How to earn reputation with Death’s Advance in Korthia

As we move forward into patch 9.1 of Shadowlands, we’ll advance further into the land of death — and appropriately, one of the two new factions we’ll encounter is Death’s Advance. This the main faction of the new area, Korthia, and it’s heavily integrated into the new zone, and completing Chapter 2 of the new Chains of Domination Covenant campaign will introduce you to Death’s Advance. And with this new faction comes a lot of new activities like dailies, new World Quests, and Covenant Assaults.

So now that there’s a new faction to earn reputation with, you probably have a few questions — How can I earn reputation? How long will it take? And why should I even bother? Let’s take a look at the Death’s Advance faction to get some answers.

Daily and weekly reputation quests for Death’s Advance

Every day, you’ll want jump into the Maw and head on over to Keeper’s Respite in Korthia to see what quests are up. There will be three to five quests, each one granting 125 reputation with Death’s Advance. Doing all the quests will average you 500 reputation per day, so if you dedicate yourself to the grind, you’ll earn 3,500 per week.

In the final patch of Battle for Azeroth, bi-weekly assaults were added: they required filling a bar twice a week to earn reputation and a box of rewards. Now that playstyle is back, but this time it’s Covenant Assaults in the Maw. Each one will grant 350 reputation with Death’s Advance, so doing both will give you 700 for the week.

There’s also a weekly quest that requires you to partake in activities in Korthia and the Maw. That includes doing your dailies and the Covenant Assaults, which are already giving you reputation. The quest, Shaping Fate, rewards 750 reputation with Death’s Advance. As well as 250 Anima, 1 Renown, and a chest that can reward other goodies, like Stygia.

Random events in Maw can also give you Death’s Advance rep: frequently a skull will appear on the map, indicating you can to kill mobs to spawn a rare who drops gear in one of the Wrath of the Jailer events. In patch 9.1, there’s a new event that will alternate with these, Tormentors of Torghast. You’ll know this is starting when you’re in the Maw and Kel’Thuzad says, “Arise, minions! Bring the husk of the moral before me!” Each Tormentors of Torghast event gives 100 Death’s Advance rep and the first one you complete each week drops a Tormentor’s Cache, granting an additional 200 rep.

Completing dailies every day, the weekly quest, bi-weekly assaults, and single Tormentors of Torghast will earn 5,250 reputation each week.

Additional reputation for Death’s Advance

If you do all of the above week after week, you’ll be well on your way to Exalted. And if you keep it up once you hit max rep, you’ll earn a Paragon box every other week. However, there are some other sources reputation that will help speed up the process — they’re just not guaranteed, or aren’t available right from the onset. For example, sometimes a daily quest reward will be a token that grants 175 reputation with Death’s Advance. Maybe there will be a day where you have five quests, all rewarding these tokens. Or maybe you won’t see any of these quests for a week. The RNG should balance out in the long run, but it makes your day-to-day reputation gains unpredictable.

Around Korthia are Rift Portals. Inside are rares, and these rares have a chance to drop Stolen Korthian Supplies, which grants a quest that rewards 200 reputation once per week. To even enter the portal, you have to buy a Repaired Riftkey, which requires reaching Rank 4 with the Archivists’ Codex.

There’s also a specific World Quest you should look out for when you’re farming rep: Containing the Helsworn, which grants 200 reputation. That’s good, not great, but the quest’s base reputation isn’t what’s important — sometimes it will grant a rep token giving you an additional 1,000 reputation with Death’s Advance. Furthermore, some mobs for the quest can drop Helsworn Battle Plans, which will provide a weekly quest granting an additional 200 rep. When this World Quest appears, it might provide 1,400 reputation… or 200. It will vary.

Finally, once players with Inscription start reaching Revered with Death’s Advance — or if that is you — Technique: Contract: Death’s Advance will give players an extra 10 reputation with Death’s Advance for every World Quest in the Shadowlands. Not just World Quests in Korthia and the Maw, but all World Quests in the Shadowlands. It’s not much, but it can add up.

Rewards from Death’s Advance

Why grind out all this reputation week after week? Those who care about gems on their gear will want Alloy-Warping Facetors. These add sockets to gear from patch 9.1 — including legendries of ranks 5 and 6. These can be purchased at Exalted for 1,000 Soul Cinders, the new currency from Torghast. Everything else Death’s Advance sells for Stygia, the currency of the Maw. The Alloy-Warping Facetor is also purchasable from the other Korthia faction, Archivists’ Codex, for 5,000 Cataloged Research. You’ll be earning both reputations at the same time, so it’s a matter of which you are at maxed reputation with, and which you have the appropriate amount of currency with. While gearing for raiding, you’ll probably want to split efforts between the two.

Beyond sockets, Death’s Advance sell gear. Korthian Armaments are bind-on-account ilevel 200 tokens for any armor slot, which will help to gear fresh level 60 alts. This gear can also be upgraded with the Archivists’ Codex faction. However, the upgrades aren’t account wide and will need to be unlocked on each alt that wishes to upgrade the gear. Transmog sets representing each Covenant are available to characters of that specific Covenant, 2,000 Stygia for the full set. At Honored, there’s a single piece of ilevel 220 gear for each armor class — a belt for cloth and mail wearers, gloves for leather and plate wearers.

Of course, gear is not why anyone farms rep: it’s for the mounts. There are a number of mounts here. An Amber Shardhide at Revered, and a different mount depending on Covenant at Exalted. But even when you hit Exalted the grind isn’t over, as there are Paragon boxes. Every 10,000 reputation after Exalted gives a box with a chance at two more mounts — a Beryl Shardhide and a Fierce Razorwing. There are also some pets.

Head on down to the Maw every day to do your dailies, World Quests, and assaults, and don’t watch the rep bar. Just play the game, and you’ll be surprised as it fills up behind the scenes. Then reap the rewards — as long as you have enough Stygia and Soul Cinders.

Originally published 6/28/2021