Report Card: Phase 4 daily quests
is now well underway, with about 50 servers having it unlocked according to us.gorgonnash.info at the time of this writing. There's still a few more things to unlock, but for the most part, the Sunwell Isle is complete, and what you see is what you get as far as resources and places to fight. So, once again, it is time to ask the question: How do these quests fit into your busy up-to-25-daily-quests-to-do lifestyle?
They fit pretty well, actually!
Actually, even before we get to the quests, my favorite part of this phase may very well be that the Isle of Quel'danas is now more or less full service. Not only do you finally have a place to repair in the form of the unlocked badge vendor, but the newly opened Inn also has a mailbox. It seems like often find my bags overloaded with Motes of Mana, Sunfury Signets, stacks of Netherweave Cloth, and sundry greens by the time I'm done with the island, so being able to send that stuff over to my mule right away is a godsend. At that point, the quests are just icing on the cake, really.
Admittedly, it's some pretty tasty icing.
Your Continued Support
The simplest quest to come out of the whole deal is Your Continued Support. Give 10 gold, get 150 Shattered Sun Offensive reputation, once a day. On the test server, the 10 gold was supposed to go toward the building of a monument, but on live servers, the monument ends up appearing as soon as phase 4 starts, and she just takes your donations anyway. My guess is that this is a bug, but I suppose it's a bit late to fix it now. The monument is pretty good looking, at least.
The nice thing about this quest is that it's a quick way to get 150 reputation for us alt-o-holics. If you do nothing else with a given level 70 character in a day, you can head over to the Sunwell Isle and grab this quest and The Battle Must Go On. Go kill a few demons and turn in The Battle Must Go On, then go pay your 10 gold. Altogether, you'll have 400 Shattered Sun Offensive Reputation, an extra 10 silver, and whatever dropped off the demons, all in the space of about 10 minutes,.
So it ends up being a pretty decent way for those of us with way too many characters to grab a little bit of reputation for each character every day. I have to thank Blizzard for the idea.
Disrupt the Greengill Coast
I like this quest because it really rounds out the Greengill coast quite well. You're already headed over there to read a ley line and maybe grab some Darkspine Ore, but now you'll be able to do something with the sirens over there too. This is very nice, because before it was always a pain when I was riding down the coast, only to find myself slowed by a Frostbolt. It always felt like a pain to dismount and smack down the Darkspine Siren in question, but now I can kill them for this quest.
I very much appreciate that the Orb of Murloc Control appears to be a 100% drop this time around, especially with my previous frustration over the key drops for the Making Ready quest. It did take me 4 orbs to free enough Murlocs to complete the quest the first time that I did it, but I think I might be able to cut that down with a little more practice. Still, I also think they could stand to pack the Murlocs a little tighter, or give the orbs a larger radius.
Another thing I noticed on this quest is that the Darkspine Myrmidons seem to be dropping keys a lot more often. I killed about 5 of them in the time it took me to find the sirens for the orbs I needed, and got 3 keys. I don't know if I was lucky, or if they did actually bump the drop rate on the keys at some point, enough that I'm almost willing to retract my complaints on the matter from my previous review. Whatever it was, Greengill Coast was very lucrative for me.
I think the thing that really seals it for me, and makes me think that this quest will definitely be part of my daily rotation from now, is watching the freed Murlocs rush off to attack the nearest Naga they can find. It's sort of heartwarming to see them take up arms and fight for their freedom - only to be slaughtered mercilessly because the Naga are 10 levels higher than they are, but hey. This quest has made me feel a twinge of sympathy toward Murlocs, which is a miracle in and of itself.
If there's one complaint I could make, it's that the quest giver is initially sort of out of the way, off on a boat in the harbor. If you don't know she's there, you might miss her.
Discovering your Roots
Here's one more quest to round out the great Outland daily circle, sending you to a little area that sort of sits between Terrokar Forest and Hellfire Peninsula. Of course, probably the biggest reason to do this quest is that it unlocks the ability to buy epic gems with badges, but it's a good quest with great rewards even on its own.
I'm not sure if I was just lucky, but there were 2 or 3 flayers just waiting for me when I landed, and the first one dropped a gland. A Razorthorn Ravager aggro'd on me, but the gland quickly pacified it, and it became my pet, sending away poor Bonnie, my Hunter's pet pig.
From there, it was pretty easy to discover my roots. They were scattered around as little dirt mounds, generally guarded by another ravager. Most of the ravagers were actually bugged not to attack (which could get annoying - if all the ravagers get bugged, you won't be able to find one to dig for roots), so it was just a matter of standing next to a mound and using the command on the pet bar to cause your ravager to dig it up. It was altogether pretty easy and painless. Considering the reward includes a pack of Shattered Sun Supplies, this will be one that I will definitely be adding to my normal rotation.
Ata'mal Armaments
This last quest isn't technically a Phase 4 quest, but rather a quest that appears once you unlock Smith Hauthaa's badge gear in Phase 3. Still, it's worth doing. Not only do you get a good 18 gold or so, but the weapon oil you get is really nice for completing your Isle of Quel'danas dailies or heading into Magister's Terrace or the Sunwell Plateau. Since each bottle has 5 charges, you shouldn't have to worry about running out either. It's also a good excuse to head to Shadowmoon Valley and do a couple Netherwing dailies. I think they could probably stand to up the drop rates on the armaments a bit, and it gets very annoying dodging the Shadowsworn Drakonids, but once you get the swing of it, it's probably worth it for 18 gold and the oil.
This is probably more of a superstition thing I my part, but I find if you start at the top of the area instead of the bottom, the armaments seem to drop faster, so I generally just head into the building by the Ata'mal Crystal at the top of the Orc area, kill the four mobs in there, and work my way down the stairs, killing Orcs along the way.
Final Thoughts
So with Phase 4, we now have a giant smorgasbord of daily quests to do, all with their own individual perks and quirks. In the final analysis, I'd say this aspect of 2.4 has been a roaring success. There's a couple places where spawn rates or drop rates could be tweaked upward a little, but overall, the Sunwell dailies are a nice way to keep busy until WoTLK finally shows up.
Looking for more Sunwell Daily Quests? WoW Insider has you covered with walkthroughs of all the Sunwell Daily Quests (including PvP!) Or check out our overview of all the Sunwell Patch 2.4 goodness. Not enough? The WoW Insider Directory has the best of our guides and columns.
