Battered Hilt and Epic Drop Rate Changes

Based on feedback we’ve been provided by players, we’d like to make you aware of a couple of changes we are applying to Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls via in-game fixes. Firstly, we are increasing the drop rate of the Battered Hilt in all three wings of this Heroic five-player dungeon. We have seen a great deal of discussion about this item’s chance of dropping since the release of patch 3.3.0 and agree that it is currently too low. As a result, players should find greater accessibility to this item while running these dungeons, or while trading with other players who have it.

In light of this change, we are also removing the chance for the Battered Hilt or any other epic item to drop from the Skeletal Slaves in the Pit of Saron. The need to “farm” these creatures for the Battered Hilt should be reduced by our first in-game fix and will no longer result in a chance for epic loot or Battered Hilts.

You’re welcome to discuss these changes in this thread and provide us with any additional feedback you may have. Please refrain from creating additional threads about these in-game fixes at this time.

You can find a full list of recent in-game fixes here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843880&sid=1

Q u o t e:
Could a blue PLEASE let us know when a reboot is performed and these new policies are in action? How about a topic in each individual server forum when it is rebooted, and one in general when all reboots for the North American/Oceanian realms are complete.

These changes should already be live on all realms.

Q u o t e:



why is the drop rate still so low? wouldnt it be fair to take it away from everyone that got theirs in the first 24 hours?

It's been less than 24 hours since the change went live. The drop rate was not increased in such a way that you should expect to see one after one or two clears of each wing.

Q u o t e:
has anyone put thought into what the hot fix did:

-stopped skeletal slaves from dropping the hilt (around 50 slaves per instance right?)

-increased drop rate among other mobs

so in turn blizzard didnt do anything to the hilt drop rate, they nerfed it by not allowing skeletals to drop it, then buffed it by "increasing" the drop rate....

they did absolutely nothing....

The increase in drop rate is more significant than the removal of this item's chance to drop from Skeletal Slaves, particularly for those clearing all three wings as intended.

Q u o t e:
So that is what i was trying to figure out, their play on words on top of me being tired is ftl but can you better elaborate about this? From what i gather is that the drop rate is like a SoV, the more you do the instance as intended the drop rate stacks and increases right?

No, the drop rate is flat. You have a fixed chance of getting the item every time you run one of the dungeons. What we did in these recent fixes is substantially increase that chance and remove this item's ability to drop from the creatures most frequently and easily being farmed for it.

Q u o t e:


Then what is that drop rate? Simple question asked repeatedly but still ignored. Or will the given drop rate be proven wrong after all the testing people end up doing on these things?

We do not provide specific drop rates on the forums. The Battered Hilt has had three different drop rates now since the release of patch 3.3, none of which do we intend to share on the forums.

Yes, getting the hilt is rare and also intended to provide a more casual-friendly weapon. This doesn't mean a player who is not raiding should expect to get an ilevel 251 weapon within eight days of the patch's release, much less be angry when he or she doesn't.

Q u o t e:
except that's the whole thing, it isn't even close to a casual friendly weapon

If a casual player is not raiding for Emblems of Frost, the rate at which this player can obtain ilevel 251 gear is low, but possible nonetheless. The same is virtually true for obtaining Quel'Delar, regardless of whether it's a matter of chance, gold, or emblem collection.