Ultimate Bloodsport: Solo'd at Lv68.Follow

I'd have to say that this is one of the most iconic (and practical) quests out there for Hunters.

The whole lore of the quest, is that you hunt down many foes, and then when you prove yourself, you go after the strongest mobs of that type, and anyone who can triumph over this challenge, is quite a skilled hunter.

With that being said, I managed to solo all of Nesingwary's Quests, including "The Ultimate Bloodsport".

Let me tell you, that was freaking hard as Nuts. I wish I had screenshots to prove it, and I understand if you don't believe me on this, but I'll tell my story (and strategy) anyways.

I'll start off by saying that I've never tried a tank pet. I used a Cunning pet for this, I'm thinking that a Tank pet may not put out the kind of DPS you need (you will likely run out of mana before the fight is done), and that a DPS pet will take too much damage, and will die before Tusker is dead.

So, I am going to include my strategy here.

Using the data that I've observed from my three fights (I failed the first two times), I'm fairly sure that a Draenei is the one and only race that can do it, at least without using fully decked out and enchanted dungeon blues. Gift of the Naaru is the star player of this battle, to be sure. Without it, I would have never even come close, my pet would have been dead at 30%. I used a Ravager for this fight, I do not know whether or not another Cunning pet would have done the trick. Also, Wolverine Bite is a must. Stun is a must in this fight.

So basically, here is how it went:

1). First, I had to clear the two Bull Elekks near her "mountain". An add would mean certain failure, to be sure. Tusker is only a Group 2 quest, but damn. I wonder just what went through Blizzard's mind when they did that; this little girl was harder than some Group 3 quests I managed to solo.

2). Second, I laid down an Immolation trap and made sure all of my cooldowns were up, from the previous fight. I knew I needed all of the DPS I could possibly muster on her, and 1,099 damage is nothing to laugh at. She has roughly 32,700 if I recall. That might seem small, but as you will see later, I would have died if it weren't for that trap.

3). Next, I put a Hunter's Mark on her. This may seem trivial and "you should do that anyways", but I'm one of those hunters who rarely use it outside of fighting Elites; it uses up too much mana, and any hunter knows how precious Mana is to our XP/hr.

4). Now it was time to take a deep breath, and go over everything in my head. Cooldowns up? Yes. Pet full HP? Yes. I'm full HP and Mana? Yes. Okaaaay. Let's do this. I start off with a Scorpid's Sting. The first two times, I tried using Serpent's Sting, but it just wasn't working out for me. Amazingly, I noticed the difference big-time with Scorpid Sting, and I'd have to say that this is the way to go. 3% doesn't sound like much, but I noticed it. A lot.

5). I knew that I couldn't wait for my pet to go down in health before using my first Mend Pet; Mend Pet cures for 383 per tick at Lv68. Tusker melees for over 500 per hit, some criticals reaching as high as 1,300. If you wait until your pet is missing a chunk of HP, it is already too late. Use it as soon as you pull, and keep it up at all times.

6). I then used my stun. Oh, I forgot to mention -- I'm a Beast Master. I don't know how this fight would go with any other spec, I'm not even sure if it is possible with another spec. But, I used my stun early in the fight, as it has (for me) a 42 second cooldown, which means I will likely be able to use it again later. The reason for this is two-fold: Not only does it prevent Tusker from getting out another 1-2 melees, it also gives Mend Pet a 1-2 tick lead on Tusker's damage. The whole battle is nothing but a Race between Mend Pet and Tusker's melee attacks. You're doomed to lose this race; your foe is faster than you. The only way you're going to win, is to DPS her down before she gets to the finish line.

7). Speaking of DPS, after Stun wears off, I immediately began casting Gift of the Naaru on my pet. Don't forget, you can cast it on your pet for Amazing Results. GotN and Mend Pet DO Stack, and that is what will save your brave and daring rear in this fight. As soon as GotN was casted, I then scrambled for all of my "kill this NOW!" buttons: Rapid Shot, Bestial Wrath (which also kicks in The Beast Within), Bladefist's Breadth (+attack power trinket), and I started spamming Arcane Shots.

8). Don't Forget about Mend Pet!!! Even if you "waste" Mana using an extra Mend Pet or two, wasting a few ticks, make SURE it is up AT ALL TIMES. 2-3 seconds without Mend Pet will kill your pet (and you soon afterwards). Continue with the Scorpid Stings, too. Don't let that go down either.

9). When your Stun is back up, use it ASAP! Pray that it gets in 2 ticks of Mend Pet.

10). Hopefully Tusker is either dead, or almost dead at this point. When I did it successfully, my pet died when Tusker had 1k HP left. She runs kinda slow; I got in 2 auto-shots for 300 each by the time she reached me, and I ran backwards. I was completely OOM, and was machinegun-tapping my Arcane Shot key, and I managed to blast her for 360 damage (55 overkill).

It was a very close and heart-pounding fight, but definitely a true test to any Draenei Hunter out there.

If another race manages to do this at Lv68 without being twinked out, I'd love to hear your testimonies. I did this in nothing but quest rewards, using Ironbite Shells, and a Knothide Ammo pouch. I had roughly 1,200 AP, and I think I had about 240 DPS on my ranged attacks without the Improved Aspect of the Hawk proc. Nothing fancy, but I still got the job done. Barely.

Grats. I didn't even attempt to solo it until I was in T4/T5 gear, and even then it was really difficult.

2 part set bonus of tier 5 is so cool. Can't wait to start leveling in lich king.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I soloed this quite easily at 66. You run slightly faster than Tusker with Cheetah up, so I just simply tagged her with Mark + Serpent Sting and ran toward Garadar with Cheetah up, sending pet in when I had a lot of threat on her. I then jumpspin Chimera Shotted her to keep Serpent Sting up, and when I was adequately far ahead turned and did a couple Steady Shots. She was dead halfway to Garadar.

Several bosses are easily soloable if you have a little level advantage. The instances I couldn't clear completely as a Hunter, I usually FD run to bosses and take them out as far as encounters allowed. Some consumables and proper mob-bouncing on bosses, coupled with a BM specc... Well, most bosses have been taken out by my lonesome. But I don't consider that to be "soloing" in the right sense, since I utilize the FD running exploit and so on.

Real soloing is done on World mobs.

Why should one try without kiting?
It is kitable, and hunters can kite well... umm, so why not kite it?
Of course you can always design some own rules and do it your (harder?) way. But those quests are really easy when you kite.
From my point of view kiting > brute force
Killing stuff fast and hoping that you and your pet are still somewhat alive after you have killed the opponent is not the smartest approach which is available. ;)

Grats, I soloed her before the patch at level 67. I agree with many others here, I don't find it hard.

It would help you a lot to do some pet research for quests like this. If you'd looked closer at the Tenacity talents tree, you'd notice that there's a talent called 'Blood of the Rhino'. This talent alone pushes your Mend Pet ticks up to above 600. Also, in the Ferocity tree there's a talent called Bloodthirsty healing the pet for 5% HP (look closer at the talent for info), and linked to it 'Heart of the Phoenix', which can be used very well with Feign Death to reset aggro and let you start over.

While the Cunning tree has a lot of mitigation talents, they're sort of weak compared to the healing talents and revive talents in other trees.

I'm confident solo:ing these Q's aren't very hard after the patch, so I believe you've done it. I tried to solo the Talbuk elite at 67 before the patch. Couldn't kite him, and my pet died like a cockroach. Tuskerr was kitable though, so I simply kited her around in circles, using my pet as off-DPS:er, spamming Serpent Sting, Distracting Shot and Arcane Shot. Putting down Immolation traps also helped a lot.

After the patch however, you'll easily out-heal any mob with Tenacity pets, and out-last with Ferocity's ressing and Lick Wounds. I'm not sure why you insisted on a Cunning pet, but again... it's probably only a matter of research.



Also, shame on any hunter condemning kiting. Kiting is a much more advanced form of soloing hard Q's than just standing back and shooting, letting your pet do the work. While the easy methods should be used if possible, I have much greater respect for a hunter who can kite than one who just stands back. If you can't already: Learn how to kite. It's a bloody form of art for christ sake!

As I said in my OP, I've yet to try Tank or full DPS pets, I like the utility of my Ravager. *grins* But sometime I will get around to taming a Gorilla, just to see if it really can tank 5-mans like they say they can. lol. That'd be the day, a hunter tanking an instance. Hey, who knows......

It'd be fun to play with, though. I plan on doing that once I reach 70.



I killed an equal-level Devilsaur (only one, but I did it just to test myself) pre-3.0.2 and it wasn't _that_ hard?

But then maybe it is because ravagers really did rock that much. Pre-patch, IMO, they were one of the best pets. Not something you wanted to fight spellcasters with, but for anything else, they hit hard, very hard. The -% HP though, kinda sucked against spellcasters as I said.

Heck, I solo'd freaking Blazerunner pre-3.0.2.

Edited, Oct 29th 2008 11:49pm by Zariamnk