Shar Vahl smithing quest - I'm doing something wrong.

[Stugein]

I've been getting hammered on the cost of the Fine Steel Plate combines (I'm only L39 and not rich by any stretch of the imagination) so I decided to take a break from cash farming to go do the Shar Vahl quests for the humming mallet and the anvil, even though I'm still a ways off from starting on Shadowscream combines.

So I grab myself two shield frames from Master Berkhem (MB) and head out to Shadeweavers. A few hours later I have the 16 carapaces I need. Groovy.

I trade the shields to MB for the two carapace plates. Snagged a mail mold from one of his apprentices and ran around the wall to another vendor for some Nepeta Oil. Gave the Bloodling Plate Tunic back to MB. Surprisingly enough he gives me back the apprentice mallet AND the plate tunic back (I was under the assumption that he'd keep it). Anyhow, time to go do the shield repair portion of the quest.

*What repair order?

I take the repair order to the first guard (Khala Dun Bokh). I made absolutely sure (as per the guide here) that he had his shield on him and plainly visible BEFORE I handed him the work order. This is where things get wonky. Upon handing him the order I get Bokh's Dented Shield or what have you in my inventory, and Bokh despawns and respawns WITH a shield. This didn't seem right...I assumed he would respawn sans shield. Oh well. I run back to the forge, successfuly undent his shield, and return to him with the Immaculate Shield.

"Sorry loser, your pale human arse is almost turtle-like. I already gots me a new shield! (He didn't really say that, I'm paraphrasing

Well crud. Lets try it again. Destroy my repair orders and immaculate shield. Run back to MB and request a new repair order. Back to Bokh. Now for sure, 100% he is reset. He has a shield. Nobody else is running the quest (I was one of only 3 players in Shar Vahl at the time and I asked the other two if they were doing it, both had no clue what I was talking about). I hand in the repair order. He gives me his dented shield, then despawns and respawns WITH A SHIELD AGAIN.

I went through the cycle once more with the same result. I finally gave up, camped out for the night.

So what am I doing wrong here? Is the shield quest bugged or am I missing something? Thanks for any info.

[Kradlum]

It's bugged. Someone here reported last week that the guards respawn about 6 seconds after you take their shield. The way to do it (and the way I did it even before it was bugged) is get the order, get the shield, fix the shield, get another order, hand that in to the re-spawned guard, then immediately hand in the shield you prepared earlier, then destroy the spare dented shield you have. Rinse and repeat for the other 3 guards.

[Stugein]

Ok awesome. Thats a relief. I thought I was doing something totally out of whack.

Thanks for the tip. When I get home from work tonight those guards are getting new shields whether they like it or not!

[Angelsyn]

I ran into the same problem when I ran my Cleric through the routine... did the same solution too.

Give repair order, fix shield, get new repair order, give repair order, give fixed shield, move on to next.

If you can Gate, binding yourself at Barkhem helps alot (rather than binding yourself at the forge).

[Stugein]

I think I noticed the problem when I was finishing this portion of the quest last night.

When I was running the quest I noticed that when I handed in the repair order the guard model "twitched" and still had his shield. It did not disappear completely then respawn sans shield.

I took a closer look and noticed two tails swaying out of synch behind the guard. I looked at the guard at different angles and saw 1 1/2 arms. At some angles I saw two faces. Bingo. Basically what we have is two named NPCs of the same name and model erroneously spawning directly on top of each other. When you turn in the repair order the Guard does in fact despawn and respawn without the shield, however the "clone" spawn still has his. Since they appear with their sprites directly on top of each other it appears as though the guard still has it's shield. Turning in the repair order the second time causes the "clone" spawn (which is now the "top" model since the original respawned) to lose it's shield. Then you can do the turn-in.

Whack. I saw the exact same thing with 3 out of the 4 guards (one of the guards worked properly and only had one instance of itself spawned).

Edit: Anyone else want to run out to those guards to confirm this and make sure I'm not just crazy or having graphics glitches locally?

[Thicket Tundrabog]

I did the dented shield part of the quest last night. Everything went smoothly. I was relieved because of reports that the quest was bugged. I was lucky

Thicket

[Eumerin]

Stugein is correct. This is a KNOWN bug, and has been known since shortly after Luclin went live. There should probably be a note about it in the quest description on the main site if there isn't already.
Basically, for whatever reason, each of the four guards tends to end up as a double spawn. Its two copies of the exact same model, in the exact same location, with the exact same name, so you can't tell that there are two mobs present. The only difference between the two mobs is whether or not they have the shield.