Death & Taxes

This post actually has nothing to do with either death or taxes. But that popped into my head when I created the post, so that’s what I used as the title.

What this post does have to do with is Rubeola getting a Talbuk mount by becoming exalted with the Kurenai in Nagrand. Getting to exalted with the Kurenai is surprisingly easy, especially for a level 80 Death Knight. I think Rubeola started out neutral with them. The first order of business was to do absolutely every Kurenai quest I could find that Rubeola hadn’t already done. It turned out that she hadn’t done any of them, which was a little surprising as I thought I would have at least done the first couple of quests in Nagrand before heading to Northrend. But I guess I was so eager to get to Northrend that I dropped everything as soon as I hit 68.

Anyway, upon completing all of the Kurenai quests, Rubeola was revered. Your mileage may very a lot, though. Rubeola is human, so she has what I consider one of the best racials in the game (if you mostly solo, like I do): Diplomacy. Diplomacy gets you an extra 10% rep. Which means that when Rubeola kills an ogre, she gets 11 rep with the Kurenai, instead of 10. And when she hands in 10 beads, she gets 550 rep, instead of 500.

As a side issue, why do humans get Diplomacy? The Orcs seem to me to be a lot more diplomatic. I know. Historically the Orcs weren’t diplomatic at all, being corrupted by demons and such. But they are a lot better now, and I think Thrall is far more the diplomat than the king is. But I digress.

Once Rubeola had finished all the quests she could for the Kurenai (including Durn the Hungerer, which is quite soloable at 80), she started in on killing ogres. 1 ogre gets you 10 rep (or 11 if you are human). Plus, you have a chance to loot Obsidian Warbeads from each ogre killed. Hand in 10 beads and you get another 500 rep (550 if you are human). A level 80 Death Knight with slightly-better-than-crap-gear can generally one or two shot any Nagrand ogre. It helps to be Uhnoly with a ghoul as the ghoul gives you more killing options. If you’re competing with others for ogres to kill, you can start the ghoul on the next ogre while you finish off the current one.

The whole rep grind, from neutral to exalted was just a couple of days. Not bad at all.

Personally, the Talbuk mounts are some of my favorite mounts in the game. As I’ve probably said before, the Undead epic mount is my favorite of the land mounts. But the Talbuk is a close second. The only way that Rubeola can get an Undead mount is from Baron Rivendare, and since I don’t think that’s happening any time soon, I’m going to have to settle for a Talbuk.

One cool thing about getting exalted with the Kurenai (or Mag’har on the Horde side) is that there are a total of 8 mounts that you can buy. That gets you a long way to getting the 50 you need to get an albino drake.