Draenor Pathfinder: EARN Your Happy Ending!

Blizzard have, depending on your view, compromised or caved in to the overwhelming voices of the playerbase and implemented a new achievement in 6.2 that awards a flying mount. In a later small patch, 6.2.whatever, Blizzard will enable those with this achievement, called Draenor Pathfinder, the ability to fly! Even in Tanaan!

What does this achievement comprise?

• Explore Draenor which itself is a meta-achievement, comprising of Explore Frostfire Ridge, Explore Gorgrond, Explore Spires of Arak, Explore Shadowmoon Valley, Explore Talador and Explore Nagrand. Easy enough to do, most of the work may well have been done via levelling.
• Collecting 100 treasures of Draenor. There’s an addon called Handy Notes which can help with this, by putting the locations of these treasures on your map! There’s an achievement for collecting 200 treasures of Draenor, you can use this achievement to track your progress to 100!
• Loremaster of Draenor, another meta-achievement, this one comprising of the achievements for completing zone storylines, namely Nagrandeur, Between Arak and a Hard Place, Don’t Let the Tala-door Hit You on the Way Out, Putting the Gore in Gorgrond, and either You’ll Get Caught Up in the… Frostfire! OR As I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Moon.
• Securing Draenor, which sees you complete all the Apexis daily quests. You don’t have to fully rely on luck here, as you can buy Scouting Missives in your garrison for 200 resources, and completing the Apexis daily through these counts towards the achievement. Sadly, you can’t purchase missives for the group quests, so you need to go to your table.
• Get your reputation to Revered (not even Exalted!) with 3 reputation groups, Saberstalkers, Order of the Awakened, Hand of the Prophet (if Alliance) or Vol’jin’s Headhunters (if Horde).

Saberstalkers

You gain rep through defeating elite mobs in an area of Tanaan Jungle called Fang’rila. Normal mobs reward 30 rep, and rare ones 600. There’s a weekly quest for 3,500 reputation, requiring you to defeat 3 bosses, and a daily quest for 1,000 reputation, which is a fetch quest. There’s also a garrison mission that rewards a 1000 rep item. This item (Medallion of the Legion) boosts reputation with ALL Draenor factions!

Order of the Awakened

As well as the aforementioned medallion, there’s a daily fetch quest for 1,500 reputation, as well as a one-time quest for another 1,500 rep. It’s a slower grind, requiring about 20-30 days, but the quest itself seems relatively quick if you’re lucky.

Hand of the Prophet/Vol’jin’s Headhunters

You get about 1,250 rep each day through 4 quests. 1 of these is a daily similar to the Apexis dailies in your garrison. You go to a table in Lion’s Watch/Vol’mar to pick 1 of the 2 quests.

The second quest is Pressing the Attack, where you have to complete 2 Tanaan bonus objectives. The third quest is a simple fetch quest, and the fourth, which isn’t guaranteed to be active, is a “kill 20/25 baddies” deal.

You also get reputation through the continuing Garrison Campaign, as well as building your base in Tanaan and an introductory exploration quest.

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Lots to do! Luckily, for the non-rep achievements, you can make a start NOW! Get your ass out the garrison, and stop saying there’s nothing for you to do, ’cause now you have a GOAL! Something to WORK towards!

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There’s Always Something To Do

Well, that’s a hell of a lot of stuff to collect. Still, I wanna do it before 6.0 so I guess I still have another couple years or so before that lands, right?

Ahahaha oh god don’t let that be true.

Amusingly, it turns out I have this achievement, only on my paladin (I went around soloing them all for laughs) and not the warlock. Progenitus is a BITCH though. Keeps knocking me off the top of the mountain because awareness of my surroundings is not a speciality of mine.

CURSE THAT STEELHORN. I camp and farm for hours on Raenah to kill him. The second I log off, I bet he spawns going “lol stupid warlock” before everyone nukes him down for coins and charms.

I really don’t see me getting the Shado-Pan Monastery Gold achievement any time soon, but apparently in 6.0 they’re removing that from the meta here, so that’s probably good for me!

Another meta with a cool title attached to it. Not relishing the roach-squashing one, though I suppose now that everyone’s on the Timeless Isle, the squashing’ll be a lot easier to get done.

So yes, despite having a feeling of “I dunno what to do now” for about 10 minutes, it turns out there’s plenty for me to do, and there always will be. People saying they have nothing to do, have you done everything? Or are you just not interested in doing it? I doubt I’ll ever be interested in doing PVP, so that avenue of activity is closed off to me for now.

Hang on. Wise Mari? Didn’t we kill him in a dungeon? Or is he just a spirit? Did we just beat the corruption out him? When he slumped to the floor in a heap of corpse, was he just having a nap?

So many unanswered questions! Time to level some more battle pets!

Quick and Dirty Guide: Naxxramas and Onyxia

Ahh, Naxxramas. Formerly a level 60 raid, it was redesigned (ish) for Wrath of the Lich King. It’s also pretty easy to solo, and a few bosses drop battle pets for the Raiding with Leashes achievement!

The Arachnid Quarter

Anub’Rekhan: There is literally nothing threatening about this boss. Burn him down and laugh.

Grand Widow Faerlina: Burn her as well. For the achievement Momma Said Knock You Out, don’t kill her adds. Just focus on her. You might want to unequip your legendary cloak.

Maexxna: You can do this in two ways. First way, use Grimoire of Sacrifice, and  burn her down. She hits fairly hard, so be warned. Second way, you can use your Voidlord to tank, but she’ll use Web Wrap on you, which is a 60 second stun. You can get your pet to break the web though. Burn her down, but be wary of her Frenzy ability, she’ll start doing some heavy damage.

For the Arachnophobia achievement, you need to kill Maexxna within 20 minutes of having killed Anub’Rekhan. Simples. Drops the Giant Bone Spider pet.

The Plague Quarter

Noth the Plaguebringer: Pet tank, you spank. Delightfully simple.

Heigan the Unclean: Tank and spank again. Has an ability called Spell Disruption that triples your cast time. Apparently can be avoided by staying 20-30 yards away from him. You can try and do the dance to avoid the poison damage but frankly it’s not necessary. To get the The Safety Dance achievement, don’t die. Pets don’t count.

Loatheb: Yawn. Tank and spank. Drops the Fungal Abomination pet. For the Spore Loser achievement, don’t kill any of the spores he summons.

The Military Quarter

Instructor Razuvious: This guy hits ludicrously hard compared to the other bosses here. Still a tank and spank, but at low gear levels, watch out for your/your demon’s health levels. You can kill his 2 adds if you like, it makes little difference.

Gothik the Harvester: Attack him while he’s on the wall. He summons mobs, you kill them. Their spirits go over to the other side of the room. Kill adds, kill adds, kill adds, then the gate will open. AoE all the ghosties, kill adds, kill adds. Yawn. When Gothik himself teleports in, nuke him down.

The Four Horsemen: Easy. Nuke ’em. You wanna try for the achievement though? It’s called And They Would All Go Down Together, and as the name suggests, you need to kill them all within 15 seconds of each-other. This is easier than it sounds, believe it or not. 2 of the horsemen run to you, the other two stay where they are and DPS you from afar. Get them each down to about 100-150k health, then stand in-between the two ranged bosses. Rain of Fire the two melee ones, and nuke the two ranged ones. Shadowburn when you can.

The Construct Quarter

Patchwerk: He can be reasonably difficult! Especially if you’re undergeared. It’s a DPS race, this fight, and you need to have your Voidlord tank him. Nuke the bastard, and hope you’re still standing when the dust settles. Naturally a lot harder on 25 man, as his health pool is larger, and he hits harder. Your warlock self-healing will do you wonders. For Make Quick Werk Of Him, kill him in under 3 minutes.

Grobbulus: Scarcely a boss. Tank and spank and move the fuck along. Next!

Gluth: Relatively simple. Tank and spank again, but he periodically summons adds that heal him if they get to him. Whaddyagonnado? Have your demon tank him at the far side of the room, while you stand where the zombies spawn. They hit for nothing practically so ignore them while you DPS the boss. After a short time, their health will drop dramatically, and they make a beeline for the boss. Nuke it now! On 25 man, each zombie that reached Gluth heals him for 8%. You can outDPS the healing at higher gear levels. Drops the Stitched Pup pet, which is weirdly adorable.

Thaddius: You need to kill the two adds before you can kill Thaddius. They need to die within a few seconds of each-other too. Dismiss your pet, jump over to Thaddius (use a speed boost if you need to), resummon your pet (Flames of Xoroth is you have the embers) then tank & spank. By virtue of doing this alone, you’ll get the Shocking! achievement.

Frostwyrm Lair

Sapphiron: Tank and spank, yawn. He sometimes uses Icebolt, which puts you in a block of ice for a short time, and he uses this regardless of whether you are solo, or with your pet. It’s really of no concern, even on 25 man. You’ll automatically get the achievement The Hundred Club unless for some reason you’re wearing gear that gives you a frost resist of 100 or more.

Why are you wearing frost resist gear? Stop that.

Kel’Thuzad: Has an achievement tied to the first phase called Just Can’t Get Enough which requires you to kill 18 abominations. It’s easy, just AOE them down along with anything else around them. This is another of those fights that’s trivial WITHOUT your voidlord. Use Grimoire of Sacrifice, and he’ll never use Frost Blast on you (stuns you and deals 26% of your maximum health every second for 4 seconds, so yes an instant death), nor will he mind control you and force you to nuke your pet then reset. Watch your health.

You CAN use a pet if you like, but make sure you stay top of Kelly’s threat list, else boom, you’re most likely dead. This means turn off your pet’s taunt. TURN IT OFF.

Oh look, another retuning of a level 60 raid! Onyxia drops the much coveted Reins of the Onyxian Drake, and a 22 slot bag if you’re itching for space. Only one boss in here, so let’s get straight to…

Onyxia

Easy stuff as a warlock. Use your voidlord to tank, as per usual. Once she drops below 65%, she’ll take to the skies! At a high gear level, you can ignore literally everything and carry on nuking the crap out of her. She’ll fly off, immediately come down and then die. She won’t drop below 1hp until she lands.

At a low gear level? Keep focused on Onyxia herself, and use Rain of Fire centered on you to deal with the adds. You’ll be absolutely SWIMMING in embers here, so keeping healed is not a problem, though if it is, feel free to use Fire & Brimstone to nuke them all down. Be very careful when you see the message that she’s taking a deep breath; try and avoid the fire that she breathes ’cause it does a lot of damage.

Once she drops to 40%, she’ll land again, and fire off a raid-wide fear (though as you’re the only one here…). She does this periodically, but this is the point where you blow your cooldowns and smash her to pieces.

Achievements? We have a few!

More Dots!: Kill her in less than 5 minutes. Simple.
She Deep Breaths More: Avoid taking damage from Deep Breath. You need to know where she is when she takes off, so you can easily position yourself in such a way that her attack won’t hit you.
Many Whelps! Handle It!: A toughie, actually. Tank her near the entrance to the room. Once she takes off, run down one of the smaller tunnels. You’ll definitely need to use a speed boost, so Burning Rush or some sort of Engineering item I guess. Pretty hard to do alone, bring a friend along to make it easier if you like. They can run down the other passage and grab some little dragons too.

 

Well, those were two simple ones. Next time, I’ll cover the Obsidian and Ruby sanctums, the Vault of Arrchavon, the Eye of Eternity, and Trial of the Crusader. Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel are fairly hefty with a metric fuckton of achievements, so I will cover those in a third (and potentially fourth?) entry!

Have a panda action shot! Whoosh!