Guide to Aldor vs. Scryer 101

There are about 1,000,053 or so posts on this, however the ones I’ve seen either leave it at saying “they’re both good”, or else run-on with an exhaustive and fairly inconclusive breakdown, so I’m posting this in an attempt at creating the 1,000,054^th in a hopefully more brief and usable format.

I’ll provide the material differences below but the short version is this: Scryer is the one to go with outside of a niche market; Aldor can be a good choice for resto specs and for sword-using meleers (who prefer solo play and are willing to do a sick amount of rep grinding), but otherwise Scryer is the overall better choice; they have something for everyone and are better for anyone with crit based talents or spells.

Let’s take a look at the breakdown between rewards; this is all based on my personal recollections and research I've done over at wowwiki, so feel free to post a comment if you think of something I missed.

Shoulder Inscriptions:

• (Aldor) Dodge, healing, spell dmg/heal or attack power at honored vs (Scryer) defense, mp5, crit or spell crit at honored; at exalted each side gets improved inscriptions that mostly combine the effects of both sides however each side retains a slight edge with their “original” stat bonuses.
• Commentary: this right here is why I generally prefer Scryer; +dmg, +ap and +heal are pretty common among the Outlands drops and (especially) quest rewards, while bonuses to crit (especially spell crit) are less so, and casters can never get enough +mp5 regardless of spec.

Gear:

• (Aldor) Blue mage’s robes vs (Scryer) nothing at honored
• (Scryer) Blue rogue/feral druid leggings at revered, no Aldor equivalent
  
• (Aldor) Blue mage’s staff vs (Scryer) blue healer’s staff at revered
• (Aldor) Blue rogue/hunter’s ring vs (Scryer) blue caster trinket at revered
• (Aldor) Blue tank breastplate vs (Scryer) blue fury warrior gauntlets at revered
• (Aldor) Epic 1h sword (+hit, +ap) vs (Scryer) epic dagger (+agi, +sta) at exalted. This is one of the few epic weapons available through solo grinding and stands out among them as the only non-dagger that I can recall.
• (Aldor) Epic caster necklace vs (Scryer) epic mage ring at exalted
• Commentary: About the same overall, although as mentioned Aldor does have the epic sword which makes it one of the few factions to give epic weapons (that you can earn outside instances and doing pvp) and unique among those as being the only one to give something besides a dagger, which is handy if you actually want something cool looking for your main hander (note that dual wielding chars who choose Aldor for the sword as a main hander can pair it up with the epic Consortium dagger, though they will spend most if not all of their time from 60-70 rep farming...)

Leatherworking:

• (Aldor) Tank’s armor kit – 8 def, vs (Scryer) caster’s armor kit – 3 mp5
• (Aldor) Blue leather and chainmail w/fire resist vs (Scryer) blue leather and chainmail w/arcane resist; all have gem sockets
• Commentary: the armor kits are both decent, however as more chars have mana bars than not, again Scryer is overall the better choice. In re: armor, these are only really desirable if you need +resist more than any other stat, or if you desperately need 1-2 more gem sockets for meta requirements, otherwise the armor isn’t much to speak of.

Blacksmithing:

• (Aldor) Blue platemail w/fire resist vs (Scryer) blue armor w/arcane resist; as above all of these have gem sockets
• Commentary: as above re: resistances and sockets – neither side is great for blacksmiths.

Alchemy:

• (Aldor) Nothing vs (Scryer) +fire dmg potion
• Commentary: A nice extra for fire mages, chalk up another slight advantage to Scryer.

Tailoring:

• (Aldor) Blue cloth armor w/fire resist (no gems), vs (Scryer) no armor
• (Aldor) Healer’s armor kit – heal/dmg/sta vs (Scryer) mage’s armor kit (+more dmg/sta)
• Commentary: the armor kits are both nice depending on your class, though obviously healers benefit more from the aldor kit while every other mana using class would want the Scryer one. Although Aldor is the only one that gets cloth armor, these are only useful if you need +fire resist more than any other stat, and since they have no sockets there is no meta utility, so I don’t really consider this noteworthy.

Jewelcrafting:

• (Aldor) Yellow (+6 spell crit) and purple cuts (healer stats) vs (Scryer) red (+7 spell dmg) and green (mage stats) cuts; note these are all green quality gem cuts.
• (Aldor) Blue shadow resist necklace vs (Scryer) nature resist necklace; both have 10 charges of AOE effect for helping party members.
• Commentary: Nothing really great here either way, though as usual Aldor is a little better for healers.