The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
In Which I Hit 80 And The Struggle Begins
by Vonya
As everyone who’s ever level-capped knows, the end of the fight for XP signals the begin of the fight for…pretty much everything else in the game.
Especially if you already know for sure you’re going to be raiding.
That’s right, my friends.
Rep grinds.
Thankfully, they’ve made rep-grinding a lot less painful in some cases.
Tabard
Most factions have a tabard. Unlike Burning Crusade, where a tabard was just something you used to cover up hideous armor (or something you never wore, because they do not and never will look nice with robes) – in WotLK, wearing a tabard converts all of the rep gains from level 80 dungeons into rep for that tabard’s faction.
This is great news if you do a lot of instances.
This is fabulous news if you are, for example, the Jewelcrafter for your guild, and all of the different factions have a JC pattern at exalted that is the PERFECT pattern for SOMEONE. And if you happen to be a holy-specc’d priestess who absolutely cannot STAND dpsing as a priest. (Even respecc’d, I hate dpsing as a priest. Hate. HATE. I am a healer. I heal. If I want to pwn things, I’m going ezmode. That’s why my alt is a hunter. Everyone clicks with different things. Priest dps does not click with me.) Soloing quest lines? Are you INSANE? No.
Vonya has a lot of rep grinding to do, and since I spend about 90% or more of my in-game time inside of instances, I’ve been taking huge advantage of the new tabard system.
But which factions are most important for a healery priest?
Son of a Hodir!
First and foremost, the Sons of Hodir rep HAS to be done. There’s a very long quest chain that begins in K3 called “They Took Our Men!”. To even open up the SoH as a rep, you have to complete this quest chain. It’s very long. VERY LONG. Bring a sammich and a soda, you’ll need it. And if you’ve got other raiders in your guild who happen to be frail healers with an aversion to dpsing, it’d be awfully nice if you took them with you.
(Thank you, Noq and Kyoka)
That quest chain will get you to roundabouts friendly with SoH. Normally, this is good news, as you’d get a tabard. Not with SoH though, nuh uh. No tabard-cheating for this little priestess.
Dailies. Three of them. That is the ONLY way I can find to get my SoH rep up.
Why does it matter? Why should I bother?
Because the Sons of Hodir are the only faction in the game with EVERY SINGLE SHOULDER ENCHANT.
That’s right. Most raiders are also min/maxers – we want to have the best gems, the best enchants, the best consumables – and that means that everyone wanting a shoulder enchant is going to have to grind this rep out.
The first shoulder enchant for me (Lesser Inscription of the Crag) is available at honored. I might hit that the day after tomorrow. The second shoulder enchant is available at exalted. My brain already hurts. I try not to think about how long that’s going to take.
But Wait, There’s More
Additionally, the holy priest HELM enchant is available from Wyrmrest rep, but they DO have a tabard so it’s not nearly so painful to grind out for an instancer. It’s called the Arcanum of Blissful Mending, and is available at revered. They also have s a drake at exalted, along with some epic shoes that are generic “caster” rather than specifically for healers or specifically for dpsers. (No spirit, no MP5, and no hit, but a socket).
Walrus-People!
For those on a time budget (and who may or may not be jonesing for a penguin pet), there’s a caster mace available from revered with the Kalu’ak that is pretty goshdarned shiny. There are upgrades for it pre-raiding, but I haven’t seen them drop yet.
See, now you can pretend your obession with helping sea cows find love is motivated by logic instead of heart-stoppingly adorable penguins.
Totally Unrelated
Thank you guys for your patience last month. I completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and am now 50,000 words of a manuscript richer! When I finally get it polished enough to be read without causing spontaneous subdural brain hemmorage, I promise a link.
December 2nd, 2008
@Vonya – Hola and welcome to the hell that is being an un-geared 80
Thanks for the SoH info, Im probably about 1/2 way down the chain but haven’t gone any further because I didn’t see a need to. Someone mentioned the enchants last night so yeah, suddenly I find a need since I had no clue who had the enchant.
My hunter is at 80 and the tabards are nice, I was having a hard time finding one to champion though since mine is a gather alt and the thought of yet another flying mount just doesn’t appeal to me. Something about saving up 6k or 7k for my DK’s epic flying is getting in the way.
Im lucky or is it cursed that Heroic Nexxus has an epic healing 1H mace and that Heroic UK has a nice blue staff for our local feral druid. Did I mention that there’s epic chain wrists in Nexxus and an Epic crossbow in UK? Well I have them both now but only one of the healers has the mace and the staff still hasnt dropped.
December 2nd, 2008
grats!
But about those shoulder and helm enchants, don’t you just buy the pattern thus only making it useless to people with enchanting? While it would be helpful to have anyone put in on your gear, most couldn’t personally use it.
Also, I am one of those poor disc/holy priests who has to go out and solo all his quests while trying to spam/pain/wand everything to death. (mostly spam due to laziness) Don’t whine, it’s the only way I can get by. XP
December 2nd, 2008
@Weta
I haven’t seen the heroic mace drop, but it’s on my list. We’ve been doing as many heroics as possible every day, but we’ve only hit Nexus twice, I think. No drop yet. I have my fingers crossed.
@Tomo
Ah, that’s a verbiage issue. “shoulder enchants” aren’t actually “enchants”. (Maybe they use a different word for them in game, not sure). They’re like armor patches, anyone can use them. They’re the new version of the old enchants from BC. Can be purchased and used by anyone.
December 2nd, 2008
My guildies despise the fact that Blizzard put in the sea cow/bull daily quest. Not because they don’t like the quest, mind you. Instead, it is because every time I am doing it (i.e. once a day), I am babbling in guild chat about some topic relating to either sharks, sea lions getting it on, or sharks watching sea lions getting it on.
One of the things I’m finding as I level is that the pre-80 dailies are very useful for rep grinding. Doing 15 dailies in a row every day is tough after a while, but I’ve had no trouble doing 3-5 a day, and my Wyrmrest, Tuskarr, and Kirin Tor rep is slowly climbing up, meaning less work when I eventually hit 80. For people who have alts that they will also want to gear up, I highly suggest leveling them slowly via these dailies until you’re ready to spend more time with them.
December 2nd, 2008
@Vonya
Ah, ok, I just hadn’t seen any yet seeing as I’m just now starting Northrend after running through Outland in a week. Of course now I seem to be taking a break from Tomo after playing him a ton last week. Yay, alts. x_x;
December 2nd, 2008
So if i wear the tabard do i get rep no matter what instance im in?
December 2nd, 2008
@Esdras
As long as it’s level 80 or above. Which means all heroics, and a few like Halls of Lightning and Utgarde Pinnacle should also apply, but regular Nexus probably doesn’t.
It’s a great way to rack up the rep.
December 2nd, 2008
@Xtian – you know thats a good idea … I have 1 80, a 71 and 3 70’s .. Im actively working my 71 DK for levels and my 80 for gear. Getting my other 70s to a point where they can do dailies is well .. brilliant
@Tomo – Outland was such a small blip on the radar for my DK, and I think your right it only took about a week to get out of there. Thank god for alts, I can only farm so much leather and ore on my hunter or do so many dailys.
@ Esdras – the tabards apply to any lvl 80 instance, so some instances meet the criteria and any heroic northend instance will.
December 2nd, 2008
The good news, Vonya, is that there’s a turn-in item (similar to Fel Armaments and Arcane Tomes) for rep with Sons of Hodir. The bad news? Instead of it dropping randomly from a specific type of mob, (which means that anyone would have a chance to get one) you instead find them on the ground around and in Dun Niffelem (sp?) – they spawn randomly in different places, only a few at a time from what I’ve read, and they are hard to find … which means that at peak times, you will probably be competing with other level 80’s to find these suckers. The look like pointy little shards sticking out of the snow (they are always against the snow, from what I’ve read – not in hard-to-see crannies but still near bases of trees or against the walls of Dun Niffelem). They’re called Everfrost Chips – but they are only Everfrost Chips if you find these after getting to neutral with Sons of Hodir (otherwise, before that, they are some grey dust). Once you find the first one, it opens the quest to turn it in for lots of rep, and from then on it’s repeatable (and from what I understand, if you go pick up a lot before turning in that first one, the others you found will not be there to turn in, so you’ll want to turn one in first, then go back for more.) You have to be close to the ground to see them, too – no flying around over the mobs’ heads.
Hope that helps with the rep grind — I’ll be doing the same on my own priest. That and Kirin Tor, the latter of which has some tailoring or enchanting pattern (can’t remember which) that I’ll want, eventually. Thanks for the info about Wyrmrest and the helm enchant – I must have missed that when I went looking for what reputations I’d want to grind first once I hit 80 (2.5 bars away, myself).
Congrats on 80! AND on NaNoWriMo – you’ve been a busy woman!
December 2nd, 2008
@ Esdras – yes, wearing a tabard in an instance at normal will give rep, but the rep retrun is so small it is not worthwhile, especially since most of the heroics are so easy. Raid instances (Naxx, Malygos, etc..) do not return rep, with or without a tabard. This may change if Blizzard decides to actually put raid content back in the game
@Weta – what, you don’t want another flying mount for 1900G? I did this one first because it was the first tabard I came across. hows that for research? lolz
@ D – thanks, thats good info.
@Vonya – bah. don’t worry about gear at all, it comes unbelievably fast right now. Also, if your mace doesn’t drop in Nexus, head to Occulus. The staff there is better anyway. I did Wyrmrest first, now Im on Kirin’Tor. Of course grinding the SoH also, but not in a big hurry. I think it is the 50 day rep grind anyway. Eventually they will all get done, so I don’t see a big emphasis do to one before the other yet.
Grats on NaNoWritMo and your enlarged, um..er.. manuscript!
December 3rd, 2008
If you are an inscribe, you can create your own shoulder enchants. This is the main reason why my main is inscribe: no SoH rep for me.
For the rep items like Walrus-mace: C’mon, crafting stuff is BoE, find a BS and get a Titansteel Guardian.
Practically all I need is head enchant from rep, though the old Honor Hold/Thrallmar enchant is just 11SP/1MP5 weaker.
So besides having a tabard in the instance where I would go anyway, rep grinding is non-existent to me.
December 3rd, 2008
Oh the pain .. the un-ending pain ..
Thats what I was thinking finishing up the SoH chain. I had stopped about midway through it since I was working on getting to 80 and that being over 2 weeks ago. I think I completed about 10 quests on the way to that corner of the world to pick back up the chain. So by the time I finished, atleast to the point of getting the 3 dailys I had completed probably about 25-30 quests. I still need to finish that entire chain out, something about going to help that Thorim guy with a battle or some such nonsense.
The saving grace for the chain .. well can you say Snowball fight
@all – If your a hunter or a dps class I would recommend the following.
Knights of the Ebon Blade- wicked 2H sword at revered
Argent Crusade – Very good cloak at honored
Kalu’ak – good 2H polearm at revered
The cloak is practically a gimme if you do quests, I hit honored with them just leveling. The same pretty goes for the Kalu’ak, if you doing both starting zones and Dragons Blight then your close to revered just doing those.
@Gevlon – yeah someone was rubbing my nose in their shoulder enchants the other night
@rep_grinding_maniacs – Say what you will, I think just about every faction has dailies. So we have two choices for the most part, run around doing dailies and that’s allot of frequent flier miles. Or we can go do heroics or other lvl 80 instances and wear a tabard. Both of these work, one will get you more gold while the other will get you geared up.
In my case, I’ll be mixing a bit of both together more because of my guild structure than any real plan. We raid 2 or 3 nights a week, the raiding we do we take seriously so being properly geared heading into our 1st raid while not a requirement it is something we try to do. I’m hoping my shoulders I had made hold out, Im out of arcane tomes for the scryer enchant and worst case the helm enchant from CE will do. I have a hungry DK to raise up and teach to fly and a GM that just love’s epic’s. So Ill spend my upcoming days plotting out the daily’s to cut down on the air time along with steering a few heroic instances towards my chain mail wearing butt
December 3rd, 2008
Sorry if I’m rehashing something mentioned in the posts above, but you’ll be pleased to know there’s two more dailies for SoH at honoured, and another at revered.
December 3rd, 2008
Yes, it is essentially Netherwing rep 2.0
December 4th, 2008
Gratz on 80!!! I’m not even close. ><
Also, thanks for the infos. Here comes SoH rep grind meh.
December 5th, 2008
“If I want to pwn things, I’m going ezmode. That’s why my alt is a hunter.”
Whoa! Don’t let Pike or BRK hear you say that. =)
December 8th, 2008
I found that you can turn in those Stone Keeper Shards in Wintergrasp for a helm “enchant”. +29 SP and 20 resistance. I think it’s 40 shards. Pretty easy to get just by running reg dungeons, also easy if you do the Wintergrasp dailies.
December 11th, 2008
[...] have spoken to you about the Sons of Hodir in the past and how their rep is needed if you want to get shoulder [...]