Over a year ago, during the era of Wrath of the Lich King, I wrote a post about how to get exalted with every faction in the expansion (minus the Ashen Verdict, of course) without championing. In other words, this was a post about how to hit exalted on every faction by yourself, without needing to enter an instance. I was pretty proud of it, if only for the idea, and was looking forward to writing a similar post for Cataclysm's factions. Then Cataclysm came out, and as I plodded my way through the new zones' quests, I was hit by a sad realization: there would be no Cataclysm version of that post, because some factions are impossible to reach exalted with without donning their tabard and entering a 5-man instance. As such, if I should desire to obtain the Wrap of the Great Turtle to tank 5-mans, or if I want the Signet of the Elder Council to boost my stats while I'm out solo-ing, I can't get them by solely by solo-ing. And this doesn't sit right with me. Why, after letting us get exalted with every faction in Wrath of the Lich King by solo-ing, would Blizzard regress in its accommodation of us solo players?
Now, this is nothing new. Many of the factions in Burning Crusade required players to enter dungeons in order to earn reputation with them beyond a certain point (Honor Hold/Thrallmar come to mind), as did many of the factions in vanilla WoW. Wrath of the Lich King, however, moved away from this model by giving every one of its factions (minus one that was clearly designed around a specific raid) a way for players to earn reputation with that faction on their own. This was a good move on their part, in my opinion, for though those ways of earning reputation on one's own were often slower than championing, they gave solo players something to work for, as well as something to do, and they gave players a way to earn faction reputation that wasn't dependent on the competence of other players.
But there is one other major difference between the two expansion packs, one which may explain Blizzard's shift in design philosophy. In Wrath of the Lich King, the gear earned through reputation was the same ilevel as the gear earned through heroics, the primary source of reputation. The gear dropped by the last boss in all of the pre-3.2 heroics and the gear awarded at exalted status with Wrath-era factions were both ilevel-200 epics, and the gear dropped by all other heroic bosses and awarded at revered with the factions were ilevel-200 rare gear. In other words, factions awarded gear that was on par with what was awarded by heroics at the time, so by running heroics to earn reputation with various factions, players would be getting gear that was just as good as the gear they were trying to earn. What this meant was that it was quite possible for players, in the process of trying to earn one specific piece of gear, to earn another piece of gear that would render the reputation-awarded piece unneeded.
This has changed between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, and in my mind, that change justifies some factions requiring dungeon runs if we wish to reach exalted with them. It is this one change that prevents this post from being one in which I merely complain about how this change to the faction design philosophy is unfair to those who don't wish to run dungeons. You see, heroics no longer drop epics. Heroics in Cataclysm drop ilevel 346 rare gear, while reaching exalted with a Cataclysm faction gives you access to ilevel 359 epics. This means that running heroics doesn't give you better gear than the gear you are trying to earn by hitting exalted with whatever faction you are trying to get exalted with. In fact, outside of crafted epics, the epics awarded by reaching exalted with a faction are currently the best gear one can get outside of raids. (With the exception of the epics that you can get if you save up enough valor points doing your daily random heroic, but it takes a couple of weeks of running a random heroic each day in order to earn enough points for just one piece of gear, so that's by no means a practical way to deck yourself out in epics.)
What this all means is that in order to obtain the best gear you can obtain outside of a raid, you will have to do the hardest thing you can do outside of a raid, i.e. running dungeons. This wasn't the case in Wrath of the Lich King, where gear awarded by factions wasn't the best gear available outside of a raid: you had the drops from the last bosses of each heroic, the emblem of heroism gear, and the crafted gear. But those first two sources of epics outside of a raid no longer award epics, so we players are left with factions and professions as avenues to earn epics without raiding. And since ilevel 359 epics are the best gear one can earn outside of a raid, it makes sense that to earn them, you should need to do the hardest thing you can do outside of a raid: running dungeons. (And the fact that crafted epics require Chaos Orbs, which are bind-on-pick-up and are dropped by the last bosses in heroics, further fits this trend.) To me, that seems like a fair trade.
Showing posts with label championing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label championing. Show all posts
Monday, January 3, 2011
Friday, September 18, 2009
What I think Wrath of the Lich King did right
Judging by my previous philosophy posts (this one and this one), you can probably guess that I feel that Wrath of the Lich King is a fairly flawed expansion pack. That said, there are very few dark clouds with no silver linings (just as there are very few silver clouds with no dark linings... work with me people), so I want to talk about what I think Wrath did correctly and talk about all of the good things it did for WoW, and believe me, there are many.
Although I do believe that Burning Crusade was not as bad for class balance as people say it was (see my second post that I linked above), it was far from perfect, as any feral DPS who tried to move beyond tier 4 content will tell you. When Wrath was released, all of the classes found themselves on more or less equal footing. Sure, its still not perfect, and death knights were pretty overpowered when they first came out, but any veteran player will readily tell you that class balance is a hell of a lot better than it used to be. In fact, in the class Q&A's, Blizzard flat-out admitted that class balance was not a concern of theirs in vanilla WoW. Luckily for all of us, that has changed.
I also think that championing was a good addition to the game. It allows for much more flexibility in how one gets to exalted with a faction, and it forces Blizzard to make dungeons interesting, rather than requiring players to run certain difficult or boring dungeons in order to get rep with a certain faction. (Steamvaults, I am looking at you.) It also allows players to choose to run dungeons based on gear, and though that could be seen as a way to force players to run a certain dungeon, at least there is more flexibility in gear than there is when it comes to factions. You can't really make the comparison between gear and factions, since you can eventually replace your gear from heroics, but certain reputation items like head enchantments remain necessary no matter how good your gear gets. As such, getting reputation with factions is less negotiable than getting good gear, so making the factions easier to get exalted with is a good change in my book.
An even bigger change, however, was the switch to make all raid dungeons either 10- or 25-man. This allowed players to run raids the way they want to, and allows more casual players to see the content. Like I implied above, it's a really good idea for Blizzard to try to make content for as many players as possible, and having two versions of each dungeon prevents players from needing to overcome the raiding hump encountered in Burning Crusade, where many guilds couldn't make the jump from 10-man Karazhan to 25-man Gruul's Lair. Thanks to Wrath of the Lich King, they don't need to make such a jump.
Another good thing I think Wrath brought to WoW was the addition of hard modes, which I already covered in this post. To give you the TLDR version, the presence of hard modes allows more players to see content without taking away the challenge that hard-core raiders look for in their raids. As I said in the first post mentioned in the first paragraph, many of the changes in Wrath seem to have been aimed at getting players in raids sooner, and the idea of making raids challenging but not difficult while allowing hard-core players to still have their difficult content definitely fits in with this idea. It allows more players to see the content that Blizzard put so much effort into making, which makes sense from a business standpoint; after all, why spend so much time on something so few players will see?
As for achievements, while I don't see them as a particularly outstanding addition, I do feel they added something positive to the game. If nothing else, they give players something to do, and reward them for doing things in the game. Thanks to the achievements, raiding and PvP are no longer the only ways to gain titles. (I wear my chef title with pride.) They also make it easier to look back on your past accomplishments and feel proud of them, since you have a tangible manifestation and record of said accomplishments that you can peruse with ease. Besides, if nothing else, that ding makes everything feel a bit more satisfying.
So there you go. I have opened up and shown that my opinions are not as one-sided as my previous posts seem to suggest. That said, I am looking forward to Cataclysm because many of the features being added will change many things I perceive as flaws with Wrath of the Lich King, like Path of the Titans, which will give solo-players a way to make their characters more powerful, and Reforging, which will give the armor-making professions some use again. Yep, it's going to be a good time.
Although I do believe that Burning Crusade was not as bad for class balance as people say it was (see my second post that I linked above), it was far from perfect, as any feral DPS who tried to move beyond tier 4 content will tell you. When Wrath was released, all of the classes found themselves on more or less equal footing. Sure, its still not perfect, and death knights were pretty overpowered when they first came out, but any veteran player will readily tell you that class balance is a hell of a lot better than it used to be. In fact, in the class Q&A's, Blizzard flat-out admitted that class balance was not a concern of theirs in vanilla WoW. Luckily for all of us, that has changed.
I also think that championing was a good addition to the game. It allows for much more flexibility in how one gets to exalted with a faction, and it forces Blizzard to make dungeons interesting, rather than requiring players to run certain difficult or boring dungeons in order to get rep with a certain faction. (Steamvaults, I am looking at you.) It also allows players to choose to run dungeons based on gear, and though that could be seen as a way to force players to run a certain dungeon, at least there is more flexibility in gear than there is when it comes to factions. You can't really make the comparison between gear and factions, since you can eventually replace your gear from heroics, but certain reputation items like head enchantments remain necessary no matter how good your gear gets. As such, getting reputation with factions is less negotiable than getting good gear, so making the factions easier to get exalted with is a good change in my book.
An even bigger change, however, was the switch to make all raid dungeons either 10- or 25-man. This allowed players to run raids the way they want to, and allows more casual players to see the content. Like I implied above, it's a really good idea for Blizzard to try to make content for as many players as possible, and having two versions of each dungeon prevents players from needing to overcome the raiding hump encountered in Burning Crusade, where many guilds couldn't make the jump from 10-man Karazhan to 25-man Gruul's Lair. Thanks to Wrath of the Lich King, they don't need to make such a jump.
Another good thing I think Wrath brought to WoW was the addition of hard modes, which I already covered in this post. To give you the TLDR version, the presence of hard modes allows more players to see content without taking away the challenge that hard-core raiders look for in their raids. As I said in the first post mentioned in the first paragraph, many of the changes in Wrath seem to have been aimed at getting players in raids sooner, and the idea of making raids challenging but not difficult while allowing hard-core players to still have their difficult content definitely fits in with this idea. It allows more players to see the content that Blizzard put so much effort into making, which makes sense from a business standpoint; after all, why spend so much time on something so few players will see?
As for achievements, while I don't see them as a particularly outstanding addition, I do feel they added something positive to the game. If nothing else, they give players something to do, and reward them for doing things in the game. Thanks to the achievements, raiding and PvP are no longer the only ways to gain titles. (I wear my chef title with pride.) They also make it easier to look back on your past accomplishments and feel proud of them, since you have a tangible manifestation and record of said accomplishments that you can peruse with ease. Besides, if nothing else, that ding makes everything feel a bit more satisfying.
So there you go. I have opened up and shown that my opinions are not as one-sided as my previous posts seem to suggest. That said, I am looking forward to Cataclysm because many of the features being added will change many things I perceive as flaws with Wrath of the Lich King, like Path of the Titans, which will give solo-players a way to make their characters more powerful, and Reforging, which will give the armor-making professions some use again. Yep, it's going to be a good time.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
How to level Northrend reputations without championing
As I mentioned in my last advice post, it is possible to get exalted with all of the Northrend factions without entering an instance. The easiest way to gain reputation with many of these factions is championing, wherein you where the tabard of the faction you are championing in a level-80 5-man instance and gain reputation with them as a result. However, this approach requires to you have good gear (the main purpose of raising your reputations) and be subjected to PUGs, which are really hit and miss. This guide is concerned with getting exalted with each of the Northrend reputations, including the ones that can be championed, without resorting to championing. Some are harder than others, but it is possible to get exalted with all of these factions without entering an instance, and that's what this post concerns.
Alliance Vanguard/Horde Expedition
These two are pretty easy. The Silver Covenant/Sunreavers dailies that you get from the Argent Tournament are one way to raise your rep. You can also do the dailies on your faction's floating ship in Icecrown, The Skybreaker and Orgrim's Hammer, respectively. That should be enough for you to get exalted in a timely manor.
Argent Crusade
This faction used to be much harder to reach exalted with without championing, but it's easier now. Before, the only repeatable way to get Argent Crusade rep was the daily Troll Patrol, but now the Argent Tournament quests also give Argent Crusade rep, making this grind much easier. If you are a Death Knight, however, then the Argent Tournament quests with give you rep with the Knights of the Ebon Blade, leaving Troll Patrol as your only option.
Frenzyheart Tribe/The Oracles
Nothing special here; just do the dailies.
Kirin Tor
Whoo-boy! This is not an easy faction to get exalted with without championing. Make sure you use wowhead to find all of their one-time quests so you can make this grind as short as possible. Once you have exhausted that option, you have only three left to you:
1. Fishing dailies (given by the Dalaran fishing trainer)
2. Cooking dailies (given by the Dalaran cooking trainers)
3. Jewelcrafting dailies (given by the Dalaran jewelcrafting trainer)
If you ever needed an excuse to level your cooking and fishing, here it is. You can also watch the auction house for a Sealed Vial of Poison, which can be turned in for 250 rep, but it is really expensive (at least on my server) and uncommon, so don't count on buying a lot of these for easy rep.
Knights of the Ebon Blade
Once you complete their Icecrown questlines, the Knights of the Ebon Blade will have two areas with dailies for them. Three dailies can be found in the Shadow Vault in northern Icecrown. Three more can be found on Death's Rise, a little ledge part-way down the cliff southwest of Jotunheim. Doing all of them will net you 1500 rep a day. If you are a Death Knight, then the Argent Tournament quests will also net you Ebon Blade rep, making this grind much faster.
The Kalu'ak
This little faction does have some nice goodies to reward those who get exalted with it. They have quests in Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight, and each area has a Kalu'ak daily quest, each of which gives you 500 rep. The daily quests are unlocked as you complete the questline in each area. You can use the turtle boats to shuttle between the three areas if you don't want to spend the money to fly there.
The Sons of Hodir
In order to even start gaining rep with these guys, you need to do a long quest chain starting with They Took Our Men! Once you finish the quest chain, you can do dailies to get rep with the Sons of Hodir, and you unlock more as your rep gets higher. Individual quests will unlock similar dailies, so make sure you do all of the one-time quests they offer. You can also look for Everfrost Chips in The Storm Peaks, which can be turned in for Sons of Hodir rep, as can Relics of Ulduar, which can be bought on the Auction House.
The Wyrmrest Accord
Aside from their one-time quests, these guys have three dailies you can do. Two are in Coldarra in Borean Tundra, and one is in Dragonblight. The two low-level ones are unlocked after quests, but the level-80 one can be started almost immediately. They are Drake Hunt, Defending Wyrmrest Temple, and Aces High!
Note: Aces High! starts with the quest Corastrasza, which is started in the Transitus Shield, the same area where you start Drake Hunt.
There you have it! Some factions are easier than others to gain rep with without championing, but only the Kirin Tor is really difficult. Good luck!
Alliance Vanguard/Horde Expedition
These two are pretty easy. The Silver Covenant/Sunreavers dailies that you get from the Argent Tournament are one way to raise your rep. You can also do the dailies on your faction's floating ship in Icecrown, The Skybreaker and Orgrim's Hammer, respectively. That should be enough for you to get exalted in a timely manor.
Argent Crusade
This faction used to be much harder to reach exalted with without championing, but it's easier now. Before, the only repeatable way to get Argent Crusade rep was the daily Troll Patrol, but now the Argent Tournament quests also give Argent Crusade rep, making this grind much easier. If you are a Death Knight, however, then the Argent Tournament quests with give you rep with the Knights of the Ebon Blade, leaving Troll Patrol as your only option.
Frenzyheart Tribe/The Oracles
Nothing special here; just do the dailies.
Kirin Tor
Whoo-boy! This is not an easy faction to get exalted with without championing. Make sure you use wowhead to find all of their one-time quests so you can make this grind as short as possible. Once you have exhausted that option, you have only three left to you:
1. Fishing dailies (given by the Dalaran fishing trainer)
2. Cooking dailies (given by the Dalaran cooking trainers)
3. Jewelcrafting dailies (given by the Dalaran jewelcrafting trainer)
If you ever needed an excuse to level your cooking and fishing, here it is. You can also watch the auction house for a Sealed Vial of Poison, which can be turned in for 250 rep, but it is really expensive (at least on my server) and uncommon, so don't count on buying a lot of these for easy rep.
Knights of the Ebon Blade
Once you complete their Icecrown questlines, the Knights of the Ebon Blade will have two areas with dailies for them. Three dailies can be found in the Shadow Vault in northern Icecrown. Three more can be found on Death's Rise, a little ledge part-way down the cliff southwest of Jotunheim. Doing all of them will net you 1500 rep a day. If you are a Death Knight, then the Argent Tournament quests will also net you Ebon Blade rep, making this grind much faster.
The Kalu'ak
This little faction does have some nice goodies to reward those who get exalted with it. They have quests in Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight, and each area has a Kalu'ak daily quest, each of which gives you 500 rep. The daily quests are unlocked as you complete the questline in each area. You can use the turtle boats to shuttle between the three areas if you don't want to spend the money to fly there.
The Sons of Hodir
In order to even start gaining rep with these guys, you need to do a long quest chain starting with They Took Our Men! Once you finish the quest chain, you can do dailies to get rep with the Sons of Hodir, and you unlock more as your rep gets higher. Individual quests will unlock similar dailies, so make sure you do all of the one-time quests they offer. You can also look for Everfrost Chips in The Storm Peaks, which can be turned in for Sons of Hodir rep, as can Relics of Ulduar, which can be bought on the Auction House.
The Wyrmrest Accord
Aside from their one-time quests, these guys have three dailies you can do. Two are in Coldarra in Borean Tundra, and one is in Dragonblight. The two low-level ones are unlocked after quests, but the level-80 one can be started almost immediately. They are Drake Hunt, Defending Wyrmrest Temple, and Aces High!
Note: Aces High! starts with the quest Corastrasza, which is started in the Transitus Shield, the same area where you start Drake Hunt.
There you have it! Some factions are easier than others to gain rep with without championing, but only the Kirin Tor is really difficult. Good luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
