Solo grinding end instances for rep?

[Ankh]

I know I am the odd one out. Not many would ever consider doing this. I have a problem with PUGs...I am not very fond of them.

My small guild is not quite ready to hit the lvl 70 instances. In the meantime I mostly enjoy the game while soloing and doing the mid 60 instances with them.

Though I have come to the point that I am a bit tired of grinding for the cash. I have decided not to buy the epic flyer for now, and my bank account is pretty solid.

I have solo grinded the main factions (apart from rep for heroic mode keys), and now I feel a bit stuck.

What I want now is to get to revered with Honor Hold (chest enchant), and revered with Cenarion Expedition (head enchant). So I checked around for info. regarding rep for these factions. I found that normal mobs in Shattered Halls should give me HH rep, and that normal mobs in Steamvault should give me CE rep. I went out to test this.

In Steamvault I faced two Nagas (I think they were both lvl 70). As a Rogue, I sapped one, and was able to take down the other before the sap broke. When it broke, I vanished. I had to wait 5 minutes for cooldowns, and then I took the other one. The kills were hard, but I had no buffs on myself. For the first kill I had to use healing pot and blind/FA, for the second I used none. The kills gave me +13 rep per. mob.

In Shattered Halls the mobs were harder for me. The first I faced was a lvl 69. I thought I controlled the fight, but the mob did so much damage on me during the last phase that we both died at the same time. I tried blind/FA, but the healing broke (some DoT on me?). My combat log did not show any HH rep gain. But I wanted to make sure...since we both died at the same time. I went in again, and engaged another one. When I entered I saw that a new mob were placed exactly at the same place as the first one. I killed it, but not with ease at all. I almost died the same way again. And no HH rep.

Is this correct? Will I have to get deeper into SH before I start to get HH rep?

Has anyone tried grinding rep. in Steamvault? Is it possible to go much deeper solo? I saw one patrol of two, that I could also have taken, but did not consider trying more at the time.

I am a combat sword build, and did not use any buffs at the time. I would consider using "full buffs" if it would help my case remarkably (including Flask og Fortification + Relentless Assault). What I should be able to do is sapping one and taking two others down while the first is sapped...and when sap breaks, take that last one down. It seems excessive...I don't think I can do it. Has anyone tried? And this is for 3 mobs only. More is certainly and completely out of reach.

Again, I understand that this mission would seem very odd to most of you. Why using a lot of cash trying to solo this, while you could spend a small and decent amount of hours in a PUG and get the job easily done? Good question! ;-).

I would be grateful for any info regarding this. In the meantime I should probably just wait for my Guildie buddies. By the way, I am about half the way to revered for both factions (done all quests).

[Krollin]

Grinding out the rep like this is going to take you a -hell- of a long time and, as you have seen, cost you a small fortune if you pot your way through it with Flasks.

I would help your guild mates get levelled and try PuGs again.

I don't know if this is unique to my realm but PuGs in TBC seem to be of a generally higher standard than they used to be in Vanilla WoW.

May be I have just been lucky.

Soloing your way to revered in Shattered Halls and Steamvault is not the way to go though.

[Stormweasel]

I don't know if this is unique to my realm but PuGs in TBC seem to be of a generally higher standard than they used to be in Vanilla WoW.

May be I have just been lucky.


I have to say I agree with this - had a run through Steamvaults the other day with another mage, a priest, a warlock and a tank. We ate the whole thing and asked for seconds :-)

My experience of PUGs in general has been very positive with the occasional bad group which can't be avoided. People are more tolerant of wipes as well as you are achieving rep if nothing else so it is worth continuing.

One other thing - I don't mean this personally at the OP but I believe that if you aren't prepared to ask for leadership, take charge and try to make the group work then you don't have a right to complain about your PUG members being inferior. If they won't let you lead explain what's been done wrong and if they're not having it, leave.

If you do take charge, tell people what to do and they ignore you then again it's 3 wipes and so long for me. The worst that will happen is that idiots don't want to group with you again...

Try setting up the party yourself as well. If I put an advert out and get people /w me with "invite" they ain't coming. Or anyone who speaks in sub primary school english. These people are unlikely to possess the patience, maturity and social skills to co-operate with random strangers. Be patient, get the right people. After getting myself to Revered with Honor Hold with maybe nothing but PUGs, I have a list of maybe 2 dozen people I didn't know before that I would now party with any day of the week.

Back in the days of level 60 WoW, I refused to PUG.

Now, just suck it up, take charge & build a list.

[Magikhat]

I dont think you can solo grind rep for anything unless you want to do it until you are an old man.

[Ankh]

Thank you all for replying. I have also heard that PUGs are of a much higher quality now. I guess it is because the pool of players in TBC are more experienced in group/raid play than the average pre TBC player. We have all matured a bit.

I have not yet decided what to do. It would require some effort, but not an insanely effort to grind 6000 more rep in Steamvault solo. 13 rep per kill means I will have to kill 462 trash mobs in that instance. About 5 minutes per kill will yield a total of 2310 minutes...roughly 40 hours. But the math should include some deaths, and that will certainly add some time...;-). On the other hand, buffing up with pots could mean I would be able to do 2 kills per 5minute-timer, hence speeding the process up by a factor of two. But the proof of the pudding...

I know this is not "the way to go". The cost/benefit ratio is sky-high. I know I "should" do it the standard way. But sometimes it is fun to step outside the common path, and just do things for fun. Right now, I have a "window" - I have the time and money to do so. And if anyone whispers me I have my stock reply ready: "DNS - I have a date with some Nagas in the Steamvault. Personal business. Got to kill 462 of them. Just got to."

Ankh - known to have some Aspergoid traits.

[OneMadOgre]

I am guessing that PuGs seem better because the players that would not have touched them in the pre-expansion because they were in a raiding grind are still pulling upgrades out of them. Once that's no longer the case, the PuG quality I expect will return to equilibrium.

[Krollin]

@Ankh: you are assuming 5 minutes a kill for all the mobs. Well you are only going to be able solo so far into the instance before the mobs you can kill run out and then you have to reset that instance. You can do this 5 times an hour.

Your 40 hours to grind that out is way too optimistic. I would seriously consider risking PuGs, you may be surprised at how well things go.