I tried Horrific Vision last night during my cloak quest, and got killed pretty badly by Thrall. He’s immune to slow effect and the room was too tiny for me to run/Blink around.
My gear is still low, and perhaps my strategy was faulty, because my other toons handled it readily. Should I have just stood there and take the beating, use potion/Ice Block/Ward and heal myself with Crucible of Flame? Or, perhaps I should be using Arcane/Fire for burst damage.
You’re gonna take a beating at low ilvl, and you pretty much just have to take it, just sidestep his big frontal attack he does. Frost should be fine, but I would for sure try eating the Ghastly Goulash food, it regenerates 2% of your health every second.
Thank you, I will look into it. The only other time I fail at first Horrific Vision was with my Monk. 
Ghastly Goulash is about the only healing you need. Doesn’t protect against massive burst but as frost you can at least ice block or freeze stuff to regenerate.
The biggest issue is sanity. It’s hard to do the easier bonus zones (for example the Drag or Trade district) before rank 5 cloak as this comes with a big bump in sanity loss resistance (40% from 25). And it’s difficult to do the hardest zones (for example Mage Quarter and whatever Rexxar’s zone is called) before rank 11 as that’s when you go from 50% to 65% sanity loss resistance. Similarly it’s hard to do full clears until you get the Elite Extermination research, and to do masks until you’re max cloak + have the Gift of the Titans research. Those things are more important than class/ilvl in my opinion. Also remember to seek out the +100 sanity potions (two per zone) and use Kebabs (+100 sanity) as often as you can. You can use Kebabs while you have the Ghastly Goulash buff and it doesn’t mess with it.
Also if you have access to max rank Lens of Focusing Iris major, it can be really useful for Visions. Pull a large pack and basically one-shot them if you line it up right.
Beyond that, you’ll need to have an understanding of the various mechanics and affixes and know how to clear packs efficiently and avoid unnecessary sanity loss. There are a ton of guides and videos for that.
Edit: Just noticed you were specifically talking about Thrall. Yeah, Thrall is the toughest boss for me as well. Even at 470+ ilvl I had problems soloing him in 5-mask. And I died to him the first couple times way back when and didn’t do solo Org visions until like rank 6 or 7 cloak because I was afraid of him. I solo’d 5-mask SW like a month before I solo’d 5-mask Org. You should be able to kill him with Goulash and making sure to not get hit by ant mechanic, but it’s a pain. It’s especially tough for NoIL since we can’t get the separation to get off a big Glacial Spike. But two tricks here 1) Whenever you have Brainfreeze and Icicles up you can blink away and turn around quick enough to get the 10+ yards you need to get it off, and 2) use any time he spends casting to get far enough away to cast it. But for most of the fight if you’re NoIL you’ll be throwing pillows at him.
Soloing the cloak from scratch is a daunting task for a mage, sadly. Doable, but not as nearly effective as a Demon Hunter would have.
So instead of risking wasting Vessels, I had to use the group finder to have at least a couple of people helping out.
Also, to my experience, due to AoE mobility, Arcane felt better to solo Visions with…
Tbh, I would recommend Arcane for your first few. Taking Overpowered, Rune of Power, Charged Up, Rule of Threes, and Touch of the Magi. If you manage to get 3x Equipoise gear then you should be able to easily get thrall down with Timewarp. Granted, I’m extremely biased when it comes to Arcane and now Fire, but imo, Frost just wouldn’t have the burst at low sanity levels and low gear. Fishing for procs by casting a spell with a semi-long cast time will make that fight challenging in your current state. With Arcane at least your casts are not fishing for procs, you have a strong burst with Rune and Overpowered talent. On top of that you can avoid the first few packs by greater invising which will save you some sanity drain.
Arcane also has the added benefit of:
-Clearcasting Procs (making Arcane Missiles instant cast, and with slipstream talent, instant cast while moving).
-Displacement: so on his black swirl you would Blink out of the swirl and into the clear—then use displacement when the swirl and the clear switch—putting you back into the clear.
I’d also recommend going full consumables. It might be overkill, but it is insurance:
Ghastly Goulash (Food Buff)
Abyssal Healing Potions
Warlock Stones (ask a warlock to make you some beforehand)
War-Scroll of Fortitude (Or priest buff)
Arcane Intellect
(If going Arcane) Potion of Focused Resolve for pre-pot and Potion of Unbridled Fury during the fight.
man i feel like i didnt start doing them until ilvl 430-440.
I didn’t find it too hard when i first started. Time warp, keep barrier up and mash frostbolts til you have glacial spike + flurry. Shimmer during your cast to get out of the bad he puts on the ground. Repeat til dead.
I would definitely take shimmer over ice floes, especially since you have the heal on blink azerite trait.
I’m gonna start this by saying Visions suck on mages when you’re gearing up. Even once you’re geared it still isn’t the fastest, although Arcane is very good at bursting down bosses. Something like a BM hunter or DH can absolutely wreck visions way faster than a mage could.
For Frost: Personally I prefer the Orb build for this because it allows you more instants in your rotation and is generally more mobile. If you have the Quick Thinking trait, it allows you to heal a decent bit every time you use Flurry/Ice Lance. The Glacial Spike build might not be best since you can only launch the spike at 5 icicles, and if Thrall is too close to you then the follow up Flurry may not always Shatter the Spike, which is your big damage dealer.
For the fight itself, make sure you have Goulash. The Defensive potion + Healing potions can also help provided you have enough time left on them to where they will not expire mid-fight. Time Warp him on pull, use Icy Veins, and your equipped Essence and just follow through with your rotation.
I would actually recommend Floes over Shimmer, for three reasons:
This is what I did as well. I was 445 ilvl and only had 2 packed ice traits but could pretty easily spam visions up to cloak lvl 15 (I hoarded the currency until a higher ilvl). I would strongly recommend the orb build over glacial spike or fire. I did not test arcane so it may be good.
I also prefer Packed Ice Orb build when soloing as frost.
One problem with Glacial Spike build is to get maximum effect you need to stand at a distance casting Glacial Spike while spamming your Flurry button. But when I’m soloing, the mobs are probably standing in my face… way too close for that to work.
Arcane can be highly effective in visions as it has adequate AOE with AOE gear on and excellent single-target. Bosses don’t last long during arcane power, when I’m spamming Arcane Blasts for that crit for nearly 300k each with an 84% crit chance.
Biggest downside of Arcane is mana. I find myself having to stop and drink up frequently. This is irritating and can risk the loss of a key if done too much. Other specs can kill non-stop.
General consensus is you need to be ilvl 475 as mage to do any visions
I’ve solo 5-masked at 448 arcane. I find it to be even more convenient than havoc
thats interesting. especially since the shadowlands only method of gearing is going to be visions like scenarios and raids but the scenarios will be mandatory 5 mans and unsoloable due to focus on teamwork. They dont want any solo abiliity going forward.
Thank you all. I finished Thrall on the second run after I geared up with Crucible of Flame’s self-heal + barriers. What a difference it makes.
And, I gave up on running away from Thrall until he does his mechanics. He moves fast enough that neither Blink nor Ice Floe could escape him, so I just tanked him. Self healing came easy when I do that while he’s grunting with abilities. XD
Any particular reason you decided to troll this thread?