Item Spotlight: Petrified Lichen Guard

Back in the glory days of the Burning Crusade expansion, warrior mechanics were quite different. We did not nearly have the AoE tanking abilities we have now. Our Thunder Clap ability hit a maximum of 5 mobs. Cleaving and constantly switching targets while using devastate and sunder was the only way to effectively control a pack of mobs.

I was quite jealous of the paladin's Consecrate ability. That's when I stumbled upon this shield. It is available as a reputation reward from the Sporeggar peoples in Zangarmarsh.

This shield changed the game. While there were definitely better quality blockers out there, none of them could match the AoE tanking of this shield. Attaching a Felsteel Shield Spike to this made it twice as deadly. Blocking worked back then similar to how it works now, except you could stack block percentage and block rating, which would increase how often you block, and for how much.

The best place to use this interesting item was on top of Black Temple. There is an area where an entire army of dual wielding elf warriors are dueling. A warrior could group them all up and with this shield, the mobs would literally beat themselves to death. If it ever came to a point where your health got low, or you managed to aggro the elite mob patrolling between the packs, activating your Figurine of the Colossus would bring you back up to 100% in seconds. This method was hands down the best way to farm gold and potions. I owned 3 of these so I could continuously farm gold after the first one broke. Good times.