Ulduar Achievements

A couple of weeks ago, Ashielle decided to put together some 25 man Ulduar achievement runs. I missed out due to other engagements, but was able to make it this last Friday and Sunday.

So on Friday, we started with a fresh instance, and because they had done Orbituary the week before, we instead tried for Dwarfageddon and Shutout. I already had Shutout, but it was nice to get Dwarfageddon. We then went to Razorscale for one of the more tedious achievements, Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare. We got 18 dwarves on our first run through and quickly got the other 7 on our second try with the kill.

So we went on to XT-002 and got Must Deconstruct Faster, Nerf Gravity Bombs (already had), and Nerf Engineering (already had). We then went to Kologarn and after a few attempts, got With Open Arms. That was certainly interesting since you can't kill his hand, you can't break out more than 3 or 4 groups when he picks them up and it turns into a DPS race against those that die in the hand.

We then back-tracked a bit to the Iron Council and did the hardest of the three kill modes (and the only one I still needed): I Choose You, Steelbreaker. And with that awesome run done, we called it for the night.

We gathered up late Sunday after everyone had celebrated Father's Day and started on Auriaya. We quickly got Crazy Cat Lady after an accidental pull/wipe and then we went over to Hodir. After a few attempts with people learning the fight (yes, we've been doing this with people who have never seen Ulduar), we got I Could Say that This Cache Was Rare and I put out 18,000 DPS for the fight. Woo.

Last up for the night were some attempts at Thorim. On our first one, we got Siffed since that one is pretty easy to accomplish. Beating him with Sif down is another thing. But on our last attempt of the night, past our scheduled quit time, we got Lose Your Illusion. So another hard mode down. And not only that, we had our little mind controlled Dark Rune Warbringer, we all got Who Needs Bloodlust?

I'm looking forward to the 25 man run again this weekend as we'll get Orbituary (another 40 points as I have not done Flame Leviathan with any towers up) and hopefully the Ignis speed kill (skipped since they did it the week prior). Then we'll move on and hopefully get to Freya and maybe (gasp), the hardest of them all, Firefighter...

So I'm a happy gnome sitting on 8820 achievement points. I really need to get back into the BG's and get some more points there, but I've just been taking a break from Warcraft so no BG's for me as of now. Ashielle is also putting together a 10 man Ulduar group with people that have the drakes, so we'll be going for the other achievements that aren't part of the meta which makes me happy too.

Lastly, it's the Midsummer Fire Festival right now, so I'm working on getting another pet, the Frost Chip. Unfortunately, you only have one shot at him per day, so I will be really upset if he doesn't drop from the bag in the 14 attempts I have at him over the next two weeks. Yesterday, in my first bag though, I got the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune which is really cool, but ultimately, just takes up another spot in my bank.

New Mounts?

Last night, someone in guild chat mistakenly thought that I had over 100 mounts (I have over 100 pets, not mounts). I lamented the fact that reaching 100 mounts is a pretty tough feat as I don't have any of the PvP mounts nor any of the AQ40 mounts. Then I received an interesting whisper - right when you enter AQ40, there are 4 giant guys sitting there. Kill 3 of the 4 of them, run out, and they reset. They all have a pretty high drop rate for three of the four resonating crystals and a low drop rate for the red crystal.

Of course, we had so much fun fighting them, we killed all four along with the patrol that came along. So we then went on and found two more pats down the stairs which we killed and another set of four of those giant guys. So we killed them too. From those, I was able to get a Blue Qiraji Resonating Crystal and a Green Qiraji Resonating Crystal. So I was pretty happy with the run. We of course tried to kill the boss, just the three of us, but had many failed attempts (his mind control is devastating).

So we were just about to leave when the first five enemies respawned - so we killed them, but no more crystals dropped. In the end, I got blue and green while Weser got blue and Xenoxa passed on them all. Thanks guys! They look especially cool when they jump. Unfortunately, their use is restricted to AQ40 only :(

On another note, they reset the fire festival fires yesterday so I was able to quickly zoom around Northrend and Outland collecting the burning blossoms and was able to get enough for the last part of my midsummer fire festival set, dance around the pole, and receive my new title, Flame Warden Tiddlywinks.

Also last night, I was able to get a huge upgrade to my belt. On our Friday night raids of Ulduar 25, we put all of the Runed Orbs into the raid bank. When we have enough, we pass them out to be made into belts. As we had stocked up over 18 orbs, we handed them out last week and only three people had the materials ready to go to have the belt crafted; me, Jizo, and Hemnetcher. So the orbs were passed out and I am now the proud owner of a Sash of Ancient Power. It works perfectly with my set as it has the same amount of hit as my old belt, and though it has 7 less spellpower, it comes with two gem sockets, so it more than makes up for that loss. Best in slot, woohoo!

Well I'll Be...

I never thought I'd see the day, but there I was, in Arathi Basin with my pocket healer (who didn't stay in my pocket like I trained her...), Xenoxa, and we were just going back and forth with the horde. 2 bases to 2. 1 to 1. 3 to 2. 2 to 3. At one point we had 4 to their 1, but quickly lost that advantage. But as we neared the end, the horde hit 1800 resources about 1 minute before we took back a third node and we hit 1800 not soon thereafter. Then it was a race to the finish. The horde had 2 minutes, 30 seconds until they won, but when we capped and held that third base, the timer switched over. We knew it would be close, at one point, Xenoxa pointed out it'd be 1980 to 2000. What a let down that would be.

But in the end...1990 to 2000! We won! And I got an achievement I never thought I'd see: We Had it All Along *cough*. And not only that, I had picked up the daily battleground quest two days earlier for Arathi Basin, so I just went and turned it in and received Call to Arms!. And with those two achievements, I broke the 6,800 point barrier. Not long now until 7,000!

Of course, the Summer Fire Festival isn't helping much. I finished my fires and juggled my torches, but I can't get the last achievement which requires a full set of Fire Festival gear. I currently sit at 45 blossoms and can only get 10 per day. There's 12 days left, leaving me just 165 blossoms, 35 short of the sandals I need. Hopefully Blizzard will fix this soon so as to not penalize those of us who did the fire festival fires last year. I also can't summon Ahune so I can't get my pet either...

Midsummer Fire Festival

This Sunday, the fire festival returns to Azeroth. Last year, I spent a whole day visiting every elder and collecting all the coins I could. Well, apparently I missed an elder. Somehow I missed the elder in Ashenvale for the Flame Warden of Kalimdor achievement. So I just have to visit the one elder in order to achieve The Fires of Azeroth. Additionally, I will then have to dance around a pole wearing the set that I purchased during last year's event. After that, I have to juggle a torch for a mere 40 seconds and I will be the Flame Warden!

After that, all that will be left is to kill Ahune a few dozen times in order to get my Scorched Stone.

Fire Festival!

Today the Midsummer Fire Festival began in Azeroth. There were some new quests to do involving torch tossing and brazier lighting. After doing those, I set out to gather Burning Blossoms. After trekking through the Outlands, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, I managed to visit each and EVERY flame. That includes the flames in Undercity, Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, and Silvermoon. Total possible tickets for an Alliance member after day 1? 617 blossoms.

Immediately went and spent 350 of those blossoms on my latest pet, the Spirit of Summer! (I now sit at 67 pets, #34 on the top 50 single player collections). I attempted to get the new pet that Ahune, the Frost Lord drops, but we only attempted him on regular, not heroic, so I had no shot at the latest pet. He also refused to drop the new enchant I want.

On a side note, while finding flames in Desolace, I hooked up with the Super-Seller 680 to buy the Lean Wolf Flank Recipe. I also stopped in RFD while I was in horde territory and learned the recipe for Goldthorn Tea. That now lands me at 113/115 cooking recipes (98%). Just one more that is easily attainable, then the only epic cooking recipe available...

A Reversal

I previously stated that I couldn't find much to do in-game, that all has changed since I just realized the Midsummer Fire Festival returns tomorrow. With the festival, I have two pets I need to try and obtain. However, it appears that the Spirit of Summer quest line is no longer available. But I have heard rumors that he can still be purchased for 350 Burning Blossoms. So I've got some work to do. There's also a new pet this year - a Scorchling. It's probably a rare drop, but five people in your party can carry the quest into the instance, so hopefully it's a one in five drop rate - but if not, I'll be there farming this thing as much as possible!

So starting tomorrow I have some work to do. Should be fun to see how many blossoms I can collect. According to Wowhead, I may be able to get 350 in one year, otherwise I will try and get as many as possible and bank them until next year.