Soloing Yogg-Saron! Let's get it going!

Hello friends and fellow Paladins!

I want to start off by letting you in on my situation. I create this thread with trembling hands, a shaken mind and a few fist marks on my desk. I've spent the last 4 hours, and a few minutes, attempting to solo Yogg-Saron. That's about 30 attempts.

Unfortunately, I'm not the best motivator through writing, but I hope to stir up some interest on this subject. Though I am quite the enthusiast when it comes to taking on content alone, I do admit that I was indeed inspired by that interesting video of the Death Knight soloing Yogg-Saron. I'll explain why I think it's "interesting" in a moment.

I very much believe that we Paladin have the capability to solo Yogg-Saron right now, even in average gear - even as Ret. I'd like to point out a few things that I learned during my heart shattering time attempting to solo Yogg-Saron.

Phase 1: This phase has turned out to be the easiest, by far, of phases 1 and 2. My tactic as Prot has become very defined, even perfected.

To start, I don't worry too much about healing up after the run back - I just buff up and charge in. It starts slowly, waiting for the first add to spawn, but it gets going pretty well towards the end. Speaking of the end, my entire goal during Phase 1 is to kill the adds as quickly as possible, ensuring I have 1 or less adds up during the Phase 1-2 transition, I have no more than 10-15% health, and have no Forbearance. The reason for this brings me into Phase 2.

Phase 2: Phase 2 will be all about being sure you make the Brain Portals. This can be a little tricky - because of the Constrictor Tentacles; the first spawns, and grabs you, immediately as Yogg-Saron appears. If you watch the DK solo video, you'll notice he/she puts down D&D in anticipation of the tentacle. This tactic will not work for us Paladins - a perfectly timed Consecration(2/2 Hallowed Ground) will only take down exactly 50% of the tentacle's health. My solution, therefore, is to die, and allow Hodir to save me with Flash Freeze. Why don't I bubble? Well, that leads me back to my Phase 1 strategy, and why I think the DK solo video to be "interesting."

So, I'm coming out of Phase 1 into Phase 2, with around 10% HP (and 3 Holy Power in store is great). Why is this? I want the Constrictor Tentacle to kill me as quickly as possible; and the reason for that? You lose Sanity while squeezed, so the less time you're squeezed - the better (Yeah, Freya is up, but it's very difficult to run into those, and still make the Brain Portals). So then, "WHY DON'T YOU BUBBLE LEUTHAS?" Well, that's easy.

Before the Brain Portals spawn, I get TWO Constrictor Tentacles. So I bubble the second one, which occurs within seconds of the Brain Portals. This is where I almost start to believe the DK solo video isn't real... almost. If you watch the video, the DK only sees ONE Constrictor Tentacle; while I, in my 30+/- attempts, never saw fewer than TWO, and twice saw THREE.

I do not see any patterns that may affect the Tentacles' spawn patterns. As Ret, I can make Phase 1 and the beginning of Phase 2 happen much faster than the DK, and as Prot I do so a little slower. Under both circumstances however, the spawns of the Tentacles are identical - I always get two.


In general, I seem to be able to make greater progress as Ret than as Prot, though the majority of my attempts were as Ret. I've been able to make it out of the first Brain Portal Phase, but unfortunately due to various slows and other debuffs I had on me when I ported in, I was only able to DPS the brain to about 70% in 20 seconds. Admittedly - I am a little slow in the Brain (I'm a tank - tanks didn't usually go in there ). I imagine damaging the Brain would take a couple portal phases to complete as Prot - but if done well, it would take only one as Ret.

There is one last thing I'd like to mention - it seems to be a strange mechanic I am running into: From what I can observe through the combat log and my situation when this occurs, it appears, if you click a portal a split second before a Constrictor Tentacle grabs you, you'll die. Looking through the combat log, it charges that I've been killed by Death Ray (the green beams) which, according to the log, hit for around 15k a tick every .5 seconds. The problem is, this exact thing has happened to me a about 6-8 times and for the majority of these occurrences, I was above 75% HP, and was instantly killed - not killed over the few seconds it'd take 15k ticks per .5 seconds to kill me.

In summary, I'd like to call to anyone who holds interests so similar to my own in these things, and try for yourself, to solo Yogg-Saron. I want to get a bit of a community together on this, and hopefully we can push through!

Oh, by the way, I keep dying during Phase 2, due to having two Constrictors between brain portals. I often can't make it to the portal, due to slows or Malady of the Mind, or I get a third tentacle and am one-shot by "Death Ray".

I'm going to be attempting this again tomorrow. Good luck to you and hopefully the world can spare some luck for me!

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DK soloing Yogg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_EuLr-m7IM
A link to express my emotions as I started typing - but not now, as I still type: http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... -18317.png

I want to reserve a spot here. When (yeah! When!) we are able to solo this guy, I'll stick the original post here with the final strategy placed into the OP.

Just thought I'd give a little tip since you're fighting against the core of the problem during phase 2 - the 2nd (and sometimes 3rd) Constrictor Spawn. I wiped for hours until I finally found a way.

You said you could do the beginning of phase 2 must faster than me. Watch my actions bars while on the crusher tentacle. That's all I have to say, once you realize the mechanic you'll find the right thing to do very easily.

Unfortunately for me I'm off to work at the moment. I'll be taking another look at the video as soon as I'm home. I'll assume by your writing "faster than me," you're the clever DK in the video - I should recognize names but I'm awful at that.

I'll be around!

EDIT: Alright. I've done a little more 'research' and looked into the video a bit more. PM sent.

At a guess, the only thing out of the ordinary I noticed that Mione was doing was taunting the crusher almost on cooldown, I think. Something to do with constrictors not targetting tanks?

Liyalai wrote:Something to do with constrictors not targetting tanks?

spot on. Solves tons of troubles during p2 (:

This week, after a few hours of attempts I gave in to a break and killed Yogg-Saron with a group of four. I'm eagerly awaiting resets so I can put in a few(dozen) attempts using the knowledge I received from Mione. I could do a few attempts on my other Paladin, but he only has Prot gear - terrible gear in fact - and I'd like to do this as Ret first, to ensure I can knock out the brain in one portal.


I'll be updating Teusday.

Now that it's early Friday morning, I'm updating!

I finally got around to gathering a few folks to clear to yogg, then hopped on my other Paladin so they could kill yogg without my main getting saved. Good run - I broke the 'oldschool' gold cap on that run.

Anywho, tomorrow morning when I'm not so terribly tired, I'll update with how yogg is doing!

UPDATE: No luck today (Friday). 20 attempts, but unfortunately it was a bad day. My best attempt was my third attempt.

I took a break, and soloed the "Coming out of the walls" achievement - whatever it's called; I also went and killed off Saph and KT in Naxx. Good gold!

I gave this a couple of tries tonight - phase one was pretty straightforward once I remembered to activate the keepers (don't forget to do this if you're soloing). I also noted that if you let yourself die to the explosion from the final guardian in the p1-p2 transition, the constrictor won't even spawn at all. I came to the conclusion that soloing it is impossible as prot due to the massive health pool of the brain - 1.34million health. Granted, I didn't get the ICC brain room which would have been significantly more efficient, but I wasn't even remotely close to getting the brain to 30%. I suspect getting multiple brain phases would result in a berserk, but I do not know for sure. It did at least result in me getting killed due to overwhelming debuffs from the corruptors, but with more practice maybe that's overcomeable? I don't have any ret gear whatsoever so I don't think I can realistically go in as ret, but maybe I'll give it some more time as prot and see where I can get.

I can get the brain down by 25-30% as Prot during one portal phase. The trouble is, after two brains phases my sanity is so low (unavoidably) that I must regen it in Freya's beam. This, of course, brings me away from the Crushers, therefore I can't 'tank' them, therefore I get grabbed, therefore it's over.

I agree, as Prot, it's impossible. Until we are in ilvl 450 gear and do obscene damage.

I do have a question though: Because I only ever tanked yogg during WotLK, I don't have much knowledge of the finer mechanics inside the brain. I'm curious, when the 30% mark is hit, are players automatically ported out? Whenever I manage close to 30% on the first portal I get scared and jump out before the timer ends. It'd help if I knew I could just stay in to damage - hoping I break 30% before the end.

You don't get ported out automatically.

You also dont get MCed if your down there below 30%.
So if you think you might make it, just nuke it down, eather you get MCd, or you make it.

Treck wrote:You also dont get MCed if your down there below 30%.
So if you think you might make it, just nuke it down, eather you get MCd, or you make it.

This is what I need to hear! Thank you.

Just made Phase 3 for the first time. Those guardians hit HARD. I hope I'll be able to survive p3 as Ret.

EDIT: I can make Phase 3 consistently now, but I can't survive the adds + tentacles long enough to get anything down.