- 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
Raid Composition & Preparation
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.
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 Keep – Kael’thas Sunstrider!
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