(Mercenaries) Fun strategies for bounties

So, in this topic I propose to share your ideas of cool, unusual, funny and so on ways to do some bounties, including older ones, and particularly — in ways that involve somewhat new and unusual strategies, make use of recent updates, employ some mercs that do not see as much play, perhaps, are outright hilarious or something like it (so, for the especially talented ones out there: no, your suggestions to roll through everything with e.g. the ‘standard’ Fire team are of no interest here).

Since farming the infamous quillboar with Tyrael solo has turned out to be quite… boaring, and you’re not even guaranteed to succeed if you meet enemy mercs, I’ve mostly given up on it and decided to focus on this instead. Here’s what I’ve been up to recently:

  1. Heroic Nefarian with Fire resistance :fire: and the Golden Monkey :monkey_face: .

You can use Brann with the Relic of Uldum and Gruul with Dragon’s Skull in order to stack fire resistance, and I’ve decided to complement it with Elise, just because I can. You can get through many encounters in Blackrock — especially those that shoot fire — with those, but you can use something else to fill your party. For example, you can use the full roster of Explorers, although they can struggle with some Elite fights, or add something else, like Malfurion, Guff and Bru’kan, who synergise also with Elise. PS Funny note: the Summit Campfire will force critical damage from the bleeding, so, when fighting ‘trash mobs’ with the fire resistance combination, you can just sit, chill and watch the opponents fall, it’s quite a relaxing way of climbing to the boss, if you ask me.

Now, for the boss fight, you still use the initial trio alongside Valeera, stack up that fire resistance, so you can laugh at the first stage soon enough… And then you summon the Golden Monkey, which actually helps to give Nefarian quite a spanking — literally, with that Trusty Whip and other tools, and show him who’s the boss.

A few notes: first, you do not want to apply bleeding with Elise on turn 2, since it will result in a bug with the second stage, where Nefarian and one of his sidekicks will not appear. So, just heal instead in order to have maximum fun. Second, you can even afford to summon one orc with Gruul on turn 2 and keep him alive, perhaps, but make sure to leave room for the Golden Monkey. Finally, while you characters will have quite enough fire resistance, the newly summoned Golden Monkey will not, so you might want to transition to the boss at that point.

  1. Heroic Mi’Da with Murlocs

Yep, that’s right, due to some changes to Healing Wave, which is available on both Morgl and that shard with no cooldowns. I’ve used the team of 6 murlocs just for the mrgl (as for equipment, mostly the usual stuff… Bubble Wand, Dousing Rod and March of the Murlocs, among others), and for the boss I’ve used Murky to summon more murlocs, Morgl and Finley. Lost Morgl during the fight, but otherwise, you can do it.

  1. Beasts — Xuen finally finds his place (in PvE)?

Yeah, I know, others have been trying it, too, but what of it. My take on a Beast Party is as follows: Rexxar (with those claws, of course), Anacondra (summoning that extra viper can even contribute to Xuen, but mainly as a dedicated Beast healer), Xuen (Celestial Chestplace), Blink Fox (with the Arcane Fang for even more damage against those protectors, which is why it’s there in the first place), Trigore (of course) and Mukla with his big brother. You can play multiple combinations, depending on enemy colours… One possibility is even Anacondra, Rexxar and Xuen — with even more attack for the latter to borrow. I’ve tried heroic Kresh — although he wiped the initial party (I think it was Rexxar, Mukla and Trigore, if I’m not mistaken) and himself with Turtle Trample on turn 2, and Yeti Hunter Ranel (really never liked that one on a personal level, and that part of Winterspring used to be difficult in terms of getting to the boss, making that bounty double unpleasant, but you can do it; for the boss itself, I’ve used three fighters, as listed above, for quite a convincing victory without losing any mercs) successfully so far, and with some treasures, your Beasts will grow really big.

PS Oh, and Rexxar now feels more like a Beastmaster than just a ‘face hunter’, which is also cool, in my opinion, and he’s more fun to play with that way.

[Updated]

I’ve done also heroic Snowclaw with Beasts, although not without casualties (I’ve not been very focused, so mistakes might have been made), and the heroic Siren of the Deep. During the latter I’ve noticed how Rexxar can be the new Kazakus, summoning a taunt minion every turn for the opponents to attack…

Oh, and one more thing: I suppose these efforts by Blokschaaf deserve an honorary mention, showing how you can sometimes succeed even with limited resources and unusual combinations in a novel and creative way.

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I don’t have detailed notes since it’s been a while since I’ve done these. But I like the thread concept!

  1. Heroic Smolderwing with Gruul (I think with Yu’lon and Brightwing), an early form of the fire resistance strategy you detailed more thorougly for Nefarian. IIRC I did this while grinding coins to craft Deathwing (before the task change, so I didn’t have stupid numbers of packs to open to get it that way). The passive fire resist takes a lot of pressure off, and Gruul’s shot does a nice chunk of damage. As I recall Gruul would usually die, but at that point the fight was already won and whatever dragon I brought in (Sinestra, probably) just helped the other two clean up.
  2. Heroic Snowclaw - surprisingly easy with pirates, as Edwin boosts speed enough that they don’t take too much damage. Also amusing with a Shadow/Old Gods type of comp using C’Thun. Middle equipment destroys one of the initial totems, which is enough to pull the team out of the “Everyone is sooo slooow and takes a ton of damage!” trap that made this one so hard with most comps. I don’t remember exactly who I brought with C’Thun, maybe Yogg and Sylvanas?
  3. Heroic Onyxia with a dragon comp using Deathwing equipped with Demon Soul - very easy, very entertaining! :smiley:
  4. Like some others here, I’ve been experimenting a little bit with a healing power team. Chi-ji, Baine, Velen is my approach, sometimes works decently (can do Heroic Secret Cow, though that’s not a terribly high bar to clear). Haven’t had time to do much more with it though, I think I was fiddling with this while Baine was on my task board, and he’s been done for a while now.
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As for my Beast party: done heroic Shek’zara with it, despite picking up an awkward Cursed Treasure (why did I bother, without even needing those extra coins?).

Oh! That has always been my main strategy, and I’ve always considered big green dragons like Nefarian (my original combination for him, I think, used to be Diablo, Gruul and Malfurion for the first stage and a standard Nature party on the bench for climbing and, if needed, reinforcements; of course, subsequently I also discovered the Garrosh method online) and Smolderwing as Gruul’s chance to shine (and there is also Drakisath, but I actually used Old Guardian’s method when I got the necessary mercs into shape… except for me, Thrall wouldn’t die there :grinning: , maybe due to the upgraded poacher and using Howl of Terror tactically). As for Smolderwing, Gruul’s passive essentially negates his passive. I’ve been using the ‘Holy-Human’ team, which I considered (and probably still do, although there could be decent alternatives nowadays) the best in Alterac, to climb safely, with Gruul as a special guest just for the boss. At the actual boss fight, I would use Gruul with Velen and Anduin, the latter two taking care of red mobs and providing some healing. Sometimes one merc would die, but it did get the job done.

PS Oh, and using Gruul in that fight also adds some flavour, since you’re allied with the Stonemaul clan there, and Gruul, as far as I know, is generally allied with ogres.

Interesting. Pirates are arguably the most OP tribe in PvE and quite obnoxious in PvP as well, though (the recent Old Gods might be a contender to that title), so no big surprise here… although I would think you’d still take some damage from that passive. I think the old-fashioned way would be to use Rokara with Krush or Rathorian to destroy all those totems one by one on turn 2.

I’ve actually tried Deathwing there, but it’s not that effective, if you ask me. Unless they changed something in the most recent patch(es), Demon Soul doesn’t prevent summoned minions from attacking first (which is also the case with Nefarian — the mercenary, that is, not the boss, and Drakonid Rush in particular), only taking control of them afterwards… It might help with the count of dead minions/dragons, but not much more than that. But then again, heroic Onyxia is doable with 6 dragons — I think I’ve tested it for some recent event… didn’t use Deathwing then, though, since I believe there are better dragons available.

Speaking of which: one should definitely try Chi-Ji on (heroic) Balinda. Firestorm used to do obscene amounts of damage there, I don’t even know whether it’s a bug or not… But Chi-Ji, Anduin and Velen is probably the easiest combination for the boss fight.

PS Oh, there’s another hilarious one: Leeroy Jenkins vs (heroic) Ahune. If your main method is using Velen + Anduin, then you either need spell power or another merc with decent AoE to get rid of the first group of shards before they can act for the safest method. Well, enter Leeroy… By the end of this fight, he can get so much attack from Ninja Looting… it’s probably one of the biggest Leeroys you’ll see.

Either they changed something, or my memory is being really bad, because my recollection is that the summoned minion immediately popped over to my side of the board…

Re: Snowclaw and pirates, yes, you take a little bit of damage at first, but only a very manageable amount.

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I’ve actually tested it now, doing Onyxia (Heroic) with 6 dragons again and this time taking Deathwing with the Demon Soul with me. So, it’s my recollection or description of that interaction that was a bit inaccurate: if the summoned minion is supposed to attack one of your characters (‘Into the Whelp Pit!’ or ‘Drakonid Rush’ in particular do that), you take control of it immediately, but then it still attacks its initial target. For this boss fight in particular, this leads to a hilarious chain reaction: your minions’ attacks (if I understand correctly, yes, it’s those whelps that you’ve taken control of) cause Onyxian Warders to spawn more whelps… there are so many that some of them will not fit on your side of the board and die immediately (for Onyxia, apparently, fuelling her subsequent ‘Volcanic Fire’), so this method is still not recommended, if you ask me.