Plans: Runic Plate Boots

Be prepared for an extremely long farm. There are only 6 scarlet cavaliers in all of WoW (Mardenholde Keep), 2 of which patrol inside the keep(1 in each floor) and the other 4 are linked to a nasty elite in the 2nd floor (Highlord Taelan Fordring). As a 60 I only killed the 2 patrollers and waited for them to respawn but maybe as a 70 in good gear you can kill the other 4 as well.

[b]General info:[/b] There are 6 Scarlet Cavalier, all six are are located inside Mardenholde Keep. [b]Location:[/b] Two of them are on patrol, 4 are stationary (around [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1842]Highlord Highlord Taelan Fordring[/url]). One patrol is at 1st floor of keep, moving among non elites [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1827]Scarlet Sentinel[/url] with 3k hp, while second patrols on 2nd floor without any other NPCs. [b]Spawning place:[/b] First patrolling Cavalier spawns at entrance to keep, cartographer coordinates: 42.4, 15.1, while second spawns few yards in front of [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1842]Highlord Highlord Taelan Fordring[/url] on 2nd floor of keep. Stationary Cavaliers always spawn at their location, around [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1842]Highlord Highlord Taelan Fordring[/url] on 2nd floor of keep. [b]Respawn time:[/b] I measured respawn time 4 times for first patrolling Cavalier, 1st time it took exactly 14 minutes to respawn. 2nd time it was 15 minutes, 3rd time it was 14:30 and for 4th time it was 13:20. Other Cavaliers respawned respectively, spawning mostly in order I killed them. I'm saying mostly because respawn time is obviously not fixed, it may vary around 14 minutes. [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1842]Highlord Highlord Taelan Fordring[/url] however have shorter respawn time, measured 4 times, 1st and 2nd time it was exactly 6 minutes, 3rd and 4th time it was exactly 7 minutes. [b]Conclusion:[/b] If you plan to farm this recipe, dont expect it will be fast or entertaining. Info about low drop rate is quite correct. As level 80 protection paladin in ilvl 226 gear, you can kill this 6 mobs in no time, leaving yourself quite of time to do nothing. One of idea is to kill all other mobs and to farm runecloth, thus making some profit while waiting. Killing Highlord Taelan will give you 10s-50s loot. If you have mining, this place is node for rich thorium, so you can mine it here and there. Other idea is to relog to an alt and do something useful with him. For example, you can collect spawn times in Dalaran for [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=1956]Higher Learning[/url], since that achievement is also time consuming. It's up to you. Good luck to all of you planning to get this recipe! Mystiks, Dentarg

Been farming this on and off for a couple of months trying to complete my collection, and is still evading me! A note to all those people who are still farming this like myself, it would appear that the building where these mobs spawn may very well be 'in use' in cataclysm (don't want to give away any spoilers) This could mean the recipe is being removed from the game... certainly going to put a bit more effort into getting mine (400 kills and counting at the moment >.<) Pwn - EU The Maelstrom

400 kills and nothing -.-

Comment for lower levels: (60ish) This is realy hard to farm, and it's even harder if you can't solo Highlord Fordring. If you pull only one cavalier at a time he wil join that one cavalier. The rest will (hopefully) stay at their place. Trick is to kill the cavalier as fast as possible, ignoring the highlord, then run outside of the castle. He won't follow to the outside. Recover your health and when he leaves loot the corpse of the cavalier, and repeat with another, untill you have killed all 4. Don't forget to bring food/bandages, since the highlord hits like a tank. The hallway is a good place to fight, don't do it inside the room because you may pull other cavaliers. (Your dead when that happens, they knock you down all the time) This is still a risky method, so expect to be killed a few times. Luckily there is a graveyard just outside of hearthglen. Once the cavaliers were gone i was able to solo the highlord, (level 60 prot warrior) but it makes no sense since he'll respawn before the cavaliers. Of course the two cavaliers that are patrolling are easy to kill, no problems there. Rogi85's respawn times seems about right. Wearing plate of course helps a lot with surviving. I guess other classes can trap/freeze the highlord while killing the cavalier, then run, or heal themselves, then run. I don't know if he is immune to traps etc, perhaps someone can test this? Good luck with the farming. Pwn is right btw, this place will change in Cata, so i guess you gotta hurry. Finally got mine today, now just the runic helm:-)

Got mine after, I would guess, roughly 100 or so kills. In case you're wondering, assuming a 1.5% drop rate, you have a half-chance of getting the BS plan every 46 kills. The formula is: kills = log(overall chance of getting) / log(chance of it not dropping on a given kill) so, for example, to find the number of kills to get an overall chance of getting it of 50%, we do: kills = log(0.50) / log(100% - 1.5%) = log(0.50) / log(0.985) = 45.9

Anyone knows if this still drops after the shattering (4.0.3a)? Because it didn't drop for me before the patch and I couldn't find scarlet cavaliers at their old spot.

No longer possible to obtain; all 6 Scarlet Cavaliers have been removed from WoW with Patch 4.0.3.

That doesn't mean it's not possible to attain - there's always the possibility that they moved the drop to other mobs, like maybe the mobs the other Runic recipes drop from in Dustwallow Marsh. If anyone spots this one out in the wild dropping from another mob, please make sure to comment.

I highly doubt Blizz cares about an outdated BS recipe enough to actually mess around with its drop locations. I'll update if I hear otherwise, but I doubt we'll be seeing this pattern drop in the future. EDIT: And thumb me down for being realistic, awesome

talked to a gm today, removed from the game

I thumbed you down because they did in fact bother to move some other things, including the Scarlet Leggings, which drop from the Scarlet Smith, which used to be up in Hearthglen, and now appears elsewhere in WPL. So why they wouldn't bother to move this as well is beyond me, since they obviously took the time to move one. Now they just frustrate people who are trying to get the complete set further if they weren't lucky and able to farm it right before the Shattering.

Some clarification on this plan and for the other Runic Plate plans of the set. If you were to do a server query for these items you will find that all the plans still exist. Whether they still exist on a mob or in someone's bag or bank there is no way of telling. Since they are all BoP its unlikely they will be sitting around unlearned in inventory. Next the ability to make them still exist. If you obtained these plans pre-Cataclysm you can still make them or obtain them from a blacksmither who has them. I know this as my blacksmither who had the armorsmith specialty has them all to this day. I have been trying to obtain this set on my other blacksmither who used to have the weaponsmith specialty. Since specialties are no longer relevant I decided to concentrate on this blacksmither as I no longer play the other one.

An update on this particular plan. The [item=12707] was seen by me today in the Alliance Auction House which I purchased for 10 gold. This makes me wonder if this plan was a recent acquisition or a old one that was laying around in some players inventory. If it was recent it makes me wonder further if the whole set continues/resumes dropping.

I like to confirm that this plan and others of this series is now sold by a vendor named Dramm Riverhorn. He is a Light Armor Merchant sitting as the Mossy Pile in Un'Goro.

Correct, just found them on this guy just now. I am one happy camper, cause I wanted this set for my transmog and thought it was no longer available for Cata. Glad to see it still is. :) The plans vary in cost, each between 2g70s up to 5g40s.