Ever since Bloodshrike (hunter), Pallormortis (DK), and Banesidhe (mage) hit 85, I started doing the Tol Barad dailies. Bloodshrike got a pole-arm, Pallormortis got a sword, and Banesidhe got a kick-ass staff. Most of the weapons from the quartermaster are ilevel 346 versions of the ilevel 333 weapons given from this quest in Twilight Highlands.
When I first started doing them, I was totally excited about the rewards. Heroic level weapons, without having to step foot in dungeons? Sweet! Then, my paladin Clockworknyt, my warrior Bullkathos, and my rogue Thrillkiller hit 85, and started questing there, and I realized, "what the hell am I doing?"
Here's the breakdown on getting commendations to buy stuff from the quartermasters. There's the weekly PvP quest, which gives 3 commendations and 200 honor once a week.
In the Northern part, there's 6 daily quests that you can complete for 6 commendations (for the most part). You can usually pick up another 3 commendations if you log in at 3 AM (after having done the 6 dailies earlier than 3 am), when they have quest givers switch their dailies, before the daily quest reset at 4 AM.
In the Southern area, if your faction wins the battle, you can pick up 3 static daily quests, and then 3 rotating dailies that involve collecting quest items, killing mobs, and killing a boss mob. The thing is, the rotating dailies CAN change each time your faction wins TB that day, so you can check back each time to see if you can complete more quests.
However, it takes a while to do some of the quests, especially the ones that have a high mob kill count. If you figure a half hour each for Northern and Southern, that would be an hour for each toon. Figure 12 commendations for a toon on normal days, 1 hour spent. With 85 needed for a ilevel 346 weapon, that's at LEAST 1 solid week of dailies, with 6 to 7 hours spent.
With 6 85's, that's not happening. Especially if you want to get the 200 commendation Drake, you'll hate yourself for wasting the 85 commendations.
Enter Blacksmithing. As long as you have the mats, all you have to do is pay the BS for the Chaos Orbs, and you get instant high-level weapons. The reason I'm going on about weapons is because without them, it feels like your fighting monsters with a dull butter knife. My rogue Thrillkiller had dual level 81 blues, and trying to take on even one mob in Tol Barad would take me down to 1/4 health. Even my mage had more killing power and survivability when he first started doing those dailies.
So I'm going to change my tactics.
1)No more saving for the weapons, just the mount.
2)Take any quest that only asks you to kill a named mob.
3)Avoid almost any quest that has a high kill count. The only exception would be the kill count quests in the Southern Peninsula that are coupled with going into the caves for the named bosses. Avoid the infantry kills, take the crocolisk quest.
This should reduce the amount of time spent on each toon from 1 hour to probably 25 minutes, with only a small loss of commendations.
