Reputation Factions for rogues to grind in Cataclysm

As you level, you’ll earn reputation with most of the available factions through the questing that you do.  There will probably be repeatable quests with most factions to grind out rep.  You’ll also have an opportunity to wear a faction tabard as you run level 85 instances to accelerate the rep gaining process.  Here’s a rundown on what you’ll look for.

Note: current as of December 5th… this list may be incomplete… as more is learned I will update it

Earthen Ring

This faction has a cloak that you can get at Revered – Softwind Cape.  It also gives the Signet of the Elder Council when you reach Exalted.  They don’t have any mounts or arcanum that we would want either.

Ramkahen

This is the Uldum faction.  They do have a couple of camel mounts for mount collectors.  For rogues, there is a waist slot item – Quicksand Belt – available at Revered.  More importantly, this faction has the Arcanum that we’ll want to enchant our head slot – the Arcanum of the Ramkahen that adds 60 agility and 35 haste.  That’s also available at Revered, and is Bind On Account.

Guardians of Hyjal

This is a good faction for rogue leveling gear.  At Honored we can get the Sly Fox Jerkin for our chest slot.  Then at Revered they have either the Nightrend Choker or the Acorn of the Daughter Tree for our neck (it makes no sense for them to have both of these, but its not clear right now which one they have).  There’s nothing at Exalted for rogues.

Dragonmaw Clan or Wildhammer Clan

Thess are the Horde and Alliance Twlight Highlands factions, so you won’t get here until around level 84.  At Honored they have a nice leg item, the Leggings of the Impenitent (Horde) or Swiftflight Leggings (Alliance).  Exalted will get the very nice Liar’s Handwraps (Horde) or Stormbolt Gloves (Alliance).

Therazine

This faction in Deepholm is the one that gives the shoulder enchants (like Sons of Hodir in WotLK).  In addition to the Lesser Inscription of the Shattered Crystal, available at Honored, they also have a nice ring – Terrath’s Signet of Balance – available at Revered.  Of course, the better version of the shoulder enchant is available at Exalted.

Hellscream’s Reach /  Baradin’s Wardens

These are the horde and alliance factions at Tol Barad, which is an outdoor PvP zone much like Wintergrasp.  A lot of PvE-only players ignored the Wintergrasp rewards and all other PvP rewards because they tended to have a lot of resilience.  In Tol Barad, even though its a PvP zone, their reputation rewards tend to have a lot of Mastery rating rather than resilience.  At Revered you can get Sky Piercer for your ranged slot as a stat stick if you never use Fan of Knives.  There is also a slow dagger – Dagger of Restless Nights.  At Exalted there is the Unsolvable Riddle – a trinket loaded with Mastery rating.

——————————————————————————————–

Summary:

1. Get rep with Ramkahen for your head arcanum
2. Get rep with Therazine for your shoulder enchant

Here are the reputation items available for the various slots:

• Head – none
• Neck – Nightrend Choker / Acorn of the Daughter Tree – Guardians of Hyjal Revered
• Shoulder – none
• Chest – Sly Fox Jerkin – Guardians of Hyjal Honored
• Wrist – none
• Hands – Liar’s Handwraps / Stormbolt Gloves – Dragonmaw / Wildhammer Exalted
• Waist – Quicksand Belt – Ramkahen Revered
• Legs – Leggings of the Impenitent / Swiftflight Leggings – Dragonmaw / Wildhammer Honored
• Feet – none
• Ring – Signet of the Elder Council – Earthen Ring Exalted
• Ring – Terrath’s Signet of Balance – Therazine Revered
• Trinket – Unsolvable Riddle – Tol Barad faction Exalted
• Melee Weapon – Dagger of Restless Nights – Tol Barad faction Revered
• Ranged Weapon – Sky Piercer (crossbow) – Tol Barad faction Revered

It seems odd that there are no head or feet slot items available with reputation, so I’m assuming that the information is incomplete or that I am missing something.  If I find out more I’ll add to the list.

As Ready As I Want To Be

The above picture is my gold total.  I made an arbitrary goal of 100k gold before the expansion, and I reached it.  I’m not a millionaire, but its more than enough for any of my playing needs.

The big topic in the blogosphere this week has been getting ready for the expansion that is coming tomorrow.  The preparations that people make give an interesting insight into the type of gamer that they are.

Here’s what I did do to prepare.

• Maxed my professions on all of my alts.  That way I can start crafting new items right away without having to scramble for old-world materials.
• Got rid of extra gear.  Like many (or most) players, I often carry around multiple gear sets.  Even on my rogue, I’d carry around some with haste and some with crit, or some that are better for combat while others are better for mutilate, and an assortment of trinkets.  Starting on Tuesday I’ll be leveling instead of raiding, and I expect to quickly replace a lot of my gear.  Therefore there is no point carrying extra items.  I narrowed everything down to one item per gear slot for leveling.  The others got vendored or put in my bank.
• Emptied bags.  This goes with the above.  I want to have as much bag space as possible for quest items and crafting mats.  Each of my toons has 40-50 free bag slots.
• Did the cooking daily on all of my toons.  I only level cooking on my main, but the other characters can use their cooking tokens to buy Crates of Tasty Meat.
• Made a lot of glyphs for the new toons that will start next week.  Based on what I am hearing from my friends, I anticipate that there will be a lot of worgen rogues and warriors.  So I made a fair number of rogue and warrior glyphs to capitalize on that.  I still have a fair inventory of several hundred glyphs to sell, also.
• Bought epic flying on my two toons with gathering professions.  If we can fly in Azeroth, I might as well do it in style.  Also, in the first few days, ore and herb prices will be outrageous – possibly more than 100g per stack.  Rather than level, I may spend time gathering and selling ore and herbs.
• Accumulated materials to craft a couple of items that will give me skill-ups at 450 skill.  I didn’t spend a ton of gold, but I got enough stuff to get a few points right off the bat in most of my crafting professions.
• Moved all of my 80’s to Stormwind.  As much as my dwarf really wanted to stay in Ironforge, and as much as I prefer Darnassus in general, the fishing and cooking dailies are in SW so that’s the place to gather.

On the other hand, here’s what I did not do to prepare.

• Get 25 completed quests in my quest log.  This is a common strategy for the players who can’t wait to race to the level cap in the first week.  I have no intention of doing that.  My quest log is basically empty.
• Stock up on Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Hot Pockets.  I won’t be having marathon gaming sessions this week.  I have a job and a family.  And I don’t live in my mom’s basement.
• Stock up huge amounts of materials to blitz the auction house.  Expansions can be a huge boon for gold makers.  Its very uncertain, though, which of the materials will be the high-demand items.  Rather than risk it, I’ll look for profit opportunities after things settle down a bit.
• Plan out my leveling process.  I know players who have their whole first levels planned out – what instances they are going to do, where they are going to go and when.  This mindset goes along with the “race-to-85” thinking that doesn’t work for me.  I’ll follow the breadcrumb quests and end up wherever Blizzard leads me.

As you see, I could do a lot more if I wanted to, but  I don’t want to turn this into a stressful, high-intensity experience.

We all have our own goals.  Some people want to be raiding by the weekend to be among the first in the new raids.  Others want to try for realm-first achievements.  Some want to make 50k gold on the auction house in the first week.  I have no such ambitions, and to me setting goals like that make this a much more stressful process.  I want to enjoy the new zones, the new quests, the new abilities.  There’s plenty of time to raid, make gold, and get achievements later.