Blackwing Descent Solo Heroic

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Blackwing Descent is one of my favorite raids to solo. I¡¯m not really sure why, but I keep coming back week after week for some reason. Go figure!

¨‹ Omnotron Defense System (10N, 10H, 25N)

10N: Pretty darn easy, actually. If your DPS gear is above ilvl 550 or so, you can speed things up by going Fury/Arms in Defensive Stance. Interrupt Arcanotron¡¯s Arcane Annihilator, avoid Toxitron¡¯s poison blobs and green puddles, and your survival is virtually guaranteed.

10H: Also pretty darn easy, at least at my tanking gear level (537). I haven¡¯t tried this fight in Fury spec/gear, since it seems hard enough to do so on 10N difficulty. DPS the active bot, stay out of pools and puddles, and collect some useless HEROIC loot! The main difference between 10N and 10H is that there is a ten-minute timer on the fight in Heroic difficulty.

25N: More of the same.


¨‹ Magmaw (10N, 10H, 25N)


10N: If Omnotron was easy, Magmaw was a bit hellish. After at least a dozen attempts, I finally got the proper cooldown rotation sorted out. Since I couldn¡¯t use the chains, I got swallowed and Mangle at every possible chance. The key to surviving the Mangles was to always have a health cooldown (Last Stand, Commanding Shout), a defensive cooldown (Shield Wall, Shield Block), and undefined available for each cycle. I avoided all of the lava eruptions (don¡¯t stand in the fire!), and worked AoE attacks (Cleave, Thunder Clap, Revenge, Dragon Roar) into my rotation to kill the parasites and allow for some sweet Victory Rush healing. With better gear, Magmaw becomes more of a tank-and-spank, and can even be defeated with DPS spec/gear once you hit ilvl 545 or so.

10H: All of the fun of Normal difficulty, with the added pleasure of self-destructing skeletal adds and constant meteor blasts courtesy of Nefarian! I didn¡¯t alter my strategy much from Normal, other than working in more cleave/AoE attacks for the extra adds and dodging the meteors.

25N: It¡¯s a fight against the 10-minute enrage timer. I did this fight in my ilvl 554 tanking gear, and still failed to kill Magmaw in the allotted time. Luckily, the increased damage caused by a Berserk worm sent my Vengeance soaring, and I was able to survive long enough to finish the job (with some help from a pile of defensive CDs).


¨‹ Atramedes (10N, 10H, 25N)


10N: Atramedes is actually pretty easy, if a bit tedious. If you want to play it safe, go Prot. Personally, I now prefer going full Fury to make the fight about 60% shorter. The key to soloing this fight, other than simple survival, is to minimize the accumulation of your ¡°Sound¡± resource. To do this, you need to:
  • Side-step the Sonar Pulse attack (easily done),
  • Strafe around Atramedes when he does his Sonic Breath (also easily done), and
  • Avoid Roaring Flame Breath during the air phase. This can be quite tricky; I used Heroic Leap to put some distance between me and the beam, and I also tried to limit myself to using one gong per air phase. Engineers will have an easier time of this, due to Nitro Boosts.

10H: I had a really tough time dealing with the ten-minute Berserk timer. On my first successful attempt I actually survived a few seconds past the enrage, with some help from my defensive cooldowns. Aside from the extra damage Atramedes dishes out, the big change in Heroic is the addition of Obnoxious Fiends. These are little Fiends that are, well, Obnoxious. They attach themselves to your character (just like the Snobolds from Trial of the Crusader) and make loud noises, increasing your Sound very quickly. The only way to kill them is by Cleave/AoE damage: Thunderclap, Cleave, Revenge, Dragon Roar, et cetera are your friends here.

25N: no enrage timer for this fight; the main limitations are your patience (it¡¯s a 20+ minute battle) and the shield gongs.


¨‹ Chimaeron (10N, 10H, 25N)


10N: Not much to say about this fight, really: it¡¯s a HUGE RNG/gear check battle. Keep your Shield Barrier up at all times, DPS him hard during his Feud, and pop ALL cooldowns when he hits 20% health and you might survive to see him dead.

10H: Mostly the same as Normal difficulty, with one catch: you don¡¯t get a nice long break from incoming damage when Chimaeron does his Feud attack. After about 5 seconds, Nefarian scolds Chimaeron and interrupts Feud, putting an end to the pointless bickering.

25N: Ouch! Unless your gear is near-godly, you¡¯ll need to be a master defensive cooldown manager to survive into Chimaeron¡¯s enrage. Doing so will send your Vengeance soaring (mine hit 620k), which will give you the DPS to finish off this hideous monstrosity.


¨‹ Maloriak (10N)


10N: Worst. Fight. Ever. With a seven-minute Berserk timer and an attack that freezes you for thirty seconds, this boss is tough. As a warrior, you WILL need undefined to dispel his Remedy; if you don¡¯t, you really have no chance of succeeding. There¡¯s a lot of RNG involved here: if he casts Remedy right before freezing you, you¡¯re good. If he uses it while you¡¯re frozen, all you can do us sit there and watch him heal himself for ten seconds. If the Red phase (fire) comes before Blue (ice), you just need to survive Maloriak¡¯s Scorching Blast. If Blue comes first, you¡¯re basically screwed: you¡¯ll get frozen, he¡¯ll switch to Red, and you¡¯ll die to the Scorching Blast because you have no way to mitigate it. Here¡¯s my general strategy for coping with this train wreck of a fight:
  • All phases: interrupt Arcane Storm, use Shield Slam when he casts Remedy, AoE the small adds.
  • Red phase: use defensive cooldowns for Scorching Blast.
  • Blue phase: try to keep your health topped off for the inevitable Flash Freeze.
  • Green phase: NUKE ALL THE THINGS!
  • Final phase: Ignore the two large adds, just focus on Maloriak and sidestep to avoid the Magma Jets. There¡¯s a good chance you¡¯ll hit the seven-minute soft enrage before Maloriak is dead; if so, start rotating defensive CDs and continue until one of you is dead.

¨‹ Nefarian (10N, 10H)


10N: Kill Onyxia. Kill ALL of the platform adds. Kite Nefarian around the room and attack/AoE/Cleave him and the skeletal adds until they¡¯re dead. Probably one of the easiest fights in the raid to solo, provided you have the gear to survive.

10H: Ouch. This fight is one of the hardest I¡¯ve ever tried to solo, ranking up there with Ultraxion on the difficulty scale. Let¡¯s break it down by phases:

  • Phase 1: Nuke Onyxia until Nefarian lands. Switch to Nefarian and DPS him until Onyxia¡¯s energy reaches around 70 or so, then swap and kill her. If you don¡¯t swap, her self-destruct at 100 energy will most likely kill you. Hopefully you managed to get Nefarian down to 80% health or less.
  • Phase 2: Pick a platform, hop onto it as quickly as possible, and start killing the add. Interrupt Blast Nova, unless you want to die. Since this is Heroic difficulty, Phase 3 will start as soon as you kill a single add. This is problematic, since you won¡¯t be able to survive the constant AoE from 2 Blast Novas (Novae ) for very long. So, here¡¯s what you need to do:
    • DPS the first platform add down to around 10% HP,
    • Pop SEVERAL defensive cooldowns,
    • Hop into the lava and make haste for the next platform,
    • Kill the add as quickly as possible,
    • Jump down when the lava retreats,
    • Finish off that first add with a Storm Bolt.
  • Phase 3: There are only three things you need to do here: DPS Nefarian, stay out of the fire, and SURVIVE. The adds are huge and obnoxious, but they¡¯re very hard to kill so don¡¯t bother trying. Survival is mostly a matter of spamming Shield Barrier as if your life depends on it (it does). If your DPS is low, you may hit the ten-minute Enrage; luckily, you CAN survive it for a while if you have some CDs handy, and the boosted Vengeance may be enough to help you finish Nef once and for all.

¨‹ Soloable Achievements

Silence is Golden: This one is MUCH easier to do on Normal difficulty. Simply avoid the major sources of Sound, and you should get it.

Keeping it in the Family: Basically, ignore Onyxia, focus exclusively on Nefarian, and hope you get him down to 50% before Onyxia self-destructs.

Full of Sound and Fury: Are you soloing Chimaeron If so, this one is a freebie!

Blackwing Descent: Clear the raid, get an achievement!

Heroic: Atramedes

Heroic: Magmaw

Heroic: Omnotron Defense System

Heroic: Chimaeron

Heroic: Nefarian: If this is your first Heroic Nef kill, you¡¯ll get the title ¡°Blackwing¡¯s Bane¡± along with the achievement.


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