MoP Reputation Guide For Crafters

MoP Reputation Grinding Guide For Crafters

Mists of Pandaria brought us back to the world of grinding for our profession crafters' recipes, similar to how it was during Vanilla WoW or more recently, how we ground for our Firelands Dailies awarded recipes.  Being locked behind reputation grinds helps to keep some competition out of the specific markets, but it can be quite a chore to unlock all of the gated recipes across your army of crafting alts.  This grind is even worse if you tend to support your crafting professions with the matching gathering profession (Ex: Blacksmith/Miner, Skinner/Leatherworker), like I prefer. 

As I've just completed the reputation grinds on my main and my first level 90 alt, I've got a long road ahead of me to unlock each and every gated recipe.  So I've compiled this reputation grinding guide for quickly indentifying which alt crafter needs to get leveled and start grinding even more reputations.  The Grand Commendations addition in Patch 5.1 has been amazing at helping me comple faction grinds on my alternate crafters.  Those that are level 90 and grinding faction rep obviously benefit, but even the level 85 alts that have just started leveling get the boost from quest awarded reputations, which adds up to a nice bonus by the time I reach level 90.  It really is a nice headstart that gets those first few levels of reputation awards unlocked that much faster.

Professions & What They Need To Unlock

Blacksmithing - The Klaxxi
Enchanting - Golden Lotus -> August Celestials & Shado-Pan
Tailoring - Golden Lotus -> August Celestials
Leatherworking - Golden Lotus
Jewelcrafting - Order of the Cloud Serpent
Cooking - The Anglers & The Tillers
Engineering, Inscription, & Alchemy - None

What Factions Award Profession Recipes

The Lorewalkers - Can unlock the Lorewalker's Lodestone & the Lorewalker's Map, although the required currency is better spent with Brann Bronzebeard, if you are still chasing the Vial of Sands Recipe or unlocking Archaelogy pets and mounts.
The Klaxxi - Blacksmithing recipes are awarded via Klaxxi reputation, including the Living Steel Belt Buckle, Living Steel Weapon Chain, Ghost Iron Shield Spike, and other gear crafting recipes.
Golden Lotus - Golden Lotus is the precursor required to unlock both the Shado-Pan and the August Celestials daily quest hubs.  Also awards Some Tailoring and Leatherworking patterns (Spellthreads and gear included).
Shado-Pan - Awards Enchanting Recipes.
The August Celestials - Tailoring craftable recipe for the Royal Satchel Bag and more Enchanting Recipes.
Order of the Cloud Serpent - Here's where you get the Jewelcrafting Mount recipes.
The Anglers - 2 Cooking Recipes
The Tillers -  2 Cooking Recipes and Increased Farm Size

Hopefully this helps you to plan ahead and streamline your leveling and grinding process.  For example, If you have a Blacksmith, you are better off wrapping up the tail end of your leveling to 90 process by completing the chains in Townlong Steppes and the Dread Wastes that lead to getting a headstart unlocking the rather long pre-quest chain for unlocking the Klaxxi reputation daily quests. 

Plan ahead wisely and you will save yourself a lot of time and hassle.

You can also check out Nev's post on the similar topic:  Level 90! Now What?

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Grand Commendations For Faster Reputation Gain

WoW Patch 5.1 Introduced Grand Commendations

In my opinion, Grand Commendations are the best additions to World of Warcraft that came with Patch 5.1.  The Grand Commendations are heaven sent for players like me that grind reputations on multiple characters.  They will make my life so much easier in the long run.  While the process of gating recipes behind reputation gains is great for limiting your market competition, it is also a real bear when you have multiple profession crafters to grind the same reputations over an over just to unlock recipes.  I will unlock all of the recipes eventually, but that time has been drastically decreased since the addition of the new Grand Commendations.

Grand Commendations

I touched on the "token" that was coming in my post warning to save your reputation turn-ins, like the Onyx Eggs, Gui-Lai Key, Hozen Peace Pipes, etc.  Those of you that heeded my advice will able to turn those same reputation gaining items in for double the reputation award after Patch 5.1.

The new changes to the way we earn reputation are unlocked once you purchase and use the Grand Commendation token from the appropriate Mists of Pandaria faction Quartermaster.  Each of the MoP faction Quartermasters now sell their faction specific Grand Commendation, which is available for purchase after attaining Revered status with that faction.  Once purchased and used, every character on your account will earn reputation with that single faction at double the rate.  This includes reputation gains from Revered to Exhalted as well. 

This doubling of reputation gain occurs on kills, quests, and reputation turn-ins and the +100% increase stacks (additively, not cumalatively) with other reputation gaining buffs like the now gone Celebratory Package buff, the Spirit of Sharing buff from Pilgrim's Bounty, and the Patch 5.1 added Darkmoon Carousel riding buff.  Also this reputation gain increase is per account not just on your server, which is also a bonus for players with alts on multiple servers. 

Note: The Tillers faction has a Grand Commendation, but it only effects the general Tillers Reputation and does not grant bonus rep for the individual Farmers.

WARNING:

There is currently no way to tell if you have previously purchased a Grand Commendation for any of the factions, short of doing something that awards reputation and checking the game log.  I highly recommend that you create a master checklist of all MoP factions.  Then as soon as the first character on your account reaches Revered status with a faction, you purchase and use the Grand Commendation.  Then mark that faction off of your master list, so you don't get confused about which Commendation rep bonuses have been unlocked and which are still needing to be purchased.  this will help prevent wasting another 38g on a Grand Commendation that you have already used.

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Reputation Changes Coming To WoW & Tips For Rep Gains

Major Reputation Changes Are Slated For WoW

One of the biggest complaints coming through loud and clear to Blizzard regarding the Mists of Pandaria expansion has been the strong dislike for daily quests and reputation grinding.  The official Blizzard forums are overflowing with complaints regarding the dailies grind in MoP, which is much like the old Vanilla reputation grinding model. 

The 8 year WoW anniversary gift (Which you find in each of your character's mailboxes) awards a slight buff to reputation earned from kills, but this amounts to hardly no bonus unless you are out grinding mobs for their reputation from kills.  Even better is the Spirit of Sharing buff, which you earn from eating a full 5 stack of all of the Pilgrim's Bounty foods on the great sharing tables.  The Spirit of Sharing gives you a buff that increases all reputation earned (and experience), which is much better since the Spirit of Sharing buff also works on quest turn in reputation awards.  The good news is that both of the reputation buffs do stack and can be used simultaneously.

These are both slight buffs to help you progress through the reputation grinds with a little faster pace, but the better change to the overall reputation grinding system is on its way.

WoW Reputation Grinding Made Easier

On the Official WoW Forums, Crithto (Community Manager) made a post regarding the upcoming reputation changes.  These are going to be some excellent changes for those of us that are stuck grinding reputation on multiple characters.  I myself have multiple crafters that need to grind out the various reputation factions just to unlock their professsion recipes.  These new reputation changes will definately make that much easier once it is introduced, hopefully in Patch 5.2, since it's currently not slated for WoW Patch 5.1.

What Reputation Changes Are Coming To WoW?

According to the official forum post, the major changes to how we earn WoW reputation will include:

1. Once a character reaches Revered status with a faction, all other characters on the same Battle.net account will gain reputation for that same faction at double the current rate.
2. Upon reaching Revered status with a faction, all reputation gains towards earning Exhalted status will also be doubled.

So get Revered with a character and all characters on your account progress twice as fast when earning reputation with that same faction.  Get to revered on all of the factions to unlock double reputation gains for all of your account's characters.  This can't be implemeted soon enough!

Thinking Ahead And Saving Rep

With the current reputation buffs, we can put them to good use for a slight increase in our reputation earnings.  Don't get careless though and waste your reputation too early because it way be more beneficial to wait until the change to reputation is patched into the active WoW servers.  Huh? Say what?

Currently, you should continue to push towards Revered and then STOP, unless you need to unlock Exhalted status for a gear upgrade, recipe, or mount.  If you don't need anything at Exhalted, then just stop at Revered.  you can go back to pushing to Exhalted for Achievement reasons after they patch the changes in and it will half your time and rep required.  And Revered is the required status to unlock the double reputation gains on your other alts.

Reputation turn ins should not be used now, unless you have enough collected to push you to Exhalted status.  Onyx Eggs, Relics of Guo-Lai (from the Ancient Guo-Lai Cache), Hozen Peace Pipes, and other items that award reputation should not be wasted now.  I would just collect these items for now and hold onto them until the reputation changes go live when we can earn double the points for using them.  If you have enough to push you to Exhalted, then by all means yeah use them now, but I definately wouldn't use them as soon as I find them.  Once you have enough to hit the cap, then use em, but don't waste your reputation gains now, when you can get double gains in the future.


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