Grinding for reputation is a part of the game. Think of it as leveling up with different factions. Last week we looked at the levels of reputation. This week we'll examine some of the reputations that you encounter in Azeroth.
Each of the major cities represent factions reputations that you can grind up with by completing quests and donating cloth. Increasing your reputation with the cities of your faction gives you the opportunity to purchase their racial mounts and tabards, in addition to discounts from vendors. For example if you play a Human, you can rep up to exalted with Darnasus in order to get a Nightsaber mount. Be warned, though because of scaling restrictions some models may not have access to all racial mounts.
Mount |
Race |
Faction |
Races |
|
| Horse | Human | Stormwind | All Aliance | |
| Kodo | Tauren | Thunder Bluff | All Horde | |
| Mechanostrider | Gnome | Gnomeregan Exiles | Gnome, Dwarf | |
| Nightsaber | Night Elf | Darnassus | All Alliance | |
| Ram | Dwarf | Ironforge | All Alliance | |
| Raptor | Troll | Darkspear Trolls | Orc, Undead, Blood Elf, Troll | |
| Skeletal Horse | Undead | Undercity | Orc, Undead, Blood Elf, Troll | |
| Wolf | Orc | Orgrimar | All Horde | |
| Elekk | Draenei | The Exodar | All Alliance | |
| Hawkstrider | Blood Elf | Silvermoon CIty | Blood Elf, Troll, Orc, Undead |
There are major PvP factions aligned with the Horde and the
In addition to the major cities there are many other factions you will likely grind up with during your time in Azeroth. Steamwheedle Cartel is made up of the neutral Goblin cities of Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan/Steamwheedle Port, Mudsprocket, and Ratchet. These cities are all neutral, so you will frequently see
Sometimes rival factions don't play nicely in these "neutral areas," but violators are dealt with harshly (killed) by the guards. The area surrounding these cities are often hotbeds of ganking and combat on PvP servers. Occasionally players forgo repping up with
One of the first memorable reputation grinds occurs in Desolace when players must chose to align themselves with either the Gelkis or Magram clans of Centaurs. To raise reputation with one group of centaurs, your must kill members of the other clan. You are given a series of quests in this chain that vary depending on the clan you've selected. This is a kind of practice for what's in store in the future.
While you can get away with skipping the Centaur reputation quests, just about everyone has to grind to "Unfriendly" with Timbermaw Hold. This is necessary in order to use the Timbermaw's system of tunnels to get from Felwood to Winterspring in your character's 50s. This reputation is gained by killing Deadwood or Winterfall Furbolgs and completing quests.
Many players who had nightmares about Ewoks while growing up have taken solace and found healing in this massive slaughter of cute, fuzzy bear-people. While most players only rep up enough get through the tunnel, some level to exalted in order to get the Defender of the Timbermaw Trinket. This item can be used to summon a Timbermaw Ancestor to watch your back.
Prior to the release of the Burning Crusade, when the level cap was set to 60, many players engaged in rep grinds for instances and raids. Although these are less commonly pursued since the expansion, many players continue to rep up with those factions for nostalgia and rewards. Next week we shall discuss the level 60 factions.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-28-2008 @ 3:51PM
Grok said...
You forgot to mention the bonus faction. When you get 200 faction for Silvermoon, you also get a percentage of that for trolls/orcs/tauren/undead.
So what people are doing nowdays is doing every quest they can find that gives faction at the low levels and getting pretty far into revered by the time they ding 40. It is entirely possible to get exalted with all factions before 70 without turning in any cloth.
Reply
4-28-2008 @ 3:53PM
SpaceLady said...
Something else to look forward to.
Thanks again!
Reply
4-28-2008 @ 3:54PM
MechChef said...
The Timbermaw have never liked me. But I murder my way through their cave despite them.
Reply
4-29-2008 @ 8:56AM
jrb said...
a question i had, as a dwarf who wants to rep with darnassus to get a cat mount, can i simply do low level darnassian-based quests to get reputation? Or does the rep gains scale with the minimal xp gains when the quest is low level? (i'd rather not have to grind or pay for 10's of thousands of runecloth!) :P
4-30-2008 @ 6:22PM
Flanker said...
@ jrb
I'm pretty sure it used to scale -- my main, back in the day when 60 was the level cap and Argent Dawn rep was really important, was trying to grind to exalted with them and so he went to BFD to do the AD quests there, and ended up getting like 75 rep out of the whole thing. But at some point they changed it to a flat rate (full rep regardless of level). At level 70, that same character went to Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles, did all the quests there, and now his Exodar rep (around 14000 revered) is second only to his SW rep (999 exalted).
4-28-2008 @ 4:11PM
Jp7010 said...
"Increasing your reputation with the cities of your faction gives you the opportunity to purchase their racial mounts and tabards..."
Never seen anyone with an Ironforge or Exodar tabard.
Reply
4-28-2008 @ 4:32PM
niko said...
exactly. I know Amanda hates me for this, but ZOMG watch the typos... there were tons of em in that mount table you listed. For the love of all things right in this world, fix that damn chart.
And anybody that's really a "rookie" at this game does not want to see "Grinding" as the first word of a column addressed to them... Sure, sometimes you want to grind rep, but most times, *grinding* rep is something you do when you don't have anything else better to do. Rep doesn't really become a big part of the game until BC anyway, so as far as your column's title is concerned, rep is not really a big part of the game as you make it seem.
4-28-2008 @ 4:32PM
Anteia said...
I had to grind Timbermaw for the trinket on my hunter. It was how she levelled almost 9 levels, because she started at 47 and at the end, was roughly 56-57, just from rest exp and killing the darn things. I didn't turn in any feathers until the point you stop getting rep off the timbermaw themselves, and turned it all in then. I then did the quests in winterspring and turned in my two totems, and turned in a mix of beads and feathers until exalted. It took a while, but I was stalling for time on that character to try to let someone else catch up.. and sadly? That ancestor has still saved my hunter butt at level 70. Amazing what just a few of it's heals can do when you're soloing.
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4-28-2008 @ 5:31PM
zmeeh said...
i'll have to say pre-bc myn 60 NE wwarrior grinded some rep for the bloodsail and it was fun and all, until i realized in BC that to change blacksmith specialties.. i.e. axesmith to hammersmith -> you needed to talk to the people in winterspring.. i had a rude awakening from the past when they killed me... because they HATED ME :(
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4-28-2008 @ 5:54PM
AtroceKT said...
I rolled a Blood Elf Hunter, and, deciding that he would use a wolf pet, I wanted a wolf mount at 40 as well.
Which means that I still have to grind out one quest, Chen's Empty Keg, another 197 times before I ride off one that puppy.
Oy.
Reply
4-29-2008 @ 9:19PM
Matt said...
Alternatively, you could just wait until 60, and get the black epic PvP wolf...
4-29-2008 @ 8:58AM
zappo said...
Ogrimar is probably the second easiest faction to get. It sounds like you've done all the quests for Ogrimar faction, so at this point you will need to do other faction quests for spillover (or do chen's). Undercity faction is the easiest to find. Also keep in mind that Children's week is in a few days and that should give you a huge bump in rep.
4-29-2008 @ 2:40AM
Katz said...
Grinding main faction rep for their mount isn't too hard a job - went over to wowhead, to the faction of choice and arranged quests by level - copied and pasted into Word, cut out the seasonal events and went from there. Starting zones have a huge amount, but this helped point out all those hidden 500 rep chains and soforth.
Decided I'd prefer a Raptor over Chocobo for my belf, this was around 60, so cutting down early zones was quick, but I needed some of the Zangar rep before I finally hit (saved me farming cloth anyways). As a sidenote I was exalted with Org before exalted with the Trolls while following my list of Troll rep quests.
My draenei on the other hand was exalted with Darn by 40 without problem. Sidenote here, there's enough Argent Dawn rep in the 3 or 4 BFD quests to push you into Friendly all the way back in your 20s alliance-side.
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4-29-2008 @ 6:49AM
Mikel said...
Note that you gain FULL reputaion with the major cities even doing grey quests. It is very possible (even easy) to be EXALTED with ALL major factions by lvl 40 turning in NO cloth. I just rolled up a char and crused around through every starter zone up to Shimmering flats, and was exalted with EVERY SINGLE MAJOR FACTION before 40. Took me under a week, around 2-3 days play time to do it. Here's a link as semi proof (gaining a few lvls every day so.. not 40 anymore).
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-reputation.xml?r=Illidan&n=Honeybaby
Not trying to brag, just showing people that it is very possible and very easy actually!
Reply
4-30-2008 @ 3:41AM
Xancor said...
"It is very possible (even easy) to be EXALTED with ALL major factions by lvl 40 turning in NO cloth."
I knew you were alliance before I checked your armory page. When I created my BE rogue, i was determined to get a raptor for him. I did every horde quest in every zone I could to build rep and did as little grinding as possible (to avoid gaining unnecessary xp). I hit exalted with undead at 38, orcs at 42, taurans at 46, and trolls at 47. It may be possible to hit exalted faster than that on the horde side, but I don't see how.