Reaching the 50 Exalted Reputations Achievement is no easy fit — tells you someone who has played since 2004. It requires a lot of hours of investment, and tedious reputation points farming.

Throughout my Blood Elf Paladin character’s progression since Burning Crusade, I have completed exalted after exalted reputation with several factions. There are some of them who have been so uncomfortable I refused to spend time on them and neglected them for years:

  • Gadgetzan
  • Timbermaw Hold
  • Sporeggar

These were the three I had the most reputation with in comparison with the others I have not yet completed to exalted. I had completed some quests on them and gained up to Honored or so. I had 47 Exalted Reputations, and only needed three more for the 50 Exalted Reputations Achievement.

I was also attracted to the idea of getting The Diplomat Achievement which requires you to be exalted with the Mag’har, Sporeggar and Timbermaw Hold.

Many of you might have also neglected to farm further reputation points because of the tediousness and slowness. However, I got to say if this was the case prior to Cataclysm, you should reconsider. There is no better time than now to reach exalted with Gadgetzan, Sporeggar and Timbermaw Hold.

Timbermaw Hold

In Cataclysm, Timbermaw Hold reputation is pretty easy nowadays. The reason I stopped doing them prior to Cataclysm was the long travels to Deadwood Village to kill certain amount of Furbolgs, or to get some feathers to turn in the quest all the way up at the Timbermaw Hold entrance in northern Felwood. There was no flying mounts back then, and it was a long ride.

Nowadays, with the flying mount and a good design by the developers it is easier than ever to reach exalted with the Timbermaw Hold. You no longer need to travel to Deadwood Village all the way down to south Felwood. The feathers drop from mobs in the Felpaw Village at a higher drop rate than ever. The mobs respawn so fast that by the time you go around the lake they have been respawned long ago giving you a steady flow of kills and loot. The Chieftain Bloodmaw gives 66 reputation with Timbermaw Hold. He respawns now every 60 seconds. Each Felpaw Furlbolg kill gives now 22 reputation too.

For those who haven’t done low level quests, now at level 85, there is a new quest titled Stupid Drizle! which grants 1110 reputation with Timbermaw Hold. The follow up titled The Chieftain’s Key grants 1540 reputation.

With the Cataclysm expansion resetting quests, high level players can now benefit from the quest Deadwood of the North (another 1542 reputation points).

Disarming Bears gives 1100 Reputation.

Speak to Salfa sends you to the entrance of Winterspring. You get 110 reputation. The follow up Delivery to Donova grants only 110 reputation. Personally, I would skip these two quests if you don’t need the XP. With the time spent flying to turn in these two, you could have obtained a lot of kills and feathers worth more reputation points than that.

Feathers for Nafien is definitely your main goal once it becomes available to you. It is a repetitive quest which only requires you to bring 5 Deadwood Headdress Feathers. These have a great drop rate. Make sure to keep them (don’t sell them) because each quest turn in gives you a whooping 2200 reputation points with the Timbermaw Hold.

Let’s illustrate for you how awesome that is in slow-mo. Let’s say you are 0/21000 revered. You only need around 50 Deadwood Headdress Feathers to get to exalted. Those drop like candy. Since the combination between neutral to revered is also 21000, you need a total of 100 feathers to reach exalted if you start from scratch — ahh, but that’s an incorrect number. Take in mind all the mobs you kill at 22 rep and the many times you get to kill Chieftain Bloodmaw for 66 rep. A few hours worth. I was honored when I started. Took me about two hours or so to reach exalted.

Sporeggar

In Burning Crusade, I hated farming Sporeggar reputation with a passion. I reached Honored in 2007 after Burning Crusade shipped, and let it rot there for four years. The reason was the fact you would need to kill 12 Naga sirens and 6 naga warriors, and fly back to Sporeggar to turn in to get reputation via a repetitive quest. The alternative option was to herb Sanguine Hibiscus from the Underbog dungeon in Coilfang Reservoir. At level 70, in Burning Crusade, it was hard to farm those competing with other four players. You would have a hard time farming reputation off the dungeon.

Fast forward to the Cataclysm expansion, it is a breeze to reach exalted with the Sporeggar faction. Wait until you are level 85 to get exalted with Sporeggar. My sincere advice to players is to completely skip the repetitive quest to kill naga. Each turn-in gives you 825 reputation. That’s cool, but Underbog gives more reputation and more time efficient than the naga path. Here is a rundown on why.

First go to Sporeggar and grab from Gzhun’tt the quest titled Bring me Another Shrubbery! At level 85 you can solo the non-heroic Underbog dungeon. Extra Benefit: No one competes with you for the loot. You won’t even reach 90% health with 20 mobs hitting you in Underbog. That easy.

Kill all and every mob in the lower floor of Underbog up to the point you reach the naga area. All those mobs have a decent drop rate of Sanguine Hibiscus. Herb them too along your way to the end boss. Another tip: each boss except for the draenei boss drop one Sanguine Hibiscus, so kill Hungarfen, Ghaz’an and The Black Stalker to loot a Sanguine Hibiscus. I guarantee you will loot a minimum of 32 Sanguine Hibiscus per Underbog solo-run.

Each repetitive quest turn-in requires only 5 Sanguine Hibiscus which grants you 825 reputation with the Sporeggar. Now, I did say you get a minimum of 32 Sanguine Hibiscus per run. Make sure you have at least a full bag empty, and if you can store stuff in the bank and have two full bags available much better. On top of farming reputation, the gold obtained by selling loot drops is welcome. On the other hand, the reasoning for plenty of bag space before going to the Underbog is that you are killing lots of mobs at once and each corpse piles up. It’s annoying to have full bags and not been able to loot the corpses below bigger mobs because you keep looting the same mob and getting the “Inventory is Full” error message.

Get back to Sporeggar when your inventory is full, and turn in the Sanguine Hibiscus. You should have around 65 of them by the time your inventory is full. That’s 12 turn-ins right there, or 9900 reputation in just two Underbog runs. Compare that with killing a bazillion nagas. Farming Sporeggar reputation in the Underbog is time-efficient. You can finish it up in about 15 minutes.

Another tip. Once you kill the last boss, The Black Stalker, and you drop at the end of the tunnel by the zone in portal, don’t zone out. It took you about 15 minutes or so to finish the dungeon. By now, the first floor may have respawned some Sanguine Hibiscus. Go get them, and zone out. Reset all dungeons, and solo-run Underbog again. I was honored, and finished Exalted in a combined total of 3-4 hours or less in two different days.

Gadgetzan

It is still difficult to farm Gadgetzan. Once you have finished all the Cataclysm goblin quests in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, it is dreadful to farm Gadgetzan reputation points.

Pre-Cataclysm, there were two common ways to get Gadgetzan reputation: the water bags and killing pirates in Tanaris’ Lost Rigger Cove (behind Caverns of Time). An old patch introduced Fray Island, near Ratchet too. However, you only used to get about 2-3 reputation points per kill.

After Cataclysm, while no other means to get reputation has been added, the developers make it easier to get to exalted with Gadgetzan. You no longer need to go to Fray Island to farm Gadgetzan reputation. The pirates in Lost Rigger Cove now give you randomly 5 or 6 reputation points. That extra bonus helps a lot the long grind. The pirates in Fray Island only grant 3 reputation per kill, plus 13 reputation for Cap’n Garvey. Tanaris is much better.

I was honored with Gadgetzan, and I won’t lie to you. It took me about five hours to reach exalted. It is still much better than pre-Cataclysm. There is no science here but brutal kill after kill, after kill, piling up 5 or 6 reputation from each pirate killed. There is a catch, however. To your regret, the Lost Rigger Cove pirates stop giving reputation at … 20999 Revered.

You will likely go nuts trying to figure out how to get that extra 1 reputation to reach exalted. Fret not, go to Fray Island near Ratchet to get it.