Edit: This guide is somewhat out of date, find the new one here.
One of the things I do to kill time before a raid is solo normal Stonecore. This dungeon has a well-earned reputation for being a pug-killer on Heroic mode, but on normal it is actually soloable by hunters. I go there for two reasons: it’s darn good practice when it comes to CCing and other hunter skills, and the second boss has a chance to drop a mount. This post offers advice for the mount run and assumes that you’ve been through the instance before in a group.
Prep Work
You may want to get a few things ready before zoning in. You don’t need special gear for this place, but it does help to have an 85 tenacity pet with an extreme soloing talent build, drum kings, flasks, bandages and plenty of food. Glyphs of Mend Pet and Misdirection are essential. BM and MM soloing specs aren’t crucial for this place, and so I prefer a standard SV build for its excellent crowd control. You might also consider giving yourself an extra edge if you’re an archaeologist by turning in the in-zone daily for a 5% reduction to physical damage.
The Run
To get to Slabhide, we have to open the way by having Corborus burst through a wall and attack Millhouse Manastorm. Prior to this, we have to push Millhouse into position by attacking him and driving him from trash pack to trash pack (packs 1, 2, and 3 as indicated in the picture below). Millhouse hangs out with these trash packs in sequence until he loses enough health (50%) to want to run away to the next living pack.
Unfortunately, patch 4.0.6 introduced some complexities to Millhouse’s behavior. If you try to clear pack two before pack one, Millhouse and all of pack one will attack you. If you force Millhouse to run away from pack one and then attack pack two, any remaining members of pack one will come and help Millhouse. There is an exception to all this comradery, though. As Vormav notes in a comment below, you can take out pack three without packs two or one joining in. As such, by Camoing past the first two groups, clearing out all the roaming elementals, and eliminating group three, you can save yourself from having to defeat Millhouse a third time (because he’ll have no third pack to join up with).
That still leaves us with having to deal with the first two trash packs. There are two strategies that have worked for me once pack three is cleared out.
Strategy 1: Burn Millhouse at pack 1, leave combat, rez pet, burn Millhouse at pack 2, leave combat. This should have the result of quickly pushing Millhouse down to the Corborus spawn point. There are some caveats, though. One is that your pet will die each pull. It’s just going to happen. A second is that it requires very high dps. Because no CC is involved, you have to do enough damage to Millhouse that he flees before your pet dies. High dps is absolutely essential for the second pack because you have to burn Millhouse down before the first pack reaches you. My strategy is typically this: HM Millhouse, send in pet, Mend and Shell Shield it before it takes agro, MD a multishot on the pack, then proceed to burn Millhouse. It doesn’t hurt to lay a Freezing Trap at your feet to catch a Berserker charge or pop Cower once Shell Shield runs out.
Strategy 2: CC pack 1, burn Millhouse, leave combat, CC pack 1, kill pack 1, CC pack 2, burn Millhouse, leave combat. This strategy is far safer than strategy 1 and requires less dps, but it also takes more time. Once Millhouse is at pack two and you’ve wiped agro, dealing with pack one is as easy as dealing with pack three. And when you drive Millhouse away from pack two, he’ll run right to the Corborus spawn point, meaning you don’t even have to finish group two.
These strategies aren’t set in stone, nor are they the only possible combinations of tactics. However, they have worked for me. Regardless of which stategy you use, you’ll end up using some crowd control. The packs (aside from Millhouse) are composed of four mobs in some combination of Stonecore Earthshapers, Stonecore Berserkers and Stonecore Warbringers. The Earthshapers transform into elementals that do massive nature AoE damage. Berserkers charge and do a whirlwind. Warbringers enrage and have a cleave. I typically trap an Earthshaper and Wyvern Sting a Berserker/Earthshaper at the pull, and then have my pet tank the two remaining melee. An alternative to this is to lay a trap in front of a melee, wait for the trap cooldown to reset, pull with a Wyvern Sting, wait for a melee to get caught in the trap, and then trap launch an Earthshaper. These approaches work for packs without Millhouse or for pacifying groups around Millhouse as part of strategy 2. You can save yourself some additional damage by tranq’ing the Warbringer’s enrages, standing at min range so the Berserkers can’t charge you, and using Aspect of the Wild when dealing with the elementals that the Earthshapers transform into.
Fighting Slabhide solo is fairly easy, it just takes time and repetition. Slabhide begins the fight on the ground, and I think this is the best time to blow cooldowns because you have the fewest fight mechanics to navigate. A few seconds in, Slabhide will walk to the center of the room and lift off. During this air phase you can continue dps, but you’ll also have to dodge the falling rocks. When he lands, make sure that you’re still in line of sight of your pet because the fallen rocks can block your Mend Pet even if you’re still in a position to dps the boss. You’ll also have to reposition to avoid the magma pools that spawn below your feet. Dodging them is easy considering the dust eruption cue that precedes them, but the key is dodging them in a such a way that you aren’t taken out of line of sight of your pet. If you can manage this, keep mend pet rolling and also not stand in Slabhide’s breath attack, you’re set. It’s possible for you to actually take zero damage on this fight, and that can serve as an extra challenge if you get bored. Overall, the fight shouldn’t take more than five minutes. If the mount drops, congratulations.
Thinking of trying this tonight. One question though, if it’s possible to skip the first boss, why can’t you just stealth past all the trash packs and go straight to Slabhide?
You have to have drive Millhouse down to Corborus’s spawn point in order for Corborus to burst through the wall and open your way to Slabhide.
Cool. I didn’t even think of the wall. Makes sense.
Very cool. I’ll have to give this a shot. I already have the drake from VP, but I’d just like to see if I can solo this.
I tried it. CC works like a charm (very good practice indeed) and the Gorillatank does a good job.
The weak link, regrettably, is me. I’m not able to burn down the mobs fast enough, which means released mobs and a quick overwhelm.
Good thing the first group is so close to the entrance.
Will keep practicing but i think i need to improve my stats.
DB
Great post, going to try this tonight. But im wondering if it wont work to just cc the mobs and burn down Millhouse in each pack then simply feign death? Should go faster that way unless im overlooking something?
This is the way I’ve done this on my clears to Slabhide. Burn down Millhouse from each group and then FD. To do this I pre position a frost trap and snake trap close to the group in camo then start with a wyvern on the Earthshaper from range. Shadowmeld when the adds get close and then back on milhouse. In mostly raid gear he does down pretty fast. One thing to note, you don’t want your pet to use thunderstomp when he gets to millhouse, it’ll break the CC.
As for slabhide, he’s a joke with the T5 set bonus.
Tried this earlier today and all that happened was Millhouse turned around and ran back to the first group :p
The hardest part was controlling the adds, several times wyvern or a trap would break early or get resisted leading to much drama and murder commited upon my person.
Were you DPSing down Millhouse till he emotes and runs away? I have not been in Stonecore since reset and there may have been a change.
Yea, he ran too the second pack and when I took him down there he did the emote again and ran back to the first pack instead of going to the third. Only tried this tactic once though, so can say 100% that this will happen every time.
Did this boss around 10 times yesterday and the packs are fairly easy to take down now. Practice makes (almost) perfect I guess :p
Killing the dragon in 4min so around 10-15min for the entire run now.
Looking forward to future hunter soloing posts like this one :D
Ok. I love doing anything I can solo. I’m game for trying this now.
Lately, I have enjoyed rolling Kara. But the Chess match alone is really difficult.
I’ve been trying different CC strats on and off for the last 10 days or so and I’m finding it just a little to difficult. I think it’s mainly just my innability to manage 4 mobs at once. Though I was trying with just one launched trap and a sting. I should try with the second trap and see where that gets me. There’s a video on YouTube of an Orc doing it and he makes it look really easy. I’d love to be able to start farming this drake as my red and bronze drakes are pretty ghetto (vanilla player but i took most of wrath off as a break).
The way I look at it, a hunter soloing this place isn’t trying to optimize dps because he’s got all the time in the world. That makes traps, Scatter Shot, Mend Pet, Misdirection, etc., all better uses of a global, in my opinion, than another Cobra Shot.
I think it’s also worth noting that you don’t have to CC everything. A tenacity pet is able to tank 2-3 melee with enough healing, tranq shots, help on threat, use of Cower and Shell Shield, etc. Because of that, it might be easier to only CC the earthshapers.
Another strategy is to take an earthshaper first. Once they transform they have very little health, and so by killing one of them first you can cut a pack down to just three targets really fast.
Lastly, if you’re just not quite there, using drums and some buff food might be enough to put you and your pet over the edge.
So I just got my first kill. After a few more deaths I’ve got the strat down for the trash. I can take them out one at a time, then the last two at once so it’s a tad long but I’ll streamline that. I tried the boss in SV for the DPS but the first time I missed a crucial mend pet and I died. Went back and popped in to BM and although it took 8 minutes the fight was easy at that point. No mount but i think i used up my luck the other day when I got my Raven Lord on the second run ! I didn’t like my worgen on my other ground mounts so i was determinded to get it, so glad it only took 2 days lol.
[...] excellent article on how to solo Slabhide in Stonecore on normal mode inspired me to go for Altairus in Vortex Pinnacle on normal mode. Trainwrecked has [...]
I tried this today with an ilevel of 339, took me me about 4 attempts to get the first mob set up right, having up to 3 frost traps going, go to slabhide no problem, but only ever got him to 50%, I was using a boar, will keep trying.
So I’ve since taken him down 4 times today. Take the caster mob out first for sure. Sting one , trap one and let one beat on your pet is the way I do it. Then after the caster is dead FD and let your pet die etc. Then I can manage the other 3 in one pull now. Trap one, sting one and dps the third. When your trap is off CD drop one at your feet to get the sting when it charges. Keep mend pet up and burn them down one after the other. For the boss I go BM and just spam mend pet, takes about 7 min to kill.
[...] Soloing Slabhide by [...]
Got the mount on my 48th run today! I read that in 4.0.6 on the PTR you can no longer clear the trash backwards to make your life easier and that you will have to fight millhouse with all 3 trash packs. True or not, I’m really stoked that i got it today, and I’m hoping I never see the inside of that place again lol.
surprisingly enough I got this mount too as a hunter. It took me about 50 tries and I was pretty stocked because with the patch coming tomorrow I was gonna need to get rid of my SV spec. All holding me down for that was the CC… Finally i can get the hell out of there.
good luck
Solo’d him after the patch… I guess the good news is that you only have to deal with milhouse 2 times. On the last pack, just scare him away, Dismiss pet/FD, then Camo and run through.
I started each pull by doing what was recommended, but targeting millhouse to scare him away. After he runs, Dismiss/FD, then finish as normal.
Hmmm…tried this a couple times today. First with another hunter, then by myself. I go past Milhouse, clear the 3rd pack no problem, but every time I’ve gone after the 2nd pack Millhouse and all his friends come running immediately.
Anyone else having this issue?
I did try doing the 2nd pack before the 3rd…same issue.
Yep, since the patch, you can no longer do it that way. you have to wipe out the first two packs, then just scare away millhouse on the third (then dismiss pet and FD) then Camo past the boss.
Best way i have seen, is to cc the targets like in this guide, but spend all your focus on millhouse. once he runs, take care of the pack the way the guide tells you. It’s a little rougher, but you’ll get used to it.
When your first learning to solo it, it might be best to take out one mob at a time, then reset by dismissing pet and FD’ing. you’ll get used to the entire pack over time.
But yeah, they set it up so that if you attack the 3rd pack, the 1st and 2nd packs will come running (pulling even more mobs that are along the way). Same with the second…
Don’t lose hope :)
4.0.6 definitely changed the pre-Corborus trash and I’ve just updated the guide accordingly.
If nothing else, we can and should interpret this change as unquestionable proof that Blizzard reads my guides and thinks they’re so awesome that they base nerfs on them.
I just followed your guide and it worked well. Just an update, you can kill the third trash pack without agroing anything. I killed them first, then killed the first group. For the 2nd group I just needed to bring millhouse down to 50%.
Thanks for the guide!
Ive killed him 87 times and still no drake!!!!!!!!!!! HELP ME
Got it on the 10th try. Happy! :)
The way i did was burn millhouse at pack 1, dismiss pet and feign. Camo down to 3rd pack and kill it. Burn millhouse at pack 2, dismiss/feign, voila wall open. That way you only need to kill 4 mobs.
Slabhide himself was the easy part.