One of the first important questions each player asks themselves once they arrive at  Shattrath is: Do I pledge my allegiance to the Aldor or the Scryers?? Which is the best one for rogues? 

Veterans would say that, in the long run, this choice has a meaningful impact.
It’s not only about the quest rewards or the items available at the vendor, but the shoulder enchant and the Shattered Sun Pendant’s proc later in TBC, when the Isle of Quel’danas becomes available.
Let’s go through all you need to know before making your own choice.

Spoiler alert (tl;dr), you should choose Aldor !

Where to farm the reputation items?

You can be sure that farming these items can get highly competitive… The farming spots are highly contested and you will have to PvP or spend gold to get the items from the auction house. Just like primals, we can expect the farm of these mats to be tough and organized by large groups of players, and guilds. Come prepared.

ITEM REPUTATION FARMING SPOT BEST MOB TO FARM (NON ELITE) DROP RATE RESPAWN TIME
Scryers firewing signet 25/item (until Honored) Terrokar Forest Firewing Bloodwarder 36% 5′
sunfury signet 25/item Netherstorm Sunfury Archer 29% 5′
Shadowmoon Valley Sunfury Eradicator 29% 5′
Netherstorm – Blade’s Edge Mountains Sunfury Astromancer 29% 5′
Arcan Tome 350/item Shadowmoon Valley Eclipsion Blood Knoght 3% 5′
Netherstorm Summoner Kanthin 2% 5′
Isle of Quel’Danas Dawnblade Blood Knight 2% 11,5′
Aldor Mark of Kil’jaeden 25/item (until Honored) Terrokar Forest Cabal abjurist 34% 5′
Nagrand Kil’sorrow Ritualist 34% 5′
Netherstorm Mo’arg Doomsmith 34% 5′
Mark of Sargeras 25/item Netherstorm Artifact Seeker 60% 5′
Blade’s Edge Mountains Death’s Might 28% 5′
Shadowmoon Valley Deathforge Guardian 28% 5′
Terrokar Forrest – Shadowmoon Valley Mo’arg Weaponsmith 28% 5′
Isle of Quel’Danas Abyssal Flamewalker 15% 5′
Zangarmars – Blade’s Edge Mountains Gan’arg Analyzer 14% 5′
Fel Armament 350/item Netherstorm Artifact Seeker 4% 5′
Shadowmoon Valley Deathforge Guardian 2% 5′
Isle of Quel’Danas Abyssal Flamewalker 2% 5′
Blade’s Edge Mountains Death’s wathc 2% 5′
Terrokar Forest – Shadowmoon Valley Mo’arg Weaponsmith 2% 5′

Aldor

– Choosing Aldor (or Scryers) reputation will automatically set its reputation to Friendly.
– Until Honored, it is preferable to use Marks of Kil’Jaeden.
– Then use the Marks of Sargeras and Fel Armament.
– From Honored to Exalted, you will need around 1200 Marks or 95 Fel Armaments.
– Note that the Aldor reputation items drop pretty often in Shadow Labyrinth, Auchindoun. 

From experience, we’d suggest to only use Fel Armaments and sell the Marks to buy Fel Armaments.
Why? Because returning Fel Armaments rewards you with Holy Dust, which you exchange to buy your shoulder enchant. For this reason, having a good stock of Holy Dust is useful.
Once Exalted, if you get better shoulderpads, you’ll be ready to enchant them.
It would be a waste to buy/farm Fel Armaments, once you’re already Exalted, because you don’t have Holy Dusts left, right? The enchant costs 8 Holy Dusts.

Scryers

– Sunfury/Firewing Signets (25 reputation per item) and Arcane Tome (350 reputation per item) can be dropped by any Blood Elf (NPC) in Outland. Note that the Arcane Tomes’ drop rate is way below the Sunfury Signets’.
– Choosing Scryers (or Aldor) reputation will automatically set its reputation to Friendly.
– Until Honored you can use Firewing Signets (+25 reputation per item). It is thus wiser to use only them until Honored and keep all the Tomes and Sunfury Signets from Honored to Exalted.

We mentioned the Tempest Keep dungeons/raid earlier. The drop rate of reputation tokens is higher, but so is the difficulty of the dungeons.
Returning Arcane Tome will grant you Arcane Runes. This item is the currency used to buy the reputation shoulder enchantment. We will talk about it down below.
As explained previously in the Aldor section, we’d recommend to return Arcane Tomes as much as possible, and stock Arcane runes for shoulders’ enchant so you avoid farming or buying Tomes.

How to make your decision

As already mentioned in the introduction, as a rogue or melee, you will probably have to choose Aldor for numerous reasons.
Not only the reputation items are very good in early content, but also the shoulder enchant and Shattered Sun Necklace proc are also better than Scryers. Even though it’s more expensive to increase your reputation compared to the Scryers, we highly recommend you to pick Aldor.

Aldor: What are the interesting items ?

– Vindicator’s Brand (exalted) is probably the best weapon you could get before T4,even for PvP.
– Lightwarden’s Band (revered) is also a very good pre raid ring. However PvP S1 ring and Karazhan rings (Violet Eye reputation, Curator’s and Prince’s) are far better.
– Overseer’s Signet is a cool ring as well and is obtained as a reward of the Aldor quest Shutting Down Manaforge Ara.
– Greater Inscription of Vengeance (exalted) is the Aldor’ shoulder enchantment. It gives 30 Attack power and 10 Critical strike. It costs 8 Holy dusts (obtained by handing in a Fel Armament to Ishanah at the Shrine of Unending Light).

Later on, when Sunwell becomes available, the proc of the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might (exalted) depends on your affiliation. For Aldor it will grant +200 Attack power for 10 sec. This is HUGE.

To acquire this item you need to be Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive and for the item to proc, you need to be exalted with the Aldor or Scryers.

Scryers : What are the interesting items ? 

– Retainer’s Blade (exalted) is a cool dagger. A bit slow and useless but still worth mentioning.
– Retainer’s Leggings (revered) are awesome early on but they are  replaced fairly quickly.
– Socrethar’s Girdle is a very good waist with Hit, Agility and Attack Power, obtained as a reward for completing the quest Turning Point. It will be hard to replace that one until Black Morass Heroic or Chess event in Karazhan.
– Greater Inscription of the Blade (exalted) is the Scryers’ shoulder enchantment. It gives 15 Critical Strike and 20 Attack Power. It costs 8 Arcane Runes (obtained by handing in Arcane Tomes to Voren’thal the Seer).

Later on, when Sunwell becomes available, the proc of the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might (exalted) depends on your affiliation. For Scryers it will deal an ‘Arcane Strike” of ~333-367 Arcane damage to the target. It can be missed, dodged, parried or blocked, but it can also crit. 

To acquire this item you need to be Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive and for the item to proc, you need to be exalted with the Aldor or Scryers.

Additional Information

What did players choose during TBC on retail ?

From https://okoloth.blogspot.com/, we can see that rogues tended to choose Aldor for their reputation. For Classic TBC, we can expect the spread to drastically change. Aldor is clearly the best choice for PvE and PvP for the shoulder enchant and the Neck’s proc.

Rogue Spec Aldor Scryers Undecided
Assassination 41.65% 57.06% 1.30%
Combat 59.17% 40.03% 0.80%
Subtlety 54.48% 44.16% 1.35%

How easy is it to become Exalted?

Back in the days, a study (on the WoW homepage on the week from July 16 to July 22, 2008) was made to compare the availability of the items required to raise each reputation.

It turned out that Scryers’ items (Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes) were easier to farm (dropped 84% more often than the Aldor equivalent) and cheaper at the Auction House. 

For the shoulder’s enchantment, the early good items and the neck proc later on, the Aldor is far better than Scryers for rogues, be it PvE or PvP. We know it’s an expensive reputation to grind but we submit that it’s worth it. It’s the kind of choice that can make a difference between winning or losing an arena match or being first or second place on Recount.

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