Introduction and Overview

You just hit level 70 in WoW TBC Classic and you’re wondering what to do next. The Burning Crusade endgame is more straightforward compared to modern World of Warcraft, but there’s still plenty to accomplish. This guide will help you prioritize your activities and make the most of your time in Outland.

• Endgame Focus: Unlike retail WoW, TBC Classic doesn’t have complex systems to unlock. Your activities will center around traditional MMO goals: gearing, attunements, and reputation farming.
• Time Management: While the content is more direct, it can still be time-consuming. This guide will help you focus on what matters most.

Flying Mounts Priority

Flying mounts are absolutely essential in The Burning Crusade. There are two speeds available at level 70: 60% and 280% flying speed. The 60% speed mount feels incredibly slow—in many cases, a 100% ground mount is actually faster. However, you need at least 60% flying to reach certain dungeons required for raid attunements.

Epic Flying Mount

Getting the 280% speed mount should be your single most important goal when reaching level 70. It allows you to do everything else faster:

• Farm resources and materials more efficiently;
• Level your gathering professions much quicker;
• Travel to dungeons and raids in record time;
• Reduce vulnerability to ganking in PvP zones.

The cost is significant: 900 gold for 60% flying (less with reputation discounts) and 5,200 gold total for 280% flying. Earning this gold is achievable through several methods:

• Professions: At launch, selling crafted items or materials will be extremely profitable. Base materials like ore, herbs, and skins always sell well.
• Elemental Plateau: Located in northern Nagrand, this area requires 60% flying to access. Elementals drop elemental motes that combine into primals, which are essential for high-level crafted items.
• Mob Farming: Various mob spots throughout Outland can provide steady gold income.

Riding Crop Trinket

Once you have your flying mount, don’t forget to get a Riding Crop. This craftable trinket by leatherworkers increases your mount speed by 10% and can be equipped by anyone, not just leatherworkers. You can purchase it from the auction house or commission someone to make it for you.

• Essential for Gatherers: If you have mining, herbalism, or use the engineer’s mote extractor, the speed boost makes a significant difference in farming efficiency.

Professions Importance

Professions are incredibly important in The Burning Crusade—even more so than in vanilla WoW. They provide some of the best gear in the game across multiple phases and are crucial for both character progression and gold making.

• Blacksmithing: Offers powerful three-tier weapons like Stormherald, Lionheart Executioner, and Dragonstrike (available in later phases).
• Tailoring: Features three specializations: Primal Mooncloth for healers, Spellcloth for mages, and Shadowcloth for shadow priests and warlocks.
• Leatherworking: Provides drums, which function as multiple heroisms for your group.
• Engineering: Introduces new gadgets and explosives that add significant utility.
• Alchemy: Essential for consumables that enhance your performance in raids and dungeons.
• Gathering Professions: Mining, herbalism, and skinning will be incredibly lucrative, especially early on when everyone is leveling their professions.

Don’t overlook your secondary professions either, as they received meaningful updates in TBC. If you’re still undecided on your profession choices, consider researching which professions best complement your class and playstyle.

Raid Attunements

Raid attunements in The Burning Crusade are unique—many raids are locked behind lengthy attunement quest chains. The system works like a flowchart: to attune to Black Temple, you need to attune to Mount Hyjal first. To attune to Mount Hyjal, you need to attune to both The Eye and Serpentshrine Cavern. To attune to Tempest Keep, you need heroic dungeons, which require Revered reputation with the five main factions in TBC.

• Reputation Rewards: These factions also offer excellent gear and professional recipes for fresh level 70 characters, which many players forget about.
• Massive Process: The attunement chain is extensive and time-consuming, making it one of your main activities as soon as you hit level 70.
• Priority: Being able to zone into all available raids is crucial for endgame progression, so start working on attunements immediately.

Badge Farming and Heroics

Badge farming is an essential part of gearing up in TBC Classic. You’ll earn Badges of Justice from heroic dungeons and, in later phases, from Karazhan. These badges can be spent at vendors in Shattrath for powerful early-level epics.

• Targeted Gearing: This is one of the best ways to fill out your character and target specific gear slots that need upgrades.
• Daily Heroic Quest: Right outside the bar in Shattrath, an ethereal offers a daily quest to bring back an item from a random heroic boss, rewarding two additional badges per day.
• Key Method: Badge farming will be one of the primary methods for progressing your character shortly after hitting level 70.

PvP System and Gear

The PvP system received significant changes in The Burning Crusade, and even if you’re primarily interested in PvE, PvP gear can be valuable for filling out your character.

• Honor as Currency: Honor is now an actual currency that you earn and spend at vendors. All PvP gear no longer requires any rating to obtain—as soon as you have the points and marks, you can purchase it.
• Eye of the Storm: A new battleground unlocks at level 70 that may interest you.
• Arena System: The competitive endgame PvP activity is arena. As long as you play 10 matches per week, you receive arena points based on your rating and bracket size.

For PvE players, PvP gear can still be useful despite having resilience (a PvP-only stat). The weapons, in particular, are highly sought after by PvE players. While the gear isn’t optimal for PvE due to resilience, it can fill slots where you’ve had bad luck in dungeons or raids.

• Rating Requirements: As of launch, all gear except weapons and shoulders can be purchased without rating requirements. Shoulders require 2,000 rating, and weapons require 1,850 rating. Everything else is available as soon as you have the points.
• Future Seasons: As the expansion progresses, rating requirements for previous seasons will be removed, making older gear more accessible.

This gear becomes more powerful later in the expansion since you can purchase a full set of epic gear fresh at level 70 from farming PvP, regardless of your skill level.

Optional Reputations

Beyond the main attunement factions, there are several optional reputations in The Burning Crusade that offer unique rewards, including mounts and additional gear options.

Netherwing Drakes

The Netherwing faction is probably the most popular optional reputation. Located in Shadowmoon Valley, you can earn reputation through quest chains, daily quests, and egg hunting. At Exalted, you can purchase your very own Nether Drake mount, setting you apart from players using standard griffins and wyverns.

• Starting Point: Begin the quest chain from Mordenai, an NPC wandering the Netherwing Fields in Shadowmoon Valley.

Aldor and Scryer

The Aldor and Scryer are very important factions in TBC. Most players will choose one during leveling, which unlocks different quest hubs, items, and enchants. Selecting one essentially locks out the other, as raising reputation with one decreases the other.

• Switching: You can switch later, but it will cost significant time and gold.
• Which to Choose: The best choice depends on your class, spec, professions, and priorities. Research the rewards, patterns, and enchants for each faction to make an informed decision.

Sha’tari Sky Guard

Located in Terokkar Forest, the Sha’tari Sky Guard offers another mount option. If you grind reputation with them to Exalted, you can obtain the writable Nether Ray mount.

• Starting Point: Begin the chain from Eula, who can be found next to the flight master in Shattrath.

Ogre Law Faction

The Ogre Law faction in Blade’s Edge Mountains are the Apexis Crystal enthusiasts. This reputation features a quest chain and daily quests, but no mounts—just various gear rewards that vary in usefulness depending on your class and spec.

• Notable Feature: Some quests require Simon Says-style memory games, which spawned dedicated addons to help players complete them.

Shattered Sun Offensive

In Phase 5 with the release of the Sunwell raid, a new daily hub opens for the Shattered Sun Offensive faction. This is probably the most intense daily activity in TBC.

• Rewards: Completing their quests grants reputation and caches containing high-level profession recipes.
• Vendor Items: You can purchase gear and additional recipes from their quartermaster.
• Gear Impact: This faction has the most significant effect on your character’s gear out of all optional factions, making it an important part of gearing up at level 70.

Note that most of these optional factions won’t be available from Phase 1, as they were originally released in patch 2.1 (the Black Temple patch), which would line them up for Phase 3 in the re-release. The exception is Netherwing, which you could start at launch, but couldn’t complete until patch 2.1.

Conclusion

The Burning Crusade endgame is more straightforward than modern World of Warcraft, but it’s still time-consuming. Your priorities should be clear: get your epic flying mount, level your professions, complete raid attunements, farm badges from heroics, and consider PvP gear for filling out your character. The optional reputations offer additional rewards and mounts, but focus on the core progression first.

• Direct Path: While there’s more content than in vanilla WoW, your itinerary remains pretty direct as far as MMOs go.
• Time Investment: Don’t underestimate the time required, but with proper prioritization, you can efficiently progress through all the essential content.