WoW-Achievements

AT: Fishing

2010-03-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

Do you find fishing boring? In real life its an easy way to relax and enjoy nature, while you hope to catch enough for dinner. In game though, its much harder to relax while trying to fish, because there are so many other things you might want to be doing.

One place you can turn to get some fishing support is El's Extreme Anglin. Its a website dedicated to fishing in our favorite game.

Focus on the salty title or just the achievements. Learn where the best spot to fish up mats for Fish Feast. You can even read their equipment guide which outlines a snazzy outfit that maximizes the boost to your fishing.

Dig around on their website and you will find many helpful resources to go from 0-450 fishing and get achievements to boot.

Want to know what happened?

2010-03-10T09:06:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday, I put up that it was one of our writers that screwed up... and for a while I thought it was, however (and this was the surprising part), it was actually GOOGLE'S fault... their blogging software has a bug in it... I spent a lot of that time figuring out what the problem was though... the biggest dissapointment is that when coding with a 3rd party like google, you can ASSUME that if there's a bug, it's your own fault... so I made that assumption for a while... I was shocked when it wasn't.

Either way, I've been working on my own posting system, so although this may be a problem for a week or two, my efforts are going to be expedited in getting my own posting system up... if the site seems a little flaky for a couple weeks, that's why... cut me a little slack :)

AKC: Still Flying...

2010-03-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

The Achievement Kennel Club is your official weekly, obsessive-compulsive, minipet showcase. Brought to you by Aeolyn and Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuits.

Before my usual rant I have to take a moment to explain the above picture. It isn't a very good picture of this week's pet; but it is very important to me. Its from the Wrath of the Lich King beta. And I initially posted it on my old FFXI blog as part of my departure from that game into WoW on a more full-time basis.

It was around this timeframe that I happened to stumble upon the Firefly minipet. And having a cool new interface in which to "learn" the pets and put them in the new boxgrid triggered the obsessive-compulsive collection instinct that I put in my weekly headline. I wanted to get enough pets to fill up the grid. And then I did and it extended to page two. So, of course, I'd have to repeat the process. Flash forward to now and I'm most of the way through page ten. Wheee!

But the Firefly was the first rare pet that started it all and is, by extension, the reason I'm here and posting on WoW-Achievements.com today. But enough about me.

Captured Firefly

What is it? This looks -exactly- like the Bogflare Needlers in Zangarmarsh that it drops from. No other companion pet has this model.
How do I get one? From the above-linked mobs. The drop chance is in that realm of the 1 in 1000 figure that Blizzard seems so fond of with these sort of pets. So getting one is either a test of luck, determination, or going the auction house route. If you want an edge when farming them and can't Track Beasts on your own then consider Tracker Snacks.
Why is it awesome? Before the item was made to be learnable it had the flavor text "Still flying..." from good old Captain Mal. You know, Firefly! There are actually a lot of references to the show in Zangarmarsh. And this pet is/was one of them. As if that wasn't cool enough; this pet is hyperactive. It has an idle animation where it spazzes out and...preens its forearms? I don't quite know what its doing but it does it all the time. It also makes a faint, constant chittering noise. Its very quiet (if it wasn't it would probably make me hate the pet) and I personally find it pleasant.

So there you have it. A little bit of information about another great collectible pet and some random crap about me. (Haha - Aeolyn had green hair before Wrath launched.)

If you ever happen to find yourself around Zangarmarsh and you don't have this little guy already; you should really try your luck. It isn't the flashiest or most amazing pet. But it does have its own unique flavor. And dare I say it sort of found itself doomed to obscurity just like the show quoted in its flavor text?

Good show, good pet, and a good reference by Blizzard. So if you haven't already go and capture your own firefly right now.

Exalted! The Ashen Verdict

2010-03-09T00:01:00.007-05:00

Every week Exalted! brings you a guide with everything you need to know about getting to exalted with a faction.

Hey everyone, Jangutu here.

This week we'll be covering the newest reputation in the game, The Ashen Verdict. To be honest I was so happy we got Lich King down in 25 man this week, I wanted an excuse to post a Screenshot of the new title :D Also I apologize for how non-photogenic muh guild is, we never do guild screenshots.

This is an important rep, rewarding an amazing (BiS for most) ring and a title for hitting exalted.

Let's get started.

Who?

The Ashen Verdict is the faction formed when the Argent Crusade under Highlord Tirion Fordring joined forces with the Knights of the Ebon Blade who are led by Highlord Darion Mograine. This reputation is made for and exists solely in Icecrown Citadel.

The Grind

The grind can really only be done one way, and that is by killing anything and everything in Icecrown Citadel.

~Most trash mobs give 15 rep

~The larger mobs such as Deathbound Wards and Deathspeaker High Priests give 49 or 50 rep.

~Gunship Battle (aka Chess 2.0) rewards 100 rep

~All other bosses give 250 rep

~Sister Svalna (the miniboss at the beginning of frost wing)

rewards 450 rep

*Note: The members of the opposite faction before gunship do not reward reputation*

One of the ways to do this grind without waiting for it to reset each week would be farming trash. This involves going in (doesn't even have to be a full raid, just whatever you feel comfortable killing trash with) and killing all the mobs up to

Lord Marrowgar. The raid then zones out and the leader can reset the instance, respawning the trash.

This is a great way to not only get reputation, but a few of those epic trash drops.

Tip: Rogues, an important thing to note is that there are two traps in the two main rooms leading up to Marrowgar. Only one trap in each room will be there, the second trap in each room spawns when the first one is set off. Therefor if you disarm the first trap, the second trap will never be there. If you are farming the trash for rep, simple set off the trap, then Cloak and Vanish to reset the Ward. This will allow you to activate the Wards without pulling extra trash or risking the raid setting off the second trap as it spawns.

Rewards:

First reward is simple enough. For hitting exalted you get The Ashen Verdict which gives "(Your Name) of the Ashen Verdict".

At honored Engineers/Tailors/Leatherworkers/Blacksmiths can all start trading in Primordial Saronite for crafting patterns. There is another set of patterns available at revered as well for all but the engineers.

Second, and probably more importantly, at friendly you receive a ring from Ormus the Penitent near the entrance inside Icecrown. This ring upgrades at every reputation level from friendly to exalted until it's a sexy awesome ilvl 277 ring.

Here's a list of the rings:

Ashen Band of Endless Courage
Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Ashen Band of Endless Might

Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance
Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom

Other rewards not linked to the reputation but linked to Icecrown itself include:

"(Your Name) the Kingslayer" ~Featured below this is the reward for killing the Lich King on 10 or 25 man difficulty.

"(Your Name) the Light of Dawn" ~Featured below this is the reward for killing the Lich King on heroic 25 man difficulty.

"(Your Name) Bane of the Fallen King" ~Featured below this is the reward for killing the Lich King on heroic 10 man difficulty.

For completing the achievements in ICC, much like in Ulduar, there is a meta achievement that rewards a mount. This time blizzard is giving out Frostbrood mounts for all your effort.

Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player)

Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player)

*Note that these meta achieves do NOT require killing the Lich King on hard mode, for hard mode kills you receive (two of the better imo) in game titles listed above*

TLDR:
1. Enter Icecrown Citadel
2. Kill stuff
3. ???
4. Profit

That's it for this week everyone. Feel free to post about your ICC shenanigans or any shenanigans on the forums here. Go go, more activity! You can also leave a comment at the end of the post, or find me in game!

~Jangutu~
Jangutu - US - Skullcrusher [H]

Get Mounted: Swift White Hawkstrider

2010-03-08T13:42:00.004-05:00

Why is the gnome wearing a pirate suit? Why is he on top of the buildings of Dalaran? I have no clue, but I do know it is time to showcase another mount!

In honor of the release of Final Fantasy XIII this week, the Get Mounted section is showcasing the Swift White Hawkstrider! The lovable hawkstriders are typically raised and trained by the blood elves of Silvermoon city. The hawkstriders are only sold to horde members with proper faction standing with Silvermoon city. The hawkstriders come in many colors, but unfortunately the white one is not available from a trainer.

This white chocobo look alike was made available with the release of Magister’s Terrace during the Burning Crusade expansion. The Magister’s Terrace is located in the Isle of Quel’Danas. The island is located at the very top of the Eastern Kingdoms. A fast and easy route to the isle is to travel to Shattrath City and take the portal to the island. The portal could be found in the center of the city.

The Swift White Hawkstrider is a 3% rare drop from Kael'thas Sunstrider on heroic difficulty. Kael’thas is the last boss of the dungeon. In order to be able to run the dungeon on heroic, you will have to complete the quest line within the dungeon at least once on normal mode. The heroic is no longer considered to be difficult at level 80, but does still require about 3 people to comfortably complete. During your farming of the heroic dungeon, you will also be earning a chance at a new 20 slot bag and the lovable phoenix hatchling pet.

The Kael'thas fight has two main phases. During phase one, the majority of the skills Kael'thas uses should not should give you any real trouble at level 80. A troubling part of phase 1 would be the spawning of the phoenix. The dps classes should attempt to kite the phoenix and stay away from it. The phoenix does an aoe explosion when killed. Phase 2 of the fight starts when Kael'thas hits 50%. Kael'thas will cast gravity lapse and cause everyone to be able to "swim" in the air. While floating, you will need to dodge the three orbs flying around. With simple healing and some crafty dodging skills, phase 2 should not be very difficult. A level 70 class was able to slowly solo this phase if they having healing spells available.

Despite the name given to fluffy chicken like creature, the hawkstrider will always be a chocobo to me. Good luck if you choice to go farming for one!

Till next week! :)

Illidari the Gnome

GTA: A Simple Re-Quest!

2010-03-08T01:38:00.012-05:00

Is it Monday? If so, Get That Achievement's here to spur your lazy butt into motion! Our good friend Vyndrian picks an achievement, and then you go out and achieve it! What'll it be this week?

Hey gang, Vyndrian here. This week's GTA is A Simple Re-Quest. This one is a piece of cake, and if you cannot accomplish it, I weep for you atop my 9,945 achievement points. Just do a single daily quest for five days in a row. That's it. Now, mind you, you must do them within 24 hours of each other. So if you do a daily at 9 am on Monday, but then you don't do a daily until 10 am on Tuesday, it resets. That's how it's tracked. So make sure you do a daily quest in that 24-hour period.

And how is everyone doing on the 30-Day GTA, Wintergrasp Veteran? I got it awhile back but I've been making a renewed effort to play Wintergrasp this month to rack up honor for gems for money for Cataclysm. What do YOU do with all your honor?

That's all for me this week, gang. Please don't forget that for us living in the USA, Daylight Savings Time begins this coming Sunday! We lose an hour of sleep! So get out there and make the most of the time you have! Until next week!

E-mails can be sent to vyndrian at wow-achievements dot com, and if you want more than a weekly fix of GTA, please see the Get That Achievement! thread on the official WoW forums. Now go out there and Get That Achievement!

TGIF: 3/5/10 - TGIF... while it still is!

2010-03-05T23:07:00.003-05:00

Sorry for taking so long to make my Friday post guys. Had a rough day at work and had to work through lunch so I wasn't able to do my post.

Not a whole lot to say today, not a whole lot going on this weekend, I might try leveling one of my lvl 72's up to 80, but other than that, not a whole lot going on.

What are you guys up to?

Get Mounted: The Sea Turtle!

2010-03-04T12:01:00.004-05:00

Prepare to mount up every Monday as a new exotic animal is let loose of the stables!

Hello, everyone! I get the proud honor of introducing a new section of the site entitled: Get Mounted! Each week I will showcase the mountable creatures of Azeroth. This week I am proud to present Azeroth’s fastest swimming sea critter, the Sea Turtle!

The Sea Turtle species swims at a steady increased speed of 60% while in the water. While on land, the Sea Turtle maintains a brisk walking speed. The tooltip states the Sea Turtle is not able to walk fast on land, but I believe it is just to show off the shiny Green shell on its back.

The Sea Turtles dwell within pools of fish of Northrend. Any pool of fish is a perfect location to fish up the turtle. However, my favorite spot is in Grizzly Hills. The water ways provide a plentiful supply of glacial salmon pools to allow for maximum fishing time.

Any fisherman seeking to fish themselves a Sea Turtle can begin the hunt at any fishing level. Do not be fooled though, this mount is as elusive as they come. The Sea Turtle’s reel in comes in at less than .1%. However, your long hunt will not go without reward, as the mount rewards a 10 point achievement: Turtles All the Way Down. This achievement however is one of the few fishing achievements not required for the meta-fishing achievement and the Salthy title.

The achievement is not the only reward of obtaining a Sea Turtle. Mr Sea Turtle combined with an item to allow underwater breathing (i.e. Kalu'ak Fishing Pole) will allow for high speed underwater exploration and questing. Who knows, what zone flooding will be caused from the inevitable Cataclysm?

(Apologies for mistaking Sea Turtle as part of the meta-requirement for the Salty title)

Till next time :)
Illidari the Gnome

AT: Raiding

2010-03-04T00:01:00.010-05:00

Every Thursday Eiseldora will write a post with tips and links to resources you can use to help you reach your achievement goals. This segment will be called Achievement Toolbox.

Now that your gear is in tip top shape you might need a source to learn how to fight the raid bosses. Turn to Tankspot, where you can find videos of Raid boss battles with commentary on how to bring even the trickiest of foes down.

The best way to find their guides is to do a youtube search for the boss' name and keyword Tankspot. Ciderhelm will posts the official tankspot videos, but you might find other strategy videos when you do a search. Alternatively you can look around on their forums to find what you need.

Included on their forums are some general guides for raiders that you can use to understand your class's unique role if you are new to raiding, or just want to brush up on the best techniques.

Sadly they don't cover all the achievements or even strategies for trash, but if you are struggling on trash it might be an indication that you aren't ready for the boss fight yet. These guides are just to help you master the basics so you can move on to the fun stuff

Overall Tankspot is a great resource for all players who want to become a better raider so they can get all the Dungeon and Raiding achievements.

AKC: Blizzard set us up the bomb!

2010-03-03T00:14:00.000-05:00

The Achievement Kennel Club is your official weekly, obsessive-compulsive, minipet showcase. Brought to you by Aeolyn and Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuits.

So on the PTR right now (and perhaps on Live by the time this entry gets posted! /cross fingers) the Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky have become a great deal more accessible to the average player. And for this week I'll be foregoing my usual format in favor of a bit of a history lesson since these little guys have been through so many changes over the course of the game.

These two pets started out as a sort of badge of honor among Engineers. Not only did you have to be an Engineer to get one; but your specialization limited you to chasing after a single one of them (Smoky = Gnome style and Bomb = Goblin spec). Our hated friend, RNG, also had quite a hand in obtaining these guys, as you had a small chance to get the pet schematic you wanted each time you renewed your membership with your NPC engineering buddies.

3.1.0 hit and scrapped this idea, as well as the Goblin/Gnome spec requirement, in favor of just having the patterns to make these cool little guys drop in Gnomeregan. The pet bomb from the zone's boss, Mekgineer Thermaplugg, who pours bombs of the same model into the room as his primary fight mechanic. And Lil' Smoky was made to drop from...well, primarily the Arcane Nullifiers in the hallway leading up to Theraplugg. But Wowhead and my friends insist it can drop elsewhere in the zone too. Lil' Smoky himself looks like the Nullifiers; so I'd target those if I went farming for the pattern myself.

But I wouldn't. Because I'm not an Engineer. Which brings us up to the PTR. And the joyous update that these great pets are no longer going to become bound to the Engineer who makes them. So prepare to find them coming soon to an auction house near you. Now is the time to go hunting for mats and pester your best Engineer buddy to be ready to craft some for you just as soon as the patch hits.

On the one hand, it is sort of sad to see these two tradeskill-exclusive pets "going mainstream". As it stands, I actually was entirely unable to find a player who had built these guys to take a screenshot with me; and had to resort to my old buddy Professor MSPaint to cobble together the image at the top of the entry. Even thinking back, I can't recall the last time I've seen one of these little fellas in person. Even if only for a short while, these look to be the season's new hot item on the auction house. So in a way we all benefit, and get to see more of these awesome pets running around Azeroth.

So unless they're trying to completely rip you off, go support your local Engineers and get these pets crafted as soon as you can. You must not rest until your mission is complete! And so that brings us to our end this week. Come back next Wednesday for more pet collecting insanity.

Exalted! Cenarion Circle

2010-03-02T00:01:00.003-05:00

Every week Exalted! brings you a guide with everything you need to know about getting to exalted with a faction.

Hey everyone, Jangutu here.

This week it's off to Cenarion Hold in Silithus as we dive right into Cenarion Circle. This has to be, in my opinion, one of the quickest exalted grinds in the game! A level 80 class with no downtime (such as warrior/rogue/kittydrood/DK) should only take a few hours to go neutral to exalted.

So on that note lets get to it.

Who?

Cenarion Circle (CC) is an organization of druids named after Cenarius. They have many locations, the main one is Nighthaven in the Moonglade. For the purpose the guide I'll be focusing mostly on the Cenarion Hold in Silithus where the druids combat the silithid, the qiraji, and the twilight's hammer.

If you've never been to Moonglade, now is a perfect time to go! Druids get a teleport at level 10, deathknights have the flight path as soon as they finish their opening quests (lucky ducks :p), but what about everyone else? Normally you would be taking a trip down the Timbermaw tunnels, but 'tis the season of the lunar festival! Talk to the lunar festival reps in any of your faction cities and you can teleport right to the Moonglade! Some of the quests for the lunar festival will get you some CC rep as well. Easy right? Just make sure you pick up the flight path for when the holiday is over ;)

TLDR: Use the Lunar Festival holiday to pick up some easy rep and a flight path. Go to Cenarion Hold in Silithus to start grinding (see TLDR below).

The Grind

Quests:

There are a few quests that can be done to raise your rep. A handful of quests in Desolace that take players into Maraudon, the level 10/14/16 druid quests, and a few geared towards Dire Maul. These quests will not net you much rep, so unless you're also working on [The Loremaster], I do not suggest wasting time on them.

Silithus:

Don't worry about making sure every little quest in Cenarion Hold (and Valor's Rest near the entrance to Silithus from Un'Goroh) gets completed. Pick them up, give them a read and knock out the quick and easy ones. After those are done, focus can be turned to the following...

AQ20/AQ40 Grinding
This is pretty simple, just go in to AQ with a few buddies and start killing bosses. If you use AQ40 to get your CC rep up, you will also be gaining a lot of Brood of Nozdormu rep which makes this method great for multitasking rep grinds.

AQ20
-Trash will give 10 rep
-Keeping the Lieutenant General and each of his elites alive during the Rajaxx fight will get you 90 rep per NPC (they can be healed by your healers).
-Each of the 5 bosses will give you 300 rep
-Ossirian the Unscarred will give you 600 rep

AQ40
-A few trash give 10 CC rep, most trash gives Brood of Nozdormu rep only
-[Qiraji Lord's Insignia] from the bosses give 500 CC rep when turned in as well as 500 Brood of Nozdormu rep
-150 CC rep per boss
-500 CC rep for C'Thun

If you grind out AQ40 you can get the Qiraji Battle Tank mounts. They come in yellow, green, blue, and red. You can only use them inside AQ40, but they count towards your mount count (great for people going for [Mountain o' Mounts]). The red mount also rewards its own feat of strength, [Why? Because It's Red], this is due to the fact that the mount looks hawt and is so rare. In the process of grinding out AQ40 you will most likely get close to Brood of Nozdormu exalted, which rewards [Brood of Nozdormu].

Twilight Hammer and Tempest Grinding

This is the choice for all of you solo grinders. Whether it's due to lack of friends or maybe it's 4:30am and you're the only one online. This is the easiest and most brainless of the 3 grinding methods. Grab a hot pocket, throw on some techno, and let's get to work.

The strategy is simple. Go to one of the three twilight cultist camps in silithus (there is one just West of Cenarion Hold, one Northwest, and one Southwest), kill and loot all cultists. While killing cultists for the flat 10 rep gains, there are also some other ways to make the grind go even faster!

~Encrypted Twilight Texts
These drop off any of the twilight hammer NPCs. They can be turned in for 500 rep for every stack of 10 you turn in. They can be bought and sold on the auction house.

~Abyssal Templars/Dukes/Lords
While killing the twilight cultists you'll come across 3 different pieces of armor that make up the Twilight Trappings set. The twilight trappings can be used to summon the abyssal templars. The templars will always drop an Abyssal Crest. For the fastest gains of reputation turn in the crests to for rep.
You can also use the crests to summon the higher level bosses. You will still get a lot of rep by summoning the Dukes and then the Lords, but its just faster/easier to keep summoning templars and burning the crests on rep. If you do decide to summon the higher bosses, you can get more gold and chances at world boe blues and epics to sell on the auction house.

~Twilight Prophet
Keep an eye out for this chick. She's an elite that dies nice and easy for 30 rep and she drops multiple Encrypted Twilight Texts. She patrols between the 3 camps and walks right through them so no need to hunt her down.

Field Duty Quest Grinding

How this works is a supplement to method 2 (Twilight Grinding).

You can do the repeatable quest Field Duty from Windcaller Kaldon to go to your factions outpost in Silithus and help the NPCs there fend off a big bug (hint: THROW A GRENADE! lol) . You then have to go all the way back to Cenarion Hold to turn it in, and you can choose a combat, tactical, or logistics assignment. When you open the assignment it will give an item that starts a random quest.

If you pick the tactical assignment you have a chance to get a quest to kill a specific templar or to kill the twilight members themselves. You'll want to do the field duty quest a few times until you have a variety of the templar slaying quests and maybe a twilight slaying quest as well. Since you can't pick which templar you get, it's a good idea to have the quests to kill each templar so that you make doing the work of picking up these tatical assignments worth it.

The Badges that are rewarded from these quests can be turned in for 1000 CC rep each.

Rewards:

Other than the warm and fuzzy feeling you get by having one more completed reputation, there isn't much to be gained from this rep. If you also earn exalted with the Cenarion Expedition in Outlands, you can get [Guardian of Cenarius] which rewards the title seen in my screenshot , Guardian of Cenarius. For anyone that likes being complete when it comes to professions, cenarion circle also offers patterns for blacksmiths, enchanters, leatherworkers, and tailors.

TLDR: Go to a twilight cultist camp in Silithus. Kill all the cultists, and turn in the encrypted twilight texts they drop for rep. Collect the twilight armor and use the set to summon abyssal templars at the wind stones, turn in the Abyssal Crests they drop for more rep. Buy encrypted twilight texts, abyssal crests, abyssal signets, abyssal scepters from the AH to turn in.

Note: To turn in the abyssal signets and scepters you must complete the quest chain to summon the dukes and lords.

That's it for this week. Feel free to post about your experiences with this reputation, or any reputation for that matter in the forums here. I'd love to see more activity there so I have something to troll during my bloodsail grind ;)

~Jangutu~
Jangutu - US - Skullcrusher [H]

GTA: The Coin Master, and new 30-Day GTA!

2010-02-28T00:01:00.001-05:00

Is it Monday? If so, Get That Achievement's here to spur your lazy butt into motion! Our good friend Vyndrian picks an achievement, and then you go out and achieve it! What'll it be this week?

Hey gang, Vyndrian here. This week's GTA will be about fishing! Changes to the game a few months ago made it possible to fish anywhere with any skill level. So go sit by the Dalaran fountain, throw back a few Cherry Grog, and get yourself this week's GTA, The Coin Master! See if you can beat my record of two hours from start to finish.

And since it's the start of a new month, why not get a new 30-Day GTA as well? I figure it's about time for PvP to rear its ugly head in here again, so this month's 30-Day GTA is Wintergrasp Veteran! Soon we'll be back in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms fighting for Tol Barad, and Northrend's Wintergrasp will be all but a distant memory. So now's the time to crack down and get those wins. And don't come crying to me if your server is unbalanced! Win all by yourself! Make it happen!

All right, that's all for me this week, gang. I'm still running around trying to talk to Lunar Festival elders before time runs out. Perhaps an Arthas kill this week as well. We'll see! Until next week!

E-mails can be sent to vyndrian at wow-achievements dot com, and if you want more than a weekly fix of GTA, please see the Get That Achievement! thread on the official WoW forums. Now Get That Achievement!

TGIF: 2/26/10 - Two person flying mount, and a new celestial pet?

2010-02-26T12:01:00.001-05:00

On Friday's I like to talk a little bit about myself, the game, or whatever else comes to mind. I editorialize a bit, so take everything with a grain of salt.

(both pics taken from mmo-champion)

So... first flying two person mount... I've been waiting for this FOREVER, although I have to admit I'm a little bummed to see that it's a rocket... however, I'm hopeful that it will be an engineering thing, that would be great! If you guys have seen any more information on that rocket mount than what's currently out there then let us know!

Also, let's not forget that there's going to be a new celestial pet...

(There will also be a celestial mount, but those images aren't in the game yet).

These are really cool looking, where do you guys think they will drop? Some speculate the celestial mount will drop from Algalon. Do you think they would go back and put a mount on a boss like that though? Would it turn into a TK, Alar farm for you guys?

Other than that, I'm heading snowboarding for the last time this season tonight up at Crotched Mountain. 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. ... whee!

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and don't forget that the Lunar Festival ends on Wednesday, so if you haven't started yet, better get crackin' over the weekend.

Nerf Everybody Else!: All-Stars, Part 1

2010-02-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

Once a week, Illusora briefly highlights a few of the best methods for obtaining those hard-to-get and often disliked PvP achievements that WoW so callously offers to its PvE-minded masses.

Hey, everyone! So, this week let’s look at a fun little achievement: [Alterac Valley All-Star]. I think it’s nice because it gives you a pretty broad taste of Alterac Valley and what goes on within it. Of course, for that reason, it can take a fair bit of thought and strategy to complete. Like most PvP achievements, though, its difficulty fluctuates with the players involved in any particular attempt at it.

Now, let’s start with an unfortunate truth that I’ve noticed in recent weeks. On my battlegroup, at least, every single match that I’ve seen ends up being a "zerg" on both sides (a zerg, of course, being when one or both sides go straight to enemy base to kill their general, skipping everything else). This is because, sadly, gear quality has increased while the difficulty of the generals (Vanndar and Drek’Thar) has remained static, enabling even the most clueless nitwits to kill them without any effort at all. Personally, I think it’s too bad that so many players, in their obsession with gear, opt to take the fastest route to obtain it, even if that means not stopping to actually appreciate the game with any sort of depth. But, that’s beside the point!

Anyway, zerging is fine and all if you’re going after [The Alterac Blitz], but it can make achievements like All-Star a bit harder to obtain. Oftentimes, the opposing faction might not even bother to assault graveyards or towers, in turn making it impossible for you to defend them. So, just keep that in mind when you try to get it. Also keep in mind that it only takes about five or ten decent players defending a general to halt a zerg in its tracks, so if you can convince enough of your teammates, it is possible to delay a game beyond the initial rushes. And yes, the zerg strategy really is that frail and easy to overcome.

But, let’s get down to the actual requirements of the achievement. Assaulting and defending a tower, assaulting and defending a graveyard, and killing a player in the Field of Strife (the large, battle-scarred and cratered region in the middle of the map). How do you think you’d go about this? Would you participate in the mad rush to the first enemy tower on the map, be it Iceblood or Stonehearth? Would you immediately try to kill someone in the field? Would you try to claim the Snowfall graveyard (which does count as an assault)? Obviously, there are a lot of ways you can do this, and being flexible is always good in PvP strategy, but some methods are better than others.

Personally, I’d say start with assaulting a tower, since that can be the most limiting factor. There are only four chances, assuming you don’t let the opposing faction retake any of them. But don’t go after the very first tower. It’s the one that everyone goes for, and you might not be the first one to assault it if you’re racing against five of your teammates. Instead, try to sneak all the way into the enemy’s base (Dun Baldar or Frostwolf Keep) to assault one of those two towers right at the start. Generally, no one will try stopping you, and very few people actually rush for those towers in the beginning. After that, go for a graveyard assault. If you’re fast enough, you can probably get either the one right in the base (the relief hut or the aid station), or the one directly outside of it (Frostwolf or Stormpike).

After you get the assaults out of the way, you can then just head to the middle and try to defend whatever seems the easiest. People rarely defend graveyards contested graveyards, so defending one of those isn’t usually hard (Stonehearth or Iceblood are usually the easiest ones to defend). Towers, on the other hand, can be difficult. They usually have a couple of defenders, at least, so retaking them on your own isn’t always viable. Instead, just try to get your allies to help you. Pay attention to the map, and when you see some of your teammates going after one, run over there and help them out, while trying to recapture it in the chaos of whatever fight might be taking place.

And, yeah, if you see an opportunity to get your Field of Strife kill while you’re going around defending, don’t hesitate to take it. I’ve found it to be the easiest part of the achievement, though, as there are always stragglers running around in there, so I keep it low on the list.

Now, I realize I’ve probably spent more time on this achievement than I need to, especially considering I’ve only really given you one strategy that might not always work. But I hope that, by reading one strategy, you can start looking at how the achievement functions in more detail and through a more strategic lens. Just try to think about what makes the achievement difficult, and then come up with ways to accomplish its individual parts. Sure, it’s great if you follow my advice and it works, but what’s even better is examining why it works and perhaps even coming up with other nice ways to do it. As I said last week, succeeding in PvP is all about adapting, so, while I may give you the skeleton of a good strategy, it’s your job to consider it and alter it according to your own demands and the demands of whatever battle you might be in.

Anyway, good luck!

Going Insane: More Junkbox Farming!

2010-02-25T10:34:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I got the 2 holidays done (damn you Lovely Black Dress!) and went back to redoing Ravenholdt rep. I've only been alloting about 2 hours per day to WoW this week. But, I went so far as to film an entire LBRS run using a free app online that's "just as good as Fraps." Well, that was wrong, it seemed to only record in 16 bit color. It was ugly. Oh well. Maybe I can figure out another way in the next 2 weeks. I won't be posting next week because I'll be in Minneapolis looking for a job. Woot, wish me luck!

Unfortunately, I haven't done anything new this week, so there's not a lot to share. I've been doing my LBRS run with 4 20 slot bags, holding only a hearthstone and a partial stack of Star Rubies. A full run takes me about 30 minutes and I hope to get 40 boxes in that time. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. So if I were to put a more accurate time table on this grind than before, mathematically it'll take a human about 16 hours of farming. A nonhuman will take a little over 18 hours. Mileage may vary.

AT: Gear Score

2010-02-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday Eiseldora will write a post with tips and links to resources you can use to help you reach your achievement goals. This segment will be called Achievement Toolbox.

Lately Blizzard's been handing out gear like candy, and that means that many casual raiders are becoming eligible to raid TOC and ICC. Raiding requires more cooperation from players than five man dungeons, and when you are looking at end game content, you really need to have your gear at its best.

If you want to make sure you have the best gems, enchants, and gear you should check out the most widely used gear check website Wow-heroes.com. It will quantify your gear and give you a list of what raids should be trivial, challenging, or just right. For example my new 80 has a gear score of 1730 while my main has a gear score of 2765. You will often see in trade chat a request that people have a specific gear score. When you see this, they are usually referring to your Wow-heroes score.

While this number doesn't directly relate to an achievement, knowing what your score is will help you know if your gear is up to par for specific raids. It will also let you know which dungeons you might want to farm for the achievements (Now is a great time to work on The Undying and The dedicated few)

If you don't have awesome gear yet, you might just want to add a random heroic into your daily quest rotation. As dps, you can queue up when you log on and do you dailies while you wait. Don't forget to gem and enchant your gear. Need some suggestions pertaining to the best gems, and enchants for your alt? Look yourself up on be.imba.hu or one of the many other armory websites.

Remember since emblems of triumph and frost are now handed out for the weekly raid and random heroics gearscore does not represent experience. So if you have a high gearscore, you may still need to run Ulduar and other earlier raids to learn the mechanics of raiding. And if you pug someone with a high gearscore, they may not necessarily know much about raiding.

Edit: If someone asks for a gearscore of 4000 or above they are referring to the addon called gearscore.

AKC: Take a bite out of crime!

2010-02-24T00:01:00.004-05:00

The Achievement Kennel Club is your official weekly, obsessive-compulsive, minipet showcase. Brought to you by Aeolyn and Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuits.

If you're on this website you probably take WoW at least somewhat seriously. I would define WoW as a hobby moreso than I would as a game. I mean, it obviously is a game. The thing is that when you have a massive community surrounding a game a lot of things start to happen. Some good, some bad.

Going by the picture at the top of what I just wrote, I'm sure anyone can guess where I'm going with this. There are people online right now who want nothing more than to take your account from you. I've been playing MMOs at this point for something like a decade; and nothing pains me more than seeing the hard word of my peers being used to further the efforts of some account hijacker who gains the benefit of your gold from your farming. Or steals everything in your guild bank. Or prevents you from making raid night because all your gear got sharded. Or does any number of other things to disrupt your ability to enjoy the game.

I know a lot of people really don't like the authenticators. And I've heard a ton of player arguments against them. The most common being "I've been playing for X years and haven't been hijacked yet because I'm not an idiot." Which is great except for the fact that you're purposefully leaving yourself more vulnerable than you should be. The thing is that the web is not safe. There is no such thing as too much security. Blocking Flash code and running NoScript is all well and good. So why not take the one extra step to protect yourself? If not for yourself than do it to make it that much more difficult for the jerks who are stealing from your fellow WoW players.

That ended up being a larger rant than it was really meant to be. But if I can help protect a single player then it was worth it. So that brings us to this week's pet; which should now be obvious.

Core Hound Pup

What is it? Its a tiny corehound with really big heads! Its a unique model among non-combat pets and it sports a number of cute animations.
How do I get one? First I'd say to take a look at Blizzard's FAQ on the subject of getting an authenticator for your account. If you decide you want one, you'll find a link to the Blizzard Store at the top of the page. For those with phones more fancy than mine; consider the Mobile Authenticator.
Why is it awesome? Personally I think it shows you take a stand against account theft. Which you should, as its a blight on the industry. But beyond that, this guy makes some neat sounds when you click on him. He'll also do this adorable idle animation where he hops to one side and then rolls over (to which I always yell: DO A BARREL ROLL!). He'll sometimes rear up on his hind legs and chomp at the air. And sometimes the dog will dig up a bone and then struggle over which head gets it. Oh yeah. And he drools. He's actually really well animated.

For those who just love collecting pets; this is a cool one. Note that you won't be able to summon your core hound pup anymore if you unbind your authenticator from your account; BUT it will still be in your pet tab and count towards your pet collection achievements.

Authenticators aren't the final answer to account security in the industry. At least not in their current incarnation. But I do think its important to be willing to take measures to protect ourselves. MMO customer support can be stronger and faster for everyone if they get less bogged down with having to recover compromised accounts. If we show we care then this sort of thing will catch on (Square-Enix, for example, has already embraced the idea for Final Fantasy XI and their upcoming FFXIV). And new technology will be developed to make added security as cheap and readily available as possible.

Be part of that movement. Or don't be. But there is a really sweet minipet in it for you if you decide to join the club.

At any rate, I apologize for the really preachy update this week. You're more than welcome to yell at me in comments for making my second post ever such a lecture. Aaaand I'll be back with a more traditional post next time. Until then, best of luck in the continued quest for collectibles!

Lil Site Work

2010-02-23T22:50:00.003-05:00

Turned the database off for a little while to get some work done on the site.

Gonna see if Cloud and I can't fix some of these slooooooooooooow problems ;)

Edit: So, I've found at least one source of the problem... there may be more, but for now, you should see a significant increase in the site speed :)

Exalted! Scryers & Aldor

2010-02-23T00:01:00.021-05:00

Every week Exalted! brings you a guide with everything you need to know about getting to exalted with a faction.

Jangutu here, and this week we'll taking a close look at the two opposing factions that reside in Shattrath City. A new addition to this weeks post is for you lazy and/or busy bodies out there. At the end of each section is a TLDR (Too Long, Didn't Read) version so you can do less reading and more playing. The video above is a long time classic machinima about how Aldor and Scryer can tear friends apart. It is long but hilarious, definitely worth watching.

Before you can start either of these grinds (or both wiiiiiiiiiink) you will need to pick one. This is done when you first get to Shattrath. Go to the center of the city where you'll see A'dal (the big white naaru) and standing near him will be Khadgar (Medivh's old apprentice). Khadgar will give you the a quest to take a tour of Shattrath. When the long, long, loooooong tour is finished, Khadgar will ask you to pick either Aldor or Scryer. The decision is up to you, but if you are planning on doing the grind to go from one at exalted to the other for [Hero of Shattrath], I recommend going Aldor first. There is one additional thing to note, Draenei will start off as friendly with the Aldor, or unfriendly with the Scryers, and Blood elves will start as friendly with the Scryers or unfriendly with the Aldor. So if you are a draenei or blood elf, the choice is pretty obvious.

Note: If you need Sha'tar reputation, all reputation gains with Aldor/Scryers will give you half of that gain in Sha'tar rep. For example, if you turn in a quest that gives you 250 Aldor rep, you will gain 125 Sha'tar rep. The Sha'tar rep only goes up until you are honored with Sha'tar at which point Aldor/Scryers rep will no longer raise Sha'tar as well.

The Scryer

The Scryers are a group of blood elves that defected from Kael'thas Sunstrider's forces, lead by Voren'thal they now seek to aid the Sha'tar.

Note worthy quest hubs and chains:
~The Manaforge chain in Area 52 (Netherstorm)
~Sanctum of the Stars (Shadowmoon Valley)

[Firewing Signet]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Stacks of 10 for 250 rep
~Single marks for 25 rep
**Until Honored**
These Signets drop off of the blood elves at Firewing Point in Terokkar Forest. They can be turned in to Magistrix Fylenn in the Scryer's Tier. They can be turned in as single signets or in stacks of 10. They can be used to get you to honored, but no further, so unless killing higher level mobs (high 60s) is an issue for you, or if you're under level 68, then I wouldn't even bother farming these. When you're just starting off they are usually dirt cheap on the AH and can give you a good kick start to the grind.

[Sunfury Signet]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Stacks of 10 for 250 rep
~Single marks for 25 rep
*Must be level 68 to turn in*
You can pick these up from blood elf mobs level 66 and higher. Any of the Manaforges in Netherstorm are great places to farm these, with the exception of Manaforge Ultris. Pick a Manaforge that doesn't have someone farming it, and start mowing down mobs.

[Arcane Tome]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Single marks for 350 rep and an [Arcane Rune]
These may be turned in at any time to Voren'thal the Seer inside the Library on the Scryer's Tier. Turning them in will also give you [Arcane Rune] which can be used as currency to buy low level shoulder enchants. The enchants are outdated especially with how Sons of Hodir works with the BoA shoulder enchants, but for those of you that maybe collect level 70 gear, why not have appropriate level enchants? ;)

TLDR: Kill any blood elves in outland, collect the [Sunfury Signet] and [Arcane Tome] they drop and turn it in at the Scryer tier in Shattrath. Do all quests from blood elves in Outland. Simply buying [Sunfury Signet] and [Arcane Tome] off the auction house is also reasonable.

The Aldor

The Aldor are the naaru revering draenei that reside on the upper tier of Shattrath City. Led by High Priestess Ishanah they are an ancient order of priests.

Note worthy quest hubs and chains:
~Manaforge chain in Area 52 (Netherstorm)
~Altar of Sha'tar (Shadowmoon Valley)

[Marks of Kil'jaeden]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Stacks of 10 for 250 rep
~Single marks for 25 rep
**Until Honored**
These marks drop off of low-ranking Burning Legion members (mostly Shadow Council affiliated orcs). You can turn in 10 at a time to Adyen the Lightwarden in Aldor rise, or as single marks. They can be used to get you to honored, but no further, so unless killing higher level mobs (high 60s) is an issue for you, or if you're under level 68, then I wouldn't even bother farming these. When you're just starting off they are usually dirt cheap on the AH and can give you a good kick start to the grind.

[Marks of Sargeras]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Stacks of 10 for 250 rep
~Single marks for 25 rep
*Must be level 68 to turn in*
This item will drop off of high-ranking members of the Burning Legion (high-ranking meaning level 68 or higher). Blade's Edge Mountains has a great area with tight groups of demons for farming these. Head to Death's Door and start grinding. Another great location is the Legion Hold south of Shadowmoon Village in Shadowmoon Valley.

[Fel Armament]
Stacks to 250
Turn in:
~Single for 350 rep and a [Holy Dust]
These babies are what you want to see drop while you're grinding. They are turned in to High Priestess Ishanah in the alter of Aldor Rise. Each one you collect is another 350 reputation in your pocket. Turning them in will also give you [Holy Dust] which can be used as currency to buy low level shoulder enchants.

Players who also need Kurenai/Mag'har reputation will want to grind our the orcs at Kil'sorrow Fortress in southeastern Nagrand, as they give [Marks of Kil'jaeden] as well as 10 rep with the Kurenai/Mag'har per kill.

TLDR: Kill any demons in Outland, collect the [Marks of Sargeras] and [Fel Armament] they drop and turn it in at the Aldor tier in Shattrath. Do all quests from dranei in Outland. Simply buying [Marks of Sargeras] and [Fel Armament] off the auction house is also reasonable.

Rewards!
Blacksmiths, Tailors, Jewelcrafters, and Leatherworkers all have recipes they can pick up at various reputation levels with both factions. The kicker is that the recipes are unique to that faction, giving a little extra motivation for people who want 100% recipes in their profession to want to grind out [Hero of Shattrath]. There are also a few items, they're o.k. but with so much better gear out there and the ease of getting said gear, it makes these rewards somewhat trivial.

Hero of Shattrath, who said one grind was enough?
Hero of Shattrath is a feat of strength. It requires you to gain exalted with bother reputations. This is done by gaining exalted with one, then working your way out of 0/36000 hated by doing one repeatable quest. Once neutral, refer to above as the grind proceeds and normal at that point.

To get out of 0/36000 hated, you will need to do the following:

If Aldor, switching to Scryers:
Voren'thal's Visions - [Dampscale Basilisk Eye] - Stack to 200
Turn in - Stacks of 8 for 250 rep
This grind seems easier because of the locations of the basilisks. There is a high concentration of them on either side of the river at Raastok Glade. Grind your way up one side of the river, and down the other. Couldn't be easier.

If Scryers switching to Aldor:
Strained Supplies - [Dreadfang Venom Sac] - Stack to 200
Turn in - Stacks of 8 for 250 rep
This is the grind I did to get my [Hero of Shattrath]. It requires going to Terrokar forest and killing spiders. Lots, and lots and lots of Spiders. There are a few spread out just east of Shattrath, but the hot spot for grinding these is definitely to the southeast. South of Allerian Stronghold is a nice long group along the mountain range. Although you might kill them so fast that you run out of spiders, take that opportunity to vendor the grays they drop and make some gold while you grind.

Tip: Every time you're at the auction house, check to see if someone has put these up not knowing what they are. A lot of people will get these while leveling and will just throw them on the AH because they're white quality and auctioneer tells them to auction them (lol). You can cut your grind time down by a lot if you get lucky. This is also a good option for the more casual grinders out there.

That's it for this week, if you follow the guide soon you'll have one more full rep bar in your arsenal (and you motivated grinders now have a nice feat of strength that makes people scratch their heads :D).

Thoughts, comments, opinions, advice, bored? I want to hear about it! Post on the forums here. Or let me know in game.

~Jangutu~
Jangutu - US - Skullcrusher [H]

GTA: Gnomeregan!

2010-02-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Is it Monday? If so, Get That Achievement's here to spur your lazy butt into motion! Our good friend Vyndrian picks an achievement, and then you go out and achieve it! What'll it be this week?

Hey gang, Vyndrian here. How'd you all fare during last week's GTA? I know it was tricky. So let's ramp the difficulty down this week.

So I hear Alliance is finally going to get another capital city back from the wretched troggs! Well, let's all do our part and help them out this week and get a little achievement called Gnomeregan. This is easily soloable unless you're under level 40. And Horde players simply need to use the transporter from Booty Bay to get zapped right into Gnomeregan itself, so I don't want to hear any excuses!

And the month is winding down, so how is everyone doing on their AQ40 runs? Did anyone get exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu this month? Anyone at all? I'm shouting in the darkness, someone respond!

Well, that's all for me this week, gang. Next week will have a fun achievement and a new 30-Day GTA, so check back here next Monday! Until then!

E-mails can be sent to vyndrian at wow-achievements dot com, and if you want more than a weekly fix of your GTA, please see the Get That Achievement! thread on the official WoW forums. Now Get That Achievement!

Wow! Gnomeregan will be recapped before Cataclysm!

2010-02-21T12:59:00.003-05:00

Apparently, those little gnomes finally got their act together, and are going to be getting their city back before Cataclysm! Kinda hard to tell from the post over on Mmo-champion but it appears that there is a going to be an event involving both the Horde and the Alliance to retake it.

...now they just need to give us an event to retake the Echo Isles... god knows we've killed Zalazane enough times...

Edit: Apparently I need to learn how to read... Trolls will be getting back their home city too :)

TGIF 2/19/2010: New writers and a new raid?

2010-02-19T13:49:00.002-05:00

On Friday's I like to talk a little bit about myself, the game, or whatever else comes to mind. I editorialize a bit, so take everything with a grain of salt.

So, I don't really have much to talk about this week... met up with Cloud and his wife last night for dinner and to talk a bit about the redesign of wow-achievements. Took us two hours to get two steaks and a burger cause our waitress was fat and slow lol.

Other than that, pretty uneventful week... although MMO-Champion DID have this little tidbit which hints that "The Ruby Sanctum" might be released this expansion... Don't know too much about this one, but I'm figuring it's going to be similar to the Obsidium Sanctum... if anyone else knows more, feel free to comment.

This week also saw a couple of new writers. We now have seven writers, and I couldn't be more excited about it :)

We will also be getting more writers in the future, but I want to hear more from you guys in relation to your opinions on the new writers. Do you like the LONG post format, or the short post format? Personally, I like the long post ones, cause when I feel like wasting some time, I like to sit and read new posts for a little bit, it's a great mental break from whatever I'm doing.

I'm sure the new writers would love to hear what you think of their articles too, it's very encouraging to see what people think of your work, so don't hesitate to comment.

That does it for me this week, have a great weekend and if you feel up to it, tell us what you're up to, finishing up your V-day stuff? Killing Omen?

-Mep

Nerf Everybody Else!: Wrecking Ball

2010-02-19T00:01:00.005-05:00

Once a week, Illusora briefly highlights a few of the best methods for obtaining those hard-to-get and often disliked PvP achievements that WoW so callously offers to its PvE-minded masses.

Hey, everyone! I’m one of the new writers here, and I’ll be discussing one of the less-appreciated areas of WoW achievements: PvP! I’m hoping that I can offer some unique and helpful insights into the gruesome realm that is slaughtering other players, while at the same time fostering a more amiable view of what, in the past, has been an almost hated sector of the game (at least among the achievement chasers).

Think about it. Have you ever seen the overwhelming flood of complaints during holidays about achievements such as [School of Hard Knocks]—obviously the most infamous example—being required to “complete” their respective events? What causes that reaction? Why do people so often like PvE achievements, but completely despise the ones related to PvP?

Personally, I would guess that a big reason is because PvP is variable, whereas PvE is static. If a certain strategy works in a PvE setting once, then it will typically work in that setting again. PvP is different, though. To truly excel in PvP, you must constantly adapt to a changing environment. Using the same strategy over and over doesn’t really work. At least not very quickly. And that’s probably why I don’t see many guides on PvP achievements.

Now, what I’m planning to do is pick out a few achievements every once in awhile and highlight some of the best—or at least, what I consider the best—strategies to use in obtaining those achievements. I can’t promise that those strategies will always work, because, again, PvP is variable, but they should tend to work. I’ll also try not to get into lengthy discussions of how to PvP better, although I think doing so is necessary to a certain degree. After all, simply saying “farm in Alterac Valley or Wintergrasp” to get [100,000 Honorable Kills] isn’t very helpful, is it? No, it’s not.

For now, though, I’ll just encourage people to think outside of the box, a bit. Take a look at [Wrecking Ball], which demands 20 killing blows in a single battleground (not Wintergrasp) without dying at all during the course of it. How would you try to accomplish this? Would you go to Alterac Valley to pick stragglers off one by one? Would you try to get a healer friend to keep you alive while you go on a rampage? Would you stay close to a group of allies to avoid being focused on, or would you try to run around alone? While those are viable methods, they’re not necessarily ideal. Can you think of any safer, or easier methods?

Both Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest have vehicles, and people can’t target you when you’re on a vehicle. The demolishers in Strand of the Ancients have room for two passengers, who can freely attack and use their abilities. If you’re a ranged class, it would be pretty easy to just hop into a demolisher as a passenger, and safely get your 20 killing blows like that (although you could still find yourself dead and your vehicle destroyed if your driver takes you into a huge group of enemies). The siege engine in Isle of Conquest, which you get after controlling the workshop for five minutes, is a wonderful tool, as well. Its main gun, specifically, has a standard attack that can do something like 6,000 to 16,000 AoE damage per hit. Using that, you’d be able to get 20 kills in no time.

One of the reasons I like the PvP achievements is because there are so many different ways to do them. They aren’t really like grinding a reputation, where you just do the same thing over and over. To me, at least, they’re more exciting because of that, and hopefully I can extend such a feeling to some other people as well. We’ll see!

Going Insane - Bloodsail & Shen'dralar, I'm a noob

2010-02-18T12:01:00.001-05:00

Wooh! Sorry for the break there! I’m going to throw a little news out about Cazz. I’m retiring him. I got him to 80 and I just no longer have the druid love like in days of yore. What does this mean for my blog? Well, not a whole heck of a lot since I’ll be playing Dalven, my Death Knight. The only things that have changed are:

1. I’m now a human, which means rep bonus cha-ching
2. I’m honored with Bloodsail, but slightly less hated with the goblins
3. I need to redo my Heavy Junkbox grind

I’ve also put my Shen’dralar grind on hold while I knock out the holiday events, which I just have to do a little more running around for. Did you guys take advantage of the Ulduar 10 exploit? Well, if you did shame on you, cheater. 30 minutes of that and you’d have bracelets for you, your alts, your friends, and even your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

This will be the last of my “catching up” posting. Which I don’t like doing. I almost wish I could start Dalven from scratch with the achievement so I could blog from the beginning. But oh well, such is life. <- I hate that expression and anyone who uses it… Ok, getting Bloodsail rep is very stupid easy when you’re a 80 DK blood tank. You just run around Booty Bay and kill everything that walks. No food breaks, no “oh noes, I pulled too many!” Just kill, kill, kill. As a poorly geared druid it was more finesse. I had to kill 1-3 guards at a time, and then I’d need mana breaks if I chain pulled 1 at a time too long. But it was still easy, I just went into town, cut a right on the dirt path as soon as I was in and killed all the guys in that area, where I put a beautiful red line in my beautiful Booty Bay map to the left. I was queuing for heroics at the same time. Ready for a tip? Don’t join a heroic while standing on the middle of the dock, then finish the heroic, then not heal yourself, and then leave the instance. Because three guards will kill you. Instead, jump onto the roof of that building right to the west of the dirt path and join from there… just saying…

My luck in Dire Maul has gone from bad to horrid. The good news is I got my wife’s 70 priest sitting outside in my group, so I have someone to hold excess Librams and free Des. I didn’t realize until now that you can have a disenchanter OUTSIDE the instance with this new DE system! I’m averaging less than 3 Libram per hour. At one point I went into DM-W and got 4 in a matter of 10 minutes. I was so happy I sang a Bee Gee’s song on key! So, I now have about 45 Librams and 15 Pristine Black Diamonds. The Diamonds go for over 300G typically on my server. I’ve been spending up to 350G on them. I only have about 1K Gold after stupidly spending 5K on druid BoEs (/tar self… /slap). So there you have it. After 15+ hours in DM I’m a little over halfway there.

See you next week!

AT: Elune

2010-02-18T00:42:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday Eiseldora will write a post with tips and links to resources you can use to help you reach your achievement goals. This segment will be called Achievement Toolbox.

Now lies the time of endless query, where you thank the blizzard gods for letting you "gift" flight to all your alts, and spend hours endlessly wondering around talking to old dudes...uhm, I mean elders. Its the Lunar Festival!

Last year I remember, with excitement, going around to all of the worlds elders earning reputation, and collecting coins. This year I seem to be much more jaded as I'm getting spammed with in-game-mail from every elder I visit. At some point I think I might strangle someone at Blizzard who makes me repeat this action x100. [Open mail, take out red envelope, delete, repeat], but I digress.

You didn't come here to listen to me complain, you came to see if I can make your life easier. Since Lunar festival is overlapping with Love is in the Air, it is nice that the holiday hasn't changed. With no changes its a pretty effortless holiday.

The hardest part is getting into the Northrend dungeons, which thanks to the LFG system is extremely easy. They even added an elder to the regular version of Gundrak, making the required level to complete all these quests closer to 75.

Omen is even somewhat a joke because all you have to do is stand in his body after someone has killed him, meaning that even your bank alt could get this achievement if you can get a port to Moonglade.

So for the challenging part of the evening I highly recommend you use an addon to help you find your elders in each continent. Whether you want to use Questhelper, Wowhad looter, or A3Fu_Coords, each will allow you to enter the co-ordinates for the elders so you can have an easier time finding them.

You can find the coordinates on Wowhead or Warcraft overachiever. Just make sure you don't forget about the lower dungeon elders while you are running around the world. You might want to add each of dungeons to your coordinates list while you are in each continent.

Additionally you can probably work on the little critters required for Pest Control, Squirrel Love part I, and part II while you are in old world. Don't forget to pick up flight paths and maybe even explore before all the world changes with cataclysm.