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The Balance of Light and Shadow is the quest that priests must complete in order to get the epic staff Benediction/Inv staff 12 [Anathema]. Upon completion, your quest reward will be the Inv staff 15 [Splinter of Nordrassil]. You then combine the Splinter with [The Eye of Divinity] and [The Eye of Shadow] to create the staff.

Quest prerequisites

In order to gain Benediction/Anathema, you need the following:

  1. [The Eye of Divinity] (BoP)- A drop from Majordomo Executus in Molten Core, the final boss before Ragnaros. After his defeat, his chest contains (among other things) either Spell holy mindsooth [The Eye of Divinity] or an Spell nature resistnature [Ancient Petrified Leaf] (for the Hunter epic quest). Majordomo is a difficult fight and you will need to be in an experienced raiding guild in order to defeat him.
  2. [The Eye of Shadow] (BoE) - This can drop from high level elite demons in Winterspring or Blasted Lands. You will need a group of people to farm these demons, and the Eye has a low drop rate (however it has increased significantly since the last patch). Before TBC, you could kill Lord Kazzak in Blasted Lands, a 40-man outdoor raid boss; he dropped the Eye of Shadow 100% of the time. With the opening of the Dark Portal, Lord Kazzak left for Hellfire Peninsula, becoming Doom Lord Kazzak, and no longer drops the eye.
  1. Template:Questclass quest- Finally, after having both Eyes, you are ready to do the quest that will complete the staff.

The biggest roadblock most will encounter is finding a guild that can defeat Majordomo. All other steps of the quest can be completed solo or with a few pick-ups. However, if this is not an option for you, don't fret. There are a number of blue staves available that can fill the role of Benediction/Anathema while you wait for your opportunity to get this great item.

Preparation

A priest who is able to get the Eye from Majordomo should already be quite well equipped (with at least half of their Tier 1 set). Thus the only potions or non-standard buffs needed are Major Mana Potions and Nightfin Soup. Two Major Mana Pots and one Soup per try should be on the safe side. Of course, there's a plethora of other useful items, ranging from demonic or dark runes to Stratholme holy water. Depending on gear and player skill, the quest can even be done purely self-buffed (don't forget Inner Fire).

More important than buffs is the ability to do the required tasks fast. Custom-configuring the user interface can help a lot. In this quest only 4 spells are needed: Abolish Disease, Flash Heal, Renew and Holy Nova. A useful way to configure the action bar would be:

Key 1: Inner Focus
Key 2: Abolish Disease
Key 3: Flash Heal rank 5
Key 4: Renew rank 6
Key 5: Holy Nova rank 3
Key 6: Major Mana Potion

This way the most used spells lie comfortably directly over the "W" key and are in their "natural" order.

The maximum rank of the spells would be overkill and get you OOM in no time. The peasants have only around 1500 health, the Flash Heal and Renew used should each heal around half of it. Holy Nova is needed to nuke those nasty Skeleton Warriors, but they have really low HP. With lots of +Heal gear even lower ranks than proposed could be used.

You should be comfortable with this layout before starting. Practice moving while simultaneously casting Abolish Disease, Renew and Holy Nova.

The "V" key is your friend. It will activate health bars above mobs, this is really useful. WoW tries to lay these bars out in a way so they don't overlap. Unfortunately, this behavior leads to them jumping around a lot. This effect can be minimized by looking directly downwards from far above. Maximizing the "Max Camera Distance" in "Interface Options/Advanced" also helps.

To enable friendly NPC health, you might have to rebind your "v" keys from the Options->Key Bindings control panel. There are 3 separate togglable options that affect this feature. Make sure all 3 are bound to keys (V, Shift-V, Alt-V) and spam all 3 when the fight begins, until you see NPC health bars.

The three options are:

  • Show Name Plates (V)
  • Show Friendly Name Plates (Shift-V)
  • Show All Friendly Name Plates(Alt-V)

Quest giver

The quest-giver Eris Havenfire is in Eastern Plaguelands at Position 20,18 on a small mound just off of the path. You must have the Eye of Divinity equipped in order to see Eris. There is a cave in the background, and a narrowing road passing by the quest giver. The peasants will come out of this cave later. The road is surrounded by some small hills, the peasants will be attacked by skeleton archers from there later. If you fail on this quest, Eris will tell you that clearly and fade away, she will respawn 15 minutes later.

The quest text:

Save 50 Peasants before 15 are slain. Speak with Eris Havenfire should you accomplish this task.
You may view the Death Post to view how many Peasants have been slain. You must do what I could not: Save the peasants that were cut down while fleeing from Stratholme.
They will walk towards the light, you must ensure their survival. Should too many fall, our cursed existence shall continue - you will have failed.
Every ability, prayer, and spell that you have learned will be tested. May the Light protect you, <name>.

How it works: There will be 5 waves of around 10 peasants each, the number will slightly increase from wave to wave. The waves will start at the cave entrance and walk slowly down the road. After the script has started, there will be a dome of light on the road 10-20 yards after Eris. If the peasants reach that spot, they are safe. All the way they will be attacked by Skeleton Archers, they don't do much damage, but enough to kill most of the peasants without healing.

Try to stay cool under pressure, it takes a while, and remember, 14 peasants are allowed to die, that's nearly three per wave. So don't give up early if you make mistakes.

Caring for the peasants

While the peasants move from the cave to the light, you should move with them and perform the following, in order of priority:

  1. Badly diseased (purple): Cure, Flash Heal, Renew
  2. Mildly diseased (green): same as above
  3. below 60% health: Flash Heal, Renew
  4. All others: Renew
  5. Don't take care of any peasants who have moved beyond Eris

The disease kills the peasants very quickly, thus removing it is most important. Next, peasants who are below 60% of their health should get a flash heal, and finally every peasant should have a renew on him by the time he reaches Eris.

It is very important to treat all peasants before they reach Eris. After that, just let them go, Renew will hopefully keep them alive for the rest of the road. Because at that time the next wave will already start, if you don't get back in time, some peasants will surely die from the disease.

Caring for yourself

Keeping the peasants alive is only half of the problem. The other half is staying alive yourself. Each wave of peasants is accompanied by increasing numbers (from 4 to 10) of Skeleton Warriors. Kill them with Holy Nova.

But with care! Using it on first sight will waste lots of mana. Try to wait for all the Skellies from the wave to reach you and nova them only then. Don't be afraid, they don't do much damage.

Later in the fight there will be more, coming in small micro-waves. Wait for all of them, stay calm and don't use shield. Move a little towards them and try to nuke all at once. If it takes two nukes sometimes it is still OK. Then care for your peasants again.

An alternative would be to use Inv potion 11 [Oil of Immolation] or possibly have a warlock buff you with Spell fire firearmor [Fire Shield]. This will kill the skeletons allowing you to basically ignore the skeletons and concentrate on the peasants.

Notes

You can bring a friend to aid you. Of course, they cant see peasants without eye, but they can help other ways, like giving buffs. They still can aggro skeletons, and it is really helpful if you can find someone to kill skeletons in cave as they spawn, making quest significantly easier to you.

External links

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