A lot of us are going on 6+ years in the game now. That’s a lot of hours spent online, a lot of mobs killed, a lot of leveling done.
In all that time, I recall seeing three random world epic drops.
My first one was in the Stonetalon Mountains. I was leveling with my wife. We had killed a mob – a Fey Dragon perhaps (it was a long time ago) and a purple item dropped. At our level (mid 30′s maybe) I had never seen anyone with an epic item. It was a caster neck (gone from the game now) so my wife got it. She was quite excited.
My second one was in Burning Crusade. I was killing Twlight Serpents in Nagrand to farm Cobra Scales. Surprise! A Blade of Wizardry drops. I sold that on the auction house for 5000 gold, which, at that time, was the most gold I had ever had.
I didn’t see a random epic drop through all of Wrath that I can remember.
In Cataclysm, my wife and I were doing a daily quest in Twilight Highlands, and a random owl drops Ritssyn’s Ruinous Drape. Well, wasn’t my wife just the happiest resto druid. She gets all the good stuff. =)
How many random world epics have you found? Trash epics in raids don’t count – there is a higher drop rate for raid epics. I mean random, drop-from-some-random-thing-in-the-middle-of-nowhere epics.
I don’t know if it is considered epic, since it is a pattern, but while I was killing ogres in Nagrand, the recipe for the Eternium Runed Blade fell into my bags. No item, just a recipe. /sigh
In 5 years of playing, I never found a single world epic until Cataclysm.
- One pair of plate DPS pants right when hardcore guilds were starting raiding – 20k gold that funded my engineering and an alt’s alchemy professions right there.
- The epic plate tank shoulders dropped for me right when that was my last armor-bearing blue left to upgrade. I actually kept and wore those as they’re best in slot.
I’ve had four that I can think of, all in vanilla content but during the Wrath expansion, and all weapons. An axe, a sword, and two bows.
My wife found one ring during Wrath, I don’t know of any others she might have found.
I’ve been playing since original release, and I think I’ve seen 4 drop total. 2 I don’t remember because they were low level, or gear I didn’t need / want, so I didn’t pay attention. The other two I remember quite distinctly, from Vanilla. In Swamp of Sorrows, the old dragonkin there used to be elites, anyone else remember the good ol days? And they happened to drop, twice for my wife, the Bow of Searing Arrows, if I recall the name correctly. Now, one would take glee at the fact that she got that drop not once but twice. Except She played a prot warrior at the time, and I was on a hunter. So she of course equipped the first drop to pull things with! WTH. LOL. I did get the second one, out of pity, some time later but not so long as it wasn’t useful anymore.
World epic drops FTW. Watching your wife equip it to pull mobs with, /Hunter tears.
I haven’t found a single one. But granted even though I started at launch i’ve left and come back many times so it’s not really 6 years.
My warrior is wearing two – legs and cloak, which both dropped during heroic pugs and the group was kind enough to let me need on them for being genuine upgrades and despite being BoE.
I know, nobody will believe me, but it’s true! ^^;
I think I found some level 40 epic axe as well back when I was leveling in TBC.
I think my first was the “Hurricane” bow I got while questing in Azshura during Vanilla Wow. I was amazed but really did not know about epic items and asked in guild chat if that was a good weapon or not?
BC The one I recall is Shadowblade which I think I got while farming in Winterspring and that inspired me to start a Rogue. Wrath I only recall getting Precisely Calibrated Boomstick again in Azshura while farming Azure Whelpling. Cataclysm has been good to me on the one as random mob around a quest NPC in Uldum dropped Woundsplicer Handwraps which are near BiS for my Holy and Shadow Priest.
As far as that darn Ritssyn’s Ruinous Drape I saw that drop too(BiS/insert whine here). Too bad it was off a random mob in a random dungeon. Grrrr. Nuff said. :\
3 random world drop epics, all of them in Vanilla, way before TBC.
One was some Epic Gun (I think it was a dwarvish styled shotgun?) that dropped while I was farming Dark Iron Ore, another one was a lvl 40 (I think) roguie dagger, which I gave to a Rogue guildie because I was lvl 60 anyway, and the third was an epic ring that was (finally) for level 60 chars. But I ended up selling it instead of equipping it. I was in a group of two for that last epic and I ended up splitting the profit with the other player after I sold the ring. I didn’t get any epic random world drops in any of the expansions.
I’ve been playing for just over a year, so I’m still a noob by comparison. Still….absolutely nothing has dropped.
No epic drop, but I am a noob in Wow. Gratz
I think I have had 3 drop.
1st was some plate shoulders about lvl 52ish when playing my pally was lvl 50 when dropped
2nd was 2H axe about lvl 48ish dropped on my warrior when he was 48ish too.
3rd was lvl85 cloth helm (Je’tza something) when farming dailies in TB. (on druid) I actually sold this, as maelstrom crystals are still very expensive on my server and I wanted to get some good enchants like Landslide x2 and Agi to bracer.
I have also seen a few random dungeon drops but have never been lucky enough to win any.
I wonder if the rate of world epic drops has increased in Cataclysm. Seems like more drops now than in the past. That could be skewed by the player population but it seems like I hear of more of them now than I ever did. Also, you can almost always find world epic drop items on the auction house.