Quick and Dirty Primer to Raiding With Leashes II

[Chrth]

I'm not going to address class-specific info, I recommend the comments at Wowhead for the bosses if you have any questions about soloing, etc.

Kara

Kara has been easily soloable by a lot of classes since 85, so I expect it's still true at 90.

Four bosses drop pets: Terestian Illhoof, The Curator, the Big Bad Wolf (part of the Opera Event), and Malchezaar

The Big Bad Wolf is the first boss you'll encounter that drops a pet. The Opera Event is a required Boss, but you have to defeat Moroes before you can do it. Which Opera Event you get is random, so this one will probably cause the most fits for people.

The Opera Event is not set, so you can run multiple alts each week hoping that one or more of them gets the Big Bad Wolf.

The Curator is the next required boss after Opera Event.

Illhoof is an optional boss after the Curator. The "secret" entrance to his spot is obvious by the imps hanging out in front of it.

The next optional boss is Shade of Aran. I recommend killing him because:

Pro-tip for Karazhan: If you plan to go back later for Chess event, kill Shade of Aran for the easy teleport. Saves five or six minutes of running later.

Malchezaar is the final boss. You have to get through Chess Event to get to him.
Chess Event strat that works for me 50% of the time (the cheating RNG makes very few strats foolproof):
Move the pawn in front of the king out for when Medivh cheats the first time
Move the pawns in front of the "knights" out so that you can move the two rooks diagonally two spaces. Prioritize which rook you move first based on which side Medivh is moving pieces on.
Move the king out of fire when you have to
Use either the queen or king to help finish off the opposing king

I've created another thread that shows the strat in picture form

Malchezaar is more or less a zerg at this point.

Required Boss Path:
Moroes > Opera Event > Curator > Chess Event > Malchezaar

Kara Pro Tip: There are mana wyrms that you can't kill with spells that may get at you. You also can't kill them with wands. Make sure you have a dagger or staff available to use as a weapon if you aggro one as a caster.

Serpentshrine Cavern

There are no required bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern; you can tackle whichever one you want whenever you want (which is good when you only need one more pet from the instance).
The bosses that drop pets are Morogrim Tidewalker, Hydross the Unstable, and Lady Vash'j. I believe that for most classes Tidewalker and Hydross are zergable at 90. Vash'j has a complicated fight mechanic that may take you a few attempts to figure out (see Wowhead comments for potential class soloing recommendations).

Tempest Keep

The good news is you don't have to kill Kael'thas solo to get a pet (still can be a quite complicated at 90, altho there are plenty of soloing strats available since he drops Ashes of Al'ar).

Like SSC, the bosses do not have to be done in any order. Al'ar, Voidreaver, and Solarian drops the pets. All three bosses have complicated fight mechanics but I don't believe any are so bad as to prevent soloing at 90 (if you're concerned, just check the respective boss pages at wowhead).


I hope this was somewhat helpful. Feel free to post any strats, etc., in this thread.

[Maizing]

Thanks... I never have been able to figure out how that chess event worked.

[Chrth]

Thanks... I never have been able to figure out how that chess event worked.

Blizzard keeps changing the difficulty of it; I'm actually kinda hoping they nerfed the Medivh cheating again heading into the patch (the nerfs/buffs never seem to make it into the patch notes) because if they didn't, you'll hear a lot of QQ about how impossible it is. It's not, really, but it is RNG-dependent enough that you may think it's impossible to solo.

[Gwenolyn]

Thanks, I'm sure I'll reference this tomorrow

[Saasan]

I just read through the patch notes for 5.3 and it looks like Serpentshrine will get some nerfs, but no mention of the chess game. So, Blizz is being nice to us pet collecters with a mind to solo, but I guess they don't mind us wiping a time or two in the process. Or, perhaps they secretly enjoy hearing people complain about "impossible" mechanics???

[Doobjanka]

Very helpful post. Stickied it so people don't have to search everywhere for it.

[Chrth]

Very helpful post. Stickied it so people don't have to search everywhere for it.

Wow, thanks! I added a note to the Opera Event regarding the potential that it is region-fixed for which Event you get. Once I get more confirmation I'll update.

[Warlock]

Minor note on Illhoof. I ran into a bug with him recently where I killed him so fast that his imp portal never despawned (and by never I mean it took a soft reset to get rid of it). This is super annoying because imps will keep spawning as long as you are within a certain large radius (seemed to stop before chess thankfully but just barely and possibly thanks to shadowmeld). Something to be aware of at least. They don't really hurt at 90 but they will keep you in combat.

[Emachine]

Chess Event seems stupid-easy now, though I may have just gotten lucky. I soloed it a few times before today for transmog gear and today was the first time I'd one-shot it. Too bad I'm batting 0 on pets so far... good thing I have plenty of alts, I guess.

On to SSC and TK...

[Kagalii]

Chess Event seems stupid-easy now, though I may have just gotten lucky. I soloed it a few times before today for transmog gear and today was the first time I'd one-shot it. Too bad I'm batting 0 on pets so far... good thing I have plenty of alts, I guess.

On to SSC and TK...

Think you might've gotten lucky with chess. Medivh cheated in mine so fast by the time Thrall started battling Varian he was at like 40k hp because of the stupid fire.

[Roguekittiekat]

Thrall started battling Varian? I had the plain old regular chess event in mine with Blackhand vs Llane and it took six attempts to figure out which pieces to move before I got my win.

So far I have gotten zero pets from KZ and TK, heading to SSC now.

[Mirage]

The Kara Opera event is not set for the week. I did Kara 3 times today, got the Big Bad Wolf twice, got Romulo and Julianne the third time.

[Doobjanka]

I can confirm the Opera event isn't set. I've gone on 7 toons so far and gotten Romulo five times, BBW once and Wizard of Az once.

[Waveryn]

I got 2 (tideskipper,pocketreaver) of 09 could not solo chess, so have that to finish and had to get help on Vashj, I think Vashj needs nerfed so any class can handle it easily, too many fears/stuns/adds and IMO chess should just be eliminated and open the door to last boss.
Oh and getting the big bad wolf does not guarantee the pet drops and that smells

[Chrth]

Well that didn't take long! From last night's Hotfix list:

Karazhan
Chess Event: Increased the delay between moves for enemy chess pieces.

Note, if your King is taking too much damage from fire, you're not doing it right. You need to move the pawn in front of him first and make sure there's always a space he can move to in case a fire is dropped on him. Every time you get a "Medivh cheats!" message, your first priority is making sure the King is not in the fire.

EDIT: I've updated the op with the info that the Opera Event isn't region-specific and can be run on multiple alts.

[Warlock]

The Kara Opera event is not set for the week. I did Kara 3 times today, got the Big Bad Wolf twice, got Romulo and Julianne the third time.

Good to know! At least I can try to spam it

I ended up only getting two (Tainted Waveling and Lesser Voidcaller). Boo my luck I have alts to try at least though. I was really hoping to at least get the Netherspace Abyssal so at least I could skip chess

[Malibu12s]

I ran Kara last night solo. Soooooo annoying. First, I've never done it. Not familiar with the layout. Finally figured all that out. I didn't know the Opera event changed. I got lucky and got the big bad wolf event.

The chess event was supremely annoying. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but it took me a while to figure out that once I "Take control of your king" you then have to cancel, run back to take control of another player. Probably my fourth or fifth time doing it I won. Using the strat that most have already pointed out with one exception... I moved both pawns king and queen up one. then moved my conjurer (Queen) up one. Medvah brought his king up early and i was able to do some damage to him while he was two spaces away. Fire came and I moved the king up one and just kept spamming heroism and sweep. Not looking forward to THAT every week.

All in all it took me a few hours I killed everything in sight (I wasn't sure who the pets dropped from.) I GOT NOTHING! No pets, no mounts...zip....zilch.....nada. Looks like my RNG luck is consistent. (I still have no darkmoon eye despite doing it every day that the faire is there since the dude was put in. I still haven't gotten a snowy panda even though I did that long singular beasts of fable quest almost daily. Repeated runs every week of TOT has yielded NO PETS for me. The ones I have I've had to buy or trade. I beginning to think blizzard is messing with me on purpose now. Don't get me started on how long I've been trying to fish up the giant sewer rat, tiny red carp, and those damn books for Higher learning never seem to show.)

I have no alts at 90 so looks like this is going to be a slow grind for me. Thanks for the Great post to the OP. Your work is appreciated. Is there anything I can do to appease the RNG Gods? Could I sacrifice an Ancona Chicken or something? Maybe offer up a Summit Kid? I don't know. How can they hate me this much???

[Waflob]

I feel your pain. Sometimes it's just easier to accept that the game hates us ...
I did all of the raids for the new pets and got 1 (the Pocket Reaver). Looks like a long grind coming up - at least I have plenty of alts I can (mis)use for this.

[Doobjanka]

I've done Karazhan on 9 toons, gotten Big Bad Wolf opera event twice, and the pet once. Only done Chess three times, but I got the pet from the final boss the third time, so now I can do it to help others. I've only seen The Curator drop his pet once, but gotten two from Terestian Illhoof.

Pro-tip for Karazhan: If you plan to go back later for Chess event, kill Shade of Aran for the easy teleport. Saves five or six minutes of running later.

SSC has not been as kind, although the one time I managed to solo Vashj she dropped the pet, so I can skip her. I only need Hydross' pet.

TK did take 8 toons to get all three pets, with Al'ar being the final holdout. Loot Reaver seems to have the best luck, but pure caster classes will have a bit of trouble with him thanks to his silence.

Quick note. On High Astromancer Solarian, you should have no problem pulling the entire room, as long as you kill the two patrolling groups first. They like to mind control and reset the boss. Kill them and the 40 or so mobs in the room do no damage whatsoever and you can easily AoE them down.

[Chrth]

Pro-tip for Karazhan: If you plan to go back later for Chess event, kill Shade of Aran for the easy teleport. Saves five or six minutes of running later.

Great tip, adding to OP.