Akabeko the Insane

Insane in the Membrane

Last week, I became officially Insane. I made sure my Insane buddy was online, then turned in the last of my lockboxes. He really deserves a ton of thanks for not only providing advice and motivation, but generously donating his leftover Darkmoon card mats and even farming lockboxes for me!

I wish I had kept track of fun tidbits like gold and time spent doing things. (It's probably good that I did not) I can say that I bought librams for 50g or less and Pristine Black Diamonds for around 100g; I installed Gathered specifically to farm Blood of Heroes, although now I use it for more typical farming.

Bloodsail was my first rep, achieved on September 24, 2009. Then, even though my plan had been to salvage goblin reps first, I procrastinated and had to avoid goblin towns. Gadgetzan bruisers are particularly persistent, for the record. I got frustrated running Dire Maul and switched to pirate massacre, which was not a good idea. Soon I was back in Dire Maul and finished Steamwheedle in record time. Of course, by then I didn't need librams anymore, so I sent them to my Insane buddy and felt like I was helping him at least a little bit.

I leveled inscription and herbalism on a DK to make me Darkmoon cards, and a rogue to farm lockboxes. I made quite a bit of gold from pickpocketing and remember, that's only half I had to farm for myself! I tried one round of half-looting the lockboxes, but I don't recommend it.

My buddy sent me a fun emote macro he made to randomly emote something indicative of his mental state after completing the grind. Although it's old news for a lot of other "the Insane"s out there, I'm still really excited I finally finished this grind! It took over 1 year, 7 months to complete, so I feel like I kind of avoided the Insane-making part. Still, it accomplishes a goal that I planned and executed, and I join the good company of others who have it.

I wonder what the grind is like post-Cata? :)

So long, bearded lady!

Now that I've had a good introspective mope, it's time to smother you with squealing glee (is that where squee comes from?). To begin, I GOT EXALTED WITH DARKMOON FAIRE!!!!!!!!!!

Because I stupidly kept trying to complete decks without seeing how many completed ones I already had banked, I ended up not only with lots of leftover cards, but at least 5 completed decks! But I'm maybe a week away from The Insane so I don't even care. I've offered the leftovers to other guildies looking to go Insane before I start auctioning off my remaining cards. Check out my guildbank (I had already extracted a ton of cards before taking this shot but I didn't want to put everything back in and take it out again...)

If I had to give tips, I would say keep your spreadsheet updated with how many of each card you have, and be mindful of your completed decks and the next Darkmoon Faire for turn-ins. Having a mailbox is incredibly useful for sending away those unique cards without having to leave the questgiver. If you have any guildies who are getting their Cata trinkets, do their turn-ins for them! Don't be afraid to buy ink and primals on your own, Darkflame Ink in particular is very cheap on my server, and I can generally get either motes or primals for less than 10g total. Also, if you get towards the end of your grind and see that one card of a deck has an extremely low droprate (we meet again, Ace of Beasts), stop buying more cards for that deck and focus your gold on more expensive cards to build other more regularly-completable decks. Check out this helpful spreadsheet I made to keep track of your cards!

If the major deck market is total crap on your server, don't reject the minor decks! Rogues Decks are the easiest to make, needing only three cards to make a full set, although I've found that Two of Rogues has an abysmally low droprate. It's incredibly slow going, but you can rest assured that you'll get some rep and be able to sell the rewards. I always alternate between the cloth and leather chestpieces, and typically auction them for around 5 or 6g. If you get a windfall of the blue minor decks, those rewards can be sold for 30 and 40g.

When it comes to auctioning the major deck trinkets, run an auction-scanning mod like Auctionator and keep track of the going rates for each trinket. It takes a while, but I have been able to sell all of my trinkets with prices from 70 to 400g (depending on what trinket it is).

I've seen some calls for a new guide to the Insane title. Removing Shen'dralar saves a ton of time and gold, and Darkmoon and Ravenholdt basically haven't changed. I'd be interested to look into how to grind Steamwheedle rep while maintaining Bloodsail standing (especially since Free Knot! has been removed), or if it's even possible.

Now, for something completely different!

I want to learn more about computer hardware! There is, of course, the general education I have received due to simply being around computers for a long time, and also doing lots of gruntwork for my dad while he plays Age of Empires and sort of directs my 13-year-old self to install a new harddrive or what-have-you. I would love to take a class, except that there aren't any places around that could give English-language instruction (as much as I would love to talk about disuku doraibu and debaisu joutai). So, denizens of the internet, where have you gone to learn about the flashy bits that make up the inside of your PC? How do you learn what type of processor jives with your motherboard, or what a solid state drive is?

Cataclysm Dailies Guide

Love them or hate them, dailies are an important source of rep, gold, and even activity for WoW players. If you're like me, you probably eat up the first two and wish you could spend the third doing heroics, PVP, or playing an alt. In order to be more efficient with my dailies, I've written the following guide for Cataclysm dailies.

**In researching the wowhead links I've found inaccurate or missing information on gold rewards and especially guild reputation. I've been doing the dailies myself to take notes but please let me know if I have any numbers wrong!! (Especially since I have the +10% rep gain from guild level!!)

PRIORITY

This depends on what you want out of dailies. All dailies provide some amount of gold. The cooking and fishing dailies give skill points in those professions. The cooking and JC dailies award tokens used to purchase recipes, and the fishing daily awards a bag that may contain (extremely cheap) vendor trash, a companion pet, or the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat. Ramkahen, Therazane, Dragonmaw/Wildhammer, and the Tol Barad factions give dailies for rep, which leads to gear, and Tol Barad dailies also award tokens used for gear, PVP items, mounts, and a companion pet.

How and where you go is also affected by the use of portals and hearthstone(-like) cooldowns. Queues for heroics or pvp do take time, not to mention the time spent doing the activity you queued for, so time is also a prioritizing factor.

PREPARATION

Get your rep tabard on. If necessary, keep your 2nd spec gear in your bags. If you accept an invite while questing, put yourself in a safe place before accepting! If you don't want, or have time to do dailies, skip them! Especially if your time is limited, start with the dailies you need most and work down the priority list. If possible, group for named-mob quests to avoid wasting time.

Dailies flowchart

As you may have noticed, there are more quests than you can complete in one day! Hopefully the flowchart should help you utilize your time and 25 dailies to get the most out of your rep and gold grinds. In depth breakdowns of each available daily can be found below - take note that the Tol Barad dailies give the most gold for your time if you don't need to work on rep. I also strongly advise against Ramkahen's Fire from the Sky daily, unless you need the achievement, are ridiculously efficient at it, or are desperate for rep and unable to do dailies with the tabard.

ROUND 1 - one shots

Fishing dailies - (1 of possible 5)

HORDE
Clammy Hands
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
No Dumping Allowed
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
A Staggering Effort
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +2 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
A Furious Catch
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
A Golden Opportunity
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s

ALLIANCE
Hitting a Walleye
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
Diggin' for Worms
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +2 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
Rock Lobster
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
Big Gulp
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s
Thunder Falls
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 fishing | Bag of Shiny Things | 16g54s

Cooking dailies - (1 of possible 5)

HORDE
Careful, This Fruit Bites Back
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
Crawfish Creole
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +2 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
Even Thieves Get Hungry
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
Everything Is Better with Bacon
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 cooking | 2 Chef's Awards | 9g40s
Stealing From Our Own
250 Orgrimmar/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s

ALLIANCE
A Fisherman's Feast
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
Feeling Crabby?
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 cooking | 2 Chef's Awards | 9g40s
Orphans Like Cookies Too!
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
Penny's Pumpkin Pancakes
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +1 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s
The King's Cider
250 Stormwind/40 guild | +2 cooking | 1 Chef's Award | 9g40s

[475 JCs only] Jewelcrafting dailies - (1 of possible 5)

A Present for Lila
40 guild | 1 Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token | 16g54s
Elemental Goo
40 guild | 1 Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token | 16g54s
Nibbler! No!
40 guild | 1 Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token | 16g54s
Ogrezonians in the Mood
40 guild | 1 Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token | 16g54s
The Lastest Fashion!
40 guild | 1 Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token | 16g54s

Ramkahen

Thieving Little Pluckers
150 Ramkahen/18 guild | 7g85s
Fire From the Sky
250 Ramkahen/25 guild | 10g46s

ROUND 2 - Tol Barad extravaganza

Tol Barad - available to the controlling faction only

Static Quests - Commander Zanoth / Sergeant Parker - these are available every battle
A Huge Problem
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
Swamp Bait
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
The Leftovers
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s

Cluster Quests - one set of these clusters is available, but changes after each battle (it is possible to get all 3 clusters in 1 day)

D-block - Drillmaster Razgoth / 2nd Lieutenant Wansworth
Cursed Shackes
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
D-Block
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
Svarnos
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s

Cursed Depths - Private Garnoth / Commander Stevens
Clearing the Depths
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
The Imprisoned Archmage
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
Learning From the Past
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s

The Hole - Staff Sergeant Lazgar / Marshal Fallows
Food From Below
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
Prison Revolt
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s
The Warden
350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 18g80s

Tol Barad Peninsula - available to both factions: 1 of several possible quests will be available for each section, taking you in a natural loop around the island

Forgotten Hill

First Lieutenant Connor

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

The Forgotten

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Salvaging the Remains

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's.38/ guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

The Restless Front

Finish The Job

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Magnets, How Do They Work?

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Wellson Shipyard
Bomb's Away!
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s
WANTED: Foreman Wellson
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s
Watch Out For Splinters!
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Farson Hold

Claiming the Keep

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Leave No Weapon Behind

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Walk a Mile In Their Shoes

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Cape of Lost Hope

Boosting Morale

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Captain P. Harris

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Rattling Their Cages

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Shark Tank

350 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

The Darkwood

A Sticky Task

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Thinning the Brood

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Rustberg Village

Not the Friendliest Town

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Teach a Man to Fish...Or Steal 

250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s

Largo's Overlook
Cannonball!
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s
Ghostbuster
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s
Taking the Overlook Back
250 Hellscream's or Baradin's/38 guild | 1 Tol Barad Commendation | 16g54s


ROUND 3 - Dragonmaw / Wildhammer

Dragonmaw Clan

Hook 'Em High 

250 Dragonmaw/31 guild | 13g15s50c

Another Maw to Feed
250 Dragonmaw/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Bring Down the High Shaman
350 Dragonmaw/38 guild | 18g
Crushing the Wildhammer
250 Dragonmaw/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Total War
250 Dragonmaw/31 guild | 13g15s50c


Wildhammer Clan
Beer Run
250 Wildhammer/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Fight Like a Wildhammer
250 Wildhammer/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Keeping the Dragonmaw at Bay
250 Wildhammer/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Never Leave a Dinner Behind
250 Wildhammer/31 guild | 13g15s50c
Warlord Halthar is Back
350 Wildhammer/38 guild | 18g


ROUND 4 - Therazane
* one of these is available each day
[R] requires revered with Therazane, only one is available each day

The Pale Roost
[R] The Restless Brood
350 Therazane/31 guild | 17g20s


Crumbling Depths
* Underground Economy
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
Fear of Boring
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
* Beneath the Surface
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
Motes
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
* Lost in the Deeps
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s


Crimson Expanse
[R] Glop, Son of Glop
350 Therazane/31 guild | 17g20s
Through Persistence
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
Soft Rock
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s
Fungal Fury
250 Therazane/25 guild | 10g46s

The Scepter of the Shifting Sands

I`ve been working on the quest chain for The Scepter of the Shifting Sands for months and months now, but I finally convinced 4 suckers guildies to get back into Blackwing Lair with me to scrounge up some Elementium Ingots. (new name!) I got 3 from a friend, bought 5 from the AH for 600-800g each, and 4 more dropped last night. I`ll be saving the extras for a friend working on her legendary.

Having stepped up my achievement-hunting this past year, I am eternally grateful that I rolled a druid as my main toon. Getting a bear offspec has been immensely helpful in soloing all those obscure old-world bosses and raids. It`s the only reason I was able to get from Hated to Neutral with Brood of Nozdormu, that`s for sure! I spent a few hours farming the first 4 mobs in AQ40, got all of the silithid mounts, and slammed out that rep!

Nearly all of the world grinding I did alone (mostly traveling around and killing various elite mobs for drops), but I did manage to get help with BWL for the Head of the Broodlord Lashslayer, red shard, and Chapter VI of Draconic for Dummies. I also had to venture into (level 80) Onyxia`s Lair and Molten Core for more chapters of Draconic for Dummies, and also get some goggles from mobs in MC. Fortunately, MC only requires 2 people and I have a few guildies interested in legendary weapons... The green shard I got when helping our RL complete his own scepter quest a few months ago.

While working on this quest chain, I snuck into Stormwind Library, trekked out to the (typically) unreachable island off the coast of Tanaris, learned an epic cooking recipe, spent a lot of time admiring the gorgeous old world raids (AQ droooool), spent a lot of gold, and in general had lots of fun. Sadly enough, the final quest was a little...disappointing. For one, I can only equip the dagger rewards and the sword looked much cooler. For two, you get the final reward and...what? That`s it. No announcement, no emote, no achievement of any kind. They are adding a Feat of Strength in 4.0.3, but it`s kind of amazing that they have an achievement for catching 50 fish and didn`t think to put something in for this quest chain from the start. People are also asking for a title to be added to other who complete this chain. Blizzard responded with the following:

There was a title for this as a reward: Scarab Lord. We have absolutely no plans to add another title for people that did the quest after the wall came down and we have no plans to make the bug mounts - other than the Scarab Lord mount - work outside of AQ. 

I guess I`m not too put out by that, but I think it would be a great idea to add a title - a different title than Scarab Lord, of course. That one is special and the original earner should be unique, but completing the quest chain after this event, at 60 or even at 80, is a huge time (and sometimes gold!!) commitment. Hell, I got a title for finishing holiday achievements, killing Booty Bay Bruisers, and doing all of the heroics in Wrath. It seems disingenuous to suggest that somehow this quest was not worth it compared to the original achiever, when things that are much less strenuous are worth titles.

It was hard, time-consuming, lonely work. The end was very bittersweet; I was alone in Silithus late at night, with hardly anyone even online in guild. I went out to the gong but was unable to actually ring it. The questgiver gave me my epic weapon reward, and I awkwardly milled around, trying to soak in the feeling of completing an incredible questline. It certainly is an achievement, one I`m glad will be recognized soon.

I`m officially going Insane

You guys you guys!! After a long, tense silence there has finally been a Blizzard response to The Insane breaking in Cataclysm:

It's a question you've been asking us for a little while now. And, based on all the posts, emails, petitions, and letters we received following the announcement that the Insane in the Membrane achievement would no longer be in available in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we started to wonder if maybe we had gone a bit loco.

So, we went back to the drawing board. After carefully reviewing all the feedback and discussing the matter amongst ourselves, we're now happy to report that we will be making the following changes to the Feat of Strength:

• Exalted reputation with Shen'dralar will no longer be required. As this is the only reputation that will be unobtainable in Cataclysm, we've simply decided to remove it as a requirement.
  
  For those who already earned Exalted reputation with this faction, don't worry -- we haven't forgotten about your accomplishments. In a future patch, we'll be adding in a separate Feat of Strength to recognize your deep love of Dire Maul.

• Bloodsail Buccaneer faction reputation will remain in-game. Also, to ensure that this change does not negatively affect Cataclysm quest progression in Stranglethorn Vale, Booty Bay Bruisers will now provide reputation up through Exalted.

This will ensure that players will still be able to attain Insane in the Membrane and "The Insane" title in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Please note, however, that these changes will not take effect until The Shattering in patch 4.0.3a -- excluding the separate "Exalted with Shen'dralar" feat, which will be introduced in a future, but currently-undetermined patch.

And, of course, those who are already Insane in the Membrane will retain their title and current Feat of Strength. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

 I can definitely live with these changes! Ideally, they could have left the Shen`dralar questgiver with his quest (since I`ve seen in multiple places that he is still physically present in DM...) but maybe the turn-in items are also being broken? At any rate, I mostly don`t care because I already finished that bit, and for my efforts I will get a compensatory FoS. That the rest of it can still be accomplished sets me at ease, and I no longer feel bad working on my ally Loremaster instead of my rogue. Even if I will miss the Pilgrim`s Bounty rep buff.

Some have mentioned that removing Shen`dralar cheapens this FoS (making it less Insane, if you will) Well, maybe there is less to grind now, and those who finished Shen`dralar have likely spent a lot more gold and time on those stupid quest items, but at least they get bragging rights? Hopefully the compromise with the separate FoS will make up for it.

The bit about being able to (easily) grind Bloodsail up to Exalted is regretfully piquing my interest. I previously looked up the requirements for Exalted Bloodsail and wrote it off. Now, however, you will be able to grind easily accessible, quickly spawning groups of mobs... I`m trying really, really hard to convince myself to let it go, like all those raid achieves I`ll likely never finish. But still! An incomplete reputation! I`ll just have to hide it in my inactive tab and try not to think about it! After all, I`ll have The Insane anyway :D

GOODBYE FOREVER DIRE MAUL

Steamwheedle is done!!! I realize that I still have lots of pain in store for Ravenholdt and DMF, but I can hardly describe the sense of elation at never having to run Dire Maul for keys again. My methods up to this point took a meandering path. After finishing with Bloodsail, I began running DM for keys and librams. However, I had abysmal luck with key drops and hadn`t yet begun to appreciate even the measly 75 rep that Ogre Suits netted me. Simultaneously, I was watching the AH and grabbing up Pristine Black Diamonds and librams. Many of my PBDs came from my old east coast server and were from 50-100g. I`m not sure what they go for now over there, but on my new server they are around 400g. So I ended up getting most of my Shendralar rep items from the AH. When I hit Exalted with them I looked again at the Insane handbook. I no longer needed the rare diamonds or librams, and what`s more the hourly pirate rates were supposed to be better. So I moved out to Ratchet and the killing spree began.

It really didn`t seem so bad at the time. In my moonkin spec I could put Insect Swarm on everything in range (even behind me!) and was able to make excellent time running across the top of the pirate hangout, down the slope nearish to Northwatch Hold, and then running back towards Ratchet. It was quick, painless, and dull enough that I could zone out chatting in guild or singing showtunes or what-have-you. Doing this brought me out of Hated (with Ratchet) a very important milestone. The Hated block is the longest consecutive rep section and it was incredibly discouraging to see it creep towards Hostile at a snail`s pace. So, I think just for sheer peace of mind, switching to pirates was not such a bad idea. I stayed there until I maxed out my Ratchet gains at 99% Honored.

Feeling confident, I went to Tanaris next. The mobs are still easy enough to kill with one dot (by this time I had made my OS feral for old world soloing and was moonfiring in Resto). Because they drop mageweave in Tanaris, I started looting sporadically and ended up with a very nice stash for leveling 1st aid on my Cata alt. At first I was chugging the Volatile Rum to make bag space, but started sending it to my bank alt when I could. When it sells I can usually get about 5g per rum. The Tanaris pirates are less plentiful and have a slower respawn rate. I think for my purposes this wasn`t necessarily a bad choice in grinding location, but it did have some downtime and more frequent lowbie competition (although I always invite hordies to help).

Friendly with Everlook!

When I hit 99% Honored with Gadgetzan, I moved to STV and started in on the Venture Co. population. This was a huge mistake. They are few in number, have a long respawn rate, and don`t drop much of anything. I made slow progress out here until my partner in insanity asked me about my progress. When I confessed my frustration, he told me that he had gone entirely from Hated to Exalted solely through DM runs. Reluctantly I allowed myself to be talked back into DM. This was an excellent idea.

I amassed rune thread, bolts of runecloth, and rugged leather for tannin turnins and returned to the dreadful Kingdom of the Ogres. Luckily, the first few runs back were 1 or 2 key runs and served as positive reinforcement when the trend turned to 0 or 1 key runs. In my case, it seemed to be about 5 good runs followed by 5 disappointing ones. However, I could always turn in tannin, was getting tons of librams to send my friend, and was making a respectable profit thanks to my Argent Gruntling, Jeeves, and extra repairbots. My mailbox helped with librams as well.

For a long time Guard Slip`kik was my BFF for keys. Whether I had Freed Knot or not, Guard Slip`kik would come lumbering around the corner and Bam! A key.

Aside from him, I had good luck with the warlocks and brutes nearby, and occasionally with the locks near the tannin upstairs or the Gordok Bushwacker himself. The first and second bosses were consistently stingy. I had more luck with the trash near the first boss (I pull the entire courtyard).

Last night, with just a tiny sliver of rep left to go, I used up all my keys and tannin and found myself with only 400 rep to go. For old time`s sake I went to Ratchet and killed everything in sight until...

The Goblins love me!!