Phat Loot Phriday: Earthshaker

Name: Earthshaker (Wowhead, Thottbot, Allakhazam), a.k.a. "Shardshaker" and/or "The MC Hammer"
Type: Epic Two-Hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 175-263 / 3.50 (62.6 DPS)
Abilities:
- Chance on hit: Knocks down all nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Which is actually kind of fun, especially in PvP, and the proc goes off pretty often, too. Radius of the proc is 5 yards (melee range), and one cool thing about it is that there's no limit to the number of enemies it hits -- as long as they're in that range, they get stunned for 3 seconds.
- Increases attack power by 22.
- As RetPallyJil says, this weapon is actually most famous for being "the single most unilaterally and unfairly unloved and underrated weapon ... ever." There are a number of reasons why this weapon is so hated, but we can start with the low DPS -- never good for a two-hander, and while the proc sometimes makes up for not, it doesn't work well enough for a min-maxer. Plus, just who's supposed to use this weapon? Most people who were wielding two-handers pre-BC were wielding something much more useful, and the stun was more of a novelty than anything else.
- But the number one reason why this mace was so hated is probably just where it dropped -- as you can see below, it came from a boss in Molten Core. So imagine you finally get forty people together, finally organize them enough to down a couple of bosses, get to a place where (for some people) your first Tier 1 set piece might drop, and then... this "novelty" weapon. Didn't rub a lot of people the right way, and many, many shards were made with this weapon.
Anyway, make it to Magmadar, usually the second boss in MC (you've got to down Lucifron to get to him), and this drops at about at 22% rate from him. Back in the day, you could go with any run, and they'd be happy to let you take this off their hands (unless they wanted the shard). Nowadays, it's such a novelty that you might have to fight with the raid to get it, especially if there's another 2h wielder around. But it's easy to run -- come back the next week with another 5-10 guys, and odds are you'll get it again.
Getting Rid of It: You never know when that proc will be useful, so if you've got it, you might want to hang on to it. If not, it sells for 9g 19s 3c, and it doesn't disenchant at all. No, of course I'm kidding -- as anyone who's ever run MC knows, this will disenchant into a Nexus Crystal.
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Filed under: Items, Fan stuff, Humor, Raiding, Phat Loot Phriday






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kris Apr 18th 2008 8:39PM
What about vendorstrike?
Thunderstrike
Nizari Apr 18th 2008 8:40PM
Not really worth wasting the DKP on that when The Unstoppable Force (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19323) is only one less DPS, has a high top-end damage, much more useful stats and a rather similar proc. Oh, and the whole "You can get TUF by potato farming in AV for a week instead of grinding for enough FR to get into an MC guild and then getting enough DKP to win it" thing.
Ugkul Apr 18th 2008 9:02PM
Of course stat wise it isn't that great. But it has one of the most fun procs in the game. Earthshaker procs to EVERYONE around you.
Kris Apr 18th 2008 8:41PM
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=17223
Matthew Rossi Apr 18th 2008 8:49PM
Keep in mind Nexustrike drops from Sulfuron, so you would end up seeing less of it as you first started clearing MC. We had so many Earthshaker drops it was frightening. Druids had it. Paladins had it. Shamans had it. Everyone who could equip one had it.
Zhalseran Apr 18th 2008 9:25PM
SHARDSHAKER
Ichigo Apr 18th 2008 9:55PM
This was not the biggest PoS to drop in MC.
That honor falls to Shadowstrike, AKA Shardstrike
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=17074
Renato Apr 18th 2008 11:32PM
There was actually a very good strat created using this weapon on Nefarion. Instead of splitting the pulls to 2 sides they pulled everything together and just had like 4 people with Earthshakers perma stunning them all.
RetPallyJil Apr 19th 2008 4:10AM
"you could go with any run, and they'd be happy to let you take this off their hands "
Ha ha! That's how I got my own beloved Earthshaker!
Boon Apr 20th 2008 12:31AM
as an enhance shammy it was indeed hard to get into an MC raid back in the day. But i did manage to infiltrate my guild's(at the time) 40 man and was handed an earthshaker. woot i said and proceeded to grind honor all the way to champion rank with it. I very much loved charging into a group of allies in AB and AV dropping a fire nova popping berzerker rage (macro'd emote "Tulkus goes all sickhouse on %t) and wailing away with WF procs while earthshaker knocked em all on their keesters. I died a lot using this "kamakazi" style but the ROFL whispers and the frantic reactions by opposing players was well worth it. good times.
Skarj Apr 20th 2008 6:32PM
Haha I'd done over 120 MC runs on my druid and I've never ever seen this drop once, seriously...
Shardstrike on the other hand must've had a 90% drop rate for our guild...