Quest:Stave of the Ancients/Simone the Seductress

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< Quest:Stave of the Ancients

General Information

Specific Consumables / Buffs Used

Aspect of the Wild (From another Hunter)
Aspect of the Monkey (self) or Aspect of the Wild if you don't have a hunter helper
Greater Nature Protection Potion
Goblin Rocket Helmet (engineering)
Greater Mana Potion
Magic Dust (Alternative for Goblin Rocket Helmet)
Slumber Sand Horde only! Much easier to get than magic dust and can be used 2x durring fight

Info

Casts an ability called Temptress's Kiss which reduces range attack power by 1500 for 45 seconds. (Temptress' Kiss - Thottbot)
Casts a Lightning spell which does around 800 damage, but only around 200 with Aspect of the Wild.
Viper sting will silence this demon.
She hits softly, but her pet hits for about 200 damage.

Strategies

This can be a semi-difficult fight or a really easy one, depending on how prepared you are and your spec. Bring a nature protection potion and some Magic Dust or a Goblin Rocket Helmet for an easy kill. Being survival spec also helps immensely if you choose the Tank-It Method.

Tank-It Method

I recommend having another hunter in your group with Aspect of the Wild on, and that you would use Aspect of the Monkey. It's not necessary for the other hunter to feign death.
If you don't have a hunter helper, make sure you use Aspect of the Wild yourself to stretch out your nature protection potion (alternatively, you can use a greater nature protection potion if you can get one). The fight is still not difficult even if you can't use Monkey.
Start by laying a Freezing Trap, Hunter's Mark, Aimed shot on Simone, then immediately concussive shot
Have the pet get trapped, shoot a viper sting to silence her temporarily, and immediately run in and go all out melee (Spam wingclip, raptor, mongoose, and counterattack).
(Optional) Once the pet is out of the trap, use Goblin Rocket Helmet or Magic Dust on it to knock it out for another 20-30 seconds.
(Optional) Once the pet is out of the disorient, pop deterrence to dodge or scatter shot to knock it out a little longer.
Scatter shot her whenever you see her start to cast the lightning bolt.
Continue to melee her, she will go down really fast.

It may be a good idea to set up macros here, like the Solenor fight, to keep Precious stunned when needed. I used the following two macros to allow for quick switching:

 /target Simone
 /cast Attack

 /target Precious
 /cast Scatter Shot

If you don't have a Goblin Rocket Helmet, be stocked on tubers, night dragon's breath, and healing potions and use them once the timers are up (be aware that tubers and night dragon's breath share the same cooldown as of Patch 1.11, however; use the night dragon's breath only if you need mana). You should only need one (greater) nature protection potion the whole melee fight.

After Simone is dead, you can either feign death to get rid of Precious or kill it. If you choose to kill it, you can have your pet and/or other party members assist you in this with no penalty.

Edit by Caelestis: Just want to say that I killed Simone first, while Precious was a sleep,(magic dust), and after she was dead I feigned death - felhound ran back to mainposition and I could just get the head. Mission completed. *

Edit by Velmorak: For horde, get the slumber sand. Start off with a freezing trap on the pet and beat on simone, when the freezing trap breaks use the slumber sand. Continue beating on simone, when the slumber sand wears off you'll have about 10-15 seconds before you can use the sand again so scatter shot and continue on Simone then hit the pet with the sand. This will give you ample time to kill Simone and loot the head then feign, heal-up, summon your pet and kill the pet if your so inclined.

Kiting Method

28-05-2006: This method has not been nerfed.

Start out with a Freezing Trap, aimed shot on the pet, then immediately concussive.
Kite the pet around with aspect of the cheetah, having a teamate to aggro possible mobs, using arcane shot and serpent sting to kill it.
Once the pet is dead, run in range of Simone to melee her to death.

Alternate strategy using this method (Added by Niknak):

This method only requires the clearing of two to three mobs.
Use the large tree at the southern most part of Simone's path to your advantage.
Start off by hitting Simone with Concussive Shot.
Immediately switch to Precious and strafe around the tree clockwise, always facing the tree. You should always be able to maintain LOS this way.

19-11-2006: Kiting Simone, works in 1.12 (Added by Feanoro):

The easiest place to accomplish this is at Golakka Hot Springs, specifically the eastern side of the largest lake. Only a few mobs need to be cleared, and could likely be skipped if the hunter watches his surroundings during the kite.
Viper Sting silences her and is thus the key to this method. If she is kept silenced the entire time the hunter kites, she will not cast her lightning or Temptress' Kiss. I suggest the addon Sorren's Hunter Timers to help know when to reapply the sting.
Spawn her near the large rock at the top of the lake. Be sure Aspect of the Cheetah is on, then lay a Freezing Trap and hit her with an Aimed Shot followed immediately by a Concussive Shot. Precious should be frozen.
Kite her down the shore of the lake, making sure that she is always silenced. Concussive Shot allows enough time for Multi-Shot or Auto Shots.
Precious will likely be free and pursuing by the time you get her fully past the large tree on the eastern shore, but do not stop the kite until he's almost on top of you. By this time, you should be at the southern shore and Simone should be around 30% health. Finish the fight with spamming your melee abilities.

2-10-2006 Kite them both method

Use the large tree mentioned in the first kiting method and kite around that tree.
Have two macros, one that does /target Simone and another that does /target Precious. This is better that tab targetting.
Start out with a Freezing Trap, Aimed Shot and Concussive as above, but use Aspect of Nature as Cheetah is unnecessary for this variation.
Kite her around the tree using Serpent Sting and rank 1 Arcane shot. A good shot rotation is Arcane-Arcane-Serpent. This is a decent way to time the shots if you don't use timing mods.
Eventually Precious will break loose from the trap. When this happens start using your target macros to switch between Simone and Precious, hitting precious with concussive shot whenever he gets ahead of Simone. If he gets too close use scatter shot. The timers on the shots are such that this should keep Precious off you.
At the end of the fight you will be out of mana and the timer on your greater mana potion won't be up yet. Finish Simone in melee at this point. You can also use magic dust at this point to get Precious off you, but it may not be necessary.
This method is intended for Markmanship specced hunters.

12-01-2007 Traps + kite for 2.0

Start at the north of the lake
Trap before fight. Aim + Conc. Simone + Multishot + Viper Sting and start moving south, along the shore.
Try to stay at maximal range as much as possible and use Viper Sting when it's out of cooldown. If she gets close, she will put the debuff on you and it's going to be melee time.
Use Freezing Traps when Precious gets close.

Note: I know Temptress' Kiss has a nominal 40 yards range, but as long as you stay at 35+ yards and use Viper Sting when it gets out of cooldown, you should be fine. I almost circled the lake because of the green/blue gear and by doing this I didn't get hit even once by Temptress' Kiss.