In the fifth week of the Icecrown Citadel (ICC) opening in World of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich King, after the addition of the 10-man Lich King loot in the Chinese server, some players entered the raid early after maintenance to see how the two new trinkets performed. However, after defeating the Lich King, these players encountered some frustrating issues.
1. Trinket Drop Rate Issues
Many players assumed that the two new trinkets added to the 10-man Lich King were extra drops after seeing the announcement from the Chinese server. For example, previously the Lich King dropped two items, and after the change, it would drop three items, with the third item being a choice between the two new trinkets.
However, when players actually went to fight, they found that this was not the case. Some players indeed received three items, including one new trinket, while others only received two items, with no new trinkets at all.
Some players believe this is a bug in the new mechanism, while others think the drop of the new trinkets is random, and whether they can obtain them depends entirely on luck.
In fact, if you carefully read the announcement from the Chinese server, you will find that it does not state that there is an additional drop, but rather that “the drop list for the 10-man normal mode Lich King has added two trinkets with an item level of 258.”
Fat Brother believes that the drop mechanism for the new trinkets should be similar to the orange axe fragments, which do not occupy the equipment drop but drop randomly. Only this mechanism can explain why some groups can drop three items while others can only obtain two items.
2. Players Obtaining White Attribute Trinkets?
After the new content update, an image of a white attribute version of the 258-level Star Crystal has been widely circulated among players, leading to jokes about the designers being too careless when modifying the equipment.
Although the image shows that this 258-level Star Crystal indeed only has intellect attributes and no active effects, the reality is not due to a designer issue or a game problem, but rather the result of players not updating their plugins.
If Fat Brother remembers correctly, this situation occurred during the 2024 Wine Festival on the Chinese server, when the server also raised the item level of the 200-level trinkets to 225, and some players ended up with trinkets that only had stamina attributes, which were later found to be caused by plugins.
Players just need to update their plugins to see the true nature of the new trinkets.
The Star Crystal’s permanent attribute has been increased to 149 points of intellect, and the active effect has been enhanced to restore 102 points of mana over 5 seconds. The Heart of Steel’s permanent stamina has been raised to 216 points, and the active effect’s dodge rating has also been increased to 581 points.
Currently, these two trinkets are truly the endgame gear for TN (Tank-Necromancer), and if you are pursuing item level and stats, they are definitely worth farming.
3. 10-Man ICC Grouping Situation
Fat Brother has gone around the summoning stones on various servers and found that the appearance of the new trinkets has indeed alleviated the grouping issues for 10-man ICC to some extent, but it has not fundamentally resolved the problem.
Currently, TN subsidies for 10-man ICC raids are still the norm, and some DPS groups have attempted to form evenly distributed groups, but the results have generally been that they cannot find TNs.
Additionally, a new problem has arisen with the new content, where many DPS mains only want to fight bosses 1-4, while TNs want to fight the Lich King, leading to an increase in the number of players leaving after defeating the earlier bosses.
Fat Brother still insists that rather than getting caught up in the 10-man normal ICC raids, it would be better to open 10-man HICC first, which would not only allow players to experience the heroic mode early but also truly attract players to participate in 10-man raids.