Thinking of a World of Warcraft Faction Change?

World of Warcraft offers a faction change service allowing you to switch your character allegiance from Alliance or Horde. I recently tried out and I discovered some interesting tricks and unexpected side effects of switching from Alliance to Horde on my paladin. I switched mostly because I hate the long queue Alliance has for the battlegrounds and most of my other characters are Horde.

First, I noticed that I could complete the entire Horde starting race quests for an instant boost in reputation. Because I had not completed all of my city reputation on my character, this allowed me to make significant progress because I still had credit for all of the reputations that I had already earned.

Unfortunately, I lost credit for many of the quests that I had completed. Although I still had my achievement for completing 1,000 quests, I only had credit toward 700 toward my next achievement 1,500 quests. If desired though, you can make it up with all of the starting race and leveling quests for city reputation.

So changing factions will set you back toward earning lore master and quest related achievements but you will keep your credit for other factions such as the Thorium Brotherhood and Argent Dawn. After your faction change you can also do the quests for the Argent Dawn again for reputation gains.

If you have an old school PVP title, as my paladin does, it will be obvious to everyone that you changed factions. For example, there are no natural born blood elf paladins with the Feat of High Warlord because those titles were extinct when blood elves were introduced in Burning Crusade but so far no one has called me on it.

Before you switch sides, if you are into achievements, you may want to do the fishing achievements such as catching Old Crafty in Orgrimmar or Old Ironjaw in Ironforge. If you do, you can save yourself the ordeal of fishing for a long period of time deep in an enemy city. While you're at it, also run the Stockade or Rage Fire Chasm. Other than the quirks with quests or achievements, I found the process of changing factions went smoothly and it was worth it.