Soloing Molten Core as Feral Druid

With Cataclysm the entire old world is going to be remade. So it's not unlikely that old raid instances like Molten Core will be remade or removed. So right now is the perfect time to return to that infamous hole in the ground, either to farm rep or, more ambitious, farm for Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros. Various classes/specs can solo Molten Core these days and Feral Druids are no exception. With 2 players, more or less any combination of classes and specs can handle the place.

This post is on how to solo Molten Core with a Feral Druid. I first did this with T8 level gear and some bosses needed some thought. Now with mostly T10 level gear, alot of the tips that I'll mention are no longer needed. Gear has a big effect on how easy it is to solo the place, so keep that in mind when reading this. Your mileage may vary.

Gear & Setup
Melee damage from the trash and bosses is really low. The majority of the damage you'll take will be magical in nature. This means that armor and avoidance are fairly useless. Stamina and resistance are king. Resistance has a big effect on the damage you take and most of your healing (Imp LotP and Frenzied Regen) scale with your HP. The tanking rings from Onyxia are very nice. Additionally, a Lesser Flask of Resistance can be a big help and they're dirt cheap. I like to run with Drums of the Forgotten Kings as well, the +8% stats is useful to have and the drums are not that expensive to make. DPS stats on gear are always useful, but I prefer survivability in the form of HP and resistance over more DPS. Beat stuff with endurance.

To enter a raid instance, you need to be in a raid group. What I found most convenient is to log an alt, invite a guildie to a raid group, make the guildie raidleader, log my Druid, get invited and get leadership. The offline alt stays in the raid and the guildie can now leave without the raid disbanding. Finally, make sure you have plenty of bagspace, as there will be a lot of stuff to loot and the epics sell for anything between 1 and 10 gold each, so that's not too bad.

Imp. LotP will provide most of your healing. If you go low, use Survival Instincts and Frenzied Regeneration combined with any trinkets that increase your max health (such as Juggernauts Vitality) for maximum returns on Frenzied Regeneration. Use Barkskin and any other damage-reduction cooldowns whenever they're up and you're not at full HP. If you need to heal, pop Barkskin as you shift out, cast Regrowth and then spam Nourish. Innervate yourself before you shift back if you expect to have to heal again before your mana has replenished.

Lucifron
Lucifron is quite straightforward, the majority of the damage will come from his shadowbolts. You can ignore the adds, they will die when you Berserk and from Swipe and glyphed Maul. The curse that double the rage cost of your abilities can be annoying, but it's not a major issue. You can decurse yourself if you want, it'll make it go a bit faster, but it's not needed.

Magmadar
The main challenge in this boss lies in the trash before him. I opt to clear the two packs closest to him to ensure I don't get adds when I get feared. Make sure you see healthbars on the Corehound packs (press "V") and make sure they die at roughly the same time or they resurrect each other. Magmadar himself is not a problem. Make sure to move out of the fire and save Berserk to break a fear. Other than that it's just a long fight.

Gehennas
This boss used to give me the most problems. The reasons for that are first that he casts Shadowbolts and Rain of Fire almost continuously and rarely uses melee, bypassing your Savage Defense. Secondly, he applies a curse that reduces healing taken by 75%. The curse has cooldown, but he seems to not use it if someone is already affected. So when you decurse yourself, expect a new curse shortly after. Decurse once more and you should have a window to heal. Do this when you hit 30~40% HP, heal up with SI+FR. Repeat this with casterform-heals if you drop low before SI+FR is back up. In the meantime, run out of the Rain of Fire when you can. If you have any resistance buffs, now is the time to use them. The adds are of little consequence, ignore them and they'll die eventually from Berserk, Swipe and Maul.

Garr
Garr is very straightforward. Depending on your gear you either want to focus-fire down the adds or just start on Garr and let the adds die from Swipe and Maul damage. Although you'll resist most of the explosions from the adds, make sure to get your back to a wall so you don't get knocked into trashpacks you've skipped.

Baron Geddon
Geddon does only magical damage, so your armor is useless. The main dangers are his Hellfire, that increases in strength with time (Just run out of it) and the Living Bomb. The falling damage you take after Living Bomb explodes can be painful. Make sure you have rock above your head that you can bounce into to reduce the fall-distance. The tunnel before Geddon is a good spot, but you can also use the area just before the ledge overlooking Golemagg. Additionally, Feral Charging Geddon while in the air makes you take no falling damage.

If you need to heal in casterform, do it during the Hellfire, as Geddon isn't hitting you then. The mana drain debuff he casts doesn't do anything as long as you're in Feral form, but it will quickly drain your mana if you shift out. It lasts for 5 minutes, so it can be slightly annoying if you need to heal after the boss.

Shazzrah
This boss is trivial. You will most likely outheal its damage with Imp. LotP and if not, SI+FR will certainly do the trick.

Sulfuron Harbringer
You're in for the long haul with this one. Sulfuron has 4 adds and they all heal each other. Alone you will not have enough DPS to burst down an add, so the only option is to outlast them until they run out of mana. Most of the damage will come from the spells cast by the adds. Just stay alive by cycling your damage reduction and healing cooldowns until they run out of mana. The adds die very quickly once that happens and Sulfuron himself does not pose a big threat.

Golemagg the Incinerator
Golemagg has 2 adds that can't die while the boss is still alive, but they don't hit very hard. Attacking Golemagg gives a chance to stack a fire DoT. Once you get high stacks, you should stop attacking Golemagg and wait for the DoT to fade.I like to hit one of the adds when doing this, to keep Savage Defense going. Use Barkskin at this stage, as the damage intake will be highest. At 10% Golemaggs damage output goes up considerably, so make sure you're high on HP and low on DoT stacks at this point.

Majordomo Executus
This fight is rather easy. There are 8 adds that need to die to beat the encounter. Even though 4 of them are called "Priest", they don't heal. Just take them out one at a time. When there's only one add up, it's healed to full and its damage increases, but this is hardly worth mentioning.

Ragnaros
The final boss. His melee damage is rather low and you'll outheal most, if not all, of it with Imp. LotP. The main threat is the periodic knockback. If you get knocked back and end up out of melee range, Ragnaros will spam 6K damage Fireballs at you, which can eat through your healthbar rather quickly. To counter this, make sure you save at least 5 rage for Feral Charge and quickly spam Feral Charge when he does the knockback. This instantly brings you back in melee range. If you don't manage to charge back, make sure you get back to the boss as soon as possible. Once the boss submerges, just Swipe-spam the adds, they die very quickly.

Farming for Sulfuras
For Sulfuras you need the following items:

• Eye of Sulfuras - This is the legendary drop from Ragnaros. It seems to have a 3~5% drop-chance so you'll just have to hope for the best.
  
• Sulfuron Ingot x 8 - These drop with a 15~20% chance from Golemagg, but they're not BoP, so you can fetch them on the AH as well.
  
• Blood of the Mountain x 10 - These drop from Molten Destroyers (~5%) and can be mined from Dark Iron Ore nodes (~1%). Your best bet is to farm the Molten Destroyers in the zone, get out, wait 30 minutes for the place to soft-reset and go again. The Bloods can be traded, so check the AH, since these are hard to farm.
  
• Dark Iron Bar x 20 - These need 8 Dark Iron Ore per bar. The Dark Iron Ore is mostly found in Molten Core, though there are some nodes in the Searing Gorge as well. Your best bet is to get a miner in your cleared raid to grab the ore or to fetch it from the AH. The bars can only be created in Black Rock Depths.
  
• The rest is all easy to get and you'll get automatically while farming MC for the other components.
  

Good luck!