Quick Soloing Guide: Nighthold

This fight was MADE for protection warriors, with tons of adds that proc Victory Rush. Be sure to side-step away from Focused Blast, as it packs an annoying stun. Arcanoslash is Skorpy’s primary way of damaging you, and it inflicts Arcane Tether, which deals increasing damage until you move far enough to break the tethers. Shockwave does minimal damage and activates extra adds for Victory Rush fodder, so don’t worry about hiding behind crystals to avoid it. Save DPS cooldowns for his Exoskeletal Vulnerability, since you’ll do twice as much damage for fifteen seconds.

The scorpion adds now explode and leave puddles behind, which is annoying. His damage output is obviously higher than on N/H difficulties, but is manageable thanks to all the Victory Rushes you’ll get to use.

There’s probably a better way to solo this boss, but MY method is to simply burn down the initial add/adds then keep him in his Power Overwhelming phase until he’s dead. The ramping damage can get rough, but it’s survivable even at maximum stacks.

FILTHY! Survival is the name of the game, as you will be taking HEAVY damage due to the near-constant Arcane Slash debuff. This is mostly an issue on Heroic, since his damage output on Normal is easily dealt with. It’s worth trying to keep most of the purple Arcane Seepage pools at the edge of the room, but eventually they will get everywhere. When Trilliax leaps into the center of the room to channel Annihilation, it’s easier to avoid it if you’re in the center near him. A word of caution: on Heroic difficulty, the beam changes direction randomly, and is easily lethal due to the Arcane Slash debuff. Don’t worry about the poison cake slices BTW.

All of the fun of the easier difficulties, PLUS Personality Transference! This means you get to deal with a mini-Trilliax dealing extra damage during the bulk of the fight! So. Much. Damage. I advise that you focus on Big Trilliax and cleave the baby as much as you can. Surviving this fight is TOUGH and the enrage timer is very tight, so you’ll need good gear and as many consumables as you can round up. Picking up a Succulent Feast when they appear can help give you a few seconds of breathing room every so often.

Not much to do, really. Pop defensive cooldowns for her Annihilate, which will deal more damage each time she executes it, cleave down adds, and stay out of stuff.

Same as Normal, but with one key difference. During her Frost phases, the adds will channel Frozen Tempest. This spell places a large icy circle on the ground around you, and slowly pushes you to the edge. If you cross the border of the circle, you will become Entombed in Ice, which is a guaranteed wipe since there’s nobody to free you. Thus, it’s best to group these adds up quickly and kill them FAST.

A very tough DPS race, due to a stacking DoT that can’t be avoided, Searing Brand. This DoT stacks FAST! Your goal is to kill Krosus before the stacks become lethal, so pop all of your offensive CDs on the pull. Don’t bother trying to kill the adds for Victory Rush procs, as you’ll lose too much uptime on the boss.

A very VERY tough DPS race, but otherwise almost identical to the Normal version.

EASY. Easier than Skorpyron, in fact. Simply burn him down while cleaving the Tainted Blood adds. That’s it!

Still not terribly difficult, EXCEPT that Tichondrius has a massive HP pool and he’ll mop the floor with your corpse if you hit the relatively unforgiving enrage timer. There are more Tainted Blood adds to deal with, and they’re quite a bit harder to kill (stunning them with a Shockwave then Thunderclapping while under the influence of Avatar seems to work well). The best way to do some heavy damage to Tichondrius is to pick up an Essence of Night orb during the Illusionary Night phase (you’ll die if you don’t so this is a no-brainer), then pop Drums/Avatar/potions/everything you’ve got when you exit the phase to take advantage of the thirty second/thirty percent DPS buff.

The stacking DoT from Absolute Zero is brutal, and can only be removed by standing near 3 other people that have it, which is clearly impossible while soloing. Your best bet is to push Etraeus through the ice phase and into the fel phase ASAP. Once you hit the void phase, you’ll need to kill the large add (a Thing That Should Not Be) by dragging it to the edge of the platform (thus removing its invulnerability). Make sure to look away when it casts Witness the Void so you don’t get feared. You can’t damage Etraeus while the Thing is alive, so kill it as quickly as possible.

Same as Normal, but with a raid-wide AoE Nova attack added to each phase.

Difficult, but doable. The bulk of the damage you’ll be taking is physical (thanks to what will ultimately be 99 stacks of Recursive Strikes), so Shield Block is your best friend here. You’ll spend a lot of time rooted thanks to Parasitic Fetter, which can (will) be problematic if you need to move out of Solar Collapse or Controlled Chaos: you can break free with Avatar, if it’s available.When Summon Plasma Spheres is cast, you’ll want to kill at least one sphere quickly to prevent multiple simultaneous explosions. During the final phase (when the boss has split into three entities), you’ll need to do a lot of kiting to keep them from healing in the Grace of Nature pools.

There are no new abilities to cope with, though everything hits harder and each aspect of Tel’arn has more HP.

If you can get past phase one, the rest of the fight is quite a bit easier. This is due to the stacking DoT from Ablation, which quickly becomes lethal. My advice is to kill an Expedient Elemental (the pink one) ASAP, stand in the bubble to get a massive haste buff, pop all your offensive CDs, and try to get her to ten percent as quickly as possible. Once phase two begins, the fight becomes a simple matter of dodging Arcanetic Rings and interrupting Ablative Pulse casts (phase three).

Mostly the same as Normal, but Elisande’s abilities occur more frequently and do a lot more damage.

Quite a bit easier than you would expect from the end-boss of a raid. It’s a long fight, so here’s my quick phase breakdown:

Phase 1: Nuke adds, stay out of Fel Efflux, and dodge Liquid Hellfire.

Phase 2: Continue to dodge Liquid Hellfire, move to break the Bonds of Fel, and quickly kill Eyes of Gul’dan. At seventy percent health, Gul’dan gains Empowered Bonds of Fel, which deals a large knockback: try to stay away from the edges of the platform to avoid falling to your doom.

Phase 3: Move to the center of the room when this phase starts at forty percent health, so that the winds don’t blow you off the edge. You will periodically be affected by Flames of Sargeras, causing you to leave pools of fire on the ground; place these wherever you want. Finally, you’ll see at least one Storm of the Destroyer; simply move out of it, and Gul’dan will teleport to you when he’s done channeling.

There are a few changes from Normal:

• Everything does more damage, as you might expect,
• The adds in Phase 1 each have an extra ability, so kill them quickly,
• Gul’dan will summon Dreadlord adds in Phase 2, which need to be killed ASAP,
• Flames of Sargeras happen much more frequently.