Comments

Comment by Xilkan

This is the item used to start the Quel'Delar chain quest. Unkown drop location at the moment, as the glyph vendors hand it out. More than likely drops in one of the 5-Man's or off of something in the Blood Halls, considering that the Blood Queen is apart of this chain.

Drops from the 5 man instances off of the trashmobs.

Comment by 333850

Stars the Quest Chain for Quel'Delar Epic started in 3.3. Same as Quel'Serrar back in Classic WoW. You'll need to be able to complete Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection in order to progress and complete this Quest Line. You get to choose one of several weapons upon completing the Quest Line, each different to suit the needs of each role.

This item is a low drop rate from every NPC in the new 5-Man Dungeons The Frozen Halls. This item only drops on Heroic Mode.

Rewards that you can choose from are: Quel'Delar, Might of the Faithful Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind Cudgel of Furious Justice Hammer of Purified Flame Lightborn Spire

Story:
Quel’Delar: The Sister Blade
In ages past the great Dragon Aspects worked alongside the night elves to forge powerful prismatic blades that could be used to thwart any evil that came into the world. They would become known as the blades of Quel’Serrar. One of these blades, which had become lost in time, was recently unearthed again by brave heroes of Azeroth. Now rediscovered, Quel’Serrar is revered once more as a mighty tool of raw power.
Its sister blade, however, has not been seen for many years...
Quel'Delar
The sword known as Quel’Delar was held by the group of kaldorei who would eventully become the high elves, and it was handed down from generation to generation. Most recently Quel’Delar was wielded by the valiant high elven warrior Thalorien Dawnseeker. Thalorien fought tirelessly in the Troll Wars to defend his beloved home of Silvermoon, the Sunwell, and all of Quel’Thalas. When the Scourge swept through the lands during the Third War, Thalorien was among the last lines of defense for the Sunwell. Despite the sword’s power, he was ultimately slain by the overwhelming might of Arthas and his legendary runeblade, Frostmourne. Quel’Delar was thought to be lost forever.
Following the destruction of their homeland, the determined blood elves began to regroup and rebuild. It was during this time that the battle-hardened warrior Lana’thel stumbled upon Quel’Delar, and soon afterward the greatest opportunity to use the blade presented itself: Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider raised an army and combined forces with Illidan Stormrage, who led them north to Icecrown on a mission to destroy the Lich King. Lana’thel readily followed her prince with one thought in mind -- revenge against the Scourge -- but only tragedy awaited her.
Queen of the San’layn
In the icy hills of Northrend, Arthas ultimately defeated Illidan and Kael’thas, and the expedition’s few survivors were scattered across the frozen wastes. One by one the Lich King sought out those who had challenged him, and Lana’thel found herself cornered. Using Quel’Delar, she struck at him with all her might... but Frostmourne’s evil powers overwhelmed her. Through his blade, the Lich King chose Lana’thel to serve him in undeath as queen of the San’layn, a group responsible for overseeing the Scourge’s operations across Azeroth.
Queen Lana’thel eagerly carried out her new duties, but every time she looked at her blade, maddening anger would swell within her as she remembered her former life. She could not afford such distractions, and with a scream that echoed throughout Icecrown, she shattered Quel’Delar and flung the fractured pieces as far as she could.
Now...
The champions of the Alliance and the Horde who confront the Lich King’s armies have but a slim chance of finding the pieces of this fabled blade. If they succeed, the heroes can embark on an epic adventure to re-forge Quel’Delar. They will require the strongest materials and a source of great power to make this shattered blade into the fearsome weapon it once was. Several classes can use Quel’Delar, and the sword can fit several different play styles. For any class that is unable to wield it, however, the Sunreaver blood elves and the Silver Covenant high elves will gladly take this relic of their history in exchange for a usable weapon.
The search begins soon...

Comment by Venorize

--- --- -- -- -- -- --- ---

4 Epic swords and 3 Epic maces can be chosen from. They are all ilvl 251.

Swords: -
- Quel'Delar, Might of the Faithful
- Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned
- Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows
- Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind

Maces: -
- Cudgel of Furious Justice
- Hammer of Purified Flame
- Lightborn Spire

Sword Screenshots:
- Quel'Delar, Might of the Faithful
- Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned
- Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows
- Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind

Mace Screenshots:
- Cudgel of Furious Justice
- Hammer of Purified Flame
- Lightborn Spire

- If you wish to ruin the quest chain you can youtube the videos and see how the chain is done.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N62ERbOOsg
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip7eTmDS498
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmLkPOnszn8

----- GUIDE -----
Step 1) Get the battered hilt, random trash mob drop in icecrown 5mans.

Step 2) Turn it in to an npc in icecrown, just south of the argent tournament grounds.

Step 3) Starts quest "What The Dragons Know" - sends you to Krasus at the top of the Wyrmrest Temple, you have to talk to the npc at the top before the quest completes. Then you turn it in to Magister Hathorel inside your Horde/Alliance area in Dalaran.

Step 4) NPC sends you to underbelly and find a Silver Covenant agent, and kill him and search the body for Orders. The underbelly is the dalaran sewers. I located the agent standing in front of the sewers innkeeper. Upon leaving the sewers another agent ambushed me and netted me down.

Step 5) Turned in orders back at the NPC you got this quest from; The next part hsa you get a Borrowed Tabard from Shandy Glossgleam. He is located on the balcony above the Threads of Fate shop. The problem is only one person can use him at a time, you can talk to him when he is free and start a mini-event to help him do his laundry. Simply stand back and click the item he calls out, pants/shirt/unmentionables/water. When you do about 10 things for his laundry list, he will drop a bag next to the tub containing the tabard you need.

Step 6) Return with the tabard to the npc in your horde/alliance inn. You now become disguised from 5 MINUTES From accepting the quest.

Step 7) You have 5 minutes with the disguise (if it wears off, the npc can renew it). As a horde I had to go to the silver enclaive and talk to an npc, the tabard kept the guards from teleporting me out. Talk to the npc att the top and get the book you need, then get out before the disguise wears off. Sadly this is the most epic disguise you might ever wear as a horde, and its only for 5 minutes...

Step 8) With the book of blades in hand, go back to your npc at the inn. Now the next pat has you deliver the book to Myraion Sunblade. He is at Quel'Delar's Rest, south of the Argent Tournament grounds where this all began.

Step 9) Turn it in and enjoy the show! (Make sure your sound is on!) - The Blood-Queen Lana'thel finally shows herself.

Step 10) You are now on Reforging The Sword: You now must get 5 Infused Saronite Bars from the Pit of Saron 5man in Icecrown Citadel. You must gather bars and capture the forgemaster's hammer, then bring them to the forgemaster's anvil to reforge the sword. The bars are located all over near the slaves, there are enough of them around the entrance where even after you cleared the instance you can go back and grab them. The hammer drops off the giant forgemaster, and you can forge your sword at the anvils all around him. Go outside the instance and turnin the quest at the npc outside the icecrown 5mans, he is also there.

Step 11) Next you go to the Forge of Souls, go to the very end at the last boss, kill him, and forge your sword. That simple. Exit forge of souls, turnin quest again at the npc outside the 5mans. Now into the halls of reflection.

Step 12) This is it, the big shabang. Use your sword at the beginning of the instance, Uther The Lightbringer will be waiting and start screaming at you for the mistake your making. Defeat the essence of the sword when it attacks you, then loot it. Zone out and turn it in again.

Step 13) Head to sunwell aisle, talk to the npc at the entrance to the plateau. He will tell you to go get your blessing to use the weapon. Head to the south end of the Dead Scar on the isle of Quel'Danas, and then head up into the scar about 50 yards. Click the corpse, enjoy the speech, then DEFEND HIM. You must keep the npc alive. You CAN buff and heal him, even bandage him. Two waves of level 80 adds spawn, their easy to aoe and let him tank/aoe. Then a 3rd wave of three 18k hp spiders spawn, take them out. Finally the boss standing nearby watching, becomes attackable. Just blow all cooldowns and nuke him, hes an elite with 37k hp, easily soloed.

Step 14) Follow your map, back to the npc at the entrance of the sunwell plateau and turnin the quest after you have the ghost's blessing.

Step 15) Turnin your quest, then grab the next. Now your ready to win the game. Talk to the warden at the sunwell entrance to have him personally enter and escort you in. You are now in one of the coolest rooms in any dungeon int he game! Travel down the hill through the Shrine of the Eclipse and to the bottom. Once you are at the bottom, stand next to teh beam of the sunwell, and use your blade. Your sword will be restored and will appear as a lootable item around one of the sides of the sunwell. During the process, one of the guards might become a little.. scared.. and attack you, but you'll remain relatively unharmed. (NOTE: Turn on your game music, it gets pretty epic).

Step 16) Take the nearby portal in that room to dalaran with your newfound weapon. Well, you don't have to, but you need to go back to ice crown. Go back to the rest just south of the argent tournament grounds.

Step 17) Your done! Grab the quest and head to dalaran and get your newfound weapon! CONGRATULATIONS! You win the internet!

Comment by 246392

Heroic only.

Comment by 382184

I really wish they would have made this BoP just for the fact that it would keep greedy people, who have already done it or have something better, from rolling on it to sell it.

Comment by 70502

An important question: Is this repeatable? I would like both the DPS and the caster mace.

You can downrank me once I'm answered.

Edit:

@Marconius: That may be true but there are items like Waterlogged Recipe and Sealed Vial of Poison that start quests, but they are infinitely repeatable.
@swmmr58: Thanks for telling all of us that useful piece of information.

Comment by basiat

from blue:

The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.

i think the 2 drops per instance of this item is gone

Comment by svirve

How to get your Quel'delar

There is no magic way of getting this item, there's no secret password that makes it instantly drop.
Though there are ways for you to up your chances in getting it.

The armory lists the Battered Hilt to have an "Extremely Low (1% - 2%)" drop chance.
This is from all mobs on heroic difficulty in Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection.
This includes the 10 waves of mobs during the first encounter in Halls of Reflection.

So the way we are going to up our chances in acquiring the Battered Hilt is, simply to, wipe countless times on Falric.
Failing to complete the encounter with Falric will lead to the whole encounter resetting. Thus you have to fight the first 5 waves once more, and as i mentioned earlier theese 5 waves have a chance of dropping the Battered Hilt.
Each wave consists of 3-5 mobs, and a total of 15 mobs for the first 5 waves.

There are 4 possible scenarios to this tactic, a nightmare scenario, two realistic scenarios and ofcourse a dream scenario.

Nightmare scenario - You never get it, simple as that.
Realistic scenario A - 1% drop chance which means you'd have to kill 688 mobs for a 99.99% certainty of a drop. This would theoritically mean that you have to wipe and re-do the encounter 46 times per drop. Which totals up to 230 wipes if your whole party wants the hilt.
Realistic scenario B - 2% drop chance which means you'd have to kill 344 mobs for a 99.99% certainty of a drop. This would theoritically mean that you have to wipe and re-do the encounter 23 times per drop. Which totals up to 115 wipes if your whole party wants the hilt.
Dream scenario - You all get it on the first clear.

So the best way to acquire/farm for the Battered Hilt is simply to wipe over and over again on Falric allowing you to clear the first 5 waves of mobs again.
Now ofcourse this is going to cost you some money in repair bills, but it's a ton cheaper than buying one off the AH for up to 20,000 gold (yes i've seen them go for that much).

Good luck in finding your Battered Hilt, i have yet to find mine!

P.S. I never ever in here say that any of the scenarios is a gauranteed drop. I've accounted for the different type of scenarios and presented the amount of kills/wipes you would need in order to get a 99.99% certainty of a drop, 99.99% is not 100%
Edit: Don't do math when you're tired. - Thanks Ciar for noticing.

Comment by Zenero

Blue post confirmed that it only drops on Heroic: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=11824374852

Comment by Kilsek

You can only complete this quest once on a toon.

Just like many of the other quest lines out there that come from drops. Would it be nice? Yes. But from a lore point of view it wouldn't make sense to reforge the sword twice.

Comment by LoqueNahak

from a lore point of view it wouldn't make sense to reforge the sword twice

In a game where you repeat the same action milions of time... that's the last thing I'd notice ;-)

Comment by Rahkitty

I'm not sure why wowhead is listing this as only dropping from certain mobs. I saw mine drop from trash in heroic Halls of Reflection, I've heard of it dropping from Pit of Saron, and people here are saying Forge of Souls too.
So I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it drops from any mob in any of those three dungeons.

Comment by dakoth

We had 5 hilts drop on our first runthrough of Frozen Halls instances. That was Wednesday evening (patchday in EU).

I haven't seen a hilt since, and I've done about 10+ heroic Frozen Halls instances.

Comment by 431543

People need on this to sell on the auction house...How is this different from being a ninja?

Comment by Eargyllann

Could we get an update on the drop rate as 17% is not accurate anymore.

Comment by Reunilana

So far i done 42 heroic runs (counting alts) and i havent seen a single hilt droping.
So i my personal option the droprate is 50 heroic runs per hilt.
But as the poster above i suggest you farm Halls because you wont run out of mobs.

Comment by 312201

It was stated already and blue-quoted, that this Item dops on trash.
It does have to be heroic mode.

Comment by 312201

I decided to try and farm this on my druid.

I went to the Pit of Saron (heroic), as the trash there seemed good in numbers, and pretty killable.

My Itemlevel was 232 to 245.

It is doable, but it takes quite some time to kill the mobs on heroic as a single feral in tankgear and tankspecc, as you will most likely be somewhere around 1,5k to 2,2k DPS.
The Trashmobs have around 100k to 300k HP each, depending on the group you go for.

I also highly recommend speccing 2/2 Brutal Impact, as most of the damage you get will be comming from casts.
So you will want to use Bash / Feral Charge (Bear) as often as possible to interrupt them.

On some pulls, you should wait if or where pats are coming through (if you don't know it for sure) as adding additional and unwanted groups will most likely kill you.

I used Barkskin either on CD, or saved it for Casts I could not interrupt in time.
I saved Survival Instincts + Frenzied Regeneration for when I messed up.

The specc I went with was this:
https://www.wowhead.com/cata/talent#0ZxGGscrdceRcczAkbA0z:0nz

So you can farm the trash on your own as a feral, but it would go a lot smoother taking at least a second person with you. Though then again, you would have one more person who might roll against you on the item.
I am also pretty sure other classes/speccs should be able to do this on their own.

Seeing that it is possible to farm the trash alone, that you can roll on multiple Hilts, eventually sell them on the AH or give them to alts or friends, kind of makes me wonder if making this item BoE was really a smart choice.

EDIT:
Two more things.
First most of the mobs can be stunned or rooted. So depending on the type of mob you are doing, keep in mind that Nature's Grasp and/or Bash can also be used to get some heals done.

Also notice that of course there are limits to what one can do alone. Like the event before the final boss. But that should be common sense.

Comment by heine123

7-8 runs with all thrash cleared - 0 hilt.

Comment by Lunii

Since I didn't see any comments about it... Is there a tank wep reward for this quest?

Comment by 156233

Me and 3 friends have been farming this hilt NON-stop for 5 days now. Atleast 14 hours a day.

And this far. We got 2 -.-

15-40k on the AH ? hell no.

Its not hard to solo farm the Big skeletons, the gargoyls, tne necrolytes with mini skeletons and the toxic mobs near Ick
Rest of the mobs is doable but do random to go for it
But ofc. faster with friends.

Im doing it as a blood dk in decent tanking gear. Only around 35k hp self buffed. 54% avoidance.

Rune tap is the key

Comment by 465890

LOL to the "200gold" listed on wowhead, it sells for 10-20K on my server atm

Comment by 492842

Finally found one of these on the AH on my server, Shu'halo, yet it is incredibly overpriced, 20k For a 251 seems a bit harsh for a item that anyone could probably farm up within a week or two

Comment by LoqueNahak

MM Hunter farming this item in PoS is pretty easy. MM specced with good Volley damage you can easily down 5 patrols (30 skeletons total) and reset the instance within the 60 minutes limit (maximum 5 resets per hour). With Feign Death, Readiness, Barrage, traps, ... you don't even need your pet to pull aggro. Dismiss your companion (no need to waste time healing/feeding him... and why make him sad?) and repeat:

lay down a Snake Trap at your feet (great aggro distraciton)
Freezing Arrow on caster
chain-Volley 2-4 times as needed (you can easily tank skeletons, no pet needed)
dismiss caster with Feign Death (Deterrence and/or Readiness if it fails)

Move across patrols/mobs using Deterrence (twice if you need 10 seconds to move far) and find a safe spot to Feign Death and prepare your next trap.

Occasional drink/food drops will be more than enough to keep you at full health/mana. There are 5 patrols (1 static, 4 moving around). The static one is cake. Others need a little planning (by "little" I mean you just have to cast your trap in the correct position). Watch out for other patrols/adds to avoid annoying aggro. After your first 2-3 runs you will feel at home.

That makes 30*5 = 150 kills per hour. I wont make math assumptions but that's fairly good if you're not extremely unlucky (it happens in WoW, as well as being lucky and get it on 1st kill).

Good drops: greens, good bop-epics (worth 22G @ vendor), some blues (boe), useless trash that after 1 hour make some gold. Each skeleton will drop decent money too... so all in all it's a nice farming. And if the Battered thing drops... it will be easy gold (unless you need it).

Comment by Missrihanna

I'm been runnning this instance from the start of the new release and i only saw it the first day. On aerie peak it's atm 15k at least for this item. i'm doing it every day with a few chars and i can say i never saw it again yet. Good for feeding the gold sellers till they find out the item aint so imba.

Comment by 18074

After days of doing HC's and not seeing this drop I decided to go solo some of the skeleton packs. 2nd mob I kill, guess what I find? I was all prepared for a long grinding session too, with potions, food, flasks and everything.

I realize this'll get down-voted into oblivion but I just couldn't resist posting, I never normally have any luck with drops.

Comment by Furydeath

12/15/09 Hotfix

The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.
The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.

Comment by 79973

Hotfix today increased the chance for this to drop in each of the Frozen Halls dungeons. It is still not known exactly what the drop rate is.

It no longer drops from Skeletal Slaves in Pit of Saron.

Comment by Mimsy

Blue post confirmed:

- The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.

- The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.

Comment by evoker

Did anyone notice any increased drop-rate since they allegedly increased it?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843880&sid=1

Comment by kolbaska

... but now it only drops from Pit of Saron heroic.

Nope. It still drops in any heroic.
Maybe you get bluepost wrong?
"The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed." (bluepost)

Comment by kolbaska

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it drops from any mob in any of those three dungeons.

Yep! Check the Armory http://armory.wow-europe.com/item-info.xml?i=50379
*any mob exept the Skeletal Slave*

Comment by Hannibal08

The drop rate is almost certainly identical for Alliance and Horde. Wowhead only shows reported drop rates, which on an item this rare this short into it's life (8 days), is going to be inaccurate.

That being said, signs point to a very miniscule drop rate still. People that have been farming heroic instance mobs today (the day after the announcement about increased drop rate) have been reporting the same situation: hilt-free looting. And I am not talking about farming the non-elites. I am referring to groups clearing elites, resetting the heroic instance, then clearing those elites again. There have been a few mentions of no hilts dropping and zero mentions of anyone seeing one. Maybe the winners are just being quiet. This is all on the WoW's general forums by the way.

Still, it's unclear whether or not a server restart is required to push this change live. I didn't think that it was, but the US Blizzard support people have been reluctant to answer this direct question in the general forums for some reason. The EU forum is different. Ancilorn said that the change was live on the EU servers, yet no joyous responses of hilts popping up in that thread. And he also provided news that wasn't so good for those of us hopeful about an increased drop rate. You can read it for yourself here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=11824296562&sid=1&pageNo=3#56

For those that don't want to click, here's what he had to say:

The item still has a very, very low drop chance. It's just that before this fix (and after the first fix) the chance was even lower. You will not be seeing "most running around with QD" any time soon.

So it's not clear, but it certainly looks like it's still an extremely rare drop. I don't agree with it and it sure looks like Blizzard never intended this when they previewed the item itself, but there you go. Hopefully it's just not live and we can;t yet reap the benefits of the increased drop rate, but it's looking like Blizzard mainly wanted to kill the solo farming while preserving the rare status of the weapons.

Good luck to everyone else hoping to acquire one and hopefully we'll all start to get lucky soon.

Comment by Shadowtion

Blue post:

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677858456&sid=1

12/15/09

•Quel’Delar in now unique equip.
•Naxxramas can now be cleared in any order for the Immortal and Undying achievements.
•The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.
•The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.

Comment by Riotus

anyone know what they changed the drop rate to now?

Comment by 18074

Balance druids can still have a pretty good go at farming it solo, the Wrathbone Laborers are easy to pull alone and can be killed while rooted. I guess other ranged could probably handle them also, but since space is pretty restricted it might be more tricky.

Comment by 211282

People are advertising AH prices of 20k on Thunderhorn EU. Ridiculous. But then our battlegroup seems to be bad at these three heroics.

Ive only seen 1 drop on patch day in PoS. None since and I do them pretty much daily. So 1/30 or 0.03 personal drop rate.

Edit: Has anyone seen them drop more than once an instance? The epic dagger, which ive seen thrice, once dropped twice in PoS. We assumed that because it dropped we wouldnt see anything else, but it dropped again.

Comment by 229626

One more data point to add: have been running all three new instances every day since patch and haven't seen it drop at all in that time.

Think Blizzard made a big mistake not making this one Bind on Pickup, as I am sure that if the day that I see it drop ever arrives, everyone in the group will be needing on it, regardless of whether they want to get the sword and use it or not, because they can sell it for ridiculous sum on the auction house.

Comment by 305821

After looking at all the weapons the hilt makes (according to this thread) there is
NO tanking sword? WTF all might as well sell the hilt even if i do get one.

Comment by 500744

On my server these are still selling for 10K gold+ I haven't seen one drop myself, but I'm not too worried about, eventually i'll get one :) But even with the increased drop rate it didn't drop in any of my runs today.

Comment by koimagheul

the battered hilt is kinda like rivendare's mount... maybe even worse.
1) EXTREMELY LOW droprate (been farmin' PoS trash mobs for a whole afternoon without ever seing even one :/ )
2) except for HoR where you don't have much choice, people won't always clean every single trash mob
3) unlike the mount, someone who already has it can and will roll for it, which lowers the chance to get it

would be a good thing if they do what they did with drakkisath's blood, make it drop for everyone who can get it... people who want it to use it would be pleased and people who want it just to sell it would'nt be such a pain in the ass
a higher droprate on bosses would be a sweet thing too

Comment by Paegan

It was an extremely stupid decision to make this a BoE drop. The gold-buyers get it for stupid amounts of money off the AH, and the rest of us have to suffer the terrible drop rate and rolling against people who already have the fkn thing. GG Blizz.

Comment by chinmi

So far i see a lot of people entering ICC heroic 5 man, and they leave group before the 1st boss. This kind of person must be farming the hilt. It's kinda annoying for the other 4 who really want to have group to clear the dungeon. OMG blizz really turn us down now.

And because of that, i believe a team of 5 gold farmer can easily enter the dungeon, clear the mob & trash until before the 1st boss, and reset the dungeon, and enter it again to farm the Hilt. Cause they can sell it for 15k - 30k on AH, it's easy gold for them, and they can sell the gold to other player. So, sometimes i really doubt on which side blizz is... The gold farmer... or the "non gold farmer" player...

Something has to be done with this. And be quick with it blizz !

Comment by 492842

A good way to farm this is to go around the whole area, and kill the Wrathbone laborers, soloable by any class that can kite, if you have anyway to stealth past mobs, you can clear quite a bit more trash, i suggest bringing some invis potions with you, Mages can just invisibility through them, none have stealth detection, the laborers move fairly slow and are easy to kite as FFB frost, or arcane with slow

Comment by Mimsy

Can anybody confirm that this can drop without a full 5 people in the group?

I have two-manned the trash with over 2000 mob kills so far without seeing anything. After they "adjusted" the drop rate and made it so skeletons couldn't drop epics, I haven't even seen a single epic drop from ANY mob without a full 5-peron group. Can anyone who is soloing or two-manning give a confirmation as to finding either a hilt or an epic from the trash?

Comment by Graywind

Any one know the real drop %? someone said it was 2% and another said it's 4%. anyone know which one it is?

Comment by saidas

Is this quest Repeatable, for say, a Enhance shammy?

Comment by 331332

In two days my party got 2 drops .
noone gone to me :-(
One got mage with gear 200, who just was in LFDungeon and now has a "nice" sword

Happy farming

Comment by Hinalover

If you are a Feral Bear, then you can probably solo this. If you go into Forge of Souls, there are 8 Soulguard Watchmen in the zone. you can easily pull these groups and solo them. They only have 135k health and do not hit hard. Beyond that, NONE of the mobs can see through stealth, even Bronjahm. Just Kitty Stealth around the outer edge of his room. Once you kill all 8 run out and rinse and repeat. whole process will take about 10-15 minutes a run depending on how fast you can stealth and kill things.

Comment by Eargyllann

The Battered Hilt Does drop from the bosses in the 3 ICC Heroic Dungeons. I have saw the Hilt drop from the Devourer of Souls (Last boss in the Forge of Souls)

Lost with a need roll of 1.. /facepalm

Comment by 172622

Did anyone ever get this to drop for Forge of Sould, Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection on regular difficulty?

Considering it only drops in heroic difficulty, I'd doubt it.

Comment by cabal0808

I have been 2-manning the trash of HPOS (holy pally/feral druid combo) for a few days now, and i got to say that the droprate is insanely low. We can usually full clear all the trash in aprox 45min with minimal difficulties. Out of 25 trash clears we came up with.
1946 gold (aprox 40g a person per clear from selling greys and gold drops)
162 green items
8 epics (not including hilt)
1 battered hilt
On a side note. I have seen the hilt drop 4 times while doing H forge in only 6 runs while on alts. So is it possible that bliz tweaked with the droprate for HPOS to disscourage farming?

Comment by Verox

I couldn't play at the day of the patch, meaning i missed out on running the dungeon when the droprate was at its highest. So i thought "too bad" and figured i'd get my weapon from raiding instead, i NEVER, literally NEVER get any luck with these kinds of drops.

A month after the patch, i decide to after the daily queue up for Forge of Souls heroic since i wanted the armor penetration trinket from it.

Said and done, in we go, start killing the mobs and then... Battered Hilt.
With shaking fingers i click the Need Symbol, maybe this was the time that miss RNG would finally be on my side?

The rolls are made, i glance down in the chat, i won.

I won the god damn Battered Hilt, after years of NEVER getting the staff/trinket/boots/rings i won when it finally mattered.

I drew the conclusion that the best way of getting the hilt to drop is to not actually go in there to make it drop, well at least for me.

Good luck to you all!

Comment by 254037

I have both the Quel'Serrar from vanilla WoW when I was tanking, and this new sword. I have to say I was shocked with gratitude Blizzard finally implemented the 2nd Quel sword which I was thrilling to do the questline for.

It has gave me such an awesome look on old Lore, such a thrilling feeling, and above of all an excellent sword. With the twins back together, one by one in my hands, I can feel somehow ( although they're not looking exactly like eachother ) they have been waiting for eachother.

Call it roleplaying, call it Lore, but I like to call it 2 magnificent swords.

Quel'Serrar and Quel'Dalar, together forever!

Comment by 315336

just dropped off James Brown in Heroic Forge of Souls

Comment by 465890

Just a thought on all this hysteria:

Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned
Two-Hand Sword
727 - 1091 Damage Speed 3.40
(267.4 damage per second)
+144 Agility
+136 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 251
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 99 (2.16% @ L80).
Equip: Increases attack power by 197.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 91 (6.5% @ L80).

Is slightly better then the one I use :

Archon Glaive
Two-Hand Polearm
715 - 1074 Damage Speed 3.50
(255.6 damage per second)
(2810 feral attack power)
+128 Agility
+136 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +8 Attack Power
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90 (1.96% @ L80).
Equip: Increases attack power by 165.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 90 (6.43% @ L80)

I'm hoping for

Archon Glaive
Heroic EPIC
Two-Hand Polearm
788 - 1183 Damage Speed 3.50
(281.6 damage per second)
(3174 feral attack power)
+137 Agility
+153 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Attack Power
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 258
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 102 (2.22% @ L80).
Equip: Increases attack power by 188.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 94 (6.72% @ L80).

to drop this weekend. So...my 2 cents are the hilt is great for the non raider/newbie, but only a slight upgrade if you are a raider, and not an upgrade if you can do ToGC25

See 2-4 on AH for 20-30K each day, sad how greed can consume a persons soul

Comment by Zamzagas

I've seen the drop 3 times so far. A friend of mine took the first one, the second was a damn ninja, and the third was a guy who already done the quest and was using the sword =S
I mean, damn... i really really want to do the questline, its not about the sword being 251 and stuff, its a legendary sword! its like there was a quest available to get frostmourne or something like it. Its all the story behind it. How it got there, how the girl who had it got to be a lich king's servant...
That's why im getting so &*!@ed when some greedy guy rolls need on it just to sell it. I think no one knows what the questline means to me, or to pleople who are aware of the story.
And I still dont get it. why they didnt do a BoP item?
This only takes out the worst of people, after a roll nobody says Gratz, they all try to kick the one who got it, or start trashing each other.
On my third drop, as soon as the guy won it, two dps went out of the group, and when i pointed out it was unfair that he rolled need when he already had it, he said "shut up and heal".
Thank you blizz for making my runs unpleasant

Comment by 496220

(With slight re-arrangement, from Wikipedia) ---> "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The term was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881): However .... the most plausible (original source), given current evidence, is Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911).

First off, the drop rate given for this is much, MUCH lower in wowhead stats (about 1/2500) then given by armory. -IF- the armory numbers are correct (and the wowhead stats are diluted due to many "non-heroic run" kills) ; -THEN- this item drops from heroic kills about as often as arctic fur drops from skinning Northrend beasts (1% drop from skinning). The fur drops for me about once every 90 minutes of non-stop killing/skinning in the best of areas (soloing densely packed, relatively low-level mobs).

Second of all, this is a drop rate per mob. I presume you are not soloing the Halls of Reflection on heroic; so YOUR chance of getting the drop = .

So let's say that there is a 1% drop rate; and that there are 4 players in your party who will roll "Need" for this, if it drops. You can EXPECT 1 hilt to drop every 100 kills, which means you will EXPECT 4 to drop for the party after 400 kills, which means you can EXPECT that YOU will get 1 hilt every 400 party kills. If your party kills 25 trash mobs per wipe, this is about 16 tries (15 wipes) to get 400 kills.

The chance for YOU to get AT LEAST ONE hilt, if farming HoR trash,(heroic) in a party of 4 rollers, is (number of kills and wipes rounded slightly) :

50% after 275 kills (11 wipes)
75% after 555 kills (22 wipes)
90% after 920 kills (37 wipes)
99% after 1840 kills (74 wipes)

So, what is it worth? Well, if you want the quest chain, you've got it! . . If you are farming to sell, and if the market price is 20,000 gold / hilt. Then, IN THE LONG RUN, -YOU- are making (20,000g) / (400 kills) = 50 gold / kill, just for the hilt (other saleable stuff not included). If each clear-wipe cycle takes 15 minutes, then your group will get a hilt/hour, which means YOU can expect to get a hilt every 4 hours, more or less, which is an average of 5000 gold / hour for EACH party roller. So, now you know why folks are doing it.

Comment by donpacio

So far i have NEVER EVER seen this drop.
How does blizzard have the power to keep ruining everything!
I've seen 6 epics including a BoE epic drop from trash.
Today i still hope to get it someday. *stares into the distance*

Comment by 536520

i've been doing FoS PoS and HoR HC every day sice patch 3.3 came.. and i've never seen it drop =(

Comment by 463741

This hilt is driving me mad. My guild set up a team to farm, with me bringing my tank rather than my warlock, out of neccessity for the group comp. For that reason I agreed to have the last hilt drop, saw 4 drop, almost 1 a day, and now that its my turn....!

Nothin'

Stupid RNG! this is going to be just like the deathcharger or the RSOC all over again >_<!

Comment by 229867

Not sure anyone will care, but in doing the quest chain for this I managed to solo the FOS portion of the chain. After getting the POS done I was in a hurry and wondered what it took in FOS, so as a rogue, I put my stealth on and discovered I could stealth all the way to the Devourer. But now what .... I can't kill him alone .... after nosing around the room there I decided to give up and take a 'whack' at him for kicks. Naturally, and according to DBM, the fight lasted only 8 seconds. As I lay there dead, I noticed the Cauldron of Souls had appeared behind him .... and wondered if it had anything to do with the quest chain. So I released and stealthed back and sure enough the Cauldron was still there. I moved around behind and up on the platform where the portal is and stood over the Cauldron and clicked my quest item. Amazing ... the Quel'Delar was tempered and didn't aggro the Devourer.

So fwiw - this is a bit of a short cut in the quest chain for rogues and feral druids (maybe). Not to mention it was kinda fun doing it this way.

Not sure how to quantify my character other than a ~5k gear score and still packing a Tankard of Terror /cry.

Comment by 544758

ive seen this on the AH for 10k-15k, aparently capatalism lives even in a video game, it stinks too cus i remeber the first night, it was bugged to have a 10% drop rate instead of like 0.1%. so i saw it drop 4 times that night, didnt get any of them :(

Comment by 412856

this thing is a gold farmer's wet dream.
also, if wowhead's estimated buyout prices are to be trusted, buying this as horde is about 2kg cheaper

Comment by 451903

I think purchasing this instead of farming it is a smart move.

Prices on my server (Darkspear) are down to around 11K on the AH, but I just tried my luck in trade last week 'WTB Battered Hilt - paying 9K gold now' and got two offers, three minutes later I had my battered hilt and was off doing the quest chain.

The price should scale according to each server's economy (hopefully!), and certainly on Darkspear, 9K gold really isn't that much, particularly if you've got a couple of 80s as I have, both with alchemy and jewelcrafting at 450. (The two transmutes per day, and then cutting the gems, equals about 250-300G profit, and then I can sell the Dragon's Eyes off the jewelcrafting dailies for around 100G each. That's nearly 500G per day for two transmutes and two JC dailies - or 18 days for a battered hilt and none of the frustration of trying to farm it.)

If you've already got one 80, you may as well get another 'bonus' 80 by levelling a DK to 80 as well, once you have two 80s with the 'right' professions (alchemy and jewelcrafting are a potent money-making combination) - gold is never a problem. (For god's sake don't skin things or pick herbs to make gold once you're 80! Maybe get the gold to level a profession with them, but then dump them and spend the gold levelling endgame professions.)

I've run FoS/PoS/HoR many, many times now across my two characters, both to get the L232 items I wanted out of them, and then to do the same with friends for them to get the items they wanted, and then they do come up pretty regularly on the daily random too.

In all that time I've seen *ONE* battered hilt drop, and unless you're running it as a guild and it's your turn to get it, you know full well everyone will need, whether they've already had one or not. (I didn't win the roll on that occasion....)

That's some sucky odds of ever getting one the 'proper' way, so seriously, just save up and buy one.

(I'm currently most of the way towards having enough gold to buy my second battered hilt for my alt, no tricks, no buying gold, just using my professions - be smart out there!)

Comment by 219762

I also agree this thing should be BOP

Comment by zacke10

This is one of the most epic questlines ever. If you raided sunwell you will love this quest. I just finished this, and I recommend anyone to do it, even if you dont even need the sword. It was a really fun quest! (Although it is kind of a waste to not sell it if you dont need it)

Comment by 303817

Why does the quest chain give experience, if you have to be level 80 to start the quest?

Comment by Technosis

i just saw this drop twice ... and funny enouph the same guy who won the first one won the second and he sed he was gonna trade with someone to even it out and you know what he did he went and did a runner ... i am so upset right now

Comment by garymce

Quote:

You ALWAYS make more money by % if you didn't pay anything to begin with. >.<

Not always, it depends on a few factors. You can search the AH for under-valued items and buy them up, either relisting or using them in crafting and selling the results. Depending on the prices on your server you might actually be able to make more money in this time compared to the time you spend out in the field farming the items yourself. I beleive it's called "Opportunity Cost".

An old guildmate of mine has been doing that since vanilla WoW, last time I spoke to him he had over 100k gold purely from logging on early in the morning before he goes to work, buying up all the cheap auctions and relisting them for higher prices.

Comment by 531895

Make sure you don't use the dungeon finder!
Most random pugs have found ways to skip just about half of the mobs in PoS :-( and a couple in FoS.
You'll end up with partymembers that want to do the run as quick as possible for the 2 daily frost emblems and don't seem interested anymore to invest the extra time.

Comment by Skiba

I won the Hilt yesterday in a Halls of Reflection(H) random dungeon. Usually no one wants to go to this place but i thought why not when it popped up.

Everyone rolled need as that seems to be the done thing. It was a massive upgrade for me getting the healer mace from the questline.

For anyone with the spare gold who enjoys lore they simply have to buy this or if they have the time try to farm it. The questline is fantastic, i spent most of yesterday afternoon doing it and it was really enjoyable, well worth the time invested and having a great item at the end of it was a nice bonus.

Gold will come and go for most players so i suggest if you win this use it and see the questline.

Comment by 127323

A few weeks after the new instances came out, I was tanking H HoR on my pally. After the second boss was down, we checked the bodies for hilts, and, lo and behold, one popped up.

The first guy rolled greed. I took a deep breath, and told everyone in party chat to also roll greed. Amazingly, we all did. I didn't win it, but it's nice to know that there are some decent people to pug with - Vengeance Battlegroup, Alliance.

That being said, I have not seen it drop since. I have 2 toons that I regularly run the new heroics with. I know that random loot is random, but c'mon....

Comment by 301506

CAN be a great money maker. First off you have to be VERY WELL GEARED as paladin. There are 2 ways to look at this, you either are holy, or prot. Go into one of these dungeons and since you can self heal and tank then you can solo a large amount of the instance and will have no competition. for every 1 that drops theres 12000g (on my server)

Comment by 258919

I did a full trash clear of H PoS (no bosses, no "final" trash mobs that require bosses) with my farming buddies 4 times, as well as killing a few more mobs with a partner beforehand (about 10). I have run each of the three heroics about 3 times apiece on my druid (4 for H HoR) and countless times on my mage, and have never even seen a hilt drop.

If you want solidity, gather up the huge sum of money to buy the hilt. In the end, it will almost definitely save you the frustration of farming (which may be shorter but leads to insanity), and may even, if you're unlucky, save you time.

But if you don't have the money or feel lucky, H PoS is the best place to go. In 4.6k GS as a bear tank, I was able to (slowly) burn down the solo mobs here with a healer friend. With two or three people helping you, your chances of winning the roll drop, but it's probably worth the time saved. Just start on the left side of the instance and do a round trip around the middle and you should be able to get all of the mobs you can without killing the bosses. The number of runs required is purely luck - you could get it in half a run, you could never get it at all.

Comment by 500222

If anyone decides to respond to this. please tell me where it is most likely to drop. ?
...

Comment by 274293

first run last night and it dropped... didn't get it:(

And I agree it should be BOP just like all the previous quest items in Classic and BC, no idea why a quest item is not BOP. Gold selling encouragement... considering that you can get 5000g for about £8 or less... I can see people spending the same ammount of money for this item as for buying a pet or the mount from the Blizzard store:(

BTW the hilt itself is being sold on eBay and Gold selling sites for around $100-$150

Lol... should have purchased a spectral tiger with that money a few years back.

Comment by 437306

I've seen it drop twice now in my 12 runs in the 3 new dungeons and twice it slipped away from me due to a bad need roll... As more people are doing icc raids this thing is becoming less desireable by the day. Hellfire server has these things going for under 9K already and i suspect that prices will drop due to the fact that raid weps are better than the reward. Same goes for me. I'de be doing it for the sake of completing the quest rather than the reward.

As always, it's a matter of luck. Even if it drops on your run you have to account for 4 other people who will wanna roll on it. Luck luck luck... they should make that a stat in wow and let it affect your rolls on loot and chance to find loot on mobs.

Comment by kekslul

Im doing the chain because i get over 140g! and also if i vendor the sword i get 31g!
so.. 140g + 31g = 171g!

omg 171g!

Comment by 515920

One thing blizzard forgot is that there aren't any tanking wep as rewards

Comment by 551534

Dropped for me off of a rifleman in HoR on Saturday. I didn't get it but it was still nice to see it drop finally.

Dawnbringer:Retalliation

Comment by 174766

the most overpriced item on the AH right now on many servers.
It's an easily replaceable sword

Comment by 475386

got it at last

Comment by CYB3RKN1GHT

Won this tonight in POS on Runetotem server! First time I have ever seen it drop, came from a Geist Ambusher. Can't wait to start QuestLine. Going to get my Quel'Delar Ferocity of the Scorned.

Comment by Valladar

Death Knight's who aim to get the hilt and make a relatively small fortune in the process, can actually easily solo the trash mobs in Pit of Saron.

The Deathwhisper Necrolites are the most easiest, just rerember to interupt the Shadow Bolts and Conversion Beams.

The Wrathbone Labourers do not require any special attention, but hit kinda hard, they are easy to solo, but you might find yourself popping a Death Pact if things get close.

The third trash mob to solo are the mobs surrounding Ick. Also easy, just kite them out of the green pools.

Avoid the Deathwhisper Torturers, they are exremely hard to solo I've tried and failed without getting even close to killing them.

I generrally avoid the Dragons also, as they are pretty tough as well.

Tips:

1. Find a good DK Solo spec, this is one I use, HERE, works like a charm

2. Gear. Very simply, full tank gear with a DPS 2-hander. If you have some tank gear that is really bad (iLvl 200 ish) replace it with a DPS item of a much higher level, if you believe you can miss out on that peice of gear for a bit of extra damage.

3. Rotation. (Depending on spec, the following rotation relies on the build posted above or an extremely similar build).
Diseases on the target at all times, use pestilence to refresh diseases, not Icy Touch / Plague strike. The reason for this is you will need the Frost/Unholy runes for Death Strike survival, blood runes are much less vital and it's good to keep them on cooldown for the parry buff. From that point on, its Death Strike, Death Strike and more Death Strike. When you have the runic power, chuck in a Death Coil, and if you think you can throw in a Blood Strike as well, do so. Use Rune Tap only when in need, (When DS is on cooldown and you are below 60% health).

4. Pulls. Pull one at a time. Soloing more than one heroic elite at a time is borderline impossible.

That pretty much covers it. Just make sure you don't kill a boss as not to get saved and farm it. You are bound to get Battered Hilt some time in the near future, and won't have anyone to roll against you.

Plus, each mob drops 1-3 gold, so over time, you would have built up a bit of money.

Happy Hilt-Hunting :)

Comment by 579837

why no tanking Sword/mace? im a tank palla and im really disepointed that if i ever get i need to get a off spec mace... :(

Edit: fixed spelling :)

Comment by Monsterbaby

Here is a run that shows how 11 Wrathbone Laborers and 2 Stonespine Gargoyles are killed by a feral druid, in PoS(hc)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQvLM0drcmg

Comment by Rentod97

Not worth more than 7k on Eonar

Comment by 643158

personally i would rather the 9200g for selling this than the sword itself, considering we will be replacing it pretty soon in cataclysm.
(this is my opinion, if you'll down rate me for that or because you like the sword than fine but this is my own opinion)

Comment by 465890

The worth of this item is an often discussed subject, and I am talking about in trade. Cute gnomes trying to drop the price by saying its not worth 8000(or 10000), only 5000 gold-just so they can snatch it and resell it :)

It is well worth paying 5000(down from 8000) gold for it, even with Cata' release in desember 2010, the easyness of ICC's +30% slacker buff, the drop of mats prices to craft WoLK weapons.

Oh, wait, there really isnt many crafted weapons in WoLK now, is there?

As a starter weapon, it is amazing.

As u travel threw ICC10, it will prob be the best you will get before ICC10HM. The weapon (your choice, 1 of 4)from the quest is a sure drop, ICC10 drop rates can be cruel.

As a strict 10man guild, this is the weapon you will have the longest in WoLK, as a 25man raider, you'll use this a few months before you get an upgrade, droprates and luck not included here.

As far as the quest chain goes, its very good. Worth doing just for that, even if you have a better weapon.

In the end, regardless if you'll use this weapon, you will get an achievement that will prob become a FoS, and this could/would mean, that it will not be available in Cata'. This is a speculation, but so are most of the posts on this subject.

I would not recomend buying/reselling. On my server I tried this the last month and they are hard to shift. It boils down to that there are no strict 10man guilds on my server anymore, they have all "cheated" and have done 25mans, so they could master ICC10HM faster. Server progression charts should check what gear ppl have...

Final note: server prices differ, on mine 10K is a normal price, on one friends server it has been 12K and on another firends server, 8K. If this weapon was not bound to faction(Alliance/horde), the prices would have been 5K, and 10K % less QQ about ninjas around the world lusting for this hilt, to sell

Edit
Well, not final note. Hilt prices have dropped, I mentioned prices from 3 servers above, all are now around 5-6000g on AH and dropping. Maybe due to patch 4.0 DL atm :)

Comment by 596149

The hilt drop two nights in a row when I was running randoms on Cenarion Circle. Last Saturday in Halls of Reflection and then the next night on the last mob in Pit of Saron.

Comment by 628535

When getting the infused saronite bars, i entered the instance (pit of saron) by myself and was able to collect all 5 at the start without being mobbed

Comment by 678032

i won a roll for one last night in PoS about 20 minutes before realm shutdown for patch 4.0.1....i dont know whether to sell it or keep it...with cata coming out in less than 2 months the weapon will be obsolete soon...i dont raid do to lack of guild size and most pugs seem to be fails...so it would be great for my hunter as a replacement for the orca hunters harpoon but am beginning to think the gold would serve a better purpose come cata...still indecided about what to do with it, and if i do AH it, how much to ask for it..i would gladly trade this for the raptor mount in ZG as i havent had it drop after countless times of trying to farm it every reset.....i wonder if blizzard would trade me =P

Comment by j0eL

They added worgen to the tooltip! Interesting, lol.

Comment by 765496

I'm missing this quests and I want to to them, is this item still dropping from trash mobs in ICC dungeons? Halls of Refflection has best chances to drop it?

Comment by 239518

I got the hilt on my 30th full trash clear of FoS/PoS. I was able to solo the entire quest line as well without much problem. I did this as an 85 Ret Paladin in mostly 359 gear. The quest line was very cool and worth seeing.

- You can mount a Traveler's Tundra in PoS to sell stuff, or use your Guild Herald for selling.
- Frostweave Cloth sells for a good bit and you can easily get 3 stacks in one run, I made 10k gold in my 30 runs from vendoring stuff and the AH.

Some Tips for solo clearing:
1) Glyph for Turn Evil and use both Repent and Turn Evil as CC on the bigger trash packs.
2) The Dragon and Riders in PoS are not that bad if you space them out and let lay hands come off cooldown - Repent the rider and burn down the dragon using a defensive cooldown for the breath (I also used Zealotry so I'd end the fight with 3 Holy Power). Pop all cooldowns (Inquistion,Guardian,AvengingWrath,Trinket) and blow up the rider starting with a Hammer-stun, saving lay hands for after the fight to get rid of glacial strike. Lay hands should be off cooldown by the time you clear around the quarry and get to the second dragon from behind.
3) Repent the Torturer and Turn Evil one of the ghouls when fighting the 4 packs in PoS - clear all the Laborers and Necrolytes first. If the Feared ghoul happens to pull another 4 pack - just bubble and run to the instance. Save your Hammer for when you just have the Torturer and start off with that, he sometimes doesn't get off his curses.
4) You can Hammer the gargoyle while he's casting Stoneform to stop him shutting down, saves some time.
5) The only somewhat difficult part of FoS are the Animators - they can put you to sleep so blow them up first. I would repent the Adepts and Turn Evil the Horrors when I could, the Bone Casters can also be turned.
6) Bring lots of food, healing up through spells is time consuming.

Comment by Draxton

For those like me who luck didn't favour, it's entirely possible to solo for this at 85. In a mix of 359 and 346 gear, I chose PoS and didn't run into any troubles except the Drake Riders. Avoid these if possible, they hurt a lot. As someone mentioned, kill the Torturers first in the packs of 4 and interrupt the Necrolytes as much as possible (especially on Conversion). The mobs around Ick aren't particularly troublesome if you keep yourself out of the patches.

edit: I didn't attempt any of the bosses after my rough time with the Drakes. However, I'd imagine Ick would be the easiest to solo, particularly if you've got strong dps. However, this will save you for the day, of course.

Accomplished on a Fury warrior, DK and mage. No hilt yet, but a few epics and plenty of gold/cloth.

For any Warriors reading this, Victory Rush is your friend. You might even consider glyphing for the extra heal. You won't always need it, but when you do it is magnificent.

For Mages, I got the best results as Frost (predictable, I know) but whatever works for you.

Comment by 649528

ok i'm starting to think they removed the battered hilt from the game. I've been up for 3 days, have almost 100 trash clears of pit of saron, tired, exhausted, frustrated, no hilt. Anyone get one since last patch or is my luck just $%^&ty. I've made enough money to buy one but no one has any to sell. If they removed it, they need to remove the achievement then. If anyone has one to sell, I'd be willing to pay for a server transfer, buy it for 5k and transfer back.I'm currently on Anvilmar btw.

Comment by 649528

yeah it was full trash clears on heroics, run out, reset instance, do it again, didn't kill bosses because that would lock me. Killed everything in the pit and every piece of trash before forgemaster and ick, could've killed them to get a couple more pieces of trash to pop up but then that would save me for the day. So between the plague guys, all the skeletons, casters and drake riders, that's 95% of the trash, the rest don't pop until I kill a boss, but that would only pop about 6 or 7 more adds (the fallen warriors don't count, they don't drop any loot) don't kill a boss, run out reset instance and can keep doing it over and over. I was beginning to think that in cata they changed it where when you reset instance the mobs still have the same loot they had first time you killed them, except, some of the runs i got a couple lvl 80 BoP epics off trash, so loot changes each time you reset.

Try it, next time you're in the area, go in there, kill like 2 pieces of trash, run out. right click your name, scroll to reset all instances, run back in and the trash mobs will be back up with different loot.

Oh and btw, can only do 5 instances in an hour so clearing just the first 2 over and over hoping they drop one doesn't work, you'll be locked out for an hour within 10 minutes, took me maybe 20 to 30 minutes per trash clear so didn't have to worry about lockouts with full clears

Comment by 355455

considering people only use it for the purpose of doing the quest chain, I'm surprised it's still one of the most expensive items on the AH.

Believe it or not, a lot of people play this game for reasons beyond just making things explode and getting loot. For those of us who consider ourselves lorehounds, the Quel'Delar chain is up there with the epic quest chains in the game and it's worth every piece of gold to play through. It's especially a must-see for blood elf fanatics, seeing as it's got the most significant additions to blood elf lore since the end of Burning Crusade. You get into a special, phased version of a raid that many people still haven't seen, even in pugs years after the fact. There's even something in it for blood elf haters. It's really no surprise it's still going for a lot either, considering far fewer people are running Frozen Halls heroics since Cata, so supply has dropped even further. I'm not even on an RP server, and it's going for more now than it did during Wrath when the sword was BiS pre-raid, and it'll probably still fetch ridiculous amounts in the future. Even back when the sword was actually useful, the hilt was overpriced from a purely practical standpoint, considering the ubiquity of quality weapons in the easiest wing of ICC. Marrowgar alone dropped equal or better than weapons for a few classes, and even the most feckless pug could down him with the buff. This item has always really been about the epic quest chain tbh, or achievement chasers.

Comment by vanquished14

Well, since this is never on the US-Medivh Auction House, I decided I'd try to farm for it. Here's my farming calculations....

It appears there are a total of 48 mobs per Pit of Saron clear able to drop the Battered Hilt (assuming all elite trash mobs can drop it). The drop rate on the hilt is not 100% clear but, if you add up all the drops/kills of mobs listed on Wowhead, it appears the average you get is about a 1/1666 drop rate. This means, on average, you'll see one Battered Hilt drop every 35 full Pit of Saron trash clears.

Going further, each Pit of Saron clear took me about 20 minutes (casual pace). This averages about 12 hours of trash farming before you will see a Battered Hilt drop. Quite a time consuming achievement if you solo farm for it (The Sword in the Skull).

EDIT: Dropped on Run 11 for me. I also had Ghostly Wristwraps drop on Run 8 and Run 9 and had Seven-Fingered Claws drop on Run 4. Perhaps the drop rates have been increased since the last time Wowhead data was reset.

Comment by 838260

When do you get the achievement?

A: Is it when you accept the quest?

B: When you've completed the quest?

C: When you've equipped the weapon?

D: Something else (please specify)

Comment by Aiue

The Sword in the Skull has the criteria (1 of these 6):

Translation: You need to finish the questline in order to get the achievement.

Comment by 882206

Are you able to sell these over the AH? I mean, do the hilts change to the opposite faction equiv. when they are bought by the opposite faction?

Comment by Achleigh

Started my awesome attempts at trying to get this item this week - Level 85 Hunter in bad gear, but Hunters have the easiest time soloing things.

I run through FoS first, Glyph of Misdirection works wonders here with a tenacity pet (I used a turtle, the shell shield is amazing for AoE pulls). Most of the mobs are easily AoE'd down. If you're a ranged class - stay more than 30 yards away from the Animators and they won't cast the soul sickness stun on you.

For bosses, I dismiss my pet and FD to reset and run through them so I won't get saved to the instance. Other classes can avoid or stealth by, which I highly recommend. (Last boss just run past him and touch the PoS portal).

So far I've done about 25 FoS runs and about 32 PoS runs and no drop - however, save that Frostweave cloth and those green items - if you have a disenchanter/tailor, make Frostweave bags and sell them for tons of money (I've made over 15k gold from doing this - perhaps if someone puts the hilt on the AH I can buy it. >_>;)

Anyway, just keep trying. It's a low drop chance, but I'll try and update if I get it. Ever. :)

Update Edit as of 11/5/11: Ran through PoS and FoS around 100+ times at this point. (Yes, no life, I get it, I know.) Instead decided to bribe people on my server to try their luck at finding it.

First warrior who went in said it dropped off of "Ambushing Geist" on his first run through the whole dungeon. Lucky him and lucky me. :)

Comment by 905734

Today i thinked to go and try hilt from Pit of Saron And when i were cleared 3 packs of trash one guildie logged in and i asked him to check from AH that if there is Hilt but there wasnt... so i continued after like 5 trash pack, hilt dropped... i think im lucky if those droprates are right what here is maybe i should put some money for lottery today :P

P.S. This was first time after LK expansion when i were any of these citadel dungeons :)

Comment by Juranda

in PoS, you may kill the first 2 bosses WITHOUT being saved to the instance. This allows u access to a few more mobs that drop loot. The first 2 bosses will reset along with the rest of the instance. However, after several attempts made and most of the day spent, no hilt. I have gotten many other epic drops but no hit. If at first u dont succeed .........

Comment by 805558

Hmm.... wowheads data on this thing keeps changing-

anyone know which mob i should try to kill the most to get it or what has the best chance of dropping it?

Comment by giantgrape

dropped for me off wrathbone laborer,PoS(HEROIC). Wowhead says off any mob, so i wouldnt worry bout singling out certain mobs. whether its .17 or .07 dr. Kill 'em all...mass loots coming.

Comment by Sykoo

Was running heroic pit, forge and halls for transmog gear and it dropped from one of the waves in halls. going for roughly 12-17k on Blackhand Alliance side.

Ended up selling it for 14.5k

Comment by 1002120

To whom it may concern:

I, just like most of you visiting this page, have been after this item. I can honestly say that it is truly a horrible item to farm. Some say it was easier back at 80 due to the amount of hilts in the AH or the number of people running the Frozen Hall heroics. I find it to be a whole lot easier farming it now.

Back at 80 I was one of those people who killed the two adds at the beginning of Forge of Souls. I didn't get the chance to farm the non skeleton elites as it was hotfixed sometime after I started my hilt farming. It wasn't exactly fun killing the two elite adds and being instance capped meant I couldn't kill at a speed I was happy with. In the end... after weeks of killing those two adds, I got no hilt from them. QQ right? Well bare in mind I also did all 3 of the heroics on 3 of my toons each day. I never once saw a hilt. I eventually caved and bought a hilt for 8k gold. It stung a bit but at least I could put it behind me.

Then Cata comes out. I am now 85. I went from maining a pally in wrath to playing a DK in Cata. I could now solo farm at a reasonable pace. Why go for the hilt now? Because I felt somewhat cheated back at 80 and wanted to find one myself no matter how long it took. You wouldn't believe the amount of runs I've done.

I did 90% of my solo farming in Pit of Saron. It really is the best dungeon of the 3 if you're planning on hilt farming. You can mount up to pull adds and easily get back to the instance portal to reset. Also there are a great number of mobs that you can kill for each attempt. I would usually pull between 7-9 elite mobs for each pull. I did this all in dps gear so this meant using CDs more often. Each run would take about 10-15 mins. That is a full clear of every possible mob that you can kill without touching any of the bosses. I would loot everything (including the non elite skeleton adds which DON'T drop a hilt). It's decent gold making too so it's not totally bad.

How long did it take to get my hilt? Honestly? If counting all the time I spent farming it at 80 and now... I'd say it would be close to 24 hours. In real time. Since a few weeks ago I've been doing around 8-10 runs a day in hopes of getting one. I must have killed at least 4000 or more mobs (both at 80 and 85) before it FINALLY dropped. Let me tell you I was so glad when I finally got it. I am now farming for more as I got nothing better to do in game.

Now do I recommend anyone to spend that amount of time hilt farming? That depends. It's a lonnnngggg grind and you may not get a single hilt even after 5000+ kills. If you do plan on hilt farming I got some advice. It has helped me so maybe it will help others:

1) Free up bag space. You'll thank yourself in the end once you start piling up tons of cloth, greens, an even trash grays. Depending on your servers economy this could net you some decent bank.

2) Have a mob aggroing pattern. After many solo runs you begin to find better aggro patterns that allows for slightly faster runs. The faster the better.

3) Casters MUST die! I can't stress this enough. I've died a few times. I went crazy and pulled farrrr more then I should have. Casters tore me up pretty bad. They need to be dispatched ASAP.

4) Try to have fun. Yes I know it's not exactly "fun" hilt farming but try to make a game out of it. Test yourself! See if you can pull more mobs for each pull or try different specs out during the farming. You may just come out sane after all the farming if you have fun.

5) Don't overdo yourself. Trust me I've burned myself out when doing many runs back to back. Do maybe 3 runs, hearth out and find something else to do (or log off). Don't grind this thing for hours at a time. You will go nuts.

6) Don't have a heart attack when you see an item with purple writing. My heart has skipped a few beats after seeing the slight glimmer of purple. I thought it was the hilt and was sadly mistaken.

7) When you finally get your hilt, pat yourself on the back. Seriously. If you spent hours trying for it and finally got it then you certainly deserve that. If you still haven't gotten a hilt don't lose hope. It will drop eventually.

I know my advice is either lame or something you've all have probably read before but it has truly helped me. Remember: Don't let it control you! You control it! (X-men 3 reference lol couldn't help it)

Comment by 1014566

First time soloing and even running The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection today as a Enhancement Shaman 380 ilvl so it was pretty easy and ended up looting this from one of the mobs in Pit of Saron haha had no idea what it was so i had a look on AH and it was selling for 30k :O Had no clue how lucky i was lol Best of luck to anyone trying to get it.

Comment by Grubitsch

So here's the rundown. I've been soloing these dungeons in regular mode for hours trying to get this. I've had 6.5 fps the entire time... And then I recall... Only on heroic does this drop...

Comment by azureheart

healing paladins beware: you CAN NOT get the mace. i wasted my time going through all this thinking i would get a choice of items. nope. swords. that is it. useless for a holy paladin....and i thought i was going to get me a cool new mace to xmog. joke is on me....i get a stupid useless sword.

Comment by Trogdorp

dropped for me yesterday in Pit of Saron, dont remember mobs name. sold it for 40k this morning on Feathermoon tho, good way to make money if you get lucky enough

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Battered Hilt

Item Level 1
This Item Begins a Quest

Requires Level 80
"This scratched and dented hilt once belonged to an ancient sword."

This item will be converted to Battered Hilt if you transfer to Horde.

HeroicThe Forge of SoulsPit of SaronHalls of ReflectionSwords

Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind

Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned

Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows

Quel'Delar, Might of the Faithful

Maces

Cudgel of Furious Justice

Hammer of Purified Flame

Lightborn Spire

Battered Hilt

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