Rep: Timbermaw Hold (and Wintersaber)

Continuing in our Reputation series, if you quest in Kalimdor, around level 45 you will enter Felwood and encounter the Timbermaw for the first time. This faction is key because their home is a VERY important tunnel between Felwood, Winterspring and Moonglade. Unfortunately pretty much the ONLY way to gain rep with them is via the dreaded "grind". Thankfully it has gotten MUCH easier than it was pre-BC.

If you are a Leatherworker, or Enchanter these guys are a good rep to gather in order to pick up some nice Pre-BC recipes that even now are in demand by Twinks. If you are an ALLIANCE mount collector you will notice I added Wintersaber reputation at the top of this heading. The reason is if you are going to grind for your Wintersaber mount I would strongly encourage you to do Timbermaw at the same time. (Kill two birds with one stone as it were) and I will go into the details of that later.

Now the other nice thing about the Timbermaw Rep is it is actually a VERY PROFITABLE rep to grind. Why? They don't drop a lot of TRASH. By that I mean, they don't tend to drop a lot of small items that don't sell for much, rather for some reason they just seem to drop cloth, greens, blues and other HIGHER value items along with the items you need for your rep turn ins. Back pre-BC I remember making an average of 300g gold an HOUR while grinding this rep (at that time a VERY nice profit.)

So how do you go about grinding this Rep? It is actually VERY simple. Start in Felwood and grind until you hit "unfriendly" at that point you can head through the tunnel unmolested. Go ahead and turn in your feathers as you get them in stacks of 5. HOLD ON TO THEM but I would grind until you have an even stacks of 5. Once upon a time you could only grind rep until Revered and then at that point only earn rep via the turn ins. This is NO LONGER the case. You will CONTINUE to earn rep from killing mobs all the way up to exalted so don't worry about keeping those stockpiles any longer.

Once you get into Winterspring the mobs drop beads rather than feathers. Now individuals all have their personal favorite places to farm beads and good reasons as to why theirs is better than others but all that matters is that you can turn them in every stack of 5.

There are also several quests that you will be able to do based on rep as well. Two of them are drop quests you will easily pick up as you are grinding. Deadwood Ritual Totem and Winterfall Ritual Totem both can only be turn in at Neutral. Meilosh in Timbermaw will ask for 30 Runecloth at friendly rep and if you are a tailor 2 Mooncloth.

Now for those of you who LOVE to fill your Rep bars as well as have pets once you reach exalted there is an additional quest that opens up in Timbermaw called "The Root of All Evil". At level 60 this was a VERY difficult quest, but at 80 it is a breeze, finish it off and you will get sent to either Ogrimmar or Ironforge and get a nice little Trinket.

Now Wintersaber...
While these mounts ARE Alliance only take heart oh Horde player, vindication IS coming in patch 3.2 with the return of Trainer Mor'vek to Un'Goro, there he will offer to help Horde players to once again raise and train Venomhide Ravasaurs as a mount... "if they can survive the creature's deadly poison."

For the Alliance once you have traversed through the Timbermaw tunnels follow the road straight out and to Frostsaber Rock, Rivern Frostwind is located literally at the very TOP of the end of that rock you need to go to the back of the rock and then climb to the top. You need to be at least level 58 to begin the quest chain with him and it IS annoying in that you can't just stack the items and do a bunch of turn ins rather you must keep running back and forth for each.

When you first encounter him he will only have one quest for you Frostsaber Provisions. This is the only quest available until you reach 1500 rep. At that point it will open up a SECOND quest Winterfall Intrusion. (See why I say do Timbermaw at the same time?) A third quest becomes available at Honored Rampaging Giants. Now Pre-BC this use to be a group quest but now can be easily soloed.

Other profit tips: In Everlook there is a quest you can get from Witch Doctor Mau'ari called Cache of Mau'ari. This quest will give you a "lucky Charm" that as long as you have it in your bags allows you to gather different E'ko. These can then be turned in for Juju of Power. Now the buffs these all give are of course no longer useful HOWEVER they ALL vendor quite well (see where this is going?) If you are going to grind, my theory is get every last drop of profit out of it you can.

Happy Grinding!