Onin

This isn't quite as epic as the grand scale stories, but it's a story about how single players defy the entire game. Or, a couple of small stories. Soloing raid content in World of Warcraft. I did a lot of this during the Cataclysm expansion (level 85), on a Hunter. Hunters were great for this because they have a pet that can tank for them, they can heal their pet, they can heal themselves a little, and just being high range is very helpful too. But, I'm a single Hunter, facing bosses that were designed for 40 players (lower level players, but still). Not all boss mechanics worked properly. Some of them required some insane mechanical abuse to kill. Those are the ones I'd like to talk about now. 1. C'thun I'll start with the dumbest one, because it's the one I'm the most proud of. C'thun is the endboss of the level 60 dungeon Ahn'Qiraj. While he is most famous for his eye laser skill, that's not what makes him dangerous to solo. What makes him difficult, is that he swallows players, teleports them into his stomach, and slowly digests them. That's a problem, because I'm alone. If he swallows me, he loses track of me, thinks the fight has ended, and as a safety feature he'll instantly murder anyone in his stomach; Me. In short, I could fight him for a couple minutes, then get swallowed and instantaneously die. But there's a trick. One of the bosses in the dungeon, Ouro, is optional, you can skip him. What you can also do, is kite Ouro into C'thun's room. And Ouro has a different safety measure. Whenever Ouro's primary target (me) is out of his range, they get instantly teleported to face him. Including when I get swallowed by C'thun. Suddenly the two bosses start fighting over whose mechanics apply to me, constantly putting me in and dragging me out of the stomach. This abuse made it possible to stay alive long enough to kill C'thun by myself. As the first person in the world to do so. 2. Kael'thas Kael'thas is the endboss of The Eye (level 70), and a primary lore character in Warcraft. Once again, he became rather problematic because of one of his main abilities. He likes to mind control people. He'll do it every 30 seconds to 3 random people in the raid. In my case, that's just me. And if I'm gonna start attacking my own pet, he's sure to die within seconds. The trick? I had to kite Kael'thas to a specific area of the dungeon where I could hide around a corner. I needed a very specific spot that ensured he was out of line of sight, and couldn't mind control me, but my pet was in my line of sight, so that I could still heal him. And then I just had to wait for 15 minutes while my pet slowly but surely bit that asshole to pieces. 3. High Warlord Naj'entus This is probably the dumbest one, and I never actually managed to beat him, sadly. Naj'entus's main ability is a giant spear that he throws at a random person in the raid, which drills them into the floor. Someone ELSE has to drag the spear out, and then throw it back at Naj'entus to break his shield, otherwise he starts healing rapidly. Too bad there's no one else in my party to grab the spear out of my flailing body. The only way to get around this was to abuse the way range works in the game. The giant spear ability has a range of 60 units. Hunters have a range of 60 units with their attacks. However, range is calculated from the center of the user's model, to the edge of the target's model. I'm a small player, Naj'entus is a huge beast. I could just find the sweet-spot where I was allowed to attack him, but he wasn't allowed to attack me. But staying in that range the entire fight long was exceedingly difficult, and a single spear thrown would get me killed. Soloing multi-player content was the most fun I've had in WoW. The hunter I did it with even leveled up to 70 by soloing the 5-man dungeons on the way. Not every dungeon was as easy as the others, but I always managed to find a way to kill problematic bosses (or sneak past them and clear the rest of the dungeon anyway). And I really miss that challenge. I haven't found a single other MMO where skilled play can let you defeat content they designed for 5 players, let alone 40 players. Sure, there's Monster Hunter, but there it's intentionally possible, that just doesn't feel the same.