This is a guide for casters in the Burning Crusade. It covers what you need to know about materials, reputation and what to fetch. Stigg wrote it way back when, I've slightly reformatted it and reposted it here.

Stigg’s Guide to Everything I Wish I Knew About Outlands as a DPS Caster

Introduction
Let me start out by saying I can guarantee a million of you are going to reply to this guide with “Stigg you forgot about XX quest and YY items”. That’s wonderful, and I hope you do. I do not imply under any means that this is a full-proof guide. I also know that many things in here will not be followed for whatever reason you choose. I can tell you one thing for certain. I didn’t follow a single word of what I am about to write. And it hurt me when I got to 70. Doing any of this should help you, but heck, maybe not. I am going to be as elaborate on this guide as I can, which will make it seem that I am talking to you as if you know nothing about this game. As a high level player, I know you do. But, I would rather be thorough than not. :)

About Me
Most of yall know me from around the forums. I play a mage, aGwydion horde side on Kalecgos US. As you can see, I am a rather mediocre level 70 mage. I have spellstrike, spellfire, a few Kara drops, some heroic drops and that’s about it. /shrug. I do not, and will not, make a single claim to knowing the first thing about warlocks. I know a little about Shady priests, but not enough to hold a conversation about it. Furthermore, I readily admit that I don’t know the first thing about Alliance, especially in TBC. So, if I reference something that doesn’t sound write for the alliance, then please interpret as the alliance equivalent.

Tailoring –vs- Not Tailoring
This is a great debate that everybody will come to different conclusions about. But, I am one for always playing it safe, and I would recommend all DPS casters to do the same. That means saving every scrap of Netherweave Cloth that drops. Get your First Aid to 375 regardless, but once there, I would strongly recommend making a cloth bank alt (or just a bank alt in general). Send every piece of Netherweave you get to that bank. If you follow the guides out on the internet, you will need about 3000 Netherweave Cloth (150 stacks) to get to 375. On top of that, you will need a ton more to make your armor sets.

So, why do some people want tailoring? It allows you to make 3 different sets of armor and get the bonus of the Spellstrike Set.

For Frost Mages, Warlocks, and Shady Priests, you can make this set:

• Frozen Shadoweave Boots
• Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders
• Frozen Shadoweave Robe

Set bonus: Your frost and shadow damage spells heal you for 2% of the damage they deal.

For Fire and Arcane Mages, you can make this set:

• Spellfire Belt
• Spellfire Gloves
• Spellfire Robe

Set Bonus: Increases spell damage by up to 7% of your total Intellect

The third set is the Primal Mooncloth set, but I won’t discuss that here.

On top of that, you will get the Spellstrike Set’s Bonus

• Spellstrike Hood
• Spellstrike Pants

Set Bonus: Gives a chance when your harmful spells land to increase the damage of your spells and effects by 92 for 10 seconds.

What is so special about these sets? Well, the damage from them is incredible. What they lack in stats, they (controversially) make up in +damage. Of course, it is entirely up to you whether or not you get these or not. I just suggest saving the mats for them *in case* you do decide to get them.

Stepping foot in Outlands
It is an awe-inspiring experience. But that’s for you to discover on your own. You’re going to start in Hellfire Peninsula. If your Horde, your first stop will most likely be Thrallmar. If you’re Alliance, then it will be Honor Hold. There will be quite a few quests for you to do in these locations. Which brings me to my next point.

Rep Grinding
As a DPS caster, there are a few factions that you will want to get high reputations with. Pre-TBC, rep grinds, on the most part, were purely optional. If you wanted some unique pattern, you would go kill things over and over again. In TBC, this isn’t the case anymore. To end up being the best you can be, you will NEED to do rep grinds. So, get used to it!

But, there are ways to make it a little easier. Once again, you don’t need to follow any of this completely. I didn’t and I am doing just fine, but it would have been exponentially easier for me to do what I am about to describe.

As a quick note, a refresher in Reputations.
There are a total of five positive reputation levels in the game. Neutral, Friendly, Honored, Revered, and Exalted. For most reputations you will start out as Neutral.
To get to the next level of reputation, you will need increasing amount of reputation.

• Neutral: 3000
• Friendly: 6000
• Honored: 12000
• Revered: 21000
• Exalted: None

What Reputations should I be looking at and why?

• Thrallmar –or- Honor Hold: At exalted you will get arguably the best sword in the game without downing the final boss in Kara. If you are Horde, it will be Stormcaller. If you are Alliance, it is Blade of the Archmage. Note, these are swords, so if you are a Shady Priest, ignore this.
• Sha’tar: At Revered, you will get a nice trinket,
• Xi’ri’s Gift

. This trinket is a very nice trinket that, most likely, you won’t be replacing very easily.
Also at Revered, you will get the Glyph of Power which is the best head enchant you can get as a DPS caster.

• Aldor and Scryer: I will address this elsewhere.
Rep Grinding with Sha’tar
• Neutral to Honored: Turning in the Aldor and Scryer rep rewards will net you 50% of the rep they give to their own faction to Sha’tar. This will require a lot of turn-ins.
• Honored to Exalted: Any Tempest Keep (Mechanar, Botanica, and Arcatraz) will get you a lot of reputation. Even more so if you are running Heroics.
  If you would prefer to solo some of this, the following quests will give you Sha’tar Reputation:
  • A Distraction for Akama
  • A Secret Revealed
  • A’dal
  • Akama’s Promise
  • Aucninoun…
  • Battle of the Crimson Watch
  • Everything Will Be Alright
  • Evil Draws Near
  • Ezekiel
  • For the Fallen
  • Harbinger of Doom
  • How to Break Into Arcatraz
  • I See Dead Draenei
  • Levixus the Soul Caller
  • Return to Sha’tari Base Camp
  • Revered Among the Sha’tar
  • Special Delivery to Shattrath City
  • Taken in the Night
  • Terokkarantula
  • The Dread Relic
  • The Journal of Val’zared: Portends of War
  • The Master’s Grand Design?
  • The Tempest Key
  • Trial of the Naaru: Magtheridon
  • Trial of the Naaru: Mercy
  • Trial of the Naaru: Strength
  • Trial of the Naaru: Tenacity
  • Vision of the Dead
  • What Book? I Don’t See Any Book.
  • What the Soul Sees
  • When Spirits Speak

  Not all of these are solo-able and some of them require instance runs.

Rep Grinding with Thrallmar

• Neutral to Honored: This is easily done by entering the two dungeons in Hellfire Peninsula available as soon as you step foot into outlands. These are Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Complete clears of these shouldn’t take long at all, and they net between 600 and 780 rep. Furthermore, there is a crevice in the middle of Hellfire Ramparts that have orcs. These orcs are wonderful to grind on and each yields 5 reputation.
• Honored through Exalted: The only instance that will yield reputation from honored to revered is Shattered Halls, only available at level 68. Once you hit revered, any Hellfire heroic or Shattered Halls will yield reputation. There is a daily quest, Hellfire Fortifications that yields a little bit of rep. Also, going back and doing the following quests will yield a ton of reputation.
  • A Burden of Souls
  • A Strange Weapon
  • Apothecary Antonivich
  • Apothecary Zelana
  • Arrival in Outland
  • Bloody Vengeance
  • Boiling Blood
  • Bonechewer Blood
  • Burn It Up... For the Horde!
  • Cannons of Rage
  • Cruel's Intentions
  • Dark Tidings
  • Dealing With Zeth'Gor
  • Decipher the Tome
  • Disrupt Their Reinforcements
  • Doorway to the Abyss
  • Entry Into the Citadel
  • Eradicate the Burning Legion
  • Felspark Ravine
  • Forge Camp: Mageddon
  • Forward Base: Reaver's Fall
  • From the Abyss
  • Grand Master Rohok
  • Grillok "Darkeye"
  • Heart of Rage
  • Hellfire Fortifications
  • Honor the Fallen
  • Hotter than Hell
  • I Work... For the Horde!
  • Imprisoned in the Citadel
  • Journey to Thrallmar
  • Make Them Listen
  • Marauding Crust Bursters
  • Mission: Gateways Murketh and Shaadraz
  • Mission: The Abyssal Shelf
  • Preparing the Salve
  • Pride of the Fel Horde
  • Pridewings of Stonetalon
  • Report to Nazgrel
  • Return to Thrallmar
  • Rohok's Request
  • Spinebreaker Post
  • The Agony and the Darkness
  • The Assassin
  • The Battle Horn
  • The Blood is Life
  • The Demoniac Scryer
  • The Eyes of Grillok
  • The Fall of Magtheridon
  • The Foot of the Citadel
  • The Mag'har
  • The Mastermind
  • The Warchief's Mandate
  • The Warp Rifts
  • The Will of the Warchief
  • Through the Dark Portal
  • Vile Plans
  • Void Ridge
  • Wanted: Worg Master Kruush
  • Weaken the Ramparts
  • When This Mine's a-Rockin'
  • Zeth'Gor Must Burn!

What should I save while I am getting to 70?

It’s all about the Primals!: Regardless of if you are a tailor or not, you are most likely going to want the Spellstrike set. The materials for these items might not seem like a lot, but if you wait until level 70 to start getting them, it will take a lot of time or gold, or both.

The Spellstike set has two pieces. These are Spellstrike Hood and Spellstrike Pants. They have the same mats required to make them.

• 5x Primal Might
• 10x Spellcloth
• Primal Nether

A Primal Might requires:

• Primal Mana
• Primal Earth
• Primal Water
• Primal Air
• Primal Fire

Each of these is created by merging 10 Motes of the respective element. (i.e. A Primal Fire is made by merging 10 Motes of Fire). So any and every mote of these you come across save.

A Spellcloth requires:

• Imbued Netherweave
• Primal Mana
• Primal Fire

You will also want to get either the Mystic Spellthread or even better, the Runic Spellthread.

The Mystic Spellthread requires 5 Primal Manas. The Runic Spellthread requires 10 Primal Manas and a Primal Nether. These two items are crafted by Aldor factioned players, but they are BOE, so you can simply supply mats (and pay for the Nether) and get the item to apply to your own legs.

Furthermore, if you ARE a tailor making the set pieces, you will need a load of primals. I won’t break it down for you, but to craft all three pieces you will need:

For the Shadoweave set:

• 26 x Primal Fire
• 26 x Primal Shadow
• 38 x Primal Water

For the Spellfire set:

• 64 x Primal Fire
• 26 x Primal Mana

As you can see, that is a ton of primals. More likely than not, you WILL have to actually take time to grind for these primals(or buy them), so don’t be discouraged when you get to 70 and realize that you don’t have nearly what is required to make these patterns. (And for us fire mages, grinding out 84 primal fires is the last thing you will want to do!)

One quest to look out for
When you reach level 65, gather your closest friends (hopefully they are already 70, this quest is a bit hard) and head to Nagrand. Locate Gurgthock at the Ring of Blood, and start his quest line. It is a recommended 5 person quest line, and by 5 people, they mean 5 level 70s to make it easy, or 7+ level 65’s. The end result? One of the best weapons you can get at 65, and a very viable weapon to carry you through to 70.

• Battle Mage’s Baton

.

So I’ve reached 70, I got some decent gear but my weapons are horrible!
Chances are you will still be wielding the Battle Mage’s Baton, or a random green MH and random green OH. You will most likely wish to have a MH and OH, so its off on the search for viable weapons. The first thing you should do, the second you ding 70 is to either join or create a 5v5 arena team. It doesn’t matter if you and the rest of the team is wearing level 1 greys and never killed a single player in your life. Why? Because you are going to start working towards the best weapon in the game without seeing…well…I don’t even know if there is something in the game that is better. You will be working towards:

• Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade

Great stats, spell hit, and 225 spell damage. Yes, 225. But, unless you join an amazing arena team, you won’t be seeing that any sooner than 5 weeks, which is closer than you can imagine.

Until then, run 5 man instances. Preferably ones that will get you Thrallmar/Honor Hold rep. Here are some items you can get from 5 mans.

• Greatsword of Horrid Dreams
• Runesong Dagger
• Mana Wrath

You can craft:

• Eternium Runed Blade

At revered with Caverns of Time:

• Continuum Blade

You can buy:

• Blade of Wizardry

Off hands:
From 5 mans:

• Lamp of Peaceful Radiance
• Manual of the Nethermancer
• Star-Heart Lamp

From a quest:

• Saga of Terrok

Bought using badges dropped by every boss in heroic dungeons:

• Flametongue Seal
• Sapphiron's Wing Bone
• Khadgar's Knapsack
• Orb of the Soul-Eater

So, I’ve gotten some gear, where do I go from here?
Well, I don’t know your circumstances. If your guild is raiding past Kara, go there. If not, or if you want to gear up even more, begin doing heroics. Each boss drops a

• Badge of Justice

that is used as currency for some amazing gear. For a full list of items, check out this list,

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