Shadowmourne WOTLK: How To Get The Legendary Weapon

See all the necessary steps, quests, enemies, and items you will need to deal with to get the legendary Shadowmourne axe! 

As in any MMORPG, players are always searching for the best classes, skills, combos, weapons, armor, and anything else that can make their characters as strong as possible. And one of the best ways to gain a significant power spike is acquiring the Shadowmourne in World of Warcraft WOTLK.

The Shadowmourne is a legendary weapon that works perfectly for strength-based two-handed damage dealers. Some examples are Fury and Arms Warriors, Unholy Death Knights, and Retribution Paladins. It is a legendary axe added in phase 4 of the WOTLK classic, together with the Icecrown Citadel.

The Legendary Axe Big Deal

Generally, the most wanted weapons are the fan favorites due to their damage levels, stun, or debuff possibilities. No matter the reason, it is directly related to their primal stats. But, when we talk about legendary weapons, it is far more about their special effects than being a big and powerful weapon, which is no more than a good addition. This is the main difference between a legendary and a normal weapon. 

How Does the Shadowmourne Work?

As we mentioned, the Shadowmourne in Wrath of the Lich King has some unique special effects that make the weapon extremely strong. Let's see precisely how the Lich King big axe works and how it empowers our beloved damage dealers, becoming the higher priority for members of many guilds. 

Whenever you hit and damage an enemy with a weapon attack, you have about a 75% chance of collecting soul fragments. These soul fragments last for one minute each, and earning practically one per hit means your death knight or retribution paladin will easily manage many of them. Attacks with more than one target will give you soul fragments for each hit you deal. This means that Fury Warriors can get eight stacks in one attack hit.

 

These soul fragments increase your damage by 30 per stack. But you can get only 10 of these fragments. As soon as you get ten soul fragments, they will be consumed, and you will be “rewarded” with the chaos bane. When you unleash this chaos bane, there will be a damage explosion that deals 1900 to 2100 shadow damage. After that, you gain the chaos bane buff, which gives players 270 of strength for ten seconds.

But, for most players, Shadowmourne has a problem. While the soul fragments and the chaos bane explosion are tremendous and deal much damage, the chaos bane buff that comes afterward isn’t that good. That’s because these 270 of strength aren’t significant enough, and players prefer to start collecting souls again, which they can’t do while this buff is active. 

The funny thing is that WOTLK players found an interesting way to avoid the buff. They go to the macros tied to all their DPS abilities and add the command to stop the buff. That way, your retribution paladin or Death Knight starts gathering souls again right after the explosion. The command they use is the “/cancelaura Chaos Bane.” 

Other Characteristics and Stats You Gain After Obtaining Shadowmourne

Even though the weapon is not the most praised for these stats, they are also good, as they must be for its legendary category. So besides the Souls and the Chaos Bane, we will see some of the stats and the Shadowmourne grants and its unique characteristics. Shadowmoune improves armor penetration rating and improves critical strike rating, for instance. Two very important stats that players care about. Another interesting fact is that it has a sell price. 

Building Instead of Dropping It

Blizzard decided to remove all the lucky factors related to the legendary weapons and made it impossible for players to get them from random drops from raid bosses. Instead, to get the Shadowmourne, players must gather enough shadow Edges and complete the quest chain instead of killing bosses.

AS the WOTLK expansion advances, you will probably do enough to get more than one Shadowmourne. But many players complain that, now, luck won’t get you anywhere, which is surely a drawback in the system. You could also receive the weapon from your guild, but we wouldn’t recommend you expect that. Shadowmourne is rare, and the best way to get it is going for the quest chain once and for all. It will also be good to ensure you some bonus rewards.

As we mentioned before, Shadowmourne is strong but isn’t effective for all the WOTLK classic characters. To make the best use of Shadowmourne, you should play Death Knight, Retribution Paladins, or Warriors.

How to Get Shadowmourne

Getting Shadowmourne may seem more complicated than any other weapon. But complexity, many times, also means more fun. And to get Shadowmourne, you will need the shadow’s edge and the weapon forged into Shadowmourne when the final quest is completed.

Getting Shadowmourne Step by Step

To get the Shadowmourne, you must follow some steps. But the good thing is that Shadowmourne questline starts easy. The first thing you must do is to get friendly to the Ashen Verdict faction. As you clear the raid as you normally do, your character will get lots of reputation, a great bonus reward the game gives you for the long questline.

After becoming friendly with Ashen Verdict, you must look for Highlord Darion Mograine. If you ever completed the Icecrown Citadel raid, you probably have seen him because he will be there. If you had entered the raid, you would have seen him. He is close to the entrance. 

Highlord Darion Mograine will give you the quest The Sacred and the Corrupt. Obtaining Shadowmourne can only be done through this first step. During the quest, you’ll need to get: 

• 25 Primordial Saronite, 

• Light’s Vengeance, 

• Festergut’s Acidic Blood, 

• Rotface’s Acidic Blood.

Primordial Saronite

The 25 Primordial Saronite can be bought in the auction house, or from the Quartermaster in the Icecrown Citadel or Dalaran. If you want to get the best price for them, check on both places, as the values vary but will be around 23 emblems of frost. Bosses in the Icecrown Citadel can drop it as well.

The thing is that the boss drop rate is close to 20% to 40%. This means that getting all the Primordial Saronite this way won’t be fast. The best thing you can do is gather the 575 Emblems of Frost you will need to buy the item. You will get the emblems by making different versions of the Icecrown Citadel. The WOTLK classic game doesn’t make it easy for you to complete this step, so be prepared to invest your free time in it.

Light’s Vengeance

The next step is finding the legendary hammer that belonged to the Lich King before he puts his hands on the Frostmourne. Be sure this won’t be a normal task. You will need to go to the Frostmourne cave and be face-to-face with the Lich King himself. He knows about your attempts to get the Light’s Vengeance, so he will invoke an army of minions and Vegard the Unforgiven to stop you. To find the cave, go to the Dragonblight zone and search for the marked location.

There will be no easy way to set yourself free from this ambush. You can kill the Lich King’s minions, but the only way to set yourself free from them is to find a way to interact with the Light’s Vengeance you’re looking for. Some missions may be boring, but that is not the case. No matter your class, you won’t just walk out of that easily. It is one of the best moments of the entire quest line.

As you finally are able to frustrate the Lich King, you will see your problems aren’t over yet. Vegard is not that simple to kill and will come back from the dead in the form of a skeleton for a new encounter. Obtaining the Light’s Vengeance won’t be so easy, but you will finally end this phase of the quest line as soon as you defeat him again. Having a friendly player with you increases your chance drastically at this point. 

Festergut’s Acid Blood and Rotface’s Acidic Blood

This is a part of our legendary axe forging process that is not as epic as the last one. Completing this means you got the last two items you needed. The Festergut’s Acidic Blood and the Rotface’s Acidic Blood are raid drops. But things are not simple because they reset and never come simultaneously. They are 100% chance boss drop in the Icecrown Citadel but note that there will be only one drop per week. 

This means that a player needs to wait two weeks to get them. It is something that we can’t just skip. These items won’t drop in the ten man version of Icecrown Citadel. These drops can be acquired in the 25 man normal and 25 heroic versions.

Finishing the Mission

After you finish and gather all the necessary items, you need to return to Darion. Deliver him the items, and this quest will be finished. After that, interact with him again, accept all he says, and he will craft and give you the quest and the weapon Shadow’s Edge. With Shadow’s Edge obtained, you finished the first step.

Preparing the Shadow’s Edge

Crafting the base weapon isn’t enough; it is only the first part of the process. Now, you must make your shadow’s edge power increase. To do so, prepare to complete a weekly grind and three different challenges. Let’s cover all you need to do to enhance your Shadow’s Edge power.

A Feast of Souls

To begin this quest, return to Darion, and he will give you a Feast of Souls. There is no secret here. Start making the raids in Icecrown Citadel until you collect 1000 souls from dead enemies. You won’t get it in one encounter. Killing all the enemies you need and gathering all the soul fragments you need will take weeks.

The interesting thing is that you don’t need to kill the raid mobs with the Shadow’s Edge if you don’t want to. Completing the mission demands that you hit them with the blade. This will apply the Shadow’s Fate Debuff on them, allowing you to collect the soul as a reward after it dies. But, as soon as the debuff is applied, the way you kill the mob doesn’t matter at all. The debuff doesn’t have a time limit.

After all the 1000 souls are obtained, you can return to Darion to finish the quest. As a reward, you receive the mission of completing three different tasks. These are challenges that will demand you to kill bosses in different ways. Only then will you be following up with the blade upgrade. These challenges can also be called infusions to your Shadow’s Edge blade. 

Unholy Infusion

The first challenge you must finish is the unholy infusion. To do so, you must find Professor Putricide, the last boss of the Plagueworks section. As you fight Professor Putricide, a player must transform into the mutated abomination while having the shadow’s edge equipped. You need to interact with the sword within the back of Professor Putricide. Doing it right will turn you into an abomination with one extra spell slot. Professor Putricide's location is marked below.

You will need 100 Ooze to use this spell, but you can use your abomination ability to collect this essence during the fight. As soon as you gather all the energy, use Shadow Infusion. The abomination you turned into will glow with unholy power, and you will be free to kill Professor Putricide. But you must do so within 6 minutes for your Shadow’s Edge to absorb his soul and unholy energy. After that, the step is complete!

Blood Infusion

Go back to Darion and finish the Unholy Infusion interacting with him. He will give you the Blood Infusion, which is your next challenge. To complete this step, you must go to blood queen Lana’thel and infuse your Shadow’s Edge with her blood essence to complete this step. Blood Queen Lana’thel is the last boss of the Royal Quarters of the Upper Reaches of ICC.

 

As the quest fight follows, a player must take one for the team here; let the Blood Queen bite and apply her debuff: Blood Mirror. This ability makes the player suffer 100% of the damage dealt to the Blood Queen while linked to her. The challenge You must do your best not to die, staying alive will be a challenge. Use defensive abilities to protect yourself as much as you can.

Another of the things you must do during the fight is let the Blood-Queen grant one of the players the essence of the Blood-Queen. This essence turns itself into a frenzied bloodthirst ability. At this point, you have 15 seconds to cast the ability vampiric bite on the player. It will prevent him from having his mind controlled by the Blood Queen. 

Using Vampiric Bite three times will complete this requirement. Then you will need to kill the Blood Queen. Be careful, and don’t die before she dies. Falling before her will demand you to remake all these steps again. These are hard tasks, and many guilds will suffer a lot. The best thing you can do when you receive the debuffs is to stay out of sight, having your healer taking care of you as the biggest priority. Don’t expect to finish these tasks on the first try.

Frost Infusion

After completing the Blood Queen raid quest (and probably suffering a bit), you must go back to Darion to finish the quest. Then, you will receive the Frost Infusion quest, which means you must go and face Sindragosa, the last boss of the Frost Queen’s Lair. His location is detailed below.

Here, you have a more straightforward mission. During the fight with Sindragosa, the frost queen will eventually appear and launch a Frost Breath ability right in front of the boss. Your job is being hit by it four times. That’s a job for the tank character, as the ability deals 40,000 to 60,000 damage. Death Knights have a whole set of skills that they can use in an effort to survive. Preparing your armor and having a healer with you won’t hurt.

Frost resistance and other abilities will also help you resist the abilities but don’t use any immunity as it does not work, and the breaths you tank that way will not be considered. Now, you return to Darion with the three essences. Your Shadow’s Edge will finally be ready for the final upgrade. 

Upgrading the Shadow’s Edge to Shadowmourne

The last quest you will receive is the Splintered Throne. Your mission is simple: find the Lich King’s champions, defeat them, and get the Shadowfrost Shards, which are nothing more, nothing less than fragments of the frozen throne. Well, it will be the most complicated and boring part. If you didn’t bore to wait so far, know that you will farm a lot until you get all the shards you need to end the quest.

In normal modes, each boss has a 25 to 50% chance of dropping the pieces of the Frost Throne you want. If you’re not lucky or unlucky, you will be able to end the quest in 11 weeks. The number is far lower if you go for the heroic mode, where the boss drop rate increases considerably to 75%. That way, you will be able to finish the quest in 5 weeks. 

The only good thing is that you don’t need to have shadow’s edge equipped. So, if you have a better weapon feel free to use it; it will make your life easier, at least. A normal guild may divide and kill some bosses in normal and others in heroic, so you can expect to gather what you need not in five weeks but not in 11 either.

After you have gained all the 50 hard-fought shards, return again to Darion. Keep talking to him. You will finish the Splintered Throne, start Empowerment, and finish it as well. Then, Shadow’s Edge will disappear, but you need to talk to him again! After weeks of hard work, you will get your so-deserved Shadowmourne! A great end to a tale of heroism. 

The Final Battle!

And with Shadowmourne in your hands, you are ready to fulfill your destiny and face the Lich King himself. Speak with Darion again, and you will receive the quest Lich King’s Last Stand. Go there and show the Lich King who rules now. Be sure to do that in the Lich King’s Last Stand quest and with your Shadowmourne equipped. That way, the dethroned Lich will leave the sealed chest, which only you can loot.

Take this chest to Darion, and he will give you the unsealed chest. From it, you will take 5 items with a mini-quest related, giving you unique rewards to use and equip. The list of items you will get is

• Reims of the Crimson Deathcharger

• Jaina’s Locket

• Muradin’s Favor

• Tabard of the Lightbringer

• Sylvana’s Music Box

Last but not least, if you want to reach the maximum level quickly, develop the best race and participate in PvP and PvE as the best warrior of Azeroth, then you need to acquire the WotLK Classic Gold for Sale we have on MMOPixel. Get your Gold and purchase all the resources you need to achieve victory!

Conclusions

With that, the journey to finally get the Legendary Shadowmourne is entirely described to you. All the steps, missions, complications, grinds, and raids. All set for you to finally get the Shadowmourne as fast as possible. If you want more tips, information, and guides about WOTLK and many other famous MMORPGs, keep checking MMOPixel! We have the best content for you to stay ahead of the game!