Legendary Chain: Secrets of the Empire and The Crown of Heaven

5.2 actually brought a ton of stuff to the Legendary chain, but even though 5.3 is already out, I have only just now gotten through the first half of 5.2's Legendary quests and attained the Crown of Heaven (in my case, a Capacitive Primal Diamond.)

Strangely, there is more to get from this leg of the quest chain, even though the main reward, comparable to the Sha-Touched Gems and Eye of the Black Prince from 5.0/5.1, is already sitting on Oterro's forehead, blasting his enemies with lightning at a very decent rate (about once every 8 seconds or so.)

But the first half of 5.2's content is fairly epic.

First off, you'll need to get exalted with the Black Prince by fighting trolls, mogu, and saurok on the Isle of Thunder. If you're doing this on a character you've been focusing on, this shouldn't be too hard, and given that IoT is still probably the best source of Lesser Charms, it's not like you'll be going out of your way.

While you work on that, you'll need to collect 20 Secrets of the Empire, which drop off of every boss in ToT, as well as 40 bars of Trillium. Thankfully, as a scribe, my DK has been stockpiling Spirits of Harmony (there's not much to spend them on with Inscription) and thus I was able to buy trillium ore from the vendor at the shrine, send it over to Jarsus for smelting, and got it over to Wrathion with ease.

The next part is where things get very interesting - far more so than the chain has been. You meet up with Wrathion at the Thunderforge (assuming your realm has unlocked it, which it probably has at this point unless your server has a super low population,) and begin a solo-scenario.

The first part of the scenario has you fending off Mogu while Wrathion charges the trillium you brought with Itoka's foundry. You get three Shado-Pan guys who will fight for you, and the foundry itself will provide little balls of lightning that buffs you and causes any heals you cast (on yourself or the Shado-Pan dudes) to damage nearby enemies for equal damage - a nice thing to make this easier on healers. (Not sure if there's anything to make this better for tanks, as one of the Shado-Pan guys taunts, but I guess I'll see it when Jarsus gets 13 more Secrets of the Empire.)

Once this is completed, you head into the forge itself (the Shado-pan guys leave) and you help Wrathion create a spear out of the trillium. A celestial/Titan blacksmith appears (Algalon-style star person) to work on the spear while you and a larger star-construct guy defend the blacksmith from the Sha. This part is pretty easy, and you can use the various anvils to damage and debuff the Sha.

Of note, the titanic protector guy will do more damage the more health he has, so healers can pour a ton of healing into him to speed up the process. (Still not clear on how they make this easier for tanks.)

Once the blacksmith is done, the final phase begins, and this part is the hardest. A big Sha shows up that attacks your protector. He has some nasty abilities, and you'll need to use the anvils to interrupt "Insanity," but each anvil can be used only once. This is definitely one of those "just stay alive" fights, but luckily the protector guy seems to bounce back if his health gets too low (I was using Gift of the Naaru on him, but obviously they can't expect, say, an undead mage to heal him.)

With the Sha defeated, the scenario is complete, and you just have one more step. You need to fight Nalak and hurl the spear at him to charge it and complete its creation.

Once you find a group for Nalak and pull him, you can toss the spear. This will summon an add that will chase you around (you'll see a golden beam pointing at you.) The add will pretty much one-shot you, so you need to kite it (I might just have to go Ret for this part on Jarsus,) but thankfully it's pretty slow and only takes a minute or so before the process is complete. With the kiting complete, you can help your raid take down Nalak and hope for some sweet 522 tier.

Returning to Wrathion, you will now get the Legendary Meta Gem, each of which (there's one for casters, tanks, physical dps including hunters, and healers) has some fairly cool, powerful procs.

Now, you'd think this is where you would begin the 5.3 chain, but you're not done. You now have to collect 12 Titan Runestones from the bosses in the Halls of Flesh-Shaping and the Pinnacle of Storms. That's where I am now.

Here's hoping that by the time 5.4 comes out I'll actually be caught up!