Patch 6.2: New factions, quests and rep items

The most recent build to the World of Warcraft patch 6.2 PTR brings four new factions with a bunch of new faction rewards including pets, toys, a mount speed boost, new apexis gear, and yes, a new fel raven flying mount.

Two of these new factions are essentially duplicates, as one is designated for the Alliance and the other for the Horde. You can get rewards with either Hand of the Prophet or Vol’jin’s Headhunters in Lion’s Watch or Vol’mar respectively. Getting reputation with them involves daily quests, though they’re relatively loose in scope. For example, if you’re tasked to kill fel orcs, you can kill whichever fel orcs in Tanaan you’d like. So if your Tanaan-specific Apexis daily brings you to Ironhold Harbor, you can either complete it there, or go grind near the Dark Portal if you wanted, or even in the elite camps near Kazzak 3.0 — objectives don’t appear to be tied to one specific area.

This dual rep has the most items up for grabs. Keep in mind that this is the PTR so all things are subject to change, but for now all the items for these reputation rewards cost gold, exclusively. There are three new blueprints to use in your Shipyard, a map of all the Tanaan Jungle treasures, a battle standard that grants a rep gain boost similar to existing Guild standards, and a new follower. There’s also a new toy which allows you to take on the appearance of either a Frostwolf Grunt or a Karabor Councilor, and a bright red recolor of the boar mounts we’ve seen throughout Draenor. The mount is currently without a price. The most unique addition is a trade agreement with the Arakkoa Outcasts which allows you to increase the maximum size of your garrison’s cache to 1,000, a hefty upgrade from the current 500. This is currently BOP, so your lowbie alts are out of luck, but your main only has to log in half as frequently to roll over those resources.

The other two new factions are the Order of the Awakened and The Saberstalkers. They are universal to both Horde and Alliance.

The Saberstalkers reputation vendor is just North of Fang’rila, and most quests conveniently involve killing a whole bunch of elite Saberon in that area. There are a few special saberon running around, but the majority of the rank & file grant 25 rep per mob and drop a couple of Blackfang Claws each. The Claws are currency for a number of new items, including a black recolored boar mount, a Savage Cub battle pet, a new follower, and totems that allow you to challenge some special mobs in the Fang’rila Arena. One particular purchase of note is a BOP item which, when learned, allows your mount to go a blazing 15% faster when mounted in Tanaan Jungle.

The Order of the Awakened asks you to find treasures and kill rares in a repeatable quest which begins in the faction hubs of Lion’s Watch or Vol’mar. Any rare or treasure will do, as they all contain the items the Arakkoa are looking for. When you’ve collected enough, they award you a small number of Apexis and some reputation for your trouble.

Even without reputation, the Order will allow you to purchase a token for item level 650 gear in any slot for 5,000 Apexis a pop, 10,000 for a weapon. They also sell an item to upgrade these to item level 695 for 20,000 Apexis per upgrade, making this a far cheaper proposition with more options than the current Apexis vendors.

A different vendor contains all the reputation items. They will allow you to buy a new firehawk pet, boat for your shipyard, toy, tabard, and follower once the Order likes you enough. Controversy will likely come from the mount that they offer, however. You don’t need any reputation to purchase it, just a whopping 150,000 Apexis Crystals. In the mount journal, the Corrupted Dreadwing has the same model as the Collector’s Edition Dread Raven, only instead of a royal blue and gold theme, the Corrupted Dreadwing is black and purple, with lime green fel accents, including a bit of fel fire and rising green cinders. I don’t have that number of crystals to spend so I can’t say for sure, but I assume its feathery bulk looks just as strange on the ground as its non-corrupt counterpart.