Where does talent come from?

An interesting idea has been running the WoW blog community. The premise is "Gear doesn't really matter it is all about the person running the character." To a certain degree I can agree with this, but as is being debated how much of a role does Talent play? Most who are commenting seem to have reached the conclusion that Knowledge and Talent are KEY to success

The question then becomes where DOES talent come from? How can you BE that person behind the keyboard that can DO great and amazing things with your toon decked out in blues and greens while another in full tier gear may struggle? That it seems all comes down to natural talent and as with a musical instrument some of us are born with it and others are not.

Just as with music ANY one can become TECHNICALLY proficient at gaming. By this I mean, anyone can LEARN to push the right keys in the right order, but to make that music SPEAK you have to have TALENT. Talent is where PROFICIENCY is so ingrained in you, your personal aptitude and ability move beyond it to the heart of what you are attempting to achieve.

The greatest musicians in the world do not depend on their talent alone. They PRACTICE, and they go to others who are BETTER than they are, oh maybe only in one area but still they know that despite their innate abilities there is ALWAYS SOMEONE out there who is going to be better at what they do. They experiment and try new things to see what the results will be, knowing that the majority of the time those attempts will only give them learning experiences. That is how they view these attempts to do things outside the box "learning experiences" not "failures". This attitude is another key piece to the puzzle.

Talent is a funny thing. If you don't use it, you will find that it fades over time. Oh, you may be able to pick up that instrument and play a few notes but not to the same level and proficiency you once had. Any of the rest of you able to see the parallels to gaming yet?

I would not count myself amongst the TALENTED gamers. I am one of those who "fell into gaming" as the result of a significant other. Many of those who contribute to sites like Elites Jerks WOULD be. I am more like the individual who takes piano lessons because THEY enjoy to make music. Through practice, watching others who DO have innate talent, asking questions and again MORE practice I can pass to the uninitiated as being a "talented player". That is how those of us who may not have "talent" naturally can get it. By WORKING on it, and we will only get as good as we are willing and able to put the effort into it.

Thinking "outside the box" doesn't come naturally to me...because frankly I don't even know what the boundaries of the box ARE. This has at times allowed me to discover things that others may have missed (disarming hunter traps for example is a TON of fun.) On that same note however it has allowed me to make all SORTS of noob mistakes at times that until another rogue who KNEW better told me (Slow main/Fast off REALLY?) I was happily going around in ignorance.

So yeah, perhaps those talented players, the ones who are playing classes they know inside and out, who theory craft, push the boundaries and break barriers CAN do Ulduar 10 in blues. Does that mean that ANYONE can do it? No, but Blizzard IS trying to make it so that more of the REST of us can complete the content they have created in a timely fashion.

What I find most interesting is the response this has brought about. "WELFARE GEAR!" "DUMBING DOWN THE GAME!", the screams are loud and long. Have you ever stopped to notice WHO it is that is yelling the loudest? It isn't the BEST OF the BEST, the TOP raiding guilds and their members. Rather it is those who like many of us are AVERAGE players but due to HARD WORK and dedication have managed to improve their game to PASS for a naturally talented player. For them this IS a threat to all they have worked so hard for. It (in their minds at least) lessens their accomplishments.

The real question then becomes, why are you playing? For yourself and the enjoyment you find in the game? Or for those things that won't last much past the next patch? For myself, I will play to the best of my ability and do the most I can to improve my game and that of those I come in contact with who desire the same. I may never be a virtuoso but I WILL play my heart out.

Rep: Sporeggar

Tucked away in the West corner of Zangermarsh is a mostly peaceful race of mushroom people called the Sporeggar. These little guys have a BIG problem. It seems they have become the diet for many of the other inhabitants of the marsh. Gathering rep for them is not difficult just tedious. Both the Alliance and Horde factions will start out as Unfriendly but it won't take you long to get you to at least neutral.

Gathering stacks of 10 Glowcaps and turning them into Msshi'fn will get you to Neutral.
Gathering either 10 Mature Spore Sacs (the easier option in my opinion) or 6 Bog Lord Tendrils and turning them into Fahssn you can get up to Friendly.

If you don't want to gather items and turn them in you can do the grind method as well. Bog Lords will give you rep until end of Honored. Marsh Dredgers and Marsh Lurkers will give rep until the end of Revered.

Once you hit Friendly Fahssn will send you to Sporeggar and some repeatable quests will open up to you from Gzhun'tt. Now that we're Friends and the repeatable Now that we're Still Friends... has you killing the near by Bloodscale Slavedrivers and Bloodscale Enchantresses. Bring Me a Shrubbery! and the then repeatable Bring Me Another Shrubbery! Sanguine Hibiscus can only be found in the Coilfang Dungeons but if you are farming them for Cenarion Expedition Reputation it might be an option you want to explore as well. That or if (unlike me) you are willing to just PURCHASE your quest items (shutter) you may be able to find them on the auction house. Both of these repeatable quests are good all the way through exalted.

Now there are many reasons to go after this particular reputation if you are an achievement pursuer. Reaching exalted with Sporegger will grant access to a pet which will count towards the Lil'Game Hunter Achievement, it is one of the reputations needed for the Diplomat Title, and it will also give you access to a Tabard that counts towards the 25 Tabards achievement.

Happy Grinding!

Rep: Cenarion Expedition

With the re-opening of the Dark Portal the Druids felt the need to send their own representatives to check out this new world. Players will first encounter them not far from the road at the west end of Hellfire Peninsula. While they have small outposts scattered through out Outland their major base of operations is located in Zangarmarsh at the Cenarion Refuge.

Doing ALL of the quests provided for this faction (there are a 118) will get you to Revered. At that point you will have to grind SOMETHING. It is what you chose to grind that will make the difference and in what order.

For myself I turned in Unidentified plant parts until I hit Honored. This quest is obtained from Lauranna Thar'well at the Cenarion Refuge. She actually has two quests, Plants of Zangarmarsh, which once completed opens up Identify Plant Parts. Now since we know that I am thrifty and won't BUY these things off the auction house there are really two good ways to farm them. If you are an herbalist farm the bog lords and get herbs off of them along with the plant parts. All others go to Serpent Lake and farm Mudfin Frenzies (the fish), they are in groups of 4 and easily taken out with aoe. It takes about 360 plant parts to get you to honored.

Once you are honored pick up your heroic key and start in on the quests. Now as I mentioned before the CE quest hubs are rather scattered about so be careful to get them all. There is the small outpost in Hellfire Peninsula (10 quests), the majority of course being located around Zangarmarsh (26), another larger quest hub in Blades Edge Mountains at Ruuan Weald (17). Terokkar Forest has a few (10) as does Netherstorm (3). In addition to these there are several quests that are "dungeon" in relation to the Coilfang Reservoir and the instances there (9).

Now Cenarion Expedition reputation is unique in that this faction carried over into the NEXT expansion. Located in the Borean Tundra in Northrend is D.E.H.T.A, at this small camp you can pick up 19 more quests that give CE rep INCLUDING another repeatable Can't Get Ear-nough. With this quest you can EASILY grind your way to exalted.

One of the nice things about this faction that still makes it desirable to players is the fact that they have a mount you can get at exalted. In addition to that there is an additional achievement if you have exalted reputation with both the Cenarion Expedition AND the Cenarion Circle.
Happy Questing!

Which Warcraft book should I read FIRST?

This question was posed to me last night and I immediately went scouring through my book pile trying to determine the answer. It is not unlike asking a rabid C.L. Lewis Fan if you should read the Chronicles of Narnia in publishing order or chronological (they have since been re released in chronological order.) The biggest difference is that with Warcraft books you have a wide range of both styles AND authors so it adds an additional element of frustration to it. Since I haven't talked about ANY of the Warcraft books since March I suppose it is time I tackled it.

Now I know some of you have absolutely NO interest in Warcraft Lore. "WHO CARES!?!? Just give me the quest and move on, I don't want to know why I should be motivated by what is going on around me!." That is fine too, I understand the attitude, but for those of us who DO really enjoy it IN GAME things like the Wrath Gate move us profoundly. Speculation about how things like Worgan and Goblins as PLAYABLE races will flow into the game as Blizzard reshapes the old world get us excited even more. And while the return of Onyxia as a Raid boss is something we ALL can enjoy, I think only "lore geeks" really miss the epic quest chains and all they revealed about the politics of our factions.

So what would I recommend? Now I am talking about the TRADITIONAL Novels not the Manga. Of the Manga I have only read a few, I am waiting for them to complete the Legends series before I pick that one up as they have a habit of re issuing them as one book.

Start out with the Warcraft Archive, this actually contains four novels in one book and covers the greatest amount in the shortest time. In here you will discover all about Medivh and Karazhan, Thrall and how he came to power, Rhonin with his unusual relationship with the Red Dragonflight and why it is Tirion Fordring is respected SO highly by both the Horde AND the Alliance giving him the ability to tell them BOTH to stuff it and they listen. (Though once Gorrash comes to power that will change.)

Once you have finished this I would move on to the next Archive book War of the Ancients. With the next expansion dealing with a lot of these characters this will be a MUST read for those who wish to have a better understanding of the lore behind the sundering and the return of many of these old enemies. Queen Azshara and Deathwing are both shaped and formed into their present day incantations in these stories.

Now that you have completed the Archives it is time to go dig up the individual novels.

Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden (one of my FAVORITE authors that Blizzard has used for these books) deals with how the Horde came to be, starting on Danior (Outland) moving on until they are stranded on Azeroth would be my next choice in books to tackle. From there pick up Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenburg, this one covers the Second War until the closing of the Dark portal. You will then want to pick up Beyond the Dark Portal, this covers the reopening of the Dark Portal, the establishment of the Human presence on Danior and the eventual fall of Ner'zhul culminating with the Dark Portal AGAIN being closed.  Cycle of Hatred by Keith R.A. DeCandido moves on to Thrall and Jania attempting to keep peace in present day Theramore and Durator, it explains a lot of the quests that were added there regarding "the OLD days" and the present tensions.

Now that you have waded through all of that would be the time to pick up Night for the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak. This book deals with the creation of the Twilight Dragons (those guys you fight in the Obsydian Scantium.) And also foreshadows the return of Deathwing for the next expansion.

Lastly pick up Arthas by Christie Golden. I talked about this book back in March. Again this covers ALL of Arthas' history from his childhood to present day. Having read the other books makes some of this easier to understand as it assumes some prior knowledge of the Lich King's creation.

Again I didn't touch on any of the Magna just the novels. Since the last of the Legend series is due out in September I will look at doing a review of all of them at that time. Another thing you may notice is I did not list these books in order of Time Line, while that is a VERY good way to read it I instead put these stories by "ease to get as groupings". (I personally am a VERY quick reader...I had both the archive books done in a day.) In addition to this they were not published in Time line order so it can get confusing as some stories ASSUME you know the characters from previous ones. Hope this answers your questions and Happy reading!

Rep: Honor Hold and Thrallmar

You did it, you made your way through all of Old Azeroth and the Dark Portal now stands before you. What awaits on the other side of the swirling green gate?
Take a deep breath, close your eyes and so you are not tripped by some joker on the other side, jump through. The energies of the portal dance along your skin and seem to almost infuse your armor as you feel yourself pulled forward. Suddenly you feel stone beneath your feet and dry dusty air fills your lungs, heat not unlike that which you experienced in Molten Core permeates the air. Open your eyes and take your first look at the vista before you.

Welcome to Outland.

Demons, the likes of which you have only heard of in legend battle before you with both Alliance and Horde forces. You discover you are now standing on a rather large platform that has been turned into a staging area for the defense of the portal and the riches of Old Azeroth that lay beyond. To the left is the Alliance camp and the right the Horde. Depending on your faction go and locate your Commanding officer so that your journey deeper into this strange new world can begin.

For Alliance faction members your first ride here will take you to Honor Hold, created by the remnants of the Sons of Lothar, the first Alliance force sent through the portal under General Turalyon. Gaining reputation with them is fairly simple at first but then will hit a major snag so you want to be clever as you go about it.

The best way to do it is to start out by grinding the mobs just out side of the hold until you hit Friendly, OR you can just run Ramparts and Blood Furnace until you hit Honored. Once you Hit Honored you will be able to purchase your Heroic Key for Hellfire Citadel.

Now if you are going about this on say your Death Knight as you level, when you get to honored start in on the quests because the greatest difficulty with this particular Reputation is that once you leave the zone there really are not many other options for reputation out there beyond the Dungeons. Grand total there are only 59 quests for this faction so you are going to want to do ALL of them.

Now there is ONE quest that is VERY important for this faction that DOES NOT start in this zone. Rather it begins over in Shadowmoon Valley at the Black Temple. You need to locate Smith Gorluck, he is found in the north west end of the Temple in a Forge hut. Kill him and pick up the Primed Key Mold. The quest is what gets you the key to The Shattered Halls, now while only one person needs the key to get in, the rep from the chain is also VERY nice. Shattered Halls can be farmed for rep from lvl 68 on, as well as doing each of the Citadel dungeons on heroic.

Horde Members will find themselves taken to a rather hastily constructed fortress called Thrallmar. Not to surprising as it is a VERY recent addition to the landscape. Again, reputation is fairly easy to gain to a point then you will hit a road block, so be smart about it. From neutral to Friendly you can farm the mobs outside Hellfire Citadel, or just farm Ramparts and Blood Furnace until Honored. At Honored pick up your Heroic Key. Horde have it a little easier in that they have MORE quests (64) that will give them reputation but they also will need to journey to Shadowmoon Valley to pick up the Shattered Halls Key quest chain. The quest is the same, you just have to report to different NPC's, Nazgrel and Grand Master Rohok. Again, once you have reached this point all there is left to do is farm Shattered Halls and the Heroics until you reach Exalted.

Happy Grinding!

New (and Re-worked) Argent Tournament Dailys

OK OK!! Sorry it has taken me so long...but really guys it IS summer and well...there are A LOT OF THESE so unlike with previous patches where I had the time to give you all this information from the PTR with the little minions home I just did not have time to work it in like I usually do.

So here they are...better late than never right??...Don't answer that...

Quests that have changed:
Battle Before the Citadel: Before the quest Read: "Defeat 1 Commander, 3 Lieutenants and 10 Scouts" Now the quests asks you to defeat "3 Commanders"

Take the Battle to the Enemy: Before "Kill 15 Scourge save those in the bombardment" now the quest is "Kill 15 Members of the Cult of the Damned Anywhere in Ice Crown."

A Valiant's Field Training: Rather than it being "Kill 10 scourge save those in the bombardment" the quest now reads "Kill 10 converted Heroes ". These are located on the grounds southwest of the Valley of Fallen Heroes and north of Corp'rethar. They are the ones with the chains around them. (Most of us use to farm them for our scourge before anyway.)

New Quests:

Exalted with the Silver Covenant/Sunreavers:

You've Really Done It This Time, Kul: This is a Daily you will get EVERY day from Narasi Snowdawn, located inside the Alliance Tent or Girana the Blooded in the Horde Tent. (Kul it seems NEVER learns and is very good at getting others into trouble with him.) Just to the West of the Argent Tournament on a ledge you will locate Deathspeaker's Watch. Kill the cultist there and you will get Black Cage Keys. These are used to Free the Aspiants Kul talked into going with him (You will need to free 4 of them for the quest). Kul himself is located in a Cage on a ledge overlooking the rest of the rise. (Personally I like to do this in conjunction with the revised "Take the Battle to the Enemy" quest.)

The following quests you will get 1 in any random order from each quest giver per day.

A Leg Up: Narasi Snowdawn for Alliance or Girana the Blooded for Horde, Wants you to Recover 10 Stolen Tallstrider Legs. Just north of the Argent Tournament Grounds you will discover an Island crawling with Kvaldir. The Stolen Tailstrider legs can be obtained either on them OR laying around on the ground. I personally discovered that on the east side of the island was usually a good spot to locate a lot of them just laying on the ground.

Rescue at Sea: Narasi Snowdawn for Alliance or Girana the Blooded for Horde, would like you to kill 8 Kvaldir Berserkers and 3 Kvaldir Harpooners aboard The Firehawk. This one can be a little tricky. The ship is located in the straights between the Argent Tournament and Hrothgar's Landing. The mobs also respawn rather quickly. In addition to this, the Kraken adds to the confusion by occasionally attacking and freezing everyone on board in the path of his breath. The EASIEST way to do this is to stay near the rear or edges of the ship and attempt to pull the mobs in small groups. It is also about the only way you will be able to disengage yourself between waves once you complete the quest.

Stop the Aggressors: Narasi Snowdawn for Alliance or Girana the Blooded for Horde, wants you to kill 10 Kvaldir. Nice and simple, head over to Hrothgar's Landing and kill yourself 10 Kvaldir. Return and gather your reward.

The Light's Mercy: Narasi Snowdawn for Alliance or Girana the Blooded for Horde, want you to use the Confessor's Prayer Book to perform last rites for 8 Slain Tualiq Villagers. Sorry, I am a sucker for these kinds of quests. Again, very simple, take the Prayer Book provided, head over to Hrothgar's Landing, you will find bodies all over but I personally found the greatest concentration of them on the east end of the island.

Breakfast of Champions: Savinia Loreson for Alliance or Tylos Dawnrunner for Horde, want you to acquire 4 Jormungar Egg Sacs for them so they can feed the giant jormungar for the Tournament. For this quest head out to K3 in Storm Peaks and fly up to the Foot Steps, the area in the mountains just above Brunnhildur Village. There on the ground you will see mounds of snow, stand near one and beat the drum provided. It will either summon a Deep Jormugar who drops the quest item or a Dark Iorn Mole Machine which deposits a Dark Iorn dwarf for you to fight. (Or if your lazy you can run away from them too.)

Gormok Wants His Snobolds: Savinia Loreson for Alliance or Tylos Dawnrunner for Horde send you out to capture 8 Snowbold followers. This is a quick little trapping quest. Just Hot Bar the Net they give you and head out to K3 in Storm Peaks. The Snobolds you need are the same ones that are running up Gram's Bane in the Bombing Field so it is easy to run around and get them.

What do you Feed a Yeti, Anyway?: Savinia Loresong for Alliance or Tylos Dawnrunner for Horde needs you to bring 3 pieces of North Shore Shark Meat back. Just North west of the Argent Tournament you will find a ship the "Silver Blade" (the Horde's is called the "Crimson Dawn") on it you will discover "buckets of Fresh Chum" pick up 3 of them and jump in the water. Hot bar them and when you click on them you have the chance of summoning either a shark or an angry Kvaldir. The Sharks drop the Shark meat you need for the quest.

Once you earn the Title "Crusader" (meaning you are a Champion with all of your factions racial home cities) the following quests will open up:

Fate of the Fallen : Crusader Silverdawn from the Argent Dawn tent wants you to release the spirits of 6 fallen heroes. These are located on the grounds between Aldur'thur and The Ironwall Rampart in the Valley of Fallen Heroes. First locate 6 crystals along the ground, (they are purple), then use the Light-Blessed Relic on the heroes who ARE NOT chained.

Get Kraken: Crudader Silverdawn wants you to mount an Argent Hippogryph, Throw 8 flaming spears at the North Sea Kraken and take out 6 Vrykul Deepcallers. I have heard a lot of people complain about this quest but it really is not that difficult. Once you get the spear hot bar it to your action bar and then pop on one of the Hippogryphs which are located JUST OUTSIDE the tent. Target the Kraken as soon as you can and just keep hitting him as soon as you can (he moves from boat to boat) The Vrykul Deepcallers are all located on the Largest ship in the center. Just target on one and you should easily be able to hit the other two near him. If worse comes to worse you can always do this in more than one run.

Deathspeaker Kharos: High Crusader Adelard in the Argent Dawn tent wants you to kill Deathspeaker Kharos. He is rather easy to find, just to the west of the Tournament Grounds is Deathspeaker's Watch, Kharos is located in a pit a the east end of this area.

Drottin Hrothgar : High Crusader Adelard wants you to defeat Drottin Hrothgar. Just North of the Argent Tournament Grounds is Hrothgar's Landing. An Island srouded in mist, at the top east corner of it you will find a large bonfire. Stand fairly close to it and blow the horn that Adelard gives you, Drottin will come riding in on his cloud.

Mistcaller Yngvar: High Crusader Adelard at the Argent Tournament Grounds wants you to kill Mistcaller Yngvar. At the west end of Hrothgar's Landing there is Cave, in the back of it you will find a large brazer. That is where you want to be to use the Crystal Adelard gives you to Summon Yngvar.

Ornolf the Scarred: High Crusader Adelard at the Argent Tournament Grounds wants you to kill Ornolf the Scarred. On the East side of Hrothagr's Landing, along the coast, there is a small cove that contains the ship Bor's Fury. Just land on the deck and use the Captured Kvaldir Banner that Adelard gave you to summon Ornolf.

So there you have them...if I have happened to miss any (stranger things have been known to happen) be sure I will update this as soon as possible. Also if any of you note any errors or have any additional hints please feel free to share.

Rogue Q&A

Blizzard has been doing a series in which they have asked players to put forth their most pressing class questions and then they (Blizzard's developers and team members) will chose from them to try to give us (the players) an idea as to the direction they are thinking about those issues.

Considering that the patch notes for rogues for 3.2 consisted of about 5 LINES I was not to surprised that the Rogue Q&A was one of the last ones they touched on.

Over all not any big surprises...Blizzard has been clear, they like where rogues are at this point.

They’re a premier melee dps class -- the personification of skulking and swashbuckling flair. It’s their primary and only role -- they’re not going to turn into tanks or healers.

They did touch on the Vanish issue...which has been broken for so long that most of us have just learned to adjust and EXPECT it NOT to work some times so you have a back up plan "just in case". Their proposed solution sounds intriguing but I don't see anything happening any time soon.

No, Vanish isn’t working properly and breaks when you breathe on the rogue funny. There are two problems with fixing it. One is that technically it’s just not easy. We would need to change the ways spells are resolved on the server side. Now that is something we can do, but the outcome would be taking a powerful ability and making it more powerful. We need to solve the frustration part of the ability, but not also greatly buff rogue survivability or damage potential when doing it. The solution we like the most is something like Vanish puts you in stealth for 1 second minimum no matter what else happens.

One question and response that really stuck out to me was the one dealing with the Subtlety tree. I have to say I agree with the Developers...if they buffed that tree...just about EVERY rogue I know would be Sub spec...I LOVE that tree....until BC that WAS my main spec. As is stated in the question I to think it MOST exemplifies the essence of what a rogue is...sneak around, take them out with ONE SHOT from BEHIND. Assassination is more about the Poisons, Combat the weapons, but Subtlety...it is all about the sneak attacks....man I love that tree....

Q. Players feel Subtlety captures the essence of a rogue with the majority of its abilities revolving around stealth and utility. How do we feel this specialization is performing currently and where do we see it in the future?
A. The damage is behind the other specs in PvE, and due to all the neat utility tools, Subtlety would immediately become the default spec in PvE if the damage were comparable. In the future we’d like to make it competitive, but it’s an interesting balancing act between too good and not good enough. It has a place in PvP, and should be more compelling in the post-3.2 world where survival talents will be more valuable.

Long-term, we’d love to see more of the utility talents from Subtlety core for the rogue class in general, or alternatively, we’d like to see more of the damage boosts from the other trees made passive so that rogues of all trees were choosing utility versus utility when making talent choices instead of utility versus damage.

Another thing I though was interesting is that Blizzard acknowledged a common complaint that I my self deal with, we can do GREAT in raids on damage but in dungeons it is another story, and the reason is all about how we have to manage our cool downs. I have to say I loved the development teams response to this:

A. In dungeons they’re absolutely right -- one of the disadvantages of scaling so well in a raid scenario is that you need to start at a lower baseline. They’re better than they used to be for dungeons due to a mostly reliable Sap, but they’re still not great compared to a caster or melee hybrid. In a raid they’re great, and the problem exists between the chair and the keyboard if they’re not contributing damage effectively in that scenario.

So they are hearing us, and they are responding. They have acknowledged us rogues are a plucky class that keep clamoring to not get forgotten despite how much we are hated for our "selfish ways". We now can announce with glee "HEY! We were DESIGNED this way!" Our job is to stand there and demand buffs, stuffing our faces with buff food then climbing to the top of the damage meters, you all just didn't realize that! At least now with Tricks of the Trade we can KINDA buff...but even with that, when it comes right down to it we would really rather ToT another ROGUE than anyone else...
So what can we say....we are selfish, back stabbing, Swashbucklers with FLAIR!

Rep: Brood of Nozdormu

We are rapping up our Old World Reputation factions with one of the more interesting ones in my opinion. The Brood of Nozdormu. Technically the brood is a sub faction of the Bronze Dragon flight being as such there feeling towards the "younger races" are not very comfy cozy. As a result you will start out with at the LOWEST you can be reputation wise: Hated. But in all honesty it really is not that painful a grind to get to exalted.

Reputation with the Brood is gathered in one of four ways, Killing bosses in Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (Aka AQ 20) and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (Aka AQ 40), Doing Quests related provided by the brood, Killing Mobs in AQ 40 or If you happen to have completed the Quest Only One May Rise at the Cenarion Hold (This requires you to kill the Broodlord Lashlayer in BWL and get his Head.) You (and any friends you can con into helping you) will also be able to collect and turn in Silithid Carapace Fragments for rep.

Now, once you reach Neutral with the Brood you will no longer gain rep off the mobs so there are a couple of suggestions for how to go about gathering this rep:

Get some of your "mount or achievement crazy friends" and head into AQ 40. Just do full clears every week, saving up all your Qiraji Lord's Insignia's and Ancient Qiraji Artifact's HOLD ON to them until you hit Neutral and then turn them in. In addition to this pick up the Armor and Weapon quests from the Dragon NPC's inside. These quests will also give you rep and you will be getting a lot of the idols and scarabs as you clear trash ANYWAY. Again, hold on to them until you hit neutral then turn them in.

The other way you can do this is to Farm the first few trash mobs until you reach Neutral and THEN start doing clears. It is usually not that difficult to get a group of 40 on a Saturday or Sunday looking for their achievement, mounts or Rep themselves. Full clears can take about 30 min with that many people. (Providing you don't have to many getting lost.)

So there you have it, of all the "in raid reputations" Brood by far has the greatest return in the shortest amount of time.

Happy grinding!