Since it's the first of the month (or close enough), those of you with Consortium rep (which would be roughly anyone over level 60) should remember to fly out to Aeris Landing in Nagrand and visit
Gehze for your
monthly lot of free gems. The better your rep, the more gems you get, and the more likely they are to be blue-quality. Both of my high-level characters are merely honored, so I got a couple of
Unmarked Sacks of Gems, each containing three or four uncut green-quality gems. Not huge, but hey, a few extra gold never hurt, and it's certainly enough to be worth flying out for every month. Blizzard originally had plans to have the gems come in the mail, but that was buggy and they ultimately scrapped it in favor of a monthly quest.
The different rewards, depending on your Consortium reputation, are:
Maybe it's time to start grinding Consortium rep...any tips on that? Also, jewelcrafters, do you see a spike in your business around the beginning of the month? Just curious.
Tags: consortium, free, gems, items, loot, nagrand
Filed under: Items, Tips, Quests, Factions
Nov 2nd 2007 at 3:01PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zumwalah Nov 2nd 2007 3:03PM
tips for grinding consortium rep??? do heroic Manatombs every day! my Guild leader wanted exalted, and im a healer so i usually come with him, i got Revered just helping out guildies
blitzkrieg999 Nov 2nd 2007 3:15PM
Most of my Consortium rep came from Bead farming there in Nagrand. Find yourself an ogre cave and grind till you're sick of it! Makes good money though, as the ogres drop good silver and plenty of netherweave, in addition to warbeads to turn in for Consortium rep, and Gun powder to turn in at Halaa.
kunukia Nov 2nd 2007 3:18PM
You can get to exalted from honored very easily, without grouping if you are a soloer; do the Consorium quest line in northern Netherstorm, and so that you can do ID tag turn-ins and prison keys. The prison keys yield level 70 greens and blues, sometimes even BOE blues, and a turn-in for Consortium rep, or randomly 500 rep to some (also random) outland faction. Very easy and lucrative, I have two toons at exalted and one on the way.
Flatlander Nov 2nd 2007 3:20PM
Yeah but the I've never found a good place to Farm the keys, the drop rate is attrocious. Other than grinding warbeads you can also grind Zaxxis Insignia in Netherstorm, again good green drops and cash.
Thing Nov 2nd 2007 3:21PM
Just did the grind to revered on my pally and my hunter this month. Took 6 hours(spaced out over 3 days) in the heap to raise it 10k rep. AOE Prot Pally love there...
Took me about 4 hours on my hunter to do 7k rep. Used an owl with screech on autocast to hold threat on multiple mobs.
Lots of cloth drops. Some greifing. Overall with other people farming, I was able to do it relative ease.
Balgair Nov 2nd 2007 3:22PM
As a jewelcrafter I usually find the market slightly flooded at the start of the month so just take a break from selling and build my stocks up. With two exalted characters and one honoured I usually get 3-4 blue gems and a ton of greens, which is very nice indeed, at least if they aren't all talasites!
Rep tips: If you want Kurenai/Mag'har rep as well, spend some time with the ogres in Nagrand - however you will get very very bored of ogres. Hand the beads in to the Consortium and the kill rep goes towards Kurenai/Mag'har; I found on both characters I farmed with that I got my talbuk shortly after Consortium revered.
If you don't want those reps though, best bet is get to honoured (do Netherstorm quests plus if you're only just starting out in Nagrand turn in a bunch of elekk horns to reach friendly), then begin the chain that lets Ethereum prison keys drop for you.
Once they'll drop, go and farm the Zaxxis ethereals south of Area 52 - they drop Zaxxis insignias at 50% droprate (250 rep per 10 insignias), and you get a decent number of keys too, which you can use to open prisons and hopefully get a bunch of prisoner id tags which are another 250 rep each. I used this method to get from revered to exalted with my priest, only took 2-3 days and it felt like it went really quickly.
Heroic Mana Tombs is another option but I rarely see anyone wanting to go there much, plus I'm not a great fan of the place anyway, at least when I'm playing a caster - they should rename it Mana Burn Tombs in my opinion...!
Bobby Hansen Nov 2nd 2007 3:37PM
For Alliance, the best place to grind the ogres is Southwind Cleft - it's about a 1 minute ride from the Kurenai town to the south. The ogres are easy warriors and mages, they only clump in a few places (a 70 can not draw more then 2 at a time). I can grind about 2000 Kurenai rep in 60 minutes, and about 9 turn ins for Concort. rep. I've been working on this for a long while now. LOL
Mixx Nov 2nd 2007 3:49PM
Drop rate for the keys is 4%, a long slow grind if you do it this way. The insignia or beads are a much faster choice.
Richard Nov 2nd 2007 3:50PM
"The better your rep, the more (and better) gems you get..."
Please don't misinform your readers.
You won't *always* get better gems as you go up in reputation status. You'll only get *more*.
The table is random. 2 months ago, at Revered, I got 2 blues. Last month, at Revered, I got a back full of greens.
It's stupid, and Blizzard really should fix this.
They advertise it as a "monthly salary", and it should be.
Let me ask you this: Would anyone in their right mind work somewhere where their boss said, "Okay, well, you see, you *might* get paid $5,000 next month, but there's also a chance you'll get $100 instead."?
I don't think so. A salary is a salary. If you're supposed to get 1 blue and 3 greens at Revered, then that's what you should get.
Richard Nov 2nd 2007 3:51PM
That should have read:
"Last month, at Revered, I got a sack full of greens."
Eliah Hecht Nov 2nd 2007 3:52PM
Like almost everything in this game, there is indeed some degree of chance involved. Edited the post to clarify; thanks.
Sophey Nov 2nd 2007 3:59PM
You're getting a cut of the profits, not a salary. Some months the Consortium makes more than it does other months, thus the increase in the quality of your gems for that month
If it was a salary I doubt they'd still be paying me since I haven't done any work for them since I got exalted four months ago. Yet, they still give me my cut every month.
Richard Nov 2nd 2007 4:06PM
@11 Yeah, there are screencaps of people getting 5 rares and 1 green at Exalted, and other people getting 1 rare and 5 greens, and everything in-between.
@12 Then it shouldn't be called a salary then; it should be called a "profit-sharing program".
sal·a·ry /ˈsæləri/
–noun, plural
a fixed compensation periodically paid to a person for regular work or services.
FIXED. That's the very definition of salary, as clearly stated in the quest text.
Mitch Nov 2nd 2007 4:11PM
So lets say I'm honored right now but only 2K away from revered. Later tonight I go on, grind out my rep, then go and receive my bag for the month. Will I get the honored or revered bag? Anyone know?
Smurk Nov 2nd 2007 4:27PM
I love the proposition of a bag of gems appearing in the mail on the first of every month. Talk about welfare epics.
BigFire Nov 2nd 2007 4:37PM
I farmed from revered to exalted just to get 1 jewelcrafting design (mostly on the Zaxxis in netherstorm). They seriously jipped me last month. Lets see what happen this month.
Blake Nov 2nd 2007 4:42PM
While grinding Kurenai rep to exalted, I used all the beads for Consortium rep. When Kurenai rep was completed, I went to Netherstorm and farmed Zaxxis insignias until Exalted. The switch is needed because while farming Zaxxis Insignias, you can also get Ethereum Prison Keys which are worth even more Consortium rep.
Of course, I also did almost all of the Consortium quests and a few runs through their dungeons.
Eliah Hecht Nov 2nd 2007 4:48PM
Mitch: I am led to believe that what reward you get is based on what rep you have when you complete the quest. So if you hit revered before getting your bag, you should get the revered one.
I'm not positive on that, but that's what I've seen around.
Thing Nov 2nd 2007 4:51PM
@14 When I did it on my paladin, I was just into honored and did the grind up to revered in a weekend. I hadn't gotten my "cut" that month yet, so while I was down there getting the seaforium schematic, they gave me my revered level bag.
I am fairly sure the reward is based on what you level is when you accept the quest to get the gems.
Knucker Nov 2nd 2007 4:55PM
i got my last 5k rep from about 2 hours of farming at the heap south of netherstorm's area 52 i got about 4 etherium prison keys and just turn in the zaxxis insignias you find (250 for the insignias and the usual 250 consortium rep, but the occasional 500 of any reputation)