Honor-Hold
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15 Minutes of Fame: More dings, less killing
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame's inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything. Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor's ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.
Lichborne: Are the Burning Crusades factions worth it?
Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb wishes he could be doing Hallow's End achievements for his Death Knight on the live servers, where they count. It's a fact of life. Burning Crusade is about to become obsolete. All those rep grinds, all those exalted purples, all those dungeon keys are just so much pretty little bank space wasters. Sure, gear lasts a little longer into Wrath, but for the most part, we're still going to be leaving it all behind for the new environs of Northrend, while Outland becomes a bump in the road to 80. For Death Knights, this is probably still true. We're going to want to rush to get through Outland so we aren't desperately trying to find groups for Utgarde Keep while everyone else is getting Kel'thuzad on farm mode. But that means we'll have only the bare minimum of faction, no grind, no turn-ins, no purples. On the whole this is probably pretty much OK, since we'll be able to get good gear right out the gate in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. But is there still a reason to grind some of the Burning Crusade factions, or even to pay attention to them while leveling up? Let's look at some of the factions you'll probably come across while speeding through Outland and what benefits they can offer the leveling knight.
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for enchanters
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Last week we took a look at some of the more popular and requested enchants and how to get them for yourself. I also promised that I'd continue the faction recipe series by taking a look at enchanting for this week. So far, I've talked about the following professions and which factions hold appropriate recipes: Designs for jewelcrafters part one, and part two. Plans for blacksmiths. Recipes for alchemists. Patterns for leatherworkers. Patterns for tailors. Here is a complete list of the factions to which any enchanter should "suck up" and how far you'll need to take it: Shattered Sun Offensive, honored. Consortium, revered. Cenarion Expedition, exalted. Thrallmar/Honor Hold, exalted. Keepers of Time, exalted. Lower City, exalted. Sha'tar, exalted. Violet Eye, exalted.
Insider Trader: Popular enchants and where to get them
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.If you've ever spent any time sitting in trade chat, you could probably make a list of some of the most popular enchants. Requested frequently, any enchanter possessing the the knowledge to imbue a weapon or piece of armor with the proper stats stands to make a fair amount of gold. For example, a healer seeking Major Healing, or a meleer seeking Mongoose, will know the materials, and gather them. Each time they replace their respective weapons, back into trade they will go to request the enchant. Today, Insider Trader presents a list of some of the most requested enchants with information about how to obtain them so that you can offer them to friends, guildmates, and your server. It is by no means a complete list, but it will get you off to a shining start and provide you with quite a to-do list. Check out the comments section for helpful details as well. Drop rate data was gathered from the Armory, and Blizzard uses ranges such as Very Low (1-2%). This is narrowed down with data from Wowhead where appropriate, but keep in mind that some bind on pick-up recipes can only be seen by enchanters, and Wowhead cannot filter out that data, making their estimate much lower than the actual drop rate. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be working on the faction recipes series, focusing on enchanting, so stay tuned.
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for jewelcrafters, part one
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.With all of the Wrath news flying around lately, it is a welcome break to be covering live content. For the past few weeks, Insider Trader has been delving into the recipes that each trade can acquire from factions by earning reputation. So far, we've covered: Plans for blacksmiths. Recipes for alchemists. Patterns for leatherworkers. Patterns for tailors. This week, we'll be looking into faction-supplied designs for jewelcrafters, and because of the sheer number of them, this will continue into next week as well. Here's a breakdown of the factions to which you'll be paying a fair amount of attention: (Note that the bold entries will be covered in this week's edition). Violet Eye, honored. (Karazhan) Thrallmar or Honor Hold, revered. Lower City, revered. Aldor or Scryers, revered. Sha'tar, revered. Keepers of Time, revered. Scale of the Sands, revered. (Mount Hyjal) Cenarion Expedition, exalted. Consortium, exalted. Shattered Sun Offensive, exalted.
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for leatherworkers
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.After a brief hiatus, Insider Trader is back and ready to take on the faction world. As you progress through Outland as a leatherworker, it will be helpful to know the factions with which you will need to be in high favor. Here's a quick summary: Honored: Ashtongue Deathsworn, Sha'tar, Keepers of Time. Revered: Consortium, Kurenai/Mag'har, Lower City. Exalted: Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold/Thrallmar, Aldor/Scryers, Violet Eye.
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for alchemists
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Last week, Insider Trader examined the factions that a new tailor in Outland will need to buddy up to, including what recipes they had to offer, and how far you'd need to go. Today, we will continue through the series with the following guide to faction recipes for alchemists in Outland. Here is the quick breakdown of what you will need to grind: Honored with Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Honored with the Violet Eye (Kara). Revered with Kurenai or Mag'har. *This one may not be worth it. Revered with Scryers. Aldor has nothing for alchemists. Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition. Exalted with Sporeggar. Exalted with Lower City. Exalted with Shattered Sun. Exalted with the Sha'tar. Exalted with the Keepers of Time.
Faction frustrations eased in Wrath
If you've played a Feral Druid to 70, especially in the early days of The Burning Crusade, you probably remember grinding out Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition for your Earthwarden. Personally, my pet faction was Lower City. As a Shadow Priest, I drooled heavily all over the Gavel of Unearthed Secrets. I had hit level 70 before Karazhan raids were commonplace on my server, so I found myself in Shadow Labyrinth at every opportunity. Say what you will about the irritation of running Steamvault constantly, I think Shadow Labyrinth is just a little more frustrating. Admittedly, if I had waited a few weeks, I probably could've gotten a Nathrezim Mindblade pretty easily when Karazhan runs picked up, but what can you do?To help avoid this irritation, Wrath of the Lich King will be introducing something currently called 'championing.'
"Maximizing" reputation gains
My Blood Elf Paladin is level 63 now, and I'm currently after Sporeggar reputation, in hot pursuit of that greatest of Protadin prizes, the Petrified Lichen Guard. Of course, when I started, the first thing I did was go buy a few Bog Lord Tendrils, planning to turn them in until I jumped out of unfriendly. It was the most efficient way to get that faction jump, so I considered the silver money well spent. With friendly under my belt, I can safe turn in a load of Mature Spore Sacs and Glowcaps (I took the quests before I turned in the Tendrils, so I can still turn them in despite being friendly).
2.4 PvP sets: Gold and rep requirements
There's a lot to get excited about in patch 2.4, without a doubt. A lot of raiders will be looking to the Sunwell to provide new content and those addicted to daily quests will certainly find a lot to do as well. I'll certainly appreciate these things, but there was one new item that piqued my interest as an altaholic: the new blue PvP sets available from reputation vendors. While a lot of players will likely overlook or outright dismiss these new sets, they are a godsend to someone, like me, that has a ton of high-level alts. While these sets are clearly geared towards PvP, they'll definitely help fill out some of my alts' PvE sets. Additionally, they'll make good starting sets for anyone that wants to get more involved in the arena or battlegrounds.
Mysterious Mysteries: UFO spotted above Honor Hold
If you have been to Honor Hold recently, you may have observed a strange flying creature circling the alchemists' tower. Insatiably curious, cunningly perceptive adventurers everywhere may well wonder: What in the world is that thing doing there?Lebowski, the resident engineering trainer, teaches his classes not too far from there. "One of my students pointed to it and asked me what it was," He told Mysterious Mysteries earlier this afternoon, "and this gave me the perfect opportunity to unveil my latest invention, the Telesupernaturaspectroscope! It may seem like a mere [Ornate Spyglass], but I have fitted it with a [Super-snapper FX] and a coating of [Ghost Dye], thus allowing us to capture images of spectral creatures while observing from a safe distance!" The Telesupernaturaspectrograph Lebowski took is quite chilling indeed. "You can see here," he tells us, "the Unexplainable Freaky Owl -- or 'UFO' as I call it -- is not only blue, but it seems to have gaping holes in its wings! Yet it flies! I suspect the alchemists are up to something!" We questioned Alchemist Gribble and Magus Zabraxis inside the alchemists tower as to what they think about this strange UFO flying about their tower. Miss Zabraxis replied that she didn't know about freaky owls but offered to show us her latest experiment, while Mr. Gribble stated, "It is the obvious result of conditions and circumstances which brought about its existence! Now go away and come back when you're ready to learn Extremely Advanced Alchemy!" Rorelien, the night elven Herbalist Trainer was seen to be lurking suspiciously in the background, but she declined to comment.Have you spotted any strange or inexplicable items or creatures in your journeys around Outland? Have you any theories as to what they're there for?
Insider Trader: Uldaman or bust!
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.It's a brave new world for young enchanters training in the mysterious ways of their craft. Enchanting's infamous artisan-level training roadblock used to demand that enchanters fight their way to a trainer located inside the Uldaman instance in order to train new skills, formula by formula. Nowadays, many players who own The Burning Crusade expansion can avoid this dastardly errand by porting across the Dark Portal to Outlands enchanter trainers. (No, you can't physically step through the portal until level 58 -- but you CAN accept a mage portal or warlock summons at any level -- and what a great place to be hearthstoned!)As you'd expect, there are a couple of caveats to this solution. All but one of the enchanter trainers in the Outlands (including those in Shattrath City, Honor Hold, Thrallmar and The Stormspire in Netherstorm) are Grand Master Enchanters who train enchanters from a minimum skill level of 300. The lone Outlands trainer handling lower-level training is Enchantress Volali. Unfortunately, her persnickety choice of residence in the Scryer's Tier in Shattrath City puts her squarely off-limits to anyone who's chosen to ally with the Aldor and to all young Draenei, who are automatically friendlier with the Draenei Aldor. (Young Blood Elf enchanters, who are naturally on better terms with their kinsmen the Scryers, can visit Enchantress Volali without issue.) If you're any race but Draenei and haven't yet chosen sides in the Aldor/Scryer faction tussle, you can train with Enchantress Volali in Shattrath City at the artisan level or below and with the Grand Master Enchanters above 300. But if you're a Draenei or less than neutral faction with the Scryers, you'll need to stick to the old-world trainers until you reach 300 -- and for artisan-level training, it's back to Uldaman for j00!
Hellfire at level 55
A week or so ago, a friendly lock in our guild summoned me out to Honor Hold to train in Enchanting. It appears to be bothering people that this is possible, that we are somehow abusing the system. I don't feel that I am, and in fact I was able to summon an entire group ranging from 51-55 for some Outland fun. We killed boars, a lot of them, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. It's interesting to note that although I cannot pass through into Outland, I am able to go through the Dark Portal into Azeroth. To me this is the sign that what I am doing is not against the design of the game. It's more like that shortcut to UBRS, built into the game for those resourceful enough to find it. I have yet to be able to get a quest, but I get plenty of looks from other players. Most are supportive, and many have helped me survive those times when I managed to attract too much attention from the wandering wildlife. Some have watched me die and laughed at my corpse. It matters not. What matters is that I can level my Tailoring and Enchanting again, I can use all that Netherweave I have been gathering, and I am having the time of my life. I have rediscovered the joys of grinding. I find it a better use of my time grinding the levels until 58 in an environment where the exp gain is so high. It sure beats Silithus and those darn Dredge Crushers.
