The Journey to Insanity III: The Junk Collectors

( So, it's been awhile since my last post, with the end of the semester and RL obligations, but I have not forgotten about you, fair blog! )

This time we'll cover the Ravenholdt aspect of the "Insane in the Membrane" achievement. The achievement requires exalted status with this band of rogues and thieves, but even now, few non-rogues even know of their existence.

The Ravenholdt guild resides in a small clearing on top of a mountain in Hillsbrad, past the unmarked grave behind Durnholde Keep. Once you find the grave (on the NW side), travel between the gap in the hills north of it, and you will see a ramp up the mountainside on your right. At the top is a cave, and on the other side of said cave, the NPCs.

The purpose of this faction was mainly for a couple rogue-related quests back in pre-TBC days, and, not playing a high level rogue myself, I don't even know if they are even relevant to rogues anymore. The quests mainly involved rogue-ish activities like pickpocketing and lockpicking, and their sworn enemies are the Syndicate (the mobs in Durnholde Keep). You may even have one or both factions in your reputation tab and just don't know it!!

So, how does one go about gaining rep with this rather obscure faction? Obviously, if you are a rogue you will have an advantage, as you have a repeatable quest called Syndicate Emblems that you can complete until 250 into Friendly. After that, you get to join the rest of us in mob grinding and junkbox turn-ins, but at least you can do your own pick-pocketing.

Until 11999/12000 Honored, everyone has access to reputation gain through the Syndicate mobs in Durnholde Keep (just to be clear, the one in Hillsbrad Foothills, not CoT). They give 5 rep apiece, and are incredibly easy to kill ( assuming you aren't attempting this meta at, say, level 30). I always killed the mobs at the entrance first, and then dropped down into the lower level on the left. I one-shot Holy Nova-ed all the NPCs in the courtyard and buildings before moving to the right side. After you kill the mobs on the right and far right courtyards, backtrack to the right/middle courtyard, climb the wooden ramp, and head right around the top of the far right courtyard. Once those are down, backtrack and head up top. By the time you are done up top, the initial mobs should have mostly respawned in the lower left courtyard, making pathing for the grind very easy.

One thing to note is that there are lowbie quests in the area, and you may arouse some ire if you kill the Horde quest npcs or any low level Alliance. If you are doing this on a PVP server, remember that Southshore and Tarren Mill are often populated with very bored 80s who won't think twice of camping you if you kill a lowbie..... or look pretty.

By the time you hit 11999 Honored, you may be tired of grinding, but the hard part is still coming. If you're a rogue, you'll be pickpocketing 52+ mobs for Heavy Junkboxes for the repeatable quest Junkboxes Needed. Turning in 5 each time at 75 rep per turn-in, you will need 1400 of these junkboxes (or 1275 for humans) to reach Exalted. One of the officers in our guild got a ton of them in BRD while she was working on her Thorium Brotherhood rep, so you can check there.

But what do non-rogues do?

Here's the reallllly sucky part. Non-rogues have 3 basic options:

1. Level a rogue.
2. Bribe a rogue friend.
3. Buy these from sellers

*Edit* I originally posted that you could acquire these on the AH, but as someone was kind enough to point out, this is untrue. However, you CAN still purchase these through the mail. No wonder I could never find them... XD

I have seen a few people ask in Trade channel about these, and the general price on our server is 2-3g per box. You may find them for more or less, or not even at all. =(

I'm trying to level a rogue at the moment, but coming from a caster class takes a bit of adjusting...

All in all, I think that this may be one of the more time-consuming ones, just because few rogues seem interested in grinding out boxes from useless mobs for little cash. And for non-rogues, this can get expensive. 1400 lockboxes at 3g apiece adds up fast.

My suggestion? Grind the mobs until you can't anymore. Don't be tempted to turn in boxes early. Put on a comic skit or watch TV while you do it to help pass the time. Otherwise, you'll tire of it verrrrrrrrry quickly.

Good luck and have fun!!