Can you solo Shadowlands raids in Dragonflight? Answered

It's still going to be difficult.

Image via Blizzard Entertainment

As our World of Warcraft characters have progressed into the game’s next expansion, Dragonflight, the content from the previous expansion, Shadowlands, has gotten substantially easier. Most of the its content that required a group to complete just one year ago can now be completed solo. 

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However, raids are the exception to this rule: they can still be a bit difficult to complete on your own, even if your Dragonflight character is fully optimized

While Shadowlands raids can technically be completed solo, there are still far too many parameters to have a smooth run. Even trying to attempt Shadowlands bosses on Normal difficulty by yourself can be a challenging task, as they all have challenging mechanics to deal with. If you go into a raid solo, you’ll be absorbing all that separate roles—Tanks, Healers, and DPS—usually deal with. To survive everything, you’ll likely have to play a tank or a Melee DPS with enough cooldowns to mitigate damage effectively, and even then, the experience can be difficult. 

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Image via Blizzard Entertainment

We recommend getting a group together if you want to run Shadowlands raids for mounts and transmog. Currently, Castle Nathria is a challenging raid to solo, while Sanctum of Domination and Sepulcher of the First Ones are practically impossible to complete in this fashion until more gear becomes available. Getting a small group together will make the experience far less painful and will allow you to complete the entirety of each Shadowlands raid smoothly, even on Mythic difficulty.

For reference, currently soloing a Shadowlands raid on Normal difficulty is about as hard as running a Mythic-level Battle for Azeroth raid on your own. 

Soloing Shadowlands raids is borderline impossible in the current state of Dragonflight, although the experience will likely get easier as the expansion goes on and our characters get more powerful gear. By the time the last raid of Dragonflight launches, soloing Shadowlands raids, at least on Normal difficulty, should be a breeze. 

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Image of Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly
Staff Writer covering World of Warcraft and League of Legends, among others. Mike's been with Dot since 2020, and has been covering esports since 2018.