hardest hitting DPS cooldown in our arsenal, but they are one none the less. They give you some pretty potent passive healing, especially if they're glyphed, so definitely use these guys often.

Optional
Elemental Mastery - This isn't a talent that's typically taken by enhancement shaman, though certainly has some uses in certain situations. I recommend this talent for certain encounters where you need very focused burst, or for those solos that require you to kill the bad thing before your cooldowns run out and it kills you. Times up nicely with your wolves, and if you're an engineer like I am, your Synapse Springs, for those longer boss fights.
Synapse Springs - The glove enhancement for engineers, which may be applied in addition to our usual glove enchant. Synapse Springs are on a 1 minute cooldown, so I personally macro them to my wolves, which are on a 2 minute cooldown. So long as you use your springs as soon as they come off of cooldown, these two things should always line up nicely for you. They may not always be as ideal as a static stat boost, such as an enchanter's ring enchants, but they are awfully nice for kicking out extra burst.
Berserking - This be da Troll's racial, mon! It's a nice little haste buff that can be timed up very well with Ascendance. If you're a Troll, use this. Love this. Own this!
On Use Trinkets - Use trinkets are thus far not as prevalent in MoP through PvE content, though they still do exist. Most of the use trinkets will provide more of a boost as far as burst is concerned in general, and more than likely will be more powerful than your Synapse Springs (assuming you're an engineer). Keep in mind that trinkets and springs do trigger a 20 second cooldown when one or the other is used, so you will not be able to stack them. My advice is to tie in the stronger of the two options in with whatever DPS cooldown lines up the best with that trinket's on-use cooldown, then simply use the other once that 20 seconds of lockout time is up for the other item.

In addition to what is listed above, pre-potting is also a highly encouraged option (not always applicable, depending on the start of a fight). Being able to use two pots within a single encounter is an easy way to get the biggest bang out of your damage.

I'd also mention gear swapping here, but as of the last patch (5.1) Blizzard has officially broken the ability to swap a gear set and keep the buff it a given set provides. The biggest example being: it was a pretty nice DPS increase for both enhancement and elemental shaman to equip the tier 13 restoration 4 piece set, activate Spiritwalker's Grace for the haste bonus it gave (30%), and then to swap back to their normal gear just before a pull. Now when you switch back to your normal gear, you lose the Spiritwalker's Grace haste buff, making the gear swap completely pointless. You may now safely vendor your old restoration set, unless you want it for transmog, and remove your gear swap macros from your macro book.

Alright, now that you know the toolkit, let's put it into practice. Your opener, regardless if you're soloing or simply raiding with your buds, can often mean the difference between beating that enrage timer or going splat. It requires a certain finesse. You often want to put out the highest damage possible off the bat, but if you're in a raiding environment, you want to do so without pulling threat off of your tank(s) as well. You'll have to learn how many seconds you need to count before you can open up on a boss (less if you have a strong, geared tank and/or 2+ misdirects from rogues and hunters going out, more if you are missing these things) on your own; each group is a bit different and each gearing plateau is a beast of its own. Right, so a standard opener for raiding looks something like this:

- 5 seconds before pull: Use Spirit Walk, if you need a gap closer between yourself and a boss.
- 3 seconds before pull: Use potion
- 2 seconds before pull: Pop your Fire Elemental totem.
- 1 second before pull: Pop wolves (this would be your Synapse Springs + Feral Spirit macro, if you're an engineer)
- PULL
- Give the tank a tick or two to hit the boss, doing his/her aggro thang.
- Unleash Elements as you close in on the boss.
- Flame Shock if you're not quite there yet.
- Stormstrike
- Ascendance + Heroism/Lust + Stormlash Totem (Hero/Lust assuming your raid wishes to have it at the beginning)
-  Stormblast (aka Super Stormstrike)
- Lava Lash (you should most certainly have 5 searing stacks up by now; if you don't, check the pulse of your fire elemental)
- Swing into your usual rotation of using SS/LL/UE on CD, weaving in your Flame Shock and Earth Shock in as normal, plus using Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning in cleave situations) with 4-5 Maelstrom Stacks up. Use Fire Nova only after you've used Lava Lash to cleave your Flame Shock to multiple targets, and only if you need to spellcleave.

If you're a Troll and/or if you're specced into Elemental Mastery for a given encounter, it may be best to stagger your haste CDs some, especially at higher gear levels, simply because you'll hit that ceiling where your haste is just, well, a waste! If you're not using Hero/Lust off the bat, you can burn these two cooldowns right off the get go, then simply continue to use them with their paired DPS cooldowns later on (wolves with EM, Berserking with Ascendance/Glyphed Fire Elemental Totem). If you ARE Heroing/Lusting off the bat, the use of these other haste CDs can get a little funky. Apply them to the best of your abilities and where they make the most sense for the given encounter. For soloing, especially those shortish fights that are to short for using your cooldowns a second time, but long enough to outlast Hero/Lust, simply pop your secondary haste abilities once Hero/Lust wears off.

Now, the above advice is by no means perfect, but I've been finding that it works very well for me. It puts out some pretty incredibly high opening numbers, while at the same time it *usually* keeps my threat under that of my tanks. If it doesn't, the panicked Wind Sear gets thrown out there, and on occasion I do find myself toggling off my auto attack in a mad hurry. For the most part though, the above has been serving me incredibly well with both raiding and soloing.

H'okay so, we've covered the opening. What about your burst later on in the encounter? Well, this completely depends on the encounter. On a standard Patchwerk like fight, which are quite rare these days, you'd simply use your cooldowns again as they came up. With many encounters, this theory still works fine, but on others you may find that you can't - or shouldn't - always use them all willy nilly. There will be times when you may want to hold off on popping a cooldown lest you get gimped by a boss mechanic, effectively wasting your cooldown (I find that Amber Shaper is great for this; I've learned to hold off on Ascendance especially if Reshape Life is about to go out since he just LOVES to cast it on me if I've just popped Ascendance). Timing is absolutely everything. Until I can get around to dissecting each encounter and get around to writing a guide for them all, I'm afraid you're all on your own with figuring out how you should pop your cooldowns on a given fight. I'm not terribly worried though, you're all smart cookies and are more than capable. I mean, you all chose to play enhancement after all!

As always, if you have any questions about the topic covered here, or any aspect of enhancement for that matter, please do not hesitate to drop a comment here or to contact me through either Twitter or my email (listed under 'Contact' on this blog). I'm always happy to answer questions. I promise I don't bite too hard!

Until next time, keep swinging!

The Art of Soloing - Where To Begin

Greetings young Grasshoppers. So you've come seeking wisdom on how to solo raid bosses, eh?

 
Whether you're after some sweet transmog gear, chasing a new rare raid drop pet, looking for a mount that supposedly exists, or just in the market for a few luls, I am here to happily give you a few pointers on how anyone of any class (and *most* specs) may do any of the things mentioned above.

Pull up a chair and let's get down to my top 5 tips on soloing old content.

1. Throw your old raiding habits out the window

For DPS: You know those old time rules that are practically beat into the head of any raider ever? That silly thing called "watching your threat" and "not standing in front of the big baddy"? Guess what, both of those ideas need to go. No more hiding behind the skirts of some tank. YOU are now the tank. You need to THINK like a tank, move like a tank, DODGE ALL THE THINGS like a tank. You know how you'd maybe only hit those personal defensive cooldowns when the raid damage got kind of ouchie? Yeah, you'll have to learn where you'll actually need to preemptively hit those for certain fights during times you may not be used to. Those security of life blankets we know as healers? GONE. You, my dear little one, are now your own healer. You'll have to learn how to time your personal healing cooldowns to keep yourself from becoming a crispy corpse on the floor.

For Tanks: You dudes and dudettes pretty much do what your usually do, but now it's with a bit of a twist. You'll now be up against possible enrage timers that you'll have to play the role of DPS to get past (though, you buggers with your Vengeances, for the most part damage dealing shouldn't be much of a problem). Like the DPS though, you know longer have your healers at your back. You'll have to absolutely know when to use your mitigation cooldowns to prevent your health from dropping in the first place, and you'll have to know how to heal your own hide in the event that it does dip in percentage.

For Healers: First of all if you're soloing things as a healer, you are A) bloody insane and B) a badass if you're actually pulling it off. In general, with the exception of perhaps Discipline Priests and maaaaaaybe Restoration Druids specced into Heart of the Wild, most healers these days don't have a whole pile of consistent hurt to put out there. Likewise, the majority of healers lack enough personal defense cooldowns to rotate through a given fight. Some do, some don't; the mileage may vary. What I'm getting at is that soloing as someone in a healing specialization may not necessarily get the best results due to either enrage timers or hard hitting mechanics. I shall not deter you from your goals though. If you wish to solo content as a healing type, you go out there and get on with your fancy self.

2. Be aware of EVERYTHING

To semi-contradict the title of the previous point I made, not all raiding habits should be thrown out of the window. Certain things such as getting out of the fire as quickly as possible and watching your timers? Great habits to hold on to. While yes, there are many encounters where the mechanics can now pretty much be ignored, there are still plenty of situations where you'll want to avoid the bad, damage x component of y boss at z time, take down adds so that they don't nuke you, burn down that boss before he can push you six feet under, heal at this time, move when that happens, etc. This goes double for you if you're going for achievements, since many of those are "Don't get hit by this!" or "Kill x of that!" You'll need to watch your feet, your health, the boss' positioning, buffs/debuffs, possibly dispells, interrupts...all the things that you'd usually have 9 or 24 other brains and sets of hands helping you take care of, all by yourself.

It's as if your raid awareness suddenly needs to be hopped up on coffee. The special kind.

3. Know thine utility

Unless you're a high(er) end PvP type, or on the cutting edge of PvE content, changes are pretty good that you may only be aware of a small fraction of the toolkit available to you. It personally took me many years to learn fully understand how important it was to use Shamanistic Rage as a defense cooldown (heck, for a while in ICC it was a DPS cooldown of all things...). With the added utility that has been added into Mists of Pandaria, I'll even admit that there are times when I forget to use certain totems in certain situations (Capacitor Totem is notoriously forgotten by many shaman, yours truly included sometimes). Soloing content will often force you to think outside the box as far as your cooldowns and bag of tricks are concerned. Dismiss nothing in your toolkit. Become familiar with how certain cooldowns may interact with each other, if you're not already. Test out which utility spells help you out in which situation. Push your limits, your knowledge, and if you seem to be falling short, start digging to learn more. Never stop playing mad scientist.

4. Know the fight

Yes, this might be a /facepalm tip but it really does pay to know the mechanics of a fight, even if most of those mechanics no longer necessarily apply. If you cannot kill something within your "zerg" window, you may find yourself having to play nice with mechanics. You may have to roll defensive CDs to mitigate Patchwerks Hateful Strikes. You're going to have to be aware that all three body parts of Mimiron will need to die within a certain time frame from each other in the final phase or things on him will gain health back. And of course, if you're an achievement chaser, you absolutely will need to know how both the achievement works and the mechanics of the boss. A little knowledge can go a long way in preventing frustrations and achievement failure.

5. Know your limits

Soloing is part character level, part gear, part skill, and sometimes even part luck. Some raids are easier to solo once you hit x level plateau. Some boss mechanics are impossible to deal with until you manage to hit y gearing threshold. Many fights have RNG aspects to them that may frustrate you. All of these aspects can affect you to varying degrees depending on your skill level on any given character; some encounters may be neigh on impossible for you until another aspect of the presented equation shifts. It is my firm belief that if you want to solo something, give it a couple of shots. Try anything once, if only for the laughs. If you manage to down it, great! If not, know when it's time to leave it be until you manage to get your mits on better gear or you familiarize yourself with your chosen class/spec further. Not all classes or specs can solo all of the things at the same time. A Blood DK can solo certain content much sooner than an Enhancement Shaman. An Enhancer can solo a lot more currently than say, a Holy Priest. Test the limits of your chosen role, but don't push yourself to the point where you hate what you're doing. Know your personal limits and the limits of your class.


Overall, taking on old content by one's own self is a bit like spinning plates. You need to be aware of a lot of things at once, and if you muck up the balance on one of the plates, everything may come tumbling down. It's all on you and you alone. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but I think that's the beauty of it, personally. There's no blaming Cindy for missing her taunt, can't complain to Bob for not getting his heal off in time, and Jackie can't be yelled at for not DPSing hard enough. It's all you.

Soloing is a testament to your skill, patience, and I personally think that it shows a certain sort of dedication to your chosen character. It's not always easy, nor is it always pretty. It may come more naturally to some than it does to others, and that's perfectly okay. When you're soloing, you're not on anyone's schedule. No one but you can get frustrated at your mistakes or get huffy when you want to AFK for 30 minutes to grab a bite to eat or get the kids to bed. No one will ever breathe down your neck for not making enough progress in your allotted window. You take everything on in your own time, at your own pace.

One final tip I can give and cannot stress enough is this: Have fun with it. Try to view soloing not as some chore that needs to be done for x item, but as an opportunity to learn a few things about yourself as a player. You may find that you have certain strengths and weaknesses that you weren't aware of before. Soloing is an excellent time to work out some kinks in your playstyle, not to mention to have a little bit of in game *you* time. Again, have fun with it and roll with the punches. Now get out there and do your thang.

The Art of Soloing - What's Soloable By Enhancement, The Raid Edition

If you're any sort of forum goer, you may have noticed that there's one topic that comes up on a semi-regular basis: What content is currently soloable by my spec/class?

As of the end of Cataclysm, I have really gotten into the "let's see what I can solo as enhancement!" thing. I love pushing myself in a familiar environment while having to rely 100% on my own skill to down something. Plus, you know, mounts. I know that there are similar souls out there, similar souls that may have not yet taken the time to go out and solo those dragons but are still curious as to what bosses are doable by oneself in what gear.

The following list will be updated as I tackle more content, thus is currently incomplete. Keep in mind that unless otherwise noted, this list assumes that you're level 90 with at least some gear on you. Due to the stat squash in WoD and the new level cap of level 100, all content below MoP level is soloable by most classes. Certain classes will struggle with some of the Cataclysm 25H encounters without the aid of at least some raid gear. I'll do my best to get this list up to date sometime in the near future.

Classic
- Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20): Soloable
- Molten Core: Soloable
- Blackwing Lair: Soloable, though Razorgore is a pain
- Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (40): Soloable

Burning Crusade
- Karazhan: Soloable
- Magtheridon's Lair: Soloable
- Gruul's Lair: Soloable
- Serpentshrine Cavern: Soloable
- The Battle for Mount Hyjal: Soloable, trash before Kaz'rogal is buggy
- Tempest Keep: Soloable (Kael'thas Guide)
- The Black Temple: Soloable
- Sunwell Plateau: Soloable (exception: Kalecgos for now, he's easily skippable)

Wrath of the Lich King 10
- Vault of Archavon: Soloable
- The Obsidian Sanctum: 3D Soloable
- Eye of Eternity: Soloable
- Naxxramas: Soloable
- Ulduar: Soloable, though Thorim takes Engineering tricks to beat. The Siege, The Antechamber, The Keepers, The Decent Into Madness + Algalon
- Trial of the Crusader: normal Soloable, heroic Unknown
- Onyxia's Lair: Soloable (at 85, assuming you have Dragon Soul gear)
- Icecrown Citadel: Soloable, heroic Soloable
- Ruby Sanctum: normal Soloable/heroic Unknown (should be Soloable)

Wrath of the Lich King 25
- Vault of Archavon:  Soloable
- The Obsidian Sanctum: 3D Soloable
- Eye of Eternity: Soloable
- Naxxramas: Soloable
- Ulduar: Soloable
- Trial of the Crusader: normal/heroic Soloable
- Onyxia's Lair: Soloable
- Icecrown Citadel: normal/heroic Soloable (Heroic LK Video)
- Ruby Sanctum: normal/heroic Unknown (should be Soloable)

Cataclysm 10
- Blackwing Descent: normal Soloable, heroic Soloable
- Throne of the Four Winds: normal Soloable, heroic (Unknown but should be Soloable)
- Bastion of Twilight: normal Soloable, heroic Unknown (should be Soloable now, unless Blackout still 1-shots on Twin Dragons)
- Firelands: normal Solable (Alysrazor normal), heroic Soloable
- Dragon Soul: normal Soloable/heroic Soloable

Cataclysm 25
- Blackwing Descent: normal/heroic Soloable
- Throne of the Four Winds: normal/heroic Soloable
- Bastion of Twilight: normal/heroic Soloable
- Firelands: normal/heroic Soloable
- Dragon Soul: normal/heroic Unknown but should be Soloable

Mists of Pandaria 10
Mogu'shan Vaults: normal (soloable up to Spirit Kings)/heroic Unknown
Heart of Fear: normal/heroic Unknown/Unsoloable (first boss MC issues)
Terrace of Endless Spring: normal/heroic Unknown
Throne of Thunder: normal (Soloable up to Durumu)/heroic Unknown
Dragon Soul: normal/heroic Unknown

Mists of Pandaria 25
Mogu'shan Vaults: normal/heroic Unknown
Heart of Fear: normal/heroic Unknown
Terrace of Endless Spring: normal/heroic Unknown
Throne of Thunder: normal (soloable up to Durumu)/heroic Unknown
Dragon Soul: normal/heroic Unknown

Pandaria World Bosses
Sha of Anger: Unsoloable (MC issues)
Galleon: Unknown (possibly soloable)
Oondasta: Unknown
Nalak: Soloable


The links found on this list will direct you to the videos I've taken whilst soloing these instances, if you'd care to see how I bumbled through it. 

In the future I do plan on writing up making "How To" video guides on the raids that I solo (or just have a videos showing me pulling off the act), which will also be linked back to this list. Until that time comes though, I definitely encourage each and every one of you to go out and try to solo some of these raids. If not for the mounts/pets/transmog gear, then do it for the thrill of a challenge!

The Art of the Cooldown - How to Solo Elites as an Enhancement Shaman

As an enhancement shaman you have many things to perfect in order to perform well in a raiding environment: execute your priority rotation correctly, know the mechanics of a fight, interrupt if needed, hero/lust on time assuming you don't have a mage popping Time Warp, and pray that the spec gets a buff so our potential damage output can somewhat rival that of other DPS classes. In a PvP environment...wait, enhancers can PvP? I kid, I kid. In PvP we do our best to slow people down, turn people into toads, and Windfury crit people's faces into oblivion, assuming we can catch them. What about in the soloing PvE environment though? That my friends is what I'd like to dig into today.

Earlier I logged onto my shaman in order to get her disappointment of the day out of the way, aka Ahune. While I was waiting for my 25+ minute queue to pop I received a whisper from a fellow enhancer. I've spoken with him a few times about our spec since he's a bit of a noob about it (we were all in his shoes at one point; how I wish I had asked someone questions back then!). How he stumbled upon me on our server is beyond me, but it's always fun to help him out. Anyways, today he messaged me and asked "Can you solo the TANK in Tol Barad?" "You mean the shark? Yeah." He then proceeds to ask me what sort of gear I was running with, and I told him my iLevel and stated that it really isn't much, and I've been soloing Tank just fine in less as enhancement (he's much harder for me to solo on my feral kitty...I blame lack of being able to self heal and retaining the ability to DPS efficiently at the same time). So I broke it down for him what I do to solo Tank, which is how I also solo Trouble, and more or less how I soloed Chillmaw back in the days of Wrath.

Even as a severe lagger I'm able to pull of quite a few nifty soloing stunts as enhancement. My biggest secret? Knowing my cooldowns. What separates a great player from the pack of good players out there is the knowledge of which buttons to hit when. This isn't to say that I'm any sort of master shaman, because quite frankly I'm not. I am however functional and quite able to solo elites all by my lonesome. What little nuggets of know-how I have I would like to pass on to you, dear reader. How I do things may not be the way to do them, but they get the job done. And getting the job done is what matters, right? Right.

Let's talk spec: I run with the more or less standard PvE enhancement spec. There's no gimmicks here, no talents into Toughness, fairly cut and dry. As far as my glyphs go, they are what they are because those are what I feel benefit me the most often. You could in theory pop in Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem for soloing elites, but I don't personally use Stoneclaw in PvE. If you prefer to be a bit more defensive than offensive, replace Glyph of Ghost Wolf with Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem. I personally don't suggest using Stoneclaw, but to each their own.

Totems: I prefer to use the method of "kill things before they kill me" so I do not use Stoneclaw unless I'm PvPing as restoration. Strength of Earth, Healing Stream, Searing, Windfury, profit. The fire elemental is no longer all that great in burst situations, unless you're in an AoE bind and decide to plow through them instead of cc'ing your way out, and your rock dude no longer does so well with his taunts against bosses/elites, so don't bother with your elementals. Play to the totemic strength of the spec.

Weapon imbues: Windfury Main/Flametongue Off

Rotation: My priority on this one may be a bit funky to you. Go with what you're most comfortable with always, but this is how I do things.
- Range pull using Unleash Elements
- Flame Shock
- Drop totems
- Pop Synapse Springs (I'm an engineer, I use what I can to my advantage) and Spirit Wolves
- Hit Twin Howl (On your pet bar, your wolves will taunt and tank for a bit)
- By this point the elite is in range, Heroism/Bloodlust and then Stormstrike
- Once Searing Flames are at 5, Lava Lash (Usually by the time the elite gets to me he already has 2 SF on him, no point in wasting a LL cd for 2 stacks)
- Earth Shock

At this point you probably have 5 Maelstorm procs up. You have two choices: use Lightning Bolt as usual, or save the procs for a Greater Healing Wave. You may ask why. Simple answer? Elites friggen hurt, and enhance doesn't stack haste. If you burn your Maelstorm procs on Lightning Bolts when you need a quick heal, you may find yourself SoL and looking at the dirt. Now, the reason I give this choice is because while your wolves are up, they will heal you. Even if they're not the ones tanking, generally their healing kick back to you will be enough to keep you alive more or less without you healing yourself. If your wolves are out and tanking, Lightning Bolt. If they're not tanking, play it by ear. If they're about to run out on the timer or die, sit on the procs until you need a heal.

- Continue with your regularly scheduled rotation. Metaphorical or real, balls to the walls folks. Do your damage.

Once your wolves die you need to go into defensive mode pronto. Use Shamanistic Rage. Any racial benefits that you have, use them. Draenei's Gift of the Naaru is great for extra healing, if you're a Dwarf Stoneform is pro for reducing even more damage, a Troll's Berserking can help things die a bit faster, a Goblins Rocket Barrage = moar damage, Blood Fury if you're an Orc for last minute burst, and Tauren...I'm not sure if War Stomp works on elites, but if it does, towards the end of the fight may be a good time to use it. All Maelstorm procs should be used for Greater Healing Waves (sadly our healing is pretty weak, but we're dust without them). I personally don't tend to carry health potions on me, but if you feel you need one, use it.

Professions: If you have any profession advantages, use them. I'm an engineer/alchemist, so I use my Synapse Springs and always have my Flask of Enhancement topped off. If you pick flowers, Lifeblood is another nice little heal towards the end. Whatever you have in your arsenal, no matter what it is, use it!

Gear: Honestly, if you're doing things right you should be able to solo the Cataclysm elites just fine with a mix of iLevel 333 gear and above. If you've gemmed and enchanted properly, you're not half specced into the restoration tree, and you pop your available cool downs at the right times, soloing the group quest elites of Tol Barad *should* be a semi hectic walk in the park that only gets easier with the more gear you obtain. As I told the enhance fellow from my realm, I don't run with gear that's all that great (I haven't raided at all this expansion and I've been super lazy about getting all the new tier through heroics) and I still manage just fine. Typically if I'm soloing Tank or Trouble in Tol Barad I end up getting help towards the end anyways, unless I'm doing dailies at 4am, so generally you shouldn't fret too much if you can't down them by your lonesome. If you wait a few minutes, someone will more than likely come along to kill the bugger as well, regardless of faction (it doesn't matter who tags the elite mobs, if you help kill it you get credit).

Bottom line for ANYONE soloing anything: Research your class/spec. Figure out the best spec/gemming scheme/enchants for your play style. Find out which priority rotation feels right and does the most numbers for you. Learn the available cooldowns for your class/spec/race/profession. I'm not saying that you must theorycraft until you're blue in the face and do nothing but research your spec for the next five months, but take 30 minutes to track down the proper information and cross reference it by looking at both the top shamans and the other shamans around you. Tinker. Go spend some time on a training dummy whacking away until you get things exactly how you want them. Spending an hour or two after each major patch change (we get one of those what, once every seven months? with a few minor adjustments here and there) to readjust to the new feel of your damage output. Go run a few dungeons to help push yourself to perform on a higher level. Hop into a random battle ground to help you learn how to manage your cooldowns. Also, learn to never turn your back on a big dude with a hammer or an angry animal with large teeth! Your buns will never live to tell the tale.

World of Warcraft is an immersive game; any character you play seriously is a sort of extension of yourself. Put a little polish time into him/her, and you'll be killing those elites in no time!

Step 1: Learn Character
Step 2: Accept Daily Quest
Step 3: ...
Step 4: PROFIT (Quite literally!)

Now go forth my little readers, go forth and immerse yourselves. Go forth and melt some faces!