Starting Golden Lotus Faction

 

Notes for myself from a blue post via MMOChampion.

 

We've seen some confusion about how to gain access to the Golden Lotus faction dailies in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. In case you've been having trouble getting where you need to be, below are some detailed steps to ensure you're on the correct path.

Spoiler Warning! This guide shares some details about the associated quest chain that takes you to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and the Golden Lotus. If you'd prefer to naturally find your way there during your adventures, the first couple of bullets should be sufficient for pointing you in the right direction.

Here is how you get into the Vale of Eternal Blossoms:

• At level 87, go speak to Anduin/Dezco at the Temple of the White Tiger in Kun-Lai Summit and complete “A Celestial Experience.”
• Accept the follow-up quest, “A Witness to History.”
• Find Anduin/Dezco at the big gate north of the Vale. This will start a cinematic that opens the gates.
• Turn in “A Witness to History” to Zhi the Harmonious at the Golden Pagoda in the center of Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
• Accept and complete the follow-up quest, “The Shrine of Two Moons,” and “The Shrine of Seven Stars” (Horde/Alliance respectively).
• If you're not level 90 you'll receive no further quests.
• At level 90 you should return and pick up the quest chain again. Note that you must have trained flying to proceed.

• Pick up “The Ruins of Guo-Lai” and complete it.
• This leads to “Out with the Scouts” and “Barring Entry.”
• This leads to “Killing the Quilen” and “Stones of Power.” While in the ruins, you should also get “The Guo-Lai Halls.” If you don't get this quest near the entrance to the crypt, you can return to Anji Autumnlight to get this quest.
• These 3 quests must be completed before you can complete “Leaving an Opening.”
• Turn in “Leaving an Opening” at the Golden Pagoda, and this should lead straight into the dailies.

If you have any questions or concerns, or if you're still experiencing issues accessing the Vale of Eternal Blossoms or the Golden Lotus daily quests, please let us know.

You Are Not Prepared: Hunter 4.0 Specs, Glyphs, Pet Changes, Spells, Macros, Shot Priorities

Time to re-learn the hunter game!  I've been trying to get onto the PTR since it opened.  My loader just didn't want to keep downloading.  It died frequently and only got about 1/3rd of the PTR down.  This was almost enough to load screens, but nowhere near close enough to play.

I've been spending most of my hunter time collecting acheesements (hero, did it years ago, pacman, master wg,  74 mnts incl. a hog, a whole bunch o pets, and not quite insane 36 rep incl. fur love).

I've also been preparing for tomorrow.  I prepped myself by getting every Glyph that exists today (including some that will be junk tomorrow).  I bought out a few AH markets that may be blossoming tomorrow.

All that said, I don't know the ideal spec.  I don't know how much I'm going to re-forge or into what.  I don't know the best glyphs to use, best shot selection or even my UI and macros.  It's all changing.

Here's the thing though:  It's okay.  In the next month, we'll work it all out.  But most likely nobody really cares about level 80... least of all Blizzard.  They are only balancing and tweaking things for level 85.  I mean, SV and BM don't even have access to cobra shot (the non-Marksman version of steady shot).

Everyone's UI is going to suck. Auction addons will be broken.  Macros will need to be stripped down and re-built from scratch.  It's all okay.  I'm not even overly concerned that my uber armor pen gems will become crit gems.  I may just reforge other crit and might even switch to SV for a while.

But I'll be keeping my eye on what works, playing with test dummies and showing off what I'm using. I really love all the specs.  To me: BM is like sittin on the floor givin your pet a good scritchin'.  MM is all about the ranged weapon and headshots.  SV is like dancing with your enemies and blasting them to bits.

What Has Kheldul Been Up Two?

[A followup to What Has Kheldul Been Up To?.]

Kheldul is now an official Crusader. I had thought that crusaders didn't necessarily have any particular expertise -- that the title referred to their journey and not how far along they were in that quest. But hey.

My PvP set has improved. I'm now over 800 resilience. I've actually already peeled some of that resilience down for more crit and agility. I've been replacing purple PvP pieces with better purple PvP pieces. I've also been max-honor-capped at 75k honor for a while now. Unless I start arena battling then I'm gonna stay there. :-/

What Has Kheldul Been Up To?

I've shot up the walls of Ulduar and picked up a new rifle. I've disarmed the folks in the antechamber.

I did some jousting. I didn't realize there was another level still -- with a title! I thought I had to wait until 3.2 for the story to continue up there. Interestingly, I'm 3k rep away from that. So, I guess I'll pick it up again.

Along the way I made some lasting friendships with factions, including the big guys.

The Oracles

So I've finally ground out the rep for the Oracle Talisman of Ablution yesterday. I'm not exactly sure in what cases I'll use it. I'm thinking solo'ng, and 5mans, and some PvP would make sense. I don't want to run out of mana in any of those cases. And I'm likely to get the killing blows in many of those circumstances. I have no idea if I'll use it in 10 and 25-man PvE. Probably never in 25mans. Maybe in some 10man situations, but rarely.

Right now I've got it on as a single gear item in my outfitter bar, so I can flip it in conditionally before a fight. 5mans and soloing make tons of sense. PvP will be tougher because I'll either give up my Mirror or my get-out-of-jail trinket. In trying it out a tiny bit, I'm getting 530 to 545 mana back per kill. That's completely unbuffed and just in slightly different gear sets. It's supposedly 5%. And yes, it's each and every time without seemingly any cooldown. I'll grab my gorilla and do some AoE farming. Heck, maybe I'll dig out two Tier-5 pieces and get some infinite farming set going.

Dragon Rider

My epic flying mount stable has been always lacking a certain someone. I have the normal stuff. I have some oddball stuff. I have some pretty stuff. But until this week, I didn't have the stuff. Thank you Wyrmrest Accord.

Ah, the kids will be happy.

Reputation

Building a rep is of course important. Which should the hunter get the love from first? The first two I'd recommend are the two that you want to have toward the "end-game" of WotLK; The Sons of Hodir and the Knights of the Ebon Blade. They don't have juicy epic gear rewards you'll be interested in. They don't get you a nice big dragon mount. They do get you what you'll really need.

For the Sons you want to get to Exalted status. They provide the shoulder enchants you want. Their low-rep shoulder enchant is the same as Aldor/Scryer shoulder enchants. The Sons don't have a tabbard, so you have to get rep with them the BC-fashioned way, daily quests. For Ebon Blade, you'll want to get to Revered status. Luckily, they have plenty of quests, daily quests, and a tabbard! They have some nice weapons, but most importantly, they have your helm enchant. Until you're Revered, you'll be stuck going back to Cenarion Refuge with your new helms.

After you have those two reps in your pocket, then you can shoot for another one. I'd pick something based on your crafting pattern needs, or perhaps The Oracles for their trinket. Unless you only have time for dailies and never any heroics, you're likely to fill any gear blind-spots before rep-based gear saves you.