Your guide to dailies: Skettis
Now that you have unlocked your daily quests in Skettis, it is time to actually do them. Many players, myself included, were introduced to dailies in the same way we learn about most quests; we just try them. When we become frustrated, we turn to the Internet.
Because of the repetitive and somewhat obligatory nature of daily quests, it is important to not only master them to minimize such frustration, but also to understand exactly what you are gaining in the long run. Knowing exactly how many rewards you are racking up will keep you doing these quests even when you don't feel like it. This will help you reach your goals, whether they are epic flight, the Cenarion Expedition flying mount, or anything else, you will need to be diligent if you want to save enough gold in a timely fashion.
Follow through the jump for a detailed walkthrough of each daily quest, as well as a few different summaries of your loot, put into perspective.
Fires Over Skettis
The purpose of this quest, on behalf of the Skyguard, is twofold. First, you are proving that you can indeed be successful in evasive maneuvers and offensive tactics while airborne. This will not be as easy as it sounds for a beginner. Secondly, you are destroying the nests full of eggs, in which the arakkoa are breeding their monstrous kaliris. Because these kaliris will be guarding these areas, you will need to learn to avoid them, and to either escape their aggro or land quickly enough to avoid being dismounted mid-air.
If it were not for the monstrous kaliris, bombing the eggs would be a breeze. Simply fly from building to building, and look for the pockets of big, sparkling eggs on the rooftops. For the main buildings, you will see little platforms either circling a big, wide dwelling, or circling a thin vertical pole. Other homes are only hollowed out trees, and you can find pockets of eggs in the tops. You will need to blow up 20 eggs.
The how-to
I like to place my explosives in my action bar for ease of use. Once you have spotted some eggs, fly down close enough to them for your green aiming circle, attained by clicking on the explosives, to land on them. Position it to target, and click to obliterate.
Try to get as many eggs in your sights as possible, as any opportunity you have between kaliri patrols should be used to the fullest. Once you have begun the channeled spell, you can actually start moving again, and your explosives will still drop.
Unfortunately, the pesky monstrous kaliris will indeed pose a dire threat. They will often manage to dismount you between one and three pecks at your person, and if the fall alone does not result in your death, the swarms of arakkoa, and if you are particularly unlucky, an elite level 72 Talonsworn Forest-Rager, will likely do you in.
In addition, if you fly too low, either near the ground, or near platform-level of the dwellings, you may get targeted by the arakkoa. Often this means getting hit with some pretty potent shadow bolts, which are less likely to dismount you, but may kill you before long if they are ignored. Usually, flying a distance away is enough to thwart these attackers.
Kaliri + death avoidance tactics
Fortunately, there are several useful plan B's you can employ should you receive monstrous kaliri aggro. One common tactic is to simply land, and fight them. The trick here is that you will need to land immediately, or at least manage to hover close to a landing spot, so that if you are dismounted before you reach the ground, the fall is very short. You will also need to keep in mind that many landing spots will contain additional mobs.
1. Fight
One of the main benefits to this tactic is that, should you be carrying Revenge is Tasty, one of the cooking daily quests handed out by The Rokk in Lower City, you will be able to take advantage of your situation and obtain a [Giant Kaliri Wing] or two. In fact, as long as you are on the quest, you can continue to receive the drop, and store extras in the bank for later.
2. Fly upwards
If you do not want to fight, you may consider some of the many methods of evasion. One of the best ones is to fly straight up until aggro is dropped. The kaliri seem unable to hit you at this angle, especially if you have epic flight. Should you accidentally stop flying upward, because the bird will have been right on your tail, you will likely get hit within the first second. Keep your finger firmly on the spacebar!
3. Fly over water, and not the hills
If you choose horizontal fleeing, try flying over the lake, because if you are dismounted, the water will not kill you. There are pesky water elementals lurking beneath, however, and you cannot re-mount until your feet touch solid ground. Still, this is a better option than fleeing into the hills. Should you be closer to the hills than the lake, your best option is to fly down to them and fight the bird.
If you were to keep flying, end up dismounted and die, you may not be able to reach your corpse on foot. Your only course of action then will be to hoof it to the graveyard outside of Auchindoun and pay an arm and a leg to the spirit healer, who will send you back to the Skettis graveyard.
Special circumstances: Droods
Druids using flight form rather than a mount have several unique options. Because you cannot be dismounted, or knocked out of flight form, flying away from the birds is your best bet. Flying vertically will reduce the number of hits you take, preserving your health pool should you encounter another kaliri while fleeing from the first. Although you can land and fight the birds, keep in mind that you cannot re-enter flight form until you are out of combat. Should additional mobs aggro, you will be stuck fighting.
Special circumstances: Other
If you happen to be crit immune to raid bosses, you should also be able to avoid a dismount. This applies to paladins and warriors, as well as druids.
There are also several means of ensuring a safe fall, should it come down to that. Mages can use slow fall, priests can levitate, and engineers sporting a [Parachute Cloak] or those revered with the Skyguard who have purchased their [Skyguard Drape], can at least be assured that the fall alone will not result in death. It is still advisable to try your best to move, once the bird has been aggroed, over an area with as few mobs as possible.
What you get
You can do this quest every day, and each hand-in will net you 350 Sha'tari Skyguard reputation, and 11g 99s. Once you are accustomed to the quest and the kaliri attacks, you should be able to complete it within 2-5 minutes, assuming that there is not too much competition. Clearly, this is a very fast way to earn roughly 12 gold. In one week, you could earn 2450 Skyguard reputation and 83 gold, 93 silver!
Escape from Skettis
There are several pros and cons to this escort quest. It is extremely short and easily soloed. As for the bad news, this will depend heavily on your server.
On high population servers, or at peak times during the day, the competition to find the Skyguard Prisoner and accept his plea for help can be high. If you are on a PvP server, because Skettis is relatively small, you may want to run with a group, as it is a prime spot for ganking.
Finding the prisoner
The other main trick is the fact that the prisoner has three different possible spawn points. If you form a party of three or more, each member can camp one of the spawn points and alert the others when he appears. In addition, although this quest is easily soloed, you may find less competition if you group up with everyone in the area from your faction who is also looking to complete it.
The basic etiquette regarding this quest is that, should you find yourself near a member of your own faction who also looks like they might be zeroing in on the prisoner, you ought to invite them to a group, rather than "stealing" the mob.
Each spawn point is relatively similar. You begin at his cage on a platform, walk across a bridge to an adjacent platform, and then head down the ramp to the ground. Once there, you will have completed the quest. The main difference is that the middle, or southern spawn point, is more difficult to reach, and you risk more kaliri attacks by going there. The other difference is that while some of the platforms have no mobs on them, some do. Of course, at a couple of points along the way, mobs in groups of two will spawn. There should also be a set of two arakkoa at the bottom of the ramp.
General tips
Because of the highly farmed nature of Skettis, you may also find some of your mobs will have been taken care of for you. If you are on and there seems to be no competition, I recommend killing any of the arakkoa on the platforms before accepting the quest, for ease.
If you intend to do both dailies, I advise doing the escort as soon as you see the mob, regardless of whether or not you are finished bombing. In addition, try to get used to flying in a path that takes you past all three spawn points while searching for eggs, minimizing the unnecessary monstrous kaliri exposure.
What you get
Each day, provided you overcome the inherent frustrations and actually walk this guy to safety, you will bring in exactly 9g 10s, 350 Skyguard reputation, and your choice of a handful of either healing or mana potions. In one solid week of completions, you will have earned 63 gold, 7 silver, 2450 reputation, and up to 21 potions!
The loot, in perspective
Assuming that you complete Escape from Skettis and Fires Over Skettis each day, here is a summary of what you will have earned:
700 reputation with the Sha'tari Skyguard.
21 gold and 9 silver.
Either 2 [Unstable Mana Potion] or 3 [Volatile Healing Potion].
Whatever vendor trash dropped from the kaliris you killed, as well as possible greens and [Netherweave Cloth] from any arakkoa you came across. You can also find herbs and motes on the elite trees, especially if you are an herbalist.
5 reputation (until the end of revered) for each regular kaliri kill. 10 reputation for each arakkoa and monstrous kaliri kill. 30 reputation for each Talonsworn Forest-Rager kill.
By doing each quest once, plus More Shadow Dust (refer to Your guide to dailies: Unlocking Skettis) once, you can easily gain over 1000 reputation per day, if you factor in kills. Combined with the reputation gained from some of the other, non-repeatable quests at Blackwind Landing, you will be on your way to exalted in no time.
Over the course of one week, if both quests were done each day, as well as More Shadow Dust, aside from variable drops and reputation from kills, you would bring in (minimum):
6650 reputation per week, not counting bonus gained from kills.
147 gold and 63 silver, not counting money dropped.
A boatload of potions.
Other daily quest guides:
Your guide to dailies: Cooking
Your guide to dailies: Unlocking Skettis
