Battered Hilt

Battered Hilt starts the epic quest chain The Return of Quel'Delar.

It is the hilt of the famous sword Quel'Delar, forged by the ancient Kaldorei with the help of the Dragon Aspects in ages past. The sword eventually became the high elf equivalent of [Quel'Serrar].

Source

This item drops randomly from both elite trash mobs and bosses in the Frozen Halls instances on heroic mode.

The hilt also has a chance of being listed on the Black Market Auction House by Caladis Brightspear, or Myralion Sunblaze, with the opening bid of 10,000.

The item was made by game designer Owen Landgren.^[1]
This will commonly sell for large amounts of gold at the auction house. In Wrath of the Lich King, it was largely because it yielded the best weapons outside of raids. Even now, the Battered Hilt still sells for high auction prices (about 10-30k) because of its transmogrification value and rarity, as few people do Wrath heroics these days and the chance to see one drop is very low.
During the Death Rising event rares and mobs within Icecrown had a slight, slight chance to drop the Battered Hilt.^[2]

Hotfix (2009-12-15): The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased. However, the Skeletal Slaves in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.
Hotfix (2009-12-09): The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.
Patch 3.3.0 (2009-12-08): Added.

^ Owen Landgren on Twitter: "I got to hold the baby of a sweet young couple who had met and fallen in love while farming an item I'd made whose drop rate I'd set."
^ Battered Hilt Dropping from All Icecrown Mobs Including Pre-Patch Rares]

Alliance	Horde
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