Archive for the ‘Cheats’ Category

The Oracles Dailies: Song of Wind and Water

By Cheats on December 20th, 2009

Reward(s): 13g 23s and 500 Reputation for The Oracles

Pick this up from Oracle Soo-nee locoated in the Rainspeaker Canopy (53, 56) in Sholazar Basin and make your way to the Stormwright’s Shelf (26, 34) to the West, just past The Makers Perch. Once there, use the provided Drums of the Tempest to take on the aspect of Haiphoon. Initially you’ll be in Water Form. Get within range of a Storm Revenant and use Water Bolt (first ability) to damage it until it reaches ~20% health. Now use the Devour Wind ability (third ability) to absorb the weakened elemental’s power. Now you’ve taken on Haiphoon’s Air Form. Approach any nearby Aqueous Spirit, and like the Water Form, use the Lightning Bolt (first ability) to bring the Spirit to 20% health, then use Devour Water (third ability) to absorb its power. Repeat this process until you’ve absorbed three Storm Revenants and three Aqueous Spirits. Return to Oracle Soo-nee when you’re done.

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Dailies The Kalu’ak : Planning for the Future

By Cheats on December 20th, 2009

Reward(s): 5g and 500 Reputation for The Kalu’ak

Acquire this quest from Trapper Mau’i located at Moa’ki Harbor (48, 74) in The Dragonblight. Head North and retrieve twelve Snowfall Glade Pups from the camps located between (45, 70) and (45, 60). They appear as small, neutral Wolvar and your mouse cursor will show that you can loot them – usually accompanied by a Wolvar Denmother. Once you’ve collected a dozen of the little guys, return to Trapper Mau’i.

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The Kalu’ak Dailies: Preparing for the Worst

By Cheats on December 20th, 2009

Reward(s): 5g and 500 Reputation for The Kalu’ak

Pick up this quest from Utaik located at Kaskala (64, 45) in Borean Tundra. Scattered throughout Kaskala, there are crates of Kaskala Supplies, they tend to be fairly spread at times. Retrieve eight and return them to Utaik for your reward.

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Dailies The Kalu’ak : The way to his Heart

By Cheats on December 20th, 2009

Reward(s): 7g 40s and 500 Reputation for The Kalu’ak

Acquire this quest from Anuniaq located in Kamagua (24, 58) in Howling Fjord. Using the providedAnuniaq’s Net, gather Tasty Reef Fish from their schools off the South coast of The Isle of Spears (28, 73) – You’ll need around eight. Once you have the fish, find a Reef Bull near the North shore of Garvin’s Reef (31, 74), and lead him Northward across the water to a Reef Cow (31, 71). Once they are within five yards of each other you’ll recieve quest credit. Return to Anuniaq when you’re done.

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Dailies The Oracles : A Cleansing Song

By Cheats on December 18th, 2009

Reward(s): 13g 23s and 500 Reputation for The Oracles

Pick up this quest from Oracle Soo-Nee located at the Rainspeaker Canopy (53, 56) in Sholazar Basin. You will need to use the provided Chime of Cleansing at each of the following locations to summon the three quest targets you need to kill to complete the quest: Fly West to Bittertide Lake (43, 42), then to River’s Heart (49, 63) and finally to Wintergrasp River (46, 74). Return to Oracle Soo-Nee for your reward.

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Dungeon Finder tricks and tips

By Cheats on December 17th, 2009

Now that players have had their hands on the Dungeon Finder out on the live realms for a while, they’re learning a few more tricks and tips about how to use it. As Rohan brings up over on the WoW Ladies LJ, it’s easy enough to keep a good player once you’ve found them through the system: as long as none of you drop group once you’re done with an instance, you can go back in and run as many as you want. Unfortunately, you can’t friend them yet (hopefully that will show up whenever Battle.net functionality does), but the comments on that post point out that if you both sign up for an unpopular instance at the same time, chances are good you’ll end up in the same group together (of course, that requires coordination, but maybe you can set up a time out of game).

Other tips we’ve heard: finding an instance as tank or healer will go even faster than trying to get in one as DPS, so if you can specialize into a more useful role and just want to grind out instances fast, do that. Damage meters are supposedly broken — they haven’t figured out how to track ranged damage across realms quite yet. Which may be a good thing, as lots of players never liked following those meters anyway. The vote kicking system seems to be working well — the number one reason we’ve heard that players are kicking each other is that they’re going AFK without notice, so if you’re in a random PuG queue, be sure to be ready when it pops up to do the instance ASAP. Oh, and let’s just agree right here and now: Frozen Orbs are Need, unless you don’t want them for some reason.

And maybe the most important tip we’ve heard: it’s important to make sure that your gear matches the instance you’re doing. The number one issue so far seems to be players who show up for a Heroic in greens, or people who queue up to tank without having any tanking gear or experience at all. Thanks to the new system, there’s lots of groups to run, and everyone will get the gear they need to do what they want. So don’t waste players’ time now by trying to take on something you can’t do and ending the group in wipes or making other players step up for you. Start out low and easy, running regular instances, and then when you think you’re ready for something tougher, move on up the ladder to Heroics.

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Citadel Icecrown introduction quests

By Cheats on December 15th, 2009

It’s not technically an attunement, but there is a series of quests that guide you through the introductory 5 Player Dungeons surrounding Icecrown Citadel. You don’t have to do these dungeons to get into the normal versions of Icecrown, but it sure brings a lot to the experience. I guess, in a sense, you can think of it as a simplified attunement.

Additionally, the gear that drops from these first three instances will go a long way towards catching up people to the ICC raid. In my raid, we call this “bootstrapping.” There’s a bunch of reasons you might need to bootstrap folks: a tank rotation, new people, meteor crashing into the planet, what have you.

As you do the quest, you’ll enter (and do battle in):

* The Forge of Souls
* The Pit of Saron, and
* The Halls of Reflection

So, let’s take a look at these three instances and how to blur through them.

(Note: I’ll be mostly talking about the Horde version of the quest chain. However, there’s an Alliance version as well, and I’ll try and point it out along the way. Yes, I know – I’m horribly Horde biased, after an entire couple months being a Belf, compared to my four years of being a Human.)

You can pick up the breadcrumb quest in Dalaran, which instructs you to rush to Icecrown Citadel. This first quest is for The Forge of Souls, and sends you to meet Sylvanas or Jaina. You can either get there by manually hoofing it to the Citadel, or you can use the handy-dandy Dungeon Finder tools to teleport you there. I’ve not been in a group yet who doesn’t use the teleport.

Once you’ve spoken to your faction-appropriate person, your first job will be to take down Bronjahm.

The Forge of Souls

The Forge of Souls looks like it’s going to be a complicated maze, but most of that is just backdrop. If you stick to the path, it’s pretty tough to get lost. You’ll have a small variety of trash along the way, but nothing too troublesome. Keep to the main rule: Kill the one in the dress first. Most of the trash should just be handled by killing casters first, then melee mobs.

Bronjahm

Bronjahm is the “Godfather of Souls.” (His name is a mangled “James Brown” in reverse. Get it?) He’s a caster-type boss with two distinct phases.

In the first phase, Bronjahm will create Corrupted Soul Fragments. They spawn on top of a random player. (What’s happening here is that he’s separating soul fragments from your character. As if you didn’t have enough reasons to kill him.) Keep those soul fragments from reaching Bronjahm — if they do, they’ll heal him.

In the second phase, the boss will stat using Soulstorm. If you’re on the edges of the platform, you’ll take significant damage and be slowed. The way to avoid this effect is to move very close to the boss. (Hunters will need to keep a minimum range to attack, but they’ll be safe at that minimum distance.)

Devourer of Souls

The Devourer of Souls is the second and last boss in the Forge. He has three tricks for which you should be prepared. First, he’ll use Mirrored Soul. While linked with a player, damage taken by the Devourer will be shared to the targeted player. It’s best to back off DPS during this time, and let the effect fade.

Second, the Devourer will Unleash Souls. A handful of ghosts will appear around the platform. While their damage isn’t individually meaningful, if you have several of the critters pile up on you — move. After this second phase, the Devourer will move on to Wailing Souls. It’s basically an energy blast that sweeps around 90 degrees — again, try not to stand in it.

Once you’ve downed the Devourer, you’ll see Sylvanas (or Jaina) again, who will ask you to go into the Pit of Saron. There’s a portal right behind where you killed the Devourer, and you can step through it into the Pit.

The Pit of Saron

As soon as you enter the Pit of Saron, you’ll be greeted by a handful of enemies, including a massive frostwyrm being ridden by Scourgelord Tyrannus. If you engage these mobs, Sylvanas will swoop in to help rescue you. There’s some dialogue which I won’t spoil, but this is where you pick up the next step in the quest chain: The Path to the Citadel.

All the bosses for the Pit are on the outside of the big, massive circular area. If you stick to the outside wall, you can avoid most of the mobs in the area. The trash is all fairly straightforward and not very difficult, so just blow through them at an easy, steady cadence. The slaves you need to rescue are along the wall, and can be released by simply clicking on their chains.

The first boss you encounter will be Forgemaster Garfrost.

Forgemaster Garfrost

Forgemaster Garfrost is a very large giant. As you go up the ramp to engage him, there will be a dozen or two trash mobs who also engage. DPS should burn these down fairly quickly. They’re not very tough, but they would be an unwelcome distraction through the remainder of the encounter.

Forgemaster does a steady stream of damage to everyone in the encounter via his Permafrost. It’s a rather annoying effect which is going to make this a bit of a DPS race. Your healers can keep you up through it, but there’s no reason to take your time during the encounter.

Garfrost throws large boulders of Saronite on the ground during the encounter. When Garfrost rushes to his forge, have your party duck behind the Saronite to avoid LOS damage.

Otherwise, Garfrost is pretty easy. He forges himself a Frostborn Mace at 66% and 33% life, so those will be golden opportunities to hide behind saronite boulders.

That aside, burn him down, burn him fast.

Ick and Krick

After you’ve killed Garfrost, you’ll need to go fight Ick and Krick. This is really just a gnome riding an undead funky thing. Focus on the undead part — that’s Ick — and burn him down. He has two actions to which you need to pay attention. First, he’ll occasionally give Pursuit to a random party member — run away from him. Second, he’ll throw a Poison Nova from which you simply need to run away.

The Path of Tyrannus

After finding out some key information from Ick and Krick, you’ll need to go up a long hallway up to the final boss. The gauntlet to Tyrannus involves some tricky maneuvering. First, you’ll have some slightly-more-difficult packs of trash on which you’ll need to practice your kill-the-caster-first skills.

As you enter the cave, however, the ice falls down and tries to kill you. There’s very clear warning, though, since rune circles appear on the ground. Those circles are warning that rocks and ice are about to fall. Don’t stand in it, or you’ll take damage.

Scourgelord Tyrannus

Scourgelord Tyrannus is probably the most involved fight in the Pit of Saron, which is befitting the final boss. Nonetheless, the game interface itself is pretty friendly about the fight, and gives you lots of warning about the important stuff.

The most important tip I’ve learned about Tyrannus involves him placing Overlord’s Brand on a party member. If the person who has the Brand attacks the boss, it’ll do damage to the tank. If the person who has the Brand gets heals, it will heal Tyrannus. Also, keep an eye out for Tyrannus’s dark enrage, called Unholy Power. He’ll get bigger to give you warning. He hits much harder, but walks slower — kite away from him and keep a distance until it wears off.

Rimefang the frostwyrm will occasionally fire Icy Blast and Hoarfrost down on the party. Don’t stand next to the person who is targeted, and the healer should be ready to take care of that person. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal.

After killing Tyrannus, you step into the Halls of Reflection.

Halls of Reflection

I don’t know the script for Alliance side, but when Sylvanas walks into the Halls of Reflection, she’s none to pleased. Confronted with Frostmourne, she’s pretty certain she’s going to meet her final destiny. She nearly does, ultimately, but I’m trying to avoid the big spoiler at the end. Nonetheless, the climax to this run is quite worth it.

Halls of Reflection is really just one long story event. It’s quite worth it, but the fight itself is pretty straightforward. You’ll see two waves of adds coming to kill you, before you finally have to flee old Arthas himself. Each wave has its own mini-boss.

The waves are probably more difficult than the boss itself, depending on your tank’s ability to handle large groups. The waves have Riflemen, Mages, and Priests. The casters will need to be silenced (or Death Gripped, if you’re ex-Scourge yourself) in order to get them to move. Otherwise, just tank and spank them down. Kill the Priest first, or else it will heal its friends and give you a big pain in the butt.

The first mini-boss is Falric. His annoying trick is the occasional Defiling Horror. Even though Falric doesn’t attack during your fear, it throws your party into disarray and is pretty frustrating. You’re going to want someone in your party who can dispel magic effects in order to handle Impending Despair.

The second mini-boss, Marwyn, is more straightforward. Don’t stand in the Well of Corruption and otherwise just burn the guy down as fast as possible.

The final “fight” is with Arthas. Well, not actually. Arthas roughs up Sylvanas a bit, and Sylvanas warns you all to flee. Once you confirm your readiness, you follow the outside path to flee. Arthas stalks you slowly, certainly, and with murder in his eye. He reminded me mostly of Jason Voorhees in this phase. However, Arthas has magic that Jason didn’t and will throw giant walls of ice in your way.

Because Arthas has to move slowly, he needs help. He’ll summon several waves of undead for you to fight while you try and flee. You have to kill these waves of undead while Sylvanas (or Jaina, if you’re Alliance) breaks down each wall of ice. The undead aren’t really fantastic or special, but they’ll definitely lay some serious damage on your tank. This is an endurance fight, since you won’t have much time to drink or such while fleeing.

When you reach the end of the path, Sylvanas will warn you to gird your loins for the final confrontation. Don’t worry — it’s not time to fight Arthas yet. But once you’ve gotten this far, congratulations, you’ve won.

Summary

This entire faux-attunement series can be done in an hour or two, and each instance goes by pretty quickly. The story is fantastic, and does a great job queuing you to go into the Icecrown Citadel. I think this is a wonderful technique by Blizzard’s team. It really helps ground you in the genre and mood of the raid, while helping make sure your characters are adequately geared for those fights.

The gearing part can’t be underestimated. Going through these fights in Heroic is probably your last, best check to make sure you can actually handle the Icecrown Citadel raid. Use them as a test. If you get through without much trouble, you’re ready to step in to the final raid of Wrath of the Lich King.

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Guide Achievement to Winter Veil

By Cheats on December 15th, 2009

Winter Veil is one of the more immersive and fun holidays that World of Warcraft offers over the course of the year; it grants you the chance to ride something a little “different,” turn into a snowman with a cute /dance animation, and receive gifts containing noncombat pets if you’ve been good and Coal if Santa RNG thinks you’ve been bad.

Before anyone asks, Winter Veil runs from Tuesday, December 15th to Saturday, January 2nd in 2009/2010, and this is article is about what you’ll need to do in that period to complete the meta (and earn the title) Merrymaker. Unlike November’s holiday, Pilgrim’s Bounty, Merrymaker is required for the yearlong meta What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, so don’t slack on this one if you want that violet protodrake!

On Metzen!

Saving Metzen for the achievement On Metzen! is a short but fun questline that starts with an NPC in front of the Ironforge bank (if you’re Alliance) with Metzen the Reindeer, or an NPC in front of the Orgrimmar AH (if you’re Horde) with Metzen the Reindeer. The quest ends in either Searing Gorge or Tanaris, whichever is more convenient to you.

Either zone you hit, try to do the Metzen quest first, as you’ll need rewards from it for two of the following achievements.

With A Little Helper From My Friends

If you’ve never taken part in Winter Veil previously, what you need to know is that there are machines located outside (or in) most major cities that will turn you into a gnome in a Winter Helper costume. Locations are as follows:

* Orgrimmar: Next to the zeppelin tower to Undercity/Grom’Gol.
* Ironforge: Outside the city’s main gates.
* Undercity: At the zeppelin tower to Orgrimmar/Grom’Gol.
* Stormwind: Outside the entrance to the flightmaster.
* Tanaris: East of Gadgetzan.
* Booty Bay: On the docks.
* Shattrath: Just east of the city in Terokkar Forest.
* Dalaran: Smack in the middle of the city in Runeweaver Square.

While “disguised” as a “Santa Gnome,” you need to get 50 honorable kills. The fastest way to do this is to get the costume, then wait for Wintergrasp to roll around or queue for an Alterac Valley/Strand of the Ancients/Isle of Conquest match. If you’re really paranoid about dying early, man one of the Wintergrasp cannons, Strand cannons or sieges, or Isle cannons/sieges (glaive throwers are particularly effective, so here’s hoping your faction’s controlling the docks). Because you lose the costume upon death, just keep getting the costume and queuing for more battles, as long as it takes until you’ve gotten 50.

Yes, my fellow druids, you lose the costume instantly upon shapeshifting. Yes, this is an enormous pain in the ass. Yes, if you are feral, I highly recommend respeccing into Balance or Resto in order to do this, or at least plan on getting this achievement by way of vehicle combat. Life is not fair. Did I mention the possibility of getting Coal in your presents?

Scrooge (Alliance) or Scrooge (Horde)

Alliance will need to toss a snowball at Magni Bronzebeard; Horde will need to chuck one at Cairne Bloodhoof. Pretty easy, particularly because snowballs are so easy to come by around the holiday. You’ll find them sold by Winter Veil NPC’s in all major cities, or — if you’re such a miser that you can’t shell out the 10 copper — doing the Brunnhildar daily offered by Thyra Kvinnshal will usually net you a few instead of the polar bear mount that I have yet to see after more than a year. Not that I am bitter.

Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la

UPDATE: One our readers wrote in to note that the initial Ogri’la quest chain, while still available in the game, is no longer required to unlock the Ogri’la dailies. I just confirmed this with an alt who hadn’t started the Ogri’la quest chain. If you have a character without any previous Ogri’la rep, all you’ll need to to do is run them to Ogri’la (28,57) in Blade’s Edge and get started.

Bomb Them Again! is an easy quest to do, but in order to have access to it, you’ll need to have done an initial Ogri’la questline and will also need some Preserved Holly (which you should already have if you’ve already rescued Metzen) or Fresh Holly (a random reward from /kissing Winter Revelers in inns) to turn your flying mount into a reindeer. And yes, you will need a flying mount, so druids, if you’ve been gadding around with either version of flight form and haven’t actually bothered to buy one, you’ll need to drop some gold.

Chu’a’lor in Ogri’la will give you a short quest chain starting with The Crystals and ending with The Relic’s Emanation. This will unlock other Ogri’la quests, among them Our Boy Wants to be a Skyguard Ranger from Torkus, which will eventually take you a hop, skip, and a jump over to the Skyguard questing area north of Ogri’la. There, Sky Sergeant Vanderlip will give you Bombing Run, and (upon successful completion) the quest you actually need for Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la, which is Bomb Them Again! Turn your mount into a reindeer, complete the quest, and you’re all set.

This is just a bare-bones guide due to space concerns, but if it’s your first time doing the Ogri’la chain and you want to do the full questline with assorted lore and gold rewards, Molsan Method has written a much more detailed guide to getting yourself squared away for Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la that I thought was extremely useful. I would recommend reading this in the event that Ogri’la is a completely new deal for you.

‘Tis the Season

As with Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la, the achievement itself is simple — it’s getting the stuff you need to do it that will take some work.

First off, you’ll need the threads. The chest items and boots are fairly simple to pick up, and are crafted by Tailors and Leatherworkers respectively from patterns that can be bought from Winter Veil NPC’s. You’ll need either the Red Winter Clothes or the Green Winter Clothes, plus a pair of Winter Boots. Finished sets of these, as you might expect, command high prices on the AH during the holiday, so you can save yourself some money by collecting as many of the mats as possible and press-ganging a guild Tailor, or tipping an independent craftsman to make them. Failing that, the recipes only require 250 Tailoring and 285 Leatherworking respectively, and if you’ve got an alt with either profession, it might be more cost-effective simply to level the necessary skill rather than shell out to people making a killing off the holiday demand.

The competitive piece is the hat. For Winter Veil, these traditionally have dropped off high-level boss mobs in 5-man dungeons, and last year was no different, with the Red Winter Hat dropping off Grand Magus Telestra in the Nexus and Jedoga Shadowseeker in Ahn’kahet, and the Green Winter Hat dropping off Mage-Lord Urom in the Oculus. We assume that the hats will still be dropping off these mobs in 2009/2010, but we’ll update you in the hours after the holiday goes live if we find otherwise. For many classes, Telestra is soloable at 80, but again, if this isn’t true for you, there will be plenty of groups formed for Nexus and Ahn’kahet with the sole intent of farming hats. Somehow I doubt that Oculus will be the most popular option of the three even post-nerf.

The fruitcake itself is contained in a package you’ll receive in the hours after completing the quest to save Metzen. Toss on your new duds, choke down the fruitcake (bleh), and you’re done.

Simply Abominable

The short questline starts with Stolen Winter Veil Treats (for Alliance) or Stolen Winter Veil Treats (for Horde). These will take you to the Strange Snowman NPC at 35,72 in the Alterac Mountains, who will direct you to kill The Abominable Greench, a spawned mob in the area. Although the Greench respawns quickly, the worst part about the questline is having to tag him before someone else does, so I highly recommend grouping with other people of your faction in the area in order to get this done faster. Once you’ve killed him and looted the Stolen Treats, speak to the Snowman again, then head back to the Ironforge/Orgrimmar Winter Veil NPC’s.

Let It Snow

This is a mercifully kinder achievement than others of its ilk in What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been — most of the combinations here are fairly common. You’ll still have to hunt some of them down, of course, but none of them approach the absurdity of having to find a Dwarf rogue for Pilgrim’s Bounty.

Handful of Snowflakes are random rewards from /kissing Winter Revelers in inns. You’ll need to keep at this long enough to get the 10 handfuls you’ll need, and then hunt down the race/class combinations.

Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s (Alliance) and Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s (Horde)

You’ll need to track down a set of NPC’s for this achievement, and while it looks like the Alliance has a lot more legwork to do, in reality most of their “brothers” are in Stormwind. Track ‘em all down, use the Mistletoe you’ll get as a random gift from /kissing Winter Revelers, and you’re in business.

For Alliance:

1. Brother Nimetz: The Rebel Camp in Stranglethorn Vale.
2. Brother Anton: Nijel’s Point in Desolace.
3. Brother Karman: At 67,47 in Theramore.
4. Brother Wilhelm: At 41,66 in Goldshire.
5. All of the other brothers can be located in the Stormwind Cathedral or directly outside of it (Brother Kristof, the sole Brother outside, is at 55,54 in Crusader’s Square).

For Horde:

1. Brother Malach: Located at 55,22 in Undercity’s War Quarter.
2. Durkot Wolfbrother: Located at 40,55 in Warsong Hold (near the stables housing the wolves).
3. Brother Keltan: Located aboard the Horde gunship, Orgrim’s Hammer, that patrols the northeastern portion of Icecrown.

The Winter Veil Gourmet

All those Cooking skills you acquired during Pilgrim’s Bounty are going to come in handy here, because you’ll need to cook up three holiday recipes. The Gingerbread Cookie, Egg Nog, and Hot Apple Cider recipes are all sold by Winter Veil NPC’s in major cities, although — curiously enough — the Hot Apple Cider recipe only seems to be sold their Ironforge and Orgrimmar counterparts. I also recall my main getting mailed the Cider recipe instead of having to buy it, so you may not necessarily have to drop the money on it. As a shopping list for all three recipes, plan on buying or getting:

* 1 Ice Cold Milk: Sold by innkeepers just about everywhere.
* 2 Holiday Spirits: Sold by Winter’s Veil NPC’s.
* 1 Sparkling Apple Cider: Sold by Winter’s Veil NPC’s.
* 3 Holiday Spices: Sold by Winter’s Veil NPC’s.
* 2 Small Egg: Dropped most commonly (and conveniently) by Eversong dragonhawk mobs for Horde and moonkin mobs east of Auberdine for Alliance.

You’ll need at least 325 Cooking to do all three recipes (1 Cooking for the Gingerbread Cookie, 35 for the Egg Nog, and 325 for the Cider), so if you didn’t level yours when you had the chance during Pilgrim’s Bounty, get cracking!

He Knows If You’ve Been Naughty

Opening one of the presents beneath the Ironforge or Orgrimmar tree is quite simple — you’ll just need to wait on the presents to start spawning (which will start happening on December 25th and continue until the end of the holiday), and right-click on one to open it. They don’t respawn immediately, but they will after a few minutes, if I recall correctly.

As an aside, both the Clockwork Rocket Bot from 2007 and the Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer from 2008 went on to become Feats of Strength, so if there’s a new toy or noncombat pet offered through the gifts this year, hang onto it.

A Frosty Shake

This achievement sounds pretty straightforward, but you’ll actually need to line up three things for it: a). The Winter Veil Disguise Ki: b). A Snowball, and: c). Another willing Snowman in Dalaran.

The disguise kit is easy to get — it’s an unannounced reward from completing the aforementioned questline needed for Simply Abominable, so if you’ve done that achievement, you can expect to receive the disguise kit in the mail within the next 24 hours. Snowballs, as previously stated, can be purchased from holiday NPC’s or dropped from Hyldnir Spoils. Finding snowmen in Dalaran will be easy during the first few days of the holiday, but the number will start dwindling as time goes on, so you’re probably better off doing this achievement sooner rather than later. That said, there were a number of generous souls on my server who simply parked themselves on the bank steps as a snowman and /danced the night away to enable others to get their achievement, and — as with the people who rolled rogues of underplayed races and got them summoned to Dalaran for Pilgrim’s Bounty — I wish nothing but the happiest of fortunes upon them this holiday season.

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Achievement Guide : Hail to the Chef

By Cheats on December 11th, 2009

If you’ve leveled Cooking solely through the Pilgrim holiday, your character’s probably sitting on around 350-ish Cooking, give or take, and completing the meta is well within your grasp with some hard work and perseverance.

Grand Master Cook

You’ll need at least 350 Cooking Skill to train up the last rank, but as soon as you do, achievement — simple as that.

The Cake Is Not A Lie

For better or for worse, getting the Delicious Chocolate Cake recipe is pure RNG (and until recently a buddy couldn’t complete the meta purely because she hadn’t gotten it to drop after more than a year). It’s a random reward from any of the Outland or Northrend Cooking dailies, so you can increase the odds of getting the recipe by doing both every day and just hoping it eventually shows up.

Once you’ve learned it, you’ll need the following:

* 8 Simple Flour: Purchased from any Cooking vendor.
* 4 Ice Cold Milk: Purchased from most innkeepers and lots of food vendors across classic Azeroth.
* 4 Mild Spices: Purchased from any Cooking vendor.
* 8 Small Egg: For Alliance, the most convenient place to farm these is off the moonkin in the caves east of Auberdine (Darkshore). For Horde, the most convenient place is off the dragonhawks in Eversong (outside Silvermoon).
* 1 Flask of Port: Purchased from most bartenders or alcohol vendors — hit the closest tavern.
* 3 Mageroyal: Herbalists can get these on their own, but otherwise, just hit the auction house.

All set? Bake it up, and you’ve got your achievement.

On a time-sensitive note (as I write this on December 1st), because Small Eggs are required for the upcoming Winter’s Veil dishes Gingerbread Cookie and Egg Nog, you may want to set a few aside for yourself if you haven’t already done the Winter’s Veil meta-achievement. They also sell very well during Winter’s Veil, so you can even stock up on them to make a killing on the AH as the holiday approaches.

Kickin’ It Up a Notch

If you still need the Delicious Chocolate Cake recipe, then you should be doing The Rokk’s daily Cooking quests anyway, but if not, just make sure to hit Shattrath once a day and keep at it until you’ve done all four. Even after you’ve finished these, you may need to keep at them for both the Cake recipe and –

Captain Rumsey’s Lager

Another RNG-dependent achievement, although you can improve your odds by leveling Fishing. The Lager recipe originally dropped only from the reward bags given by the Outland fishing daily, but Blizzard later expanded it to all Cooking and Fishing dailies (Outland and Northrend). The drop rate is said to be relatively high, so be good about your dailies and you should pick it up pretty soon.

Brewing the actual Lager will require a trip to your local tavern for a Skin of Dwarven Stout and a Flagon of Mead.

Our Daily Bread

As with Outland, so with Northrend; you’ll need to hang around Dalaran long enough to complete each Dalaran Cooking daily. This should be easy enough, because you’ll almost certainly have to do more than a month’s worth of Dalaran Cooking dailies to get the awards needed to purchase Northrend recipes.

The Northrend Gourmet

In order to get this achievement done, you’re going to have to cook every recipe available in Northrend, whether they’re trainable, purchased, or — in the case of Kungaloosh — quested. Beyond reaching the requisite skill to get all the trainable recipes (which should happen as a matter of course while you’re working on Grand Master), this’ll require you to keep doing the Cooking dailies in order to get the Dalaran Cooking Awards necessary to purchase all of the recipes sold by your faction’s Dalaran Cooking vendor (located in the Horde or Alliance inns in the city). For convenience’s sake, I also hope you’ve leveled Fishing. If not, now would be the time, because many recipes you’ll need for the meta require fish, and this gets expensive quickly if you can’t get them yourself.

People often overlook Kungaloosh, which you can only get by questing in and around the Nesingwary Base Camp in Sholazar. After doing this, Grimbooze Thunderbrew will give you the opportunity to do Some Make Lemonade, Some Make Liquor. After completing this small (and fun) chain with the quest The Taste Test, you’ll be rewarded with 20 Kungaloosh of your very own but…no recipe? It turns out the actual recipe is taught to you by an NPC in Dalaran’s sewers, the Washed-Up Mage, after you’ve done the Sholazar questline. As for making the actual Kungaloosh for the achievement, the ingredients (Tundra Berries and Savory Snowplum) are sold by most Northrend innkeepers and food vendors.

Time-wise, you should count on doing a month to two months’ worth of Dalaran cooking dailies in order to get the requisite number of Awards necessary to purchase (and then make) all of the recipes. How quickly you’ll finish will depend on how frequently you get the Mustard Dogs! daily, how many extra Cooking Awards show up in your reward bag, and how many Waterlogged Recipes you get out of Dalaran fishing dailies (assuming you’re doing those as well).

Second That Emotion

Interestingly, you don’t actually have to cook these foods — you just have to eat them. However, the odds of finding them on the auction house are pretty low (at least on my server), so bet on having to cook them yourself. Finding the recipes is as easy as questing or doing instances in the locations in Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord — once you’ve got the requisite Cooking skill to learn them, they’ll show up soon.

Bad Clams: 1 Succulent Clam Meat plus 1 Mote of Shadow

The clams can be fished up just about anywhere in Northrend; Motes of Shadow are drops off several Outland mobs, but the easiest to farm are probably Voidshriekers in Netherstorm. However, with Primal Shadow no longer required for endgame crafting recipes, odds are good that Motes on the AH are fairly cheap if you don’t want to make a special trip.

Haunted Herring: 1 Fangtooth Herring plus 1 Essence of Undeath

The Herring can be fished up in both Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord, although it’s generally easiest to hit up the Fjord (there are pools of them all over the inland waters). Essence of Undeath is dropped by mobs in Stratholme, Scholomance, and all over the Eastern Plaguelands, but it’s usually easiest to get it off the AH.

Last Week’s Mammoth: 1 Chunk o’ Mammoth

If you can’t find a mammoth in Northrend, I don’t know what to tell you.

Tasty Cupcake: 2 Simple Flour plus 1 Northern Egg

Simple Flour can be purchased from any Cooking vendor. Northern Eggs can be dropped by most bird mobs in Northrend, although the best rates (approximately 1 in 4) appear to be off Stormcrest Hatchlings in Storm Peaks, Carrion Hunters in Ymirheim (Icecrown), Vargul Plaguetalons in western Zul’drak, and Scourgebeak Fleshrippers in The Fleshwerks (Icecrown).

Once you’ve got all the materials, cook ‘em up, snarf ‘em down, and voila — achievement!

Dinner Impossible

This was added before the introduction of Isle of Conquest, so you’re only required to head to 5 of the now 6 existing battlegrounds. Because Feasts are consumed each time you drop one, you’ll need to cook 5 of these up, which will require:

* 5 Chunk of Mammoth: You can get these off any mammoth mob in Northrend. Where are they? Throw a rock and hit one.
* 5 Shoveltusk Flank: Farm any Shoveltusk mobs in Howling Fjord; the Flanks are around a 1 in 2 drop rate.
* 5 Worm Meat: The Jormungar mobs in Storm Peaks have the best drop rate, and if you’re making a bunch of Great Feasts all in one go, you can save a lot of time by farming both mammoth and worm meat in the Sons of Hodir questing area between Brunnhildar Village and Dun Niffelem.
* 10 Chilled Meat: Personally, I’ve always had the best luck farming gorillas in Sholazar for these.

All set? Cook up 5 Great Feasts, and start queuing for battlegrounds. Once you’re inside one, drop a Feast, and you’re all set. You don’t actually have to participate in the battleground to get credit for the achievement (although in places like Warsong Gulch it’s nice not to leave your team short-handed by immediately leaving the BG after you’ve dumped a Feast). Repeat until you’ve got them all covered.

Critter Gitter

This is an absurdly fun achievement, if only for the screenshot potential, but first things first. You’ll need at least 10 Critter Bites, which are made with 2 Chilled Meat and 1 Northern Spices per recipe. Luckily, each recipe gives you 4 Bites, so you’ll only need to collect 6 Chilled Meat and 3 Spices. Cook up the Bites, and then head wherever you think you’ll get the funniest screenshot from collecting 10 critters. The most convenient way to do this is definitely gathering your own flock of penguins from the plentiful supply of birds located off the Northrend coasts, but if you’re really lazy, there’s typically one such flock northwest of the Argent Tournament grounds, and others are located off the southwestern coast of Howling Fjord, no more than 5 seconds’ flight from the Kaskala flight path.

Sous Chef

To be frank, the achievements requiring you to learn a specific number of Cooking recipes are markedly easier (or at least cheaper) for Alliance than they are for Horde, because most of the buyable recipes are sold by Alliance-friendly vendors. At least on my realm, this translates to Alliance selling these recipes at enormous markups on the neutral AH. However, the 100-recipe Sous Chef should still be fairly easy for players of both factions; you’ll mostly have to worry about the Horde’s apparent distaste for Cooking if you’re going for the much harder Chef de Cuisine.

Fortunately, the achievement is also a little easier than it used to be, assuming you have all five recipes from the Pilgrim’s Bounty holiday (although you definitely don’t need them, even for Chef de Cuisine), so getting to 100 is pretty straightforward assuming you’re doing all of the other achievements for the meta:

* Level Cooking to Grand Master and learn all of the trainable recipes.
* Once you reach Outland, make sure you’re picking up all of your faction’s purchasable recipes (e.g. the smaller recipes typically sold by city Cooking or Fishing vendors, etc.). You’ll need to do this anyway for The Outland Gourmet (see below).
* Make sure you quest/instance enough in Howling Fjord and the Borean Tundra to get all four “mood” recipes listed above.
* Assuming you’ve done these, you should hit 100 Cooking Recipes either before or while buying Dalaran recipes with Dalaran Cooking Awards without having to buy opposite-faction recipes.

This is a list of all the buyable recipes in the game. While doing Chef de Cuisine (the kicked-up version of Sous Chef), the thing that helped me the most was going to the auction house and searching for any Cooking recipes I hadn’t yet done. This gave me a handy list of recipes that I still needed, which I then checked against their Wowhead listings to see which vendors sold them, so I could get them at cost rather than (ahem) “retail.”

The Outland Gourmet

See that list of buyable recipes above? You’re going to have to make sure you’ve got all of the Outland-purchased ones, in addition to the following:

* Delicious Chocolate Cake: Drops from Outland or Northrend Cooking dailies.
* Stormchops: Drops from Outland or Northrend Cooking dailies.
* Sporeling Snack: You’ll have to purchase this from the Sporeggar quartermaster in western Zangarmarsh for 2 Glowcaps (the orange-y mushrooms you’ll see all over the place).
* Clam Bar: This is another Sporeggar recipe, but it’ll run you 1 Glowcap rather than 2.
* Kibler’s Bits: Drops from Outland Cooking dailies.
* Skullfish Soup: Drops from Outland Cooking dailies (but only the Barrel of Fish reward).
* Spicy Hot Talbuk: Drops from Outland Cooking dailies (but only the Crate of Meat reward).

So, as with previous achievements, this one pretty much boils down “Keep doing your Fishing and Cooking dailies,” in addition to running around Outland vendors and picking up any recipes you don’t have yet. Buy ‘em, learn ‘em, cook ‘em — and congratulations on your new Chef title!

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Frozen Halls 5-man dungeon walkthrough:Patch 3.3

By Cheats on December 9th, 2009

The new 5-man dungeon complex in patch 3.3, The Frozen Halls, has three instances:

* The Forge of Souls
* Pit of Saron
* Halls of Reflection

The Pit of Saron and the Halls of Reflection require attunement. In this walkthrough we’ll guide you along each quest you need to do in order to be attuned properly.

Please note that this information is based off the PTR version of patch 3.3. Things may have changed slightly since its live release.
Alliance / Horde Difference

The objectives and rewards for the Alliance and Horde quest chains are exactly the same. The only difference is that Horde players talk to Sylvanas Windrunner. You can read both versions of the guide:
Alliance Walkthrough

Step 1: Get the quest “Inside the Frozen Citadel”

This quest begins the attunement quest chain. You can obtain this quest by talking to Apprentice Nelphi who walks around Dalaran, frequently making stops at the various banks. This quest is technically optional; it’s just a breadcrumb quest to lead you to the dungeons. But, it counts towards various quest totals, so you might as well do it.

Step 2: Go and talk to Jaina Proudmoore in the Forge of Souls

Jaina is right inside the Forge of Souls. Talk with her, and you’ll get the next quest “Echoes of Tortured Souls.”

Step 3: Clear The Forge of Souls

In particular, you’ll need to kill both Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls.

Step 4: Turn the quest into Jaina, get the next one.

Jaina and friends should appear and open up a portal to the Pit of Saron. Complete the quest and grab the next one in the line, aptly called “The Pit of Saron.”

After you turn in “Echoes of Tortured Souls” you are attuned to the Pit of Saron.

Step 5: Go into the Pit of Saron

Enter the portal (or enter the instance later on) and talk to Jaina to turn in the quest. She’ll then give you the next quest in the chain “The Path to the Citadel.”

Step 6: Free 15 Alliance Slaves, clear the Pit of Saron.

As you clear the quarry in the Pit of Saron you’ll come across lots of bad guys with slaves attached to them. Just kill the bad guys, and the slaves will be freed. You’ll also need to kill Forgemaster Garfrost, who is the first boss in the Pit of Saron.

Step 7: Talk to Jaina

After you defeat Ick and Krick you’ll see Jaina nearby ready to talk to you again. Turn the quest in, she’ll now give you the quest “Deliverance from the Pit” where you have to go and kill the final boss of the Pit of Saron, Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Step 8: Kill Tyrannus

Clear the rest of the instance and kill Tyrannus. Once he’s dead you can turn the quest into Jaina and get the next quest in the chain called “Frostmourne.”

After you turn in “Deliverance from the Pit” you are now attuned to the Halls of Reflection.

Step 9: Meet Jaina in the Halls of Reflection

Even though you’re attuned to all the instances, you’ll want to finish up the quest chain, since it gives a couple Emblems of Frost. Enter through the gate to the Halls of Reflection (or go into the instance via whatever means you go), and talk to Jaina again. Start the event.

Step 10: Defeat Marwyn

The Halls of Reflection event requires you to defeat several waves of trash, and the bosses Falric and Marwyn. Once you’ve defeated Marywn you’ll automatically be given the one time quest “Wrath of the Lich King.”

Step 11: Talk to Jaina, escape the Lich King

Go up and talk to Jaina and escape the Lich King. This requires you to complete the rest of the Halls of Reflection instance.

Turn in the quest to Jaina when you’re done, and that’s all she wrote.
Horde Walkthrough

Step 1: Get the quest “Inside the Frozen Citadel”

This quest begins the attunement quest chain. You can obtain this quest by talking to Dark Ranger Vorel who walks around Dalaran. This quest is technically optional; it’s just a breadcrumb quest to lead you to the dungeons. But, it counts towards various quest totals, so you might as well do it.

Step 2: Go and talk to Sylvanas Windrunner in the Forge of Souls

Sylvanas is right inside the Forge of Souls. Talk with her, and you’ll get the next quest “Echoes of Tortured Souls.”

Step 3: Clear The Forge of Souls

In particular, you’ll need to kill both Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls.

Step 4: Turn the quest into Sylvanas, get the next one.

Sylvanas and friends should appear and open up a portal to the Pit of Saron. Complete the quest and grab the next one in the line, aptly called “The Pit of Saron.”

After you turn in “Echoes of Tortured Souls” you are attuned to the Pit of Saron.

Step 5: Go into the Pit of Saron

Enter the portal (or enter the instance later on) and talk to Sylvanas to turn in the quest. She’ll then give you the next quest in the chain “The Path to the Citadel.”

Step 6: Free 15 Horde Slaves, clear the Pit of Saron.

As you clear the quarry in the Pit of Saron you’ll come across lots of bad guys with slaves attached to them. Just kill the bad guys, and the slaves will be freed. You’ll also need to kill Forgemaster Garfrost, who is the first boss in the Pit of Saron.

Step 7: Talk to Sylvanas

After you defeat Ick and Krick you’ll see Sylvanas nearby ready to talk to you again. Turn the quest in, she’ll now give you the quest “Deliverance from the Pit” where you have to go and kill the final boss of the Pit of Saron, Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Step 8: Kill Tyrannus

Clear the rest of the instance and kill Tyrannus. Once he’s dead you can turn the quest into Sylvanas and get the next quest in the chain called “Frostmourne.”

After you turn in “Deliverance from the Pit” you are now attuned to the Halls of Reflection.

Step 9: Meet Sylvanas in the Halls of Reflection

Even though you’re attuned to all the instances, you’ll want to finish up the quest chain, since it gives a couple Emblems of Frost. Enter through the gate to the Halls of Reflection (or go into the instance via whatever means you go), and talk to Sylvanas again. Start the event.

Step 10: Defeat Marwyn

The Halls of Reflection event requires you to defeat several waves of trash, and the bosses Falric and Marwyn. Once you’ve defeated Marywn you’ll automatically be given the one time quest “Wrath of the Lich King.”

Step 11: Talk to Sylvanas, escape the Lich King

Go up and talk to Sylvanas and escape the Lich King. This requires you to complete the rest of the Halls of Reflection instance.

Turn in the quest to Sylvanas when you’re done, and that’s all she wrote.

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