Posts with tag Hellscreams-Reach

There are eight new reputation factions in Cataclysm. Six of those reputations are available to the Alliance or Horde, respectively. Each of those factions offers different items or gear to adventurers who work their way through the reputations. Many offer epic gear to players who have achieved exalted reputation.

You can pick up well over 1,000 reputation by wearing each faction's tabard into a level 85 dungeon; heroic dungeons grant a little more, of course. Some factions have daily quests that will help you fly through the ranks even faster. But the tough part can be deciding which reputations to work on first.

Let's take a tour of those factions and see what kind of epics or notable gear is offered by each. If you see something that's especially appropriate to your class or role, that's probably a good hint that you should start there.

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Welcome back to the fourth installment of this comprehensive guide to Cataclysm daily quests! In the first article, we discussed the basics of dailies and the profession dailies in capital cities. In part 2, we covered the Therazane dailies in Deepholm. Then in part 3, we went over the permanently available dailies in Tol Barad Peninsula. Today, we'll pick up where we left off and talk about the dailies obtained when your faction is victorious in the battle for Tol Barad, as well as the rewards available.

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

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.

Blizzard's Cory Stockton recently posted an intriguing post on the WoW community site called Tol Barad Balance, highlighting the problems that currently exist with Tol Barad, Blizzard's design intentions and philosophy for the island PvP encounter, and some potential fixes that may be in store for Tol Barad in the near future. Tol Barad should be fun, fair, and meaningful.

Tol Barad, the newest contestable PvP experience in Cataclysm, is great fun and provides the winning side with an awesome daily quest hub and a Vault of Archavon-style encounter, Argaloth, that drops the new tier legs and gloves. Using the same style of play as in Wintergrasp, the previous winners defend the island prison of Tol Barad against the invading faction. Tol Barad would be fun if it weren't so horribly broken in its goal and mechanics. The battleground of Tol Barad has only been active for about a week and a half, with most people only having experienced it for the first time within a few days.

There are six distinct problems with Tol Barad at the moment:

1. Defending Tol Barad is too easy.
2. The cap mechanics to secure capture points make it too easy to switch.
3. The towers in Tol Barad that grant extra time to the attackers have no reason to be defended by the defending faction.
4. Tol Barad's victory condition for the attacking faction has created a frustrating environment in light of the mechanics at play in the battleground.
5. The graveyards are skewed in favor of the defenders.
6. The losing side in Tol Barad receives no Tol Barad commendation for participating in the battle, while the winning team receives three.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Well, what do they say about plans and contact with the enemy? This week, I'd fully intended to write a Cataclysm 101 guide for prot warriors, but then Cataclysm actually happened and I immediately spent the time as fury. Since I'm going to start working on leveling my prot warrior soon as I get the fury to 85 (which I should have done by the time you read this) the protection 101 will be next week. This week, as I've been flitting around trying to decide which factions to grind rep with for which rewards, I've decided to share all that musing with you.

Also I've been kind of running around like a chicken going 'woah' a lot, but you probably didn't need to know that. Yes, I was in the beta. I was in the beta on a four year old computer. Playing the expansion on a new machine has even my jaded warrior heart all aflutter. So far, I've kept my T10 pieces for the 2 set bonuses, which are boring but compelling (the two piece is now just all physical damage increased by 5%, while the four piece is all damage, period) but with Deepholm gear dropping I expect I'll be dumping set fairly soon. I've more or less replaced almost all my non set gear with blues and greens.

So here's a sampling of the factions I'm looking at and the gear and arcanums they offer.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we find ourselves the designated butt-monkey of several new factions.

Hello again, fellow achievement-hunters. This week we're going to finish up with a look at the new reputation factions available in Cataclysm and a quick look at new world events.

"There aren't any new world events," you point out.

That's what makes it so quick. Although this goes without saying in any article discussing new achievements, there are a few spoilers in here discussing how you meet and work with various Cataclysm factions. If you'd rather stay unspoiled about upcoming quests, don't go past the cut.

45 Exalted Reputations This is now the highest reputation-related achievement in the game. Interestingly, there is not a new title associated with it; you'll still receive The Exalted at 40 Exalted Reputations, although it's possible that it's just a placeholder. Then again, if you already have 40 exalted reputations, getting 45 should be very simple during Cataclysm, as there'll be at least six new reputation factions available. I'm not sure a new title's going to be in the cards as a result.

So far, we have reputation rewards for Therazane the Stonemother in Deepholm, the Baradin Watchers and Hellscream's Reach in Tol Barad, the Wildhammers and Dragonmaw Clan in the Twilight Highlands, and the Ramakhen faction of Tol'vir from Uldum. Right now, all rewards are itemized for Alliance in the case of the Hellscream's Watch and Dragonmaw, but new models and names should come in a later build. While these are not necessarily the complete lists for each faction, you get an idea of what will be available.