Almost exactly a year ago I swore I was never going to do it, but in the end, I just couldn’t help myself. How could I pass up that sweet, sweet hat and title?
(Of course, it’s entirely out of character for a servant of the light to slaughter thousands of innocent businessmen for the sake of ingratiating herself with a bunch of pirates, so let’s just call this a psychotic break and move along, yes?)
I’d actually been thinking about the Bloodsail grind for months. The biggest delay in getting started was my dithering over Insane in the Membrane, the Feat of Strength for the truly obsessive, because that affected how far I’d be going with Bloodsail rep and how I chose to repair my goblin reps afterwards. Naturally, in the end, I chose the crazier option, and I’ve been killing goblins and pirates ever since.
So, my to-do list! This is entirely unrelated to any kind of progression, but this kind of thing is the reason I have a ridiculous number of days /played on my main. :)
The Insane/The Exalted
- Exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel factions. Currently Hostile with Ratchet and halfway through Hated with the other three factions. About 30-36 hours’ worth to go. Halfway through I’ll also pick up the Exalted as a title.
- Exalted with Darkmoon Faire. Lots of herb farming, milling, carding, and turning in. This will probably take me a couple of months on and off.
- Exalted with Ravenholdt. This means I’m going to have to dust off my actually-not-very-much-loved rogue, or bribe someone else to do the pickpocketing for me.
- Exalted with Shen’dralar. This just makes me want to cover my face and cry, to be honest. Requires lots of farming of Dire Maul for librams, and lots of camping the AH for Pristine Black Diamonds, plus some Scholo and Strat Dead runs for the libram mats. Still, once I get this and the above three finished, I’ll officially be Sailan the Insane – possibly in RL too.
Mountain o’ Mounts
- Baron Rivendare’s stinking mount. I’m up to forty-something runs now – one of my guildies got it on his first run, another took 106 runs to do it, and knowing my luck I fully expect to still be at it in 500 runs’ time.
- Finish off Wintersaber Trainers rep – currently about 48 rounds of quests away, which … isn’t as bad as I thought, actually.
- Keep farming ZG, Anzu and Attumen for mounts as often as possible.
- Keep at the AT dailies, which I tend to slack off on; I still need seven of their mounts and the upgraded squire – and then I get to start on tabards!
- PvP more, since there’s a lot of PvP achievements I still need, and I need AB and WSG tokens for the Black War mounts I don’t yet have. Plus I want Exalted with AB and WSG for the Justicar title and the tabards.
Other factions because I’m a completionist:
- Keep doing the two dailies that reward Frostborn and Explorer’s League rep respectively, since it irks me to see non-Exalted factions on my reputation list. 120 days left for Explorer’s League, and 134 days for Frostborn. Oogh.
- Another Black Temple run or two should see me at Exalted there.
- Brood of Nozdormu. I’m a smidgen off Revered, so I need at least a few more runs through AQ40, which are scarcer than hen’s teeth on my server.
Loremaster
- I’m 180 quests away in Kalimdor, and 89 quests away in Eastern Kingdoms. Probably can’t finish this one before I do The Insane, as I’ll probably have to do some goblin quests (which would screw my Bloodsail rep).
I’m not sure whether this to-do list looks better or worse, now that it’s in black and white. Help?
You are insane. This is one of the reasons I left WoW because I was heading down that path. Except I was planning on seeing if I could save the Bloodsail quests till after I was 1 rep short of Exalted.
Perhaps if I should ever find myself stuck at home for 6 months I’ll rejoin and start it.
Don’t forget to check the AH for cheap cards and mats; most of my cards for DMF came from the AH and not from my mage’s inscription. Think about it this way: on Bloodscalp, the outland cards take 3 Primal Life, as well as the herbs and other things. The Primal Life varies in price, but I usually purchased it at 10g or below, which meant that—not including the Darkflame and Ethereal Inks, or the parchment—each Outland card cost at least 30g. Northrend cards are worse; I did manage to score a fair amount of Eternal Life at the same 10g per, but the ink is the more expensive here, since it takes six of the rare ink.
I’m not sure what your server’s economy is like, but on Bloodscalp, I paid an average of 30g per card, except Undeath cards, which I’d pay an average of 100g per. Certain cards (Ace of Beasts, Five of Elementals, Two of Furies) I would tend to pay more for, because in my experience they were a lot harder to find. Some cards you’ll find much cheaper (chaos cards around Faire time especially, since everyone’s gearing up and trying to get their Nobles decks; every other cards in between faires) so snap them up, too.
You probably already do all these, but in case you missed one, these are the AH searches I use/used for Insane:
Pristine Black
of Beasts
of Elementals
of Portals
of Warlords
of Storms (this’ll also get you Glyph of Stormstrike, but it’s usually not a problem)
of Furies
of Blessings
of Lunacy
of Chaos
of Prisms
of Nobles
of Undeath (note that this’ll get you Essence of Undeath too, can’t be helped unless you want to set your threshold to Rare)
of Rogues
of Swords
of Mages
of Demons
Deck
Mote of Life
Crystallized Life
Eternal Life
Primal Life
Trade Goods -> Ink
Trade Goods -> Pigment
Recipes -> Book (usable items checked. If your tradeskills are as maxed as mine, you could just do “usable Recipes” but if you haven’t gotten all the vendor-bought cooking recipes or whatever, you might get spammed that way).
I’m sorry, but there’s no help for you….
I felt a lot better when I discovered that I could hide some of my incomplete reputation bars by setting them to inactive.
I know the feeling. I have gone through the same subterfuge on my paladin while grinding mounts, reputations, etc. (You’ll catch me on the Drenden server undr the name, Ailura.)
37 factions at exalted (3 more to go)
Loremaster achievement (completed)
Baron’s Mount (oh god, am i glad I got that after over 200 tries)
Wintersaber mount (after 2 years, i’m glad I don’t have to do this one again)
PVP achievements (I’m the same way. I loathe PVP, but there’s so many there i’m lacking. One of these days, I’ll have to man up and get those done one of these days.)
Brood of Nozdormu (I barely scratched the surface on that one. I figured I’ll be old and grey before I hit neutral.)
A few black temple PUGs should put me to exalted (god willing)
Keep working on it, you’ll get there. I know I will, too…
P.S.: I love your blog. I read it all the time to catch up on healadin advice and stuff. ;)
Mhm, I’m not exactly able to see what you’re doing now.
“Exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel factions. Currently Hostile with Ratchet and halfway through Hated with the other three factions.”
This confuses me.
So you are Bloodsail Admiral already now?
And your Goblin rep is where?
And you plan to get it back to exalted how?
Or you *were* exalted with Goblins and not anymore?
*jawdrop* Okay, the list is enough to make me boggle. Good luck out there! *sends you Freya’s beacons of Sanity to stand in when needed* :D
Loremaster is much harder if you are at war with the goblins, but with the level of insanity you already have this extra challenge won’t cause a ripple.
@Teu – thanks :)
@ Armagon – sorry for the incoherence; Exalted is the goal, and Hostile/Hated is where I am right now (due to the Bloodsail grind). I’m done with Bloodsail, and in order to rep up goblins without damaging my Bloodsail rep, I’m killing Southsea pirates in the Barrens right now.
@Xella – thanks for the tips; I haven’t been as organised as I should about AH searching, so these pointers are very useful. :)
@Paldasan – I actually thought about Exalted with the Bloodsail pirates, but after hearing what Xella’s had to do for that grind, no way. There are a sum total of two mobs you can kill after you hit revered. 21K that way? No thanks. :)
Props for trying it man. I was lucky enough to have played the game to such an extend to have completed most of what you put on your list just through normal play.
Consider this tho, is that Insane In the Membrane and Bloodsail thing really worth all your trouble. Once you get comfortable with crossing those 2 off the list, it’s all manageble ;-)
The Insane in the Membrane Achievement actually halted my achievefarming. I farmed achieves die-hard to get them all and was actually planning to get them until the released that one achieve. I just accepted that it was impossible to get. I was glad as I got relieved by the thought of some of them being impossible so I quit the die-hard hunting. It really helps seeing things in perspective and makes me pick the achieves that are either easy to get or I really really want for some cool reward. Now at 8500 points and counting ;-)
Checking my bank for Pristine Blacks. I know I had some lying around at some point, but I cannot recall if I AHed them…
… Dang. You’re out of luck, I AHed them already. Sorry!
As somebody who’s looked at this blog for a long time yet never commented, I have to say my jaw dropped when I read you are going for this title. I once thought of trying for “The Insane” title, but the overall amount of work involved made me weep, (and “The Insane” isn’t a title most people feel at ease seeing on a paladin) so I never tried.
Don’t worry though, sanity is overrated anyway. Best of luck!
“in order to rep up goblins without damaging my Bloodsail rep, I’m killing Southsea pirates in the Barrens right now.”
How about the repeatable quests for Knot in Dire Maul North? It might take a little longer to get to revered with the goblins themselves by those than by killing pirates, but while in DM you’ll also get librams and Pristine Black Diamonds for the Shen’dralar. The diamonds go for over 100g on my server, so I can’t miss any chance to get them as a drop, however slight. And King Gordok drops the Ace of Warlords, which helps with the Darkmoon, although the low drop rate makes him not worth it just for that.
I’m honored with the Bloodsail right now and halfway through revered with the lowest of the goblin factions, and friendly or barely honored with all the others required for Insane in the Membrane. I can never find any darkmoon decks on the AH for reasonable prices, so I’m seriously considering learning Inscription on my rogue alt (rolled just for the pickpocketing for Ravenholdt) so I can make decks myself.
You can kill goblins on a ship in Venture Bay for steamweedle reputation gains that do not negatively effect your bloodsail reputation.
I think a rep freak like yourself might be able to answer this. I am exalted with the home cities, have been for a long time, but when doing the elder quests I noticed that my “Alliance” rep still kept increasing. On the Armory (but not in game), the rep for the home cities is under another bar for Alliance which, despite being 999/1000 exalted with all 5 is only at Revered. What is this rep and how do I increase it? It’s bugging the crap out of me.
>I actually thought about Exalted with the Bloodsail pirates,
> but after hearing what Xella’s had to do for that grind, no
> way. There are a sum total of two mobs you can kill after
> you hit revered. 21K that way? No thanks. :)
Killing the mobs only gets you to 20999/21000. Only way to bump up to exalted is to do the quest for the pirate hat and title. I already turned that one in a couple years ago when I first did the quests (got a Bloodsail t-shirt for Christmas 2005 so had to get my hat then). Glad you only need honored for the insane. I’m working on the Ravenholt rep now. Good Luck to you!
Heya nice ideas on that… Anyhow easy to get exalted killing pirates just get a PARTY and you slaughter them 5 times as fast – asctually faster as there is no heal/sit and eat breaks cause they die quick and cana damage you much… also I am soooo worried I will never be a loremaster :( becasue all the quests/quest givers witll get eaten by lava or sunk in the sea by cataclismic expansionism… oh well truth is my main is only a ‘Private” and never will rank higer and get those feats – and that was just through an add hock silly crossroads raid lonnnnng ago.
But my advice is not to worry about it and relax try to budget your time or failing that get a little john pot for your pee whilst you cover the botty bay docks with goblin awfuls and blood…
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about doing the very same thing. Really, the only thing that stopped me was the Shen’dralar rep.
If it helps, incidentally, the odds of seeing Baron Rivendare’s mount drop exactly once are pretty good by the time you’ve done around 100-120 runs. If you get to 500, you’ve simply got phenomenally bad luck. ;)
And yet more tips!
Cyrus is correct. Run DM for Free Knot! Cartel rep rises without damaging Bloodsail rep. You can get the librams and get the Pristine Black Diamonds there and the books to “return” for Shandralar rep.
You will also have to run Strath for stitching to complete the protection libram and Scholo for another libram component. These areas can also drop the Pristine Black. And if you do the original WOW armour upgrade quest chain (its long) you end up farming DM and Strath as well as getting Kalimdor loremaster quests. Thus, you have many chances to get the mount.
When you do get to neutral with the Cartel, definitely do their quests as most will not damage your Bloodsail rep. Your Cartel rep goes up and you are closer to loremaster.
Good Luck everyone, and remember…
Take risks!
Paleolf
One more tip!
Get the squire’s pony!!!! If you are running DM or strath, or UBRS (I need a drop from The Beast). Having an opportunity to mail away the valuable stuff from my bags was invaluable. One of the perks of these runs is the gold generated by the loot. To do many runs without going back to the city is a blessing measured in time and money.
Paleolf
Your to-do list looks about the same as mine LoL… painful sometimes, isn’t it? :)
im sad there hasnt been a post in 4 months =(
Me too .. I think she went insane :(
Did you quit?
Shia!
Are you ok, is everything fine? Did you just quit blogging? We miss you!
I’m sorry you did not say goodbye; hope all is well in RL.
I bet I referenced your gearing for Nax guides a hundred times.
Thanks again and Good Luck.
We have similar goals :) I also held back from doing the Bloodsails because of the Insane fos. In the end I took the plunge, and I’m enjoying the grind actually. I am also doing the Loremaster before Cata is realsed. I have done both EK and Kalimdor now, and I can say I got *lot’s* of Steemwheedle rep. I’m glad I didn’t grind them to exalted first. So if you go this route, I recommend Loremaster first, once Bloodsail rep is done, and you are back to at least neutral with SWC.
Just realised the date of this post, that’ll teach me not to read. Are you still doing the Insane achievement?