Note: please also see Guild perks – the downside to a beta

Following on a comment I saw on twitter about guild perks being removed I quickly checked out the beta since I could actually not only log in, but also had an operational server! And whilst I had a couple of client crashes doing things like moving around and the like, I got into a guild & looked at the guild perks we’ll be having in Warlords.

Before reading the below, please bear in mind the following tweet by @WatcherDev – most of the guild perks below will be baked by default in Warlods.

With that in mind; what are the guild perks in Warlords?

Given that we used to have a new perk at every level – admitedly, some are just an extra tier – we’ve lost a lot of perks here! From what I can see, the following are being dropped:

• Fast Track, +10% XP (lvl2 & lvl6)
• Mr. Popularity, +10% rep (lvl4 & lvl12)
• Cash flow, +10% money from loot to guild bank (lvl5 & lvl16)
• Reinforce, 20% less durability taken (lvl7 & lvl9)
• The Doctor Is In, +25% healing from bandages (lvl10)
• Honorable Mention, +10% honor (lvl13 & lvl19)
• Working Overtime, +20% chance to gain tradeskill point (lvl14 & lvl22)
• For Great Justice, +20% Justice points (lvl18 & lvl20)
• Ride Like the Wind, +25% flight path speed (lvl21)
• Bountiful Bags, chance for increased materials from gathering (lvl23)
• Bartering, 10% reduction in vendor purchased items (lvl24)

So with the above, what impact can we see?

Well, alts will level slower due to the 10% XP drop – although with what you gain from Heirlooms that’ll not be a big impact. However this will probably be a baked in change.

The 10% rep reduction is going to hurt any rep grinds a bit. I have to wonder if this is one they’ll not bake in, just because it’ll be easier to have “Mob X gives 100 rep”

Losing cash flow is going to hurt guild banks; right now I know that the random killing I do in the world is helping my guild. We’ll need to start putting money into the guild bank again! The weekly guild challenges are still present, however I don’t know if they reward gold still as that comes from the Cash Flow perk right now. Hopefully this will be a baked in change otherwise it’ll hurt guilds – especially those who allow members to repair from guild funds – a bit.

The dropping of Reinforce as well makes me wonder if Blizzard are trying to reduce the amount of gold in the economy on the quiet!

Working Overtime is a pain for those who like professions, although I have to wonder if that’s partly due to the introduction of Garrisons.

Dropping Bountiful Bags is also annoying from a gathering perspective, but again I wonder if that’s thanks to Garrisons.

Ride like the Wind was useful, but hopefully if Blizzard follow through on their “Flight paths will not wander all over the place” promise it’ll not be too painful to loose this.

Not having Bartering is going to make crafting mounts which require expensive vendor-only materials like the 20,000g Orb of Mystery from Mists and others from prior expansions more expensive for those in a guild. This will mean it’ll be 8,000g more expensive to craft the epic Jewelcrafting mount.

After finding my way to Pandaria – somewhat fun as there aren’t any portals up right now, I had to roll a monk & use Zen Pilgrimage in the end – I found the vendor in the Vale and saw that the items are still at their normal prices. So either Blizzard haven’t gotten to them yet, or the prices will not change.