High Astromancer Solarian Strategy Guide (Tempest Keep: The Eye)

high astromancer solarian tbc wow raid guide
  • Author: Pride
  • Date: October 6, 2021
  • Updated: October 10, 2021
  • Expansion: TBC Classic

High Astromancer Solarian was widely expected to be the 2nd easiest boss in Tempest Keep, right after Void Reaver

In a surprising turn of events however, we got her pre-nerf version in Classic TBC, which has proven to be slightly trickier than originally expected. At the time of writing this article, Solarian is currently the boss with the 2nd fewest kills in Tempest Keep, right after Kael’thas Sunstrider.

Her stats are not particularly impressive, with roughly 4.6 million HP, relatively low damage output and pretty straightforward mechanics. Her Wrath of the Astromancer ability however has been tricky to handle for many guilds, causing confusion and many wipes.

Thankfully, the meta for countering Solarian has evolved significantly since the PTR and players have found new ways of dealing with her without having to learn how to do weird zig-zag rotations in order to handle Wrath of the Astromancer.

This guide will offer your guild a step-by-step analysis of how to beat this voidwalker wannabe.

Role Summaries

Phase 1

  • Run close to the soakers, but not on top of them, when you get the Wrath of the Astromancer debuff
  • Move away from the soakers as soon as your DoT fades
  • Make sure you’re stacked with the raid when the boss disappears
  • Use a Healthstone if you get targeted by Arcane Missiles at a bad time

Phase 2

  • Shamans in groups with melee DPS or the main tank should use Tremor Totem

Phase 1

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • Quickly interrupt the Solarium Priest that spawns closest to the raid when the boss reappears
  • Solarian turns when using Arcane Missiles, so be behind her at all times to avoid parries

Phase 1

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • Quickly interrupt the Solarium Priest that spawns furthest from the raid when the boss reappears

Phase 2

  • Make sure you’re not within 8 yards of Solarian, as you can get feared

Phase 1

  • Use a target of target macro to quickly heal Solarian’s Arcane Missiles target
  • If your assignment is to heal soakers, do not panic when moving — if they die, you wipe
  • The longer the fight lasts, the more damage your soakers will take — they will need big heals later on

Phase 2

  • Make sure you’re not within 8 yards of Solarian, as you can get feared
  • The main tank will take more damage at this point, while there’s no more raid damage, so focus the MT

Phase 1

  • Solarian does auto-attack, albeit rarely, so you need to be first on threat
  • When Solarian disappears, you will need to AoE tank the Solarium Agents — use a spell power trinket
  • When she reappears, you will need to move her back to her spot, though she moves very slowly

Phase 2

  • Use any available defensive cooldowns to ensure a kill

Soakers

  • Be arcane resistance capped (365, or 331-340 with Mark of the Wild)
  • Stand directly on top of each other, so you always spread the debuff to one another
  • Save defensive cooldowns for later in the fight, when your Wrath of the Astromancer stack count is high

Abilities

This is Solarian’s main attack. She will rarely use melee attacks, as she keeps spamming this.

Deals 3k arcane damage per second to a random target for 3 seconds, for a total of 9k damage. Channeled, 45 yards range. It’s possible for your soakers to outrange this if they stand far away enough.

There is a strange glitch with this ability where it will occasionally tick faster than once per second, and your healers need to be aware of that in order to prevent her target from dying.

The damage is resistible, but it is generally not worth it to use arcane resistance to mitigate it.

Deals 2.4k arcane damage to every raid member.

This is the main mechanic of this encounter that players really need to deal with.

Applies a debuff to a random player in the raid that causes 500 arcane damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds, for a total of 2k damage. After that, that player gains a debuff which increases their arcane damage taken by 50% stacking indefinitely, so the 2nd Wrath of the Astromancer will deal 3k damage, the 3rd 4k, essentially increasing by 1k damage per stack, spread over 4 ticks, gaining 250 damage each.

The catch is that after the DoT ends on you, it spreads to the closest ally. So unless you handle this ability, it will keep stacking and kill your raid.

Its damage is resistible, which is why arcane resistance is recommended for this fight. It is possible to do it with 0 arcane resistance among your entire raid, but it is recommended that you get 2 people with the arcane resistance cap (365 arcane resistance) for the easiest and most efficient strategy, as explained in the Raid Composition & Preparation section.

Cast roughly every 40-50 seconds.

Reduces the arcane resistance of every raid member by 15. Lasts 2 minutes, stacks indefinitely. Cast every 30-50 seconds.

It is ironically possible to resist this spell, thus possibly resetting your stacks.

Solarian teleports away from the arena for a temporary vacation. Actually, she’s still right there, just invisible and invulnerable to all attacks. Lamest magic trick ever.

5 seconds later, 12 Solarium Agents appear. They have no abilities and deal very low damage.

About 15 seconds after the Solarium Agents appear, the boss reappears accompanied by 2 Solarium Priests which cast Arcane Torrent and Greater Heal.

She will disappear every ~90 seconds.

At 20% HP, Solarian will transform into her Voidwalker Form, losing access to all of her previous abilities. 

Her melee attacks will now do more damage, she will cast Void Bolt on the MT for 4-5k shadow damage (resistible) every 8-15 seconds, and fear players within 8 yards with Psychic Scream (also resistible) every 15 to 30 seconds.

Raid Composition & Preparation

There are guides out there recommending that you use 0 arcane resistance for this fight, while others recommend that every raid member brings arcane resistance gear, so players are understandably confused.

The most efficient way to deal with this boss is by having 2 players (called soakers) come with the arcane resistance cap (365). You can have an extra soaker as a backup, but 2 is the minimum amount, and will usually be enough.

Note that Mark of the Wild gives 25 arcane resistance, or 34 if your druid has 5 points in the Improved Mark of the Wild talent. So if you have a druid, your soakers can get away with 331-340 arcane resistance instead.

The soakers can be any 2 people in your raid, any class and spec works. Tanks however make the best candidates by far, and I would strongly advise against making healers soak, as they’re too fragile.

Your soakers should bring some consumables that help them survive, such as Fisherman’s Feast, Elixir of Fortitude, Super Healing Potion, etc.

Your soakers should be Soulstoned, as their deaths can cause a wipe.

Your raid should be buffed with Prayer of Shadow Protection for the bonus chance of resisting her spells in phase 2.

Everyone should have a Healthstone, as Arcane Missiles with bad timing can easily result in death.

This fight is not very healing intensive, so you can get away with as few as 4 healers, though 5 would be recommended. A 6th healer can help if your soakers are are not arcane resistance capped.

Assign 2-3 healers to healing your soakers. Restoration Druids are the best choice for that spot, but Restoration Shamans and Holy Priests work just as well.

One of your healers should be dedicated to raid healing, but as Blinding Light and Wrath of the Astromancer are cast infrequently, this will be a fairly easy task. Restoration Shamans and Holy Priests are the best choices here.

The rest of your healers – particularly Holy Paladins, who have no AoE healing to speak of – should be assigned to healing whichever target is currently being targeted by Arcane Missiles. It is imperative that they react quickly, as being slow can very easily mean you lose a player, particularly right after Blinding Light was cast.

It can be extremely beneficial for your healers to use a target of target healing macro like the one below, which they can spam to proactively heal the target of Arcane Missiles.

/cast [@targettarget] Flash of Light 

There are no special requirements in regards to DPS players for this fight. You can run any DPS setup you like.

Your aim is to burn the boss down before you get overwhelmed by Wrath of the Astromancer stacks. Thus your DPS players should bring flasks, elixirs, buff food etc, so as to make the fight as short as possible.

You only need 1 tank for this fight, so if you’re running a standard setup of 3 tanks, having the other 2 tanks soak generally works best.

I’d recommend that you have your Protection Paladin main tank Solarian, while your 2 other tanks run arcane resistance sets. Protection Paladins are ideal for the main tank spot because they also deal with the Solarium Agents very well.

The Pull

Solarian has a relatively small aggro range, so you’re safe to buff anywhere in her room.

When you’re ready, a hunter pulls with Misdirection, and the raid positions itself as shown in the following picture.

High Astromancer Solarian Strategy Guide (Tempest Keep: The Eye) Positioning

Essentially, the entire raid minus the soakers stacks in the middle, with the melee behind the boss to avoid parries. The soakers stand to the side, some 10-15 yards away to avoid potential accidents.

Beware: If your soakers are not very beefy (meaning tanks) with tons of HP, later on in the fight, when their Wrath of the Astromancer stack count is high, Blinding Light can 1-shot them while Arcane Missiles will do excessively heavy amounts of damage to them. Your healers need to be extra aware with healing them as the fight goes on.

If your raid is lacking on the DPS side and your kill times are slow, resulting in too many stacks, you can consider running a 3rd soaker. Spreading the stacks 3-ways will result in significantly lower damage on the soakers over time.

Phase 1

Similar to Morogrim Tidewalker in Serpentshrine Cavern, phase 2 of this fight is significantly easier than phase 1. Thus, our goal here is to minimize the amount of time spent in phase 1.

For that reason, the rest of your hunters should use Misdirection on the MT right at the start.

As soon as the MT has a healthy aggro lead on the boss, you should use Heroism / Bloodlust and your DPS players should use their damage cooldowns, such as Bestial Wrath, Death Wish, Avenging Wrath, etc.

About 30 seconds into the fight, you’re going to get your first Wrath of the Astromancer debuff. Whoever gets the debuff needs to start running towards the soakers. They should go close to them, but not stand on top of them. They only need to be the closest player to a soaker at the time their debuff expires.

If your healers are on top of healing for this phase, this part will likely be very easy.

About 50 seconds into the fight, you are going to get your first Teleport. This is the reason why the raid is stacking in the center of the room: the Solarium Agents will spawn around the middle, and you want them running towards the raid rather than all over the place. This positioning will make it trivial to group them up and AoE them down with a good prot paladin who’s using their spell power trinket at this time.

If your raid isn’t very high on AoE damage, your shamans of all specs can help by using their Fire Elemental Totem.

About 15 seconds later, Solarian will return with her 2 Solarium Priests. Your prot paladin should pick up the boss and reposition her to the middle of the room again, if possible — she doesn’t move while casting. He can also try to pick up the Solarium Priests, but they don’t hit very hard so it is not a huge deal if he doesn’t maintain aggro on them.

The Solarium Priests spawn in various spots around the centre of the room. They usually start casting Greater Heal right away, which you will want to interrupt by having your mages and elemental shamans interrupt the Solarium Priest that spawned further away, while your rogues and warriors interrupt the Solarium Priest that spawned closer. Stack them up by the boss and kill them before resuming DPS on the boss.

Note that Solarian can cast all her abilities, including Blinding Light and Wrath of the Astromancer, as soon as she reappears from her Teleport, so your raid — mostly the healers — need to not panic during the transition. Make sure that your soakers are topped off and whoever gets Wrath of the Astromancer moves towards them ASAP.

And that is all of phase 1. She will repeat these abilities in this pattern until you get her down to 20% or your raid gets overwhelmed by Wrath of the Astromancer and wipes.

Phase 2

If you’ve gotten this far and your soakers are still alive, you are very likely to get a kill as this phase is significantly easier than phase 1, as mentioned previously.

All of your healers minus the soaker healers should now transition to healing your MT, as there will no longer be any raid damage besides the Wrath of the Astromancer DoT on your soakers.

Your shamans should switch to using Tremor Totem to help deal with her AoE fear. This will be the extent of the adaptations you will have to make for phase 2.

Your healers can use their healing cooldowns and trinkets at this point to ensure you do not get a streak of bad luck killing your MT and depriving you of an otherwise easy kill.

Note that even though she has a large voidwalker model in this form, she is still classified as a humanoid, not a demon, so things like Exorcism and Mark of the Champion will not work.

Congratulations on being one step closer to the last and most difficult boss of Tempest KeepKael’thas Sunstrider!

 

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!
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