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Comment by 43040

This thing is immune to everything except magic.

Comment by 78626

As a rogue soloing Scholomance for some time it took me a while to get a strategy to kill these guys since they're immune to physical damage and can only be kill by spell damage - something rogues don't have a lot of. But I finally conquered my foe and am now able to kill them with ease and takes about 30sec-1min to kill just one, but they're going down. For a rogue, I would say thats mission accomplished.

Comment by jackhunter64

For Warriors trying to solo these mobs, there's not a lot of options. I've taken to using a combination of Stormchops, Stratholme Holy Water and the Petrified Lichen Guard. It's not a fast method, but it does work.

Comment by 38392

There's actually another way of killing them, Bursting them down.

If you manage to take off the last 40% of their health in 2-3 shots, they wont have time to switch form.

If you do Fail, I suggest you drag the mob to the bottom floor to the room to your right and go into the water in the back, it makes they evade and reset.

Hope you find this useful

Comment by mordain23

hunters, these things will die to serpent sting and arcane shot

Comment by 222970

Melee folk need not clear the room to kill Instructor Malicia, as aggro toward her won't pull the other mobs in the room. Just go around the occultists if you're high enough level.

Edit: To clarify: Yes, the final boss won't appear until you kill all mobs in the room, but it is possible to easily solo Instructor Malicia as a melee class without going through the rest of the mobs. Just in case you're after the Corruptor's Scourgestone or something.

Comment by 158901

now I'm fairly certain that this was just a glitch but I currently have downed a dark shade by using shield slam. It was right as it turned into it, so I figured just the image had loaded but it hadn't finished it's transformations so I thought it would be read as an occultist in my combat log, but sure enough, it was there.

SS link here

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h197/shkabla/impossibility.jpg

there the actualy combat text is hard to see. but it happened somehow.

Comment by 235862

as a rogue i had lots of trouble soloing these guys until i got fed up and had a look at what i could make with my engineering, i had no grenades on me but i had the matts for http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=54998 so i gave it a try and it worked fantastically
now i can farm scholo with no probs at all :)

Comment by 304866

I confirmed it today, it CAN be soloed by a warrior.
Burst damage when their health gets down to about 1/3, and Stormchops to finish them off. Fiery weapon didn't work, nor weapons that have bonus fire damage.
If your health gets low, pull them down to the room directly beneath, and run to the far wall, into the water. They will leave after a few moments, and reset back to human form. It was still a pain even with an 80 Tauren Warrior. Good luck!

Comment by jkapernicus

If you are an engineer saronite bombs will finish them off.

Comment by 161675

I forgot about these guys and ran into Instructor Malicia's room spamming http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51723. The mobs that turn into Dark Shades can easily be two-shot if you're paying attention to what you're doing and not just spamming melee aoe. Just for fun I tried out http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34029 and it does work on them, although not 100% reliably. The gnomes killed two of my shades and then just stood around looking at one last one as it kept slapping me.

Comment by 98821

Here's another idea for warriors/rogues trying to get these guys. The only thing I had available that did any kind of spell damage was (believe it or not) my Iron Boot Flask. It has random 'electric discharges' that do nature spell damage. You'll have to stay alive for several minutes to get enough procs, but that's hopefully not an issue for anyone soloing this at 80.

Comment by 332184

If you are an arms warrior, then the best way of doing this is to;

Charge, then pop Blood Fury, then Blood rage, then Bladestorm.

Sometimes it works against both Occultists in one place - sometimes it only kills one at a time.

Just keep running into the water like the other posters suggest and go back when all CD's are ready!

;)

You just KNOW Stiggy loves you! ;) ™

Comment by harulez

i thought it was time to get this achievement and i found out that the shades are hard to kill as a warrior.

when i first used my horseman's blade with the pumpkins they did alot of fire dmg and killed the shades fast, but when the mobs has become shades, the pumpkins cant do fire dmg, they can only do fire dmg before they transforms and a bit after.

So all in all to help you with this, use your sword to summon the pumpkins and then nuke the mobs fast, the pumpkins might kill them off just exactly when they become shades.

Btw, the ability has 10 min cd

Comment by 263426

WAY TO KILL AS ARMS WARRIOR!

I don't know why this worked but it has a 100% success rate, and it kills the shades. I don't know which part did the killing so I'll list everything I did. Attack the occultists, use Battle Shout, Blood Fury (orc racial) Retaliation and then Bladestorm. This will kill 1 shade no matter how many you fight. Then turn, run out of the room, jump over the railing and hide in the pools. Rinse and repeat, it worked with me and helped me solo this as a 71 Warrior.

+1 this if it helped.

Comment by Jagno

If you happen to have a Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker on you, the Nature damage from it will eventually kill the shades as well.

Comment by 372604

Confirmed, even after they turn into Shade form if you jump in the water in Ravenian's room they eventually run away, so they haven't changed it yet.

Also as a warrior I believe you can use Spell Reflect when they throw their little shadow bolts at you and reflect it back to them, that is only if it doesn't miss you completely.

Comment by 387387

Lol as a lvl80 rogue these were the hardest mobs I ever had to fight. After countless tries having to go downstairs hide in the water, i had to rely on Killing Spree and some crits to kill them by melee before they had a chance to turn shades.
Mind that being stunned does NOT prevent them from turning Shade.

Comment by Vath

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=13213 also works. From LBRS. Just another tool to use for warriors and other melee classes.

Comment by Jajarra

In case anyone was wondering, Shattering Throw does not work against these.

Comment by 64664

At least Frightskull Shaft] doesn't help. Probably because they are immune to shadow? Any Shadow Priest may want to confirm on that part.
Neither does Vestige of Haldor

Seems to work. However equiping will override the first stack from Petrified Lichen Guard. Best will be to use the Essence at a full stack of 5 then.

They also hurl around some shadow bolts (not actual casts), they can't be reflected.

Comment by desperado2294

I also found that another thing that could help us magicless warriors is if you are one of the lucky ones and have engineering as a profession the gnomish lightening generators work marvelous after they change into the shades took me ten dives into the water to figure it out but it works better and faster than anything else i tried

Comment by 465362

Just solo'd this as an 80 prot warrior. Didn't have access to stormchops. Went out and pick up a Petrified Lichen Guard and thought I'd try out The Horseman's Blade and my newly acquired Bitter Balebrew Charm. The combination of the three made clearing out the Dark Shades quick and effortless.

Comment by 465883

A tip for prot warriors: When the Dark Shades are around 40-30% use Heroic Strike, then Shield Slam (This generally works as the Heroic Strike is not on the GCD)

Comment by 481938

As a warrior with a http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7734. I found that these guys walk really slow so i just kited them around the balcony that has the upper three rooms. Then just blasted them whenever the cooldown was up.

Comment by GWARslave

use this http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49116 . Works like a charm...well, er, trinket ;)

Comment by 480038

As a rogue just spam shiv and they'll go down in a few seconds (deadly poison on offhand)

Comment by pinnacle

Skullflame Shield and Linken's Sword of Mastery don't have any effect on these guys.

Comment by 479526

I'm a 71 Orc Arms Warrior and found that it works if you use attack power buffs (Trinkets, Battle Shout and Blood Fury), use Charge and bladestorm, which kills them.

Comment by Ashtangy

Jumping in graves that are in the water in the room below, where "The Ravenian", shadows are reset in human form and return to their site, ready to kill them before they become transformed ^^.

Comment by 365880

Engineering makes this easy. Any of your crafted bombs will deal fire damage, and you always have your frag belt by 80. Thermosapper charges work wonders as well. At lower levels, goblin engineers can use the goblin rocket launcher trinker (especially the warriors) due to it's high stamina boost.

Comment by Promithium

Well here's a way for level 70 prot warriors to do this
1. Attack it in Berserker Stance
2. Pop Recklessness
3. Switch to Defensive Stance
4. Hit revenge and win

Comment by gabrimcr

Most frustrating mob ever killed. As a 72 protection war, it was a real torture...
The trick, if you can't get down it very fast, is to bring him life at a little bit less than an half, than hitting it with your most devastating abilities (in my case, revenge)... i'm doing it right now, and i have only 2 more left...

Comment by 785402

Any Engineering weapon that deals fire of damage will harm this.

Very handy for a Warrior like myself who found one pestering me.

Comment by Armyjohn

With pugs and all that stuff. the chances are that you get in group with warriors and rogues only. Making these mobs incredibly stupid.

Comment by 789545

I singled with a rogue and found out that using vanish when having combo points, then re-attacking with shiv did finish it off. i had, of course, deadly poison applied to both my main and off hand weapons.

Comment by Dustbiter

I am a warrior lvl 85 and i was in scholomance for the achievement. Had troubles with the Dark Shades, because i did not have any magic spells which could kill them. I simply just went out the instance. Mean while the Dark Shades went back and reset into the humanoids. With enough damage i killed them before they turned into Dark Shades again.

Comment by Zivy

These guys are a pain in the rear end. As an 85 rogue, couldn't figure out why they weren't dying. Came here, read up on them. Vanished, they reset to humanoids, killed them before they could change into Dark Shades.

Comment by 178843

If you're unlucky and end up stuck with one of these mobs on you with no way to kill it, go down into the Barov Family Vault and jump onto the big coffer next to the stairs. This should cause them to evade and eventually reset.

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Dark Shade

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Dark Shade

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