Insane In the Membrane Achievement Guide
Getting the Insane in the Membrane Achievement is the hardest and most time consuming thing players can do in WoW. In order to get this Achievement you will need to max out 7 different factions. These factions include all of the Goblin Reputations (Everlook, Booty Bay, Ratchet and Gadgetzan), the Ravenholdt faction, Bloodsail Buccaneers, and the Darkmoon Faire faction. This Achievement used to require more factions but Blizzard decided it was too hard and removed a few of the requirements (of course, always making things easier).
Players that are insane enough to get this achievement will be rewarded with a unique title "the Insane". Be warned though, getting all of these factions to exalted is extremely time consuming and will not be an easy task. You should expect it to take you weeks maybe even months to accomplish this achievement depending on how often you play and how much gold you're willing to invest. The goblin reputations are the easiest of the 7 factions, followed by Bloodsail Buccaneers then Ravenholdt and finally Darkmoon Faire being the most difficult.
To start, let's look at the Ravenholdt Faction.
Ravenholdt Faction
Players will be raising their Ravenholdt Reputation in Hillsbrad Foothills up until they reach Honored. You need to kill any Syndicate related mobs here for reputation points required to increase your reputation (I'm sure you know how rep works now...) I usually grind the mobs required at Durnholde Keep in Hillsbrad Foothills. The location in that video has changed a bit from Cata but this location still remains. Should give you some nostalgia from watching it if nothing else.
Killing the Syndicate here will only get you to 11299/12000 Honored at which point you will need to start doing quests to increase your Ravenholdt Reputation. I'll get to the Ravenholdt quests in a second, first let's take a look at this first half of what you need to do in detail.
Reaching Honored will be no easy task and will take a very long time to do from just grinding these mobs. I'm not suggesting there is an alternative way to do this, I am just getting you ready for what is to come. Sure you could probably grind to Honored in a single day if you had the time to sit down and grind here but trust me when I say it gets quite boring fast... And I'm usually the type that likes grinding crazy stuff like this! Even bringing a friend to help you grind here won't speed it up that much because a single level 85 can clear the entire camp themselves.
As aforementioned this part just covers what it takes to get to Honored, the next part will cover Honored to Exalted. For anyone who wants that question answered "How long will it take to grind Ravenholdt Reputation?", I've created a small little chart for you below.
Neutral to 11299/12000 Honored
Reputation Per Kill: 5
Reputation Per Hour: 4500
Amount of Kills Required: 4400
Hours It Took: 4 hours and 45 minutes
That's pretty much the most basic breakdown I can give of how long it will take to grind out this Reputation. Depending on how many AFK breaks you take and if you loot or not this time will either go faster or slower, as you could probably have guessed.
Honored to Exalted
As for raising your reputation the final little bit (Honored to Exalted) you will need to farm up Heavy Junkboxes from any 55 - 60 mobs. These lockboxes can only be gathered by Rogues through Pickpocketing... So I bet you know what that means... Sometimes you can find a Rogue that is willing to do it for you but it's going to end up costing you an arm and a leg to buy enough lockboxes from another player to raise the Reputation yourself. Not only will it cost you a ton but it's going to take forever since the lockboxes aren't exactly common in the first place. Also finding a Rogue willing to do this boring mundane task will take some time as well.
With Cataclysm the locations of where you can farm the Heavy Junkboxes have changed a bit, I used to recommend Tyr's Hand but it has been revamped and no longer has appropriate level mobs for the Heavy Junkboxes. I recommend you use either UBRS/LBRS now for farming the Heavy Junkboxes. This location has tons of mobs for you to pickpocket and they're elites so the chances of them having the Junkboxes is much more than regular mobs. Also after you pick pocket the mobs here you can always kill them for their Runecloth and Green Drops which you can sell on the Auction House for tons of gold.
In order to max out your Ravenholdt Reputation you will need roughly 1400 Junkboxes and you will probably only get about 20 - 25 an hour. You don't even want to know the math of how long this could take you because the end number is depressing
Videos
Ravenholdt Farming Part 1
Ravenholdt Lockbox Farming
Bloodsail Reputation
The second reputation you will want to raise is your Bloodsail Reputation. To raise your Bloodsail Reputation you will need to kill guards and NPCs in Booty Bay. This is the most dangerous of the 8 Reputations that you need to raise. While you're doing this chances are some players will help the guards and start attacking you, luckily now you can kill them without caring about the guards!
If you have any friends that want to grind out the Bloodsail Reputation bring them along it will speed it up a lot! Also one thing to keep in mind while raising this reputation is don't try and round up a lot of guards at once. Not only will they net you, not allowing you to run away they will start shooting you once you get about 10 yards away. When they shoot you, they will knock you back, making it impossible to get back into melee range with them.
Below I've included a video of the path I use to run around Booty Bay. Another thing to keep in mind is when you kill an NPC they will cause two guards to spawn. When you kill a player one guard will spawn.
Video of me plowing through Booty Bay
Reputation per kill (NPC): 5
Reputation per kill (Guard): 25
Reputation per Hour Solo: 3125
Hours It Will Take: Depending on your reputation with Bloodsail when you started, close to 4-8
Steamweedle Cartel
After you nuke your rating with all of the Neutral Goblin Cities, you will need to raise it all back up. There are 3 great places to raise your reputation with the Goblins. The best option to raise your reputation and make money at the same time is in Venture Bay (Grizzly Hills). If you're just going for reputation then kill the Goblins outside of Ratchet, if you want a steady flow of both money and rep, kill the goblins in Tanaris. In southwestern Grizzly Hills you'll have Venture Bay. Killing the Venture Co here will award you with reputation for all the Neutral Goblin cities.
Of course since you are in Grizzly Hills and in an area where both factions how dailies, it won't be 100% safe grinding here. Also this is one of the rare times where bringing friends won't speed anything up since then you will have to wait for respawns. Luckily the Venture Co here drop loot, making the grind more enjoyable.
Additional Note: The venture co on the boat are the only ones that will give you reputation. If you need help locating this boat, watch me video.
Video of the path I use in Venture Bay
Video of me Farming the Pirates near Ratchet
(Best Rep Location)
Video of me Farming Pirates in Tanaris for Reputation
Reputation Per Kill:
5 Booty Bay
3(2) Ratchet
3(2) Gadgetzan
3(2) Everlook
Reputation Per Hour: 1000 - 1500 Depending on if people interfere.
Shen'dralar (No longer a part of this Achievement or the game)
The final reputation that you will be grinding is the Shen'dralar reputation. The Shen'dralar reputation's main hub is located in Dire Maul. In order to raise your reputation with the Shen'dralar you will need to collect Librams and other materials and do turn in quests. The 3 Librams that you can turn in for reputation are Libram of Focus, Protection and Rapidity.
These 3 Librams drop commonly off of bosses in Dire Maul. The three easiest bosses to farm are in western Diremaul, it will only take roughly 5minutes to kill all 3. Below is a video of me killing the 3 bosses for the Librams.
Me Farming all 3 Bosses in Dire Maul
If you don't have a portable MOLL-E mailbox I recommend you farm a lot of the "extra" materials, such as Large Brilliant Shards, Pristine Black Diamonds, Skins of Shadow, Blood of Heroes and Frayed Abomination Stitching. If you have all of this crap on you when you get a Libram you can go turn it in right away. Since they are unique you can't carry more then one of the same kind around at the same time.
If you're curious as to where you can find the extra items... I've made a list below of all of the items and where you can find them.
Pristine Black Diamond - Random mob drop from instances, buy them on AH or farm Scholo/Strath
Skins of Shadow - Mobs in Rattlegore's Room and mobs in Lady Illucia Barov's room
Frayed Abomination Stitching - They drop off all the abominations right before Baron Rivendare
Large Brilliant Shards - Disenchanting Blues, or the Auction House
Blood of Heroes - Western and Eastern Plaguelands, ground spawns
Libram of Focus
x1 Pristine Black Diamond
x4 Large Brilliant Shards
x2 Skin of Shadow
Libram of Rapidity
x1 Pristine Black Diamond
x2 Large Brilliant Shards
x2 Blood of Heroes
Libram of Protection
x1 Pristine Black Diamond
x2 Large Brilliant Shards
x1 Frayed Abomination Stitching
Darkmoon Faire (Outdated for live servers)
The Darkmoon Faire reputation is one of the easier reputations to raise for the Insane in the Membrane achievement. In order to raise your Darkmoon Faire reputation you will need to collect certain items that are either drops or crafted. For raising your reputation from Neutral to 2000/6000 Friendly the easiest way will be by collecting the following items:
Thorium Widget - Crafted by Engineers
x3 Thorium Bars
x1 Runecloth
Evil Bat Eye - Farmed in Karazhan/Eastern Plaguelands. Video of the best place to farm Evil Bat Eyes.
Glowing Scorpid Blood - Farmed in Silithus. Video of the best place to farm Glowing Scorpid Blood.
After you raise your reputation to quarter way through friendly you will need to buy and turn in decks in order to raise your reputation further. The easiest decks and cheapest decks you will be able to get are the level 60 ones, which will give you the same amount of reputation as a level 80 one.
Each of the level 60 decks will require you to collect each of the cards and of course the ace, which has a chance to drop from a boss. Below I've compiled a list of all of the bosses that are able to drop an Ace from level 60 instances.
Ace of Beasts - The Beast in UBRS
Ace of Portals - Darkmaster Gandling in Scholomance
Ace of Warlords - King Gordok in Dire Maul North
Ace of Elementals - Lord Incendius BRD or other world "boss" elementals
The other pieces of each deck you can find most commonly from mobs in level 60 instances. Your best bet would be to farm gold and buy the cards that you need off of the auction house, instead of directly farming for the card yourself