Quest Discoveries

My shaman's the fourth character I've gotten past level 30 -- fifth if you count the paladin I "borrowed" from The Boy, really -- so I've spent a lot of time in Azeroth by now. One of the things I've really been enjoying about post-2.3 leveling is the fact that quest givers now show up as yellow exclamation points on your minimap, which means that here and there, I find a few cool Easter egg quests I've never done before because I never knew they were there.

The screenshot above is me standing underneath the Thandol Span, the bridge that connects Arathi Highlands to the Wetlands. (Yes, water walking is fun, what can I say?) If you take a look at the piece of bridge directly behind my shaman, you'll see that it's broken on both ends, completely unconnected to the rest of the structure. Sitting in a small alcove in that section of bridge is this fellow, Foggy MacKreel:


Getting to him was a pain in the space-goat tail. There's a section of bridge on the Arathi side that has a broken-off overhang from which you can just barely make the leap. I had a guildie tell me she did it just fine with no speed increase, but even with ghost wolf on, it took me three tries. (If you screw up like I did, swim under the bridge and east a few more yards to climb back up on the northern bank.)

To be honest, MacKreel is singularly unconcerned about his placement as Least Accessible NPC in Azeroth.* What he is concerned about is his massive hangover, and how he's going to get his shipment of moonshine to Southshore in time. Except, wonder of wonders, some hapless adventurer just happened to hop over to his section of the Span.

You've got 15 minutes to get MacKreel's Moonshine to Southshore, and there's no way to jump back where you came from, so it's either swim or hearth from there.

__________________________________
*If you have an alternate contender for this title, please leave me a note in the comments!

Adversarial Arakkoa

Let's talk Terokk.

I'm exalted with the Shat'ari Skyguard, but up until a week ago I, like Tobold, had never bothered with the Terokk quest line because it's rather poorly designed.

However, I now think the Skettis prerequisite quests, Adversarial Blood, and Terokk's Downfall should be on every new 70's short list of quests to complete ASAP. Not only are they a great source of gold and Skyguard rep, they also yield some really excellent pre-Karazhan blues and a shot at two great epic capes.

The Bad News
Each member of your party looking to complete the quest needs 40 Time-Lost Scrolls. You get these by killing invisible arakkoa which can only be seen with an elixir of shadows, which you get from turning in shadow dust dropped by the visible arakkoa. (You see how this could get annoying.)

Ten scrolls let you summon one of four mini-bosses at the skull piles scattered around Skettis. Once you've killed and looted all four, you get the quest Terokk's Downfall.

As if getting 40 x 5 scrolls wasn't bad enough, you actually have to summon each mini-boss not once, but multiple times so that everyone in your party can get the quest drop. Again, non-ideal, but stick with me here.

The Good News
Gezzarak, Karrog, Akkarai and Vakkiz are the four mini-bosses for Adversarial Blood, and they're all relatively easy kills. You probably don't even need a full five man for them, but be sure you have a tank and healer with you.

Each of them will drop a random BOP blue item from a shared loot table. The Boy's mage alt picked up two Skettis Bands of the Mind, which boast 11 int, 14 spell crit, and 29 dmg. They can also drop gloves, bracers, or belts along with the rings.

If you have five people summoning all four mini-bosses, that's a guaranteed 20 BOP blue drops, plus 2k Sha'tari Skyguard rep just for the kills (you'll get another 350 rep for turning in Adversarial Blood itself).

Terokk Himself
Once you turn in Adversarial Blood, you'll receive a Time Lost Offering to use with the quest Terokk's Downfall. He's a tank and spank until 25%, at which point you'll need to drag him over the blue flares dropped (intermittently) by Skyguard bombardiers in order to remove his shield of immunity.

In keeping with the spirit of this quest line, each player who wants to complete the quest will have to summon Terokk individually, which means that our hypothetical 5-man would have to kill him five separate times.

Much like the mini-bosses, though, this has both pros and cons. The annoying part is that to re-summon him, you'll have to wait 10-15 minutes for his summoning stone to respawn. On the other hand, killing him five times means 500 rep per kill plus five shots at his loot table, which includes these coveted items:

• [Terokk's Might]
• [Terokk's Wisdom]
• [Time-Lost Figurine]

In Conclusion
I've said it several times already, but I'll say it again: the quests leading up to Terokk are stupidly designed. You shouldn't have to kill things multiple times for everyone in your party to get credit.

But don't let Blizzard's poor quest design cause you to skip a really excellent source of gear and rep for new 70s. In spite of the flaws, I'll be doing Adversarial Blood and Terokk's Downfall on all my alts from now on, and encouraging my guildmates to do the same.

Post-Patch Planning

Real life and WoW have conspired against blogging in the past 48 hours, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you all. I've also been thinking about what I'm going to do first once patch 2.3 hits. I'm sure I'm not the only one compiling a list, but here's mine:

Update my mods.
Let's face it: even with the Ace Updater, mod tweaking could take up most of Tuesday night.

Respec my mage from arcane to fire.
Arcane's been fun, but the nerfs to the Lightning Capacitor and the Mystic Skyfire Diamond have put at least a temporary nail in the coffin on its viability for PvE raiding. It looks like we may see significant mage changes down the road, but for now, I'm looking to scrounge up 146 spell hit rating by a combination of regemming my current gear and swapping out some of my current pieces for +hit gear I've kept in my bank.

Buy some new gear with Badges of Justice.
I'll need 60 to purchase a Voodoo-woven Belt, which should help with the spell hit.

Buy my shadow priest her heroic keys.
She's made a lot of trips to Karazhan and even to SSC, but getting revered with all the factions was just too much of a time sink. I will have to remember to actually go buy the keys themselves, though. Thankfully they're cheap.

Go talk to The Rokk in Lower City and start the cooking daily quests.
Rogues are really going to need the Spicy Hot Talbuk recipe, which gives 20 hit rating, and hunters will be all over the new pet food Kibler's Bits. Skullfish Soup isn't bad either, and Stormchops will finally give us a use for Lightning Eels.

Take my shaman to Dustwallow Marsh.
With a bunch of new quests in the zone, I'll want to pick up the flight point at Mudsprocket, then head out to Tabetha's once-remote shack. All the XP changes should make leveling him much faster, and the new content out there looks fun.

Go fishing.
Crates and trunks you fish up in 2.3 will have a chance to contain a Weather-Beaten Journal, which will let us track fishing nodes on the minimap.

Head out to Zul'Aman.
My 25-man raid is still struggling to take down Vashj, but the 10-man Karazhan raid I ran back in the spring is reforming for our usual Saturday runs. The only question now is whether we'll try and squeeze a second day in to take advantage of ZA's 3.5 day reset. I'll also need to remember to stop and talk to Budd Nedreck outside the instance to get the quest for my Tattered Hexcloth Sack. (Free 20-slot bag? Yes and thank you.)

So there you have it: a compulsive raider and altoholic's to-do list. But why stop there when I can survey the GMW readers?

What's on your list of things to do as soon as the patch hits?

My Favorite Quest Name

Ogre Head on a Stick = Party is still my favorite quest name in the game. Last night I took my hunter out to Blade's Edge, and was pleased to note Blizzard's reuse of the ogre-head-on-a-stick graphic for the quest Gorgrom the Dragon-Eater, part of the Massacre at Gruul's Lair/Showdown chain.

The quest line has some really nice loot for characters approaching level 70; I'm going to have to go back out tonight and find a few other people to help finish it so I can get my [Malefactor's Eyepatch].

Hallow's End Alt Fun

I rolled a Draenei paladin today in preparation for patch 2.3 — a bunch of us are creating bank alts which will each lead their own one-person guilds. Then we can use them to purchase 3 guild vault tabs of our very own to hold all our characters' excess stuff. At 110 gold plus bag costs, I expect it'll be a popular new storage strategy.

The only challenge for me was coming up with a name — since my server's several years old now, a lot of the good mule names have already been snatched up. I took a stab at 'Acquisition' and 'Depository' before finally scoring a win with 'Stockpile,' then played around a bit on Azuremyst Isle.

Leveling another Draenei gives me a chance to appreciate just how much effort Blizzard put into the 1-20 starter quests. The Stillpine Furbolg quests and the quest that has you disguise yourself as a tree are favorites of mine, but even just some of the NPC conversation text out here is particularly well-written. If you've never ventured out into this starter area before, you owe it to yourself next time you're thinking of rolling a new character. The novelty alone almost makes up for that eventual long trek to Ironforge.

How to Call the Headless Horseman

A former knight of the Silver Hand, the Headless Horseman is a cursed paladin who lurks within the Scarlet Monastery graveyard during Hallow's End (October 18th-November 1st). He's a fun fight with a small loot table of Heroic-level purples, plus fun things like temporary BOE broom mounts and a noncombat pumpkin pet. Sure, you may still be hungover from Brewfest or punch-drunk off the PTRs, but Halloween is on the way! Here's the Girl Meets WoW guide to summoning and defeating WoW's first five-man holiday boss.

First, find a group of level 70 players and take a field trip to the Scarlet Monastery. The graveyard is the first instance portal on the left, and you'll need to lazily clear through two hallways and a room to get to the horseman. On the right side of the SM GY grounds is a Pumpkin Shrine, which gives the daily quest [70] Call the Headless Horseman. Someone in your party must accept this quest, and then click on the Loosely Turned Soil behind the shrine to place a Dreary Candle.

The Horseman will then aggro on whoever placed the candle, starting the fight. Here's how the fight works:

Phase One
Allow your tank to pick up aggro on the Horseman, and dps him down (watch out for cleaves). At 1% he will toss his head in the air and then wander around disoriented (and immune to your attacks), and the Head of the Horseman will become active. It has ~27k health, and you'll need to take a third of that off to start the next phase.

Phase Two
The Head and the Horseman will recombine at the start of Phase Two. During this phase, the Horseman can Conflagrate, so ranged and healers need to keep their distance. As before, dps him to 1%, he'll separate, and then you need take off another third of the head's health. Note that after he separates, the Horseman will also whirlwind this time, so spread out and drop the head as fast as you can.

Phase Three
Head and Horseman will recombine again, and will toss out four Pulsing Pumpkins, which grow into adds which can crit for about 1k on cloth. They have about 10k health apiece, so while you could AOE them, you might just want to have your tank pick them up and keep dpsing - they'll go away when he dies. Drop the Horseman back down to 1%, and he'll toss his head again - kill it, and you win.

How Many Times a Day Can You Summon the Horseman?
In theory, you could farm him indefinitely within the constraints of the four instances per hour limit, but keep in mind that he's summoned by a daily quest, so once everyone in your party has summoned him, you'll have to either bring someone new in, or wait 24 hours to be able to get the Call the Headless Horseman quest again.

What Does the Horseman Drop?
The Horseman's Helm - A dps plate helm.
The Horseman's Signet Ring - A dps caster ring.
Ring of Ghoulish Delight - A melee dps ring.
Witching Band - A healing ring.
Hallowed Helm - This has no stats; it's a pumpkin you can wear on your head.
Magic Broom - A temporary level 40 ground mount. The most likely to drop.
Swift Magic Broom - A temporary epic ground mount.
Flying Broom - A temporary regular flying mount.
Swift Flying Broom - A temporary epic flying mount. The rarest broom.
Sinister Squashling (BOP noncombat pet) - An evil-looking walking pumpkin pet. When idle, he folds up into himself and "sits down" as a jack-o-lantern.
Tricky Treat - Candy that increases your movement speed for 30 seconds.

Sound complicated? It's really not that bad, but if my walkthrough has you curious or if you just can't wait until the 18th, you can always go watch a video of the fight (warning: very odd music selection).

Are You Forgetting Your Free Gems?

I've got to admit it; when it comes to WoW, I can be incredibly forgetful. When you're trying to remember whether you've done a certain quest or still have that stack of terocone, having three characters in Outlands can make things awful confusing. (Instant mail between alts has been a godsend in this regard.) Just today, however, I remembered something really basic that I've forgotten to do on any of my characters lately -- going out to Nagrand every month to pick up my salary of free Consortium gems.

Didn't know you you'd been missing out? It's true. If you're friendly or higher with the Consortium, you can pick up a new set of gems from Gehze in Nagrand at the start of every month. The higher your reputation, the better your chances of getting good-quality gems. Even if you're only friendly, it's a nice little gift you can use to pay the repair bills or help level up your alt's jewelcrafting. But be forewarned: if you don't pick up your gems by the end of the month, they won't roll over to next month. So don't forget!

New Azeroth Quests Coming Soon!

Some great new information released on the tweaks to the pre-60 leveling curve today -- dungeon tweaks, some more on the increased Azeroth quest XP and decreased XP to level from 20-60. But what especially caught my eye was this note:

We've also added approximately 60 new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. This should help players who find themselves lacking quests in the 30-40 range. The Steamwheedle Cartel is building the new town of Mudsprocket in south-west Dustwallow Marsh, so you'll have to wait until construction is complete to learn more about these changes.

New level 30-40 content! No more killing panthers for Hemet Nesingwary until you want to cry. . . now you can go get ganked in Dustwallow, the new STV.

Brewfest Bugs and Hotfixes

Unfortunately, Brewfest bugs and issues continue to plague the Warcraft servers. Drysc is keeping an open post on Brewfest hotfixes on the WoW forums; it's probably your best source for the most recent info.

I'm most sad about the fact that they disabled the Dark Iron attacks. The screenshot above gives you a picture of what they looked like, as well as a glimpse of the /wave related visual effect with the beer mugs that caused the issue. (The number of people spamming /wave outside Ironforge actually crashed Eastern Kingdoms on our server last night, to give you an idea of how bad it was.) Hopefully they'll come up with a fix; while they lasted, the DI attacks were one of the funniest, most chaotic events I've ever seen in WoW so far.

Other changes and known issues: the "Bark For..." quests are bugged on many realms, but as soon as they get unbugged, they'll be rewarding players with 40 Brewfest tickets instead of 15. Also, the Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles will now be permanent instead of temporary! So that's at least one awesome thing amidst all the disappointment.

Update: The BRD quest from the Dark Iron Plans may also be bugged.

Additional Updates (10/5): The "Bark For..." quests should now be working for everyone. If you're still having trouble, check to be sure you don't have a failed version of the quest still sitting in your log. Also, it's been confirmed that "Pink Elekks on Parade" is only available to players with tBC installed. Unfortunately, we still have no ETA on the return of Dark Iron dwarf attacks or whether the ticket rewards will be increased some more to make up the difference.

More On Ram Racing

Now that WoW patch 2.2 is live, I've been getting a lot of traffic to my Brewfest Quest Guide, and fielding a number of questions about how the racing rams work for the quests This Is Ram Racing... Almost and There and Back Again. So for those of you looking for more info on the rams, here are some tips and tricks.

Using the Reins
The thing to remember about the reins is that if you stop using them, your ram will slow down. Click your reins at an even pace (ie, one click every couple seconds) to maintain a constant speed. At the higher speeds, the ram seems to take longer to slow down even if you're not clicking, but nonetheless, if you stop clicking the reins, he will shift into a lower gear. If you want to get him up to a gallop, just click at a faster pace.

Apple Barrels
Apples make rams forget about how tired they are. If you see an apple barrel, move your ram towards it to clear all your exhaustion debuffs. You have to be within about five yards of the barrel for your debuffs to clear (in the picture above, my wolpertinger is close enough to clear the debuffs, but any farther away would be too far). Finally, keep in mind that if your ram reaches 100 debuffs and slows to a crawl, the apple barrel will not cure his exhaustion, just the stacking debuffs, , so if your ram is getting close to 100 and you're still a ways away, slow down if you can.

Daily Keg Delivery Quest
Once you do There and Back Again, you can immediately do the daily quest after it, but there's no yellow exclamation point to tell you the quest exists. For Alliance, talk to Neill Ramstein to start it; he should have a prompt that says something like "Do you still need any help with the kegs?"

"Ram racing is easier than it seems, but it takes skill to master. Just use the reins, eat apples if you can, and avoid exhausting your ram."
- Pol Amberstill, Ram Riding Apprentice

Holiday Guide: Brewfest

New readers: Think your Brewfest quests may be bugged? This guide was made before Brewfest went live, but I've put up a new post with the latest updates on Brewfest bugs and hotfixes.

Brewfest is a new holiday event in World of Warcraft that will run October 2-16th. Based on the German Oktoberfest tradition, Brewfest quests can be completed for tickets, which may be exchanged for Bavarian-style costumes, collectible steins, and even a ram mount, which will be highly desirable to Horde players. This guide provides a quick breakdown of the Brewfest quests and repeatable dailies to help you get your new mount, non-combat pet, and eyesight-enhancing goggles. For more information and screenshots, you might want to check out MMO-Champion's Brewfest guide.

Where do I go?
Most of the quests are located in Durotar for Horde or Kharanos for Alliance. There are also Brewfest beer gardens located outside Silvermoon City, Darnassus, Undercity, Stormwind, Thunder Bluff, the Exodar, and Shattrath.

Brewfest Events
Dark Iron Dwarf Attacks
Dark Iron dwarves will try to steal the Brewfest Kegs every hour on the half hour. Pick up a Complimentary Brewfest Sampler by targeting target one of the Barkers from any brewery and /waving. He'll toss you a sampler, which you can then drink. Once it's empty, chuck the empty mug at a marauding dwarf. Each Dark Iron attacker you hit will earn you a stacking buff (up to 25). Talk to the Brewfest Rewards vendor to be rewarded with a ticket for each dwarfs you hit.

Brewfest Quests
Catch the Wild Wolpertinger
Wolpertingers are invisible jackalope-like creatures. Essentially we're talking a rabbit with antlers, wings, and a set of tiny fangs. This quest will reward you with your own Wolpertinger Tankard, which houses an adorable noncombat pet that is only visible to you or to characters who are drunk. To catch the wild wolpertingers, first drink enough to get your character totally wasted. You'll have several seconds of "completely smashed" to target the wolpertinger before you need to drink more to be able to see it. Then use the provided net to ensnare the wee beasties. Tip: to see the wolpertinger more clearly, you might want to go into your video settings and temporarily turn off the drunk effect by switching off full screen glow.

Now This is Ram Racing... Almost
Learn how to ram race with this quest. (Tip: if you drop the Ram Racing Reins, you can replace them by talking to the apprentice standing next to the quest dude.) Your ram steed has four speeds, but can get fatigued if you make him run too fast for too long. Keep an eye on your ram's Fatigue debuff -- if it gets to 100, you'll have to stop for 15 seconds. Keep clicking the reins to shift between speeds. You can also run your ram by an apple bucket to remove the debuffs. After you complete this quest, you can then do the quest There And Back Again, followed by the ram racing daily quest. Update: Wowinsider is reporting that these quests can actually be done once every 12 hours, so I guess that makes them "twice dailies?"

Did Someone Say, "Souvenir?"
Turn in your voucher and receive a Brewfest Stein from the festival greeter. You can refill your mug from the kegs throughout the grounds.

Pink Elekks on Parade
Pick this up at the main festival grounds, along with Catch the Wild Wolpertinger. For this quest, you'll have to travel to each of the three other festival beer gardens for Alliance or Horde, get drunk, and chase off the aforementioned Pink Elekks. This quest has now been fixed so that everyone can pick it up, and rewards you with 40 tickets.

Seek the Saboteurs
After a Dark Iron Dwarf attack, you may notice a set of Dark Iron Sabotage Plans on the ground. Loot them, and you'll get this quest to find Coren Direbrew in the Grim Guzzler in BRD. He's hiding in the bar behind the plans seller. Reward: Dark Iron Tankard (a level 54 off-hand which you can drink from).

Brewfest Daily Quests
There and Back Again
This is a delivery quest with a build-in time limit. Pick up the quest at the festival grounds, and you'll be given a racing ram. Head into the nearby town (Kharanos or Durotar) and grab a keg from the NPC standing next to the stack of barrels. Run your ram back to the festival and drop off the keg. The first time you do this quest, you have to deliver three kegs in four minutes, which will earn you 15 Brewfest prize tickets. After that, the quest will give you five tickets for each keg you deliver in the time allotted, with bonus time added every time you deliver a keg. You should be able to get 40-50 tickets a day this way, once you get the hang of the ram. If you're looking for some more help getting started with your ram, I've written some additional ram riding tips.

Bark for the Barleybrews!Thunderbrews/T'chali's Voodoo Brewery/Drohn's Distillery!
These repeatable quests require you to take a ram to the four Brewfest flags (the ones with the big mugs on them) in Ironforge or Orgrimmar and promote a given brew. Since these quests were bugged on the PTRs, it's unclear whether you can complete the quest for both of the rival brewers, or if you have to pick one. You can only bark for one faction each day, and the quest is on a four minute timer.

Brewfest Rewards
600 tickets - "Honorary Brewer" Hand Stamp
This stamp certifies you as an official Brewfest ram rider, allowing you to purchase both the normal level 40 Brewfest Ram (for 10g) or the Swift Brewfest Riding Ram (100g). The mounts are permanent, and are the same for both Horde and Alliance.
100 tickets - Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles ("Guaranteed to make EVERYONE look attractive!")
Equip these goggles, and you'll view every character or NPC you meet as either a gnome (Alliance) or orc (Horde). Sadly, the goggles have a 7 day duration.
Other, less awesome things to redeem your tickets for: Brewfest Pony Keg, Brewfest hats, Brewfest regalia, various food & drinks.