L’actualité de Mione a été intéressante ces derniers jours puisque la DK française a publié sur son site son dernier exploit, à savoir le solotage de Thorim 10 HM à Ulduar. Elle ne s’est pas arrêtée en si bon chemin puisque dans la foulée elle a aussi eu le droit à une très longue interview sur le site Manaflask (Ensidia & For the Horde), en anglais malheureusement. Voici donc la vidéo du combat contre le gardien de Yogg-Saron et l’entretien accordé dans la langue de Shakespeare.

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Mione solote Thorim 10 HM

Mione sur Pony (Source)

Quelqu'un est venu me donner l'idée de ressortir du couloir. J'avais eu plein d'idées similaires, mais pas celle-là, et c'est cette dernière idée qui aura été la bonne. Donc un grand merci !

(I really wonder why I'm using Yuugi's theme...why would I have nightmares of it.......? )

Thorim is another one of those so called "unsoloable" bosses. However, I'd like to make something extremely clear - I merely applicated an idea someone gave me on my blog (and that "someone" couldn't make it work due to lack of gear to kill Thorim in p2..).... to be perfectly fair, I had an extremely close idea myself (but lacked a crucial point), and had found several ways of getting to Thorim's platform, but I couldn't bring him in phase 2 regardless of getting on top of his pedestal. So all credit goes to the guy who found that little trick - it works perfectly!

I slighly upgraded the step 2 by adding little details to remove the RNG part of Thorim's Lightning Ball (Glyph of Death Grip - Swiftness Potion), but that's it.
How it's done:

1) kill the arena mobs

2) rush with Rocket Boots into the tunnel, aggro the 1st miniboss, then go back into the arena. Use Swiftness Potion after rocket boots are down or you have a 50% (more like 70-80%) chance to get caught up by the lightning ball, which promptly oneshots you.

3) wait a few seconds without killing the miniboss... just before everything respawns, drop a DnD so that it aggros everything (it has to aggro the iron dwarf or he won't come) and go back into the tunnel before the door closes. The access is locked exactly when everything respawns.

4) Kill everything except one mob (preferably the one who has 500k HP), then complete the tunnel event.

5) Do not go too close to Thorim or he bugs, going into the arena while being unattackable. Kill the last mob from the arena that you dragged up there, and as soo nas Thorim becomes attackable, use rocket boots and rush into the arena before he uses a Lightning Ball.

6) Tank & Spank, except it's on hardmode, so he hits very hard. The beginning is easy, but the last % in the end are completely batshit insane, there's no way you can survive that for more than a few seconds. In fact, I wiped once at 2% by being super unlucky and having 3 Death Strike parries in a row :X

This means the entirely of Ulduar is now soloable by DKs, and nearly all Hardmodes are doable. The only boss remaining is Algalon, and obviously Yogg+0. I think Hunters will be able to do Yogg+0 before DKs to be perfectly honest. I don't think we can compete with feign death literally despawning adds on that encounter, especially when it comes to doing it without Thorim. :C

Music

Title - isolated dolls war
Artist - ゆっきー (yuki)
Circle - 狐の工作室 (Kitsune Workshop a.k.a. Fox Factory)

Title - 華のさかづき大江山
Artist - Takumi Inohaya
Circle - Frontier Records

Manaflask sur Interview de Mione (Source)

One of a very select number of people who've claimed World Firsts solo kills, among which are endbosses such as The Lich King, Yogg-Saron, Archimonde and some hardmodes as well, Mionelol sat down with us and discussed the world of solo Pve. Check out the Youtube channel for all the solo videos you'll ever need.

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Let's start with an easy one, please introduce yourself to the Manaflask community!

My name is Lou, I'm 21 and I'm living in Paris. My main character is a DK named Mionelol. I wish I could get rid of that 'lol' but all the other names such as "Mione", "Mîone", "M?one", "Mionette" etc. are already taken by no other than myself. I tried out sci/comp studies at first then went in a totally opposite way into legal education. Still unsure if it was the right choice.

I have without a doubt nerdy tastes in music/shows, the term 'otaku' probably suits me very well, and I played video games as long as I can remember... being no older than 3-4 years old and watching my dad play on DOS games... wasn't there a 2D game called Raptor or something back then? I really *love* reading and easily spend at least an hour per day doing that (and please, please, read 1Q84 from Haruki Murakami if you haven't already - I can't wait for book 3 to be released in English). As far as music goes, I'm fond of nearly everything except rap and commercial stuff. I have a small weakness for classic/orchestral or mixed genres (esp. mixing Techno and Metal together), and as a result I love most of the Touhou music community.

 

 

How did you get started in this solo business, was there a revelation that happened that made you go "hey, I can solo bosses that took 25 people to down less than a year ago"?

Not really a "revelation", but it somehow built up over time. Back at level 60, during Vanilla, I played a Mage. Did you know Mages could solo most bosses in Scholomance? Yup, they could. Trash packs were an absolute nightmare, and most bosses had to be kited in Rattlegore's room or around the stairs in the last room, but it worked, somehow.
During BC, I remember soloing things on my Shaman, like Underbog or Shadow Labyrinth, using a weird Enhance build wearing 2 caster weapons before Blizzard nerfed spellpower weapons to be main-hand only. I've always been interested in obscure builds and combinations that are usually overlooked by most people.

As far as DK soloing goes, it initially started as a joke. During the first week of WotLK, I went in Karazhan and soloed Moroes just because I was bored already (yeah, Tier 7 was SO amazing!). Being the arrogant little forum troll that I was back then, I instantly went to our realm PvE progression thread and posted that I killed Moroes, and officially opened the race to Prince Malchezzar by gently taunting other DKs (few of them even were level 80 at that time :D)..
A few weeks (days?) later, Malchezaar was dead, after quite a few wipes. If I recall correctly I had to use Frost resist gear to beat Shade of Aran (when he spawns Water Elementals). It's only after that point I realized maybe it wasn't a joke after all, and I could solo much bigger stuff. I started with MC "just to see how it goes" and I ended up ... soloing nearly everything in this game.


What's special about soloing bosses, what's the thing that keeps you going through long attempts and wipes?

Honestly, I treat soloing just as seriously as I treat progression raiding and I'll even go as far as saying that I'm having *more* fun soloing than raiding in general, outside from the first weeks where content is all new and we're still wiping/progressing. Farming is quickly boring. :(
I think a lot about what can be done and what cannot. I know what kind of numbers I can pull, and it's usually just a matter of executing strategies properly/playing it right. I never try for too long whenever I realize I simply don't have enough damage or healing. I can find tons of little tricks to deal more damage or avoid some mechanics but there are limits. I always try to adapt to the situation. I usually know what kind of problems I'm going to face during an encounter and plan accordingly before even pulling. Obviously, I can't prepare for everything, and often have to add small details here and there to my initial strategy. Sometimes I have to change my strategies completely instead of just adding details, but that's very rare.. Mimiron or Yogg were some bosses where I completely changed my approach of some parts of the encounters after realizing what I wanted to do initially simply didn't work.

What's extremely important is confidence. When I start raging at sometimes frustrating RNG (hello, Runic Empowerment) is when I start playing slightly worse than usual, and I usually take a little break to relax a bit.
Knowing your limits helps a lot as well. I never wipe repeatedly for no reason if I can't find a reasonable solution.

You play a Death Knight on your kills, and it seems to be the best class for soloing, but have you considered/tried doing it with other classes and if so which are the other solo-viable ones?

I don't have level 85 alts aside from my Shaman which I barely play (she's been 85 since months and months and still mainly wears blues). However, I know for a fact Hunters are by far the second best class right after DKs (Warlocks are probably third). There are quite a few neat things they can pull off, and even a few ones that we can't, mostly due to pet avoidance on AoE attacks. But Hunters willing to reforge all their gear to Stamina are very rare (for obvious reasons).

In fact, and I know this might surprise you a lot... as far as raw healing numbers go, a Stamina-oriented Hunter is actually very comparable to a DK. Our healing is really overhyped in the sense that what makes us amazing at soloing isn't just the raw healing, it's the variety of tools we have, ability to deal ranged or magic damage at times, cleaves, Vengeance, AMS, double interrupt, tons of defensive cooldowns, pets, all along being a tank spec. These tools are everything that makes DKs a lot more versatile than any other class when it comes to soloing - and also a lot more enjoyable in my opinion.


What are the key skills a DK has that make it so viable? Which ones do you use most, which are the most vital to keep on CD or use at specific parts of an encounter?

Death Strike is your bread and butter. An expression that is often used as far as Blood DKs go is "Rune Tetris". It's a game played with Runes that consists in obtaining as much Frost/Unholy Runic Empowerment procs by "gaming" your runes, while maintaining a nearly perfect Blood Barrier uptime (which requires both of your Blood runes to be on cooldown). During soloing you won't be playing Rune Tetris for the same reasons (it's about optimizing DPS, not Blade Barrier uptime), but it's played nearly exactly the same. Maximizing Frost/Unholy RE procs and Glyph of Death Strike are the keys to "extreme" Death Knight soloing. The rest is just execution and using defensive cooldowns correctly, especially AMS which is probably the most important tool on most encounters.
Icebound Fortitude is to be kept for extreme damage or just before dying - it's your most powerful panic button and it should never be wasted.


Do you think more people might try soloing if more classes were able to do it, or if there were some special achievements for it?

I don't know. I know I've always been interested in soloing regardless of class and achievements. It would for sure make more people do it, but what for? If they're doing it for no reason other than getting an achievement then never doing it again, what's the point?
I personally think it's all about pushing yourself and your character to their limits and nothing else.


Should Blizzard perhaps look into this type of encounter to improve and extend their content range? As in, would it be a good idea to actually bring out new bosses in patches that are designed to be soloed?

Honestly, I don't think that's a good idea. Classes aren't balanced in regards to soloing and there are enough balance problems as is. Also, I don't want all classes to be homogenized even more. I think soloing should remain done purely for the challenge and fun. Every class can have its own little challenge somewhere, it's all about progressing through raids until you find a hard encounter and find ways to beat it. At some point, even mages will be able to solo LK, it's just a matter of time.


Take us through one of your more difficult and complex kills. Where does the idea begin, what kinds of preparations do you have to go through and how creative do you have to be to do it?

Yogg-Saron. I had no idea what to expect. In fact I didn't even think he was soloable at first, it's only after someone told me that their whole group was in the brain and it didn't reset the encounter that I actually thought about, maybe, soloing it. The following day I killed Vezax, spent the rest of the afternoon on Yogg to find out how the encounter worked when soloing. Thought about it during the whole raid night and was more excited about Yogg than Ascendant Council. Then spent a few more hours during the night on Yogg until he was finally down, pushing as far as 5 am or so - there was no way I could let him live that night.

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The first pull makes me go through p1 easily. I killed tentacles more or less easily but they spawned too quickly for me to handle in the long run, I did a brain phase but only managed to put it around 50% or so instead of 30%. I wondered how to get deal more damage to the brain, and outside from gear/crits, the main thing that I lacked was uptime on the brain.

The main problem of the encounter were Constrictor Tentacles. There were two ways of dealing with them - Death & Decay and Hodir's Protective Gaze. Death & Decay had to be used before getting grabbed by the tentacle, it was impossible to use afterwards (it's now possible, in fact, even Blood Boil works now). The first constrictor never was a problem. Dropping Death and Decay right before Yogg goes into p2 was enough to deal with it 100% of the time. But that second constrictor was wasting too much time. Half the time it would grab me for too long and I would miss the portals, making for a neverending p2. Death & Decay's cooldown wasn't always refreshed before the tentacle spawned. As such, I first elaborated a strategy where I would be low on health on purpose, so the tentacle "kills" me quickly, liberating me (but not really dieing, thanks to Hodir's Protective Gaze). That worked slightly better than the previous version, but I still missed a few portals here and there, and couldn't click on it instantly anyway. Regardless, I kept pushing into p2, and realized a new constrictor was spawning as soon as I left the brain. I had to drop a DnD in there, especially tricky because of the loading lag when going out of the brain zone.
I could get into p3 after the second brain phase once in a while, but couldn't do anything during p3 because my phase 2 was extremely long and there were so many tentacles it wasn't even funny. I realized I needed to kill it with only one brain phase, but, how ?

Over all these hours, I found out tons of various strategies to deal with these constrictors over and over, but it never worked in the end and I started losing hope, since I was fighting mostly against RNG. These was a little thing ringing in my head that kept buggering me - during some attempts, I would never even get the 2nd constrictor. I had no idea why. There's always a small part of RNG in encounters, and sometimes spawns can be a few seconds off, but never to that extent. On some attempts, the contrictor simply didn't spawn. I don't know how I found the reason other than a bright idea at 3 am, but I did - Constrictors cannot spawn on the Crusher Tentacle's current target, much like other mechanics that would result in weird situations if tanks were suceptible to them (Val'kyrs from LK spring to mind). Plain and simple.

After I realized that, I finally got quite a handful of good attempts at beating p2, by leaving the Crusher Tentacle alive on purpose until the very last second, and I knew I could get through p2 100% of time if I practiced more, it was just a matter of time. I found out I still had to manage my debuffs prior to entering the brain phase. The debuff that hurted me the most was Entropy, a debuff that reduces rune regen (attack speed) and movement speed. My usual reaction to annoying debuffs is Potion of Purification, but Entropy is a magic effect and Potion of Purification doesn't work on these. I needed my Strength potion for the brain phase anyway. I had to find the right timing for my AMS, as well as possibly use Strangulate on the tentacle if it was in range.
Then I managed, after multiple reforges of my gear (remember we were in March, only a few months after Cata launched), to bring the brain under 30% in one phase. Went into p3 and realized it wouldn't be that easy. I went straight for the corruptor tentacles and had to blow cds every time I got affected by Entropy, which was even more annoying than during p2. I could barely kill the Immortal Guardians before another one spawned, so it was all about positioning correctly for cleaves.
After quite a few wipes, I finally managed to clear every tentacle and go through phase 3, only to wipe at 4% because... of Yogg's Berserk. Was there any phase that took too long in my opinion? Absolutely, phase 1, back to the beginning. So I decided to pull every possible mob I could in phase 1 to gain as much time as possible and decided to run through all the green clouds. I also optimized my cleaves from Heart Strike slightly more during phase 3.

And at 5:23am, after doing all of that as perfectly as I could, Yogg finally died.

What's your favorite kill so far and what's currently on the top of your to-kill list?

Yogg is my favorite one, as you can guess. I think it's a really interesting encounter. Yogg is also one of those bosses that have a "mighty" feel, with tons of different elements, dialog/voices, etc.
Hardest in terms of DPS requirements probably was Mimiron HM. Lich King was kinda disappointing, the strategy was very basic and it came down to a gear check. Beating him with my 372 weapon was hard only because I could barely beat the enrage by mere seconds.
I currently want to kill a T11 boss. Which one will go down first is currently unsure, but the most probable one is Atramedes.


Do you play "normal" PvE outside of your solo efforts? If so, were you ever in a position of having to go get better top tier gear to be able to beat a particular solo encounter you were working on?

Yes, always. I really don't think I could enjoy playing the game if I wasn't exploring every facet of it. That'd be boring.
I stopped PvE'ing seriously and took a little break after Ulduar because my guild at the time wasn't exactly full of people fun to hang around *cough*. Still got my Shadowmourne in an alt run from some guild on the server, that's how easy and boring the game was. I went back to serious raiding with Cataclysm, I think we got the 2nd EU kill of Ragnaros 10H (including Paragon's kill), but we're a 25-m guild that had to transition to 10-m because of holidays, so that kill doesn't have much value. We're usually a top 50~ 25-man guild.

As far as gear goes, yes, there's still a few pieces of gear that are missing (Ashkandi never dropped even once during T11. Same thing goes with Sulfuras now, it never drops, and I only got my axe off Shannox after something like 2 months of farm.) But my gear is roughly similar to nearly everyone else in top guilds.
Now of course, I'm only a few gear upgrades from doing a T11 boss. I'm nearly sure I'll be able to do them as soon as 4.3 hits - if not earlier. :)

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In closing, since we're all about top-end PvE over here, would you list your World First solo kills?

Uuuuh, there's too many. I honestly don't like claiming word firsts for soloing (which is, imo, a matter of willingness and tenacity more than anything else), but let's go ahead, with kills I thought were interesting at the time (I'm skipping a lot of them which were boring and just a matter of being the first one even trying):

At level 80:
-Ragnaros (and all of MC), Doomwalker, Viscidus, Netherspite (and all of Karazhan), Kri/Yauj/Vem, Hex Lord Malacrass, Al'ar, Leotheras, Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Archimonde.

At level 85:
- Lady Vashj, Kael'thas, Naxxramas (everything except Gluth), Ulduar (everything except Razorscale), ToC (everything), ICC (Saurfang, Valithria :D, Blood Princes, LK).