Guides – Steamwheedle Cartel
What is the Steamwheedle Cartel?
The Steamwheedle Cartel is a neutral goblin organization that controls several cities and towns around the world. The goblins have realized that the greatest profits to be had are in maintaining neutrality in the conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. As a result their services are always available to the highest bidder and they employ anyone, regardless of their affiliation, as long as there’s profit in it.
Their four major cities are [Booty Bay], [Everlook], [Gadgetzan] and [Ratchet]. Each city has its own seperate reputation bar, so one of the cool things about this grind is that you actually gain four exalted reputations at the same time.
Insane in the Membrane – Reps all needed at the same time?
A hot topic since this achievement was announced has been whether you need to have Bloodsail Honored reputation at the same time as Steamwheedle Exalted reputation. People often make the mistake of petitioning a GM and asking the question. The GM responds with their assumption and the player treats it as a straight confirmation – hilarious forum arguments ensue!
You find three GM responses here, here and here that say you don’t need them at the same time. There’s also a blue post here saying the same thing. You’ll note that in the GM responses they also say its impossible to have the reps at the same time and that the blue post starts with ‘My understanding of this is…’ which supports the fact that none of them are authorities on the mechanics of reputation and achievements.
Kambiae of the Spirestone Server recorded this video on live in which despite having had all the reps at different times no achievement was awarded. My advice to you is that while you probably don’t need the reps at the same time you should still go to the extra effort of keeping your bloodsail rep. Why risk it?
The Method
There are two efficient ways for players to raise reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel. The first method is for players to simply kill low level pirates near Gadgetzan and Ratchet for 5 reputation per kill all the way to Exalted. The second method involves completing the repeatable [Free Knot!] quest in Dire Maul for 350 reputation per completion.
Here’s a table that shows a very simplified version of the positives and negatives for each of the methods:
Method 1 – Killing Pirates for Rep (Yarrrr!)
The first time I did the steamwheedle exalted grind (yeah I’ve done it twice! :S) I had heard of this method but, after seeing how pitiful the rep gains were per mob, I thought you’d have to be crazy to grind that long. It wasnt until I redid my Bloodsail Buccaneers rep with a group of friends that I really became aware of how fast this method could be.
While everyone is grouped up together one person runs around kill the mobs. Everyone else can put that person on /follow and they’ll still get every single rep gain. That’s why this method is superior when you have a group of people doing it – you can all take turns doing half an hour of killing each while everyone else takes breaks or chats away.
Here’s a video of my group doing it – very easy!
Living it up in Dire Maul
Ahhh Dire Maul, my sweet sweet Dire Maul – for some reason I haven’t yet been able to put my finger on exactly why I love doing Dire Maul runs. Almost without fail the place rewards me for spending time there. If you’re after something extra with your rep I can’t recommend this place enough. It’s slower rep per hour than farming Ratchet pirates but you’ll come out with a slew of [Runecloth], [Shen'dralar Librams], Greens (ie [Greater Eternal Essence] for us enchanters!) and if you’re lucky the occasional [Orb of Deception] and maybe even a [Foror's Compendium of Dragonslaying].
You can actually pull out slightly more rep per hour by doing [The Gordok Ogre Suit] quest. This repeatable quest is given out by that same goblin you free, Knot Thimblejack, nearly all the materials needed for the quest you can also find within the instance too:
- [Bolt of Runecloth] x 4 – You’ll get massive amounts of runecloth in your runs, just need to harrass a tailor to turn them into bolts for you :)
- [Rugged Leather] x 8 – This can be skinned from the dogs within the instance, and is regularly found within Knot Thimblejack’s Cache each time after you free knot.
- [Rune Thread] x 2 – This is sold by vendors in most major cities. It’s also sold by the vendors on a [Traveler's Tundra Mammoth] too – another great reason to invest! :p
- [Ogre Tannin] x 1 – You get one of these per instance guaranteed from the Ogre Tannin Basket. Looting this is what spawns the Gordok Bushwhacker who also has a good chance of dropping the shackle key. You will occasionally also get 1-2 more of these in Knot’s cache too.
This method is great when you’re not in a hurry to get to exalted and when you’ve got a few other reputations planned out. You can use these runs as a platform to get more alliance exalteds with the Runecloth, Shen’dralar exalted with the librams, and even the gold earned to get exalted with Darkmoon Faire.
Here’s a short video I put together that shows the pulls I used to maximise speed/drops from the guards and trash:
Some tips for your runs:
- Doing the big multi-mob pulls in here is still a risk for cloth-wearers, so try to work out early on if its going to be worth it for you doing the runs.
- Try to always start the instance with a key. That way you run straight to knot, free him, then work your way backwards out of the instance killing as you go. If you dont get a key off the Bushwhacker or Guard Slip’kik pulls then you can kill more trash as you make your way out thus maximising chances.
- If you’re an enchanter, kill [Stomper Kreeg] (the drunk) because he often drops a green that disenchant’s into [Greater Eternal Essences].
- If you need downtime for any reason, do it outside of the instance so you’re closer to the arena if the rare pops.
Links and other resources
You know there’s not really a lot of resources that you really need for this grind. The methods are both pretty simple, you can checkout my videos on doing both and if there’s additional information in the wowhead comments sections. I found another youtube video here that covers free knot runs and would be a good supplement to your preparation.
I’m keen for these guides to remain living, breathing, up-to-date things so please don’t hesitate in contacting me through the comments section below to let me know if there’s any old, missing or just plain wrong information!
Great guide, but I found something nice to speed this up. http://thottbot.com/i20081 The swiftness of zanza, speeds you up by 20%….which would help in a speed issue. I mean it requires rep with the zarlander, but if your goingfor the insane title theres a chance that you’ve already dealt with the zarlandar. the honor tokens are probably 10 gold at most
I’ve been last minute grinding this thing out on a new main that I rerolled the end of last year after being almost Insane on my old hunter. I’m suggesting if you’re also going for Loremaster, get that done prior to this thing because it’ll be a while before you can get that goblin rep back up properly.
I’m tempted by the pirate killing shortcut, just so I can use flight points without having to gtfo of town when I land places, and maybe even get to do the Salty achievement, but in reality I know that straight DM runs are the ticket. The librams and PBDs are stupid rare so I make a habit of blowing up the instance whenever the guards and the captain hold out on me for a key. I do the ogre suit turnin every run making sure to have stacks of bolts on me, and I carry a stack of each mat required for libram turnins when they drop.
As mentioned, you should invest heavily in Zandalar swiftness elixirs. 2 hours at 20% make a big difference in my opinion. Like for Ravenholdt gateway it speeds up the run a little (20% faster kill speed for melee), but in Dire Maul as a paladin tank you can outrun the trash easier allowing you to group them up with taunts and LOS huge packs in a corner. You occassionally get snagged by frostbolts, but BoF for Paladins works great for these rare times. Anytime a book drops, it also makes the marathon run to turn it in way more tolerable and you can Swiftness pot your way back if you get double drops of books in many cases to collect the book before it despawns (carry a stack of these).
Not to mention the extreme amounts of greens and blues that tend to drop off everything. If you’re an enchanter you can easily make a fortune on the old world enchants for BOAs just off the trash drops. Extra runecloth not needed for suits should be made into Runecloth Headbands and DE’d. Even when a key doesn’t drop I easily make 100-150g on future sales.
And if you don’t own a Tundra Mammoth, you’re missing out. The vendor trash and Free Knot junk offsets all those nasty repair bills with ease so fill up on everything you can to maximize your gold, too. If you get a second key right away and aren’t pressed for time, complete the end boss kill with the ogre suit and collect the tribute reward for a small bonus, it alleviates my boredom some days.
No way around it…whichever method you chose -dire maul or pirtate genocide- this sucker takes time.
Personally I kill pirates as I never had much luck with the dire mauls runs. It just seemed too slow and unreliable a rep gain for the time it takes. But I know some people swear by it so meh.
In all honesty I sometimes do the dire maul runs just to give a break from the tedium of grinding pirates for hours on end.
Here’s a tip for the pirate grinder out there; Play nice with others. During your grind your gonna be slaughtering many thousands of innocent pirates and it just so happens that those guys are involved in a few quests. From time to time you will inevitably get some players wander over and try to snag a few kills.
Personally I whisper them and explain my purpose in the area and invite them to join a party with the promise of as much loot as they can carry (I never loot them so someone may as well)
This offer of free questing plus loot and xp usually fills your newfound companion with glee and you get a heary thank you. Who knows… the fledgling level 15 hunter you met in barrens could end up being the guild master of the servers most epic raiders in the future. Might be good to have a reference handy when you apply :)
As of 4.0.3a, Free Knot! is no longer available in the game. Apparently the Shattering did nothing to Dire Maul except make Knot bored with everyone coming to free him. The Gordok Ogre Suit quest is still in the game but no longer rewards your efforts with reputation gain. Personally, I’m pissed. But, that hasn’t stopped me from farming pirates since I found out.
Mollacass,
I completely agree with your feelings. I am more than a little upset that they removed this repeatable quest from the game. If I had more warning that they were going to do this, then I would have focused my energies in Dire Maul more, at least getting to friendly or something. I wanted to keep my Bloodsail Buccaneer rep at honored, which is currently zero points into honored, so I have no room for error. Although it would seem now, that I must kill pirates to get rep with Steamwheedle. Blizzard does know how to screw up a good thing. Still angry, even after all this time and will continue to be. Thanks Blizzard ~
Since catas come out and all that and quests have been taken out. How do we get to exalted with the goblins? i have been working on gadgetzans and cant get past honored now. anyone know how to get the last bit?
Hmmm… It seems like you can kill Venture Co’s in STV all the way, at least from what I read on wowjuju, they only give 2.5 rep/kill, I dont have high enough rep to verify this, but if anyone knows a faster way than killing mobs after cloth turn-in’s, please tell me :P
@Meja They stop giving rep with booty bay at revered :S only the island mobs near ratchet give full rep to everyone i assume
Killing the pirates on the new tanaris shore gives rep at 5 for Gad and 2.5 for the rest.
The pirates stop giving Gadgetzan rep at Revered too. As far as I can tell, each area’s rep-giving mobs gives 5 rep to the local rep until Revered and then stops, but gives 2.5 to the rest all the way up to Exalted. Unfortunately this means that you’ll need to do at least two grinds, one for three reps and a second for the fourth.
For those of you still working on Steamwheedle Cartel rep and are at the 11,999 honored level with either Booty Bay or Gadgetzan: The Southsea Pirates in Tanaris will no longer award Gadgetzan rep, however, still award Booty Bay, Everlook and Ratchet reputation. The same goes for The Bloodsail in STV, except now you get Gadgetzan and not Booty Bay rep. You will need to farm the pirates in both locations to earn exalted with all 4. This can actually balance out as there are more quests for Booty Bay and Gadgetzan reputation so if you are able to farm efficiently, you may find that that you can hit Exalted with all 4 at around the same time. Good luck!
Look up quests on Wowhead and you can filter by “Horde/Alliance/Both” and “Increases Rep With:” At the moment, this gives you around 77 quests for Horde which raise rep. For some of them, you’ll have to go back and do prerequisites to get the quest, but it may still be quicker to do a chain than to grind another few hundred pirates. Note: Wowhead’s list NOT completet–I just found three in Blasted Lands (Fuselight by the Sea and Fuselight) that gave base +260 rep with all four factions (not counting +10% bonus from guild). If you find any more, I’d love to know about it. As it is right now, I need to kill 6100 pirates, so anything to reduce that total would be appreciated.
With a little more caffeine….Wowhead Database > Factions > Classic > Steamwheedle lists another 21, eight of which are Winterveil.
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere: The Southsea Pirates in Southbreak Shore in Tanaris now give full Gadgetzan rep until exalted (as well as 50% rep to the other three factions)
lost rigger cove pirates give 5 rep with gadgetzan all the way to exalted and 2.5 for all other steamwheel reps. just hit revered with em and still getting gadget rep.
Lost Rigger Cove pirates awards reputation with gadgetzan until 20999 then it stops. So i guess you have to go to bloodsails for the last kill, or the last k for the obsessed! :)