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It's a good week when you can say you've finally completed a legendary weapon in World of Warcraft -- and for one hard-working player on Spinebreaker (US), it was a very good week indeed. Lucky dog Nasar and his alt Grômp have both completed the legendary staff Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest this week. Even more remarkably, the alt actually beat the main to the punch by a few days.

Pulling strings behind the scenes? Nepotism? Cronyism? Hitting the ol' casting couch, even? No, Nasar and Grômp earned their staves the old-fashioned way: dedication to guild and goals. "We have exceptional casters in our guild, and Nasar is one of them," says guildmate Linthiel. "We always knew we wanted to give Nasar a legendary, even though we couldn't give it to him first. Nasar has been leading our guild's GDKP, which enabled our alts to get Firelands gear, and many mains on our server a shot at killing Ragnoras. I've personally been raiding with Nasar for over three years -- we both got our Firelord title last week -- and I am very happy for him. His main and his alt deserve this."

Main character Nasar, warlock
Alt Grômp, druid
Guild Moonwalker
Realm Spinebreaker

WoW Insider: Two legendaries in one week -- that's fantastic! Congratulations! How did this convergence of heavens and earth come about?

Nasar: A whole lot of patience. LOL Actually, it was a complete fluke brought about by the release of 4.3. Originally, Nasar, my main, was fourth in line for the legendary in my guild and would have completed the legendary the same week that Dragon Soul hit. Moonwalker is and always will be a progression guild, so from that point on, I had to start running 10-mans with guildies to finish it. In the process, we got server-first heroic Ragnaros and several members their achievement mounts. (A huge thanks to Sacia for her determination to still get the kill post-patch.) I will actually be forming up the raid to get the legendary on Nasar in a few moments [as of Tuesday evening] and finish off a few more achievement mounts in the process.

While the switch from 25-man to 10-man heroics did delay the legendary for my main, it did allow for the two timetables to line up. My druid, Grômp, completed his legendary through the weekly 25-man Firelands GDKP I've held for a while now. There have been no real hiccups in obtaining the pieces in this way; in fact, things actually started to speed up as we attempted to work in more heroic modes to keep peoples' interest in attending. The raid in which I actually obtained the legendary on Grômp, I did it in a 10-man with guidies in a group formed by Sacia to complete a few more achievement mounts for people this past week. Ironically, when we killed Ragnaros again, he dropped another mount; double bonus, anyone? LOL

Tell us about your characters and how you play with them. How long have you been raiding? What sort of time per day/week do you normally put into WoW?

I started my own account in The Burning Crusade (the best expansion of WoW to date), so I've officially been a part of the WoW community for about five years now. I started raiding very shortly after in a guild called Legacy of the Horde, where I made friends with Kalebdarkkat and still play with today in Moonwalker. I have not taken a break from raiding ever since.

I currently play eight out of seven days a week -- well, it feels that way, at least. Heh. I spend way too much time on WoW, let's leave it at that. I have a full four-day raid schedule on Nasar, Rated Battlegrounds on Grômp, as well as the GDKP and progression alt run on weekends.

Nasar has always been my main. I really prefer playing affliction but am currently playing destruction. I'll be honest here and admit I really miss the old affliction, when Siphon Life was its own DoT. It made the spec much more of a challenge and all the more rewarding to those who could keep their rotation, rather than making the class one that could be played by a trained monkey.

Grômp is actually named after the first character I played on Arathor when I was just starting my own account. Those who look him up may notice he is a tauren; the reason for this is that he was originally going to be feral tank like the original. But the changes to balance in Cata led me down that path. Now he's just on a sub-optimal class ... oh, well.

When did you first start working on the legendary for Nasar?

I want to say about two months into tier, but don't quote me on that -- it got a little jumbled with some people having to go MIA.

What did you find was the most frustrating or painstaking part of the project?

Having to pug the last leg of my main's legendary! Seriously, though, that was actually fun and probably the best thing for the guild. We got the heroic Rag kill, two more Rag mount drops, and several people their achievement mounts in the process -- again, largely due to Sacia's determination.

Now, tell us how you strategized a way to get a second legendary staff for your alt Grômp. How did you make that happen?

The GDKP was started by myself and my friend Solol a while back. The first legendary was immediately determined to go to someone who was going to attend each one, so we could say the alt group completed a legendary, after which legendary pieces were distributed weekly on performance and attendance. If they performed well on Shannox, they got the pieces for the night; if they attended the following week, they would get them again by default. This allowed for people to actually complete stages of their legendary while promoting good play in the process, allowing for the run to run all the smoother. That's really all there is to that -- it went off without a hitch and got better with every week.

Did you get any pushback from other players over reserving the legendary items?

Just at the start, but only ever by people trolling trade chat. People who attended were perfectly fine with it and appreciated the opportunity to get loot and make money in a group they knew would down the content in a single night without conflict.

How was the process different for Grômp than it was for Nasar? Was it emotionally more wearing to be in a PUG setting?

The process actually felt faster Grômp because the raiding was always done in a single night compared to the progression raiding done on my main over four days -- that is, kill everything on Loot Tuesday, then pound face on heroic 2-man Rag for three days. It was just a much more relaxed feeling about it getting it on Grômp, despite the stress involved with leading a GDKP.

Did anyone else in your PUG raid make progress toward a legendary while Gromp was working on his?

Yes, my friend Kirranx made progress on this druid as well to get his legendary made. He finished his P2 and was in line after me to obtain the legendary had time allowed. We actually had several in line waiting to get their P2 legendary that regularly attended.

Now that Grômp has his staff, will you still be running the regular PUG raid?

The GDKP firelands lost interest rather quickly after patch and reasonably so. As such, we made the decision to shift the 25-man Dragon Soul GDKP from Saturday to Friday's spot. So Firelands GDKP is done; Dragon Soul is in.

Let's talk about the staff itself. What's the biggest attraction it holds for you as a player?

Five years of wanting a caster legendary not enough? LOL I have always held legendaries in high regard. This one more so because it was one I could actually obtain on my main.

Is this staff too powerful? Underpowered? Tuned just right?

I'm afraid I'm going to side with the masses on this one. It was fine before 4.3. This past patch has removed almost any sense of legendary from it outside the group effort required to obtain it and the orange name. I like to use my buddy warlock Ninelives, who received the first legendary in our guild. In Firelands, our numbers would be identical for casts/DoT uptime, yet the legendary would allow him to eke out ahead with the massive proc rate. Now in Dragon Soul, we are neck and neck, with me ahead at times. It's my opinion this should never happen, and Blizzard went a little overboard with their nerf bat.

How did you feel about the changes that have been made along the way to the drop rates for its items? Is this legendary too easy or too difficult to achieve?

The legendary definitely started off far too easy to obtain, and many guilds took advantage of this, forcing Blizzard to take action. I would say it is now balanced just fine. Unfortunately, because of guilds and players always looking for ways to abuse Blizzard's mistakes/oversights, similar to the recent LFR fiasco, there are a large number of staves in the game, as opposed to previous legendaries.

Some players think that these items should be something that guilds can work on and assign to a player after completion, to avoid situations where guilds devote weeks to working on a legendary and then the player is unable to complete it for whatever reason. What do you think?

I personally would be against that entirely. This has far too great a risk to be abused. Also, it removes the uniqueness of the item if it can be traded around to "more deserving" players once it's been completed or nearly completed. Players who obtain a legendary treasure them, and I don't know of anyone who obtained an early legendary or even the more recent Shadowmourne that doesn't still have it sitting in their bank.

People get legendaries and leave guilds to join better ones all the time. Back when Moonwalker was Solace back on Arathor, we made and lost at least three Shadowmournes to people transferring off or quitting the game.

Grats to both Nasar and Grômp on their new staves and to Moonwalker for continued raiding successes!

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