Many of us are stuck not being able to progress in Shadowlands in The Brand Holds the Key quest, it is beyond frustrating at this point. The NPC is level ???, which means that the NPC is 10 levels higher than the toon. I was enjoying the storyline up until this point, it’s either leave the time walking campaign or keep the toon in the vault until it gets fixed.
2 Likes
Couldn’t another player help with that? I don’t remember this quest.
In all honesty no, it has been tried with help from another player. I scoured the forums looking for answers in regard to that. I read that individuals were having the same issue back in 2020. I just came back after being gone for almost 9 years. It seems like it was fixed and then it broke again. Personally, I am used to WoW’s it’s fixed, now it’s broke again, since I have been playing off and on since 2008.
ah, dang, i wish i could come help with it 
1 Like
No worries. This is a minor issue for me, for others, not so much. It is frustrating and irritating, but it will get fixed eventually. If this was my only complaint in life, I would be happy lmao.
1 Like
I decided to put a level 11 through Shadowlands questing, which is supposed to be scaled down to level 10, except for the Maw, which is supposed to be 55-60. Just to see what happened. This quest takes place in the Maw.
The low level was in Chromie time, which meant the high level partner (who is doing the same questlines) and low level needed to be in party sync. The normal mobs in that area seem to be scaled so a lower level can handle them, but the elites and some non-elites are way out of whack. The mob that needs to be killed to complete this quest has a health pool of 100k, while my level 70 has a hp of 1300k, and my level 11 had 770.
Killing the mob as a party gave the quest item to the level 70, but no loot dropped for the level 11. I killed him over 10 times. The level 11 got no credit for the kill.
Wowhead speculation was that the item will not drop in Chromie time, so I decided to test this by taking the low level out of Chromie time. The item still did not drop. It looks like, despite the fact that this quest is given and mandatory to complete Maldraxxus and move on to the next zone, a player below some arbitrary level will never be able to get the quest item to drop. And thus will be unable to complete questing.
My opinion?
- Scale the mobs that the player must walk past to get to this platform, as well as all the mobs on the platform.
- Have the quest item drop 100%.
Thank you for experimenting before I ran my head against a wall trying to get past this. I hope this gets fixed soon because it annoying that I am running into another wall when it comes to just trying to experience old content.
This quest is toward the beginning of a long-ish questline that takes place in the Maw. Without being able to complete this quest it is not possible to determine whether the following quests can be completed by a low level. At best, untested.
I can confirm that today, 15 days after you noticed it, it is still bugged. The quest cannot be completed as a 44 Windwalker Monk, as the key NPC still displays ?? for a level while two-shotting my monk back to the Awakening Machine.
Still having this problem as of 7/18/2025. The mob is hitting WAY harder than he should if it was level scaled appropriately. It’s impossible to do at level in Chromie time, and the item will not drop with a higher level character assist.