As I wrote back in March, one of my favorite things on the Isle of Thunder was the Trove of the Thunder King solo scenario. I loved going in and trying to pull off a flawless run, just you against some spiders, a timer, and horribly annoying ledges. And you got gold out of it, too! A LOT of gold! What's not to love?

I treasured the scenario so much, in fact, that I began stockpiling the Keys to the Palace of Lei Shen every week that I got from finding a chest or killing rares on the Isle. I didn't need the gold, so I just saved them, so I could run it multiple times at once (because running it just once was never enough, I needed to do it at least a few times) or in case I ever needed the gold later.

Well, fast-forward many months and a whole tier later, and those keys were burning a hole in my bank bags. Well, not the 17 keys so much as the 54x Arcane Propellant, 4 Sleep Dust, 4 Polymorphic Key, 3 Empty Supply Crate, and 3 Potion of Light Steps.


I really, REALLY needed to free up some bag space, so this weekend I gathered up all the Trove items and headed back to the Isle. On the way, I found a chest and picked up another key, so I had 18 tries.

I used my attempts in a variety of ways. Some runs I just grabbed as many chests as I could get, others I tried just for big gold chests, and some runs I went for the miniboss troll at the end and the 2-4 gold chests he's guarding. A few runs I did some exploring, and finally figured out how to reach some of the upper ledges and platforms.


The amount of gold I got varied. The lowest I got was around 350 gold, and my best was a juicy 828 gold. Of course, there was lots of other assorted treasure along the way. Since each run put me back up at a maximum 20 Elder Charms, I bought a Sunreaver Bounty after each go. I actually got another two keys this way, so I ended up running it a total of 20 times before I was done.

The results:

10,600 gold
918 Justice Points
382 Spirits of Harmony
3 Sha Crystals (3 Burial Trove LFR pieces)
16 Great Pandaren Banquets
5 Shado-Pan Assault Insignia (85g value, 500 rep total)
47 Shan'ze Ritual Stone (940g value)
1162 Sunreaver Onslaught Insignia (29,050 rep total)

Not a bad haul! And most importantly of all, the TRUE prize: SIX FREE BAG SPACES!

Also, if you don't have In the Hall of the Thunder King achievement yet, here's a video of a 16 golden chest run. (The "Loot 10 Golden Treasure Chests in one run" is the hardest part of the achievement, in my opinion.) I get 16 golden chests in the video, but I've included annotations pointing out where there are usually more chests that just didn't spawn on this run, or that I missed.

(You should also know that despite getting 16 gold chests, the gold total of this run wasn't that great. I pass up a lot of normal chests to keep moving ahead at a fast pace. If you're just after profit, going this hard for gold chests probably isn't the best idea.)