I decided to try to get the Darkmoon deck %26#8220;of Beasts%26#8221; for my Priest Healer, in order to turn it into the trinket.
So, just after the Darkmoon Faire left Shattrath, I went to the Auction House. Over the course of a few days, thanks to the addons that I use to determine Market Prices, I looked up %26#8220;of Beasts%26#8221; and bought out Two of Beasts clear through to Eight of Beasts at significantly reduced rate from the average Market Value.
Then I looked up on Thottbot where Ace of Beasts dropped, and confirmed it over on WoWHead.com - Upper Blackrock Spire, from a mob called %26#8220;The Beast%26#8221;.
That's the only place in the game it's been recorded to drop. Oh joy.
I could imagine that if it ever DOES show up on the AH (and that wouldn't be very often), it would be very very very expensive, so I decided to turn to one of my friends who knows LBRS and UBRS quite well, and see if I could call on a favor to first get keyed for UBRS, then go through with the key to find the route to The Beast.
It turned out that my friend had a 57 Rogue he was working on advancing, and his wife was working on her 51 Paladin, so I took my 70 Mage and a 70 Druid healer friend along, and the four of us went into Lower Blackrock Spire to traverse through its mazes in order to kill the bosses that dropped the various gems that fed into the Seal of Ascention for forging the key.
LBRS With A 51
Yes, it's possible. But it's a lot slower than if everyone were 56+ because you'll have to clear a lot more packs of mobs for fear of the 51 aggro'ing them from across the room. Fortunately, if you've got a good player on that little 51, they'll learn from their %26#8220;oops got too close%26#8221; mistakes and there won't be a lot of deaths. And we had a good player on that 51.
We did wipe once - Pally didn't wait for us to clear a little bit when we all took a shortcut and jumped down at one point (I think she pulled the whole floor), but when we got back from that long-ass run from Thorium Point (no Warlock, no SS), she let us clear more and there weren't any other deaths after that.
But it WAS slow-moving because we couldn't just sneak past mobs that we could if we were all level 70. That's okay tho, since I considered it a price paid for having a guide who knew exactly where to go in order to get done what I wanted to get done.
Starting The Quest For The UBRS Key (Seal of Ascention)
Once three LBRS bosses have been killed and the Gems have been collected and a Seal of Ascention has been picked up from one of the trash mobs along the way (and the Seal of Ascention can be traded from another player if you didn't get one yet and someone else did), it's time to turn in the quest and get the next stage for Forging those components together.
Fortunately, you don't need a quest to start collecting the Gem and Seal of Ascention, so you can pick up and turn in this first stage at the same time.
Also, the game has even been altered so the Gems drop every time the boss is killed, instead of being a % chance drop like it used to be. If you can get everyone in your party to agree to pass the Gems to you, you can get the UBRS key components in one run, which used to not be the case.
Forging The UBRS Key
Once you've got the Unforged Seal of Ascention, it's time to head out of Blackrock Mountain and head to Dustwallow Marsh where, in a deep cave, a Dragon by the name of Emberstrife is hanging out.
Emberstrife is only a 61 Elite, but since he's a Dragon, he's extra-tough for a 61 Elite. An because of what you must do in order to complete the quest, he's even tougher!
You see, if it were just a matter of blasting him down, I proved I was able to do that the first time I ran across him - I hadn't actually READ the quest to see that I was supposed to do other things, and was semi-expecting that the key forging would be like for Shattered Halls where the Fel Reaver is killed and you cook the unforged key on his remains.
But no... for Emberstrife, you're supposed to slap down the Unforged Key of Ascention on the ground, and then when Emberstrife %26#8220;faulters%26#8221; at some 15-20% life, you're supposed to Mind Control him with another item you're given for the quest, and then get him to %26#8220;blow%26#8221; on the unforged key of ascention in order to forge it. Then you stop mind-controlling him and blast him down the rest of the way.
After four tries to get the timing right, failing the MC once because my Water Elemental was out, a second time because I MC'd before putting the Unforged Seal down, and dying each time I didn't just straight blast down the Dragon, I got a hold of a healer friend and had her come along with me to help make sure I stayed alive long enough to get the job done.
Thank goodness for friends :)
Bug When Turning In The Forged Seal of Ascention
One thing I hate about old-world stuff is that there are stupid known bugs and it looks like they'll never, ever get fixed... because it's the %26#8220;Classic%26#8221; version of the game and they've got enough bugs to worry about in the more-frequented places of the current expansion.
One such bug exists here, and after looking it up through the comment discussions in Thottbot, it took me an hour longer to turn in the quest to complete the UBRS key than it should have:
When you turn in your Seal of Ascention and 3 gems, the quest guy takes away the items and gives you the Unforged Seal. Unfortunately, it's only the Seal of Ascention that wakes up this quest guy to even offer a quest... or a turn-in.
So, when you were running LBRS with 4 friends, it generally happened that one person in the group had a Seal of Ascention on them when you'd approach the quest giver (who had a red name like an enemy until you got closer with the Seal), and having that Seal would trigger the quest guy to offer his quest, or offer the turn-in for the Forged Seal of Ascention stage.
But, if you are alone in there, you have to have a Seal of Ascention YOURSELF in order to turn in your Forged Seal. But the Quest guy took away your Seal of Ascention along with the gems, so you don't have one.
And the drop rate of the Seal of Ascention has been cut WAY down - I farmed UBRS trash packs for an hour before another friend logged in with the Seal, and then just before I broke down and asked him to fly all the way to Badlands and make his way to Blackrock Mountain, the Seal dropped for me and I was able to go turn it in.
The Key To UBRS ... Is Not A Key??
When I turned in the quest and got the so-called %26#8220;key%26#8221; to UBRS, I was disappointed to see that it's NOT actually a key - it's a ring! It doesn't go into my key ring, and it's something I'll have to pay attention to so I don't sell or toss.
WTB a key ring that holds ALL manners of keys, even if Blizzard decided to put them into a different form!
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