Obsidian Sentinel

The Obsidian Sentinel is a titan-built stone keeper in Uldaman whose body has turned to dark, spell-reflecting glass. It guards a side cavern of the vault and is best known for splintering as it fights, throwing off shards of itself that keep attacking after the Sentinel has grown weak. It drops little of note, but mages come for it: its power source is needed for one of their class quests.

Background

The stone keepers are golems the titans left in Uldaman to defend it and to run its daily business while the vault's watchers, Ironaya and Archaedas, slept. Each was carved from the same stone as Uldaman's halls.

The Obsidian Sentinel is one that went wrong. According to the game's Adventure Guide, something corrupted it, and most of its body was replaced with dark glass that can turn spells back on those who cast them. The guide notes that whatever did this must be very powerful, since a titan construct's enchanted stone is hard to change. Quests added in later expansions suggest one of the Old Gods was behind it. Its uncorrupted counterpart, the Ancient Stone Keeper, still guards the Temple Hall.

Abilities

• Obsidian Reflection: the Sentinel has a standing 20% chance to reflect spells back at their caster.
• Splinter: as it takes damage, the Sentinel breaks off Obsidian Shards (Obsidian Shard), small non-elite copies that can also reflect spells.
• Splintered Obsidian: each time it splinters, the Sentinel's own physical damage goes down by 60. The effect stacks up to four times.

Strategy

The fight turns on the shards. Every time the Sentinel splinters, it gets weaker and a new shard joins the fight. After four or five shards it stops getting weaker, but shards keep coming, and by then they can hit harder than the Sentinel itself. Kill each shard as it appears instead of letting them pile up; area damage works on groups of them, but casters should remember that both the Sentinel and its shards can reflect spells.

Because of the reflection, groups with lots of physical damage (warriors, rogues, hunters) have the easiest time. Casters can still help, but should avoid their biggest spells.

Loot

From our database (patch 1.12), the Sentinel has no boss loot table of its own. Besides its power source it drops trade goods such as [Solid Stone] and, very rarely, the random items common to Uldaman's creatures.

Quests

• Power in Uldaman: Tabetha in Dustwallow Marsh sends mages to defeat the Sentinel and bring back its power source, for a mage class quest chain. Tabetha warns that it's "big" and "tough" and that its power source "packs a punch".

Later history

Patch 10.0.2 gave the Sentinel a new model.

Sources

• Obsidian Sentinel, Warcraft Wiki
• WoWDB quest and loot data for patch 1.12