Benediction/Anathema Quest: Guide to The Balance of Light and Shadow

Once you have obtained The Eye of Divinity, you can venture to the Eastern Plaguelands and speak with Eris Havenfire in the North West. She will offer you The Balance of Light and Shadow, a quest that requires you to save 50 peasants before 15 of them are killed.

Due to the nature of the brutal 2-hour respawn timer if you fail The Balance of Light and Shadow, it is suggested to come fully prepared. This encounter requires you to juggle healing peasants, Abolish Disease to dispel the peasants and to kill the skeletons attempting to attack both you and the peasants. To extend your Mana pool out long enough to succeed you will need to make full use of Mana related buffs including:

• Major Mana Potion and Dark Rune consumables;
• Nightfin Soup and Elixir of the Sages to buff yourself for more Mana regeneration;
• a few stacks of Oil of Immolation to kill skeleton packs;
• some Stratholme Holy Water is also great to use on skeletons, if you happen to have any saved up from Stratholme runs.

If you have some friends willing to help, they can come along and buff you prior to the event, however they need to be careful not to come too close or participate in the quest line. Otherwise, a demon, known as The Cleaner, will spawn and kill all players in the area. They can stand near the entrance of the cave and watch but they must not help you in killing the skeletons. A good class to help with this is a Feral druid with Thorns and in Dire Bear Form who can tank and take aggro passively of some of the spawning skeletons. Other buffs allies can provide to you prior to the encounter:

• Mages — Arcane Intellect;
• Paladins — Blessing of Wisdom and Concentration Aura;
• Druids — Mark of the Wild and Thorns;
• ... and of course yourself — Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, and Inner Fire.

Now that you are fully prepared, you can begin the encounter. There are two primary dangers to the peasants, one is the packs of skeletons that spawn periodically and the other are disease debuffs. The spells you will want bound to counter both are:

• Rank 8 Renew to heal up the injured peasants;
• Abolish Disease to dispel diseased and plagued peasants — focusing on the glowing Purple ones as a priority;
• Rank 8 Power Word: Shield to protect yourself from taking damage from Skeletons;
• Rank 5 Flash Heal to heal up very injured peasants;
• Rank 8 Flash Heal to heal up yourself if you get in danger;
• Rank 6 Holy Nova to clean up the skeletons.

For the skeletons you have Thorns, Oil of Immolation, and maybe even some Stratholme Holy Water to kill them soon after spawning. You can finish them off with Holy Nova. If you are pulling aggro off the skeletons and taking damage, aim to start each wave with a Power Word: Shield on yourself.

To handle the Disease debuffs, you should cast Abolish Disease on the peasants as they become diseased. You will need to balance dispelling the purple glowing disease as a priority as it does the most damage. Peasants with the green glowing Disease can be left a bit longer without risk of imminent death. To heal up the peasants, you should use Renew and for any near death a quick Flash Heal to top them up, though if you have managed to dispel the diseases and keep renews on injured ones this should not be needed.

Note: If you are having trouble tracking which peasants are injured and which are not, ensure you have friendly nameplates enabled. This will make it easy to target the lowest health ones as a priority.

Providing you remain calm and focus your triage where it is needed, with a priority on dispelling the purple glowing diseases and killing skeletons as soon as possible, you should have a fairly smooth run and have brought your 50 peasants to the Light. It may take you an attempt or two to get the hang of managing so many moving parts at once.

Upon completion, Eris will reward you with Splinter of Nordrassil, which is the item used to make Benediction. The splinter of Nordrassil however requires both the The Eye of Divinity that you already have, along with the The Eye of Shadow before you can use it.

The Eye of Shadow can be farmed from the elite demons in the south of Winterspring, and can be obtained prior to both obtaining The Eye of Divinity or completing the The Balance of Light and Shadow and obtaining Splinter of Nordrassil. It is also BoE and can be traded from other players or purchased on the Auction House.

Finally once you have obtained both The Eye of Shadow to go with your The Eye of Divinity, you can use the Splinter of Nordrassil and create Benediction, congratulations! The staff Benediction also has the ability to swap back and forth with the Shadow DPS staff Anathema by right clicking on it, it does have a 30-minute cooldown though.