Everyone and their mom and dog seem to be farming trash mobs in the ICC 5-man dungeons for their Battered Hilt. And for good reason too; this quest chain will not only get you one of the best weapons in the game (for many classes/specs, the best in slot), it will take you through some amazing lore and epic Azeroth travel.

Rather than write out yet another battered hilt guide, I thought I would point readers in the right direction for Battered Hilt information and how to complete the chain. Before you get started though, let me dispel three myths:

• The Battered Hilt no longer drops off skeletons in Pit of Saron. They fixed that in 12-15-09 to stop people from farming; and thank goodness, I was going insane.
• The Battered Hilt’s droprate is lower in Halls of Reflection. You can wipe and get more trash mobs forever, so it makes sense for them to do this. The change was implemented as of 12-9-09.
• Yes, the Battered Hilt’s droprate was increased.

Alright then! The following are the five best reads on the Internet right now for the Battered Hilt:

1. The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt from WoW.com
2. Battered Hilt: What? from the WoW forums
3. Battered Hilt: Do I have to? from MMOChampion
4. Battered Hilt and Epic Drop Changes from Spooncraft
5. WoWWiki’s Battered Hilt entry

Personally, I got my Battered Hilt right around Christmas (thank you, Santa) and I had to deal with a paladin QQ the whole instance about how he’s a tank and absolutely has to have that weapon. I politely explained I’m one of the main healers for my guild and then clawed at my face for 20 minutes IRL while I ignored the repetitious pleas for my recently won item. In other groups I’ve joined since then, I’ve had people get into similar “I need it more” contests and I just sit back and think how feral we WoW players all are.

And I lol at the people that pay real money for this thing. If you want to blow a ton of gold you’ve saved up on your WoW toon for it, that’s one thing — virtual money buys virtual things — but some of these Craigslist posts are ridiculous. Like this one:

Looking to purchase a battered hilt that you get from the new five man dungeons in world of warcraft, let me know if you have one and are willing to sell it for $35 send me an email and well figure out how to trade it ingame. Thank you. Please no scammers.

First of all: trying to buy WoW items with IRL money is a scam. So asking for no scammers is mind-boggling. Secondly, I know a great steak restaurant you can get dinner at for $35.

What’s your Battered Hilt story? Where have you read about this mythical drop?

I listed the five best items for Discipline and Holy healing priests yesterday, and one of them was the Ephemeral Snowflake. When I first got this drop though, the last thing that went through my mind was, “What a beautiful treasure!” My initial reaction was more along the lines of: “Wtf is this?” My spider senses tingled though, and so I took the trinket home from the world of random dungeon-land.

Then I did research.

Since Holy and Discipline healing are wildly different, I’m going to explain why this trinket is a win from both angles. First though, there’s some basic things you should know about your new (or desired) mana regen toy:

• It has an internal cooldown of ~0.33 seconds.
• If you activate it’s use constantly, it grants a 2.4% haste rating.
• If you proc it constantly, it grants ~165 mp5. (Theorycrafter needs evidence? Check out the source.)

So how do you use it constantly? Take your favorite spell–Penance is great for Discipline Priests and Circle of Healing works for Holy priests–and macro it so that you have it /use 13. My macro (which uses mouseover heals for Grid) looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover][] Penance
/use 13

Okay, now you have your Ephemeral Snowflake’s use interlaced into your healing rotation without having to think much of it. Let’s look at how to get it to proc constantly.

Procing the Ephemeral Snowflake as a Holy Priest

You want to make sure you’re healing, somehow, once every 1/3 a second. Sound crazy? It’s not that hard, actually.

Every time your Renew ticks (except the initial tick from Empowered Renew), you’ll be getting 11 mana back. If you’re raid healing, your HoTs will be all over the place, ticking for you while you’re doing other things. Then, of course, there’s the other HoT; Prayer of Healing’s glyph. Equipped with Serendipity and Healing Prayers, a Holy priest can easily have five different HoTs going off at once to push the internal cooldown of this trinket to its limit.

But you’re not done yet. When you cast Circle of Healing (glyphed, of course), you’ll be getting another 5 unique procs off. Your Prayer of Mending will also be healing people without your supervision (that naughty spell!) By exploiting all of your instant casts and HoTs in addition to your big spells, you can really push the proc to its limit and make sure it’s working even when your cast bar is tending to bigger things.

Procing the Ephemeral Snowflake as a Discipline Priest

This is a little bit harder. You’re glyphed so that your Power Word: Shield heals people, naturally, giving you the ability to get some of the procs of your insta-bubbles. Penance ticks pretty fast too, and you have Renew, even if it’s not spec’d. Your Prayer of Mending is working full-time, but your spec doesn’t let you get it out as fast, and it’s more expensive when you do. In short, you need to work out a better rotation.

Here’s how I found it worked the best:

1. Get the spare room for a Prayer of Healing glyph.
2. Instead of saying you’re a “tank healer,” volunteer to take care of the group your tank is in. Maybe throw all the tanks in group one.

Once you’re ready to start your endless Ephemeral Snowflake proc rotation, do this:

1. Renew the tank.
2. PW:S the tank for Borrowed Time.
3. Prayer of Healing the group. Hope the two HoTs are ticking totally off-beat with one another.
4. For six seconds, do all the bubbles and Penances you need to do. This should be getting the last third of the second, while Renew and PoH are picking up the other two-thirds of the second. Get a final PW:S off right before 6 seconds are up for another Borrowed Time.
5. PoH the tank again.
6. Refresh Renew as necessary, rinsing and repeating PoH every 6 seconds.

It’ll be a tighter squeeze than Holy healing, but it will work.

Is the Ephemeral Snowflake good for other classes?

Druids love this trinket, and for obvious HoT-gasm reasons.

Restoration shamans? Well, they can proc it with Riptide, but not with Earth Shield or the healing totem. Chain Heal also seems to give it a proc every bounce, though the bounces happen all at once, so you’re yet again looking at a restriction with the 0.33 second cooldown. In short, shammies are more questionable.

I don’t have enough experience with Holy paladins to assess that angle, but they have their own positive remarks on WoWHead, so something must be working. I’d be curious to hear a paladin’s opinion on it.

Where do I get one!?

Like what you’ve read? Then go get your very own Ephemeral Snowflake off Marwyn in Halls of Reflection! It works beautifully with a Darkmoon Card: Greatness for mana hogs like myself.

Yesterday, Johannah the Smite Priest looked at the five best smite priest loots in 3.3 5-man dungeons; today, I’m going to stay in the realm of the ICC 5-man dungeons but instead change my perspective over to the other Holy tree, priest heals. We’ll look at how these items affect Discipline healing too, though the list admittedly won’t differ.

Note that these items are friendly to healing priests and, as such, will not have any hit rating. Smite and Shadow priests definitely need hit rating, so it’s better to check the previous list for the pews!

1. Chest. Mord’rethar Robes. Devourer of Souls, Forge of Souls. Spirit for Holy — crit rating for Discipline! And it’s not like Discipline shies away from Spirit or Holy loathes crit rating either. Need I say more? This robe is just “wow” without having to blow emblems or go to a raid.
2. Waist. Braid of Salt and Fire. Ick, Pit of Saron. Haste saves lives, and spirit gives mana to save lives. This is a solid belt. There are boots in Pit of Saron too that make the trip more worthwhile: Prelate’s Shoes.
3. Off-hand Frill. The Shriveled Heart. The Captain’s Chest, Halls of Reflection. I listed this yesterday, and I’m listing it again. You’re going to need an off-hand when you get your hilt weapon, and this is simply the best one around without stepping into a raid.
4. Gloves. Suspiciously Soft Gloves. Marwyn, Halls of Reflection. I also listed these yesterday for smite spec, and for the same reason; crit rating and spirit. While Holy priests often don’t rely on crit as much (but, if you read my Lvl 80 Holy Priest Guide, you know I’m a fan of Surge of Light), I still think these are a solid set of gloves and are worthy of your top 5 items to grab for your healing set. These will alternate between Holy and Discipline fairly well.
5. Trinket. Ephemeral Snowflake. Marwyn, Halls of Reflection. Whether you’re a Holy or Discipline priest, this trinket has some uses for you. I’ll explain how it works in my post tomorrow and how you can maximize it’s output; for now, go run Halls of Reflection and try to grab yourself one!

Halls of Reflection is the winner again, but there’s something in all three instances to explore. By the time you get all the smite and healing items, you should have your very own Battered Hilt.