The Insane is one of the most recognizable titles in the game, earned from a single Feat of Strength: Insane in the Membrane.
Insane in the Membrane
Raise your reputation to Honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, and Exalted with Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan, Ratchet, Darkmoon Faire, and Ravenholdt.
It has a reputation for being a slow, tedious grind, but a lot of that reputation is outdated - several of the requirements are far faster than they used to be. This guide breaks down exactly what you need and the fastest order to do it in.
What You Actually Need
To complete this achievement you need to reach:
- Honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers
- Exalted with Ravenholdt
- Exalted with Booty Bay
- Exalted with Gadgetzan
- Exalted with Everlook
- Exalted with the Darkmoon Faire
The tricky part isn't any single reputation - it's that Bloodsail Buccaneers and the four goblin factions (Booty Bay, Gadgetzan, Everlook, Ratchet) move in opposite directions. Grinding standing with one of the goblin cartels lowers your Bloodsail rep, and vice versa. The order below is built around that conflict so you don't undo your own progress.
Start here - it's fully independent of the goblin/Bloodsail conflict, so there's no reason to save it for later.
Farm Syndicate Rogues around Stormpike in the Alterac Mountains until you're one point from Revered. At that point, stop killing and start pickpocketing for a Heavy Junk Box - the item that actually turns in for the rest of your Ravenholdt standing. The Green Hills Coast area near the Isle of Kajaro (Alterac Mountains) has a good density of pickpocketable Syndicate mobs.
Heavy Junk Boxes are tradable but can't be bought from the Auction House, so if you don't want to farm them yourself you can buy them directly from another player.
There are stealthed mobs mixed in around this area - Blackened Worg Steak helps you track them down if you're having trouble finding targets.
Get this to Honored before you touch any goblin faction grinding, since every goblin rep gain will push this back down.
The fastest method is killing pirates around Booty Bay itself - Booty Bay Bruisers and Booty Bay Elites both grant good Bloodsail standing.
Once you hit Friendly with Bloodsail Buccaneers (and are Hated with Booty Bay), you can pick up and complete Traitor to the Bloodsail. Completing it rewards the Bloodsail Admiral's Hat and grants a Feat of Strength of its own - but it also craters all four goblin cartel reputations at once.
This is the key sequencing decision in the whole achievement: if you're planning to push any goblin faction toward Exalted anyway, do it before this quest, not after - the reputation only needs to have been at Exalted at some point, it doesn't need to stay there. Tanking your goblin rep after you've already banked the Exalted requirement costs you nothing.
Bloodsail only needs to reach Honored, not Exalted, so once you're there you're done with this faction for good.
Booty Bay, Gadgetzan, and Everlook all need to hit Exalted (Ratchet shares reputation with this group too, so grinding any of them helps the others).
The fastest grind spot is in Tanaris, right behind the cabins along the Caverns of Time beach, and on the nearby ships - killing goblins there raises standing with all four cartel factions without any negative Bloodsail rep, unlike grinding goblins directly around Booty Bay, which does dock your Bloodsail standing.
Remember the sequencing note from the Bloodsail tab: get these three to Exalted before turning in Traitor to the Bloodsail, since that quest will immediately tank all of them. Once you've been at Exalted, it counts permanently toward this achievement even after the rep drops.
This is usually the slowest of the six reputations, but it's steady and low-effort rather than a hard grind - just complete every daily quest available while the Faire is in town, and repeat over its rotations until Exalted.
Two items are worth grabbing while you're turning in dailies:
- Darkmoon Top Hat, purchasable during Faire week.
- Battle Standard of Coordination, a guild banner also available while the Faire is up.
Both are only usable during the week the Darkmoon Faire is actually active, so pick them up whenever you're already there for dailies rather than making a separate trip.
Suggested Order
- Grind Ravenholdt to Revered, then pickpocket Heavy Junk Boxes the rest of the way to Exalted.
- Push Booty Bay, Gadgetzan, and Everlook to Exalted via the Tanaris goblin grind (no Bloodsail penalty).
- Grind Bloodsail Buccaneers to Honored using Booty Bay pirates.
- Turn in Traitor to the Bloodsail last, once every goblin faction has already banked its Exalted standing.
- Chip away at Darkmoon Faire dailies over multiple Faire rotations until Exalted - this one runs in the background the whole time, so start it early and don't wait for the other four to line it up.
Once all six are locked in, Insane in the Membrane and the Insane title are yours.