4.2 dailies rewards

With patch 4.2 comes a new set of dailies which unlock ever more areas in Mount Hyjal, and feature a "personal progression" story. Think Island of Quel'danas area unlocking, but for just the player rather than the server.

Now MMO Champion has the scoop about the loot available from the vendors in this new quest area, in this here post. What it boils down to is some item level 365 items, available for gold. Trinkets, ring and gloves are available for the feral druid. All for questing in Hyjal, helping out the Druids and a bit of grind.

Hold on a second, how much grind?

I refer to what Kaliope's Crafting Blog has to say:

Completing all 14 of the new Firelands quests was taking me about 45 minutes each day. It might go faster if you have a group to do it with you. These 14 quests will reward 25 tokens per day. So the most tokens you'll get in any one day is 25 and this is only after you reach Phase 3. It takes 5 days to unlock each vendor once you've completed all the steps leading up to them. Phase 1 takes three days, followed by Phase 2 which takes 11 days. Phase 3 takes 6 days per faction, so 12 days total. Including the 5 days to actually unlock a vendor, you're looking at 31 days to gain access to the new recipes. Add another five days for each additional vendor you want to unlock.

So that's 31 days of doing the new dailies, every daily every single day, before you are able to purchase items from 1 of the 3 vendors. Given one of the vendors has most of the feral druid goods you'll want, the other 2 vendors have 1 item of interest. I find Tol Barad dailies obnoxious, and they take me 30 minutes or less.

31 days of grinding, 3 points when the phase changes when you might see something else, otherwise days and days of a set of fixed quests, randomly available, much like Tol Barad.

The items available are 365, which is a mere 6 item levels higher than raid drops or Valor point purchases currently. Valor items will be available for Justice points in 4.2, so the items available from the vendors are a slight upgrade, and might fill a slot or two you don't have an item for. However, if you are raiding, you may already have 359 epics for rings and trinkets, and you might have the epic gloves from Dragonmaw already.  Plus if you have success in the Firelands raid, you will be getting items with a higher item level than 365 anyway.

31 days grind for an extra 6 item levels across 4 items? No thanks. I can't imagine anything less worthwhile, I think I'd rather grind heroics for Justice to buy all those left over Valor items from 4.1.

Now if you don't raid, I think the grind might be attractive. My Death Knight certainly has very shabby gear, and could only get 1 trinket from Justice (come 4.2), so an extra trinket and ring would be a good upgrade. Still, a month of solid dailies? Yuck, 4.2 certainly is putting the grind into World of Grindcraft.