Cleoboltra's Epic Quest

[Mirajj]

I was under the impression that the blue sinew was for the epic quiver, and the black (BoP) sinew was for the bow/staff.
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You are under the correct impression. You need the (BoP) Leaf from Domo to start all this. You need the (BoP)black sinew to make the bowstring for Rhok, you need to beat up 4 demons to get the stave for the actual bow. You need the (BoE)blue sinew for the quiver, if you want it.

I farmed for 41 hours for that blue sinew, before getting it off the AH.

[Shriek]

The real bottleneck is getting Onyxia to drop her sinew though, the droprate is absolutely terrible and I'm fourth in line; though rumour has it that the droprate's been increased with 1.9.
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We've taken Ony down every reset since 1.9, and I think there *might* have been one instance where she *didn't* drop the sinew.

[Kevin]

We've taken Ony down every reset since 1.9, and I think there *might* have been one instance where she *didn't* drop the sinew.
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And we've killed her 15 times since 1 Jan (we kill her twice in one lockout a lot because of the size of the alliance) and we've seen it drop 5 times in those 15 kills (I don't have to think I can just check are points page and loot drops to verify). It is not trivial to get.

Catlyn has been frothing for this for months and still doesn't have it and it just kills me if it drops in the lock out he wasn't a part of which has happened a couple of times.


Welcome to the PRNG.


Edit we've killed her 34 times in total and have gotten 13 sinews if you want the total numbers for our alliance.

[nobbie]

Yes, Dwarf females in 1.9 have lopsided shoulderpads - the one pad is always much larger than the other.  Nice, Blizzard.

I've been wondering about the different pad sizes of certain shoulder pieces on my female Tauren Druid, too. Is that graphically intended, or is it a display/symmetry bug?

[Tal]

After 6 attempts I finally got my own Benediction tonight on Krys and I can tell you from observation that they've tweaked the quest from what I can see. Gone is the 2 hour time limit - you only have to wait 15 minutes to try again. From what I have read they've upped the number of skeletons both archer and melee. Reports are that they upped the damage that the disease does on the peasants. They skeletons are just as weak as they were when Bolty did it. They don't hit for all that hard either. Another change they made and one that surprised me is that you can legitimately do the quest with another priest. I was grouped with a priest when he started the event and the game asked me if I wanted to start the quest too. I agreed and between the two of us we managed the event and received our staves. Screenshots are forthcoming.

[lfd]

Another change they made and one that surprised me is that you can legitimately do the quest with another priest. I was grouped with a priest when he started the event and the game asked me if I wanted to start the quest too. I agreed and between the two of us we managed the event and received our staves.

I wouldn't be too sure that that was "legitimate" without reading a Blue post saying it was intentional; you always got that quest dialogue box because it is implemented as an escort quest type, and they always show the "blah is starting X - do you want to start it too?" questions to anyone in your group also eligible. It seems remarkably odd that they'd choose to take a quest designed and tuned to be done solo and make it zergable by up to five priests.

I suspect the Cleaner simply arrives to detonate anybody in the area not on the quest.

The 15 minute wait instead of a 3 hour one is a very welcome change, however. It was a pain having to camp the NPC to get mine a few patches ago due to somebody else doing the same thing and repeatedly failing.:)

[Tal]

I wouldn't be too sure that that was "legitimate" without reading a Blue post saying it was intentional; you always got that quest dialogue box because it is implemented as an escort quest type, and they always show the "blah is starting X - do you want to start it too?" questions to anyone in your group also eligible. It seems remarkably odd that they'd choose to take a quest designed and tuned to be done solo and make it zergable by up to five priests.

I suspect the Cleaner simply arrives to detonate anybody in the area not on the quest.

The 15 minute wait instead of a 3 hour one is a very welcome change, however. It was a pain having to camp the NPC to get mine a few patches ago due to somebody else doing the same thing and repeatedly failing.:)

Seems remarkably odd to me that if they were designing an encounter that was a solo event that they would keep that quest flag in. Especially since I talked to other priests who had help on their attempts and the other priest was not given the dialogue "'Priest' is starting {insert quest name} would you like to start?"

I have to admit that I'm somewhat torn about the encounter. On one side I would have like to figure out how to finally succeed at the encounter, on the other side the way the encounter worked when I was soloing it seemed designed towards the priest having help. One wave would always zone in before the previous wave was about halfway to the NPC zone out. So I would be forced to leave the previous wave to do with renews while I tried to save those in the new wave taking heavy disease damage.

[Mirajj]

Seems remarkably odd to me that if they were designing an encounter that was a solo event that they would keep that quest flag in. Especially since I talked to other priests who had help on their attempts and the other priest was not given the dialogue "'Priest' is starting {insert quest name} would you like to start?"

When I did the quest a couple of patches ago, it took me 4 tries. Before my first try, I helped a dwarf priest who'd been giving me tips on it. She'd attempted it a couple times, and we'd spent the better part of an hour grouped together discussing the quest. Then the NPC popped.

She hit the NPC, and even though I was grouped with her, I received no "do you want to start this" dialogue, and after she (successfully) finished off the quest, I did not 'succeed' at it either. That would be reserved for 4 tries (on the 2 hour timer) later.

This is a new change/tweak.

I am curious though Tal, if your help moved at all. I was told/have seen the cleaner not mind helpers, as long as they don't move. The helper finds a good position to help from, and turns into a statue, dispensing heals, hands off any of the movement keys. They can cast whatever they want, but a single step brings in the Cleaner. Or used to. Did your helper move, or statue?

Oh, and Grats! =D

[Tal]

When I did the quest a couple of patches ago, it took me 4 tries. Before my first try, I helped a dwarf priest who'd been giving me tips on it. She'd attempted it a couple times, and we'd spent the better part of an hour grouped together discussing the quest. Then the NPC popped.

She hit the NPC, and even though I was grouped with her, I received no "do you want to start this" dialogue, and after she (successfully) finished off the quest, I did not 'succeed' at it either. That would be reserved for 4 tries (on the 2 hour timer) later.

This is a new change/tweak.

I am curious though Tal, if your help moved at all. I was told/have seen the cleaner not mind helpers, as long as they don't move. The helper finds a good position to help from, and turns into a statue, dispensing heals, hands off any of the movement keys. They can cast whatever they want, but a single step brings in the Cleaner. Or used to. Did your helper move, or statue?

Oh, and Grats! =D

I was helping him and I did move around a bit in the vale. Not fully forward as he was holy nova'ing the skeletons and I didn't want to be healed.

Edit: I'm going to put in a GM ticket about whether it was intended or not.

[lfd]

Seems remarkably odd to me that if they were designing an encounter that was a solo event that they would keep that quest flag in.

Yes. But this is Blizzard.

Especially since I talked to other priests who had help on their attempts and the other priest was not given the dialogue "'Priest' is starting {insert quest name} would you like to start?"

Before my first try [...]
Then the NPC popped. She hit the NPC, and even though I was grouped with her, I received no "do you want to start this" dialogue, and after she (successfully) finished off the quest, I did not 'succeed' at it either.

There's a little mini-click-to-complete-quest just before it (called something like "A Warning" - this is where the quest text comes from that explains you'd do well to attempt it solo, or face the consequences). Unless you've done that, you won't get the pop-up, as you haven't completed the pre-requisites, like any multi-stage quest. See also "Jailbreak!" ;-)

One wave would always zone in before the previous wave was about halfway to the NPC zone out. So I would be forced to leave the previous wave to do with renews while I tried to save those in the new wave taking heavy disease damage.

...yep, that's pretty much how it's always worked and how you do it, or at least it was back when I did it, so disclaimers about the life the peasants have and the damage the disease does apply. (Mid-rank) Renews were plenty to keep undiseased peasants up, and head back to the start to meet the next wave while the previous one crossed the line.

[Bolty]

Seems remarkably odd to me that if they were designing an encounter that was a solo event that they would keep that quest flag in. Especially since I talked to other priests who had help on their attempts and the other priest was not given the dialogue "'Priest' is starting {insert quest name} would you like to start?"

It's always worked this way. There's a quick "turn-in" talk you do to the NPC, and THEN you can start the Balance of Light and Shadow. The Priests who didn't get the escort quest notification didn't do the pre-req talk beforehand.

Take a gander at old threads about the Priest epic quest on other boards and you'll usually find someone who says they did it grouped with 1 or more other Priests, followed by 20 "u suck u can't do it solo, that's cheese" posts. But as Mirajj mentioned, it used to be that you could get away with it as long as one of the Priests moved in the quest area and the other one did NOT move an inch.

Other ways people have cheesed it:

1) Have a Paladin stand at the entrance with a Retribution on. One heal gets the attention of melee skeletons, who waste time trying to kill the Paladin. Lame.

2) Have a Mage standing somewhere in the zone, and he rains Blizzards down on skeletons. He doesn't have to see them to kill them - when he sees the Priest getting hurt/attacked, he launches AoE at them so the Priest doesn't have to worry about killing them. Also lame.

Blizzard's never fixed this. It's far from a "solo" quest, sadly.

Abolish Disease and Renew remain the best spells in the quest. Cast-on-the-run instants are superior, especially since they're fire-and-forget - once a peasant has abolish and renew (rank 4 or 5, perhaps) on them, they're going to make it through and you can ignore them the rest of the way.

WowHealers (fun site) has pretty much the authoritative writeup on how it all works.

-Bolty

[Tal]

It's always worked this way. There's a quick "turn-in" talk you do to the NPC, and THEN you can start the Balance of Light and Shadow. The Priests who didn't get the escort quest notification didn't do the pre-req talk beforehand.

The first attempt I made - when I was certain that the priest would get pwn'd - he had done the pre-quest talk with the NPC and was looking at the "In light and balance" quest screen. He did not receive a "Krystian is starting" dialogue when I started it. I'm wondering if you get it if you have it sitting in your questlog as failed?

Abolish Disease and Renew remain the best spells in the quest. Cast-on-the-run instants are superior, especially since they're fire-and-forget - once a peasant has abolish and renew (rank 4 or 5, perhaps) on them, they're going to make it through and you can ignore them the rest of the way.

From what I was seeing I would hit them with abolish and rank 5 renew about 3/4 of the way to the priestess and there would still be some who would get poisoned afterwards and die or darn near be dead by the time they zoned out.

I'm not sure what to do about it.

[Bolty]

The first attempt I made - when I was certain that the priest would get pwn'd - he had done the pre-quest talk with the NPC and was looking at the "In light and balance" quest screen. He did not receive a "Krystian is starting" dialogue when I started it. I'm wondering if you get it if you have it sitting in your questlog as failed?

That could be it right there. I think you need to abandon it. I'm also assuming you were grouped (I know, dumb question)?

From what I was seeing I would hit them with abolish and rank 5 renew about 3/4 of the way to the priestess and there would still be some who would get poisoned afterwards and die or darn near be dead by the time they zoned out.

Remember, 14 peasants can die and you'll still succeed. Since you shouldn't be losing *anyone* in wave 1, cause that's the warmup easy wave, that means you can afford to lose 2-3 peasants per wave thereafter. Trying to save every single last peasant often gets you killed, or leads to worse problems because you're running over to the new wave too late and are forced to play catch-up...which is tough. That was the mistake I made on my second wave when I tried it - I got there late - and I made sure not to repeat it. Likely a few peasants died that I never saw because I was running back to the next wave, but not enough of them died to lose the quest.

Have your timers easily noticeable. Psychic Scream every possible chance to help "group up" melee more for easy smackdowns. Keep full Renew on yourself until they gather and then whomp them. Disease is the #1 peasant killer, not the archers. You'll have at most 5-6 second windows ever where you're not being attacked by some melee. They never really leave you alone.

-Bolty

[Klaus]

I managed to do the escort with Xarhud about a month ago, completely solo, in full shadow spec (33 shadow, 18 disc), so I know it's possible to do it without help. In fact, I didn't even have any buffs from other players. I used a +25 int pot, a +250 armor pot, some mana regen oil on my weapon, and lots of Oils of Immolation. Granted, it took me 6 tries to get it right, but I did manage it.

I'm certain that the difference between my successful attempt and my failures was leaving each wave soon enough to pick up the next wave early. I have no idea how many I lost and whether I lost them after leaving the wave or not. I used abolish disease and renew rank 5 (I think) with the occasional flash heal tossed in to save a peasant that was getting really low. Also, the immolation effect takes two pulses to kill the skellies, so I had to self-shield and self-heal to make sure I didn't die (in two of my failures they actually killed me). If I had one or two skellies after me I used single wand shots to kill them. I never actually ran out of mana, but I had to be careful not to waste renews on peasants that already had them or I would have.

Anyway, it's a great feeling of accomplishment to solo it, and I recommend sticking with it for a while to see if you can get it before getting some sort of help.

[Mirajj]

There's a little mini-click-to-complete-quest just before it (called something like "A Warning" - this is where the quest text comes from that explains you'd do well to attempt it solo, or face the consequences). Unless you've done that, you won't get the pop-up, as you haven't completed the pre-requisites, like any multi-stage quest. See also "Jailbreak!" ;-)

My apologies, I was unclear. I was all set to do the quest. I had everything I needed, and was at the stage where she would give me the quest the next time I talked to her.

I still received no "Do you want to start" confirmation.