Shaman Epic Faction Grind : The Walkthrough

[Netherzul]

Hello P99

I recently obtained my epic at 51 and wanted to give other Shamans out there some up to date information for those of you who want to do an easy epic in a much easier, albeit, much more tedious fashion. If you're lacking the guild with the man-power to do the steps inside The Hole and the various Black Reaver spawns within CoM, this route to doing your epic can be done about 90% solo.

Prior to starting my epic, I was trying to find information on how many turn-ins would be required to reach max ally and I did find some sources with this information but came to find out that they were mostly inaccurate. As I worked on the faction grind, I kept track of every count of turn-ins I did in the event the information I found was inaccurate, which like stated above, turned out to be the case.

For starters, I decided to grind Peg Leg in BB by offering a Druid 500-600 platinum an hour to port me non-stop between my bind spot at the front of EC tunnel to BB. I would port to BB, run to Peg Leg (which is a very short run from the Druid port in spot in BB), kill Peg Leg and talk to the wolf. I had macros set up to make getting the text done for the gem very quick which increased efficency to the point that I was beating Peg Legs spawn (which gave me time to med from the gates/single nuke it took to take him down). I was hitting 10 turn-ins per hour.

Total Peg Leg turn-ins: 34 / Current Faction: Amiable

I stopped here because #1, I was burning through all of my plat #2, repeating this step is very, very boring and obviously gets old, very quick. I did this amount of turn-ins over two days but this can easily be done in one day if you can stand porting to BB 34 times and gating 68 times (from BB to EC tunnel and from EFP turn-in back to EC tunnel) within a days time.

At this point, I decided to go to Rathe Mountains and work on the Woe, Envy and Marr turn-ins. These two guys are easily soloable at 42-44 which can help maxing faction at an early level. Due to the respawn timer, your faction gains here can be bottle-necked, however, it appears they give a faction hit worth anywhere from 6-8 turn-ins from the Peg Leg step so every 4?? hours, you can do this step to break the monotony of Peg Leg.

Total Woe/Envy/Marr turn-ins: 3 / Current Faction: Amiable

I read that you can solo CoM entrance around level 44, which at the time of doing Woe/Envy/Marr, I was at just the right level. I headed off to CoM to collect pages. The drops seem to range from common to very uncommon (written announcement seems to be the most uncommon). Once I had the 5 random drop pages, I made my way to stables and managed to break in the courier spawn with the help of a C2. Within an hour or so, I had all 6 pages and did my turn in. All following page collection quests were obtained at 49+ as I found this method to be very inconsistent and slow (but outstanding exp) unless the zone was packed with other players /oocing the pages for you.

Total CoM page turn-ins: 3 / Current Faction: Warmly

I was planning on doing a 4th turn-in of the pages OR heading off to Woe/Envy/Marr (plus maybe a few turn-ins of Peg Leg) to try to hit max ally but in the process a member of Flawless Victory sent me a tell and told me that the 3 books from Lord Ghoisk (sp?) were sitting on the moat and told me it gives outstanding faction. I scurried my behind to the moat and looted the 3 books. This turn-in is what gave me the message "Your faction standing with True Spirit cannot possibly get any better".

Lord Ghoisk (sp) book turn-ins: 1 / Current Faction: Max Ally


Flawless Victory had just left CoM at this point from working on their Shaman/Magician epics and were headed off to FoB for an Enchanter epic kill. We regularly group/raid with FV so I sent Layze a tell to ask if they could assist at all with my final kill. 6 55+ and 2-3 below 50 FV arrived to assist myself and Azure Guard with the final kill.

Once we were in the pull spot, Layze proceeded to pull Reavers until we got the /shout from the Reaver of "5". On the 5th shout of a Reaver, Lord Rak spawns. This is consistent and will always spawn Lord Rak on the "5" of a Black Reaver shout.

Once Lord Rak spawned, we had a slight delay but within 15 minutes, I had turned in my tear and we destroyed Lord Rak. The wiki makes him seem intimidating and to be honest, I was a little concerned that we may not be able to down him. The wiki has him at 27,000 health, which is slightly under a raid boss target hp. I don't know if it was our dps but I think I can safely say this number of hp's is totally off. I would put Lord Rak at around 12,000-14,000 hp (he died in about 10 seconds). The information about his AoE is completely accurate, however, as many people fell to Rak's very strong AoE. This can be totally negated by the tank pulling him out of range of the AoE and only the melees will need to be supported. Within 5 minutes, I had looted the scale and turned in for my epic.

I want to give a huge thanks to Azure Guard. For a small tight-knit guild, you guys are great and I'm honored to be here!! I'd also like to extend an equally grateful thanks to Flawless Victory. It's always a pleasure to group and raid with you guys. Thanks for the help you provided us last night and thanks for helping me get my tear in such a short amount of time!

Hopefully the information I posted here will give Shamans who are considering completing their epics in this fashion a little more insight to the whole process. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here as the entire thing is still very fresh in my mind.

Total damage on Curse of the Spirits - 1309

Good luck on your path to becoming a true Heyokah!

Powertrip AG

[Swish]

Originally Posted by Netherzul [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I read that you can solo CoM entrance around level 44, which at the time of doing Woe/Envy/Marr, I was at just the right level. I headed off to CoM to collect pages. The drops seem to range from common to very uncommon (written announcement seems to be the most uncommon). Once I had the 5 random drop pages, I made my way to stables and managed to break in the courier spawn with the help of a C2. Within an hour or so, I had all 6 pages and did my turn in. All following page collection quests were obtained at 49+ as I found this method to be very inconsistent and slow (but outstanding exp) unless the zone was packed with other players /oocing the pages for you.

Total CoM page turn-ins: 3 / Current Faction: Warmly

An excellent guide! I did it the hard way on live (the parts in Erud's Crossing and West Karana particularly annoyed me for some reason).

Quick "note" on the CoM part (no pun intended). Usually there's some 40s/50s XP'ing in the zone... keep announcing that you're collecting pages and they'll usually tell you what drops in /ooc or tells and where to get it. Doing that can speed things up significantly while XP'ing at the same time [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Netherzul]

Aye, I did just that, which did speed things up. Without the zone being packed on a regular basis, like it is, I imagine this step should be cut out altogether unless you're after a duo of exp + working on your epic.

[McMuffins]

THANK YOU!

[Netherzul]

My pleasure [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] hopefully it helps others get their epic and makes the entire thing less stressful. It's always nice to have an idea of what to expect!

[Boilon]

do you know if the city of mist page step requires any certain level of Min faction in order to do the turn ins?
you say that you started it at Amiably

[phobus]

This thread in the priest subforum has a lot of useful information, too - you guys should check on that forum from time to time if you don't already. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

BTW, Glaron and Tabien are on a 2.5-hour spawn timer.

[Slave]

Or you could spend about 10 hours just running back and forth, with ports and Gates, on the first turn-in(s).

[Netherzul]

Boilon, in regards to your question.

I believe it was on the higher end of Amiable because I did in fact get the message on one turn in that I failed to do my part etc. etc. and I'm almost positive it was shortly after I hit Amiable. Keep track of your turn-ins and once you feel you're safely into Amiable you should be able to turn the pages in.

[Toehammer]

I really enjoyed the whole epic here. I did all the Erud's crossing stuff... up to black dire, etc. When I got to the Hole part I realized how annoying it could be. The pathing in The Hole can be messed up, and for me, the mob actually warped at 15% health and started summoning group members across the zone... half of us gated so i don't know where lol. So then I said screw it and started grinding faction.

Did like 20-30 peg leg turn ins... but CoM pages seem to be a really fast way, which I did ~5 of. I think I hit max faction after that. I am still unsure, but I think once you can turn in CoM pages, it might be the fastest way (besides multiple Ghiosk page turn ins, if you're lucky) to max faction. Just being in CoM getting exp and pages while praying for groups killing ghiosk is definitely the best bet for a young shaman.

Of course, I cringed when I read all about your porting arrangement. If there has ever been an argument for being bound at the firepots (I am) epic faction is one of them (for shaman at least). I actually stopped doing peg leg because with firepots I kept getting annoyed having to sit, waiting for him to spawn!

Nice guide, would have helped me when doing the quest!