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Northrend Dailies: Faction Grind – Alliance

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Jan
13

Introduction
Hello Folks.

I’m trying my hand at another daily quest guide. This time I will attempt to help isolate and group the various quests that can be used to grind rep with the four main factions of Wrath of the Lich King: Argent Crusade, Knights of the Ebon Hold, Kirin Tor, and Wyrmrest Accord. Also include are the Sons of Hodir quests, as they sell the new Lich King shoulder enchants. If you have the cooking and jewelcrafting professions, this grind will burn through your 25 dailies.

This guide assumes a few things.

  1. You are using a level 80 character.
  2. You have access to all of the following quests within the appropriate zones.

If you do not meet these two qualifications, then you still have some questing to do. As with most of the dailies, the following are opened as you complete the various quest lines throughout Northrend. Through the normal course of questing, you should become Friendly with all four main factions at a minimum; most likely you will gain an Honored reputation with them.

Doing the quests listed will grant you the following rewards:

Estimated Gold per Day: 220 gold minimum / 300 gold maximum


Table of Contents

  1. Wyrmrest Accord Quests
  2. Kirin Tor Quests
  3. Argent Crusade Quests
  4. Knights of the Ebon Blade Quests
  5. Sons of Hodir Quests
  6. Grinding Circuits

Wyrmrest Accord
 

Number of Quests: 3
I’ll start with Wyrmrest, as it has the fewest dailies to choose from. You will not make much money from these either, as only one quest would give full experience at level 80 if you were able to level past the current cap.

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Kirin Tor
 

Number of Quests: Min 2 / Max 4
While Wyrmrest Accord has the least number of dailies to choose from, Kirin Tor has got to be the stingiest group with regards to reputation gain. You can only rely on the profession dailies and dungeon dailies for reputation. If you do not have the profession dailies, you will lose out on 175 Kirin Tor reputation per day. All of these quests can be picked up in Dalaran.

Cooking Dailies from Katherine Lee (+150 Kirin Tor, 9 gold)
Completing all of the following quests at least once will grant you the Our Daily Bread achievement.

Jewelcrafting Dailies from Timothy Jones (+25 Kirin Tor, 13 gold)

The dungeon dailies, both regular and heroic, only grant 75 reputation. As a bonus, regular dailies reward you with a commendation badge for the group of your choice, which can give you another 250 reputation with that faction. It is probably wise to use them for Kirin Tor at first if you are keen to become exalted with them. Something else to consider is to champion Kirin Tor while running level 80 dungeons and heroics, as this is another way to help get through one of the more tedious faction grinds.

If both the heroic and regular dailies are for the same dungeon, they can both be done on Heroic difficulty, allowing a single dungeon run for 150 reputation with the Kirin Tor.

Regular Dailies from Archmage Timear (+75 Kirin Tor, 19 gold)
Completing all of the following quests at least once will grant you the Timear Forsees achievement.

Heroic Dailies from Archmage Lan’dalock (+75 Kirin Tor, 25 gold + 2 Emblems of Heroism)
Completing all of the following quests at least once will guarantee the following three achievements: Proof of Demise, Northrend Dungeonmaster and Northrend Dungeon Hero.

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Argent Crusade
 

Number of Quests: Min 6 / Max 7
The Argent Crusade is the Northrend equivalent to the Argent Dawn of the original game. Their quests are interesting at best, frustrating at worst.

Troll Patrol from Commander Kunz at 40, 67 in Zul’Drak (+350 Argent Crusade, 24 gold)

All of the Troll Patrol quests take place in Zul’Drak. You take the first quest from the commander and receive an additional quest at each of the following locations. The final quest, labeled “Congratulations!”, will only be available if you can complete the whole patrol in under 20 minutes. While it offers a boost to your Argent Crusade reputation, if you can complete the maximum number of dailies in each group, it will put you over your 25 daily limit. “Congratulations!” is a nice daily to get, but you should not depend on it in your grind.

Alchemist Finklestein at 35, 52

Captain Grondel at 48, 64

Captain Rupert at 58, 72

Captain Brandon at 49, 79

OptionalCongratulations! from Commander Kunz at 40, 67(+350 Argent, 19 gold)

Slaves to Saronite
from Absalon the Pious on Skybreaker Airship in Icecrown (+250 Argent, 13 gold)

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Knights of the Ebon Blade
 

Number of Quests: 6
The next group is the freed Deathknights at Shadow Vault and those at Death’s Rise near Onslaught Harbor. These quests all take place within Icecrown

Shadow Vault
Leave our Mark from Baron Sliver at 43, 25 (+250 Ebon Hold, 13 gold)
Shoot ‘Em Up from The Leaper at 44, 25 (+250 Ebon Hold, 13 gold)
Vile Like Fire! From Vile at 44, 25 (+250 Ebon Hold, 13 gold)

Death’s Rise
From their Corpses, Rise! from Setaal Darkmender at 20, 48 (+250 Ebon Blade, 13 gold)
Intelligence Gathering from Aurochs Grimbane at 20, 48 (+250 Ebon Hold, 13 gold)
No Fly Zone from Uzo Deathcaller at 20, 48 (+250 Ebon Hold, 13 gold)

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Sons of Hodir
 

Number of Quests: 3 min / 6 max
The final group is the Sons of Hodir, a race of giants that you become friendly with through a quest chain that begins with the quest They Took Our Men! at K3 in Storm Peaks. All quests are within the Storm Peaks zone. The quests come in stages as follows:

Friendly
Blowing Hodir’s Horn from Hodir’s Horn at 64, 64 (+250 Hodir, 13 gold)
Hot and Cold from Fjorn’s Anvil at 63, 63 (+250 Hodir, 13 gold)
Polishing the Helm from Hodir’s Helm at 65, 60 (+250 Hodir, 13 gold)

Honored
Spy Hunter from Frostworg Denmother at 64, 60 (+350 Hodir, 13 gold)
Thrusting Hodir’s Spear from Hodir’s Spear at 65, 60 (+500 Hodir, 16 gold)

Revered
Feeding Arngrim from Arngrim the Insatiable at 67, 60 (+350 Hodir, 13 gold)

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Recommended Grinding Circuit
What follows is a basic grinding circuit. More detailed explanations and possible maps forthcoming.

Dalaran

Set hearth to Dalaran if not already set. While there, pick up the cooking and jewelcrafting dailies if you can. Fly from Dalaran to Dun Niffleheim in Storm Peaks.

Storm Peaks

In Dun Niffleheim, pick up the Sons of Hodir quests that are available to you. The order I place the quests below will allow those who do not have all of the quests to run the circuit easily and add the other quests into it as they become available. I will seperate the quests into reputation in order to make it easier on those who have not reached certain plateaus.

Friendly

1. Fly to 70, 60 and begin killing Brittle Revenants that roam the lake until you have five Essence of Ice. Once you have these, move them to your hot bar and fly to 77, 63. On the ground, you will find black spike sticking from the snow. Click the Essence of Ice and you will throw one of your stock onto the spike. It will form ice around it and become clickable. Click this to get a metal scrap. Do this four more times to complete Hot and Cold.

2. Move Hodir’s Horn to your hot bar and fly to Thunderfall at 71, 49. Here you will find the NPC’s you need to kill to complete Blowing Hodir’s Horn. Kill five each of Forefather giants and Frostborn dwarves. After killing and looting the bodies, select the corpse and use Hodir’s Horn to send them on their way.

3. Fly to 55, 63 and enter the cave there. Inside, you will find Vicious Oils as well as Ravenous Jormungers. The drop rate on Vicious Oils is 100%, so you only need to kill 5 of the slimes to complete Polishing the Helm. Once you have done this, head out of the cave for the next step

Honored

4. Head to 57, 62 and find the body of a dead frostworg. Put your Ethereal Worg’s Fang in your hot bar and click it. Select the ethereal worg that appears so you can easily keep up with your gardian. They roam for quite a bit before finding their prey and with multiple people working from the same place, if you do not do this, you may lose your worg. When he howls, he will have found an infiltrator. Kill the Dark Iron Dwarf, head back to the worg corpse, and repeat twice more to complete Spy Hunter.

5. Fly to 61, 63 and settle on one of the low lying peaks there. Watch for the Wild Wyrms flying by there. Place Hodir’s Spear on your hot bar and select a target. When it flies close enough, click on your spear and prepare for the ride of your life as the Wyrm swoops towards you and lifts you into the air with it.

You will have a new bar available to you that will have different skills on it depending on the “Phase”. You must get the dragon to 25% of its health in Phase 1 to enter Phase 2. This is where you will kill the monster. There is no ‘exit vehicle’ button this time; it is you and the dragon and one of you will die.

During the first phase you will be hanging onto the dragon’s belly and will have four buttons:

  1. Grab On – Tightens your grip by 10. Grip is essential to your success and if this drops to 0, you will fall to your death.
  2. Dodge Claws – Gives you a dodge buff for 2 secs in order to stay away from the dragon’s claws.
  3. Thrust Spear – Will thrust the spear for a small amount of damage. Costs 5 grip
  4. Mighty Spear Thrust – Will thrust the spear for major damage. Costs 15 grip and has a 10 second cooldown.

As soon as you are picked up, begin spamming ability 1. You need to get as much grip as you can to stay on the dragon. The alternative is not healthy for your character. In quick order the dragon will try to swipe at you with its claws. As soon as you get the warning, use ability 2, then hit 4 for a mighty thrust. Begin spamming button one again, hitting 2 as soon as the dragon begins to swipe at you. If ability 4 is off cooldown, use it immediately after you dodge. If it is not, use ability 3 then spam ability 1 until you see another warning to dodge. By this time, ability 4 should be ready again, so use it again. Remember to spam ability 1 as much as you can. Pretty much do this until you hit phase 2.

When the dragon reaches 25% of its health, it will grab you with its mouth and begin the second phase. During this stage, you will only have 2 buttons and will be taking constant damage:

  1. Pry Jaws Open -Each time this is used, it opens the jaws of the dragon 5 degrees adding 5% to the chance that Fatal Strike will kill the dragon. Will stack 20 times.
  2. Fatal Strike – Thrust the spear into the jaws of the dragon, killing it instantly. Chance for this to work is 0% at the beginning, increasing with each use of Pry Jaws.

When you move to the dragon’s mouth, begin spamming button 1 every time it comes up. Do this ten times at a minimum. Once you count ten, press button 2. This should kill the dragon, plummeting both you and the creature to the ground. You will jump out of it’s mouth just as you hit the ground.

Killing the dragon will complete Thrusting Hodir’s Spear.

Revered

6. Fly back to 57, 62 and look for Roaming Jormungers. Target one, use Arngrim’s Tooth on it and it will become disembodied. Attack it until it gets to around 25% health. At this time it will become disoriented and Arngrim’s ghost will appear. He will grab the Jormunger and eat it. Do this four more times to complete Feeding Arngrim.

Jewelcrafting dailies in this area:

  • Bright Armor Relic – An Elemental Armor Scrap can fall from the Brittle Revenants or Searing Revenants engaged during Hot and Cold.
  • Intricate Bone Figurine – A Proto-Drake Bone can be found off the drakes in the nest areas near Dun Niffelheim. The can drop off mature or young proto-drakes
  • Wicked Sun Brooch – An Iron Dwarf Brooch can fall from any of the iron dwarves up the trail from Dun Niffelheim or from the dwarves found during Spy Games.

Once all the quests are complete, turn in all the Son’s of Hodir Quests and fly to Argent Stand in Zul’Drak

Zul’Drak

1. Pick up Troll Patrol from Commander Kunz. If you wish to complete the run in the 20 minute timer period, I suggest you make your way to Alchemist Finklestein first. This way, if you waste too much time trying to finish his daily (by far the most annoying of the grouping), you can abandon it and the Troll Patrol daily and re-start the timer by taking Troll Patrol Commander Kunz again.

2. Fly to Alchemist Finklestein at 35, 52 and accept Troll Patrol: The Alchemists Apprentice. Talk to him a second time and tell him you are ready to begin. The prepare yourself to run around finding the 5 things he needs to complete his potion. He will whisper to you what he needs. When he does, use the picture below to help you find which side you should be able to find it on. By right clicking and viewing the picture, you can then print out a copy for easy reference during this quest.

This is not my creation, but it has been posted in Wowhead in the quest comments. Original author unknown.

For the most part, you will want to head to the right side of the buidling for almost all of your ingredients (if you are looking at the cauldron with the room entry behind you). The reason is that the cauldron is closer to that side of the room, meaning a few less steps between each ingredient. After you pick up the needed ingredient, run back to the cauldron and right click on it to drop it in. Repeat this four more time, finding different ingredients each time until you are given a completed message. Turn in the quest to complete Troll Patrol: The Alchemists Apprentice and part one of Troll Patrol.

3. Fly to Captain Grondel at 48, 64 and accept his quest. All of his quests take place in the shallow water area to his west.

  • Troll Patrol: Couldn’t Care Less
    This is another quest that could ruin your chances to complete the Troll Patrol under the time limit, especially if there are several people all fighting over the low spawn rate of the elementals. You are charged with killing 7 Mossy Rampagers. They may share places with basilisks that roam the area as well, so pretty much kill everything you see and hopefully you can complete this quickly.
  • Troll Patrol: Creature Comforts
    In the waters you will find large thorn-like sticks poking from the ground with sparkles showing you their locations. Right click on these to collect 20 Dead Thornwood.
  • Troll Patrol: Whatdya Want, a Medal?
    In the waters and buildings are the bodies of Drakkari trolls. Right click on a body to pick up a Drakkari Medallion. Collect 7 of these to comlete the quest.

After you complete the objectives for the daily, return to Captain Grondel and turn it in. This will complete the second requirement for Troll Patrol.

4. Fly to Captain Rupert and accept his quest.

5. Fly to Captain Brandon and complete his quest.

6. Return to Commander Kunz and turn in Troll Patrol. If done within 20 minute, you can take the “Congratulations!” quest for addition rep and gold.

7. If you have the jewelcrafting daily “Glowing Ivory Figurine”, fly to Kamagua in Howling Fjord. Near Kamagua, there are herds of Shoveltusks that roam the area. Kill these for Shoveltusk Ivory.

8. Fly to Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight.

Dragonblight

1. Accept the quest from Lord Afrasastrasz on the second level of the temple. Mount one of the dragons just outside the entrance.

You will have six abilities on the while on the dragon:

  1. Fire blast. This is your standard attack while doing this daily. It is a channeled cast, but you do not have to stand still to use it.
  2. Fire Burst. This is a melee ranged attack that applies damage over time to your target. Hit this when close and spam ability 1.
  3. Regrowth. Use this to heal damage to your drake. It has a cooldown and is a Heal over Time spell. It is instacast though, so this helps.
  4. Burst of Speed. This is a ‘get the heck out of town’ ability Use it when you are swamped with dragons (can usually happen when you attempt to destabilize the Azure Dragonshrine). It also has a cooldown.
  5. Destabilize Dragonshrine. Only one use, and the title describes it.
  6. Leave Vehicle. You must dismount to turn in the quest.

First, use your burst of speed, fly towards the Azure Dragonshrine and dive into it until you hit bottom. Use ability 5, wait until you get the message that says Dragonhrine Destabilized, then fly up and out. You may get swamped by the smaller drakes as you leave. 2 fire blasts to each should take them out pretty easily. If you pick up any of the larger dragons, or your dragon is taking too much damage, use ability 3 and 4 and fly back to Wyrmrest Temple. By the time you make it back, you should be healed up fairly well and you should begin attacking the larger dragons. Best to zoom in, hit them with the ability 2, then make circles while spamming ability 1. Three blasts should take them down, especially with the DoT ability in effect.

One you have downed 3 of the dragons and 5 drakes, fly back to Afrasastrasz and turn in the quest. If you can complete it in under two minutes, you will be given the Rapid Defense achievement.

2. Fly to the Transitus Shield in Borean Tundra

Borean Tundra

Take the quest from Raelorasz and fly to the far west of Coldarra. Park on one of the many low lying peaks to stay away from roaming mobs while having a good chance to snag a drake (exact location of my favorite spot to come). Fly back with captured drake and turn in quest.

Fly up to the top of the nexus spire and get quest from Corastrasza. It is best to have a group for this one, as solo it is a bit of a pain in the rear. I suggest that autocast be turned on (will give instructions once I get them set up) for the heals you can use on your dragon in order to save you a lot of target switching. Complete the quest and hearth back to Dalaran.

Dalaran

From Dalaran, talk to the commander in the flight area and ask him to send you to the Skybreaker in Icecrown.

Icecrown

Take the quest from Absalon the Pious on the Skybreaker. He patrols from the main deck to the upper deck and back down again. Complete his quest and fly to Shadow Vault.

In Shadow Vault, take the three quests and head west over the mountains to Jotenheim. Complete the three quests here and return to Shadow Vault. Fly to Death’s Rise.

At Death’s Rise, take the three quests and fly to Onslaught Harbor to the west. Complete the three quests and return to Death’s Rise and turn in the quests.

Jewelcrafting Dailies located here

  • Blood Jade Amulet – A Vyrkul Amulet will fall from any Vyrkul killed in Jotenheim.
  • Shifting Sun Curio – Fly to Crusader’s Point. Travel down the hill and kill undead in this area until a Scourge Curio drops.

Fly back to Dalaran.

Dalaran

Turn in the cooking and jewlcrafting dailies. Pick up the heroic and regular dungeon quests and find a group.

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    spiralingshape
    Jun 28, 2009 @ 22:13 pm

    yes, consider it!I would replace Pa-Troll with the 5 Argent Tournament Champion Quests (requires a unlocking quest chain that takes 4 daily slots for 5 days):

    Taking Battle To The Enemy (+250 AC rep, +1 Champion’s Seal, +10g or +250 rep with one of the starter cities)
    Among the Champions (+250 AC rep, +1 Champion’s Seal, +10g or +250 rep with one of the starter cities)
    Battle Before The Citadel (+250 AC rep, +1 Champion’s Seal, +10g or +250 rep with one of the starter cities)
    Threat From Above (+250 AC rep, +2 Champion’s Seals, +10g or +250 rep with one of the starter cities)
    Contributin’ To The Cause (+100 AC rep, -10g)

    You get more rep, more gold, and Seals for those nifty Tournament prizes!

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    Primax
    Feb 8, 2009 @ 1:16 am

    Welll…A few points about your post.

    If you’re not 80, you should be more worried about reaching 80 off normal quests.

    Doing the reps in the order of the one which offers the least is logical only from the sense of getting them all done. You should prioritise which rep gives you what you need(gear, head enchant, shoulder enchants) over anything else.

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    Feb 6, 2009 @ 23:37 pm

    Prioritize FactionsI agree with the author here. The point about championing could be more explicit, but since he assumes the reader has reached level 80, he can probably assume the reader knows what championing is.

    If I wanted to be Exalted with all Championed factions as soon as possible, I’d do all the dailies, and Champion the group that offered the least rep per day. That would be:
    – Kirin Tor
    – Argent Dawn
    – Wyrmrest Accord
    – Ebon Blade
    – Alliance Vanguard/Horde Expedition*

    However, one may want to change this order based on the quantity and quality of each quartermaster’s inventory. For example, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the plate armor available from Wyrmrest, so I started with them. Still, I’ve known several players who became Exalted with Ebon Blade without ever Championing them. The quests required to unlock the Ebon Blade dailies will get you Honored with Argent Dawn (higher if you’ve spent time in Zul’Drak) and almost Revered with the Ebon Blade, so unless you’re running multiple dungeons every day, you’ll probably be Exalted with Ebon, Argent, or both before you’ve finished your Kirin Tor grind.

    [i]* Alliance/Horde is championed by [/i]not[i] wearing one of the above factions’ tabards. However, one-time quests should get you to Exalted (or at least very close), so championing isn’t necessary unless you’re in a big hurry to buy something from them.[/i]

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    Jan 30, 2009 @ 15:42 pm

    It’s something to consider…It’s something to consider, but unless you are both a JC and a Cook, you will still have an empty daily even if you do both dungeon dailies. If you take out the troll patrol quests, you lose +350 AD rep for the 5 quests (remember, the initial Troll Patrol is a daily by itself and where you get your rep gain from) or +700 if you get them done quickly enough for “Congradulations!”. The sixth quest is really the breaker of a full 25 dailies with this system. If you don’t make the time limit, or if you can’t do the JC quests, you will hit 25 dailies each time you make these circuits.

    I had thought about the oracle/frenzyheart dailies in the rotation at one point, but honestly neither group really provides any gear boost for a level 80. Grinding the factions listed will grant you good purples once you are exalted with them. The best you can get from the oracles/frenzyheart is a trinket that should already be replaced by the time you get it and an egg/bottle which are obtainable at revered.

    The Sons of Hodir quests, as the number increases as you gain rep with them, allows you to more quickly finish their grind. At revered, you are accumulating almost 2k rep with them each day. That’s approximately 11 days of rep grinding to exalted with them. At that time, you can pretty much stop running their quests and can start running more gold dailies in Icecrown.

    I think I rambled on this post a little, but the basic point is that you would lose a lot of AD rep if you dropped the Troll Patrol quests out of your rotation if you are grinding rep.

  • img
    Jan 30, 2009 @ 11:03 am

    Double post :/Double post, sorry.

  • img
    Jan 30, 2009 @ 11:03 am

    You might want to considerYou might want to consider removing ‘Troll patrol’. It takes [i]5[/i] daily quest-slots. First the 4 objective’s, and the quest ‘Congratulations’

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    Jan 29, 2009 @ 16:40 pm

    Already done, to a degreeSince the Kirin Tor is the hardest of the reps to grind, I do recommend in the guide to champion for them when you are running dungeons. It is by far the easiest to grind using this method. But I’ll put a little note in there about championing with the other three reps as well. I thought I had done this, but I may have taken it out by mistake.

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    kantag
    Jan 23, 2009 @ 3:19 am

    Championing TabardIf you are doing dailies for reputation perhaps its worth mentioning somewhere in the guide that you can champion level 80 dungeons and heroic dungeons with a tabard.

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    Jan 15, 2009 @ 19:16 pm

    Adding circuit information now.Gradually adding the daily grind rotation now. I’m debating on putting a second ToC for the grinding section to make it a little easier to get around. Of course, while you are using the guide, it is easy to simply scroll down. I’m still unsure how I will continue. However, the details of each quest will be posted over the next few days, hopefully helping others who may have questions about them.

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    Jan 13, 2009 @ 19:30 pm

    I had that debate also, Jame.I had wondered where I should put it, since it can belong to either group. Thanks for the extra link, though. I have no idea how to do that ^_^.

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    Jan 13, 2009 @ 19:25 pm

    Looks promising.

    I’mLooks promising.

    I’m debating whether this belongs more to the Reputation category or the WotLK Dailies.

    Probably both, so I guess I’ll add a link to this guide in the Reputation category.

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    Jan 13, 2009 @ 17:49 pm

    More information to comeThe only thing I have left to finalize is the grinding cricuit for this guide. Please note that while I have put a money amount on the guide, this is not a money grinding guide. It is strictly for grinding rep with the groups that can give gear upgrades and enchantments / recipes. Believe me, there are much better and easier ways to use 25 dailies to make money.

    Also, I did not include the Oracles or Frenzyheart quests for a reason. There are just not enough dailies to grind with them. Each faction gives 3 quests per day, but you would have to remove them from one of your faction grinds. If you have become exalted with a faction, please feel free to hit whichever of the Sholazar groups you are aligned with.

    Enjoy, and please feel free to comment and leave ideas for improvement. I understand that at the moment, this is mostly text, but with the upcoming grinding circuit, there will be more pictures.

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