With Phase 4 upon us, The options for dailies are pretty much long and endless. Of course, with a daily limit of 25 dailies, you can end up doing most of them anyways, and while certainly don't try to spring for 25 dailies every day, I still do my fair share of dailies. About once or twice a week, I do what I have come to call my Outland Circle. All three of my characters have all the daily hubs unlocked, so between Ogri'la, the Skyguard, the Netherwing, and the Shattered Sun Offensive, I can get a lot done.

It's back! Perhaps of all the new daily quests that have arrived with the goodness-filled Patch 2.4, arguably the most confusing and mysterious one is the repeatable quest called For Great Honor for the Horde and Concerted Efforts for the Alliance. It is a dinosaur quest from the days of the old Honor system but made its stealthy return last Tuesday with a few tweaks. It was so stealthy that it didn't even make it into the official patch notes. It is also not searchable in wowhead through filters (e.g. added in Patch 2.4, PvP, etc.) or by name (e.g. "For Great Honor"). The references to the quest in thottbot or allakhazam both refer to the old repeatable quest albeit the quest description themselves have been updated to include the new requirement -- an additional Mark of Honor from Eye of the Storm.

Unlike the old quest, the new and improved For Great Honor -- which probably has the same ID tag (confusing poor old wowhead) as the original quest -- does not give any reputation for old world Battlegrounds. Players grinding Battlegrounds rep for the Conqueror or Justicar titles are flat of luck and must do it the hard way aside from being crazy for trying (yeah, okay, I'm one of those people). The very first time players complete the quest, it awards 11g 99s and 314 Honor points at Level 70. Subsequent turn-ins will only award the 314 Honor.

Because of the removal of diminishing returns to Honorable Kills, Honor points are available for use immediately, making this quest the most efficient way to earn additional Honor. Because it is repeatable and not a daily quest, players with stacks of 100 Marks of Honor from all Battlegrounds can accrue 31,400 Honor points right away. Of course, it is possible to earn more Honor from more turn-ins. Winning in all four Battlegrounds, for example, can give an additional 942 Honor from Mark of Honor turn-ins. For the many players who have full unusable stacks of these items, it's an excellent way to free up space and gain Honor points at the same time. Needless to say... make sure to save some Marks for those welfare epics! On a final note, try to complete this quest in the less populated cities such as the Exodar or Thunder Bluff, specially if you're turning in a whopping 100 times. Less populated cities will have less lag and less chances of players zoning in from Arenas or Battlegrounds to get in the clickable way of your turn-ins.

Having had a chance both on the live and test servers to do the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies, I think I can safely say that Blizzard has thoroughly outdone themselves. There's variety, there's travel (instead of staying in the same small area all the time), there's excitement, there's good loot, there's all kinds of varied quests that make me think that I may never go back to Ogri'la or Skettis ever again unless I really need something from the vendors. There's still things that could be slightly better, but for the most part, Blizzard has shown that they've taken valuable lessons from previous content and stepped up their design for patch 2.4.

Finally, we reach the end of our grand tour of the phase 1 Shattered Sun-related daily quests. "The Multiphase Survey" is assigned by a doubtful Draenei named Harbinger Harnomen who can be found somewhat clockwise of the flight master in Shattrath, and it goes like this:

1. Go to the Spirit Fields in Nagrand, which are near that giant crystal Oshu'gun.
2. Put on the provided Multiphase Spectrographic Goggles.
3. Fly/ride around and look for Multiphase Disturbances (pictured), which are only visible when wearing the goggles. When you find one, get near it and right-click your goggles. The disturbance will disappear. Six of these "readings" and you're done; flutter on back to Shattrath for 4g 10g, 250 Shattered Sun rep, and another Shattered Sun Supplies (c'mon, Badge!).

Seven daily quests later, what's our total take? 78 gold, 1550 Shattered Sun Offensive reputation, a Major Rejuvenation Potion, and two Shattered Sun Supplies. Not bad for the work of an hour or so.

Here is another Shattered Sun daily that originates in Shattrath, from Lord Torvos who stands just north of the flight master (right by where you picked up "Gaining the Advantage"). The premise of "Sunfury Attack Plans" is that we know that the Sunfury elves up in Netherstorm have some attack plans, and we want them. We want one of them per character, every day. So get yourself to Netherstorm, find some Sunfury elves (any Sunfury elves), and kill them until one of them drops the attack plans. I usually go for the mobs near Manaforge B'naar simply for convenience.

Like many single-drop quests, this can be maddeningly inconsistent. Today I got the plans on my first kill, and a guildy of mine claims to have killed over 100 before finally receiving the item. We'll have to wait until a bit of data for the database sites has been collected before we can find out what the drop rate is, although if I had to guess I'd put it around 10%. For your troubles you are rewarded with 4g 10g, 250 Shattered Sun Ofensive rep, and a Shattered Sun Supplies, which contains a random green item and has a chance to contain a Badge of Justice as well.

You've dealt with automata and the Wretched on the Isle of Quel'Danas. You've slain demons and blown up the transporter at the Throne of Kil'Jaeden. Are there more Shattered Sun-related dailies left to do? You bet! There are three quests that are assigned in Shattrath, and here's one of them: Gaining the Advantage. Posts on the other two are coming shortly.

Allegedly, some people in Stormwind can make oils that will help in the fight against the Legion, and they need Nether Residue to do it. This quest is assigned by Emisarry Mordin who paths near the flight master.

For this quest, all you need to do is be a skinner, herbalist and/or miner, and go out and do some gathering. Any Outlands herb (not Golden Sansam or Dreamfoil), ore node, or (I assume) skinnable mob has a chance to drop Nether Residue, of which you need eight for the quest. The drop rate on herbs felt like around 30%, possibly higher on higher-level herbs.

So it's a fairly easy quest to do, and as a bonus, you get some herbs/ore/leather. Go on back to Shattrath to turn it in, and be rewarded with 16g, 250 Shattered Sun rep, and two one Major Rejuvenation Potion.

This is the companion quest to "Blood for Blood," and is given by Magistrix Seyla up at the Throne of Kil'Jaeden ("The Missing Magistrix" is a prerequisite). In "Blast the Gateway" you take on a mission to help shut down the Legion Gateway, by means of an interesting quest mechanic.

1. Right-click the supplied Sizzling Embers to release a pet Living Flare, which follows you around. Contrary to what WoWWiki says, I find that it will not despawn if you use your flying mount, as long as you don't get too far away from it (so be careful on your epic mounts).
2. Find and kill the Incandescent Fel Sparks, which are fire elementals that wander the Throne area. They have a fireball, but like most of the mobs involved in the dailies, they're not hard to kill. Every a Fel Spark is killed with your Living Flare nearby, the Flare energizes. Note that you don't actually have to kill the Spark yourself; if you see some other people killing one, go help, and any flares in the vicinity will get energized.
3. Once your Flare accumulates enough energy (it takes about five eight kills), it will become "unstable" and turn green. Take it over to the Legion Gateway, near Magistrix Seyla, and it'll release its fiery power. Done! Talk to the Magistrix for 12g and 250 Shattered Sun rep.
   

I did have my Flare despawn on me once, but I think I flew up very high or something. I've definitely had it follow me on my flying mount just fine. But you should be careful, because if it does despawn you have to start the quest over.

1. Kill Doom Heralds, those big swordy demon things you see stomping around, and loot their blood. You need four, and it seems to be a 100% drop. The blood powers the Felblood Siphon that you'll use in the next step.
   
2. Find Felblood Initiates (pictured) casting wavy green things at the structures on the ground and cower at their eliteness. Now use the Felblood Siphon on them, and, just like the giants from Ferelas, they will weaken into non-elite pushover Emaciated Felbloods. Kill. Do this four times, and you're ready to return to the Magistrix for 12g and 250 Shattered Sun rep.

This was a fun quest, although last night it was absolutely impossible to find any Felbloods because of all the players competing for them. Much easier today though; they might have upped the spawn rate (edit: they did). The Felbloods stun briefly when you use the Siphon on them, which gives you a chance to get some distance and/or cast a spell. Next up is Blast the Gateway, which is a good quest to do at the same time as this one. I wonder where Kazzak is hanging out, though -- has he always been killed when I've been up there, or did they move him?

Continuing our examination of the phase one daily quests in patch 2.4, here is "Erratic Behavior." It is easily done at the same time as the other Isle of Quel'Danas daily, The Sanctum Wards. It's gotten from the Shattered Sun Staging Area, and asks you to convert five Erratic Sentries into friendly ones by means of the magical crystals they give you.

The Erratic Sentries are found in the same place as the mobs for The Sanctum Wards: an arc starting at the Staging Area and proceeding broadly southwards along the western shoreline. They're non-agressive (yellow) mechanicals (pictured), and although they're level 70, it's still uncommonly easy to kill them. Sometimes they can be found reduced in health bandaging themselves up, and in general they move a bit oddly -- I guess that explains the "erratic" part.

After you kill and loot, target the corpse and right-click the Attuned Crystal Cores in your inventory; the Sentry will turn into a friendly one and stagger around briefly before disappearing. Note that you can't convert corpses that you haven't killed yourself.

Convert five corpses, and you're done. Return to the staging grounds for 9g, 150 Shattered Sun rep, and warm fuzzing feelings for helping get to Phase Two. This quest is still available in Phase Two, but renamed to "Further Conversions."

Welcome to the first post of a new series on the daily quests available in Patch 2.4. I'll be going through all the quests that are available in phase 1, one by one. This is one of the two daily quests on the new Isle of Quel'Danas, and it's called "The Sanctum Wards." It goes well with Erratic Behavior, which I'll cover in the next post.

The quest itself is pretty simple, and goes in two parts.

1. Hunt down Wretched Devourers and Wretched Fiends, and slaughter them for their Mana Remnants. You'll need four Remanants, and the drop rate felt like it was around 50%. The mobs are only level 68, and don't pose much of a problem; they do a puny drain life/mana and a very short silence. They can be found starting in the Shattered Sun Staging Area and spreading in an arc down near the western shoreline.
   
2. Once you have your four Mana Remnants, come back up near the Staging Area to a Crystal Ward (pictured, at 49,35) and right-click the stack of Mana Remnants in your inventory. There's some nice pretty zapping effects, and you're done with your quest. 9g and 150 Shattered Sun rep await you.
   

You have now completed one of the two quests that will progress your server towards Phase Two, so thanks for doing your part! This quest is still available in Phase Two, but renamed to "Arm the Wards."

If I only have time to do one daily quest, I do the one for the battlegrounds. If I only have time to do two daily quests, I do the battleground quest, Escape from Skettis, and Fires of Skettis. Yes, that's three quests, but the Skettis quests have been a source of quick and easy cash. I really consider them to be two steps to the same quest. Blizzard seems to be trying to make those quests less appealing in patch 2.4.

First they tell us that the Monstrous Kaliri that hinder us while doing our daily bombing quest, Fires over Skettis, have grown smarter. For now, the trick to getting away from those blasted birds is to fly straight up in the air until you're out of range. Apparently the next generation of Kaliri have gotten wise to that trick and have adapted to three dimensional combat.

Here's some news from the PTR hot off the presses via MMO Champion: Shaani the jewelcrafter is now selling epic gems previously only dropped in 25-man dungeons for 15 badges apiece, and all the recipes to cut them for gold at various levels of Shattered Sun Offensive Reputation. So if you don't raid, and don't mind doing 3 or 4 heroic runs for each gem, you'll be able to socket all that new badge gear too. It looks like it was unlocked with the Razorthorn Root daily, so if you want those gems, be sure to get your friends and guildies on doing that daily once it's unlocked on your server come 2.4

While you're there, you can also grab a new daily from Mar'nah the alchemist which will reward a Bloodberry Elixir, which provides +15 to all stats for an 2 hours, but only on the Sunwell Plateau itself (thanks for catching the Sunwell-only restriction, Aikiwoce).

The badgification of epic gear continues apace. What will be interesting to see is if Blizzard is primarily doing this to close the gear gap between casuals and raiders for WoTLK, or if this marks a new loot philosophy that will continue into WoTLK. Will we be able to buy Icecrown Glacier gems for badges as well?

So with the new badge gear vendor showing up on the 2.4 PTR, I know a lot of people who are getting a little bit of shell shock seeing just how many Badges of Justice they'll need to get that gear. At this point, I've got two words for them: Don't Panic. You'll have plenty of time. With 2.4 likely needing at least another month or so to go live, and then at least a few more weeks before most servers do enough dailies to unlock the vendor, I'm betting on somewhere around a good 10 weeks before we're even able to spend the badges we gather. In 10 weeks, you can gather a lot of badges starting right now, and add a few more badge gaining methods when 2.4 itself goes live.

Let's look at the options for collecting badges and see how much bang for your buck they give you after the jump. Hopefully, almost everyone can find themselves able to do at least one of them, and we can all look forward to fitting ourselves out when we finally make it to the Sun's Reach Armory.

The second phase of quest and NPC progression on the Isle of Quel'danas began a couple days ago on the US PvE PTR. Yesterday I covered the retaking of Sun's Reach Sanctum and the second phase is all about the building just across the road, the Sun's Reach Armory. The Armory is infested with demons, as you can see in the screenshot, and the new daily quests are all about driving them away.

First of all, let me state that the daily quests from phase one were still available on the PTR even after the Sanctum was taken from the Wretched. The names and quest text are a little different to reflect the changed state of the Isle, but the quest objectives and rewards remain exactly the same. It should be safe to assume that this trend will continue throughout every stage of the Shattered Sun Offensive.