From Shaman to Pirate in 2.5 hours: There be Pirates here!

The Bloodsail Buccaneers. Oh don't act like you don't know who I'm talking about. You know them as well as I. You've forced them off the beaches of Stranglethorn Vale. You've fought your way onto their ships. You've passivly slain their sailors on your quest for more xp, and a few extra gold. And why? Because some stupid goblin in Booty Bay asked you to.

Maybe it was more than that. But I sincerely doubt it. Like so many other times, you chose to mindlessly slaughter those in your way, simply because someone with a yellow exclamation point over their head told you to. Bah.

The Twenty Totems are different. We do things... differently. (which is why we're so different) We, under the leadership of Thrall, seek a higher ground when choosing our fights.

Ask us to slaughter pigs and harvest their intestines? First show us guilty pigs. Tell us to poison Aldor soup? First prove to us it will actually work.

Ask us to murder countless guards in Booty Bay... First, kind sir, you must promise us a cool hat... one that summons a rare pet... and maybe throw in a sweet pirate outfit. Yeah. That would do it. FOR THE HORDE!

It's sadly true. Promise me something that looks cool, and I'll likely grind the same mob over and over, hours on end, just to look slightly cooler. Which was the first reason the Bloodsail grind intrigued me.

Second reason, came from a tiny note in a Bloodsail guide over at warcraftpets.com. Along with excellent tips and details, I found this gem...

FYI: For those who can dual-box (play two accounts at once), this grind is much faster. You can either earn Bloodsail rep with both characters (costing you twice as much to repair your Steamwheedle rep later on), or grind with just one character and use the other as a heal-bot. Just keep your healer ungrouped and she/he won't lose or gain any rep. (Of course, this option only works with healing classes.)

Hmmmm. So, if you "Dual-box", it's really easy... (/queue scary music and laugh manically)

I did some more research and learned a bit more about this grind before I got started. Here is what I learned.

The Bloodsail Buccaneers are typically passed by most players as another group of mobs you need to wipe out to clean out your quest log. But the Devs thought they'd bury a few treasures within their ranks. As it turns out, if you build up your reputation with them, they'll make you a pirate.

The pants, boots, shirt, belt and most of all, the Admiral's hat. The hat, is the real reason folks decide to join the Bloodsail Navy.

Besides being a very unique design, the hat is also the only thing in game tha can summon the Blood Parrot. I'd comment here that it's just another re-skinned parrot pet model, but come on... PIRATE HAT!

Now the only way to build up your rep with the Bloodsail Pirates is to slaughter their enemies. (seems to be a re-occuring theme in this world) So who are their enemies? Well, that would be pretty much anyone occupying Booty Bay. And right now, that's the goblins of the Steamweedle Cartel. No problem right? So what if we kill a few guards in Booty Bay?

Well, as soon as you start doing that, news will travel fast. Then you'll find it impossible to visit some of your favorite goblin hangouts. Specifically Gadgetzan, Ratchet, Everlook and of course, Booty Bay.

In the past, this was a bit of bad news for those who needed to travel.

And there are more than a few quests that are available only in those towns. And the only way to get back in the good graces of the goblins, meant a grind that was many times worse than the one to become a Pirate in the first place.

But times have changed. Outside of each of these cities you'll now find a Bloodsail Traitor, who, for the price of a few cloth, is willing to strut around the goblin towns, telling stories of how brave you are, and how you've done great things for goblin orphans, and that you've admitted publically that your... uh.. "courage" is alot smaller than any goblins. (small guys love it when you assume they're bigger than you)

After you hand over enough cloth, you'll be seen as a hero by the goblins once agian.

So now, the only real pain is the initial grind, involving the endless pull, kill, eat/drink, pull, etc. of Booty Bay Bruisers. My hopes were, that with 5 shaman, I'd be rushing through guards at a faster rate than most, and find my boys in pirate hats in the span of an evening. For once... I was right.

2.5 hours. Yup. That's it.

But it wasn't just my endless supply of whoop-ass in a can. It was also a side effect of the multiboxing grind. We very rarely quest. We spend most of our time in instances, burning through endless mobs, collecting sweet sweet blues from the bosses. So none of my shaman had done any questing out of Booty Bay, (they didn't even have the flight path yet) so my standing with the Bloodsail Pirates wasn't all that bad to start with. WOOT!

Using the guide from Warcraftpets, I initially setup by the blacksmith shop, and attempted to take advantage of the "endless spawn" that the writer told me to avoid. She was assuming I was there alone. I wasn't. I brought twenty totems.

I killed the first guard, but he didn't come back. So I moved a bit further in town, and killed somemore. Suddenly, I was surrounded by a sea of Bruisers. I discovered very quickly that these guys had the potential to kill me if I wasn't careful. So I simply focused my fire on the lowest one, and used CL whenever it was up.

A couple times I'd pull too many guards at once, start to get low, then simply pulled out five Fire Elementals, which promptly put them all to bed. That was always fun, and drew a small crowd each time.

I found two spots that worked fairly well, which I've illustrated below.

Here I planted my main where the Bruiser spawned, and left the rest of my team at a safe distance, insuring I didn't trigger a mass spawning.

Whenever the guard would stop spawning at the blacksmith, I'd simply turn around and camp at this spot on the ramp towards the dock. This would also trigger a short burst of bruisers for a while.

But to be honest, I should of simply kept moving further into town, stopping every time a large guard group was pulled. I don't doubt that if I did this again, I could of knocked another hour off my time. (let me know if you can do it quicker than I have)

After I hit friendly with the Bloodsails, I headed over to "Pretty Boy" Duncan, who sent me to Fleet Master Firallon on one of the ships off the eastern coast. There, I got my free pirate outfit, and a quest to kill 2 quest givers at the top of the Booty Bay Inn.

It took longer then I expected to fight my way there. For you hordies, I would suggest simply riding up to Grom'gol (be sure you have the Booty Bay flight path) and fly into BB. You'll be attacked by a bruiser or two when you land, but it won't be anything you can't handle. After that, the two npcs you have to knock off, are right next to your flight master.

After that, you head back and collect your Pirate Booty. (hehe... booty)

Luckily, there aren't alot of reasons to go back to the goblin towns now that you're hated. But if you really feel a need to talk to the goblins again, 200g-300g worth of mats will put you back in their good graces. And that's what, 2 days of dailies?

pfft.

For now, I could care less what the Steamweedle Cartel things of the Twenty Totems.

They didn't promise me a cool hat.

Boom