Report Card: How do the new phase 1 dailies measure up?

Having had a chance both on the live and test servers to do the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies, I think I can safely say that Blizzard has thoroughly outdone themselves. There's variety, there's travel (instead of staying in the same small area all the time), there's excitement, there's good loot, there's all kinds of varied quests that make me think that I may never go back to Ogri'la or Skettis ever again unless I really need something from the vendors. There's still things that could be slightly better, but for the most part, Blizzard has shown that they've taken valuable lessons from previous content and stepped up their design for patch 2.4.

The Shattrath dailies are nice in that they get you out to a few zones you might have not bothered with for a while, and give you an excuse to get other errands done as well. Since the Multiphase Survey takes you out to Nagrand, it's a perfect opportunity to grab your bag of gems for the month from the Consortium if you haven't yet, or do the Spiritual Soup cooking daily if that's the one that's up. While getting the Sunfury Attack Plans, you can gather Mana Berries. Also, grabbing the Plans generally also nets me a few Sunfury Signets, at least a stack of Netherweave, and often a green or an Arcane Tome, so it's a lucrative quest even beyond the reward. Once the effort to get the Quel'danas portal up in Shattrath is ready, you can also get the Demon Broiled Surprise quest done while you do that daily. The dark spot here is the gathering quest. It seems like the Nether Residue is a little bit less plentiful than it should be, and it seemed like I had to wait forever for those last few to drop. That said, it's at least a good excuse to go out and gather an herb, ore, or skin that you're low on for us gatherers, and if you were going to go out gathering anyway, you might as well grab this quest and get some extra gold while you're at it. Otherwise, I might skip it.

The Isle of Quel'danas dailies are relatively easy and have enough twists that they're pretty fun. There's a giant field right next to the quest area that is full of both the Wretched and the robots that you need. The nearby robots and Wretched are often camped, but if you head deeper into the island, you should eventually find a cluster that haven't been taken. The robots drop Motes of Mana, so it's pretty lucrative to kill them. Then you just load up some new cores and watch them walk off. Arming the Sanctum Wards might get a little bit more annoying to finish, since the needed Mana Remnants are a somewhat rare drop off the Wretched. Still, both quests are relatively painless to finish and give you the standard amount of gold.

The Hellfire Peninsula dailies, I think, are the weakest or least well designed group of dailies. First, there's the problem of accessibility. They're located at the Throne of Kil'jaedan, and while you do originally get a quest to teleport directly there using a Legion teleporter located on the Isle of Quel'danas, the quest is not a daily, and on day 2, there does not appear to be a way to use the teleporter to get there. Therefore, you do have to fly directly to Hellfire Peninsula on every other day to use the teleporter. In addition, to get back to Quel'danas from the Throne of Kil'jaedan, you are forced to fly back to Shattrath and take a portal. Bornakk did imply in a recent thread that there may eventually be a portal at the Throne in this thread, but I think he may have the issue confused with a portal in Shattrath. We'll see.

The Hellfire dailies themselves aren't as bad. The fire elementals are plentiful enough that you should find plenty to kill to charge your ember for destroying the portal. They also drop motes of fire, which is a very nice bonus. Also, if the area's too crowded and you can't manage to tap any, simply standing near a fire elemental when it dies will charge your ember, even if you weren't the one who tapped it. Thus, destroying the portal becomes a quick and easy way to get a pack of Shattered Sun Supplies. The other quest, Blood for Blood, was unfortunately so hard to complete that I abandoned it. The difficulty level itself was fine. Kill 4 demons for their blood, and use that blood to siphon and kill 4 elites. Unfortunately, both the demons and the elite mobs were incredibly rare and usually grabbed by someone the minute they spawned. I really didn't feel like waiting around and trying to grab the mobs I needed, so I left.

Hopefully Blizzard ups the spawn rates on the mobs in question [edit - Well, looks like my prayers have been answered], or they get a longer life expectancy once things have calmed down a bit. I'd really like to do the quest, as the reward is 5x Sunfury Signets or Marks of Sargeras, and one of my characters still needs exalted Aldor. Which reminds me, they need to make the demons up here drop Marks of Sargeras, they don't currently.

If there's one more thing I am somewhat concerned about, it's the fact that we're already over 75% done with the first phase of the offensive on my server as of this writing. If the whole island is unlocked too early, It seems like the epic feel of the offensive may be locked. Hopefully the next few phases are a bit slower. All in all though, I very much approve of the new round of dailies. There's some minor things that could be better, but on each character I did them on, I'm about 100g richer and loaded down with motes and greens (thanks in part to the Shattered Sun Supplies). I'd high recommend these quests to anyone looking to get a bit more gold or looking for something new and fun to do in the game. You can check out both John Himes' and Eliah Hecht's various guides as well as my own Phase 2 daily quest walthroughs if you need a few more pointers on how to get them done. Keep checking back here at WoW Insider, as we'll have more guides for these quests, and for each phase's quests as they're unlocked.