By now, everyone knows how easy it is to solo Garr with a passive uncrushability set and sufficient block value. Since he drops one of the Thunderfury bindings, there is at least that incentive to kill him. However, it's really a vanity item now, and the only other reward is the knowledge and bragging rights that you've schooled a 40-man raid boss while being afk almost the whole time.
But what if there was another pre-expansion raid boss you could solo who dropped something unique, something valuable, a non-soulbinding item so rare that you could sell it for ridiculous amounts of gold.
Like, say, [Tome of Polymorph: Turtle]?
Gahz'ranka actually turned out to be harder than Garr, ironically. One reason for this is that he uses a frost breath that can't be blocked or mitigated by armor. Oh, and it burns mana. However, that's more something of an inconvenience. The real problem is that he likes to toss you around and up in the air high enough for you to take falling damage if you're not in the water where the fish can get you.
Ugh. So what is a paladin to do, given all these obstacles?
For starters, you can tank him someplace where the fish can't get to you. Aggroing a fish is basically certain death since they place a -75% armor debuff on you, after which Gahz will make short work of you regardless of how good your gear is. Unfortunately, it's hard to avoid them in the water, especially with Gahz knocking you all over the place. There might be some safe areas in the lake, but that still doesn't fix the problem of the highly annoying knockback. If only there was a way to kill two birds with one stone...
To avoid the fish reliably, you want to tank him on land. However, this will kill you if he's able to knock you back. What you want to do is to find a little niche where you can wedge yourself in so tightly that you can't jump (and thus can't be knocked into the air). Fortunately, there are a couple such places right on Pagle's Point! See this screenshot for the one I use, where I'm standing under the little overhang in the corner.
However, you're not going to be able to afk on this fight like you can on Garr. He frequently spawns massive geysers that will toss you around now and then even if you're wedged in tightly. To make sure you're in a safe position, tilt the camera so that you're looking down on your character from behind. If the camera zooms out so that you can see yourself clearly, you probably need to back up quickly.
What's really annoying is that he sometimes follows up a geyser immediately with his knockback attack (Gahz'ranka slam), which will send you up in the air and make you take major fall damage, as well as cause positioning issues. I placed my back to the corner and walked backward a geyser was incoming. Still, he managed to toss me three times during the attempt where I killed him. You have to be careful when you do get tossed that he doesn't evade and regenerate health, which can be very frustrating.
As for the relatively minor issue of the frost breath: it does about 500 damage on average and burns a significant amount of mana, and he uses it fairly frequently. If you're passively uncrushable and he isn't able to hit you through block, JoL should be enough to ensure that it doesn't kill you. Frost resistance aura might help here, and it's probably a good idea to use it if the lack of devotion aura doesn't let him break through block. If you're really desperate, you can chain chug frost protection pots, but this is an expensive route to take. Regardless, you're probably going to be perpetually out of mana for this fight. Keep in mind that divine shield requires mana.
If anyone has any suggestions for this guy, feel free to add them, especially if it involves a more reliable place to tank him where being knocked around is not an issue. The fight lasted 70 minutes for me, which is a touch long to be so focused.
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