Guides – Ravenholdt
What is Ravenholdt?
Ravenholdt is one of the more obscure classic factions within Warcraft. A guild of thieves and assassins, they are conventionally a rogue-only faction that only offer quests to members of the rogue class – in fact, it’s because of this that you’ll need access to, or assistance from, a rogue to actually get to gain exalted status.
Their base of operations is Ravenholdt Manor, which is located in Hillsbrad Foothills. Most achievement fanatics will have already visited there during the Valentine’s Day Seasonal Event – I’ve made a quick map here on wowhead if you’re still unsure, it shows the path you should take leading into the hills to get there.
The Method
Starting out at neutral with Ravenholdt, you should kill [Syndicate Members] for 5 reputation per kill until you cap out at 11999/12000 Honored. After that the only way forward is to complete the [Junkboxes Needed] quest until you reach exalted.
If you’re not a rogue, this unfortunately means you’ll need to either pay someone to pick pocket these for you, or roll one and do it yourself.
What you’ll need
- A Rogue to do the pick pocketing with – you’ll want it to be at least level 60, although ideally the higher the better as this will prevent you being detected while stealthing. This is particularly the case for the Blackrock Depths route as there are dogs that detect stealth that you’ll need to deal with. If you don’t want to level up a rogue, and don’t have access to one, then I’d recommend making a post on your realm forum advertising the fact you’re after junkboxes. Expect to have to offer anywhere from 5-10 gold per junkbox if you want timely returns though.
- A [Glyph of Pick Pocket] – Increases your pick pocket range by 5 yards and makes things a whole lot easier.
- A [Glyph of Pick Lock] – This decreases the cast time of pick lock by 75% which is a massive time saver if you intend on taking a peak inside each junkbox for epics or the fabled [Lasitor] before you turn them in.
- Also consider investing in any kind of minor speed increase enchant for your boots as well as the Camouflage Rank 3 talent as these will both greatly increase the speed you can move around while stealthed.
Neutral to Revered
You can go from Neutral all the way through to 11999/12000 Honored by killing [Syndicate Members] in Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands or Hillsbrad Foothills. As the mobs are all quite low in level they die in a hit or two and the rep gains come quite fast. It shouldnt take you more than about 5 hours to max out Honored. I personally did this part at Durnholde Keep in Hillsbrad Foothills and found that the respawns were fast enough that I never had down time.
Revered to Exalted
This is the hard part of the grind and what will end up taking you the most time. One of the rogues at Ravenholdt Manor, Fahrad, offers you the quest [Junkboxes Needed] which rewards you 75 reputation with Ravenholdt per 5 junkboxes turned in. This stage requires 1405 heavy junkboxes, or 1275 for a human with diplomacy.
The junkboxes come from pick pocketing any level 50-60 humanoid mobs and have a roughly 15% drop rate. This gives you a lot of places to choose from and, since you’ll be spending a lot of time on this, it doesnt hurt to try out a few different locations of your own. You want to aim for heavy concentrations of humanoid mobs that are in the 52-58 level range otherwise you’ll get a mix of [Sturdy Junkbox] and [Strong Junkbox] on your runs which are useless as far as the grind is concerned. Ideally you should aim for 1 junkbox per minute or better throughout your runs.
Here are the two routes I found to be the most efficient, along with a youtube video showing the routes I used:
First Route – Blackrock Depths
This was the route I used for the majority of my junkbox farming. Since I usually prefer to zone out (figuratively!) and watch movies on my other monitor having the large open spaces (ie no buildings) and lots of mobs close together it really worked for me. I emptied the rogue’s bags out so I could collect about 90 x [Heavy Junkbox] at a time before hearthing back to Dalaran and posting them to my main.
You can click here to see a map of the route on Wowhead.
Second Route – Tyr’s Hand
This is one of the more popular routes, largely because of its proximity to Lights Hope Chapel and the mailbox there. Absolutely no problem with spawn times here and you can pretty much run the route over and over until your bags are full. The only time you might run into trouble is if you’re doing the grind during prime time and there are other people around taking your spawns, which might mean its time to either take a break or instance it up and head to BRD.
Third Route – LBRS
This is a fantastic route to use with very minimal downtime involved. My brother, [Ketch], has farmed thousands of junkboxes while getting his own insane title and for sales to other aspiring insane folks that didnt want to level up a rogue.
The amazing [Skrie of Blackrock] has put together a video of the route he uses along with tips on how to do it.
Turning them all in!
I recommend turning in your junkboxes throughout the grind rather than all at once at the end as it can get quite boring. Having a [MOLL-E] really helps with these turnins, so in the case that you’re not an engineer having a friend that is can really shave some time off the grind. For every 5 junkboxes you hand in you’ll receive 75 reputation and a [Dusksteel Throwing Knife] in return.
The knives are unique and sell to a vendor for 1g32s each. They also disenchant quite well into a few [Lesser Eternal Essence] which sell pretty well in the Auction House. If you’re not an enchanter then you can either destroy the knives or sell them to the vendor in the Ravenholdt Manor basement. Having a friend that can summon [Scrapbots] or a [Traveler's Tundra Mammoth] would also be a big help at this stage.
Links and other resources
I’ve written this guide based on my own experiences with the Ravenholdt grind. Experiences differ from person to person, and as such before commencing any grind you should always supplement your knowledge by referring back to a number of different sources. This will help you gain a better grasp on what you need to do, and will give you the chance to figure out what you think will work best for you.
Some of the resources I used to help me were:
- WowJuju Reputation Calculator – This is a fantastic site to use if you lose track of how many more hand-ins you need to do. Since I handed the junkboxes in at the end of each farming session I quickly lost track of how many I had to go, this gives you specifics so is very handy!
- Ravenholdt on WowWiki – Some good general information on Ravenholdt and its history, along with specific numbers on reputation gains.
- Ravenholdt on WowHead – I often find the most fantastic source of information is the comment section on sites like Wowhead, if something changes due to a patch then you can bet it will be posted here. It’s quite common for people to post mini guides and additional advice as well.
- WoW Forums – Achievement Forum – This is another great source for guides, up to date information and accounts of other peoples experiences with various grinds.
I spent three days gathering my junkboxes at Tyr’s Hand. It’s a great location.
Hi,
I’m working on this achievement also. And looking at your movies, i see u are using a few addons prob. also dominos. Could u tell me what u are using to make it look that way. It looks rly good.
The main mod you’re probably curious about is SpartanUI (www.spartanui.com) but apart from that I use Auctioneer, Bartender, Carbonite, CT_Buffmod, DBM, Grid, oRA2, Prat and Recount. Glad to hear you’re progressing along with your insane achievement, make sure to keep me posted! :)
Hey Saate.
Started working on my insane achievement a few days ago (havent really gotten far atm due to work -.-) but i got a few questions regarding the rogue you are using for farming BRD for Heavy Junkboxes, or well one question. What level is your rogue? I happen to have a 70 rogue standing by on my account and is wondering if it’s possible to do the BRD grind using it
The rogue I used was Level 80, but level 70 is fine for BRD :)
Hi, been following the great guides for Insane in the Membrane achievement, and I was just wondering… What song/artist is playing in the second half of the Tyr’s hand route? thanks!
I got the insane achievement 2 days ago.
I will send a picture of it soon.
Tnx for the great guide.
The route I use is in LBRS and it works great. From the zone in pick pocket everyone in the first room then head down toward LBRS. Take a right after the small hallway and jump down using the short cut to Mother Smolderweb. Hit all the orcs on the way to her then kill all the spiders and sprint up to the ogres. Pick pocket them and jump down to the bridge that heads to Omokk. Head away from the boss area and down to the crack where Bjiou is. Fall down into the large area where all the trolls are. Walk into War Master Voone’s room then sprint back up towards Shadow Hunter Vosh’gajin’s area. Walk back outside and up the ramp till you’re in front of the hallway leading to Omokk again. Work your way backwards to the entrance of the zone. When you get back to the short cut restart your path. 3-4 laps should get you 70 boxes or so. I average like 1.5-2 boxes per min with this path.
What about Dire Maul for picking up junk boxes? Has anyone established how good that place is for farming the junkboxes? Some of the guides I’ve read have indicated Dire Maul as a good place, ofcourse, that could just be because some guides have you go there for other parts of the achievement as well, but I thought I’d ask to see what the consensus was in that instance.
Thanks.
As far as the throwing knife goes, yes it does sell for gold but you really want to maximize the ammount of time you have to turn in Lockboxes while the Moll-E is up. I found 2 macro very helpful.
1st click on Fahrad opening him up for the quest then hit the following macro 3 times.
/script SelectGossipAvailableQuest(1); CompleteQuest(); GetQuestReward();
after that, the following macro will delete the item you recieved without the pesky “Do you really want to delete this item?” message.
/run for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, 32, 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,”Dusksteel Throwing Knife”) then PickupContainerItem(bag,slot); DeleteCursorItem(); end; end; end
you will need to make 2 seperate macros because the delete macro is too long to allow them in 1 due to blizzard limitations.
Good Luck guys, In should be done in another couple days………oh and I am one of those idiots that leveled a rogue to 80 just to do this lol.
Saate are you planing to make guides for all older or not-so-easy-to-progress factions?
Absolutely! I’m working on a bloodsail exalted guide at the moment and I have plans for a Winterspring Frostsaber guide as well, although I think I’m going to have to do the venomhide ravasaur guide at the same time and that’ll be tricky considering I dont have an 80 horde character! If you have any guide requests by all means hit me with them :)
just a quick note i picked this up while doing mine, the knives sell for 1g 32s 53c each while this isn’t a great amount over the whole turn in thats 371g 42s 00c and there is a vendor in the basement it will slow down your turn in’s but if your insane enough to go for the insane title then your probably insane enough to not skimp on that much gold.
Saate,
In your information you state:
“•A [Glyph of Pick Lock] – This decreases the cast time of pick lock by 75% which is a massive time saver if you intend on taking a peak inside each junkbox for epics or the fabled [Lasitor] before you turn them in.”
My question is: I have seen some conflicting information about whether the questgiver will accept opened junkboxes, can you confirm that opened boxes will be accepted?
(I will be testing this myself, but I haven’t started on this faction yet, and just finished levelling my rogue for this part of it…so any insight would be appreciated)
Thanks for the great site!
Unlocked boxes are perfectly fine for the quest hand-ins :) just obviously make sure you leave one item inside so it doesn’t disappear. I think in the quest text he says as much too actually.
Oh wow! Glad I read the comments! I thought I was going to have to troll Tyr’s Hand AFTER pickpocketing all my lockboxes just to lvl lockpicking on my rogue! Saves alot of extra grinding knowing I can open them before sending them off to my main for turn-ins! :D
Hey Saate,
I’m working on the Insane achievement as well and was referred to your website from a friend. I was wondering in terms of turning in the lockboxes from revered to exalted is there any macro you have that could save time?
Hey Saate,
I’ve just started on the Insane achivement, and I have to say; Thank you so much, this is an awsome guide and it have helped me loads so far. Keep it up, mate!
I got a lot of heavy junkboxes in Scholomance while farming for Skin of Shadow for the Shen’dralar rep so why not kill two birds with one stone. I would assume you could do the same for the LIVE side of Straholme.
i bit the bullet and created a rogue, got it to lvl 61 and spent about a week in BRD pickpocketing and then mained them to my alt. This guide has so far been my insane bible. thanks Saate!
I did see something weird though that maybe has been mentioned before but I’ve not seen it.
While farming boxes I noticed one of the priests in BRD along the highway had a faint sparkly animation on it for a couple minutes then faded. Decided to kill him on the off chance something was going on. He dropped a blue druid book. Useless of course, but the concept of an animation on a mob that had rare loot was an interesting little tid-bit. I didn’t see it again so I couldn’t experiment but thought it was worth mentioning as it was the only real off kilter thing I noticed on the junkbox grind.
I am at the moment lvling my own Rogue so i can get the junkboxes, and to anyone whos does the same, use the Dungeon finder if questing get boring… It’s fast its fun and u get the classic dungeonmaster achivemnet at a side effect
I’ve been grinding these on and off for a while now (when I need a brake from pirate killing =P) and have found that, by far, LBRS is the best grind for me. Like Tyranis describes in an earlier comment, you can go from the beginning to the end, pickpocketing almost every mob along the way, then just jump back down to the bottom and start over again. There is almost no downtime.
So I highly suggest that route.
From a personal standpoint, I did a few runs in BRD, barely got any lockboxes, but in LBRS I seem to get one in every seven or so, so I recommend the LBRS area.
Muted, could you be so nice and post a link to your route in LBRS? if possible?
Durnholde Keep is a great place to grind until 11999/12000.
Spamming Ice Lance like crazy and sometimes the mobs spawn right after you kill them. I don’t even think it is even possible to have downtime, I tried. =P
Hi, Saate
I wanted to tell you ty for the awesome guide. now that i am on my way to begin my rep burning with these factions your guide has put me a little more at ease. Im not a rogue but a am finding your guide to be very well organized and up to date. tyvm
Euphoriah, Eitrigg,US
A useful tip for this grind is to download the [LootFilter] addon. This handy tool allows you to blacklist all the random gray items/potions/food that the mobs drop when you pick them, so it will delete those items automatically and keep only the junkboxes. This virtually enables you to turn on Autoloot and use one key to do all your “quick-picking” (the stuff will still get looted, but the addon will just delete them immediately and only keep the boxes).
It saves A LOT of time in the long run as you won’t have to go into your bags later and manually delete all the crap you didn’t need. It also lets you just zone out and pick pocket mindlessly until your bags are full.. which I guess somewhat makes the process less boring :)
So for those of you leveling a rogue explicitly for this purpose: I just found a really amazing way to get easy junkboxes while you are leveling. It does require you to have points in subtlety for increased stealth as well as the pickpocket glyph to make it easy (having maxed lockpicking for your level helps too), but while you are leveling in your early 50s use LFG to get into BRD Prison.
After everyone clears the boss and leaves, go back and pop the locks to the highway and garrison and go to town! Be extremely mindful of the dogs and elementals, of course, but at level it’s still a breeze. Ring of Law is amazing for boxes. When you’ve run out of pockets to pick, simply kill yourself and run back, they’ll reset by the time you do.
But the most important part of this is you have to use the LFG tool. Because you can TELEPORT OUT OF THE INSTANCE AND RIGHT BACK for extremely easy access to a mailbox and instantly resume farming!!
I did this tonight for about half an hour to an hour and got about 40 junkboxes that way on my level 51 rogue. I was originally planning on getting her above 60 before considering farming dungeons like BRD or LBRS, but having LFG has made me change my mind and I can start getting junkboxes sooner than I had originally planned. Something to keep in mind if you’re still leveling!
I am flattered that you added my video :D Hope it helps people out.
Here is a macro that helps you pickpocket way faster:
/console set targetnearestdistance 10
/cleartarget
/targetenemy [target=target, noexists]
/cast pick pocket
And here is a macro that lets you delete trash items:
/run for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, 32, 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,”ITEM NAME HERE”) then PickupContainerItem(bag,slot); DeleteCursorItem(); end; end; end
I made 4 buttons for each of the 4 items other than boxes i got from pickpocketing in lbrs. 4 clicks and bags empty for trash items :D
Enjoy
Hey Everyone
I did just reach Revered with Ravenholdt on my paladin, and going to start pick pocketing on my alt for lock boxes.
My alt is level 60, so i was wondering if i should level it to 80 before i start pick pocketing, or if i just should start at level 60? what would be fastest?
Thanks
Level 60 is fine for junkbox farming :)
I hear Booty Bay is good place to pick pockets with higher than average droprate from the bruisers, can anyone confirm if this is old info? My rogue is only 70 so I can’t really pick the 77 bruisers as they catch and kill me… but supposedly they still give their original level pickpocket loots.
@Kaamio – I had heard the same thing as well. Unfortunately I tested it some time back and found that you don’t get junkboxes from them :(
Pilgrim’s bounty gives “The Spirit of Sharing” buff(increases reputation gained by 10%. lasts 1 hour), so maybe that will help people out. Good time to grind even though you will have to make return trips for the buff.
Well the buff you get from brewfest that grants you 10% extra reputation, doesn’t work when you hand in lock boxes…
Hey
Well, i am at 10574 / 21000 through revered now. I have been grinding in Tyrs Hand, and it seems like it takes around 45 min to get 50 lock boxes. I would suggest peoples to make this a daily quest while grinding for the insane title, since it will take around 21 hours to pick pocket all 1405 lock boxes. I am doing like 50 – 100 lock boxes each day ( 45 min ), while doing other normal stuffs, like raiding, dailys, grinding other faction, and whatever else i want to do.
good luck and i hope this will help you ;)
Heya Saate, thank you for all the excellent info!
Seetler – please could you let me know which buff from Brewfest gives +10% rep gains?
Cheers & GL to all the other Insane grinders :)
Hey Jack
well i am not sure what the buff is called, but here is some info about when you can get it.
Ceremonial Keg-Tapping
Each day at 6:15 AM and 6:15 PM server time, High Tinker Mekkatorque (Ironforge) and Vol’jin (Orgrimmar) come out to the Brewfest grounds for a brief Tapping of the Keg ceremony. Witnessing the ceremony grants players a buff that increases experience earned by 10%
Good Luck, hope it did help ;)
Ah, it increases experience rather than reputation then.
Thanks for answering Seetler.
By the way, I’ve been using Brewfest to portal to the Grim Guzzler, kill Corin, then just stay in group when everyone else leaves to do a pickpocket run through BRD. When bags are full I just portal back out to Dalaran/wherever, mail the Heavy Junkboxes to my bank alt & rinse/repeat.
If you get a group thats farming Corin for trinkets & stuff you might wanna leave & try again, or just help them out with a few kills.
Thanks
Jack
ahh , lol
i did look wrong then ;) thougth it was reputation ;)
Leveled my rogue to 70 for this, and twinked him a bit.
I’m spent some time at Tyr’s Hand and it was okay.
But all in all I think LBRS is the best spot for doing this if your rogue is capable of doing it without much risk.
As a horde you can put your HS on Kargath and make use of the mailbox there. I’m just taking it easy with the lockboxes, doing 100-200 a day.
I have a general rogue related question about pick pocketing though, is there a chance you can miss out on loot if you’re constantly in motion while pick pocketing, should one pause for each pickpocket cast?
(I’m probably just paranoid)
Heya Spleen
I’ve done a fair bit of testing & staying constantly in motion does not appear to make you miss out on loot, as long as you are in pickpocket range when you cast it.
However, using Sprint when in stealth does seem to make me miss sometimes & requires me to stop briefly at the target.
Hope that helps mate.
I have got 32 HEavy Junkboxes from leveling lock picking on my toon.
If your on doomhammer EU drop a mail to Satanbank if interested.
Ah ravenholdt… I actually enjoyed this grind immensely. I must be truly insane.
As a pala main I had to roll my own rogue but thats just part of the fun right? I found this is an endurance grind much like the gobbo’s. How long can you last before your brain melts?
I personally stuck some stand up comedy on youtube in the background and laughed my way to exalted. Its good for morale. So much so that I repeated the grind for a friend :)
Hey Saate! :D
ima tauren druid with exalted on bloodsail and all reps except ravenholdt…(revered)
The thing that bugs me is that i Cant turn mah boxes in… i’ve google’d and searched my ass of and Still no progress…
HOW do i manage to turn em in?
So even after Cataclysm release I’ve decided to go ahead and try go for the Insane achievement, it should be fine since I did the Bloodsail Pirates beforehand; however while grinding Ravenholdt I’ve found something rather handy that could save you a fair bit of time while grinding up to revered.
If you’re like myself (An Unholy Death Knight) and have a pet that you can actively control, set it to Aggressive. It’ll go on a huge killing rampage and you still manage to reap the rep from it, not the loot, but at least the rep. Hopefully this’ll be useful to people who are trying the achievement on a warlock/frost mage/hunter/death knight etc. :D
Stromgarde Keep is also another place to farm Syndicate post Cataclysm Durnholde Keep is now over run with quest elementals
Tyr’s hand is now 40′s and no longer valid for junkboxes :(
Does the lockbox #/quest turn-in #s (1405/1275) Now reflect the Mr. Popularity guild perk bonus as far as +10% rep gain from quests? Or has that bonus not been accounted for with the
guild perk?