Cataclysm Daily Quests, Part 3: Tol Barad Peninsula
by Aiden James Kosciesza 
Jan 11th 2011 at 6:00PM
Welcome back to the Cataclysm daily quests series! Previously, we looked at daily quest basics and profession dailies and the daily quests in Deepholm. Today, we'll examine the world PvP hub of Cataclysm, Tol Barad, and the first half of its wealth of daily quests.
Tol Barad Basics: The zone, the quests, the battle
Much like Wintergrasp in Wrath of the Lich King, Tol Barad is a PvP area that can be held by either the Alliance or the Horde. Control of the area is contested at roughly two-hour intervals; the next battle begins exactly two hours after the previous battle ended. The winning faction is eligible to fight a raid boss, just like Vault of Archavon in Wintergrasp, but that's where the similarities end.
The Tol Barad zone is reachable through a portal in either Stormwind or Orgrimmar and contains portals back to those capital cities for members of their respective factions. The area is broken up into two zones: Tol Barad and Tol Barad Peninsula. The latter, Tol Barad Peninsula, is an uncontested zone with camps for each faction. The NPCs here give daily quests regardless of who wins the battleground, and the quests are exactly the same for both factions. Note that Tol Barad Peninsula is not a forced PvP zone the way Wintergrasp was; if you play on a normal (non-PvP) server, you will not be automatically flagged when entering the zone.
Tol Barad proper is where the battles for control take place. When your faction has control of Tol Barad, you gain the opportunity to complete extra dailies above and beyond those available on the Peninsula. This gives the controlling faction an advantage in terms of reputation and Tol Barad Commendations that they can earn each day. The mechanics of the battleground itself are beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that if you are interested in Tol Barad reputation and commendations (which you should be), you will want your faction to control it at least once per day so that you are able to complete all the quests.
Tol Barad Peninsula: Permanently available dailies
The two factions vying for control in Tol Barad, Baradin's Wardens (Alliance) and Hellscream's Reach (Horde), have their own camps in Tol Barad Peninsula that are accessible regardless of which faction controls the PvP battleground area. These camps are easy to access via portals from Stormwind and Orgrimmar, respectively, and feature portals back to the capitals. This is the only way to reach Tol Barad. NPCs at the caps will offer a random selection of six daily quests out of a possible 22 quests, and these quests will send you all over the peninsula. For the sake of brevity, the links below are for the Alliance version of each quest. The Horde version is exactly the same, but given by a Horde NPC.
The Darkwood
- A Sticky Task Collect 4 Sticky Silk Glands from Darkwood Broodmothers. Watch out for the Darkwood Lurkers; it's easy to get overwhelmed when the Broodmother moves around during combat.
- Thinning the Brood Kill 12 Darkwood Lurkers. It's easiest to pull these to the edges of the area, on the path, so you don't get the Broodmothers as well.
- Cannonball! Collect 4 Stacks of Cannonballs. These are items on the ground at the top of the hill. Sometimes, but not always, you will loot two Stacks of Cannonballs from one item.
- Ghostbuster Kill 14 Largo's Overlook ghosts. The ghost horses do not count, but like any neutral mob, they will aggro if you accidentally AoE near them.
- Taking the Overlook Back Kill Commander Largo. He can be found at the top of the left-hand tower when you come up the hill into the Overlook area.
- Not the Friendliest Town Kill 14 Rustberg Village residents. Any of the residents count. Watch out for the stealthed Rustberg Bandits.
- Teach a Man to Fish... Or Steal Obtain 22 Rustberg Seabass. These can be looted from the fish racks on the docks in the rear of the village, or from the Rustberg Fishermen when they die.
- Boosting Morale Loot 6 Barrels of Southsea Rum. These are underwater in and around the wrecked ships.
- Captain P. Harris Kill Captain P. Harris, a named undead.
- Rattling Their Cages Kill 8 Shipwrecked Sailors on the beach.
- Shark Tank Kill Tank, a level 85 elite shark. Some classes can solo this, but most will prefer a group. Can easily be duoed at 85.
- Claiming the Keep Kill Keep Lord Farson.
- Leave No Weapon Behind Collect 12 Rusty Rifles around Farson Hold.
- Walk a Mile In Their Shoes Escort a Farson Prisoner to safety. Follow and protect the NPC as it makes its way out of the hold.
- Bomb's Away! Destroy 10 Wellson Supply Boats using the cannons on the dock. The distance and speed of the boat will affect where you should aim to hit them. Mobs will sometimes attack while you're shooting; just kill them and get back in a cannon to finish.
- WANTED: Foreman Wellson Kill Foreman Wellson.
- Watch Out For Splinters! Collect 15 pieces of Shipyard Lumber, either from the ground or from killing the ghosts in the area.
- Finish The Job Kill 5 Restless Infantry. These mobs are locked in combat with comparable but differently named mobs that do not count for the quest. When you kill each Restless Infantry, the mob it was fighting will regain full health and attack you; either kill it or (carefully) run away.
- Magnets, How Do They Work? Collect 7 Siege Engine Scraps. Use the quest item provided to reveal the scraps, which are predictably around the siege engines. When you complete the quest, the quest item will not disappear; you'll have to destroy it manually if you want your bag slot back.
- First Lieutenant Connor Kill First Lieutenant Connor.
- Salvaging the Remains Loot 9 Cursed Femurs from the ghouls in the area.
- The Forgotten Examine 6 Forgotten Soldier's Tombstones.
Next time, we'll look at the dailies available to the faction controlling Tol Barad proper and the very desirable rewards.
Read the entire WoW Insider Cataclysm Daily Quest Guide series!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.Filed under: Cataclysm, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Whyisretgimped Jan 11th 2011 8:19PM
What they don't tell you in this article is how absolutely worthless TB commendation gear is. 85 commendations for a weapon you'll replace next patch? That's over two weeks of dailies. You can farm the mats for a crafted weapon in a few days. My hope and expectation is that the gear will improve as Cata rolls out patches much like WG did. I would save my commendations for a patch or two so the gear you get with them is actually worth the ridiculously massive effort it takes to get the gear.
This article also fails to mention is that in anything less than full 346 gear, these quests are brutal to solo. They're not impossible, but they're extremely frustrating. This brings us back to our first point, that the gear isn't worth the effort. By the time you have gear good enough to do these dailies easily, none of the gear TB commendations get you is worth having.
So do what I did. Skip the awful heroics which are way too difficult without your own personal team of good players and do BG's. Honor comes quick and easy (super quick and easy if you did the limited TB win swap for 1800 honor a pop), and unless you're a tank, the gear will suite you quite well for making heroics and raids a helluva lot easier. A lot of it even has stats that are good for PvE like hit and expertise.
Carson Jan 11th 2011 8:44PM
Absolutely worthless? What of the epic trinkets? What of the pet and mounts?
Brutal? Extremely frustrating? They require you to pay attention and be careful of adds and respawns, but unless you're simply a bad player, they are neither of the above. It's not an issue of gear, it's an issue of play: I'm in half 346 blues, half epics, and I'll still get smashed hard if I'm careless.
Whyisretgimped Jan 11th 2011 10:09PM
The epic trinkets aren't bad, but not worth the effort. They certainly don't jump out and make me say "I'll mindlessly grind for weeks to get that!!!". There are trinkets as good or better gotten far more easily.
The quests are doable and they're not hard, but like I said they're absolutely frustrating. The oh so intelligent "you can't play" responses don't address how annoying these quests are. The bugged one are inexcusable and the mobs just take too damn long to die unless you have gear which makes the rewards pointless. They're killable and they're not hard, but it makes the quests feel like more of a slog than most things you've had to do since BC came out. It also adds to 85 feeling a punishment because at few points in WoW is your toon as far below the curve of what it has to fight then when you first hit 85.
Don't even get me started on the fact that you have to do all these quests without flying. If that doesn't feel like a demotion, I don't know what does. Again it doesn't make the quests hard, but it certainly doesn't make them fun or tolerably repeatable.
Ice Jan 12th 2011 12:27AM
"Brutal? Extremely frustrating? They require you to pay attention and be careful of adds and respawns, but unless you're simply a bad player"
You have been into the cells, have you?
I agree with OP at this point I'm afraid. This is not sometimes issue of "being careful" or "l2p" issue. When you get to certain areas when doing dailies the respawn rate is horrible.
Kill one..loot it, find quest item near, loot that and bam, you aggro mob near it, while killing that mob the mob you just killed before respawns and starts bashing you too..again. its endless cycle too, once you kill one other patrol aggroes you and then respawns and and..
On some occasions I even found faster to just die to get the heck out of there to return dailies. And this is not inside cells exclusive either, theres few spots where the respawn rate is very high too (funny how the respawn rate is horribly slow on broodmothers tho)
It would be A-OK if the mobs would hit relatively soft but these are intended to be killed "one by one"..which fails at the point of endless respawns.
These quests are clearly desinged to be group quests due pvp servers I would personally assume where you would group up to not being ganked while fighting 2 mobs that hit you for "over 5k every 2 seconds".
I mean come on now, daily mobs are suppos to be relatively easily killed and survived, not burden because you will keep doing these dailies until they come up with better daily hub (hyjal perhaps) and maybe even after that.
Carson Jan 12th 2011 12:53AM
Whyisretgimped, you'll have to tell me where to get two "as good or better" trinkets "far more easily", I must have missed them.
The mobs take too long to die? They have the same health as level 85 mobs in Twilight Highlands. It's a lot, but that's a level 85 issue, not a Tol Barad issue.
Ice, I was talking about the topic of this article, the Peninsula dailies, not the dailies on Tol Barad proper. In the case of the cell block dailies, I agree that the respawn is over the top - I think it's Blizzard's dynamic respawn rates don't work terribly well. Even if you're alone in there, the respawn rate seems tuned to keep quite a few players from being starved for mobs.
Bynde Jan 12th 2011 11:42AM
You know what I hate about this sophomoric comment system? Is that you can't even read a post that's been voted down by a majority of readers.
Not that I agree with the poster whatsoever, it's just I'd like to judge it for myself before a bunch of people decide for me that I shouldn't even read it.
Get a new comment system already, Insider. This sucks so hard in so many ways.
Homeschool Jan 13th 2011 2:14PM
Without going on the offensive, let me clear up a few points here:
65 tokens is not unreasonable. Given one run through Tol Barad (just after a win, hitting both islands) you'll get about 12 per day, making 65 about 5.5 days worth of dailies. That's entirely reasonable, particularly given the occasional bonus commendation, or the three you get for participating in a win.
The value of these epics is uncertain in many cases, due to the itemization using Mastery (which is generally a weaker stat), but given their 359 item level, even a weaker stat may provide sufficient value, once reforged properly. A little mastery and fair amounts of two good stats generally ends up being more valuable than a 346 item.
If you're interested in heroics and raids, PvP gear is the WRONG way to go. Resilience has been adjusted sufficient to remove its value for PvE gameplay, so you may consider these items as if they had no resilience, and just their other stats. Going with a simple example, if your superior item has 150 points worth of stats (75/75) and your epic item has 200 points worth of stats (100/100), it's not a simple numbers game, it seems like an upgrade. But if one of those epic item stats is resilience and you're taking it into PvE, you're only getting use of the other stat, so you're now looking at 150 (75/75) vs. 100 (100/0). Now, consider Mastery: say you're looking at a superior item with Mastery, which we'll pretend is worthless. Reforging some of that Mastery makes your (75/0) item into a (75/0/30) - 105 useful stat points vs. the 100 you get with that PvP epic. While this has to be taken on an item-by-item basis, remember that you're generally safe assuming PvE epic > PvE superior > PvP epic, /for PvE gameplay/.
The last point I want to make - Tol Barad is the only level 85 zone in the game, outside of heroics and raids. It's entirely natural that it should be more difficult than any of the other zones, and providing a strong solo challenge at this stage in the game. With two people, the challenge is entirely negated (regardless of gear), so either look to group up with someone else who's there, or learn the ins-and-outs of successful challenge soloing. Level 70 heroics and 80 normals are great places to practice this.
Hatred Jan 11th 2011 9:48PM
Rewards are nothing to dream about for but flying mount is sweet and if you save all the badges it's almost about same time as you reach exalted when you have those 200 badges for it :)
Furthermore I'm not sure what game you play when saying these Qs are hard.
I went in with Q rewards only and never had problems and I play rogue so I'm not the toughest ones in the game.
Unless you are running like headless chicken they are fairly easy (excluding Problim kill Q ofc).
Telwar Jan 12th 2011 8:07AM
Of course, rogues now have the best self-healing in the game with Recuperate, and can stealth past mobs, which helps greatly in the mini-dungeons.
I know I have a much easier time on my rogue in her soloing spec than I do on my paladin.
Four Jan 11th 2011 11:25PM
Captain P.Harris = Phil Harris from the show "The Deadliest Catch"!!
nice homage Blizz - he will be missed!
Four
fainda Jan 12th 2011 12:01AM
The part about the portal in either stormwind or orgrimmar being the only way to get in there is wrong. Mages get a portal to tol barad.
Sunblade Jan 12th 2011 2:27AM
I've died on Foreman Wellson more times than I care to remember, just too many mobs close by and a respawn rate so fast that they have come back by the time Wellson has walked back.
But saying that, I'm a rogue in pvp gear on a pvp server and I kinda enjoy these dailies. few quests are so bad I haven't figured a way to do them alone. And as for the 'pvp ganking hell' type of comments, well, my response as always is, there are plenty of non-pvp servers out there (and this is from someone who isn't a good pvper!) :)
My only comment is that despite doing these almost every day since hitting 85, I still haven't been given each of the 22 quest, the random alogorithm possibly isn't that random.
Whyisretgimped Jan 12th 2011 4:38AM
A lot of the trinkets give a lot of mastery rating, which kind of sucks for a lot of classes, and little else. The plate wearer trinkets don't even give a static strength bonus where there are quest trinkets that do. /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("\124cff0070dd\124Hitem:65803:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Harrison's Insignia of Panache]\124h\124r"); is much better than a trinket which gives no static strength but a static mastery effect. /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("\124cff0070dd\124Hitem:56100:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Right Eye of Rajh]\124h\124r"); and it's AGI twin are also a ton better because they give AGI or STR and hit or Expertise. Both stats are a lot better for their respective classes than mastery is. They're also farmable from a non-heroic instance so are much easier to get than the TB trinkets. The honor purchasable PvP trinkets require a lot less grinding and are also better. So yeah, the gear is worthless.
I don't think the gear will continue to be worthless as I expect they'll upgrade it, but as of now there's nothing one can get with commendations that's even close to being worth the grind. So I'd save my commendations or skip these quests entirely.
Aris Jan 12th 2011 1:06PM
Except they have two mounts and a companion pet for those of us that like to collect these things. =)
shadowhowl1900 Jan 12th 2011 8:59AM
ugh...so many people just camp these area for the HKs...
davidfalling Jan 12th 2011 11:32AM
Cool post! I really like the Tol Barad dailies. I think I'll be coming here often. :)
iceveiled Jan 12th 2011 5:40PM
This article is missing a lot of info, such as the mysterious rotation of quests available to the faction currently holding TB. For example, this morning the alliance on my realm had it so I went and did the 5 or so dailies. Problem is, I have 5 other completed quests in my logs that have been in there for a week, and the quest givers for those quests never seem to be there. I've tried going in the evening when the alliance had TB, going in the morning, checking mid day, checking after I participated in a victory, etc.
I either have bad luck in my randomness of checking to see if I can turn these in, or something is terribly broken. It's getting to the point where I just want to delete them and clear them out of my quest log.
iceveiled Jan 12th 2011 5:42PM
To expand...I can see the ?'s on the map where I'm supposed to turn in these mystery quests, but whenever I try to go turn them in, the only NPCs that are there are once offering new ones in EXACTLY the same spot where the yellow ?'s are on my map.
You can say that random is random, but since I've had these completed quests in my log, the dailies in Tol Barad that I've picked up since then have been exactly the same day after day.
Homeschool Jan 13th 2011 1:55PM
A note on the Restless Infantry / Restless Soldier daily - when the mob's companion dies, the mob runs back to its spawn point before resetting.
If you ONLY attack the one you want to kill, and ranged pull or kite back beyond aggro range of their spawn point, they'll help you kill your target, then run back and sit there (without aggroing you.)
thinkdunson Mar 19th 2011 10:26AM
a suggestion for "finish the job"…
gain aggro on the non-quest mob before killing the infantry guy. that way he doesn't gain full health before attacking you.