| |
Okey, here are some pieces of information for beating what I consider to be the hardest boss I've killed at lvl 61. (But rather than a soloing guide this article could be called a "battle diary" because there's not enough good instructions here to be called a "guide".)
|
| |
The boss is Swamplord Musel'ek in Underbog. He's a lvl 65 hunter who also has a bear "pet" (the pet is actually a tauren druid but Musel'ek tamed him while he was in the bear form). :)
|
| |
I had tried beating him back when I was lvl 60 already if I remember. I couldn't beat any of the bosses in Underbog at lvl 60 but I managed to get past the first two so I got a chance with him. Musel'ek won.
|
| |
When I got to lvl 61 I finally beat the first and the last boss of Underbog but the three-headed monster was just a bit too hard and Musel'ek felt unbeatable. Now I've made plans to go to lvl 62 this year so naturally I wanted to take one last try against all the dungeon bosses I've yet to beat.
|
| |
Before Underbog, I went to the Slave Pens. Blizzard had changed the game and particularly gems and enchants so that those scale with your level. The gems I was using had lost half their power so I had to re-gem. And since lvl 60 bracket xp-locked battlegrounds were almost never happening anymore, I decided to take gems that were more suitable for PvE than PvP. So, on to the Slave Pens we go.
|
| |
And joy! I was able to beat all the bosses of Slave Pens. Earlier I could only beat Mennu, which is actually quite a nice challenge for any lvl 60 because his damage is quite low. The thing is to just mind his totems. :)
|
| |
Now that the Slave Pens was cleared I had good vibes going into the Underbog. The Darkmoon Faire was available so I went and took the Carousel reputation buff as well as the "+25 all resist" buff from the fortune teller. (not sure if that still works in dungeons)
|
| |
Other buffs I used were +30 stamina food buff and some battle and guardian elixirs. I had my hammer weighted by a Fel weightstone and also had some wards of shielding and those other wards, but before the last try I had already used all my battle elixirs so I only had an Earthen elixir, +30 stamina food buff (Crawdad), Fel weightstone and a lesser ward of shielding. Even my Lei of Lily was on cooldown. From now on I'll bring a full stack of the buffs I plan on using.
|
| |
Saying just a few words about the other Underbog bosses. 1. boss: Run away from the growing mushrooms before they grow big. 2. boss: Watch out for the 2k burst. Also check out the Raid Journal for their abilities and if some resistance potions would help you. And if you have the Burning Crusade Strategy Guide it won't hurt to have a glance. The final boss I've killed twice now, both times very easily.
|
| |
Overall pretty much every boss fight goes like this when you're using a Protection Warrior with Second Wind talent: first the boss gets you to 35% health and at that time you've managed to get the boss to around 90% health. Then the Second Wind kicks in. You start to regenerate some +350 health per second. Add to that all your dodge, parry, resistances, buffs and defensive abilities and it's going to take some serious burst damage to get you down. Pretty much the only exception is the drake found at the end of Hellfire Ramparts. His damage is so great that the fight will be over quite fast, win or lose.
|
| |
But now it's time for the Musel'ek tactics. Unfortunately there are no good tactics that I know of. My first attack against him on the day when I defeated him was a good try. I had all of my best buffs on and even the Darkmoon fortune teller's resistance buff, though Musel'ek only does physical damage as well as his bear, apparently. I decided to only focus on Musel'ek and let the bear be. And after about 1,5 minutes of fighting I had used all my defenses and got him to very close of being killed. One more critical Execute and it would've been a done deal. But no. Getting that close to a victory of course meant that I would try at least 10 more times. And 10 more times it took.
|
| |
My second try was worse. So was the third. Sometimes I only got him to 60% health before I died. Then I started trying something else. Attacking the bear first, for instance. The bear has lower health so you might think he's an easier kill. Well I can't say for sure but I think that the bear has bigger armor than Musel'ek. I did manage to subdue the bear a couple of times. You need to get the bear to about 25-30% health and it will stop fighting. But for some reason Musel'ek's damage seemed to increase when the bear stopped fighting. Also one thing I want to point out is sometimes I had a good 30% health left but then Musel'ek knocked me back and right after that the bear charged me and I was dead. One thing that might prevent this is fighting with your back against a wall.
|
| |
One ability that you will find Musel'ek doing that is not listed in the Dungeon/Raid Journal is the Ice Trap. Now I'm not 100% sure but I think Musel'ek only does the Aimed Shot after using the Ice Trap. Aimed Shot naturally does a big damage so using the Shield Wall or other damage reducing ability just before that is a good idea.
|
| |
Now for the winning fight. I actually attacked the bear first on this one. And, this may sound strange because Musel'ek is a hunter, I got the feeling Musel'ek does less damage when he does it from a range. So you might wanna try staying away from Musel'ek and beating the bear out of the fight first. I will try this again one day to confirm the tactics but I'll probably be lvl 62 then. :) One thing that was left unclear to me was does the bear stop fighting when Musel'ek dies. And another thing, how far away can you run (with a swiftness potion) without the boss resetting. Anyway by the time Musel'ek laid dead most of my gear was yellow and the other mobs were no doubt minutes away from respawning. Total time I spent in Underbog was close to 3 hours. (And after checking the timers in my screenshots, an average fight against Musel'ek last between 1 minute 3 seconds and 1 minute 28 seconds. If I subdued the bear first, then the fight usually last a little longer, maybe 2 minutes.)
|
| |
The rest of the evening and the next day I was a very happy person. Now I've managed to solo all the dungeons I can see in the Dungeon Finder. Next up is Mana-Tombs! (You can get in Mana-Tombs at lvl 61 even though it doesn't show in your Dung Finder, just as you can get inside Underbog at lvl 60.)
|
