Many of you may already be familiar with the wondrous little gadgets coming from the secret factory of Gazmik Fizzwidget. For those of you who are not, I would recommend you visit the Fizzwidget showroom and browse the wares. I'll profile them in the coming months, starting with a handy one for newly crowned level 70's.

Fizzwidget's FactionFriend will automatically change the default Blizzard reputation bar based on your current zone or the faction you've most recently gained reputation with. You can also right click the reputation bar to select another faction, open an options pane or open the Reputation window.

I find this a nice "information speedometer odometer" for my paladin, who recently hit 70 and is beginning the reputation grind. Although I wouldn't call this addon a must-have, I embrace the fact that it helps me obsess about gaining reputation. With the shiny, new Shattered Sun Offensive faction, it's nice to know just how close I am to the the next level of reputation while doing the Sunwell dailies.

Read on for some of the other intuitive features of FactionFriend.On the reputation bar, you will sometimes see a marker, similar to the one you see on your experience bar that denotes how far your rest bonus will get you. This marker shows you how much reputation you can earn by turning in items you currently have in your inventory. An example would be if you're about to hit Honored with the Aldor, and want a quick, visual reference of if you can make it with the Fel Armaments in your inventory. Hovering over the marker will open a tooltip detailing what items you have in your inventory and how much reputation you can gain by turning them in.

To access the options interface for FactionFriend, use one of these two commands:

• /factionfriend
• /ff

Its pretty simple to configure, so I won't go into details. There are some things to keep in mind with this addon. The gains are estimated, and some turn-ins (like your first item turn-in) will give you more reputation than subsequent turn-ins, which this addon has no way of calculating. Also, FactionFriend has no way of knowing if you can actually turn in the items in your inventory, so it will show the potential reputation to be had. Some reputation quests and turn-ins are only available at certain levels or after a quest chain, but keep those reputation items until then!


Considering the quality of some of the reputation rewards, it's safe to say that reputation gain is a big deal once you've reached the level cap. This addon offers a simple and lightweight way to track your reputation gains automatically and visually.

If you've read this far, you are most likely the type of player who enjoys using little gadgets like FactionFriend, so give it a try and, as always, let me know your thoughts! In the meantime I'll be dodging Monstrous Kaliri and praying for a first-kill drop of a Bash'ir Phasing Device. Dismissed!

Tags: faction-addon, faction-friend, factionfriend, fizzwidget, fizzwidget-addon, fizzwidget-factionfriend, fizzwidget-mod, gazmik-fizzwidget, rep-addon, rep-grind, rep-mod, reputation-addon, reputation-grind, reputation-mod

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Odds and ends, Add-Ons, Features, AddOn Spotlight, Factions