Shattered Glaives

The point is at the end of the post. Deal with it!

Today I was thinking again about Shadowmourne and how delightfully evil it looks. Also yesterday. It's a bit of a habit.

I got into a conversation about the relative strength of Shadow's Edge and concluded that I overvalue quest rewards. To me, they feel more epic. They are something I created or earned rather than just the blessing of the RNG and extra DKP. This is past of why I like Quel'dalar so much. That and it's a 251 weapon that I didn't have to spend DKP on and it looks amazing.

I went back to an old annoyance: Warglaives. They're stupid. So much legendaryness is lost by just dropping, as if they were a mere epic. Oh look, warglaive today, that's nice. Equip it and go do a BG.

It could be mere old-world nostalgia, but they did them better back in the day. Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros was the least legendary, being just a rare drop and horrible mat grind, but it was a bit more engaging. You didn't just equip it. You needed mats that took a guild to get and a skilled blacksmith. Other people were involved in the process beyond the mere killing of the boss.

Thunderfury was far more legendary, having a short quest chain devoted to it along with a terrible mat grind. Some of the mats were even from a different raid, making them a little bit more special. Then at the end you get betrayed and fight an elemental lord, trapping him in the weapon. That's legendary. Also it looks cool and has a neat proc.

Then there's Atiesh. It is immersed in Warcraft 3 lore, being the staff of Medivh. It draws on all manner of lore characters, from Kel'Thuzad to Brann Bronzebeard. Let us take note of the fact that anything involving a Bronzebeard is automatically 25% more awesome. Splinters were gathered from bosses in Naxxramas, the absolute hardest instance in the game; by some accounts harder than even ones now, though much of that was due to ridiculous gear and class requirements rather than actual complexity. Two major pieces were needed; one from Kel'Thuzad, the other from C'thun. Yea, Brann hid part of the staff in an Old God. Pretty safe place if you ask me. You put it together, find that it's haunted by some horrible entity, and have to go to Stratholme to cleanse it. Finally you get a class-specific caster staff which gives a good party buff. And it makes a portal to Karazhan.

RNG drop of a boss is pitiful in comparison. So I thought of a short chain to make it better.

Illidan still does RNG glaive drop, but they are shattered, broken, useless. But they start a quest. Go talk to a relevant NPC and you'll be told they can be reforged. But you need mats. So get a lore of elementium and fel iron and eternium, with some primal fire and shadow for good measure. Get it forged and voila, you have warglaives: epic weapons as good as any high-level drop with a +hit set bonus. They're not the warglaives yet because those were not merely shaped metal. You must bind to them and give them purpose. That means hunting and killing demons; both trivial and challenging, including Kazzak. Then they will know their master: you, and their purpose: to kill demons.

Now you have the legendary warglaives.

Of course this is far too late, being an expansion and multiple years behind. It does look like Blizzard learned the lesson with Shadowmourne and that funny-sounding mace for dress-wearing sissies.

In more recent news, a guildy of mine brought me into a MC PUG. The raid leader was nice enough to give him reserve on the baron binding and me on the ingot. Well, both dropped. So we flew down to Silithus, killed an old god, and he got a feat of strength for having Thunderfury. Then we took the remote to BRD and made a sulfuron hammer, which I turned into a Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros and had to equip to get the feat. I guess to keep out those pesky non-two-handed-mace users.

I admired myself for a while, noting that the weapon matches my T10 shoulders and Crown of Destruction. I looked good. For your viewing pleasure, I have logged out in this gear and should remain in it until I log in again tonight. Unless I get keylogged. So if you see me in something else, please tell Blizzard that I got hacked. Thanks.

But down to business: We each had a Sulfuras and a Thunderfury. I mean we each have both. We're weird people. So we did what anyone would do: dueled while using terrible weapons. HoR vs. HoR resulted in a win for ret. HoR vs. TF resulted in a win for ret, though he actually stood a chance. Clearly this means prot warriors need a nerf. Done. Reversing it and facing my sword vs. his mace resulted in a complete ass-kicking because I practice by getting in fist fights with gods. Then came the TF-TF duel. It turns out that when two prot specs face each other, it's almost impossible to do any physical damage: too much block, avoidance, and armor. So I hit him in the face with my shield and called it a day.

Then we parted ways and I went to go randomly tank DTK wielding a TF for a group that appeared to be three guild members; two of who never spoke and one who went on endlessly in what appeared to be Portugese. It was a good run.

Maybe if I glue a feather there and add a marble and...

What? Oh sorry, I'm trying to make an Atiesh.

My favorite gnome was taunted by the presence of a legendary and I thought I'd try to help. Alas, there don't seem to be any more splinters dropping, so I'm forced to improvise. Oh sure, she said she's happy to see her guild get a pretty hammer, but we all know there's a loot whore in all of us.

Hold this would you?

Legendaries are strange things, aren't they? They take a guild to make. At least if you make them when they're supposed to be made and not four years late like someone who shall remain unnamed. So a guild makes it and then a person gets it. That's quite a bit to put on one person.

It's not just a reward. It's also a burden. Such a big investment by the guild carries some obligations. Some would disagree, but those people are sociopaths, so fuck their opinions. The player owes something to the guild. But what?

Certainly they shouldn't quit the next day or switch guilds or that sort of thing. And they should remain active and help out. But are they a slave to the guild, shackled to it forever? That's unreasonable.

And what about their role? Sure, the mage gets Atiesh and will use it for a long time and the rogue gets warglaives and stays swords. But what about the healing priest with a hammer who wants to melt faces? Or the paladin with a shadowmourne who really wants to get hit in the face repeatedly for hours on end. Does the legendary tie their spec too, and for how long? Perhaps until it is no longer the greatest thing imaginable. But that could be a very long time; they are legendaries after all.

Don't even think about switching mains...

Perhaps legendaries are an ideal candidate for being guild-bound. But for the person who is given main use of the weapon, it still ties them. Leave the guild and the weapon is out of reach. While the guild played a role, I doubt the individual player just sat around waiting for the guild bank to dole out expensive mats. They invested in it as well, but they don't own any of the weapon.

Divorce is messy, isn't it?

Can I borrow a hand here? Yep, hold that. Okay now I can twist that around there and loop and tighten that and

*crack*

So um, how about a legendary wand and held in offhand?