The Shadowmourne Grind

Real quest: Icecrown Citadel's "The Splintered Throne," picked up from Highlord Darion Mograine after already forging Shadow's Edge and infusing it with Unholy, Blood, and Frost — confirmed directly on Wowhead's own official Shadowmourne guide. It asks for 50x Shadowfrost Shard. That's the part this simulator is about.

The boss order below is real, not invented. Icecrown Citadel 25 actually gates progress like this: Lower Spire is a strict line — Marrowgar, then Deathwhisper, then the Gunship Battle, then Deathbringer Saurfang — and nothing past Marrowgar is even attemptable until you clear your way there. Only once Saurfang is dead do the three back wings (Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, Frostwing Halls) unlock at once, progressable in any order relative to each other, but each is still its own internal gate (Festergut AND Rotface both dead before Putricide; Blood Prince Council before Blood-Queen Lana'thel; Valithria Dreamwalker before Sindragosa). The Lich King doesn't open up until Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel AND Sindragosa are all dead — which, chained back through their own prerequisites, really does mean a full 12/12 clear, exactly like the actual raid.

Blizzard's original loot table (and current retail WotLK Classic) only lets 9 of these 12 bosses drop a shard, at 38% on Normal / 68% on Heroic — verified against two independent WotLK 3.3.5a item databases. But this is built to match the realm Fresh to BiS actually plays on: every one of the 12 bosses can drop a shard here (not just 9), The Lich King's is a guaranteed drop every time you down him, and the rest drop at roughly HALF Blizzard's original rate, per the site owner's own experience running this quest and the realm's own forums, where staff have confirmed the slower pace is an intentional, permanent choice. There's no official exact number published for that "roughly half," so this simulator uses 19% Normal / 34% Heroic per boss — a disclosed approximation, not a verified stat.

Wipes and group reliability are simulator mechanics. Heroic pugs are riskier than Normal pugs; repeated wipes increase fight difficulty and the chance of the group disbanding. Pugs also have a 2% weekly interruption chance. Premades instead roll their reliability once per week: 92% are clean-clear runs, while the remaining weeks can suffer wipes and disbands. You may leave a raid early, but doing so ends that week.