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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Battered Hilt - I want it

Ever since patch 3.3 hit, there's a new epic in town: the Battered Hilt. This purple thingamajig drops in the 3 new 5-man instances, Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection and it has a chance of dropping from trash, not bosses.

At first, when I didn't know exactly what the big deal was about this item, I dismissed it. I saw people hustling it on trade for fabulous amounts and I assumed it was another of those components for some really high-end weapon that can be obtained by shedding lots of blood, sweat and tears in raids.

It turns out that nothing's farther from the truth. Finally, a powerful weapon has become accessible to just about anyone... or at least anyone who's 80 and willing to run a couple of heroics. But wait, I hear some of you protesting, what weapon are you talking about?

I won't be getting into details about the whole quest chain required to get your hands on this nice, juicy weapon, because you can read all the details on this page from Wowhead. Basically, the end result is a ilvl 251 weapon, which is pretty damn sweet for a non-raider. As a hunter, I set my eyes on this piece: Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned.

This would be a big upgrade for me in terms of stats, since just until half an hour ago I was carrying a Silvery Sylvan Stave. But then I ran a random ToC and Marrowstrike (ilvl 219) dropped for me so I obviously needed it and found myself with a nice upgrade for less than 20 minutes worth of work. In any case, the Quel'Delar sword will be another upgrade over Marrowstrike, if I decide to go for it. Unfortunately, Quel'Delar doesn't have any sockets. Here's a comparison between the three if you are interested.

So how does one go about acquiring a Quel'Delar? It's easier than I thought. Here's a quick-and dirty summary.

Once you get the Battered Hilt (more on how to get it later), you use the item and it starts a quest. Follow the chain, which sends you to Dalaran, Dragonblight, etc. Easy stuff. At one point it will ask you to go inside Pit of Saron (I know, this part is a bit backward), gather some ore and then forge some stuff (the blade I think). You can find the ore scattered around the instance but you need to obtain the hammer dropped by the first boss in order to forge it. After that, the next step in the chain sends you to Forge of Souls where you're supposed to temper the blade in the thingy behind the last boss. After that you need to go to the Sunwell, enter the instance (which I believe is phased somehow) and do some stuff. At one point you will need to kill a bunch of normal mobs and an easy elite. And that's it.

I'm not sure you've understood much from my haphazard account of this quest chain but the essence is this: the "worst" part is the two new instances that you need to at least partially complete in order to get your stuff. Now that I've completed both of them, I'm no longer scared of going in there, so Quel'Delar is within reach.

There's one little problem. The Battered Hilt itself. Since the drop chance is very low, I'm not counting on having it drop during one of my runs and then winning the roll. So the only option here is to buy it. On my server I've seen it for about 15K, which is not a bad price but even though I can afford it easily, I have chosen to wait a while for its price to drop to about 10K. If a Hilt ever drops for me and I win the roll, I can always go back and sell it.

So what do you folks think? Is it worth waiting a while longer? Is 10K a good price? Is the damn thing even worth the hassle? It sure as hell looks cool.

22 comments:

Unknown said...

if you have money to burn and nothing to spend it on go for it. I am acheap ass and would wait and farm for it.

Darth Solo said...

Well, I'm a cheap ass too considering I won't spend 15K on this even though I have 200K. On the other hand I prefer to keep my desires for shiny new (and expensive) gear in check because I don't raid and my current equipment is a bit overkill for heroics.

Shannara said...

To clarify, it drops on heroics and not regular :(

Gyldenfeax said...

The drop rate of this was nerfed after a few days so its much rarer and more expensive now. I first saw it on the AH for 10k maybe 2 weeks ago and resisted the urge to buy it which eventually cost me 2.5k as I later bought it from trade for 12.5k. Short of raiding or arena I was never going to see a better weapon until Cataclysm. I'm no where near 200k so 12.5k is a lot for me (I only have 36k) but it's only gold and you buy a better experience with a better weapon, although there was a bit of buyers guilt I have to admit.

Anonymous said...

Just bought it last night for 13k. Still deciding if I want to try and flip it (AH data shows 14-18k) or go for it. I don't raid beyond the occasional pug, so it's probably the best weapon I'll get this side of Cataclysm. I don't have an obscene amount of gold, but I have more than I need. However, this purchase DID drop me down to 5k, since I also just bought the new ICC lw boots, the dalaran ring (finally), and my motorcyle (whenever I hit 40k or so it seems to burn a hole in my pocket).

So... yeah. I'm starting to lean towards using it. I make about 1500g/hr (1hr/day at the AH), so I'll make the gold back within a couple weeks.

Anonymous said...

i dont see why a solo player needs it. but you arent really solo anymore so go for it!

Anonymous said...

Prices on my server have been ranging from 18k-25k. I run a twinked 60 and have thought about blowing my whole wad of cash to try and flip this, which based on cross-server market prices seems like a bad idea. Thanks for the heads up

Darth Solo said...

"i dont see why a solo player needs it. but you arent really solo anymore so go for it!"

Whaddaya mean man? I need it so I can solo more shit! Well, seriously now, if it's within my grasp and it doesn't require raiding, why not?

I can see other people have the same dilemma. Though I have enough gold, that doesn't mean I want to waste it on trivial stuff and it doesn't mean I will over-pay for something.

Celebrandil said...

This is the perfect weapon for a solo player like you. You will probably never get your hands on a better one before the next major content patch (if there's going to be one before Cataclysm), because they drop in ICC25, e.g. Distant Land from Festergut.

Still don't know how to link items. ^^

Anonymous said...

see i just dont think u are really a solo player anymore. solo means alone like your title=wow-alone. when you spend your time in dungens you are not alone anymore. when u go back to talking about real solo stuff then ill be back.

Anonymous said...

Orca Hunter's Harpoon

Check it on wowhead, it drops from HOR heroic. Got it twice. Uber weapon if you ask me. A VERY good one for us.

Anonymous said...

I agree with above guest: you're not a SOLO player anymore, you should consider renaming this blog or whatever. You're blogging about dungeons now, sorry but that has nothing to do with original SOLOing stuff :)

Vordan said...

Ive seen the hilt drop three times, lost the roll three times. First time it dropped for me was a few hours after the new patch came out then two hours later, both in Halls of Reflection. Personally I have never had much gold so I wouldnt consider buying it, if it dropped and I won I would keep it to get the weapon rather than making the gold for selling it. The healy sword you can get with it makes me drool.

Darth Solo said...

@Celebrandil use HTML markup for linking stuff in comments.

HTML anchors

@Darraxus just saw another one for 20K on the AH. Too much for something that will be replaced in a few months in Cataclysm.

@Vordan what sucks is that none of those are tanking 1H weapons.

To those complaining that I'm not solo anymore, I beg to differ. Please read my next post, that I have created just for you.

Darraxus said...

@ Anonymous 1 and 2. If you dont like the direction of is blog then f@ck off. It is afterall his blog. That is like getting mad that I talked about one of my other toons when my blog is called Darraxus the Warrior.

@ Darth: Do your thing. The Dungeon finder is awesome. Perfect throw away groups.

Darth Solo said...

@Darraxus ha ha thanks man. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and they are free to express it on this blog, as long as they don't insult me directly.

*vlad* said...

What are you saving your money for? Buy it.

Darth Solo said...

@vlad I know, I'm a big scrooge but I believe I do have my reasons. For one thing, I'm trying to hit the psychological gold cap, i.e. 214K, for no other reason than to prove to myself that yes, someone like me can do it. Then, I'm preparing for Cataclysm. It sounds strange to say that but we don't know what gold sinks Blizzard will introduce or how much they will cost. It's good to have a buffer.

Anonymous said...

214k sounds like a "nice" buffer

Darth Solo said...

Well, I heard (but don't tell anyone ;) that Blizzard's next gold sink is a mount that can run on ground, fly and swim at 500% speed and carries 5 different types of vendor which can be swapped for passengers in a pinch. Problem is, it costs 200K before faction discounts :D

I'm kidding, of course. But I can see something along this vein happening. Maybe not 200K but who knows... 50K is a reasonable guess.

Anonymous said...

ive never understood why they dont sell special weapons at vendors for lik 100k or something like the best ones

Darth Solo said...

They should, eh? Like a goldsink. But then people would just buy gold.