Posts with tag reputation-rewards

• Friendly reputation will net you two recipes, Krasarang Fritters and Viseclaw Soup.
• Honored reputation unlocks the Pandaren Fishing Pole, a simple pole made out of bamboo that boosts fishing skill by 10. On top of that, you can also pick up a Tiny Goldfish pet for yourself.
• Revered reputation will open up the opportunity to purchase the Dragon Fishing Pole pictured above, which also grants +25 to fishing skill. In addition, you can also pick up the Anglers Fishing Raft, an on-use item that allows you to raft across water for 10 minutes. The Fishing Raft is not a mount, it's an item, and as such, it comes with a one-hour cooldown.
• Exalted reputation will unlock the Reins of the Water Strider, a bug mount that walks on water.

Because this is the beta, the prices shown in the screencap above are not final and could go up or go down. In addition, more rewards may be added over time. Still, the Anglers have some pretty amazing rewards, and I'll never turn down an opportunity to add another pet or mount to my collection!

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Reputation is one of those double-edged swords in World of Warcraft. Speaking as someone who played classic WoW, I find it sometimes odd to see the amount of focus put on gaining reputation with various factions. This is largely because I remember the days when grinding out reputation really didn't get you anything at all in the long run. It wasn't until later in the game that Blizzard introduced the concept of gaining reputation with other races for mounts, and the only way to get that reputation was to turn in ridiculous amounts of cloth.

Factions like the Hydraxian Waterlords, the Zandalar, and the Argent Dawn all had their reputations firmly locked hand-in-hand with raiding. But reputations like the Shen'dralar, the Bloodsail ... they had no real purpose at all. When The Burning Crusade was introduced, the idea of factions was reworked. Suddenly you really wanted to gain reputation, because doing so meant you could unlock heroic dungeons or get neat incentives like armor, pets, and tabards.

Reputation design has changed drastically since then. Where once you got a tabard as a reward, now you slap one on and grind dungeons to earn reputation as quickly as you can. Different factions have different rewards, and rewards like shoulder and helm enchants are absolutely required if you want to perform optimally. So ... what was the best of the best?

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we contribute to Azeroth's obesity epidemic by refusing to walk.

Mounts: They get your ass from point A to point B, and if you're lucky, they'll do it as stylishly as possible. They're the most immediately visible status symbol in WoW and often give you a one-glance note on the kind of player at whom you're looking. People astride Invincible can be counted upon to be hardcore raiders from the Wrath of the Lich King era, someone riding a Violet Proto-Drake is never new to the game, and players rocking a White Stallion are seriously old school.

Players who have been around for any length of time almost inevitably accrue a stable's worth of beasties to cart them around, but some folks go the extra mile for the Leading the Cavalry and Mountain o' Mounts achievements. In Cataclysm, these are a lot easier than they once were, although you should still be prepared to dump a ton of gold and time into them no matter what. Fortunately, the first part of the Mountain o' Mounts trek should also net you The Ambassador achievement and title.

Along with new zones, new dungeons, new raids, and new levels, Cataclysm is bringing us eight new reputations (four of which are Alliance- or Horde-only). Each of these new groups offer different rewards at different reputation levels, and of course, we have new arcanum helm enchants and new shoulder enchants.

Most of these new reputations also offer tabards at friendly rep that you can use to gain reputation while running heroics. Join us after the cut for a rundown of all the new reputations available in Cataclysm, what zones you'll need to go to to gain rep with them, where to find their quartermasters, and what rewards they have to offer.

As of the recent beta build (13189) that went live earlier this evening, city tabards sold by racial factions (e.g., Thunder Bluff, Stormwind, Gnomeregan, Undercity) are now awarding reputation in dungeons. With the obvious exception of those offered by Gilneas and the Bilgewater Cartel, these tabards aren't technically new to the game -- you can get them at the Argent Tournament on the live servers right now if you want -- but the reputation gains are definitely a new perk.

While you can still get the tabards from Argent Tournament vendors on the beta, each major city also has a faction quartermaster (usually close to the city's flight master and introduced in beta build 13066 in late September, I think) selling both the tabard and a set of level 40 cloaks. The tabards are available at friendly for 8 silver (even at the Tournament -- they no longer require Champion's Seals), but you can't get the cloaks without being exalted. Still, grinding reputation for one of your faction's races should be considerably easier in Cataclysm -- all you'll have to do is get to friendly, buy a tabard and run dungeons as you normally would.

This is a great addition to the game. Not only will you have access to cool tabards even at a low level, but it should make getting other races' mounts and faction discounts much easier as well.

While stomping around your home city in Cataclysm, you might notice a new quartermaster NPC hanging around the travel area. He or she stocks a total of five items (at least so far), shown above:

• a high-resolution city tabard that requires friendly standing with that city;
• a reasonably-priced 16-slot bag (unique) requiring revered standing to purchase; and
• level 35 blue cloaks (also in gorgeous high resolution) in caster, agility and strength varieties, requiring exalted standing.

What's interesting about the required reputation on these items is how they relate to the leveling process. If you choose to stay on your "main" continent -- Kalimdor for night elves, for example, or Eastern Kingdoms for Forsaken -- then your reputation will hit the proper level just as these items become useful.

The tabard can be picked up at any time, since almost every race starts at friendly standing with its faction's cities. The bag, on the other hand, shows up at a point in the leveling process when a new player (or fresh reroll on a new server/faction) is going to start wishing he had another big bag like the backpack. And the cloaks are available at level 35 -- a level at which, on my worgen fire mage, I had just hit exalted with Darnassus and was very close to hitting exalted with Stormwind. So on top of a cloak tailored to my spec, I also had two 16-slot bags available -- which for a new player is like winning the lottery. This is a great way to educate new players on how WoW's reputation system works, and it provides some neat rewards to boot.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons.

As I said last week, I'm looking for action screenshots of retribution and protection paladins. I've gotten a lot of good shots thus far and am always looking for more (especially you retribution paladins out there, as I got a ton of protection ones). They can be any level between 1 and 80. I'll be using these for header graphics like the one above. Please send those as well as any other comments to my email at gregg@wow.com.

If you've been following the column recently, you've seen the three-part series we did on gearing up a brand new level 80 protection paladin. We're going to take the same approach now to the retribution tree and work our way through the different types of items. First up, we've got craftables and reputation items. We'll be taking a look at stuff you'll be able to grab in dungeons next week and finish up the week after with a run-through of what all you can buy with the badges you got from all of that time in the random dungeon finder.

Welcome to another installment of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column of choice for mages who hate warlocks, warlocks who secretly want to be mages, and everybody else who likes their mage discussion sprinkled lightly with random and inappropriate references to Lost, Flock of Seagulls, Lufia, and KFC's new "Double Down Sandwich," or as I like to call it, "population control." I mean, seriously? Who greenlit this? "I have an idea, guys. Let's offer a bacon and cheese sandwich where we remove the bun and replace it with two slabs of fried chicken! Ooh, and then, instead of offering drink sizes, let's work on a way to allow customers to hook themselves directly into our soda machines intravenously. They'll be mainlining Dr. Pepper! Because if there's anything America needs more than ever during these tough economic times, it's more ways for people to kill themselves via food!"

Lately, a lot of you have been asking for gearing advice for the new level 80 mage. It seems that a good number of people (myself included) have been making good use of this pre-Cataclysm lull to level their alts, and I'm proud to learn that many of you have chosen to level a mage as one of your alts. For many of you, the gearing landscape probably looks very alien when compared to the way it looked when you were gearing up your last character. New opportunities abound, with the promise of epic gear dangling around every bend. What path should you take?

Fear not, young magelings. This week, Arcane Brilliance has decided to draw you a roadmap. Now, a warning: Arcane Brilliance can't draw. Seriously, when Arcane Brilliance was 5, he drew a picture of a "horse" for his mother. As horse pictures go, it was apparently quite disturbing. Arcane Brilliance had to spend some time at a hospital for "special" children, and mom started drinking heavily. So, you're going to have to use your imaginations about the "map" part of the roadmap. It's mostly going to consist of words, something Arcane Brilliance can produce largely without upsetting medical professionals. Largely.

So you've hit level 80 with your mage. Your gear slots are likely filled with a random assortment of quest rewards, heirloom gear that suddenly doesn't look so good anymore, and stuff that dropped in normal Nexus ten levels ago. You'd like to start running some of the level 80 content, but your DPS still hasn't cracked a thousand. You're not geared enough for a trip to heroic Ramparts, let alone heroic Trial of the Champion. So what do you do? Where do you begin?

Bornakk popped onto the forums late Thursday to confirm that Blizzard is planning to add a +strength version to the Ashen Verdict rings in an upcoming mini-patch. The appearance of the four current rings with patch 3.3 caused a minor furor on the forums, with plate DPS being left out in the cold. While there are +strength DPS rings available elsewhere in Icecrown Citadel, there's no replacement for a reputation ring's valuable proc.

One of the interesting things about the +strength ring's initial absence wasn't its absence per se, but the reason for omitting it. Apparently the Ashen Verdict choices were a reproduction of older reputation-linked quest items (e.g. Violet Eye and Scale of the Sands rings) that allowed only four choices, and Blizzard wasn't able to get past the programming issues to add a fifth option before 3.3 went live. Well, that's going to get fixed in the upcoming mini-patch, which will also see a few other class-related changes. The date of the patch is still anyone's guess, but we'll keep an eye out for you.

It's not unusual to see player speculation on what we'll see when Cataclysm arrives, and most of us have our own private wish lists. I'm sure I could come up with my own if I thought about it, but while riding between Kamagua and Moa'ki Harbor last night on the Kalu'ak ferry lazily chatting with people, it occurred to me that one of the things I'd kill to have again is another faction like the Tuskarr.

These guys are, for lack of a better word, awesome. Their emotes are fantastic. They sell an evil penguin pet and a cool fishing item (the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole) that probably won't be replaced for the duration of the expansion. Their ships are giant turtles traveling along beautiful coastline with a vendor on board (seriously, riding these at night = an endless series of Kodak moments). They get my vote as the faction that immerses you most thoroughly in what they need and what they're doing to survive in an increasingly hostile Azeroth, and I'm wondering if, given Northrend's various difficulties, they might be convinced to seek warmer climes just so we don't have to give them up.

Agonizing rep grinds have plagued the game since classic, but the Tuskarr are such a well-realized bunch that even at exalted I love hanging around their villages. What's your favorite faction, and is there anything about them you'd like to see repeated with future reputation grinds?

Welcome to the latest Arcane Brilliance, the weekly Mage column that believes there's no such thing as a wrong time to turn something into a sheep. Unless it was already a sheep to begin with. Then it would probably have been better to turn it into a pig or a rabbit or something. Or maybe just hit it with a Pyroblast. Mmmm. Lamb chops. What were we talking about again?

If you missed last week, here's a link to click on so you can catch up. If you can't be bothered to read the first part of this column, let me summarize the idea here: we're discussing ways to get your Mage all decked out in epic, raid-worthy gear without ever actually entering a raid instance. Now, more than ever before, we have so many options for obtaining raid-quality gear that actually raiding for it seems almost...old-fashioned.

Last week we talked about 5-mans in both their normal and heroic varieties, focusing on Trial of the Champion, because duh. But maybe you don't want to do 5-mans. Maybe your guildies aren't on, and maybe you hate pugs. Maybe you are a Mage, and because there are eighty-four DPSers looking for group for every one tank or healer, you threw your hands up after an hour of trying to get a group and went off to do dailies.

Well good news, everyone! Doing those dailies can get you epics too! Yes, it is entirely possible--even if you happen to be the guy on your server who ninjas gear in pugs and sucks at everything to the point that nobody invites you to groups anymore--to fill just every slot of your gear with sparkly purples without doing any instances of any kind. Isn't that wonderful? It tends to take a bit longer, overall, but these alternative methods for obtaining gear can be perfect for those of us who simply don't have a lot of time to commit to a group. Simply log in, craft an epic cloak, do a daily quest or two, blast out a couple Arena matches, and then repeat for a few weeks, and eventually you'll have epics too. Anyway, nice talking to you, see you next week! Wait...what's that? You want details? Oh fine. Clicky clicky.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Ding ... you're 80! So what are you going to be when you grow up? Don't get us wrong: levelling your first character to 80 (especially if this is your first massively multiplayer online game) is a not-insignificant accomplishment – but you're not quite ready for prime time yet. Hitting level 80 in WoW is less like being a graduating senior than it is being a new sophomore. You've finished WoW 101; now it's time to make sure you've covered all your core classes and start taking a stab at some electives and specialized coursework.

If you've just hit level 80, consider this basic checklist a graduation gift of sorts from WoW Rookie. It'll help pointed you in the right direction for whatever type of game play you're interested in pursuing. Your game's just beginning. Dig in!

The only way to increase your faction standing with the Kalu'ak is to complete the numerous tasks at the various quest hubs in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Howling Fjord. After all those quests are done the only way to further increase your standing is to work on the various daily quests associated with the faction.

But what are some of the goodies you can get when you're exalted?

The hottest item is the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole that has the double whammy of allowing underwater breathing and increasing your fishing skill by 30. It's a must have for any master angler, and will come in handy as you fish off the cold icebergs of Northrend. You can get pole for just over 100 gold when you hit exalted.

Another must have is the pet penguin that you can get when you reach exalted. The little guy is cute and is someone that wants to sit next to you as you use that big purple fishing pole you got.

You can pick up these rewards from quartermasters in either Mora'ki Harbor in Dragonblight or in Kamagua in the Howling Fjord.

Read on after the break and see what you can grab from these fun loving Wilfred Brimley looking folks.

Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's weekly column on the Death Knight, written and named by a guy who actually doesn't have that talent. How does this keep happening, seriously?

So by now, I'm sure a lot of Death Knights are, like yours truly, getting into the level 80 home stretch and trying to figure out which of the Wrath factions to grind first. If you've already read our Wrath 101 guides to reputation and to the Oracle and Frenzyheart tribes, you're off to a good start. In this week's Lichborne, we'll take it a step further by looking at the purchasable rewards for each faction with the eye of a Death Knight. As with our previous gear guide, I'm operating on the assumptions that haste and armor penetration are less desirable for Death Knights and that expertise is primarily for Death Knight tanks.

The spiffy Dalaran rings:

Band of the Kirin Tor
Signet of the Kirin Tor

Are they worth it?

When I hit 80 it was the first thing I picked up. The powerful ability to teleport myself to a major city is, in my opinion, invaluable as I conquer the end game of Wrath of the Lich King. But after I right clicked to buy the 8,000g ring, I paused.

I felt a small twinge on the back of my head.

Was that the tingling of buyer's remorse? Did I just buy the Sega Dreamcast of rings?

Will my ring fade away to soon be vendored? No ring to control them all, and no ring to in the darkness bind them?