Val'anyr: Legendary weapon from Ulduar

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There's been a lot of talk about Val'anyr, the legendary weapon that drops in Ulduar.

I say "drop", but, well, it's a little more complicated than that.

How do you get this weapon?

First of all, you have to gather up all these little shards before you can even consider equipping it. There are *40* pieces scattered around Ulduar. And by scattered around Ulduar, I mean, bosses are guarding them. With their lives. So you kill the bosses, loot the fragments, and put them together.

On the Wowhead PTR, it says 'unique (30)', although elsewhere it says you need 40 to complete the quest - I think this is a typo or bug on Blizz's part and will be officially changed to 40. Some people think it's set like this to stop people from completing this quest on the PTR (on the PTR you need 40 but it will only let you carry 30). Other people say that you'll only be able to carry 40 if you defeat some certain boss on hard mode. Personally I think the first two may be correct - I doubt the third is. Or maybe they'll just keep it at 30 rather than 40, who knows.

These fragments are BoP, will only drop off of 25 man bosses, and most likely only if you're rocking it on hard mode. There have been one or two reports of fragments dropping off normal 25 man bosses, but I think this is either a false report, or a bug. Valnoth stated in a blue post:

"Hard mode rewards will be the best in the game. With that said, I want to be sure that everyone understands: Hard mode is hard. Some hard modes are harder than others..."

So hard mode is hard, and we should be rewarded with a totally sweet weapon after slogging through all of it. Sounds about right to me.

So you have all 40 fragments! Grats! Now, to put it together.

...BY TOSSING THE PIECES INSIDE YOGG-SARON'S MOUTH.

I'm totally not joking. You have to take all these pieces that you so carefully gathered, put blood, sweat, tears, hope, love, and strength into, and you just toss 'em all inside his mouth. (Note that this has to be done in a 25man hard mode encounter.) He just om noms them up. I don't get it. Does he forge a weapon... with his tongue? Is it like tying a cherry stem with your mouth? (I could never do that.) Does he swallow it? Does he spit it back up? Are there tiny gnome weapon-forgers just chilling in his mouth who go to work once it's in there? Hm. I mean, I suppose that you throw them in there, and then you defeat him, and then it's an item that drops on his loot table. It's just... odd.

(On the left: Tooltip for each fragment. On the right: Tooltip once you have all 40 fragments, which leads to accepting the quest to throw stuff in that dude's mouth.)

Who can use this weapon?

We don't have specific stats yet, but we do know that it's a one-handed mace, usable by priests, paladins, druids, and shaman. Because of this, it's almost certain that this will be a healing mace! (woohoo!) We don't know what the stats are, or if the stats will vary depending on class (more spirit for druids, say, or more intellect for paladins). However, it does have this bonus equip effect: "Your healing spells have a chance to cause Blessing of Ancient Kings for 15 seconds, allowing your heals to shield the target, absorbing damage equal to 15% of the amount healed."

Interesting: a legendary weapon with an equip effect that won't inflate healers' e-peens. This won't increase your numbers, it will just mitigate damage. It helps your entire fleet of healers (healers, ships, same difference) and the whole raid, not just you and your own personal output. I think this is pretty neat.

The TL;DR version:

• It's a one-handed mace.
  
• Priests, paladins, druids, and shaman can use it.
  
• It's almost certainly a healing mace.
  
• You have to collect 40 BoP mace fragments.
  
• These fragments drops from bosses in 25 man content, probably only from hard mode.
  
• Once you have the fragments, you throw them in Yogg-Saron's mouth, defeat him on hard mode, and get the mace.

Ta-da!

So, uh, I want it!

Yeah. So does every other healer in your guild, buddy.

So how do guilds decide who gets this item?

First off, all 40 fragments should go to one person. If you start looting fragments one by one, as they come, to each of your healers, no one will ever get a mace before the next content patch. It has to be one person. If that person isn't present on a raid where a fragment drops, then I would assign a secondary healer to pick up that piece. That secondary healer will be the one who gets the second mace - once the first person has all 40 fragments, the second person can start collecting.

Before you even step foot into Ulduar, the best thing to do is figure out *how* you'll decide who gets it (Officer decided? Highest lifetime DKP? A vote within your guild from non-healers? Whoever your best healer is? Random /rolls before your first foray into Ulduar?). The last thing you want is to get a great kill, have a fragment drop, have people get all hushed on vent, and then have to make a split second decision that may or may not be for the best.

When you do figure out how you're going to distribute the fragments, make sure you tell your guild. Let them know who will be getting the fragments and why. Let them know what procedures are in place: Who is the secondary person who will collect them if the primary person isn't there? Will these fragments cost DKP, and/or will the mace itself be priced?

Hopefully if you have a mature guild and a rational explanation as to why particular people will be getting this mace, there won't be any problems.

Does anyone else have any other information about Val'anyr that I missed? Let me know!

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