Murdering animals for 5.1 reputation

The patch 5.1 daily system seems fairly straightforward for the most part -- you either get your dailies directly at the base camp for your respective faction, or you get a quest that will send you to a daily hub in Krasarang Wilds. Once your dailies are completed, you can then turn them in for reputation. But there's another daily quest out there, one that's hidden behind a purchasable item.

This daily quest not only grants you a chunk of reputation, it'll give you a useful buff as well. But how you go about the process of getting that quest, and the limitations to the quest, seem to be a mystery to many players. And if you ask Jorn Skyseer or his Alliance counterpart Huntsman Blake, they have pretty much nothing to say on the matter. So how do you go about getting this useful bit of extra rep?

Well, there are two parts to the process.

Trap that animal

For the low, low price of 30 Lion's Landing or Domination Point commissions, you can purchase one of three different types of traps -- one for a tiger, one for a crab, and one for acrane. This item is a quest item. Upon accepting the quest, you'll need to gather materials for bait. Once you've gathered the bait, you can then set the trap and catch yourself a fine looking animal to take back to either Jorn or Blake, depending on your faction.

Completing this quest will give you Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, some gold, and some valor points for your troubles. Please note that this will not net you any reputation at all. But when you return the animal, it will appear in one of three cages at Jorn or Blake's little arena. Speaking to the Huntsman or Beastmaster will now give you a dialogue box to fight the animal.

The trap quests are limited -- you cannot catch tigers all day to cap your valor. You can only capture one of each type of animal per day. As with any daily, this will reset at the end of the day. So basically, this portion of the quest is just another way to get some more Charms, valor, gold, and unlock a way to get your extra reputation.

Kill that animal

Got that animal in a cage? Time to murder it! While some report being able to solo one animal or another, I really wouldn't recommend doing so unless you'd like a possibly frustrating challenge. Each animal has its own tricks to fighting it, much like the rares around Pandaria. The tiger will pounce anyone who is not nearby, and the pounce will kill you quickly. So you want to stay close to the tiger to avoid the mayhem, and stun it whenever possible.

The crab has a stacked buff on itself that lessens incoming damage. That stack will go down as the crab moves around -- so you want to avoid stunning the crab. In addition, the crab will fixate on one person, chasing that person around until it fixates on somebody else. So the idea is to kite the crab in circles, forcing it to drop debuff stacks and start taking serious damage until it dies.

The crane casts spells that you can interrupt, and it also has a seduce that it will cast within a certain range. This range is marked by a giant red circle on the ground -- if you get out of the circle, you won't get caught in the seduce. Interrupt where you can, move out of the way if you need to, and spend the rest of the time smacking the heck out of the crane and hoping that Chi-Ji doesn't show up.

Once the animal is dead, you will automatically get a quest to turn in. This quest will grant you a useful 30 minute buff that will occasionally summon the spirit of the animal you defeated to come fight at your side. More importantly, it will give you 200 reputation with either the Dominance Offensive or Operation Shieldwall -- more if you happen to have a reputation bonus of some sort.

How it all works

The way this whole process works is what tends to confuse people. By capturing an animal and putting it in a cage, you have just unlocked that animal to anyone that walks up and wants to fight it. Once the animal dies, it's dead -- you'll have to go farm another one if you want another one to appear. So don't turn in that capture quest until you're ready to kill the animal, unless you'd really like to go farming for materials again.

If you're thinking this is just a clever way for lazy people to steal "your" catch, you'd be dead wrong. The animal works just like many quest objectives in Pandaria -- if you're nearby and you help kill the animal, you'll get the resultant quest. There's absolutely no need to form a group for the quest. If you happen upon a group already killing an animal, hop in and help to get the quest and the reputation along with it.

Although you can go capture all three animals each day if you'd like to, you only get the automatic kill quest and buff once per day. And if you're doing dailies with a group of friends, only one of you needs to purchase a trap -- once the animal is in the cage, everyone can get credit for killing it.

Generally speaking, the best way to go about completing this daily is to head to the arena once you arrive at your base. If there is an animal present, recruit a few people nearby to come help kill it -- you don't need to purchase a trap. If there are no animals present, you can either purchase a trap yourself, or just wait and check again later in the day. The animals will stay in their cages either until they are killed, or until the server resets -- whichever happens to come first.

While this particular daily isn't necessary to move through the reputation grind, it definitely helps speed up the process. The fights are a little challenging, but ultimately fun to complete. Happy hunting!