The trash mobs on Stratholme's Undead side: "Worst career choice of my life. I should've transferred to the Scarlet side."
Baroness Anastari: "I wasted my best years here. Why did I ever let Rivendare talk me into staying in Stratholme?"
Nerub'enkan: "I'd run if I could, but there's nowhere to go."
Maleki the Pallid: "Is the Scarlet Crusade still hiring? At this point, I'll take any job in the Scarlet Bastion."
Magistrate Barthilas: "Can I quit? Someone else can have the Magistrate title."
Ramstein the Gorger: "If Rivendare hadn't locked me in here, I would've bailed ages ago."
Life was miserable for the bosses and trash mobs on Stratholme's Undead side, all because of the mount Rivendare rode. Every day, players slaughtered them by the thousands. On every server, plenty of people treated Service Gate runs for the Deathcharger like a daily chore.
There were plenty of Mages who solo-farmed Princess Theradras in Maraudon, but they usually skipped most of the trash. Deathcharger farming was different. Anything standing between the Service Gate and Rivendare was collateral damage.
After entering Rivendare's chamber, Gabryell immediately warned everyone, "Head straight for the left corner. Don't pull the boss."
Rivendare came with his own damage aura. He was literally a man with an aura.
Unholy Aura continuously dealt Shadow damage to anyone standing too close to him.
"Ow! I stepped on something!" Smooch cried as her health started dropping the moment she entered.
"Same here. What the hell?" DeathScum shouted.
Carlos looked at his own health bar. "Me too. Something's weird about the doorway."
Danielly watched the boss more carefully. "There's an aura around him. The range is huge—the entrance is inside it too. That's what's damaging us, isn't it?"
As expected of his apprentice. Gabryell was pleased. "Come over here. You won't take damage in this corner."
The pile of debris to the left of the entrance sat just outside Unholy Aura's range. Groups that knew the encounter would usually hide there first, recover, and get ready before pulling.
Rivendare was a level 62 boss. More importantly, he was high enough level to have a microscopic chance of dropping Teebu's as a world epic, and Gabryell still had an unhealthy obsession with that sword.
"Four-manning Rivendare is insane."
Gabryell couldn't help thinking about an old four-man run he'd seen before. Those players had somehow fought all the way to Rivendare with a barely functional Main tank, two Rogues, and one Priest. They didn't even have a Mage.
"More than sixty wipes. That must've been brutal."
Gabryell silently paid his respects. Whatever else could be said about them, that kind of persistence deserved recognition.
Then he turned back to his own group. "Carlos, Rivendare has a damage aura. Pull him into the upper-right corner so Snowy and I can stay outside its range."
The aura didn't just drain health. Its constant damage could also cause spell pushback, and the last thing they needed was Danielly losing casting time while Carlos was getting hammered by Rivendare.
"Snowy, put Shadow Protection on everyone."
There was no reason not to use it. Extra Shadow Resistance was always welcome here.
Danielly buffed the entire party one by one, then sat down to drink back to full mana.
"I'm going in," Carlos said.
He charged forward and dragged Rivendare toward the upper-right corner, positioning the boss well away from the ranged DPS and healer.
"Reinforcements!" Smooch called.
Aurius had entered the fight.
The Medallion of Faith they had given him earlier in the small chapel near the Service Gate had finally paid off. Gabryell couldn't remember the exact trigger from his old runs—he had barely bothered with this quest back then—but once the fight started, Aurius showed up to help.
"Haha! We've even got an NPC helping us," Carlos said. "This should be easy."
"He won't carry us," Gabryell replied. "But extra damage is extra damage."
Aurius wasn't especially powerful in the Rivendare fight. His contribution was useful, but the battle still depended almost entirely on the players. Gabryell had given him the Medallion of Faith mainly because there was no reason to leave the quest unfinished.
DeathScum looked at the Paladin NPC charging into melee and sighed. "If the NPC can go in, I can't exactly stand back and watch."
As a Rogue, he had no choice but to fight inside Unholy Aura's range. That was one of the reasons a party running two Rogues against Rivendare would put so much extra pressure on the healer.
Then there were the skeletons.
Every few seconds, Rivendare summoned another pack of weak skeletons around the room.
"I'll handle the skeletons. You guys stay on the boss."
Gabryell had come prepared. He had even brought the Blade of Eternal Darkness with him, though in the current version of the game it still worked differently from the famous AoE proc weapon it would become later.
When the skeletons appeared, Gabryell threw up Mana Shield, moved into position, and cleared them with Arcane Explosion.
Groups without a Mage could simply throw Stratholme Holy Water at the skeletons instead. One well-placed bottle could wipe out most of a wave and save plenty of mana.
They needed to die quickly anyway. If too many skeletons survived, Rivendare could sacrifice them with Death Pact and heal himself.
Fighting Rivendare placed most of the pressure on the Main tank and healer. Carlos had to hold threat, position the boss properly, and be ready to use Shield Wall or Last Stand if a bad damage spike put him in danger.
Danielly, meanwhile, had to keep Carlos stable without burning through her mana too quickly while still covering DeathScum and anyone dealing with the skeleton waves.
Once the tank and healer did their jobs properly, the rest came down to DPS. Handle the skeletons, don't stand where you shouldn't, don't pull aggro, and burn Rivendare down.
Level-60 dungeon bosses weren't built around elaborate multi-phase encounters. Most of their difficulty came from raw stat pressure and a few mechanics that punished sloppy groups. Rivendare was only level 62 rather than a level-63 raid boss, so as long as they knew what they were doing, he wasn't especially difficult.
Under the combined assault of the party, along with whatever help Aurius could provide, Rivendare finally went down.
"I'm looting!" Smooch immediately stepped toward the corpse.
"Wait."
Gabryell stopped her.
She stared at him. "Why?"
He answered with complete seriousness. "Let the corpse cool down first."
This wasn't a joke. This was Rivendare, the boss who could drop the Deathcharger and the equally absurdly rare Runeblade of Baron Rivendare.
The sword itself would become infamous much later, when WoW Classic briefly gave it a bugged interaction with +healing that turned its regeneration into something ridiculous. Some Warriors even abused that version for absurd solo-farming tricks.
That bug didn't exist in 2004, though. Right now, Gabryell only cared about seeing purple when the loot window opened.
"Is it cold enough yet?" Smooch asked impatiently.
"Not yet. Wait a little longer."
Gabryell took a slow breath. His character in his previous life had never gotten the Deathcharger. It wasn't for lack of trying, either—he had farmed Rivendare plenty of times. His luck with this mount had simply been cursed.
Hell, he had eventually managed to solo-farm Ashes of Al'ar, yet somehow Rivendare's horse had still refused to drop for him.
After nearly a minute, Gabryell finally spoke. "All right. We're rolling first. Highest roll gets to loot."
This was the first time anyone had seen him treat a boss corpse with this much ceremony, but seeing how serious he was, nobody objected.
Gabryell went first.
/roll
74.
The others followed.
In the end, DeathScum won with a 96.
"Scum, you loot it."
Superstition couldn't be trusted completely, but with a drop this rare, Gabryell wasn't about to ignore it either.
DeathScum sounded delighted. "My time has come."
Smooch groaned. She had actually lost the loot roll this time.
DeathScum walked up to Rivendare's corpse, but instead of looting immediately, he circled it twice first. Only after completing the ritual did he finally click the corpse.
Gabryell stared at the loot window as it opened. He didn't care what else was there; right now, he desperately wanted to see one thing.
Purple.
"Too bad Igor isn't here," Gabryell muttered. "We could've sacrificed a Paladin to the RNG gods."
Surely that would've improved the drop rate.