Death's Verdict: The holy grail

How hard is it to obtain this trinket? At this point in the game, the answer is 'extremely'. Those that have it are the envy of melee, and it probably ranks up there with the coveted Dragonspine Trophy of BC (not so much for rets but I remember a lot of unhappy rogues, hunters and enhance shammy's).

With the guilds raiding nights being spent in ICC, the opportunity to bag one is scarce and the prospect of scoring the heroic version all but gone. That leaves the bleak prospect of trying your luck in a pug *shudder* or acquiring one through a gdkp run.

I had been wanting an upgrade from my well worn Pyrite Infuser for some time, so last Sunday, I was in a gdkp TOC run and judging by the makeup of the raid there was all sorts of melee biting at the chance to bid on Death's Verdict. In the raid were five DKs, a rogue, two ret paladins, a warrior and a hunter. Judging by how fast things were dying, the group was well geared and really only there for the trinket.

The twins fight eventually came and I started shaking at my keyboard as my character bent over to bring up the 'Death's Verdict' loot item from the boss. Cheers rang out on vent, from everyone including those not bidding on the trinket as they knew that they had just landed a whale of an item that would sell for a hefty sum. This run was going to be profitable. But making gold is not what this particular post is about.

Before going on with this story, you should understand that how much an item is worth by how much dps it adds is not something that can be easily measured in gold value. A small increase in dps in an item may be exhorbitant (just think of the increase in price from low grade to epic gems for what is really a minor increase in stats). Why is this? Well I think the answer is pride (or epeen), with meters constantly being spammed for one reason or another if you are in that 'top 5', the guild is constantly consciously or subconciously reminded of who the top 5 best dps are.

Getting back to the auction, DV began with bids starting at 500g with a 100g increase. Furiously, the bidding price quickly rose to 5,000g, and then bidding started to slow at about 6,500g mark. There were some softly spoken voices and awkward silences on vent as several people had noticed that I had refrained from bidding. As the countdown for the auction began to close I showed my hand. '7,000g' I typed into the raid screen.

A new wave of bidding erupted and more cheers went up on vent. Vent began to heat up as the price quickly soared upward past 10,000g and those with not enough gold to bid started dropping out. The number rose to 15,000g and at this point only two bidders were left, myself and a DK from a top guild sporting Bryntoll and Whispering Fang Skull. Mono et mono, the game was on.

The number kept rising and soon we smashed through the previous record set for an item on Dreadmaul, 19,000g for the Reign of the Unliving and a new record was set at 20,000g. Not seeing any signs of weakness in his bidding I tried to go for knockout blows raising the bids each time by 2k to which the DK would quickly respond to with a counter-offer. The raid leader started commentating on the auction like it was a boxing match; 'who out of these two players will take home the prize!' he announced. I then saw raid chat come up with the words 'what are the odds on two gold capped players bidding on the same item?'. My heart sank, this was getting expensive.

'30,000g' I found myself typing. This was my psychological limit and in my mind was as much as I expected to pay, but even that amount was not enough. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I'm not sure whether I really wanted the item at this point or whether I just wanted to crush this guy with my wallet. The DK responded and the auction rose to giddying heights with the DK putting in a bid of 40,000g. I tried one final bid of 42,000g, 12,000g more than my limit. Alas the DK responded with 42,500g. It was over.

In the space of 3 minutes the DK had lost 42,500g and each member of the raid had pocketed an extra 1,700g from a single item. I received a couple of consoling whispers and thanks for the extra gold, but I was too broken to respond. I was in shock, and even now, I still can't believe that I lost with a bid of 42,000g, especially when previous gdkp auctions of DV went for amounts of 13,000g and 5,000g.