At a time when most people are taking a break or easing off playing WoW, I have been going all out to achieve one of the rarest Feats of Strength available in the game. I wish there was a way of tracking how many people have got the “Insane in the Membrane” achievement on my server, but it doesn’t appear this is possible. Anecdotally, on the Khaz’goroth forums there are at least 6, with plenty more that are mid-way, judging by the Auction House speculation on items required.
Despite many “guides” insisting that you need Bloodsail reputation at Honoured, whilst simultaneously having all 4 Goblin Reputations at Exalted, I feel comfortable post patch 3.2 that this is no longer required, and there will be a lot of teeth gnashing if my presumption is wrong. So, of the 7 Exalted and 1 Honoured reputations required, I am currently:
Bloodsail Buccaneers: Hated. I’ll be doing this one last. Apparently going from Hated to Honoured can be done in a single solid 3 hour burst if you have a party of five people. 0% done.
Booty Bay: Exalted. 100 runs of Dire Maul North was enough to get this. I actually enjoyed them as I was able to vendor a ton of stuff, and Disenchant all green and blue items.
Ratchet: Exalted
Everlook: Exalted
Gadgetzan: Exalted
Darkmoon Faire: 9000/12000 Honoured. Despite spending a lot of time on the Auction House and levelling Inscription to 450, herbing and making cards, Decks have been too expensive to buy and some cards (helloooo Ace of Portals and Ace of Beasts) have been impossible to find. On the bright side, I made a Nobles Deck and sold it for 4700 gold. I still have around 60 Epic decks to hand in, and that is going to take at least another two months. The decks cost around 500 gold each currently, and I may have to blow 5-10k getting the last of them. I am probably about 40% done with this faction.
Ravenholdt: 750 / 21000 Revered. I waited till I had the Goblin factions completed before looking at this, and I’m glad I did because I might have given up if I’d realised earlier. Of all the grinds, this one has got to be the worst. The 6 hours of killing at Durnhold Keep was mindless, but manageable. From Revered onwards, The Heavy Junkbox collection (involving the pick-pocketing of 14,000 guards at Tyr’s Hand in Eastern Plaguelands) with a 15% drop rate has got to be the most insane part of the Insane title. I have borrowed my ex-guildie Jason’s level 80 rogue for a few months, and setup 5 macros to make it less painful and only started this section 2 days ago. If only I could run around faster when stealthed (apparently you can re-spec for 30% faster speed but I’m reluctant to ask him if I can do this). I am about 5% done (in terms of time) with this faction.
Shen’drala: 6000 / 21000 Revered. This one is pretty crazy also, and due to greater overall awareness of the need for Librams and Pristine Black Diamonds, and subsequent supply / demand bullshit, the 90+ diamonds required are now going for 200 gold each+ on my server, and Librams for 110 – 150 gold each. Supply is pretty steady, so if you have 20-30k gold, you could complete this faction in a week of so. I buy the items only when less than 100g, so it’s been slow and steady so far. I’m about 70% through this – and thank god, have only 30 more diamonds to buy. One of the cool things about this grind is the need to spend time in Scholomance and Stratholme for Skin of Shadow and Frayed Abomination Stitchlings. I’d hardly ever been in these intances so it’s been fun to farm them in speed runs.
And thats it. I’ve really enjoyed it all so far, though it’s fair to say that not a lot of household projects are getting done, and my wife has been very tolerant. I’ve been going at it for 8 weeks now and probably will be done in another 8-10 at an average time expenditure of 3-4 hours a day.
Major items to buy on the AH for those interested:
Pristine Black Diamond (90) < 100g – used to be about 40g but prices are crazy now.
Libram of Protection, Libram of Focus, Libram of Rapidity (total of 90) < 70g
All blue Darkmoon Cards < 20g if you’re lucky. Mostly averaging around 40g each and you will need to have 500+.
Primal Life / Mote of Life / Darkflame Ink / Ebon Pigment (when cheap) for making Darkmoon Cards.