With the 10.2 update ‘Guardians of the Dream’, World of Warcraft has received the latest and final major patch for Dragonflight. Part of this: a new reputation faction. But those who played too early or simply ‘normally’ now have a disadvantage.
Why am I falling behind?
- The Guardians of the Dream are the new faction in patch 10.2 and provide some rewards for fame levels.
- Reputation with the Guardians is limited to a certain amount per week. There is no way to farm reputation reliably and permanently.
- Some players, however, have cleverly utilized mechanics and finished within just one week. Everyone else now has to wait – because the tricks no longer work retroactively.
How could you play ‘wrong’? Right at the release of patch 10.2, you could trick a bit: if you played a secondary character instead of your main, you could reach fame level 18 directly in the first week, and in week 2 the maximum of fame level 20.
However, your alt had to reach fame level 10 on the release day. This was fastest as a human (+10% reputation) and during the Darkmoon Faire, which was still ongoing (also +10% reputation).
What makes the trick possible for everyone this time: due to the announcement of The War Within and the ongoing pre-sales, purchasable character boosts are directly available for level 70. Anyone could simply buy an alt for the reputation.
If a character reaches fame level 10, all other characters receive +100% reputation up to that level. So if you played your main only afterward – and during the faire – you could approximately reach level 16-18, depending on the effort you wanted to make.
Then, in week 2, the 19th anniversary of WoW started with another 19% reputation. Those who stored their reputation tokens here and just redeemed them now benefit again from a big bonus and were at least by Thursday, November 16, at fame level 20.
So it was ‘wrong’ to just play the new patch normally, meaning: complete the new campaign, story, and quests with the main character.
Reputation brings useful upgrades, can provide advantages
The fact that many players have directly focused on reputation is because there is a strong improvement behind fame level 18. Here you get a new rune that grants +87 to your main attribute for one hour and is usable indefinitely.
In addition, there are upgrade currencies for the new equipment as well as at level 20 a new optional crafting material, with which you can upgrade a crafted item up to level 476. This item is then better than anything you could get before 10.2.
If you didn’t apply the ‘trick’, you should now be around fame level 11/12 or 13/14, depending on whether you have already completed the raid or not. MyMMO demon Cortyn, however, has another trick ready: with a contract and world quests outside the dream, you can also reach reputation 18 without the reputation bonus at the start.
Even if the circumstances in this case were particularly special, you can proceed similarly upon the release of an update in the future, if you want to save time or be particularly efficient. However, the next update is unlikely to bring a new faction:
WoW: The ‘last major patch’ is not the end of Dragonflight – Blizzard shows what is still to come
