There are a few achievements in every expansion that manage to get away
from us. I'm not talking about stuff that we shouldn't reasonably expect
to get (your completion percentage on dungeon and raid achievements
will inevitably nosedive if you can't make raids anymore), but there's
always some stuff that people feel they should have gotten or worked at
for ages that never turned up.
Now, you're reading OverAchiever
because you're a dedicated achievement hunter or enormously entertained
by the people who are -- and I think you know what this is like.
There's almost a sense of hostile guilt as you look at the stuff you
don't have, because those unfinished percentages taunt you. Sometimes
it's not your fault. Sometimes, however, you just need to get off your
arse.
These are three achievements -- easy, medium, and hard -- that players
often put on the back burner while occupied with other pursuits. Two of
them just got a lot easier -- or at least faster -- to do after patch 5.0.4, and all three will get more inconvenient when
Mists of Pandaria hits.
Oh, and for pet collectors, we have some welcome news inside about Tol Barad.
Easy
The Baradin's Wardens (Alliance) or Hellscream's Reach
(Horde) reputation grind is a little monotonous but still extremely
easy as long as you're willing to keep at it. For the PvP-phobics among
us, it also doesn't require you to kill any of your fellow players,
although it has to be said that you'll benefit from those who do (you
moral lightweight, you).
I trust we all know about the daily quests on the peninsula, but 250
reputation with your faction is also awarded for each win in Tol Barad
for which you're present, and winning grants you access to additional
dailies on the island. You'll only get six if you check just the once,
but assuming you win again, a different NPC may spawn with three other
quests. In total, there are 12 potential dailies you can get in Tol
Barad itself, assuming you get lucky with quest giver spawns. However,
if you don't, or if your faction isn't that great about winning Tol
Barad, just keep chugging away on the peninsula quests.
This is an especially good time to knock off the Tol Barad reputation
grind, since the number of dailies you can do in a given day is no
longer restricted.
What do you get for all your hard work? In addition the
reputation achievements linked above and another notch toward exalted,
finishing the Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach reputation grinds
will give you access to a tabard, pet, and two mounts.
Oh, and as an aside for pet collectors: The once-elusive Fox Kit
can now be purchased from your Told Barad quartermaster as well! You'll
have to be exalted in order to get it, and the cost is a jaw-dropping
200 Tol Barad commendations
(as expensive as the drake mount), but it'll keep you from having to
run around the peninsula killing foxes in the hope that they'll drop a
kid of theirs.
Medium
I actually started writing this article because I still have a few achievements left to go on Glory of the
Cataclysm Hero, and this is a really good time to knock them off. A lot of specs have just gotten serious buffs in advance of
Mists,
and I've noticed higher overall DPS in my 5-mans since the patch hit.
(I will admit this is possibly just a matter of luck, as I've also heard
from players on specs that haven't fared quite so well.)
If you're not running with a guild group, you'll be at the mercy of
puggers' moods, but it's been rare for me to get a negative reaction
while asking a group if they're interested in going for an achievement.
It turns out that a lot of players are reasonably close to the meta and
keen on doing achievements even during a PUG. Go ahead and ask. The
worst that can happen is that they'll say no and spend the rest of the
run silently judging you, being significantly harsher in their
assessment of your performance than they would have been otherwise, and
you spend the rest of the day in a total funk.
No, seriously -- ask.
What do you get for all your hard work? The Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake and the happy knowledge that you'll never have to coordinate I Hate That Song in a PUG ever again.
Hard
If you're lucky, you could theoretically nail Scourer of the Eternal Sands easily before
Mists hits, but it's just as likely that you'll find yourself running rings
around Uldum and cursing the fact that this achievement exists at all.
We ran an OverAchiever on how to get Scourer of the Eternal Sands more than a year ago, and I am still among the forlorn souls pecking away at the Mysterious Camel Figurines. I already spend a lot of time in Uldum waiting for lightning to strike in the form of the Crawling Claw, the Qiraji Battle Tank, and the Vial of the Sands recipe, so I figure adding one more statistical nightmare to the mix can't hurt.
