Shaman Epic Skippable parts?

[raka]

Originally Posted by Loftus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As mentioned above, you can skip most of it since the quest line primarily
serves the purpose of raising TrueSpirit faction.

As far as I know, you MUST have MAXIMUM (read: you turn quests in until you
receive the message "Your faction standing with TrueSpirit could not
possibly get any better.") faction to hand in the scale from Rak'Ashiir
to get the Spear as a reward. Note that Ally apparently does not yet exist
until Velious and Warmly is the highest con you will see.

My recommendation having done this:
1. Kill Black Dire in MM and get his pelt for the self-only, inventory-
castable SOW Black Fur Boots.
2. Spend several levels in COM and just keep looting and repeating the
pages. I would recommend the stables since you can get all pages here,
including Student's Log which only drops from the Courier.
3. Participate in Fear raids; each of the golems have a chance to spawn the
Iksar Broodling and I believe the Broodling always drops one Child's Tear.
4. Once you have the tear and maximum faction, gather some friends for a
few hours of pulling Black Reavers until you get Rak'Ashiir. He's pretty
chump - fight for 12 of us of varying levels from 50-60 took 58 seconds.

what faction do I need to be at in order to receive black fur boots?

also,

is test of patience, wisdom mandatory? or can they be skipped