Shadowlands reputations are Warband-wide, Goblin Cartel reputations boosted in WoW patch 11.1.5

One of the less-talked-about changes in WoW patch 11.1.5 is a pair of reputation changes for factions both old and new. We already knew from Blizzard’s post of the official 11.1.5 update notes that the rate at which you gain reputation with the individual Goblin Cartels of Undermine is now doubled; however, at the last minute, Blizzard also added a note saying that Shadowlands reputations — not Renown, notably — will now be Warband-wide.

The Goblin cartel buff — which doubles the rate at which you gain reputation with Bilgewater Cartel, Blackwater Cartel, Steamwheedle Cartel, and the Venture Company — applies to world quests, weekly quests, side gigs, and rares. This should help you get those cool rewards like the Everlasting Noggenfogger Elixir or Storefront-in-a-Box even faster. It’s worth noting, however, that this does not apply to Blackfuse Solutions repuation that you can only gain via Market Research. Also, none of the Undermine reputations are affected by the reputation buff from the Winds of Mysterious Fortune leveling event — this 100% bonus is a separate thing, but luckily it’s sticking around permanently (unlike the leveling event reputation bonus).

On the other half of this change, the Shadowlands reputations becoming Warband-wide could potentially be a boon for anyone interested in revisiting that content. This is, as noted, not the four major Renowns associated with the Covenants — Venthyr, Kyrian, Necrolord, and Night Fae remain character-specific for now. This is, however, almost every other rep in Shadowlands:

• The four major reputations associated with the Covenants outside of their Renown — The Ascended, The Undying Army, Court of Harvesters, and The Wild Hunt.
• The Night Fae exclusive reputation Court of Night, which relied on opening certain features with the Night Fae Anima Conductor.
• The Revendreth-specific The Avowed, which required grinding Sinstones and turning them in for reputation.
• Ve’nari, Death’s Advance, and The Archivist’s Codex, the Maw and Korthia-specific reputations.
• The Enlightened, the reputation for the faction of Brokers in Zereth Mortis.

A lot of these are annoying to grind up multiple times, to the point that some of them already had their features made account-wide back in Shadowlands — a lot of Ve’nari unlocks around Torghast and the Maw, for example, were so fundamental to making the gameplay palatable, but such a pain to unlock multiple times, that they were already made account-wide.

Some of these reputations also require currencies beyond just gold or Anima: taking advantage of Death’s Advance or Ve’nari reputation, for example, will require you to have Stygia, the currency of the Maw. (Luckily, Stygia is one of several currencies being made Warband-transferable in 11.1.5.) However, for those of you who ground out these reputations back during Shadowlands‘ heyday, it should now be much easier to go back and collect rewards that you may have not picked up at the time; for people who never finished them (like me!), this might be an incentive to dive back into that old content and finish it up.