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The Last Laugh
There are times when it pays to play Horde.
My Belf Demon Hunter took a step back in time and started working on the Laughing Skull Orc rep in Draenor. The Lsorc(?) rep was hanging out in the Trading Post, so why not grind up the rep and get some cool transmog masks?
Why not indeed.
Grinding the rep out in The Pit was a cakewalk, and once he reached Revered he picked up a couple of the available masks the vendor had locked away. But hiding behind the Exalted tag was a grinning skull mask with gold highlights, as well as a title. The title was a worthy goal, since masks are cool and everyone enjoys a good belly chuckle now and then. And the mask? A skull, and gold. Two of my favorite things.
I got back at it, and this morning I notched another thing of my To Do list:
Earn Exalted status with the Laughing Skull Orcs.
A few more sheckles of gold and he’ll have his new mask, but for now my boy Scaredevil will just have to live with being the Masked Chuckler.
I swear, he becomes more of a Luchador every day.
Titles Are Punny
You can’t label me, bro.
If I hadn’t been so lazy this week (the heat, I blame the heat) my recent achievements would have seemed a little more impressive since I did all of this in a single week. But folks, these are the cards I’ve been dealt and will therefore shuffle them in my hand and try to slap on my poker face.
My p-p-p-p-poker face.
The week was all about titles. Titles are always a fun little way to change things on your character. I managed to pick up three of them in a little over a week.
I can be Extremis…ly patient.
The first title <Name> “the Patient” was one I wasn’t even consciously trying to get. I was running an endless stream of Hour of Twilight PUGs, and just got the title. It was a side-effect of running too many PUGs, but unlike lowered self-esteem and hemorrhoids this was actually a side-effect worth getting.
Taking fashion to the Extremis.
The “Flame Warden” title wasn’t hard to get. If you can put in the time, you can get this title. I mean, completing the Midsummer Fire Festival isn’t all that tough to do. As long as you can find enough fires to Honor or Desecrate, Flame Warden is one of the easier titles to grab. I still say the title should be <Name> “Pees on Fires”, but that’s why I’m not working for Blizzard. Well, that and the restraining order, but I’m legally prohibited from discussing the issue.
I am Extremis-ly proud of this title.
Getting the title <Name> “of the Shattered Sun” was a multi-stage process. First, you need to have Exalted status with the Shattered Sun Offensive. There’s two ways to get there – either run dailies on the Isle of Quel’Danas, or run Magisters’ Terrace, like, a whole lot. I went with Plan B for a few reasons:
- There was no limit on how often I could run it every day. I would still get decent rep by running Regular versions of the instance, so I’d start with a Heroic and then switch to Regular until I was bored.
- I was getting Faction rep through tabards. In fact, Boss kills were giving me more rep (while wearing the appropriate tabard) than I was getting with the Shattered Sun Offensive. I managed to get Exalted with Gilneas, Ironforge, and Gnomeregan while grinding SSO rep. It’s always nice when you can get two things done at the same time.
- Transmog Gear was plentiful. I picked up the Sun-Forged Cleaver for myself, and farmed a great deal of greens that sold quite nicely on the Auction House. If you have to grind rep, you might as well make some gold at the same time.
- Sweet Chicken Mount. There’s a 4% drop rate on the Swift White Hawkstrider, obtainable only in Heroic mode. I managed to pick up this bird on my last Heroic run.
Ohhhh, what have we here?
Achievement unlocked! Another mount I will never use!
My one-eyed Willy looks on in disgust. No, not that one. I’m talking about the pet. Pervs.
Congrats on Exalted with SSO. Now you just have to get a single quest where the dude rubs his hand across his palm and says “Can u spare gold plz? For the cause, dude.”
One. Thousand. Gold.
Are you shitting me? I’ve paid less for epic fucking mounts! When Quel’Danas was considered “end game” back in the Burning Crusade days, beggers would spout mighty dirty erections whenever they saw someone with the “of the Shattered Sun” title. It meant that person had waaaay too much gold, and had no problem throwing it away.
Which reminds me – I am now broke. Maybe I’ll run MT one more time for some sweet Transmog gear.
Therazane is Hawt
The lovechild of Jessica Simpson and a pile of gravel. Sexy, no?
Talk about a productive week.
Extremis the Knight of Death got himself to 85 and immediately flexed his impressive blacksmithing muscle by putting hammer to anvil. The end result was a suit of Vicious Pyrium armor and an Elementium Bonecrusher. He then bought an Elementium-Edged Scalper (best in slot pre-heroics, according to askmrrobot.com) and will get another if it appears on the market or he grinds his way to the recipe in Molten Core. He’s already started knocking off regular dungeons and soon may be ready for Heroics.
There’s also talk of raiding. Me. Raiding in World of Warcraft.
God help us all.
It’s Not Who You Know. It’s Who Knows You.
While Extremis slogged through Deepholm during his mid-80’s, I started chatting up a guildie and commented how I really wasn’t a fan of questing in the zone. Deepholm, I said, was an unfortunate circumstance that could not be skipped. Once the questline was started, I felt it was important to remain there until it was finished. You could leave sooner and move on to Uldum for quicker leveling, better xp and quest rewards, but the Deepholm questline was the only way to unlock and earn the Therazane rep needed to get the necessary Exalted for the shoulder enchants. Also, the longer you ran the questline the more Therazane rep you could earn (one round of daily quests under Revered, as it turned out), and the fewer Therazane dailies needed to reach Exalted.
My guildmate, who had patiently been listening to me rant on the zone, sent me a single sentence in response to my plight. “I didn’t understand a single word you just said.”
That’s when it occurred to me that there are a number of people who simply level up as fast as possible and start looking for gear upgrades. They’re not really aware how important some of the reputations can be while you’re leveling. All they know is to quest and run dungeons, blaze through levels, without giving any thought to what reputation benefits they’re passing up.
Reputation can be important you guys.
Sometimes it’s good to be kind of a big deal.
So I decided to be a helpful kind of guy and point out some of the benefits of working on the rep grind of various factions in Cataclysm. Might as well start with the one Extremis is currently working on – Therazane. (Fun Fact – Flowers and candy will not help your rep with her.)
Friendly
Good to wear when you’re running 85 dungeons. Not so great when you’re leveling, unless it matches your outfit.
Honored
- Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone
- Lesser Inscription of Jagged Stone
- Lesser Inscription of Shattered Crystal
- Lesser Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz
These are the lesser shoulder enchants for each class. Unless you’re an Scribe/Inscriptionator/Whatever, this is where you get your shoulder buffs.
Revered
- Diamant’s Ring of Temperance
- Felsen’s Ring of Resolve
- Gorsik’s Band of Shattering
- Terrath’s Signet of Balance
Some decent bling for your character.
Exalted
- Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
- Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone
- Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal
- Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz
These are the enchants that players are using at the end game. Like I said, pound for pound the best enchants for the shoulder slot that you’ll find. So slap on your Tabard and get your grind on!
The Spectral Wolf
Perhaps you are one of the lucky one million players who have tried out the beta for the upcoming WoW expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Or perhaps you have mastered the art of looking at words and comprehending their meaning well enough to know what the Hell is being said. In any case, you might have clued in that Blizzard wants you to see all the new content at ground level, and flying on the new continent will not be allowed until level 90.
Calm down. Take a deep breath. We’re all in this together. I know you’ve been farming flying mounts because they’re a) roughly three times faster than the fastest land mount, and b) you can fly everywhere else in the damn game. That means that, for five long levels, you will be cruising around Pandaville on a land mount. So you’d better make damn sure you can stand looking at the mount for five levels.
Enter the Spectral Wolf.
I have actually heard people try to compare the Spectral Wolf to the Celestial Steed for some reason, and the words stomped part of my brain to death. Sure the sparkle pony was the hotness for all of ten minutes, and it could also double as a land mount in a pinch when it wasn’t busy flying around looking pretentious. But I’m talking about a Spectral Wolf, not the bastard child of a Twilight vampire and a My Little Pony reject. Spectral Wolves drag sparkle ponies out to the alley behind Pizza Hut and pimp them out for five bucks and pocket lint.
So much wrong with this picture.
To get your hands on these ghostfaced killers, you need two things. First, you need to be Exalted with Hellscream’s Reach. If you run the twelve Tol Barad and Baradin Hold dailies every day, it should take you roughly three weeks to hit Exalted reputation. That’s twenty-one days of straight-up killing things – people, gators, demons, ghosts, and giants.
Spectral Wolf calls that “a nice start.”
By the time you hit Exalted, you’ll have easily met the second requirement to getting your Wolf – 165 Tol Barad Commendations. You can use those extra tokens to buy yourself a Tabard (which has a clickable teleport to Tol Barad) or as a headstart in case you want to get the Tol Barad flying mount – Drake of the West Wind.
For now, don’t worry about other purchases. If you have the rep and the tokens, get one of the best looking land mounts in the game and show that bad boy off.
Beats the Hell out of riding the Swift Springstrider.
Rokk Talk 