Grand-Commendation
Latest
Warlords of Draenor: Your alts will still need Order of the Cloud Serpent rep
One change that isn't coming, at least for right now, is that your alts will still need to get the proper reputation to purchase Cloud Serpent Riding necessary to fly any and all Cloud Serpents you may have learned. According to Helen Cheng (@BlizzardKismet), the one who designed the content, it's staying as is for now. @TheCrafticus @tanjon Sorry, we don't have plans to change it currently. - Helen Cheng (@BlizzardKismet) February 26, 2014 Of course, the word currently means that plans could change, but for now, if your newly boosted level 90 wants to ride, say, your Heavenly Cloud Serpent, then you''ll need to have her or him do some dailies, and perhaps do some looking around on the Timeless Isle for some eggs to help out. If you're looking for help getting to exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, we have a guide here - and always, if your main already is, remember to buy the Grand Commendation and cut the time in half for your alts.
Are our Cataclysm attitudes ruining Mists?
Back in Cataclysm, the world was a very different place. While the journey from 80 to 85 was certainly a little tiresome, with the obligatory travel through Deepholm bringing many a draenei to their oddly-shaped knees, once that achievement flashed across your screen you were home and dry. Gearing a character for raiding was a predictable and straightforward task. Get a few bits and jump into the latest 5-mans, which were very easy and certainly achievable with PvP gear, as long as you were one of the classes that didn't do too badly from it. Preferably not a plate tank, then! If you were adamant that cheaty PvP-based gearing wasn't for you, you could just run a few of the normals and earlier heroics, such as the Zul'roics or even the ones before, to get yourself geared to an acceptable level for the 4.3 heroics. What's more, your main could send your alts decent, current gear with their inevitable glut of valor points, and your justice points bought you the previous tier's gear. Why the Cataclysm retrospective? As a reminder of how easy it was, in Cataclysm's twilight hours, to level and gear alts to a raid-ready level, or, for that matter, to a competitive PvP level. Quite apart from the ease, it was really the only thing left to do, after months upon months of Dragon Soul.
Reputation in review: The Dominance Offensive
It took until patch 5.1, but we got it. The most perfect reputation grind in the game to date. I don't say these words lightly, because let's face it, I have pretty high standards for what I like and what I don't like with daily quests. But the Dominance Offensive appears to have taken the best out of all previous reputation grinds and wrapped it all together in a delightful ball of compelling story and quests that barely feels like a grind at all. Please note that this is a review for the Dominance Offensive, which is the Horde side of the 5.1 reputation. At this point in time, I don't have an Alliance character at level 90, so I'm unable to play through the Operation Shieldwall quests. However, I have been assured that not only are the Operation Shieldwall quests just as good, in some ways they are even better than the Dominance Offensive material. I'm not even sure how this is possible, because these dailies are just that good. But enough gushing. Let's get into the nuts and bolts of what makes this reputation grind so different from everything before it.
How to see if your Grand Commendation is active
Both Rygarius and Bashiok have posted on a forum thread regarding the absence of an in-game interface to see if your Grand Commendation is active on your account. As you likely already know, Grand Commendations are items purchasable from every faction at revered, which boost the reputation gains of every character on your battle.net account, regardless of faction or server. However, there's not any in-game indication saying that your gain is increased, there's not even, as the thread's OP said, any red text stating that the item has already been purchased. Once the item has been used, every character, including the one purchasing the commendation, has their reputation gain increased by 100%, so a fail-safe way to see if your account has a certain faction's Grand Commendation running already is to do a daily quest. Having made your way to revered, it's possible that you're fairly aware of the amount of reputation usually awarded by a certain daily quest. If you're not sure exactly how much reputation a quest usually awards, there are resources available to help, such as wowhead's database, which can be used to check the reputation reward of any daily quest. There are also addons like Factionizer which can help in-game with reputation rewards. Once you've established the reputation reward usually given by a daily quest, it's easy to see if your account has had a 100% increase in reputation applied, the reward will simply be doubled. And don't worry, as Bashiok says, Community Manager Rygarius is working on this with the development team. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Patch 5.1 PTR: Reputation changes with Grand Commendations
With all the back and forth discussion of reputation in Mists of Pandaria, it's probably worth taking the time to cover the Grand Commendations and how they work. Our friends over at Wowhead have posted a roundup of the Grand Commendation system, covering each faction and how the new system will work. The Grand Commendation for a faction works like this - once one of your characters reaches revered with a faction, they can purchase one of these Commendations, which once used will then allow all characters on the account to gain double reputation with said faction. Originally, this was going to simply be automatically implemented, but Blizzard decided that didn't feel obvious enough and wanted something in game to allow players to be aware of the changes. It should be noted these are as yet only for Mists reputations. In addition to all the current Mists of Pandaria reputations, the new Horde and Alliance factions the Dominance Offensive and Operation: Shieldwall will also have Grand Commendations. In addition to making it easier for alts to level their reputations, it seems to me that these will also make the climb through revered to exalted easier as well - the text on the Commendations does not exclude the original character from the reputation gains, after all. Head over to Wowhead for the complete list of Commendations by faction. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
