[Guide] Making money while grinding back Steamwheedle Cartel

[Martin240]

Hey folks.

Just to get you interested in this guide: I made 5000 gold farming Dire Maul for my rep

Content of this guide

• Introduction

• How to push back Steamwheedle rep in Dire Maul

• Where are we going?
• What are we doing there?
• How can we improve the speed?
• Some tipps to be efficient

• The gold making stuff

• What are we looking for?
• Foror's Compendium
• The Dire Maul Arena
• Enchanting addition
• Sell and repair

• What else can we do here?

• Shen'dralar reputation for "the Insane" title (TODO!)
• Rogue only: Getting junkboxes for Ravenholdt

• Some numbers


This is an exclusive guide written for MMOwned. If you find it anywhere else it has been copy+pasted and this is called stealing.


> Introduction

As I see more and more people grinding reputation with Bloodsail Buccaneers, I thought I would share some things you can make money with if you are going to push back your reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel using the Dire Maul tactic.

I will make a short explanation of the Dire Maul grinding and then I explain how to earn money there. The Dire Maul method includes no bad influence to your Bloodsail rep so in the end you can be friends with both factions. If you know how to get your rep back just jump down to the gold making stuff.

Two things you may want to do before you start:
- Try to get rid of everything you don't need in your inventory. You will pick up A LOT of stuff!
- If you are an engineer you can set up MOLL-E to get rid of the things you picked up so get it with you.

> Howto push back Steamwheedle rep in Dire Maul

• Where are we going?

Dire Maul in Feralas. There are three entraces here. You need to use the northern one to get to the right place. If you don't have the key, you need to get to the eastern instance first and talk to the imp at the entrace. He will start a chase through the upper part of the instance and at the end you will have to kill him to get the key.

• What are we doing there?

Farming the Guards there to get Gordok Shackle Key - Item - World of Warcraft
They have a high chance dropping by the guards and a very low chance dropping from trash in Dire Maul.
They are used to free Knot Thimblejack - NPC - World of Warcraft
This will award 350 reputation with all factions of Steamwheedle!

I've drawn a map with the locations of the 4 Guards including their patrols. Link here:
Maps - World of Warcraft

What you may not forget: The first guard drops a key which is needed for the upper door and there is another key which you come by while killing the second guard (it's in the chest in the middle of the area in front of the first door, you can't miss it).

There is also a Ogre called Bushwacker, he got a similar droprate for the key as the guards do and he can be summoned by looting the small basket. This basket is located behind the third guard. You need to go up the first ramp and straight towards the wall at the northern end of this terrace. You have to loot the Ogre Tannin there. He will come down the second ramp to the right. Clear the pack at the basket or try to catch him between the two mob packs. Your choice.

The king himself does not drop a key so don't bother killing him for keys. But he has other nice loot which I will get to later.

• How can we improve the speed?

So this will take you a while. You may think of improving speed but you can't really get this much faster. But there is a way you could get some extra rep. You just need to put in some extra effort which can make you wait less for your instance limit to drop again.

You need a tailor for this or you have to buy the runecloth bolts off of the AH! You can find the mats in the quest description after clicking this link or I'll list them here: 4x Bolt of Runecloth, 8x Rugged Leather, 2x Rune Thread, 1x Ogre Tannin.

The Gordok Ogre Suit - Quest - World of Warcraft

This one ist the first turn in, you will get 250 rep. Every following turn in will get you 75 rep. Not much but better than nothing.

The only limitation on this is the ogre tannin you got. You can destroy the suit and turn the quest in another time.

I found a macro to speed the turn in a bit up. It's from the wowhead comments and deletes your ogre suit if you still got one, then turns in the quest again with just one button to press (after right clicking the NPC of course):

/run for b=0,4,1 do for s=1,32,1 do local n=GetContainerItemLink(b,s);if n and string.find(n,"Gordok Ogre Suit") then PickupContainerItem(b,s);DeleteCursorItem();end;end;end;SelectGossipAvailableQuest(1);CompleteQuest();GetQuestReward()

• Some tipps to be efficient:

If you found a key walk straight to Knot and don't kill any other guards. Free him to get rid of your key and after that you can go get another key from the guards. Drop chances are bad sometimes so this will definitely raise your chances of freeing Knot. After all I have to say the drop chance of keys was roughly 70%. There are good days without any wasted runs but I also got 5 runs without any key. But this only happens in rare cases!



This is an exclusive guide written for MMOwned. If you find it anywhere else it has been copy+pasted and this is called stealing.

> The Gold making stuff!

• What are we looking for?

There are several things we are looking for. Here is list of them:

Knot Thimblejack's Cache - Object - World of Warcraft
This is the main objective we are heading for. This cache spawns after you helped Knot to escape. It can contain different kinds of leather, cloth and scales. Look for the prices these things fetch in the AH and pick up accordingly. The best selling stuff should be:

Thick Leather - Item - World of Warcraft
Sold for around 7g per stack.

Mageweave Cloth - Item - World of Warcraft
Sold for 10g per stack.

Rugged Leather - Item - World of Warcraft
Sold these for 8-10g per stack.

Runecloth - Item - World of Warcraft
Sold these for 4-6g per stack.

Felcloth - Item - World of Warcraft
Sold them for 10g per 5 cloth.


But the main thing you are looking for in the cache are the epic recipes!
Pattern: Hide of the Wild - Item - World of Warcraft
Pattern: Chromatic Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft
Pattern: Belt of the Archmage - Item - World of Warcraft
Pattern: Shifting Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft

These are BoE epic recipes for tailors and leatherworkers. I put them up for 200g per recipe and they are going well. Many people want these recipes to fill up their profession but they don't want to farm Dire Maul (or maybe they don't even know where they drop).

Drop chances for these recipes are relatively high. Got a dozen of these while grinding my rep back.


• Foror's Compendium

There is two more things you are willing to get. The first is:

Foror's Compendium of Dragon Slaying - Item - World of Warcraft
This one is fairly rare after all but I got two of these in the end. It seems to drop on the guards too but I never saw that. I killed the king while running Dire Maul. The reason why I did that is relatively easy: you will get to the instance limit because a run does not take up 12 minutes at all. I didn't always kill the king but you can easily kill him 3 of 5 runs to not reach the instance limit. Just take a look at your clock how much time you got left. Another tip: Kill the observer first then the king. They both have a chance of dropping it according to wowhead. I sold these for rougly 300g each.

Another chance of getting them is by looting A Dusty Tome - Object - World of Warcraft
These are small red books which can be found on the floor. I never looted any book from these so the chance seems rather low.

• The Dire Maul Arena

Now for the last thing which really can get you some money! Every six to eight hours there will be a rare mob in the Dire Maul arena which you can find just outside the instace. You will need to look at your chat. If there is a yell announcing one of the following rare mobs you need to take to your heels and get out of the instance and into the arena. The mobs are rather easy (60-70k hp, no problem for a lvl 80 player) and should be soloable as long as you are not beaten up by some other player. Remember you can attack everyone down there even your own faction. It's a FFA arena!

The rare mobs are:
Skarr the Unbreakable - NPC - World of Warcraft
The Razza - NPC - World of Warcraft
Mushgog - NPC - World of Warcraft

Mushgog seems to rarely spawn along with one of the other mobs.

Tip for these: Look with /who z-"Dire Maul" if there are people farming here. If so take a look around before you jump down into the arena. The rare mob and another player could be too much depending on your class. This does not cover players of the other faction so don't blame me if there is one

Now you may ask: why killing them? Easy question: they drop rare loot around level 50 which goes well in the AH and the second thing which will get you a small fortune is:
Orb of Deception - Item - World of Warcraft

This one got me 1000g in the AH which is the normal price. The rare mobs have the highest chance dropping it so don't miss them!

• Enchanting addition

Being an Enchanter helps to make some additional money here. They guards are dropping green items which DE into Greater Eternal Essence - Item - World of Warcraft
These go for 15g per essence on my server!

• Repair and sell

You can use the NPC within Dire Maul to sell stuff and repair. He is located in the tunnels below the first courtyard after you entered the northern instance. You can even pick up the stuff that brings lots of money at the npc and sell it then as he is just 2 minuten from your normal way through the instance.


> What else can we do here?

• Shen'dralar reputation for "the Insane" title

Now this one is short in explanation. There are some books I didn't mention in this guide.

Libram of Rapidity - Item - World of Warcraft
Libram of Focus - Item - World of Warcraft
Libram of Protection - Item - World of Warcraft

All three books got a corresponding quest:

Libram of Rapidity - Quest - World of Warcraft
Libram of Focus - Quest - World of Warcraft
Libram of Protection - Quest - World of Warcraft

Now what do I have to do with these may be your question? Easy: turn them in at the NPCs in Dire Maul. It's the same place where you can repair and sell. The only difficulty with these are the BoP mats and that the books are unique. You can make this easier by sending the books to your alt and then back again because your mailbox can hold more than one unique at a time. Have some engineering friend come with you to Dire Maul and set up the transportable mailbox right next to the quest NPC. This will help you A LOT. Just don't forget to prepare everything as the mailbox got a cooldown of 8 hours. Have all the books in your mail and all the quest items you need to turn in in your inventory. 500 rep per book turn in so this should you take a maximum of 84 books to turn in (that's 42.000 rep which you will normally need).

I would suggest to stick with the Libram of Protection and Rapidity if you have the choice. While farming the stichings for Protection you can do some baron runs simultaneously. Easy combining of getting some cool stuff in this game.
The alternative is the Libram of Rapidity which requires Blood of Heroes. This can be found all over the Eastern and Western Plaguelands:

Blood of Heroes - Object - World of Warcraft


You can also turn in your class book, but I think these are one way tickets. I will list them here for completion:

Rogue: Garona: A Study on Stealth and Treachery - Item - World of Warcraft
Warrior: Codex of Defense - Item - World of Warcraft
Mage: The Arcanist's Cookbook - Item - World of Warcraft
Paladin: The Light and How to Swing It - Item - World of Warcraft
Warlock: Harnessing Shadows - Item - World of Warcraft
Hunter: The Greatest Race of Hunters - Item - World of Warcraft
Priest: Holy Bologna: What the Light Won't Tell You - Item - World of Warcraft
Shaman: Frost Shock and You - Item - World of Warcraft
Druid: The Emerald Dream - Item - World of Warcraft

There is no such class book for DK as they didn't exist in classic.

And just to be exact: Foror's Compendium will grant you another 500 rep assumed you are pally or warrior. But it's not really worth the effort or the money you will have to spend for it.


This is an exclusive guide written for MMOwned. If you find it anywhere else it has been copy+pasted and this is called stealing.


• Rogue only: Getting junkboxes for Ravenholdt

This is as easy as it is obvious. If you are a rogue and you still need rep for Ravenholdt just pickpocket everything on your way through the instance. It's so easy and a run will roughly take you 12 minutes to do so you are right in time for the instance timer to pass. It just fits perfectly into the cycle


> Some numbers

Now I am done with this. I think this should help some of you making a little forture while grinding rep back. I got all the stuff I picked up together and made a screenshot of it.

// Screenshot down atm, trying to find it again

Let's sum this up:

Estimated 100 stacks runecloth: 100x 5g = 500g
8 stacks Thick leather: 8x 7g = 56g
18 stacks Rugged Leather: 18x 9g = 162g
Furor's: 2x 300g = 600g
Orb of Deception: 1000g
Several blue loots rougly 30g each: 10x 30g = 300g
Epic recipes: 11x 200g = 2200g

Not in the image:

Roughly 60x Fel Cloath as far as I can remeber: 3x 40g = 120g
Mageweave dunno how much but some stacks for 10g each, let's assume it have been 8 stacks so another 80g.

This makes 5000g which I just picked up while I got my rep back. I think this is really impressive

Regards
Martin

[321321]

Really nice guide, the image of all that runecloth :O i wants it ive emptied ah cba getting it myself need it for final rep with Gnomeran Exhiles
+2 rep

[Lysolfs]

seems nice, how long did you take for that?

[Martin240]

It took me around 150 runs (thanks to human rep bonus ^^) and you can do a maximum of 5 runs per hour if you do the short circuit without king. So must have been 30+ hours of farming at all.
I started with 1 hour a day until I reached instance limits. The last two days I have been there for 6-8 hours straight. This was a hell of a grind. Can't see any more ogres now

Btw: the worst part is this damn message coming up "Additional instances cannot be launched. Please try again later."
This really drove me crazy on some evenings ^^

[Duroxx]

omg wow nice man +1 great to see the good work and time put into this guide+Rep

[Platos]

Great guide, this'll help me a bunch. Took a quick run through tonight to get the achievement and grab the crescent key. I'll be back lots more to get my Booty Bay rep back.

[Martin240]

Thanks for the positive feedback. If there is anything I may have forgotten just post it here. Good ideas will be repped by me and if you allow it I will add them to the guide in the first post.

[Bastastic]

Amazing guide! Myself and a friend had been running this and splitting the loot, but nothing even close as in-depth as yours. Thanks! +Rep

[Martin240]

Just wanted to add that you can also use the NPC within Dire Maul to sell stuff and repair. He is located in the tunnels below the first courtyard after you entered the northern instance. You can even pick up money loot and sell it at this NPC as he is just 2 minutes from your normal way through the instance.

[CheeseProphet]

+Rep great guide! To be honest I didn't even know it was possible to get my rep back :P Well thanks alot!

[Martin240]

Why are 100 people reading the topic and only one of them is able to write a reply and give feedback? I don't get it. Are there so many leechers out there?

[vertigo7]

Why are 100 people reading the topic and only one of them is able to write a reply and give feedback? I don't get it. Are there so many leechers out there?

No, sometimes people just are either too lazy to reply or have already had their opinions voiced. Although I do admit it's annoying. This is a well written guide, have a cookie.

[Martin240]

Thanks for the cookie. You have my respect sir

[T-ReX]

Whoah lol nice.
I managed to make alot of gold on the Runecloth to.
But i didnt managed to get any blues or Epic
+rep for good written guide

[Martin240]

I am still looking for any additions to this guide. If you got any good ideas feel free to post. I will rep your effort of course.