Flux

For those of you tired of running, riding, flying, and even taking a boat from one place to another. There are much faster ways to get around the World of Warcraft. Let’s take a look at the known like hearthstones and others that are more rare like a Dimensional Ripper or the Blessed Medallion of Karabor.

Basics

Everyone is probably already familiar with the two easiest ways to instantly get around, Hearthstones and Summoning Stones. Hearthstones bring you back to Inns and Summoning Stone with the help of two others brings you to the entrance of instances. Hearthstones are by far one of the most useful ways to get around but they have a 1 hour cooldown.

Abilities

Some characters have special abilities that let them quickly transport themselves or others in their group.

Mages can teleport themselves or open a portal for the entire group to any major city in their faction. That’s Ironforge, Storm Wind, Exodar, Darnassus, Theramore, Shattrath for Alliance. And it’s Ogrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon, Thunderbluff, Stonard, Shattrath for Horde. The mage teleport is one of the most useful ways to get around.

Druids can teleport themselves to Moonglade. The druid teleport is useful for getting back to Azeroth from Outland, especially the continent of Kalimdor. Though this is less useful if you have revered reputation with the Keepers of Time. Since you can talk to an NPC in Shattrath city go directly to the Caverns of Time on the same continent.

Shamans can cast Astral Recall and instantly transport back to the same location their hearthstone is set to. This is useful because the cooldown is only 15 minutes instead of an hour. Using this ability doesn’t use the cooldown on the hearthstone, so combined that’s up to five trips back to the Inn every hour.

Warlocks can’t teleport themselves but they can bring others to them using Ritual of Souls. They select a group member and with the help of two others, summon that person to them. It requires a Soul Shard. And the person accepting the summon must wait until they are out of combat.

Shattrath City Portals

Shattrath city is home to one way portals to all the major faction cities. In the center of the city is a circular room with the protector Ad’al. Around the room are three groups of portals free for anyone to use. This city is the most common place for non-mages to set their hearthstones to. Because you have easy access to Azeroth and the Auction Houses while still easily getting back to Outland without having to travel to the Dark Portal. Otherwise you have to rely on mules and the mail to do your shopping for you.

There is a NPC in the Worlds End Tavern which will transport you from Shattrath city to the Caverns of Time. It’s not strictly a portal but it is part of the transportation system. You will need at least a revered reputation with the Keepers of Time to use this.

Items

The Ultrasafe Transporter is a trinket that can be made and used by engineers specializing in gnomish engineering. There are two versions, one that transports you to Gadgetzan and the other which goes to Toshley’s Station in Blades Edge Mountains. The have a long 4 hour cool down but are handy for getting around. Be careful though, there are occasional random side effects. Most are harmless and fun. However one effect will teleport you high in the air above your location. Unless you have something to slow your fall like a Parachute Cloak, you will die.

A Dimensional Ripper is much like an Ultrasafe Transporter except for use by goblin engineers. They have the same occasional side effect but they teleport you instead to Area 52 in Netherstorm and Everlook.

The Lunar Festival Invitation is available once a year during the Lunar Festival. I wouldn’t list it except that the invitation is a great way to get some flight points that are hard to get to at low levels. Use the invitation, go pick up both flight points in Moonglade, and then grab a Moonbeam to the nearest faction city that you are missing a flight point from. The Moonbeams work like Shattrath city portals and are only available during the festival.

The Blessed Medallion of Karabo is by far one of the most difficult items on this list to get. You must complete the quest The Fall of the Betrayer and slay Illidan Stormrage in the Black Temple. If you can manage this, this neck item will teleport you to the entrance to the Black Temple every 15 minutes. It’s an easy way to get to Shadowmoon Valley and those Netherwing daily quests.

Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian is a legendary item that can be assembled from a long quest chain which begins inside of Naxxramas. If you go through the older level 60 content to assemble this item you can use it to teleport directly outside the gate to Karazhan, impressing friends and Aran alike. If you happen to have this equipped when you fight the Shade of Aran, he will recognize it.

Scepter of Celebras is not really particularly useful, but for those who want to kill the Princess over and over in Maraudon it sure makes the job faster. After you complete the quest by the same name, your reward will be the Scepter. You can use the scepter on the altar outside the Maraudon in the future and be teleported directly to Earth Song Falls. This lets you skip the purple or orange part of the instance.

Goblin Transponder is an item for Horde only which gives you an easy way to get from Booty Bay to Gnomeregan. After completing the quest Gnomer-gooooone! you will receive the transponder which you can hold onto and use anytime on the teleport pad in Booty Bay. Be careful, the quest STOLEN: Smithing Tuyere and Lookout’s Spyglassquest may prevent you from getting the transponder if you do. So do the Gnomer-gooooone! quest first.

Tips

There are also some other more, inventive ways to get around fast.

Partial Quests - Like the Goblin Transponder for the Horde, Alliance can also take advantage of partial quests. The quest chain that starts with A Disturbing Development and ends with Return to Jaina gives you a free teleport to Theramore at the end. If you don’t turn in the last quest and you can continue to use this teleport as long as you like.

Instance Boot - If you leave your group while inside of an instance you will get automatically booted or teleported back to where your hearthstone is set. If your hearthstone isn’t on cooldown then this is not much use since the game will just use your hearthstone anyway and put it on cooldown. However, if you hearthstone has been used, it will still boot you. In this case, you get a free hearthstone use.

Battleground Roundup - You can use the Battleground ques to round up a group of people. You can either collect everyone at one of the que areas or you can move them from one battleground to another one without having to desert your current one. To do this, form a party or raid with all the people you want to move. The leader then ques for some battleground everyone is not in. Everyone except the leader joins that battleground when the join battleground message comes up. Then the leader reques for a different one, the one everyone wants to go to. When that battleground message comes up, everyone joins. This lets you make a preform group without having to wait for everyone to finish or desert their battlegrounds. You can also use this to have everyone appear at the que area, but you will have to quit the battlefield giving you the deserter flag which isn’t a problem if you are done with battlegrounds and ready to do something else.

Bubblehearth - You wiped for the tenth time. The pug you are in is full of limited. And you are a paladin. It’s time to Bubblehearth. Paladins have Divine Shield which makes them immune to damage for up to 12 seconds. This is just enough time to use your hearthstone. The two together will let them escape to an Inn from any situation even while in combat, that they can hearthstone out from.

See you around, faster.

Tags: tip
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.