- Author: Caperfin
- Date: April 5, 2019
- Updated: February 17, 2021
- Expansion: WoW Classic
The Inconspicuous Crystal of Zin-Malor and more!
by Caperfin • 5th April 2019
Hi, my name is Caperfin and welcome to my guide! It will come as no surprise there are some rather weird items out there with interesting effects. Today, we will be looking at a few items that often go under the radar of most players:
First is a crystal with intriguing self-inflicting properties. Second is a more common off-hand item used within the PVP community. Third, a food item with a nasty bite to it! Fourth a flying dragon, sparking some fiery discussion in the theorycrafting community. Next, is a little rat with little secrets. Lastly, is a big orange demon and a once known legendary two handed sword.
As a side note, everything listed is Blizzlike emulation, not anectodal from 1.12 vanilla.
Let’s begin with the lesser known Crystal of Zin-Malor. Just how do we get this mysterious trinket? First complete the quest chain called To Winterspring!, from Ivy Leafrunner in Felwood. Once this chain is finished, you will have access to another quest chain immediately after, called: Tormented By the Past.
Once you accept this quest, you must NOT progress the quest in any way as completing it will remove the Crystal from your backpack forever. It was hard enough for me the first time to halt progression on the quest as I was in a half dazed state and almost forgot. In order to avoid completing the quest by accident, you can perform the following trick: deposit the item in your bank and abandon the quest. This enables you to keep the item. And there you go – the crystal is now yours to keep forever.
Let’s dissect the tooltip – Crystal of Zin-Malor. It tells us it will it deal damage and drains between 100 to 501 mana, this means both the damage and mana numbers will be random each time you equip it and the numbers will fall in-between these two extremes. I should let you know the tooltip says it will drain you of HP and mana if you are not worthy. No one is worthy, trust me I have tested everything.
- If a character is killed by equipping this item, that character will not suffer any penalties to armor durability.
- Next, its used by warriors and rogues who PVP and are looking for a way to break control effect such as: Polymorph. However, remember you must be out of combat to equip the trinket.
- Its third use, is if you get stuck in a location that you cannot easily get out of and your Hearthstone is on cooldown, you can use this item until you die so that you can be sent to the nearest graveyard.
- You can also equip it while travelling on a flight path, you will die and your body will be transported at the initial travel starting point. So if you ever accidentally click on the wrong flight destination or you change your mind mid-flight, instead of waiting till you get to your destination and turn back, just equip it and in a few seconds you’ll be dead. Be careful to quickly unequip it once you rez, so you don’t die again.
- Finally, and this is probably the most interesting use of the Crystal – and that is Priest Tanking. Yes, you heard me correctly… Priest Tanking. More specifically, it is worn by other raid members. However, the topic of Priest tanking is so complex it deserves its own full fledged guide. Keep an eye out for it in the future!
With the most rarely explored items in World of Warcraft there are bound to be questions and general curiosity surrounding them. Therefore, I will answer some questions that may already be at the back of your head:
- If used by a class who does not have mana as a resource, it will simply drain health and nothing else.
- Its damage cannot be increased while equipped. On a similar note, the damage caused is Pure Damage not Shadow Damage as thought by many.
- Defensive Stance is the only spell capable of reducing its damage. (There are other but this one is the most consistent across all servers)
- Sitting down will NOT cause the trinket’s damage to crit.
Now let’s look at Skull of Impending Doom. How we get this item? In order to get on the quest required to own the Skull, you must first compete a mandatory quest chain before called: Solution to Doom from Theldurin the Lost in the Badlands.
Once this chain quest is completed, you will have access to another quest chain immediately after, called: To Ironforge for Yagyin’s Digest if you are Alliance and To the Undercity for Yagyin’s Digest if you are Horde. Once you complete this chain quest you will be rewarded with the skull.
Contrary to the Crystal, the Skull is an off-hand item and therefore can be equipped and un-equipped while in combat proving to be very useful in PvP. Not only is it useful to break crowd control effects it also provides a decent 60% increase in run speed. The Skull also shares the same suicidal possibilities as the Crystal. The amount it will drain will either be a constant percentage of your health or a random amount, this will depend on the server’s coding. Keep in mind, if the damage is too much of a burden, the Skull’s buff placed on you can be removed by clicking it.
Third on the list is a curious, potential CC-breaking food item that is created through the Cooking profession, Scorpid Surprise. In order to obtain the recipe required to cook it, make your way to Razor Hill to buy the recipe from Grimtak for 1 silver and 40 copper.
Afterwards, you’ll need the main ingredient: Scorpid Stinger, which can be found by killing scorpions around Durotar or simply buy the stingers from the Auction House. Also, if you are lucky enough you may be able to find this delicious pie in its entirety on the Auction House. Speaking of Auction House, you may have noticed I did not provide an Alliance alternative NPC to buy the recipe from.
The solution for them is to either level a quick Horde character to 8 and cooking level to 20, buy the recipe and sell the recipe on a Neutral Auction House in Booty Bay. Afterwards, change to an Alliance character and buy the recipe from a Neutral Auction House. Another option is to establish contact in some way with a Horde player, to sell the recipe on the Neutral Auction House. I should point out, that in Classic it might not allow you to have an Alliance and Horde character on the same realm. Naturally, in this situation resort to the last option.
Now lets take a look at what this items does exactly. In terms of effect, once you bite into it, there is a 17-25% (may very from server) of applying a poison debuff that deals 10 nature damage every 3 seconds for 21 seconds. The damage produced will no interrupt the eating process and as you start eating you cannot lose health, you will only gain health, though slower if you have the debuff, as it ticks it off but you regenerate it back up again.
It might not seem like it but similar to the previous items our delicious treat is often used in anticipation in PvP to break crowd control effects. Some will argue it’s pretty strong since the poison is active for a whopping 21 seconds! Highly recommended to be used against Rogues and Mages. However, remember you must be out of combat to eat, of course.
To answer your questions:
- The damage can be increased through the warrior spell: Berserker Stance
- The poison effect can be resisted
- Lastly, I should mention, on some blizzlikes it deals a percent of the caster’s health in damage.
So just how do we obtain this metallic flying creature? Arcanite Dragonling or referred by many in the community as AD is acquired by a level 50 character with a profession level of 300 in Engineering. Its rather an elaborate plan we have to follow before seeing the final version of our flying friend.
If you have the money to spare and want to avoid getting all the tedious reagents and running around in the world, I suggest flat out buying AD from the Auction House, if your wallet is rather low on money, you might want to consider going through the list of chores required.
Now lets take a look at what this items does exactly. Activating the trinket summons a dragon which will attack any target you are currently holding threat on. The little guy will deal very low melee damage around ~100 damage on a target with 0 armor. However, our main interest is in the spell it casts, Flame Buffet.
The fire debuff placed on the enemy is stackable up to 5 times, which opens up the door to some interesting possibilities as we will explore soon. It’s recommended to have 4 to 5 ADs activated by fellow raid members moments before initiating a boss to properly keep the debuff active. Because it will decay over time, its important to keep Flame Buffet or “FB” at its maximum 5 stacks for as long as possible.
However, sadly, it is a loss of damage for pure DPS classes to have AD in their trinket slot during a boss fight. But don’t be discouraged, because in an ongoing boss fight, it will be rare to find healers without an AD in their trinket slot. Unless they absolutely need that one trinket slot to be open for something else or their guild is raid progressing.
So with healers in mind, we can sustain those glorious 5 stacks of FB. These stacks can be achieved by having each healer on a planned rotation periodically activating their own metal dragon. Typically, healers should activate their own winged beast the moment the debuff reaches 4 or one of the dragons disappears (whichever comes first).
- To start off, if it wasn’t made obvious, Mages that are specced into fire absolutely love this little guy as it bolsters their fire damage to great heights. They will scream and beg other players to bring their own AD, enabling fire mages to do absolutely crazy damage.
- Next, on the list of possibilities are the irregular specs that come to fruition and fully allow them to take flight. Such as: Fire Warlock and Machine Gun Imp.
- An honorable mention should go out to Fire Rogues, but this is entirely contingent on items such as Blazefury Medallion or Fiery Retributer not only stacking with FB but also spell damage. This might not become reality because come WoW Classic a fire rogue could reach an upwards of 2k dps. But nevertheless, I thought I would bring it to your attention as a possibility. Of course if any of what was previously mentioned does in fact does make it into the game in any lesser iteration, you can expect a guide from me on the subject.
Next, is our whiskered friend with a ton of potential, Unconscious Dig Rat. Let’s look at how to obtain one of these furry fellows. To start off, we need to visit a Dig Rat – they inhabit the Kalimdor continent, more specifically, The Barrens. Being a Horde faction territory, expect Horde players of all levels to continue with their routine of eliminating any Alliance players they have within their sights. Oddly enough, the specific region we want to enter within the Barrens, ‘Bael Modan’, has Dwarf NPCs that are affiliated with the Alliance. This dwarf infested area is separated into 2 parts: the Basin and the Keep. Within the Basin:
There are a couple of dwarves, notably: a few Bael’dun Foreman ranging from lvl 22 to 23 with two to three of them walking around a short distance, and Digger Flameforge, a lvl 24 elite. In this area are a total of 3 Dig Rats or “DR” all visible from the outskirts of the Basin. I suggest for a lower leveled 24 to 26 horde character to remain within the Basin as there aren’t many dwarves there and they are clearly manageable from a distance.
Within the Keep and the road leading up to it:
On the road are Bael’dun Rifleman ranging from lvl 24 to 25 with a DR on the left of the Keep near the tank and another on the right side of the Keep near the cart. Within this big dwarven fortress are Heggin Stonewhisker, a level24 elite, Malgin Barleybrew, a lvl25 elite, and Captain Gerogg Hammertoe a lvl27 elite. If you can survive the majority of mobs, there are 7 DR walking inside that you can reap from. I recommend that you be at least lvl 29 to 31 upon entering.
Killing a Dig Rat rewards us with a Unconscious Dig Rat. As you have probably noticed, you can only carry 1 Unconscious Dig Rat or “UDR” at a time. In my rigorous testing, I have come across a 13% chance for it to drop. However, this low percent chance to drop should not discourage friends/guild-mates from doing the same and claiming their own as it provides plenty of benefits later on.
With the cursory glance out of the way, let us delve deeper into the number surrounding our summoned critter. Once activated, our little friend comes out with the following stats:
- Will appear after a 3 second casting time.
- Level 1 with a total of 42 health points.
- Has 20 armor.
- Can be summoned while caster is in combat and the caster is immune to spell pushback during.
- Can be summoned while running.
- If provoked in combat, it will not attack. However, anyone can attack it.
- The length of time it lasts is unclear and depends on the server. (minimum 5min – max 4hours.
- Cannot be cast while on a mount.
There are whispers of DR in Classic being able to attack anyone who engages them in combat but they are just rumors. However, expect me to make a guide about it, if so.
With your trusty sidekick by your side its time to venture out and fight monsters together. Just before commencing a battle with a target, summon your little buddy to take advantage of some benefits:
The first benefit is through a neat little trick involving warriors and rage regeneration, this is done by a warrior provoking the critter through numerous spell, such as: Intimidating Shout and Challenging Shout, which cause the warrior to be “in combat” with DR. The combat phase will remain even if the warrior unsheathes his weapon and deselects DR.
The beauty in this, is the talent: Anger Management despite not having it said in the toolitp, has the hidden feature of granting 1 rage every 4 seconds while in combat with a target. Wait until 100 rage is attained and kill the rat as you head towards the boss for a chance to trigger Flurry. To increase the chance for Flurry to trigger ask other teammates to activate their rat as well before a fight and get permission to attack it. Its also possible to Charge the rat but you must cancel the default auto attack immediately by either quickly moving in another direction or repeatedly pressing the “X” key.
In a similar fashion, a rogue can gain combo points to activate Slice and Dice before facing a boss/target. This is done by provoking the rat with Cheap Shot or “CS” and immediately stopping the default auto attack and running away until your leave combat.
Some might prefer to create a macro to quickly stop the default auto-attack or stay in the absolute limit range of CS and quickly run away. Once you re-target the rat the combo point will remain and you can repeat this routine until 5 combo points are achieved. Lastly, as you head towards the boss simply activate Slice and Dice.
Boss fights with mechanics that require players to run away from a dangerous zone are also advantageous for us. Since rats can be placed in the safe zone to collect combo points through Gouge while waiting. The same notion can also be applied for warrior and gaining rage. Some players will purposefully not upgrade the rank of their Gouge ability to prevent the rat from dying.
A druid with the talent Nature’s Grace can increase the chance it triggers by casting rank 1 Moonfire on nearby Dig Rats either before a fight or during some downtime in between a boss mechanic. Druids who spend most of their time raiding in Moonkin Form really like this.
A mage with the talent Arcane Concentration can increase the chance for it to trigger by casting rank 1 Frost Nova either before a fight or in conjunction with a boss mechanic by running to a nearby ranged teammates who will be activating our little friend for us. A higher number of rats will not increase the chance for the talent to trigger.
Its recommend before a fight to unequip all gear that bolsters spell crit and spell damage to reduce the chance of killing the rat, then afterwards re-equip the gear, replenish one’s mana and engage the boss. The truly amazing aspect of Mages is the spell: Polymorph which can be used on the Rat so it regains its health. This way all classes can freely trigger certain spells without killing the Rat.
A paladin with the talent Vengeance can increase the chance it triggers by equipping a weapon with low damage, such as: Putrid Wooden Hammer and attacking the rat before a boss fight. It is also possible to judge the rat with Seal of Righteousness.
A shaman with the talent Elemental Devastation can increase the chance it triggers by casting rank 1 Chain Lightning on a rat, the more rats, the better. They can also trigger Elemental Focus and Flurry.
A warlock with the talent Nightfall can increase the chance it triggers by casting rank 1 Corruption before a boss fight or during. The more rats, the better. I suggest casting it on 3 rats than engaging the boss and periodically re-apply Corruption on nearby rats during boss mechanics that force you to move around. Typically, healers compared to other roles are left with larger gaps of time where they have nothing to do, ask them to activate their dig rat during a boss fight.
Lets ask the most important question that’s on everyone’s mind: What on earth is a Doomguard? and why the general interest in it? A Doomguard or “DG” is a demon that can be created through warlock spells. Once brought to life this monstrous beast will freely claim its surroundings as a stomping ground to attack everything around it. Engaging them in battle in a particular way enables for some clever benefits through items and bolsters the potential of a few classes. Without, going into too much detail right out the gate and cause confusion, let’s break down the mystery behind this creature and its potential uses.
Our orange fellow can be summoned through 2 warlock spells. The first is Curse of Doom and the second is Ritual of Doom. However, the second spell is rather a burden to perform on a regular basis as you can see in the tooltip. Therefore, this ritual spell will be less in the spotlight for this guide. That is not to say a doomguard originating from the curse is easy, since we will be needing a few members to bring their own Unconscious Dig Rat. The following is simple to understand but hard to implement.
Let me explain, a warlock will be casting the curse on nearby rats until a DG is summoned. Each server has different proc rates, but in the worst case scenario I came up with a consistent 38% rate for the demon to pop out. If you would like to know more about UDR or are somewhat lost at the moment, I highly suggest reading the previous section. In the weird situation that these rats are hard to acquire for whatever reason, I reluctantly suggest the lock to perform the ritual on another player. Because the ritual will kill a random member, other warlocks might want to consider applying Major Soulstone on all ritual members.
On a side note, it’s possible that the sacrificed member, once resurrected from the soulstone, may automatically be placed in combat – this causes the member to not be able to drink and thus render them unprepared for the upcoming boss fight. Therefore it is recommended that most of the ritual members be warriors and rogues so that mana regeneration is not a requirement and the engagement with the boss can start quickly.
It’s unclear if this forced combat phase from ressurection is a bug, which will be fixed or intentional but I though I’d bring it to your attention as a possibility. Also, remember that the majority buffs are removed once you die, so save those buffs for after your resurrection.
Let’s look at the numbers and key components behind our demonic friend once he is brought into the world. Firstly, unlike other demons that a warlock can bring into the world, a Doomguard is not bound to the warlock as a pet. The creature is permanently set on the “Aggressive” stance attacking any mob that enters its aggro radius. It will be constantly starting fights with targets in its vicinity. Next, are his attributes and spells:
- He is level 60.
- Has 2743 mana.
- A health pool of 4,802.
- Deals between 356 – 404 damage.
- Rend will rarely if not ever be casted.
- Rain of Fire will rarely if not ever be casted.
- Cripple is resistable through acquiring shadow resistance, if resisted he will wait 30 sec to cast it again. If you can rectify some aspects of the debuff, for ex: receiving Blessing of Freedom to solve the move speed effect, it will get rid of the entire cripple debuff. You can also be immune to Cripple by receiving ced buff before hand. However, items like: Free Action Potion will not get rid of the debuff but will make you immune as stated in the tooltip.
- The target he is autoattacking will not receive a spell pushback penalty. (maybe a bug)
- Can be feared, banished, stunned and mana drained.
Now that everything is layed out nicely, lets put Doomguard into action to bolster the efficiency of a few classes and items. Our overall goal is to have Doomguard hit a class for the longest amount of time possible, to proc certain abilities.
A warrior with the talent Enrage can wait until he gets critted by the winged beast to have it proc. Once it procs, the warrior can head into battle with a decent boost to his overall damage. A warrior can not only benefit from the demon hitting him before initiating a boss but also during the boss fight.
A warrior has the unique potential to keep the DG’s aggro on him during a boss fight, through such spells as: Mocking Blow and Challenging Shout. Although, it requires a high level of expertise a skilled warrior with the talent: Tactical Mastery can change stances to cast Taunt on the Doomguard, the moment the demon is aggro’d. I should mention, to avoid the demon dying from AOE boss effects or teammates using AOE, a lock can cast Banish to prevent the demon from dying or Enslave Demon.
A warlock can also dismiss an enslaved DG causing it to go back to its wild state. Knowing the time in between a boss’ AOE spell in correlation with a warrior’s aggro generating spells separates good players from the rest. Place yourself the farthest away from other melee teammates to avoid them from AOE’ing the demon and killing it. Also ask a Hunter to kindly periodically cast rank1 Viper Sting. A DG with 0 mana will not cast anything.
A warlock with the talent Nightfall can periodically cast rank1 Corruption on our beloved demon to make the talent ability proc.
A hunter can increase the chance for Mongoose Bite to trigger. Typically, this type of melee playstyle is designated to hunters who are in charge of applying the debuff: Spell Vulnerability, which originates from the weapon: Nightfall. To be frank, a decently geared hunter can forgo this weapon and go full personal damage and compete with other classes but that is a different subject for another day.
The Lion Horn of Stormwind can be the necessary boost for a tank to survive a physically high damage dealing boss. Having it activated before a boss fight can be quite beneficial. The beauty in this item, is that the buff will remain even if the item is swapped out for another item. But you must leave combat by killing the demon to swap items. Also, it is Bind on equip so you can have two of them to increase the chance for it to proc.
Guardian Talisman is very similar to the previous item but only affects the user wearing the trinket.
Mark of the Chosen shares the same swapping trick as the two items before. However, it yields some benefit for not just tanks but dps and healers as well.
Ahh Corrupted Ashbringer my favorite weapon in World of Warcraft, perhaps the closest we will ever get to Ashbringer. But today were not fan boy-ing about the original Ashbringer but its evil twin brother version Corrupted Ashbringer. I’ll be dissecting and taking an in-depth look at this bad ass two handed sword. Firstly, lets establish, just how do we obtain this luxurious two handed weapon?
This weapon drops from the last raid released to the public: Naxxramas, a 40man raid but more specifically from the Four Horsemen Chest that appears after defeating the Four Horsemen. Its drop chance is calculated to be approximately 17%. However, defeating the Four Horsemen is no easy task and its commonly agreed upon in the pve community to be one of the hardest bosses in Naxxramas and to a lesser degree the entire game.[/floatright]
Let’s assume your lucky enough to grab this weapon from the chest, what does this item do exactly? Simply equipping the item will cause you to become temporarily hated by the Argent Dawn. Visiting the Scarlet Monastery with the sword equipped yields interesting results! It will trigger a scripted event and all the NPCs in the Cathedral instance will turn and bow before the person who has the sword. After you reach the Cathedral and talk to Scarlet Commander Mograine, the ghost of Highlord Mograine, the Ashbringer, enters and speaks with his son.
Now lets look at the stats on this epic weapon. Corrupted Ashbringer is ubiquitously accepted as the two handed sword that can output the most dps in vanilla within PvE. Not only does it provide a 2% crit bonus but also a 1% hit bonus.
The 2% crit is very attractive because you get this crit during a part of the game where crit become very relevant in wow as raid bosses are defeated faster and faster. The -25 to stamina should be absolutely disregarded because this weapon more than makes up for it.
The 1% hit is also nothing to overlook even though a two handed weapons requires a lower amount of hit% to reach the hit cap. So not only do we get a heavy damage dealing weapon but a higher assurance that it will reach its target all bundled up into one.
Lastly, lets investigate the life steal effect. As of writing this, the effect scales with spell damage and debuffs that are related to shadow damage such as Shadow Weaving. Once the damage reaches the target, You will receive the equivalent damage in health back. The health you get back does in fact generate threat but nothing too worrisome. On top of all that, the steal life effect can crit. So with the stats out of the way, who benefits from this weapon and which one stands above the rest?
In terms of Player Versus Environment (PVE) scenarios, there are three classes that can utilize this weapon to its full potential. In no specific order there are: Paladins, Hunters and Warriors. To be honest, one of these classes has a better alternative at their disposal and that class is the Warrior.
Warriors who use this type of weapon are primarily talented into 2h Fury. However, they have the possibility to obtain Might of Menethil, which is seen as the better alternative for them. On the other hand, paladins greatly benefit from this weapon not only from its stats but also as the steal life effect scales with spell damage.
I saved the best for last: the class that benefits the most from this weapon are: Hunters, yup, Hunters. To be more specific, for ‘melee hunters’ it is undeniably BiS for them. That meme from back in the day is no longer a meme. If you’re curious I will be releasing a guide on this subject shortly.
Moving on to Player Versus Player (PVP) scenarios, there is no priority for who should use it over someone else. However, as previously said Paladins slightly benefit from it more but you do not have the abundance of buffs to bolster its steal life effect and you might want to look more at acquiring Might of Menethil, especially if 5 points are in the talent Reckoning.
About the Author
Hey you should really add Tidal Charm to this list. It would be a great fit!
https://classicdb.ch/?item=1404
Lots of items can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yKa5VF-Gj5N5qrgz5Yd5XLdVSk2UGWaPei4aPCyjhCU/edit
Most can / should be added to this list.
Stfuppercut I tend to highlight items with effects that are not obvious from the tooltip and items that are rarely if not ever talked about. Thanks for the link, I will be including Limited Invulnerability Potion though.
Thanks for the info! Continuing the conversation.. I’m curious if there’s any npc debuffs that have similar effects.
Withering Poison – Scorpids/Shimmering Flats
Effect: 6dmg /3sec
Duration: 3m
Neretzek, The blood drinker also scales 100% so losing 410 hp by using ashbringer isnt that great for pvp