Magnakilro's Guide to Solo Farming the Vitreous Stone Drake

[Royi]

I think I might find a Duo-partner for this and just promise some gold. 2 lvl 85 hunters should make Quick Werk of him (in comparison at least)

This is a very pretty drake indeed

[Acherontia]

Right, scrap my questions, I think I've figured it out.

I was a bit confused at the bits talking about skipping trash--to clarify for anyone else having that issue, he's clearing back-to-front so that Millhouse isn't in the trash packs while clearing. I had a hell of a time figuring that out

A couple other things--apologies if they were mentioned & I missed. The guys you need to nuke first are, on my client anyway, called "Stonecore Earthshapers." I did look, but I didn't find anything called an Earthwarden, although that may be down to localization/translation. You can Tranq Shot off the tauren mobs' (Warbringers) enrage. The little rock trash mobs only have 4k hp, not 40k, so a multi-shot or two will wipe the lot. The berserkers charge frequently, which is why I think he suggests laying a freezing trap under you. And SPAM that pet passive when the drake goes airborne--I too had a rock fall on my pet, which renders it unhealable, un-recall-able and when it died and I ressed it for the next airborne phase, the pet came out at 6k hp and promptly got one-shotted >.> If you're having trouble getting LoS for a Mend Pet, you can generally run directly behind the drake--he's got no tail swipe, and you can "see" right along his body for LoS on your pet.

My pet was only level 83, incidentally--a beetle--but he's got the same HP as my lvl 85 tank pet (I suppose from the way pet-hunter scaling works), albeit a bit less armor. Regardless, he did fine I am also in full PvP gear, and BM PvP spec, with about 115k hp unbuffed--I'm doing most of the trash without using a Ferocity pet or letting a pet die, although if things go sour it does get bad quick (there's a lot of AoE going around).

Anyway, thanks for the guide I did just finish the first run, will be doing some more now!

P.S. --the dwarf at the start of the instance has draenei sound files...? o.o

[Arcanimus]

A couple notes from my experience in this:

For the rear two packs, its possible to trap both of the melee by dropping a trap and waiting the CD.
Force of Earth (transformed Stoneshapers) are immune to Stuns while channeling Dust Storm, but not to Scatter Shot or Freezing Trap.
I had some trouble doing enough dps on Slabhide as BM, so i switched to Surv, broke out the tank pet, and he went down like a ton of bricks.

[Suicune]

I also, had better luck doing this in Survival spec. I used my Terrorpene (who doesn't? lol), and after a few sloppy (sometimes very sloppy) pulls and trials, I got the groove down. Depending on the trash, my strats varied. My successful boss fights took me roughly 10 minutes each, my gear is much lower than recommended, I haven't been running stuff like I should have due to camping a Drake. I had some rep items, which were the right level, a few quest blues from dungeons and a few drops from dungeons. I replaced my lvl 80 helm and chest with crafted items that I should be able to make, but, alas... camping... my LW is at 505 lol.

ANYWHOOO... got a few good potions in case things went sour when the drake had a few hp left, but with caution, I haven't had to use them so far. Used a crit elixir, and my agil food for extra buffs.

Thanks for this guide and the link in the replies with the video someone else created. I read and watched the videos and read the strats each of you posted and worked up my own way to success- keep at it, try different things, and don't be afraid to experiment. Like my guildies told me- what's the worst that could happen? You die, your pet dies (give them good treats after lol), or you have a bit of repairs.

No mount yet, but this will distract me from camping insanely long stretches like I have been doing for what has to have been a month and a half already! Good luck to everyone!

[Pent]

Couple of questions...

You mention that Millhouse is in the 3rd or 4th pack... but he is in the very first pack for me.

Also, I am not a very good hunter evidently, because I lay a Frost trap at my feet... wait for the trap CD... use trap launcher to throw a frost trap closer... hit either my Sambas or Terrorpene (trying in SV) with MD, put Mend pet on the pet, and then send the pet in... after about 2-3sec I am getting rushed by most of the pack (because of the Mend Pet, probably)... and the Earthshaper I was trying to kill is nowhere near being even 50% dead.

I have yet to see an Earthmender, and I am unsure if I should kill the Earthshapers, Berserkers, or Warbringers first...

[peanutbuttercup]

I've been 2 manning it because of trash, but Slabhide itself is very easy. Once you get used to it you shouldn't take any damage ever. I've also learned the best way to overcome the LOS problem is to pull the pet back to you during air phase and then walk yourself and your pet to the best clearing you can find as the shadows appear on the ground. Let Slabhide land and then send the pet back into the fight as he walks into your clearing. That way you're in LOS to misdirect and spam heals. And even though Slabhide does a breath that hits everything in front of him I've never had a problem with starting each ground phase right behind the pet. The breath has a 15 yard range but maybe due to the hit box size (?) you can stand fairly close and not be hit by it.

(Edit: I just tested this again today to make doubly sure and was standing directly behind the pet with each breath cast right after landing. No damage, so it's a safe spot to start each ground phase. It will also increase the change of a lava pool spawning under the pet so you can just step back a few steps after that and place each pool deliberately to maximize the space you have to use.)

[Acherontia]

Pent, if you have a look at my post above, it might explain some stuff. As far as the aggro--after 30 secs, MD aggro comes back to you, so just feign. The Berserkers (I explain in the post above) do charge you at random, hence the FREEZING trap you want to lay at your FEET (caps for emphasis ).

[Royi]

because I lay a Frost trap at my feet... wait for the trap CD... use trap launcher to throw a frost trap closer

If you lay one at your feet, then launch one in the middle, the one at your feet will despawn, even with the CD you can only have 1 of each trap out at a time (you could do the ice trap then launch the ice field one in the pack though).

[Magnakilro]

Right, scrap my questions, I think I've figured it out.

I was a bit confused at the bits talking about skipping trash--to clarify for anyone else having that issue, he's clearing back-to-front so that Millhouse isn't in the trash packs while clearing. I had a hell of a time figuring that out

A couple other things--apologies if they were mentioned & I missed. The guys you need to nuke first are, on my client anyway, called "Stonecore Earthshapers." I did look, but I didn't find anything called an Earthwarden, although that may be down to localization/translation. You can Tranq Shot off the tauren mobs' (Warbringers) enrage. The little rock trash mobs only have 4k hp, not 40k, so a multi-shot or two will wipe the lot. The berserkers charge frequently, which is why I think he suggests laying a freezing trap under you. And SPAM that pet passive when the drake goes airborne--I too had a rock fall on my pet, which renders it unhealable, un-recall-able and when it died and I ressed it for the next airborne phase, the pet came out at 6k hp and promptly got one-shotted >.> If you're having trouble getting LoS for a Mend Pet, you can generally run directly behind the drake--he's got no tail swipe, and you can "see" right along his body for LoS on your pet.

My pet was only level 83, incidentally--a beetle--but he's got the same HP as my lvl 85 tank pet (I suppose from the way pet-hunter scaling works), albeit a bit less armor. Regardless, he did fine I am also in full PvP gear, and BM PvP spec, with about 115k hp unbuffed--I'm doing most of the trash without using a Ferocity pet or letting a pet die, although if things go sour it does get bad quick (there's a lot of AoE going around).

Anyway, thanks for the guide I did just finish the first run, will be doing some more now!

P.S. --the dwarf at the start of the instance has draenei sound files...? o.o

Thanks for correcting my mistakes...my guide shall be editted to state the correct info XD

[Acherontia]

Ahh, cool I wasn't sure if the Earthshaper thing was a mistake or localization issue, as I'm sure some names differ by region/language. But I was a bit confused about the trash lol! Thanks a ton for the update

[Ara]

Awesome guide. Just tried it out. No mount tho. But I wont give up!

[peanutbuttercup]

By killing the trash packs from back to front, its not only easier due to Milhouse not being part of them, thus making it one less elite, but it also means you only need to fight Milhouse once! You don't even need to kill the first trash pack if you can burn him down to 50% fast enough.

I finally gave it another solo attempt after many 2 mans and except for one trash wipe (to Manastorm :p) was able to manage it without too much difficulty in survival spec. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do trash from third pack to the front but that made a huge difference!

My kill order on trash is: Assuming there's only one earthwarder guy, I freeze trap him and then pet tank and kill warbringer(s). I kite the berserkers around as needed, definitely want to get out of their whirlwind. As soon as freeze trap is up again I drop one at my feet for a berserker, then after that every time freeze is up I alternate between earthwarder and beserker. I prefer leaving earthwarder for last and then use wyvern and scatter to interrupt his Force of Earth ability.

If there's 2 earthwarders then I freeze one and kill the other, interrupting as much as possible.

On Manastorm I just try to burn him down ASAP so he'll go away. Got stuck with 2 earthwarders so that's what killed me that one time.

[Royi]

By killing the trash packs from back to front, its not only easier due to Milhouse not being part of them, thus making it one less elite, but it also means you only need to fight Milhouse once! You don't even need to kill the first trash pack if you can burn him down to 50% fast enough.

I finally gave it another solo attempt after many 2 mans and except for one trash wipe (to Manastorm :p) was able to manage it without too much difficulty in survival spec. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do trash from third pack to the front but that made a huge difference!

My kill order on trash is: Assuming there's only one earthwarder guy, I freeze trap him and then pet tank and kill warbringer(s). I kite the berserkers around as needed, definitely want to get out of their whirlwind. As soon as freeze trap is up again I drop one at my feet for a berserker, then after that every time freeze is up I alternate between earthwarder and beserker. I prefer leaving earthwarder for last and then use wyvern and scatter to interrupt his Force of Earth ability.

If there's 2 earthwarders then I freeze one and kill the other, interrupting as much as possible.

On Manastorm I just try to burn him down ASAP so he'll go away. Got stuck with 2 earthwarders so that's what killed me that one time.

Is it pretty easy to duo?

[peanutbuttercup]

It's easy to 2 man, just stick with the same general strategy. Another hunter would be ideal since you could CC the heck out of stuff, or maybe a tank or healy druid, because if the second person cannot stealth you'll have to kill the trash between the first boss and Slabhide. Or you could opt to solo once the passageway is open to Slabhide.

But other than the first pack with Manastorm I find it almost easier to solo this nowadays.

EDIT: Well, guess I won't need to solo this anymore... it finally dropped!!

[Royi]

found a nice video about doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhzY7Tq1J8&NR=1

[Ezmode]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

This seems to have been "fixed" in multiple ways. Please correct me if any information here is incorrect, however I've been through the motions of Stonecore that many times that the changes since the most recent patch are glaringly obvious.

You can only have one Freezing Trap up at a time, waiting for the CD to expire and dropping a trap under a mob will free the previously trapped mob once the new trap is sprung.

So with that change in effect I sloppily managed to bring down the third pack. On to the next.

Within moments of pulling the second pack, the first pack rocked up to the party and utterly roflstomped me.

It looks like we have to do the encounter "backwards" now, packs 1 - 3 consecutively. However I'm having a hard time with the Millhouse pull. I've lost a form of CC and so I have one extra mob running around to worry about.

This was a rude shock to me, I don't feel like this was something that needed to be fixed, as it requires a particular level of gear, CC skills and patience. I guess I will come back another to day to bang my head against this modified encounter.

Happy hunting.

[Royi]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

This seems to have been "fixed" in multiple ways. Please correct me if any information here is incorrect, however I've been through the motions of Stonecore that many times that the changes since the most recent patch are glaringly obvious.

You can only have one Freezing Trap up at a time, waiting for the CD to expire and dropping a trap under a mob will free the previously trapped mob once the new trap is sprung.

So with that change in effect I sloppily managed to bring down the third pack. On to the next.

Within moments of pulling the second pack, the first pack rocked up to the party and utterly roflstomped me.

It looks like we have to do the encounter "backwards" now, packs 1 - 3 consecutively. However I'm having a hard time with the Millhouse pull. I've lost a form of CC and so I have one extra mob running around to worry about.

This was a rude shock to me, I don't feel like this was something that needed to be fixed, as it requires a particular level of gear, CC skills and patience. I guess I will come back another to day to bang my head against this modified encounter.

Happy hunting.

I think i'll just wait till I can do random 20 minute heroic dungeons that drop ilvl 400 epics. (say in what 1 year? 2 years max?)

[Magnakilro]

After reading EZ's post...I decided to run back in and give it a shot. I can confirm that attacking the second group will now pull the first group as well. I still managed to successfully pull it off...just modified how the first groups are handled....Guide will be editted.

[Suicune]

I'm irritated at this change. It was unneeded. I wasn't able to do my normal handful of runs each day for a week or so due to RL. Drop in for a go or two, and mid run I see this post. Sure enough my next pull ended in a flurry of elementals and swords stabbing my head. Sucked it up, tried again, same thing. Pretty much insta-kill. I will be looking for an updated strat for this, as I am a bit peeved atm and don't feel like poking around. Thanks for looking into this

[Magnakilro]

Gudie has been editted. The changed version is at the bottom of the guide. I did this with only 1 mob CC'ed per group