How To: Be the Last Person in the WORLD to be Exalted with SSO…

November 16, 2009 · Filed under Guides · Tagged branches

I am probably the last person on my server to get to exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive.

When I log on, complete my Argent Tournament dailies, slowly plod through Dalaran at 1 disconnect per second to the Shatt portal, check the fishing daily (WTB last crocolisk!) and then take the next portal to Quel’Danas, I prepare myself for what is essentially a very quick set of dailies. I always, out of curiosity, check out my /who for the area.

Every day that I’ve been on the island except for ONE (where I was joined by a level 74 warlock, apparently – although I never saw him), I have been the sole alliance player on there. A few days ago, I saw three PvP flagged level 70-odd horde. Did they think I was stupid? I get OWNED in PvP.

I love it, but I get owned. I’m not going to take anybody on. Especially when that anybody is a beefy looking (no pun intended) Tauren shaman with two of his busom buddies in the wings.

Anyway, Quel’Danas.

The faction itself, the island and the accompanying raid were added as the last major content patch before Lich King, 2.4.0.

I wasn’t even level 70 then, so I only managed the dailies once or twice during my time at 70, and even then it was when I could piggyback along with a pure DPS friend – as a healing tree with +healing rather than simply spell power, I was weak at DPS. Very, very weak.

Dual-speccing does mean, however, that I can now manage these dailies with ease. That and the fact I’m ten levels higher than the mobs themselves.

When the patch itself came out, not all NPCs and quests were available, but the SSO area will now be fully launched on your server and therefore you will be able to access all NPCs and all quests.

There are two different sets of quests. I am inherently lazy, and therefore the only quests I do are the ones I don’t have to leave the island for. This does mean I miss out a fair few dailies every day, but the time saved is in my opinion worth it. I will cover all the dailies though, in case you do have a bit of extra time and you’re feeling particularly over-zealous.

There are 11 dailies available on the island itself. Point 1 – if you’re grinding this at 80, remember to turn your low-level quest tracker on.

I would recommend picking ALL the quests up at once (just run around the courtyard section and grab them all), then following the guide below for the way in which to do them).

Your Continued Support is clearly the easiest quest. Pay 10 gold to the Draenei asking for cash in the main courtyard for 150 rep.

The most annoying pair of quests are

Disrupt the Greengill Coast and Don’t Stop Now. For these two, you slip through the gap (there is a path) between buildings on the eastern side of the island and reach some naga. The female naga drop and “Orb of Murloc Control” and the male drop keys for Daggerspine chests. The drop rates for these vary. This quest gives you 250 rep.

When you right click an orb, you will check a green runic circle like you do when casting an AoE spell like Hurricane for druids. Target this over as MANY baby murloc as possible (I can sometimes get 5 in one go, if not, four is definitely possible) and click it. The orb will break, the murlocs will turn red, be released and start bring a world of pain on the the nearest naga. You need to release ten of the babies. This quest gives

The drop rate on the chest keys seems to be a bit lower, but three keys for three of the tiny sparkling chests will unlock to give you the three pieces of Daggerspine ore. This quest also nets you 250 rep.

Whilst in this area, run a little bit further south for the shrine reading for the quest Know Your Ley Lines. Right clicking the pale blue crystal in your inventory will “read” this ley line, and as level 80 you should just be able to circumnavigate the swimming naga and just take the reading.

Run back to the main area and across to the Western, grassy hills of the island. Here you can complete three of the quests. Kill the gross, zombie half elf guys moaning in Thalassian until they drop four mana remnants. These are green piles of dust similar in look to the fertile spores you get off things in Zangarmarsh. The drop rate is mediocre, wowhead says it’s about 30% which is probably about right. I tend to use my Starfall spell here and try and aggro as many of these as I can, as well as running through the range of any Erratic Sentries I find. Kill five of these and then use the attuned crystal core in your bag to complete the quest Further Conversions. In this hilly area, you are also most likely to find the five Bloodberry bushes you need to complete Open for Business. They are little green patches of bush on the ground that sparkle, there are usually a couple clustered around tree roots. Further Conversions nets you 150 rep and you get 250 rep for Open for Business.

On your way back to the main courtyard, you should run past a few large, red, pulsating crystals. Right click on the four mana remnants in your bag to finish off the quest Arm the Wards!. This one nets you 150 rep.

Slightly south of the main area where you can pick up quests there’s a long bridge. On either side of this bridge are the next sets of mobs you need to kill. Drop over the Western side of this bridge and AoE your way through as many of the blood elves here as possible. The Marksmen carrying fiery bows, death knights have big swords (or are mounted) and summoners are in a dress with an imp. Try and AoE your way into the largest, main, open building, as it has a fair few summoners without imps inside. Stand right underneath the big red crystal the summoners are channeling to and pick off all those around you. Right click on your blue crystal again which knocks off the second location for Know Your Ley Lines.

Outside the buildings, knock off the last few summoners or whatever that you might need to complete  Crush the Dawnblade (250 rep) and then run right under the bridge to an area packed full of demons and a large green portal. If you simply run to the portal and AoE again, you should be able to pick off 4 – 6 of the necessary demons for The Battle Must Go On (250 rep). All the demons count, the sisters of pain, elemental looking ones and the general demoney type dudes. There should be one big green guy too, kill him, plant your banner and that will complete the quest. Walk right up to the portal, click the blue crystal for a final time and this will complete Know Your Ley Lines, which also gives 250 rep.

Finally, run to the harbour. There are two NPCs stood by two dragonhawks. The one on the right hand side has two options for you. The final two of the island based quests are easy to do, although may take practice. The easier of the two is Keeping the Enemy at Bay. “intercept the reinforcements” is the conversation you need to have with this NPC to be flown over the three boats. Use your flaming oil in your inventory to target each boat, one click in any area of the boat will usually work. If you do miss, don’t panic. You can swim over and just do the same thing, it doesn’t make any difference. Landing on the main boat and killing the reservists there will net you all 6 needed for completing the quest – 250 rep for this one.

Click on the hovering dragonhawk at the end of the boat for a quick lift back to the harbour. Accept the chance to “complete an air strike” and that will fly you over to the dead scar. You have a minute or so to prepapre for this one so make sure you have the arcane charges mapped to a hot key or somewhere easy to reach, and make sure you have smooth movement over your camera angles. It used to take me two passes to kill everything but it really is just practice. Target the usual green rune over different mobs. The Sorcerers are big red guys, the wrath enforcers slightly smaller red guys on the ground (can sometimes knock out two at once here), and the pit overlords and like mini versions of brutallus. Don’t bother hitting him. You do get a couple of passes over so it is doable, I usually concentrate on the sorcerors and pit lords first as the enforcers are easier to pick off as you fly away, if needs be.

Completing this last one will net you a final 150 rep.

Now, if you are, like me, essentially incredibly lazy, you will not want to traverse Outland every day into EVERY single zone (except Zangarmarsh) for a few quests. These 11 will, altogether, get you 2350 rep with SSO per day.

Starting at neutral, it will therefore take you a total of:

19 days

to reach exalted from neutral.

Now in my opinion that isn’t very long, and therefore trekking across Outland isn’t a necessity.

But, to be fair, here is a quick sum up of the other quests that you can do every day to increase your SSO rep.

Please note, you actually collect these quests from NPCs either on Quel’Danas or in Shattrah – a couple are nearby the flight points, and one is inside right by the portal. Remember to keep your quest tracker on!

Maintaing the Sunwell Portal – head to Blade’s Edge, right up top to Bashir’s Landing. Kill ethereals til a phase devise has dropped, and then use it to collect 10 mana cells.
In Hellfire there are two quests you can complete, Blast the Gateway (use the living embers in your inventory and then kill fel sparks – 8 will result in the embers becoming unstable and completing the quest), and Blood for Blood, weaken 4 felblood and then use the siphon in your inventory to finish them off.
Nagrand has one quest, The Multiphase Survey. Fly to Nagrand (the middle zone with the voidwalkers is good for this), equip the goggles and float around looking for red clouds of essence. You need to “record” 6 clouds to complete the quest.
Head to Netherstorm for Sunfury Attack Plans, any blood elf can drop these so as a levle 80 I would recommend just going to one of the manaforges and wiping a big group out at once.
Ata’mal Armaments (picked up from blacksmith on Quel’Danas), involves killing orcs in Shadowmoon Valley til they drop 5 armaments. Return to Quel’Danas once you have five and “use” them next to her anvil. This will cleanse them.
Rediscovering Your Roots comes from the lady that gives you Open For Business on Quel’Danas. Head to Razorthorn Rise in Terrokar (near with Hellfire borders with Shatt), kill flayers til a flayer gland drops, use the gland on a ravager which will then become a pet. Look for dirt mounds and use the pet ability “expose razorthorn root”. You need 5 of these.
Finally, for gatherers only, Gaining the Advantage asks you to herb/mine or skin until you collect 8 bits of Nether Residue.

Doing these quests as well as the 11 on the actual island nets you a complete total of 4450 rep per day.

This means that it would take a total of 10 days to go from neutral to exalted.

This is much quicker “days” wise, but much longer time wise.

Take your pick and I hope you enjoyed the guide!

 

Thanks

Elsen