Yarrr!



Back in the olden days of the closed beta when the reputation mechanism was new, I visited Stranglethorn Vale with my dwarf hunter and noticed that as I completed quests in Booty Bay, my reputation with an organization called the Bloodsail Buccaneers dropped farther and farther down first into hostile and then into hated. This led me to wonder two things. First, was there a way to improve one's reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers? And second, was there anything fun you could do if you did?



Over time, scattered rumors surfaced about a pirate's hat that one could get if one got a friendly reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers by killing enough Booty Bay bruisers. I always wanted to try this out, but I always copped out with the usual excuses: It would take so much time to grind, and I was afraid that maybe reputation with the goblins might be important one day.



But then yesterday, one of our guild's mages, Vendetta, announced on guild chat that he was going to Booty Bay to grind out some bruisers. He and a couple other people had been chatting up the idea for a week, and he announced that he was going to finally do it and offered to let anyone who wanted to come to join him. I was standing there staring at a bunch of furbolgs that I had been farming off and on for weeks to grind out cash and reputation. I only had two days left until school started up again, and I thought, "You know? Why not end the summer with a bang?" So, I told Vendetta that I'd join him, and scurried off to Booty Bay.







Once at Booty Bay, we changed into our Bloodsail Buccaneer outfits using our ample supply of Savory Deviate Delight.



I opened up my reputation pane, and my mouse arrow hovered over the "At War" box next to the Booty Bay reputation bar. My conscience screamed, Do you really want to do this? I clicked on the box and quickly closed the screen. I'm not going to think about this. I'm just going to do it .







And so we began. Let me tell you, that first Booty Bay bruiser you kill is the toughest. The whole time, you're thinking, "Are you really really sure you want to do this?" And as the combat log fills with blue "Your reputation with Booty Bay has greatly decreased" messages, your brain yells "Stop!!!!!" I'm not going to think about this. I'm just going to do it .



The good thing about killing the bruisers is that they give really good faction. I don't use the Reputation mod, but Vendetta said he was getting 25 reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers for each bruiser we killed. (I like to keep the number of mods I install to a minimum, but I suppose I should finally break down and download Reputation).







The bad thing about the bruisers is that they're really tough. I used to be one of the biggest proponents of installing tougher guards with ranged attacks in the goblin towns, so I'm glad to see how much tougher the guards have become. But in our case, their toughness hindered the pair of us greatly. Sure, we could single target kill two or three guards at a time, but we had originally hoped that we could aoe farm Booty Bay and build up our reputation quickly. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that one mage with one priest healing him or her isn't enough to aoe farm there. Even a mage as well equipped as Vendetta is can spend his or her mana bar on aoe attacks without killing all the bruisers in an aoe-fest (never mind the frequent adds one gets mid-fight). Plus, the bruisers hit decently hard, and the worst is when you get repeatedly shot and knocked back by the gunners. Once a gunner gets locked onto you, it's hard to cast anything other than instant cast spells, since you get knocked back about every three seconds. On top of that, if you get shot at a bad angle, you can end up getting knocked over the ledge into the water, something that frequently happened to the pair of us. The going was slow.







When we first got knocked into the water, we tried to get back up into the town using the small ramp up to the lower level of the wharf. This seemed like a reasonable idea at first, but we soon found out that this spot is a really bad place to hang out. Booty Bay bruisers spawn and patrol down there constantly, so we never had a break, and I think some of the bruisers above us aggroed on us as well. After a handful of attempts of trying to enter the Booty Bay using this ramp, we abandoned the idea and swam around to the cove to the north (where our soon to be Bloodsail Buccaneers brothers and sisters hang out) and reentered Booty Bay from the front entrance.







This time, instead of going down to the wharf, we stayed up top along the back of the cliff face. This was the first good tactic the two of us discovered on this trip. There aren't any Booty Bay bruisers patrols in this area, so the pulls were controllable. What's more, we never got shot here, and even if we did get shot, we weren't in any danger of getting knocked back into the water. We repeatedly killed the bruisers at the entrance to Booty Bay and those along the back stretch of the town. Incidentally, the civilians in Booty Bay give a very small amount of reputation gain (I think 5 points), but bruisers spawn when you attack them, so killing them was a good way to get several more bruisers to appear when we wanted them to. Oh, don't get in a tizzy. That back stretch of Booty Bay tends to be hardly used, and if someone really needed to buy something or get a quest from one of the NPC's, that NPC would respawn within a couple minutes. The general response of those who came by tended to be "What the..." and "You guys are nuts!" Our response was always, "Yarrr!" of course.



After a fair amount of grinding, my reputation with Booty Bay dropped from high friendly to neutral to barely into hostile as you can see in the screenshot above. Meanwhile, my reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers went from the start of the "d" in hated to the end of the "d" in hated. I was at the point of no return. At this point, I could still go up to the Venture Company operation in northern Stranglethorn Vale and grind out enough reputation to get back up to neutral with Booty Bay. But if I continued to kill many more Booty Bay bruisers, any hope of ever entering Booty Bay safely would be lost. Meanwhile, what I had hoped would be a fast aoe reputation farming run that could get me a hat within a couple of days was starting to look like a weeks-long grind that I didn't think I had the stomach for. I got cold feet.



I called off the grinding session at that point and told Vendetta that I wanted to farm some cash to purchase the Living Essences and Essences of Water that I needed for a couple of enchantments. (The Booty Bay bruisers don't drop any loot at all). This was absolutely true, but what was also going through my head was that unless we could organize a larger group with more firepower, I just couldn't see how my dreams of becoming a pirate could be fulfilled with only two days left of summer vacation to spend on the project. Vendetta mentioned that some other guild members wanted to be a part of what we were calling the Pirates for Life organization and that since people would be logging on that evening for a Molten Core farming session, maybe we could organize a larger Booty Bay raid after that. I hoped so.



UP NEXT: More firepower! THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Yarrrrrr!Back in the olden days of the closed beta when the reputation mechanism was new, I visited Stranglethorn Vale with my dwarf hunter and noticed that as I completed quests in Booty Bay, my reputation with an organization called the Bloodsail Buccaneers dropped farther and farther down first into hostile and then into hated. This led me to wonder two things. First, was there a way to improve one's reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers? And second, was there anything fun you could do if you did?Over time, scattered rumors surfaced about a pirate's hat that one could get if one got a friendly reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers by killing enough Booty Bay bruisers. I always wanted to try this out, but I always copped out with the usual excuses: It would take so much time to grind, and I was afraid that maybe reputation with the goblins might be important one day.But then yesterday, one of our guild's mages, Vendetta, announced on guild chat that he was going to Booty Bay to grind out some bruisers. He and a couple other people had been chatting up the idea for a week, and he announced that he was going to finally do it and offered to let anyone who wanted to come to join him. I was standing there staring at a bunch of furbolgs that I had been farming off and on for weeks to grind out cash and reputation. I only had two days left until school started up again, and I thought, "You know? Why not end the summer with a bang?" So, I told Vendetta that I'd join him, and scurried off to Booty Bay.Once at Booty Bay, we changed into our Bloodsail Buccaneer outfits using our ample supply of Savory Deviate Delight. Savory Deviate Delight is a favorite item for members of The Core, you see. On a couple of occasions, we've done Warsong Gulch matches in pirate and ninja costumes (which makes things interesting, because you can't mount while transformed). Plus, on any Molten Core screenshot involving The Core, you'll find any number of pirates and ninjas running around.I opened up my reputation pane, and my mouse arrow hovered over the "At War" box next to the Booty Bay reputation bar. My conscience screamed,I clicked on the box and quickly closed the screen.And so we began. Let me tell you, that first Booty Bay bruiser you kill is the toughest. The whole time, you're thinking, "Are you really really sure you want to do this?" And as the combat log fills with blue "Your reputation with Booty Bay has greatly decreased" messages, your brain yells "Stop!!!!!"The good thing about killing the bruisers is that they give really good faction. I don't use the Reputation mod, but Vendetta said he was getting 25 reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers for each bruiser we killed. (I like to keep the number of mods I install to a minimum, but I suppose I should finally break down and download Reputation).The bad thing about the bruisers is that they're really tough. I used to be one of the biggest proponents of installing tougher guards with ranged attacks in the goblin towns, so I'm glad to see how much tougher the guards have become. But in our case, their toughness hindered the pair of us greatly. Sure, we could single target kill two or three guards at a time, but we had originally hoped that we could aoe farm Booty Bay and build up our reputation quickly. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that one mage with one priest healing him or her isn't enough to aoe farm there. Even a mage as well equipped as Vendetta is can spend his or her mana bar on aoe attacks without killing all the bruisers in an aoe-fest (never mind the frequent adds one gets mid-fight). Plus, the bruisers hit decently hard, and the worst is when you get repeatedly shot and knocked back by the gunners. Once a gunner gets locked onto you, it's hard to cast anything other than instant cast spells, since you get knocked back about every three seconds. On top of that, if you get shot at a bad angle, you can end up getting knocked over the ledge into the water, something that frequently happened to the pair of us. The going was slow.When we first got knocked into the water, we tried to get back up into the town using the small ramp up to the lower level of the wharf. This seemed like a reasonable idea at first, but we soon found out that this spot is a really bad place to hang out. Booty Bay bruisers spawn and patrol down there constantly, so we never had a break, and I think some of the bruisers above us aggroed on us as well. After a handful of attempts of trying to enter the Booty Bay using this ramp, we abandoned the idea and swam around to the cove to the north (where our soon to be Bloodsail Buccaneers brothers and sisters hang out) and reentered Booty Bay from the front entrance.This time, instead of going down to the wharf, we stayed up top along the back of the cliff face. This was the first good tactic the two of us discovered on this trip. There aren't any Booty Bay bruisers patrols in this area, so the pulls were controllable. What's more, we never got shot here, and even if we did get shot, we weren't in any danger of getting knocked back into the water. We repeatedly killed the bruisers at the entrance to Booty Bay and those along the back stretch of the town. Incidentally, the civilians in Booty Bay give a very small amount of reputation gain (I think 5 points), but bruisers spawn when you attack them, so killing them was a good way to get several more bruisers to appear when we wanted them to. Oh, don't get in a tizzy. That back stretch of Booty Bay tends to be hardly used, and if someone really needed to buy something or get a quest from one of the NPC's, that NPC would respawn within a couple minutes. The general response of those who came by tended to be "What the..." and "You guys are nuts!" Our response was always, "Yarrr!" of course.After a fair amount of grinding, my reputation with Booty Bay dropped from high friendly to neutral to barely into hostile as you can see in the screenshot above. Meanwhile, my reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers went from the start of the "d" in hated to the end of the "d" in hated. I was at the point of no return. At this point, I could still go up to the Venture Company operation in northern Stranglethorn Vale and grind out enough reputation to get back up to neutral with Booty Bay. But if I continued to kill many more Booty Bay bruisers, any hope of ever entering Booty Bay safely would be lost. Meanwhile, what I had hoped would be a fast aoe reputation farming run that could get me a hat within a couple of days was starting to look like a weeks-long grind that I didn't think I had the stomach for. I got cold feet.I called off the grinding session at that point and told Vendetta that I wanted to farm some cash to purchase the Living Essences and Essences of Water that I needed for a couple of enchantments. (The Booty Bay bruisers don't drop any loot at all). This was absolutely true, but what was also going through my head was that unless we could organize a larger group with more firepower, I just couldn't see how my dreams of becoming a pirate could be fulfilled with only two days left of summer vacation to spend on the project. Vendetta mentioned that some other guild members wanted to be a part of what we were calling the Pirates for Life organization and that since people would be logging on that evening for a Molten Core farming session, maybe we could organize a larger Booty Bay raid after that. I hoped so.UP NEXT: More firepower!