Argent Dawn - "Undead/Baron Stratholme"

Time for another installment of Argent Dawn Reputation Grinding. In the last two installments we did a full run of Scholomance and half of Stratholme. Get to the Servant's Entrance of Stratholme (if you're not already there) and clear the initial courtyard. There's a chapel with a paladin here and if you have the Medallion of Hope from the other side of Stratholme, turn that in to him. He'll give us some small amount of help when we fight the final boss.

You should have a couple of quests for here.

• Above and Beyond - Collect the head of Baron Rivendare (follow up from turning in Balnazzar's head)
• The Active Agent - Collect Scourge data (follow up from The Flesh Does Not Lie)
• Menethil's Gift - Use the Keepsake of Remembrance on Holy Ground (follow up from our long Scholomance quest chain)
• Houses of the Holy - Collect Stratholme Holy Water (if you didn't get them all in your live side run)

Head through the gates and begin clearing. This side of Stratholme is generally a large circular path with three ziggurats, each guarded by a boss. Once that boss is dead, the ziggurat doors will open and you can kill all of the humanoids inside. Once each of the ziggurats has been cleared the final pathway to the Baron will be opened. Here's some notes:

• The Scourge Data you're looking for can be inside any of the three ziggurats. It looks kind of like a lunchbox on the ground.
• The Baroness Anastari guards one of the ziggurats. She is a banshee and will silence and mind control if you're not solo.
• Nerub'enkan is a Nerubian (spider) guards another of the ziggurats. There's nothing too tough about him.
• Maleki the Pallid guards the third ziggurat. Dispel/purge his bone armor for best results.
• If this is a "fresh" run of Stratholme and you entered by the Servant's Entrance, Magistrate Barthilas will be just before the Baron instead of by the back door.
• Be careful if you're in a group about heading through the gate. It closes behind you (and can lock other party members out) when the first abomination is engaged.
• From this point on, most of the instance is on a script. Things will continue to happen in a predictable order whether you're ready or not.
• Abominations will "self-pull." This pulling is tuned for a group of 5 level 60 characters, so you're probably okay to pull them to you yourself if you're level 70.
• After all the abominations are dead, Ramstein will come out of the Baron's building. He's a boss abomination and nothing too painful.
• After Ramstein dies, about 3 dozen non-elite undead will run in. These are best dealt with via AOE.
• After the non-elites go down five elite undead come out of the Baron's room. They also are not hard. Kite/control them and burn them down.
• The script is over at this point, and you can ready yourself for the Baron.
• Hug the left wall as you go in, so as not to aggro him prematurely. He has a damaging aura that applies shadow damage every second. At times throughout the fight, he will cast raise dead, summoning some non elite skeletons. If these aren't killed, a few seconds later, he'll cast death pact, killing his summoned skeletons and healing himself in the process. This generally isn't a consideration for a level 70.
• He can drop an epic mount, an undead charger. Don't hold your breath though.
• After the Baron is dead, loot his head and use the Keepsake of Remembrance on the rune on the floor in his room.
• If you've used the Medallion of Faith, the paladin from the chapel at the beginning will aid you during the fight.

Now you can head out, turn in quests and scourgestones. By now you should surely be Honored with the Argent Dawn. Turn in quests and take any quests you like in the area. There are a number of good reputation quests. At some point you should collect and turn in 30 each of Bone Fragments, Savage Fronds, Core of Elements, Dark Iron Scraps, and Crypt Fiend Parts. Initial turn-ins for each of these is worth 1000 Argent Dawn Reputation.

After you've done all the quests you can, it's just a grind to exalted. You're also positioned to go back to Scholomance at some point and finish the Ras Frostwhisper quest line.

If you've ever done some dragon egg freezing quest, from Upper Blackrock, Bettina will offer you Dawn's Gambit which makes the room with all the yellow students inside Scholomance trivial, turning all the ghostly (elite) students into (non-elite) skeletons and giving you a real shot at killing Vectus in that room.

If you keep doing quests and killing stuff in Plaguelands and collecting stones, you'll be exalted in no time flat.

Argent Dawn - "Live Stratholme"

By now you've finished your first run at Argent Dawn Reputation. We've been through Scholomance for the beginning of some quest chains. Hopefully, you've also headed to Stromgarde and plucked the book out of one of the ogres' fireplaces. This is turned in at Light's Hope Chapel (with a quick trip back to Caer Darrow and equipping your "see ghosts" trinket). And you're set and ready to hit the other dungeon that grants reputation.

Stratholme - Scarlet/Live side

Before you actually set foot inside Stratholme, there's a long annoying series of quests to get out of the way. When you first cross the bridge from Western to Eastern Plaguelands, hook and immediate left and follow the river up north. You'll find Tirion Fordring ready to offer you three quests. The culmination of this long (and annoying quest line) is in Stratholme and the pre-quests don't reward Argent Dawn reputation, so you can get these out of the way and still maximize reputation gains inside.

He offers Carrion Grubbage, Demon Dogs and Blood Tinged Skies. These involve killing plaguehounds (of three varieties), bats, and carrion worms in Eastern Plaguelands. The carrion worms will take the longest to complete as you're looking for a drop. Once these are done, there's a bit of running around hither and yon. Finally, he'll send you to Caer Darrow to talk to a ghostly artist. After that you're ready for Stratholme.

You should already have "Of Love and Family" from Tirion's quest line. Make sure to pick up these other quests that will award Argent Dawn Reputation:

• The Flesh Does Not Lie (Collect 20 plagued flesh samples)
• The Archivist (Kill Archivist Galford and burn the archives)
• Houses of the Holy (Collect 5 Stratholme Holy Water)

You'll enter Stratholme from the "Live" side. That is the front gates of the city. If you are solo, make sure you have a way to cleanse a disease. There's a fairly nasty disease, Carrion Worms, that the undead can apply. It lasts for 10 minutes, does periodic damage, and reduces your health regeneration to zero. This will kill anyone given enough time. Eating and bandaging will no help as your health regenertion will still be zero. Paladins, Shamans and Priests can cure the disease. Other classes will need to rely on Purification Potions. A mage can stave it off by continually casting mana shield and then drinking.

Here is the lowdown on the pulls:

• Make sure you have your Argent Dawn Commission equipped.
• Always keep an eye out for the Eye of Naxxramas. This will spawn randomly, /yell "The Living are here" and then spawn elite gargoyles if it isn't killed quickly.
• The beginning will be all undead. This is where the disease comes from.
• The Holy Water you're after is inside crates scattered throughout the instance. Many of these are trapped to disease you or release hordes of tiny critters. Dwarves using "Find Treasure" can tell the difference between "good" and "bad" crates.
• The Plagued Flesh Samples drop from any undead mobs in the instance.
• The Stratholme ghosts ("yellow" mobs) will stop attacking if they're aggroed if you /dance with them. At least for a while.
• Turn left at the first intersection. Veer right at the next toward the portcullis. *WARNING* the portcullises in Stratholme are generally traps. As soon as you enter, both gates will close and rats, insects or some other annoying critter will spawn. Usually 3 dozen or so. AOE them down or single target them quickly. Hunter traps aren't triggered by these tiny mobs.
• After the trap, head left and through the next big (non-trap) gate. The mobs here switch to human Scarlet Crusade guys. In the courtyard just outside the Scarlet Headquarters, an elite ghoul will spawn when all of the Scarlet dudes are dead.
• Entering the citadel requires the Scarlet Key (or lockpicking/explosives). The key comes from the Library wing of the Scarlet Monastery.
• Periodically hordes of (non-elite) undead will storm the citadel once you're inside. They die quickly but can surprise you.
• The citadel is generally a straight line run to the end. There is one fork that leads to Cannon Master Wiley, the other leads to the Archivist/Balnazzar.
• In one of the side rooms is a chest (it doesn't look like a treasure chest--more like a strongbox) that contains a "Medallion of Hope." You can use this when you're off to kill Baron Rivendare.
• After you kill the Archivist and burn the archives, don't forget to pick up the objective of "Of Love and Family." It's a clickable picture on the wall in his room.
• After killing the Archivist, you shouldn't kill the Champion of the Scarlet Crusade in the next room. Instead, hearth out and go turn that in. The Champion will drop a quest item ONLY after you've turned in The Archivist. Then high-tail it back to Stratholme and work your way back to the final boss on live side, kill him and loot his head. Make sure to turn this and The Flesh Does Not Lie in before doing the undead/Baron side of Stratholme since they both have followups.
• Now you can either finish the "dead" side or sell and come back later. Either way, leave the Scarlet citadel and head back towards the gate trap. Instead of going through the trap, go straight towards the undead side. We're going to get the Key to the City to make entry through the Servant's Entrance (the back door) possible.
• Keep an eye out for Hearthsinger Forresten. He's a yellow mob that can drop the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire. This is the annoying trinket that makes everyone around you dance. Everyone wants this thing, don't they?
• Once you reach the back door (veer left at the fountain), Magistrate Barthilas is there. Kill him and loot the Key to the City.
• You have a choice, you can either head out through the door, sell, repair and restock or continue on. Either way, I'll cover the Baron's side of Stratholme in another post.

And that's half of Stratholme. By now you're reputation should be approaching Honored. Remember to turn in the scourge stones, but don't use the Argent Dawn Valor Tokens until you're honored.

The Argent Dawn & You - Scholomance First Runs

Allegedly, one of the Old World reputations that will matter in the future is the Argent Dawn. For those of us who were in the game when there was no direct flight path from Chillwind Camp to Light's Hope Chapel, this is a familiar faction. We may not have actually visited them in forever, but they still recall us as friends.

The good news is that this is not a hard faction to really amass reputation with when you're already level 70. And to some degree, depending on your trade skills, this isn't a complete waste of time.

It would be possible to have reached Hellfire Peninsula and never gotten reputation with the Argent Dawn. Since the leveling up to level 60 got a boost, it's more likely than ever. However, the reputation flows pretty fast and free at least at first.

If you have no (or low) reputation with Argent Dawn

You should fly your butt out to Chillwind Camp (or I guess The Bulwark if you're on the other side - Undercity will be the closest) and pick up your Argent Dawn Commission. This trinket allows you to collect Scourge Stones (in 3 sizes) from just about everything you kill in Eastern or Western Plaguelands, in Scholomance and in Stratholme. At this level, merely killing things will give you reputation. In good WoW fashion, we're going to maximize our rep by not doing that many quests until the reputation gains from killing becomes minimal. And since dungeons are our best bet in having tons of mobs that are ours and ours alone, we might do some quests associated with dungeons.

Scholomance used to be one of the final non-raid dungeons so there are plenty of longish quest lines that have you go in there MANY times. We're going to pick up three to start our foray.

1. Barov Family Fortune - asks you to collect four deeds inside Scholomance and is available from either Chillwind Camp (Alliance) or The Bulwark (Horde).
2. Plagued Hatchlings - asks you to slay 20 plagued hatchlings inside Scholomance.
3. Doctor Theolen Krastinov, the Butcher - Eva Sarkov is a ghost standing right outside the Scholomance entrance. Talk to her, listen to her story and she gives you a quest to kill someone inside and burn some remains.

Getting into Scholomance can be a problem. We've not done the questline to acquire the key yet (because we want to save our reputation gains). At this point there are several ways to actually get in there and start doing our thing.

• The lock on the door can be picked by 300 lockpicking skill (if you are a rogue or have a rogue friend)
• The lock on the door can be blown open by appropriate engineering explosives (powerful seaforium charge or above)
• The lock can be opened by anyone who already has the key (dig up the crusty old guildies who have been playing forever)
• The door can be opened by manipulating a torch on the wall just inside (if you're lucky enough to find someone there)

I'm not going to step you through each pull and room in Scholomance. There are some tips though, which I'll share.

• Mobs inside can drop Bone Fragments and Crypt Fiend Parts. These can be turned in at Lights' Hope Chapel (along with Dark Iron Fragments (from Blackrock Mountain instances), Savage Fronds (from plants in Felwood, Un'Goro Crater or Dire Maul), and Core of Elements (from elementals all over high-end Azeroth). There is no point in turning in more than 30, so you can sell the extras.
  
• Most of the drops in here aren't much use. Some crafting recipes do drop and the BOE blues can go for a fair amount. If you're an enchanter the BOP blues will turn into Large Brilliant Shards.
  
• The first deed is in the first BIG room you go into. As you first enter, it's in the far left corner. The mobs in this room have annoying abilities like knockback (the ghosts) and fear (the casters) which can quickly get you more than you're bargaining for. Use the CC that's available to you and line of sight the mobs when you can.
• The next major room has six groups of casters. In each group is a summoner who cannot be line of sighted. They'll happily sit there and cast summons for non-elite skeletons who can overwhelm even the most powerfully geared 70. They also run (usually into another pack of mobs) when low on health. Don't head down onto the terrace (to the right as you enter), we'll do that later.
  
• The next major room is chock full of mixed groups of casters and ghosts. The casters run at low health. The ghosts split into three projections. AOE damage will cause them to coalesce into something you can kill. The second deed is in the far right corner of this room. Don't go right (into the basement) or left (into the Viewing Room). Those both come later.
  
• The next room has the dragons we're after. They come in mixed groups of dragons & trainers. The trainers have a knockback and the dragons shoot poisons. There are enough to complete your kill 20 plagued hatchlings quest.
• After the dragons comes Rattlegore (our first boss). Warning: Rattlegore and his buddies hit VERY hard and can easily kill a non-armored sole 70. Pull carefully to make sure you survive the experience. He also drops the Viewing Room key which we need to get deeper into Scholomance. Unfortunately, this key is consumed on use so anytime you come into Scholomance, you'll have to kill him.
• Backtrack to the room where the second deed was and head into the viewing room. Clear it and open the locked door. The skeletons in this room are immune to magic damage and have to be killed by melee. This can prove problematic to some casting classes.
  
• Head across the room full of non-aggro mobs. If you attack things in this room, you'll probably be quickly overwhelmed. So be careful. Don't go to the left, that's for after we kill Ras Frostwhisper.
• Ras Frostwhisper is in the Scholomance Alchemy Lab (originally the only one in the game. Later Blackwing Lair added one and another was added in Shattrath City). He, amazingly uses frost spells and does some knockback. He can also drop the recipe for Flask of Supreme Power (also purchasable from Keepers of Time at Exalted). The third deed is on the right hand side of his room on a ledge.
  
• Backtrack through the room and head down to the headmasters study. There are six rooms here, each with a mini-boss. I always do the rooms on the top floor first, workign counter clockwise.
• Kite the zombies in the first room around the catwalk. Then kill Lorekeeper Polkelt.
• Theolen Krastinov (the target of one of our quests) hits like a truck. Once he's dead, burn the bodies on each side of his room to complete Eva's quest.
• Instructor Malicia has mobs that turn into ghosts. In this form they are immune to physical damage. Be creative in your use of abilities to kill them. (Poisons are nature damage, Arcane Shot does arcane damage. Warriors may need to be engineers (bombs, pets) to kill these.)
• On the bottom floor,Lady Illucia Barov can mind control, but that won't affect us since we're solo.
• Lord Alexei Barov has a nasty aura and two hard hitting adds, but it's doable. The last deed is also in his room.
• There's nothing special about The Ravenian in the last room on the bottom floor. However, don't exit out until you're ready to fight Headmaster Gandling who spawned at the death of the last miniboss.
• Kill Gandling. He's not too bad solo.
• Head out of Scholomance, some pats may have respawned.
• Turn in the Butcher Quest and take the followup to Kill Jandice Barov. Head down to her room (across from the viewing room) and kill her. She splits partway through the fight into duplicates (a LOT of duplicates) A raid targeting icon will help you find the right one as will a hunter or warlock pet since their target is not reset upon the duplication. She spawns a book next to her dead body that teaches tailors a soulbag pattern. There's a movable torch in her room that makes a chest in the viewing room accessible, but it's usually not worth it. Head out and turn in the quest.
  
• Get the followup (we're nearly done) and head back into the room where the summoners were. Take the right down onto the terrace and use the Blood of Innocents (you get one when you take the quest) to summon Kirtonos the Herald. Dispatch him and run out to turn in the quest. You'll get a trinket (which only works if equipped in the environs of Scholomance) to see the Caer Darrow dead. One of them to the left of Eva offers another quest for a forgotten keepsake which sends you to Stromgarde. Another previously invisible guy sells a couple of blacksmithing patterns and the Major Mana Potion recipe.

And we're done with Scholomance. Head back to either Chillwind or the Bulwark to turn in scourgestones (you did have your Argent Dawn Trinket on, right?) but don't use the Argent Dawn Valor tokens yet. You can turn in the deed quest, but don't take the followup yet. Head to Light's Hope and turn in the Plagued Hatchlings. On future trips to Scholomance, the dragons can now drop Healthy Scales which can be turned in to the questgiver. Before your next session get to Arathi Highlands and visit Stromgarde. The book you're wanting can be found in any of the fireplaces.

And that's our FIRST run at Argent Dawn rep. Stay tuned for future Installments!