I’m back in the game and ready to party! Too bad, it’s the end of expansion malaise and no one is running anything like they used to. A few months ago my guildies were farming up Frost Badges on a constant for the Tier 10 gear. Now we’re about half-way through Ice Crown (we’re a casual 10-man guild atm) and everyone’s pretty well-geared for the content we’re running. So I’m working on my paladin and learning to raid tank, (it’s funner than DPS? Maybe.) while Beti farms hard. Mostly focusing on the dreaded daily quests, I’ve learned a lot about making the most of them in the past few weeks.
First of all, that ridiculous 25 dailies a day cap. I used to think it would be impossible to do 25 dailies a day. I now knock out 24 before work every day. It’s actually amazing how many daily quests there are in Northrend. I’ve been working on maximizing my return over time and come up with a pretty good system that rewards 3-400g per day. I could do a lot more if more of my alts were high rep with the Argent Tournament, but I refuse to partake in the jousting unless I’m in ToC 5-mans now.
Here’s Beti's Daily Chore List:
1- (2/25) Start in Dalaran. I do the Cooking and Fishing daily before heading out. If I’m lucky the fishing daily will be in town, if not, it’s actually on my route. Worst case scenario it’s the blood pool daily, which is really out of my way. After that, time to head for Sholozar!
2- (4/25) The Basin. I’m a big-tongue lover, so I usually do the shinies quest and whatever the “Song of X” quest is for that day. The “kill 50 puppy men in increasingly disturbing ways for the rain god” quests take too much of my precious, precious time. I assume there are equivalent puppy dog quests to these, either quick or simple or both.
3- (6/25) Death’s Rise. Once again, I’m assuming you’re like me and have done all the quests and are exalted with everyone (except the Ashen Verdict /sigh). Again, two quick quests here. Kill the gryphon riders then raise them from the dead. Takes all of five minutes depending on the rider’s pattern.
4- (8/25) Ebon Hold. Vile and the Leaper. Shoot ‘em up and burn ‘em down!
5- (14/25) The Argent Tournament. Since most of these are random, it doesn’t really matter. I avoid the group quest and the jousting quest. The main thing here that I focus on is tying them in with the other Ice Crown dailies in a pattern for maximum efficiency.
6- (19/25) The other Ice Crown dailies. There are a few dailies from the floating arsenal. I always take the Blood of the Chosen and the Saronite Slaves quests. The rest are up to you really, Drag and Drop and the Blind the Alliance quests are near each other and sometimes synch up with the random Argent daily in that area nicely. You also get to hear cultists scream like a girl before being thrown to their deaths and shoot gnomes from the sky with a bazooka /glee. I also do the Ground Support daily in Jartleheim, it works well with Blood of the Chosen and the Saronite Slaves quests. If PvP is an issue on your realm, be careful of the Alliance NPCs running around the village and the Alliance PCs too I guess.
7- (21/25) K3 and the Polar Bear mount that never drops. Overstock and then whatever the daily is from the Viking ladies. Hope you like cheese. Cheese from Yetis. If you actually have the Polar Bear mount, you suck, and can go do something else I guess /glare. If you’re having a particular bad day, find the only non-faction player doing Overstock and start dropping your mines about 10yds in front of them.
8- (24/25) Oh dear Hodir. I do the Helm, Spy Hunter and Feeding Arngrim quests as they are all in the same general area and Spy/Arngrim have a nice synergy.
Note that I don’t do 25 quests, I’ve not found that one other quest that fits my pattern or synergizes well with my current route. Plus it’s nice to have an opening in case a guildy wants help with Threat From Above or during the holidays when there are always one or two extra dailies available.
There are plenty of other dailies out there to do though. I personally have no use for Kaluak dailies now that I’m exalted, the tiny amount of gold isn’t worth it, the Grizzly Hills dailies come up short in the gold as well considering you may have to engage in ‘world pvp’ just to do a quest. If you are a meaningless-and-no-one-else-in-your-guild-bothers reward fan like me, the Pa’troll dailies may be up your alley. Be warned though, they are actually 5 dailies, 4 of which only reward 3 gold per and the final reward is based on how quickly you do the other quests. If you are in it for gold, don’t bother, but if you want to be awesome, this ones for you.
I’ve found I prefer this method of acquiring gold to farming for the auction house. Farming is okay when I’m waiting for a random dungeon or when it’s for personal reasons (oh Gundrak hatchling….how many more must die in your name?) but making a full-time job of it is boring. That’s why I prefer dailies right now, there is a built-in game mechanic that won’t allow me to keep doing them for eight hours straight on one toon.
My only must-do daily right now is the fishing daily (and the polar bear mount daily, but that’s just until I get the mount) as it has the highest possible rewards for a single daily. Fishing is important because of the possibilities in the fishing bag are awesome. I’ve gotten the strand crawler, but have yet to get one of the jeweled or bone fishing poles. The gray trash in the bag can vendor from 2-100g if you’re lucky. For the first time today I got the Tiny Titanium Lockbox. It used to be the only source in the game for epic gems! That’s right, only fishermen had access to the epic gem market at one point. The fishing bag is also the possible source of one of two quest starter items, the Poison and the Water-logged recipe. The recipe and the poison both reward gold equivalent to a regular daily, the recipe also rewards 5 Dalaran Cooking Awards, so if you haven’t gotten all your cooking recipes or that snazzy Chef’s hat, it can be helpful. But, if you're maxed on your cooking and go the hat, you are able to auction it, Wowhead says it goes for an average of 50g, maybe more depending on your server.
