Netherwing Dailies: Not So Friendly Skies

The Netherwing quests are important.

I mean come on. After you do them a LOT you get a Dragon! You also get Gold! LOTS of GOLD! You DO like Dragons and Gold don't you?

If you DON'T like dragons or self-earned gold I might have to wonder a few things about you... But I digress.

Last night was a very interesting one. I started doing the Netherwing Dailies for more Gold (Remember GOLD! = SHINY!! = Awesomeness!!) and rep, beginning with finally finishing "The Not So Friendly Skies" quest to get the Netherwing Relics from the Dragonmaw Transporters.

I hate this quest. It takes far too long for what you get out of it. So usually I spread this one "daily" over a couple of days. I'm not alone either! Kestrel over at Kestrel's Aerie (Not a druid blog but a very good read anyway) feels the same way too. So I thought some observations on how to more efficiently do this quest might be in order.

So here is my little guide to doing this quest. In other words... This guide is WAY too long for what it entails. You have been warned.

In my experience there seems to be 3 spots where you have a good flow of Transporters to kill, have just enough time to heal yourself a bit, and kill. I have ranked them in order from the most constant to least. Of course - Which one is best for you might be different, so I suggest you try all of them if you can and decide for yourself. The usefulness of these spots also depend on who's killing what where - which might be why I was ganked by Horde later - which I will tell you about after this list.

1 - Best - "The Docks" (Coordinates ~75, 78.4)

• Pros: Consistent Flow of Transporters; Good pulling distance; Fast
• Cons: Dragonmaw Ascendants Nearby;
  

Just to the Northwest of the Transporter Docks where those two Dragonmaw Ascendants are (I hate those guys), there is a spot where a Nether ray floats around and often there is a Netherbloom there as well. Quite close to the docks - but if you stay towards the edge (but still safely away) the ascendants will leave you alone and you can safely pull the transporters. Kill the Nether Ray and you have a VERY nice spot for farming the Relics. If only the drop rate were higher so you could get this over with faster. Ignore the transporter that just stands there at the end of the dock - (at least on my server he's standing there) he doesn't move. I pull with Feral Faerie Fire usually RIGHT after they take off from the dock. They then fly straight down to you and you can kill them. If you pull before they take off, they run back down the docks by the Ascendants and around - so if you are a caster this might be better than pulling them right after they take off as it gives you more time to blast away. If you get in a rhythm here, they respawn shortly after you kill them - making this the fastest place to kill them in my experience. Only bad things about this spot - don't aggro the Ascendants, watch out for the respawn of the Nether Ray (if you are out of mana they start draining it and don't stop, so I couldn't shift back into cat to waste him so be careful!), and watch out for gankers.

2 - Next Best - "Dragonmaw Stronghold Peaks" (72, 76 and there abouts)

• Pros: Fairly safe; Easy pull; Not too much competition (usually); Good stream of Transporters if you are lucky; finally nice Air Elementals and Nethers Ray things below to farm for [Motes of Air] and [Fel Glands] for the "Slow Death" Netherwing Daily (fun quest but I have some issues with it...)
  
• Cons: Sporadic spawn rate at this path is ridiculous sometimes; Nothing else to do here - you're just sitting on a peak unless you want to get carried away killing rays and elementals anyway...
  

Just South of the Dragonmaw Stronghold there are two peaks that conveniently fall right under the paths of a couple of Transporters that fly out from the stronghold. Doesn't take long for you to see where they are if you just watch where they spawn. If you get a good respawn rate (I think it depends on who's killing transporters in other spots) it can be fairly consistent. Kill and hope the relics drop fast! There aren't too many bad things about this spot - it probably would have been closer to number one if the Transporters spawned more consistently.

3 - Last Best - "Floating Island" (73.5, 76.5)

• Pros: 2 convenient paths of Transporters to choose from. Probably the best spot if you are in a group because you can get two at a time if you are lucky.
• Cons: Probably the most used spot (varies on how many people are doing this quest I think!)
  

Just North West of the Docks, a bit further North and West than where you camp the Transporters for spot number one. The first of the two paths comes straight in from the North on the NE side of the island - swoops in from high, you can even melee this guy instead of ranged pulling. The second path flies in from the higher island to the East - he follows the Southern edge of the island just out of range, then veers North at the Southwestern edge of the island where you can pull him as he flies over you - ranged pull only. The Southwestern route seems to be the most constant one on this island - probably because people are killing the Northern path from the Peaks. This is the easiest spot probably - but I think because of the competition this place ranks lowest. Also the transporters are sometimes buggy and fly off away from you after you pull them, which is really annoying.

My Experience

I first flew to my #3 floating island spot (my list wasn't cemented in ranks then and that one is the most accessible), there were 2 Horde there killing them - a Belf Pally and Tauren Shammy. At first I didn't see them though (Lag Grr) so I pulled a Transporter and as I "entered combat" and began wailing on the orc in kitty - I noticed that while it hadn't been grey before, suddenly it was and me killing this guy would do me no good - and the two hordies suddenly popped out of nowhere and killed him. I flew away to find a different spot for farming the transporters, because it's not fun getting into a gank-fest whilst doing the Netherwing Dailies! I still don't know how that pally could keep stealing my pulls though.

I flew to the Docks and proceeded to kill about 20 of the Transporters and accumulate five of the Netherwing Relics, which is actually a pretty good drop rate for this quest, when the Pally and Shammy appear and start stealing my pulls again. I was quite annoyed and moved a bit closer to the Ascendants and spam-moonfire pulled, figuring if I got enough aggro they couldn't steal my pull (which was correct) and they then attacked ME. I killed the Transporter (wasn't going to let them have THIS one) and they finally wore me down. (Both of them had a mix of Kara and s3 gear - and I have mostly s1 gear with a few s3 pieces and some quest rewards)

I flew back from the Scryer base ready for payback and laid into the Shammy getting him to about 10% before the Pally noticed what was happening (:p) and they both went all out against me. I was down to about 10% myself when a fellow Druid Helstrike (recently Resto-specced) happened by and joined in the fight, healing me (Nice guy GAL (sorry!) - we've helped each other out in the mines a few times - and shocker of shockers - she actually read this blog!! And LIKED it! Wow) and turned it into a fun and long lasting fight. The Horde had better gear than us but we were definitely holding our own and wearing them down when a Horde Rogue showed up - he had comparable gear to mine, which shifted the odds back to their side. I switched to the Rogue because I have a much easier time against them, but both the pally and the Shammy were healing away so we eventually both died - but it was a lot of fun. I think that my killing the Transporters at the docks had dried up their paths, so they came to find out why. :)
Further testing will be required. If only I didn't hate this quest. :p I still have 5 more relics to get to turn that one in.

Most of the time, even on a PvP server, places like Netherwing and Ogri'la have an unspoken truce so people can complete the dailies - but when somebody starts ganking (and I promise it's never me!) it turns into all out war - it's kind of funny, but sometimes really annoying. I'll have a rant on Ogri'la soon enough!

Hopefully this *little* (extremely bloated) guide will help somebody complete this annoying quest a little bit faster - and maybe even enjoy it a little bit!) :)