Mission: Impossible Turkey

11/27/2010

I was peacefully enjoying my friday night daily chores, when suddenly my Goblin iBrick beeped to tell me I had e-mail.

See, I'm a member of Wraith Flight, a super-secret Orgimmar organization, used only when missions are too dangerous for the Kor'kron Vanguard to handle. We're the best of the best, expected to get the job done, no matter what. It's not all bad though, we have access to all the best Goblin and Gnome engineering has to offer; the trick is to field-test extensively beforehand, so you don't rely on equipment that will explode every 5th time you use it.

The message read:
Shrike, I have a last-minute mission for you. Pilgrim's Bounty is almost over, and I need you to disarm some bombs we had inadvertently placed under Bountiful Tables in the enemy capitals. We'll provide you with a disarming device, but your butt needs to hit those chairs before tomorrow night, or we'll have another incident with the Alliance to deal with.

As always, should you or any of your WF force be caught or killed, the Overlord will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Shrike. This e-mail will self-destruct in five seconds.

-Garrosh

Shaking my head, I put the iBrick down on a handy table, and stepped away. A few seconds later, a puff of smoke hissed from the device, and it melted into a useless puddle of goo. Damn, I had just gotten all my contacts into that one!

I hopped on my favorite ride, and headed up to Felwood, since 2 of my targets lay in that direction. If ONLY I had gotten this message a week earlier, it would have been a lot easier. See, Darnassus has a table in the middle of the city, and Exodar has its table just within the city walls. A few days earlier, a massive tsunami had ravaged that coastline, destroying the the Auberdine port which serviced both cities. Since that time, they had been on high alert, and also called out the city watch, which meant that the guards would be a lot more vigilant than normal.

Along the way though, I stopped off to buy a souvenir. Hey, business trips don't mean you can't take time out to enjoy yourself!

I had bribed one of my Alliance contacts for info, so I was able to plan out my route beforehand. I left from Darkshore's highest north-western point, and used a potion to book it across the sea to Rut'theran Village. After spending a few minutes on the non-moving boat at the eastern dock, I checked my notes, and found that I needed the boat at the western dock to get to Exodar. After approaching the middle of the dock, I hopped on, and rode to Azuremyst Isle. I circled around to the north, plunked my butt down, and headed back to Darnassus. I got around to the back of the portal, got into the city, got killed, but rezzed at the graveyard in Teldrassil. After the bomb was disarmed, I hearthed back to Orgrimmar, and considered my options.

I could take the portal in Cleft of Shadows to the Dark Portal in Blasted Lands, and then go to Stormwind. Or, if I had a teleport device, I could run from BRD to Searing Gorge, and go through the Stonewrought Pass tunnel to Loch Modan, which lets out into the Valley of Kings. From there it's an easy run to Ironforge. However, after checking our inventory, it seemed that one of other team members had the device, so I headed to Ironforge first.

Those city guards are buggers! I ran up the hill almost directly south of the gates, as there's a way up the hill that allows you to come out right where the tables are. However, the 2 guards there are intensely watchful, and it took at least 5 times to get the timing right to get into a chair.

Three down, one left. Hearthed back to Orgrimmar, then Blasted Lands, then rode to the gates of Stormwind. After all that, it was almost a letdown to see the tables unguarded, and easily accessible outside the city.

Man, the things I do for my faction.




TL-DR....check the comments on the last page for tips on how to do it. I had let it go until the last day, kinda QQ-ing Blizzard for having level 85 guards RIGHT on top of the tables, but figured I'd give it a shot. I was able to do it for some of my toons, but since I have things to do today, I won't get all of them done. Ehh, it's not part of the meta, so I can do it next year, when I've gotten them to 85.

And you Alliance only players can suck it! Orgrimmar - outside the gates. Thunderbluff - outside (apparently there's a great wall blocking Mulgore that you can ride around the right side of). Silvermoon - outside. UC might be the only place you might have problems. Check here for tips.

The Spirit of Sharing

11/21/2010

While I've seen some people complaining about having the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday in the midst of the Cataclysm ramp-up; honestly, they're probably also the ones that started complaining about the event screwing up Orgrimmar by the second time it happened.

But think about this for a second. Not only are there easy dailies for your alts to accomplish, with mats you can pre-make to hand in, there's another bonus for us achievement hunters.

Sitting down at the Bountiful Table and eating each dish 5x will give you the Spirit of Sharing, which is a HUGE bonus on some lengthy rep grinds. I believe you need about 80 + librams of rapidity/protection/focus to get exalted with Shen'dralar, which is 80 x 500 =40,000 or more rep. With 10% bonus, at 40 turnins, you're already at 22,000 rep, instead of 20k, putting you 4 librams/mats ahead of the game. So, this could make the rep grind only around 70+ librams, instead of 80ish. And when you're hunting for Blood of Heroes or either of the other BOP mats for the librams.....it could be your sanity on the line.

Wrap-up to Hallow's End

11/1/2010

Hallow's End came and went, and I now have 5 level 80's to pursue titles and achievements. How did I make out?

All 5 80's on Demon Soul now have "the Hallowed" title, even though it was a close call for some. Bullkathos barely completed Sinister Calling a couple days before the holiday ended, even though I did the daily and trick-or-treating probably 4-6 times a day with all 30 toons. I also slacked off on doing the candy bucket quests with Thrillkiller and Banesidhe, making me have to frantically fly around on Sunday to get that done.

However, I did manage to snag 5 sets of the super-duper flying Horse, with Bullkathos getting 2 sets, and Thrillkiller missing out.

Bloodshrike also luckily managed to get his sword and helm, yet my 2 plate wearers Bullkathos and Pallormortis missed getting the helm.

My non-80 toons also got a fair bit of leveling done during this time too. The 2 dailies you can do, "Stop the Fires" and "Smash the Pumpkin" can be completed for up to 10 alts at one time, with a little preparation. I had my Alliance toons head to Goldshire for the entirety of the holiday, and my lower level toons on Demon Soul and Darrowmere went to Falconwing Square.

First, go pick up the "Put out the fires quest" from the Matron for all your toons. Don't worry about the Headless Horseman until all of your toons have the quest picked up that day. For Allies, have them positioned in the doorway of the Goldshire Inn, ready to rush out and click on the pumpkin. For Horde, have them logged out where the pumpkin usually falls.

For these toons, I usually had all my addons turned off, as having all of them loaded slowed loading each toon to a crawl. However, be careful when switching between toons quickly, as the game might think you're still logged in, and kick you out to the login screen. I usually counted up to about 7, then logged in on the new toon.

Allies usually seem to be pretty good about doing this daily, so just check every so often with one of your ally toons while logging in to do trick-or-treating of the innkeeper, and then help out to save the town. Once that's done, click on the pumpkin to accept the quest, then immediately head back to the Inn. DO NOT pass go, do not turn in the quests. You don't have time if you're doing multiple toons. Quickly (but not too quickly), cycle through all your alts and go get the pumpkin quest. You also get credit for the fires being put out at the same time. Once you've got completed credit on all your toons, turn in both quests, and you've just done 20 dailies on 10 toons, in a short amount of time.

For Horde, I prefer Falconwing Square, as you can solo it if nobody else is around. I would usually use my druid in travel form for the fastest running speed, then head immediately to the far building when the Horseman sets them on fire. If you catch the fires quickly, they don't have time to spread, and you can put out the building easily. Just remember, contrary to common sense, these fires are affected by gravity, not by the usual tendency of fire to climb upwards. Take out the highest fires first, as they will drip fire downwards.

So, how did my toons fair?
Demon Soul - 7 levels gained
Bloodshrike -80
Bullkathos -80
Thrillkiller-80
Bonescourge -58 to 59
Banesidhe -80
Kukoshakaku -54 to 56
Clockworknyt-68 to 69
Morticide -41 to 43
Burizadokyan-45 to 46
Pallormortis-80

Daggerspine - 15 levels gained
Clockwrkmage-62 to 63
Preyonyou -39 to 41
Tsuris -54 to 56
Aosdanasaoi -53 to 54
Hangfire -46 to 48
Panzergishi -53 to 55
Kishigishi -52 to 53
Ryoushigishi-53 to 55
Gwiddonyn -52 to 53
Doomslinger -41 to 42

Darrowmere -21 levels gained
Bloodshrike -51 to 52
Clockwrkmage-36 to 38
Psilentkill -38 to 40
Didactylos -29 to 32
Gavelofpain -32 to 34
Wartraveler -33 to 35
Misericorde -33 to 35
Ghostflame -27 to 29
Gimmershred -31 to 33
Annihilus -28 to 31

Update 11/16/2010 - My Flying Brooms finally expired, leaving me very sad. Those insta-cast mounts are awesome! For gathering toons, any time wasted is annoying, and having to wait to mount when you see someone heading towards the Titanium vein YOU spotted first is agonizing. I'm not sure why there is a casting time for them, as being in combat automatically prevents you from mounting anyway, so it's not implemented that way for PvP reasons. I dunno, but I wish all mounts were instant.

I level......Daily

11/24/09

Well, Pilgrim's Bounty is now upon us, a new title and pet available from it (though you don't need it for the World Event achievement, it's always fun to get a new title, now that I've recently started getting them.

I'm not going to delve into the specifics of the achievements much, since Darth already has an excellent write-up on them, which adds to the guides already out there.

Instead, I'll add my viewpoints from the altoholic standpoint. Before, when world events came along, I'd do some of them, then give up, because I knew I couldn't finish all of the achievements needed for the title. I figured I'd get back to them later, when I finally hit 80 with one or some of my toons. However, I had been ignoring something very, very nice that happens during these times.

Daily Quests

Normally only available to level 70's and above (unless you're a cook, which allows you to do the Dalaran cooking daily at 65), World Event Daily Quests are usually easy to complete quests that offer a decent amount of gold, sometimes rep, and most importantly, usually a bubbles worth of experience for a few minutes work. With the Midsummer fire festival, I'd log in to do Torch Tossing and Torch Catching, and gain an easy 2 bubbles of experience a day for each of my alts. That's huge for me, since months or even years can go by for a toon before they get out of a city. Banesidhe (my first mage) stayed at level 40 for at least a year, before getting up to level 46 recently with the Hallows End and I believe the Midsummer Fire Festival earlier this year. If I can get to level 48, I'll be ready to zerg out to level 50 with grinding Timbermaw rep, same as I did with Clockwrkmage on my Ally server.

So, my tips on getting some easy gold and xp for your alts, without pulling out your hair in frustration over the lore cooking quests that you think you might have to do. Don't worry about the quests that aren't Dailies, do them as you come to them, but the reward? you get from doing the "Lore" related quests isn't something you will want to rush towards.

Tip #1:
Stock up! Clear out as much of your bags as you can, and stock up to 80-100-120 of each area specific item (Cranberries, Sweet Potatoes...). You never know when someone will offer gold for you to cook food that costs copper to buy. Plus, it really, really, really sucks to run out of Cranberries when you're in UC, and you only have to cook 5 more to turn in a quest. Trust me.

Tip #2:
If you can stand it, try to get as many Wild Turkey stocked up as you can. It's not a problem to replenish your stocks of pumpkins, but it's annoying to have to go out of the city to kill another 20 turkeys each day. Just try to get 60+ the first time, while you're going for the Turkinator achievement, and see if you need more after that.

Tip #3:
Try to do all 5 dailies with all your alts. It only takes a few minutes to run from a portal to where the dailies are, cook up the mats, and turn them in. Then hearth back to Dalaran, portal to the next city, turn in or pick up a daily there, and log out. Rinse and repeat with the next toon. By the time you've done this with your 10th alt, your first one will definitely have their hearth up, and will be ready to go to the next city.

Tip #4:
If you're going to visit the enemy capitals, you might as well explore the zone around there, since I doubt you'll want to come back again when doing all your exploration for the Explorer title. Darnassus and the Exodar are annoying zones to get to as a Horde, so you might as well kill 2 achievements with one trip.

The Start of an Era

11/2/09
Thanks to Kring and Darth’s advice, I decided to try late night dailies of the Headless Horseman, and I was able to get the Hallowed Helm on my 2nd try. It was a good thing too, because I did it once halfway thru the week to get “Bring me the Head of….oh wait,” and didn’t get around to doing it again until the Friday before the event ended. Since I had gotten the Sinister Squashling pet as a drop from trick or treating the innkeepers, that got me all the achievements I needed for “The Hallowed” title.

Funnily enough, on Darrowmere, my other hunter Bloodshrike was able to get a title just yesterday. She finally nabbed the last 18+ female she needed for the “Shake your Bunnymaker” achievement to get “the Noble” title. Yeah, I’m a little behind the times, I know. It’s just hard to find females in Dalaran, since a lot of the high level armor makes it impossible to see faces. You have to basically inspect every toon of that race that you need, in the hopes of seeing bumps on their chests.
However, in addition to Bloodshrike #1 getting the title, I was able to get about 2-4 levels on each of my toons between the Hallow’s End Dailies and some of them going to get the candy bucket achievements.

Bloodshrike on Demonsoul actually leveled to 80 doing the daily in Brill, funnily enough. I was also able to get several toons on each server either the Squashling or the Hallowed Helm, which will make it easier on me next year, when I will hopefully have a lot more 80’s that I can kill the Headless Horseman with. At this point, I’m not worried about getting the mount from the HH, but it would be nice to have it SOMEWHERE on my account, even if it’s not on my main. And if I get 10-20-or 30 toons up to 80 by next year, that’ll give me tons more chances for it to drop each day.

Here’s the list of who got what from Hallow’s End.
Demon Soul:
Bloodshrike – Squashling and Helm (and Title)

Daggerspine:
Clockwrkmage-

Darrowmere:
Bloodshrike -

Still need to fill this in…….

The easiest way to win the Lotto.....is by having won it already

So, I dragged all my toons back from the far corners of the world, to concentrate on the Hallows End achievements.

My Alliance server Daggerspine has all the toons in Goldshire, even though it's a 2 building fire, Allies do it often enough to park all my toons there, and reap the rewards from one succesful fire quenching. Kharanos in Dun Morogh is a ghost town (heh, a pun), and though I've heard that Azure Watch in the Draenai starting area is easy, I haven't gone out there yet.

Darrowmere, my baby Horde account, has all the toons in Brill. Why not Razor Hill, since it's close by Orgrimmar? Because Brill only has the right side of the town hall set ablaze by the Headless Horseman, whereas Razor Hill has 3 buildings to quench. Needless to say, that quenching doesn't happen very often. Why not Falconwing Square by Silvermoon City? Yes, it only has one building front set on fire, but there's nobody there! It could be different on other servers, but I've noticed a tendency for nobody to go to the BC Expansion areas anymore.

A side note: If you do have a lot of toons, and don't want to have to worry about doing the town dailies more than during one login loop, do some preparation. I usually log in with my first toon, accept the "Let the Fires come" quest, then dump it and get "Put out the Fires" immediately. Go back inside the inn, and have all the other toons accept the "Put out the Fires" quest as well. Now, when you're logging in to trick or treat the innkeepers, and hear "My fires have died, left not a spark....." immediately run outside and loot the pumpkin, and this will also give you a completed status on the "Put out the Fires" quest.

However, this doesn't mean you need to turn in the quests immediately. In Brill, since the pumpkin and Matron are so close together, go ahead and turn it in and get your rewards, then dash back in the inn for the next toon.

In Goldshire though, you'll want to loot the pumpkin, then run back to the inn to get your next toon. With a lot of toons, seconds can count, and it's better to get the dailies over as soon as you can, because more and more people won't care to do them as the festival winds on. This philosphy would also apply to Razor Hill in Durotar, since the pumpkin lands straight out from the inn, and the Matron is a good distance away.

Now, as to the title of the post. The Sinister Squashling pet and the Hallowed Helm are needed for the Sinister Calling Achievement, which is part of the Hallowed Be Thy name Achievement, which rewards the Hallowed title after your name. If you don't feel like dealing with PUG groups to kill the Headless Horseman, you can also get them as drops from Trick or Treating the innkeepers every hour (usually 3-4 times a day for me, as I'd really rather be out questing).

Here's my luck so far:
Sinister Squashling
Clockwrkmage on Daggerspine
Doomslinger on Daggerspine
Aosdanasaoi on Daggerspine
Tsuris on Daggerspine

Hallowed Helm
Gwiddonyn on Daggerspine
Aosdanasaoi on Daggerspine (giving her the Achievement)
Bonescourge on Demon Soul x 2
Kukoshakaku on Demon Soul x 2

So, if you want something, get it, and you'll be sure to get it again.
I've also noticed a tendency to be repeat tricked - as in, if I'm a snake, and login an hour later, I'll most likely be transformed again, instead of getting a treat.

I know, I know, it's just numbers and statistics, but it feels weird to get your third Flimsy Male Troll Mask on one toon, without having any other masks received. The Random Number Generator (RNG) doesn't seem so random at that point, more like vindictive.