Rep: Hydraxian Waterlords

Moving along in our Old World Reputations, lets deal with the classic MC Raider Hydraxian Waterlords. This rep has changed quite a bit from "back in the day" so if I mess up some of the details please feel free to let me know. Many of the quest chains and rep grinding options that were available to use back pre-BC are (so far as I understand) now no longer accessable so I will only be sharing that information that I am CERTAIN is still around.

Molten Core is located INSIDE the instance Blackrock Depths so if you are planning on doing this Raid and Rep grind make sure to pick up the old attunement quest. While you no longer need the attunement to enter the instance it has the advantage of porting you directly there from the quest giver as well as back from the raid instance saving valuable time.

Up until you hit Revered grinding rep is easy. The majority of the mobs within Molten Core give you rep and until you start killing bosses these mobs will continue to respawn. Even AFTER you kill bosses some of these mobs will respawn so you can easily get yourself to Revered in a week. (If you are a skinner or miner you can also sell a lot of the drops to individuals working on their Thorum Brotherhood Rep just as an FYI. Along with the other trash drops used for this.) It is after this threshold that things become more difficult.

Once you hit Revered Reputation with the Waterlords can ONLY be gained killing the bosses until you hit ALMOST Exalted, at that point rep can only be gained off the FINAL TWO bosses (Majordomo Executus and Ragnaros). The first few can easily be handled but there are a few that will give even a level 80 a tough time. (Golemagg the Incinerator for example.) So how many runs will it take you to DO this achievement you ask? Best estimate is 19 runs will get you to exalted.

Happy Grinding!

Rep: Zandalar Tribe

We are now entering the last phase of our Old World Faction Reputation Series. Those Reputations which are located only WITHIN RAID zones. We will begin with the most UNIQUE of these the Zandalar Tribe.

This Reputation is ground in Zul'Gurub one of the original 20 man Raid Instances. However their base of operations is NOT located INSIDE the instance, rather players need to journey to the opposite side of the map and find the tribe at the tiny island of Yojamba located at the top west corner of Stranglethorn Vale.

Of all of the "Raid Zone Only Reps" Zandalar is by far the EASIEST to grind to exalted. Since it IS a Raid you will need at least two people to enter the zone. But unlike other raids it also contains two still obtainable mounts:

Swift Razzashi Raptor off of Bloodlord Mandokir and Swift Zulian Tiger off of High Priest Thekal.

In addition to this, if you have completed the quest chain Nat's Measuring Tape there is an addition boss you can summon Gahz'ranka. This Boss has the chance of dropping Tome of Polymorph: Turtle. While crowd control may have fallen into disfavor in recent months many Mages STILL greatly desire this Tome.

Combine these motivators and it usually isn't to difficult to find yourself a grinding buddy. However some classes CAN solo this instance QUITE easily. Paladins, Druids, Etc.

So how do you go about gathering the actual Reputation?

Killing mobs and bosses will give you reputation. (3-5 rep for trash, 100-200 rep for bosses, 400 Rep for Final boss)
All of the mobs and bosses have a chance of dropping coins and Bijous. These items are used for quests located on the Zandalar Tribe's home island.

If you have NEVER done this raid before make sure to stop by the Island FIRST and pick up the quest A Collection of Heads. If you are a pair of Level 80's all but Hakkar should be easy enough for you to handle. Hakkar's challenge is that he Mind controls. This being the case you may need to look to see if individuals looking to get their Zul'Gurub achievement may wish to join you.

The other quests that you will be doing A LOT is A Bijou for Zanza and Gurubashi, Vilebranch, and Witherbark Coins, Zulian, Razzashi, and Hakkari Coins. As I mentioned before ALL of the mobs and bosses inside Zul'Gurub have a chance to drop these items it will take you no time at all to amass quite a collection of these so make sure you go in with A LOT Of empty bag space.

Scattered around in ZG you will also come across Jinxed Hoodoo Piles. These will occasionally contain Punctured Voodoo Dolls of the appropriate class. Combine this with a Primal Hakkari Idol and you can complete Animist's Caress, another repeatable quest with no reputation requirement. One thing to keep in mind though, stand FAR away when your partner opens the pile because they will become mind controlled for a short period of time...and they will become irritated if you keep killing them.

Finally, as your reputation improves you will also be able to do the armor quests for reputation as well.

DON'T do the Zanza's Potent Potables Quest. This was to allow you to get potions for use in ZG, just use the token instead.

So there you have it, Happy Grinding!

A CHICKEN?!?!

BLIZZARD WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO?
Well today I saw it, the LONG awaited leather gear for Alliance...and what did we get?

Chicken helmed, CORSETS, with DEEP V-necks...sigh...

Well, at least the DRUIDS should be happy....Maybe.

Guess I am going to have to find a shirt I like to go with it as I hate having bare arms. Tabards cover the chest area anyway so the V-neck is really a Non-issue. The colors are good, Black and Gold. Classic.

But honestly, on the females it looks like a Bodice I would wear for a Ren Faire and for the guys...some type of girdle they stole to hold in their gut or torture device. I DO like the shoulders, the eagle works well and the the little "pouches" on it are in keeping with BOTH Rogues AND Druids. The Helm...I am sure it is suppose to be the Alliance Eagle but I am NOT getting into all the "glowey eye" things they have been doing recently.

Final thought? I like it better than T8 and in time it may grow on me.

So Today I ment a Game Master...

I NEVER imagined I would encounter one of these:

This was a first for me. I mean I have seen the videos and seen others talk about their encounters with Game Masters "In Game" but to actually see one walk by and talking to others still caught me off guard. Valaem was not at the Gates of Iron Forge long, just enough to enjoy a spot of Gnome Punting.


So what do these Blue clad mystery's WEAR?...That is a question that has teased me since the whole Karatechop and the Martin Fury incident. The answer (at least in my case) was rather bland.

Her hood is rather unimpressive and in her case was not even showing. All the other items, minus her slippers are nothing more than the Glacial set. Her slippers were similar to the hood, a white item with no additional stats.















But she WAS funny. And while her visit was VERY brief she did manage to give us all a little taste of that "unassuming power" she had available to her.

Yep, I am the Giraffe. I can't complain, one of my guild mates who was also there was turned into one of the Slugs. Over all it was A LOT of fun and I am glad I got to have this experience at least once in my WoW career.

Signs you need to take a break from WoW

This blog post comes about as the result of a conversation that took place today in Guild Chat. Barnaby had been up all night leveling said good by and logged....just about an hour later he was back...it seems he had "the dream" (you know the one, where you are your WoW avatar?) and took it as a sign that he needed to get back on and play some more.

The rest of us were appalled...and immediately informed him that NO this is one of the signs that you need to step AWAY from the keyboard and go visit the REAL world for a while. Thus began one of the FUNNEST in game conversations I have had in a LONG time in which we all shared events that spurred us to do the same.

So what are some signs that you need to take a break from WoW?

1.When the Microwave dings and you respond with "Grats!"

2. When your Mother-in-law complains about air fair and you tell her she "needs to build up her faction rep".

3. When your friend tells you a joke and you respond with "LOL" or "ROFL".

4. You describe Marriage to someone as "transferring servers".

5. You see the color Purple and immediately think "EPIC"!

6. You tell your Mom you need to "upgrade you gear for School".

7. You refer to going to work as "doing your daily's".

8. You ask someone what level their cooking skill is at when enquiring about who will be preparing dinner.

9. You hear someone discussing fishing and begin to describe your Arcanite Fish pole, Weather-Beaten fishing Hat and Eternim Fishing Line.

10. You complain to your spouse that the time has come to "upgrade your land mount" when trying to convince them to buy a new car.

What makes this list the most frightening is that these are all things that have ACTUALLY happened...so how about you? What things have YOU caught yourself doing that made you say "ok, I need to take a step away from WoW for a bit and feel the sun on my face?"

Rep: Thorium Brotherhood

We are getting to the end of the old world factions. Some of you have asked why save some of these until now? The answer is simple: Ease. Each of the previously covered factions could easily be soloed, but now we are getting to the reputations that require entry into raid instances to advance further. The Thorium Brotherhood is the PERFECT example of this.

Players usually first encounter this off shoot of the Dark Iron dwarves in Searing Gorge at their base in oh so originally named "Thorium Point". You can begin earning reputation with them by doing the repeatable quests for Master Smith Burninate.

From Neutral to Friendly he will send you after Incendosaur Scales along with Coal, Heavy Leather, Iron Bars, or Kingsblood. The Incendosaurs are all located underground at the Cauldron which is nearby, the drop rate is fairly good, the other items you will have to grind else where or purchase off the auction house if you don't have one of the necessary gathering professions to get them yourself.

Once you have reached Friendly you can begin turning in the Dark Iron Residue for Rep. This is EASY to obtain inside BRD. There are two quests you can do to turn this in, one is for batches of 100 and another for batches of 4. If you are NOT a human it doesn't really matter WHICH one of the two you do. But if you ARE a human do the smaller sets. The reason is due to our racial we get an additional 10% of rep EACH turn in so it will take FEWER materials over all. This will get you up to Revered.

Now once you have hit Revered you need to head into BRD to the Grim Guzzler. If during Brew Fest you managed to pick yourself up a Direbrew's Remote this is a REALLY easy proposition. If not you will have to either clear or stealth your way in.

From now on your Rep is obtained via Lokhtos Darkbargainer. He has five repeatable quests and all of the recipes that individuals may be interested in picking up.
The Dark Iron Ore can also be obtained in BRD but the other items he wants: Core Leather, Fiery Core, Lava Core and Blood of the Mountain are all only found in Molten Core.

Even if you have a hard time getting a full RAID together for boss kills it is not difficult with just two level 80s to clear trash and farm the desired items. (We will be discussing this strategy in more detail later when we cover Hydraxian Waterlord Rep Grinding.) Now of course you COULD buy items off the AH *shutter* but you all should know by now how I feel about spending money on ANYTHING unless there really is NO other option available.

So there you have it. The next set of factions I will be dealing with will be those Old World Factions you can only get rep with INSIDE Raid instances.

Happy Grinding!

The VanCleef Set first look

If some how you missed it the Alliance Rogue gear for Tier 9 will be called the "VanCleef" set. (The Horde Version is called "Garona".) So far I haven't seen any pictures of it and I am pretty anxious. While I know we will be sharing designs with the Druids this doesn't really bother me as much since Druids spend the majority of their time shape shifted ANYWAY. Frankly any time I saw a Tauren running around with Guise of the Midgard Serpent on their snout I kinda felt bad for them...I mean NO ONE should have to wear a pickled Baby...even a Tauren.

Since we don't have pictures and the realms are down for maintenance I thought we could look at all the nice STATS these sets have on them. MMO Champion (that center for all things that are breaking news) has managed to dig up the information on two of the sets. The "Triumph" and the "Conquest".

Interesting enough the Conquest is the LOWER leveled version and the Triumph set the higher. My guess being that the Conquest will belong to the 5 man version and the Triumph to the Raids. But as none of this information is yet released we can only speculate at this point.

The set bonuses ARE know though:

• (2) Set: Your Rupture ability has a chance each time it deals damage to reduce the cost of your next ability by 40 energy.
• (4) Set: Increases the critical strike chance of your Hemorrhage, Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Mutilate abilities by 5%.

The item level 232 Conquest Set:
VanCleef's Breastplate of Conquest
VanCleef's Gauntlets of Conquest
VanCleef's Helmet of Conquest
VanCleef's Legplates of Conquest
VanCleef's Pauldrons of Conquest

The item level 245 Triumph Set:
VanCleef's Breastplate of Triumph
VanCleef's Gauntlets of Triumph
VanCleef's Helmet of Triumph
VanCleef's LegPlates of Triumph
VanCleef's Pauldrons of Triumph

The item level 258 Triumph Set:
VanCleef's Breastplate of Triumph
VanCleef's Gauntlets of Triumph
VanCleef's Helmet of Triumph
VanCleef's LegPlates of Triumph
VanCleef's Pauldrons of Triumph

The Garona set has identical stats however we DO have an idea as to what IT is going to look like.
Not TOO shabby hmm? Gives me hope for the Alliance sets anyway.

Rep: Cenarion Circle

The Cenarion Circle, this faction is unique in that if you are a DRUID you will be familiar with them right from the start. But if you are say a Human you may not encounter them until MUCH later. While they have bases all over their MAIN center of operations is actually the small town of Nighthaven in Moonglade. If you are one of the aforementioned Druids at level 10 you will actually get a spell that will directly port you there, all others have to make the trek via the tunnels of the Timbermaw.

When it comes to gaining REPUTATION with these guys though the major place to do it is at their SECONDARY base in Silithus. Pre BC this was actually a much more difficult proposition than it is today. Now it is a VERY simple grind.

Find your self a nice collection of Twilight Cultist and start mowing your way through. Each one will give you 10 rep and unlike many other grinding rep mob they will CONTINUE to do this all the way through exalted. These mobs have the chance to drop Encrypted Twilight Text, Twilight Cultist Mantle, Twilight Cultist Robes and Twilight Cultist Cowls. Once you have a stack of 5 of the Text you can turn those in for 500 Rep to Bor Wildmane.

While you grind keep a look out for the Twilight Prophets. These are rare spawns (Rare is a figurative term here) that spawn about every 30 minutes. These guys drop 7-10 Text each time as well as a quest item and are worth 30 rep each time.

For every set of Twilight trappings you get you can open up one of the Lesser Wind Stones and kill the elemental it summons, this will give you Abyssal Crests. Three of these Crests can be turned in for the Medallion of Station. Combine this with the Twilight Trappings and you can summon the Elemental at the Wind Stones. These guys will then drop Abyssal Signets. Get three of THOSE and you can turn them in for the Twilight Cultist Ring of Lordship. Once you have a COMPLETE SET (the trappings, necklace and ring) you can summon the Elemental at the Greater Wind Stone. The final quest gives the greatest rep return of 1000 rep but at level 60 it was meant to be done as a 40 man raid. At level 80 most people can easily solo it or at the very least do it with two people.

You will certainly not want to be doing this grind with limited bag space. The Twilight cultist drop A LOT of junk both in the way of quest items (the items DO NOT stack) and general vendor trash. You are also going to want to make certain you have a couple of stacks of Large Brilliant Shards with you as the quests burn through these items rather quickly. My other suggestion is until you have completed this rep DON'T sell your Cultist Trappings. It is funny but some days you will literally DROWNED in Cowls and other days you can't get one to drop to save your soul. Often what I would do is after a grinding session was mail the items I hadn't used to an alt then mail them back. Then I had them available to me when I needed them. Afterward they all sold quite well on the AH to others who "only needed one more set to finish off this rep."

The other option you have for getting this rep is inside the 20 man Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. While this option may not be for everyone it IS an option.

So why would anyone want to grind THIS PARTICULAR reputation? If you combine it with Cenarion Expedition in Burning Crusade there is a nifty Title you can get out of it. Many people consider it a MUST if you are a druid. I am not sure how big of a motivator that truly is but I have had several of my druid guild mates specifically ask, wondering why I had neglected it this long. (To be honest....I just hated Silithis) but with the changes you can quite easily grind this rep from neutral to exalted in under six hours so... Happy Grinding!

Why do Old World Raids?

I was asked this question just last evening while our guild was doing a marathon of BC Raids. The questioner was annoyed because the Plate Wearer in the family was not available to tank for him due to him participating in this guild event. Since I was busy beating on Kael at the time he only got a one word reply from me "mounts". But while it did shut him up, it isn't the ONLY reason to go back and revisit some of that "Old" content. So why SHOULD you go back and visit some of this content and as a Guild Leader why would you even SUGGEST such an event?

1. Achievements.
Those little vanity points that don't mean much other than to individual egos...but MAN are they FUN to accumulate.

2. Mounts and Pets.
This one limits the number of Raids you have access to but to do a "Mount Run of ZG, AQ and The Eye" can STILL be A LOT of fun. Also Mojo out of ZA is even today highly desired even if the bear mount is no longer available.

3. To visit content you may have missed.
For myself I never made it into BWL pre BC and there are many others who never set FOOT in Ony's Lair back when it took a LONG quest chain to gain access.

4. Build Camaraderie.
Unlike when doing Ulduar or any other higher level Raids where the focus is often on the next upgrade or boss strategy, you can instead focus more on the just the other people in the raid. Joke around, walk down memory lane, whatever best suits you and your group.

5. Try new Specs or Roles.
Last night our usual Main Tank ran his DPS spec and some of our usual DPS ran their tanking specs. We also had healers running DPS as well. With Dual specs you can really mix things up and give people a chance to taste a raid from a new perspective. Take it one step further and have your usual raid leaders take a step back and someone ELSE organize.

6. Widen the participation base.
With "Older" raids you don't have to have a group made up of "well geared" 80's to have success. Individuals can bring those toons who may be Level appropriate for Molten Core and run right beside their higher level guild mates. Some of them will even walk out with UPGRADES of all things along with earning XP.

7. Further guild recipe and Trades.
Many of those old raids have recipes that can ONLY be gotten even now via running the instances. Sure, there may be better enchants now but for someone who is leveling an alt or a Twink some of those "older enchants" are still useful. Mongoose from Karazhan is a great example of this.

8. Recruitment.
There are a lot of people who want to do these raids but never get the chance. Offering them up from time to time can get your guild some recognition.

9. Gather Decorative sets.
WHAT?!?! Yeah you heard me. How many Paladins do you know who STILL wax eloquent about the Tier 2 "Judgement" set? Some of those sets were EXTREMELY attractive and if you have the bag/bank space to spare I know many who just like to collect armor sets.

10. Fight Burnout.
When all you are doing is running the SAME raids OVER AND OVER again, week after week it is a good idea to get something "fresh" as it were. Sure we may all remember the times when we said "I will NEVER set foot in this instance again I am SO tired of it." But months and even YEARS can put rose colored glasses on it. In addition to that it can be somewhat satisfy to run in and one shot a boss with a small number of people when you spent WEEKS banging your head against them "back in the day".

Couple of things to keep in mind when you go to do these type of events though:

1. Do your home work.
Don't think just because you have a group of well geared 80's you can walk in and zerg every boss. Certain bosses Game Mechanics will even now dictate how many people you HAVE to have with you. Lady Vashj is a good example of this, I wouldn't try to do her with much less than 15 so you can handle the Tainted Cores.

2. Know your group make up.
This may seem common sense but I have seen many of these types of raids fall apart because you get there and realize you only have 1 healer and no tanks. While with some raids even THIS wouldn't be a deterrent know going in so you can take it into account.

The main thing to keep in mind is make these FUN events and you will have guild members begging you to do them on a more regular basis.

Information Overload

For those of you who have asked sorry, I have not been blogging nor has the quality of those blogs been as satisfactory to me but when the summer months hit my "WoW Time" takes a major hit. Instead my focus is more on the little minions I have running around my house due to them being out of school. Things will settle into a routine at some point....say around September when they are all back in school again but until then please hang in there with me.

These last few weeks have been filled with so much information and speculation as to make a body's head spin. The amount of QQing I have heard over this or that proposed change has been astronomical to the point that no one topic can even dominate the conversation. Wintergrasp, Argent Colosseum, the new Badge system, the Token system, proposed FACTION transfers, Druid Form changes, ARGH!! ENOUGH ALREADY!!! As the majority of these changes are AT LEAST three months out I am not going to get completely bent out of shape about them NOW. I still have Ulduar to clear.

This is my problem at the moment: Something I have noticed with WotLK that I didn't notice with BC is once a new patch is announced it is as if the majority of interest in the current content begins to fall away because ALL the focus is on the upcoming content. "Why bother finish up my tier when I will be able to do it all with badge gear anyway?" This is the phrase I have been hearing a lot these past couple of weeks. I personally find this VERY sad.

Ulduar has only been out 2 MONTHS, the top guilds in the WORLD have YET to complete it on Hard Mode and players attention has already moved on to the next "shiny" coming down the lane. I know Blizzard can only focus on a few things at a time but at the moment it almost seems as if the focus is primarily on pushing EVERYONE into raiding and perhaps in a way in which they "are not prepared" for what all that entails. Who knows...I can only hope that things settle down a bit.

There are a few things I AM excited about seeing with the up coming patch that is for certain. The new VanCleef set for one (PLEASE, PLEASE something better looking than the scream faced, pickled Baby Helmed, THING we have now....) I do find it interesting that it is named after one of the first bosses Alliance kills though...But then we all know how people feel about us Rogues.
The time limit on Warsong Gulch. (I know Kill farmers are in agony over this.) Silverwing was the ONLY faction I had yet to get to exalted back in my Pvp days just because I just so DETESTED it....for someone with limited play time spending 2-3 hours on a TINY playing field in ONE GAME was just NOT something I enjoyed. At least back in the day of 12 hr+ Alterac Valleys I had new scenery to look at...
The new Colosseum I AM excited about. It sounds like a lot of fun...my only concern is when you get a lot of dialog in those types of places, while the first few times it is fun from a "lore" prospective. After that you wish you had a "fast Forward" button because you are saying the lines along with them...or yelling at the idiot to "stop telling you to hurry up and move his OWN lazy butt".
Only time will tell how this all pans out, for now I will sit tight and enjoy the content I have NOW.