Breakfast Topic: The Midsummer Fire Festival so far
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jun 22nd 2008 at 8:00AM
So by now, hopefully a lot of you have had time to check out some of the new stuff that's shown up at the Midsummer Fire Festival this year. With the help of our walkthroughs, it's a piece of cake to get right into the thick of things.
My impressions so far have been pretty favorable. I very much enjoyed being a crab (and asking everybody for "maybe little pinch"), and while it took me a while to master Torch Catching (It became easier once I turned spell effects up to high so I could see the shadow of the torch on the ground), I've gotten pretty good at that already. If there's one thing I'd complain about a little, it's probably the fact everything seems a bit expensive. With 3 level 70s and a couple level 60+ types who might like Braziers, Robes, and Sandals, it'll be a bit of a pain to get all the stuff for them, and it should take quite a few hours to desecrate or honor enough fires for all that. Still, at least you get good gold for all that desecrating, so it's not a complete waste.
How's your experience been so far? Is Torch Catching a challenge? Are you a thief yet? What about Lord Ahune, have you seen him fall yet? Share your experiences in the comments.
Keep watching WoW Insider while you're at it. We're hard at work writing more guides that will tell you everything you need to know about Lord Ahune and the rest of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and they should appear on the site today and tomorrow.
The Midsummer Fire Festival is upon us! Check out WoW Insider's complete quest guide to collect those Burning Blossoms as well as our guide on how to spend them. Also, don't forget to eyeball our screenshot gallery of Midsummer events. Finally, find out how to kill Lord Ahune, and check out our break down of his loot table.Filed under: Items, Events, Breakfast Topics, Quests, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Slappz Jun 22nd 2008 8:20AM
Overall its been a lot of fun so far. I have managed get all the honor/desecrate quests and the steal the flame quest done. The torch tossing quest is fun.
The torch catching quest was poorly thought out by blizzard IMO. On an oceanic server it is just blind luck whether you catch the torch due to latency. My latency is 250-300 which is great for an Oceanic server. Basically i can be in the same relative position to the torch and catch it 9 times out of 10. But unfortunately the quest requires 10/10. So it means repeating it about 40 times and hoping to get a lucky run. On the other hand I saw a US based player complete it first go. I am not looking forwards to 2 weeks of this dodgy quest.
Three solutions would be to enlarge the catching area. Make the catching area larger with higher latency or GIVE US AN OCEANIC SERVER BASED IN OCEANIA!!!
So my Midsummer Festival score : 9 out of 10.....oops thats a fail isnt it ;-)
Oddity Jun 22nd 2008 8:29AM
me and some guildies ran around the Old world and desecrated all the fires.. it was a lot of fun and i got my brazier on the first day (im kinda hoping it was a server first:D). in my opinion its a fun event
Lesley Jun 22nd 2008 8:29AM
I spent most of yesterday doing the festival quests and hunts. i am already a Thief (what rogue could not be?) and have my dress. i have 400+ blossoms leftover and am waiting to decide between getting the shoes, or maybe the fireball pet. The draenei dancer should have a lot of "imaginary girlfriend" jokes popping up soon.
If you're going to do the fire theiving quests, though, do it early in the morning server-time. The folks in the opposing cities were a LOT less agressive and i actually had horde help finding a bonfire. My guildies who did it in the evening were facing player blockades and even ambushes (people hiding in houses, waiting to gank Alliance who walk by).
i've really loved the changes to this festival, and am looking forward to seeing how they changed the July 4th fireworks display.
Amethyst Jun 22nd 2008 8:32AM
Been running all over the place to honour or desecrate the fires which has been quite fun. Torch catching is an absolute nightmare for me though because my laptop lags badly so all the settings have to be turned down to their lowest, meaning I can't see the shadow and have to guess :( Needless to say I haven't passed that one yet!
Also desperate to get a group together to down Ahune in the hope of adding a Scorchling pet to my collection but being level 60 it doesn't look very promising! Will just have to be happy with my Spirit of Summer for now and wait until next year.
Nesta Jun 22nd 2008 8:46AM
I hate torch throwing and torch catching. At first I hated torch catching more because for some reason the shadows didn't show up in Org half the time, but it was pretty easy when I tried it in Silvermoon. Torch throwing is still a pain in my ass though, I hate it.
I plan on going around to the various bonfires later tonight, I'm doing all of this on my level 58 Warlock since I want her to have the cool robe and stuff - so I'm not sure if I'll be able to become a thief or even desecrate some of the other alliance torches.
As an aside, the buffs are really, really nice for my leveling.
Lys Jun 22nd 2008 9:00AM
So...over at http://www.wowwiki.com/Quest:Inform_the_Elder you need to be 66 to be able to 'Inform the Elder' to start getting the daily to kill whatever comes out of the stone at your level bracket.
So what was the point of putting in stones at levels 22, 32, 43, 51, and 60 if you need to be high enough you'll automatically be on the level 67 version of the daily?
skajake Jun 22nd 2008 9:18AM
This ring any bells?
http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/7376328469.htm
SpaceDog Jun 22nd 2008 12:50PM
You can't really decide that you want all the stuff on 5 characters then complain that it requires too much time. :D
I quite like the new stuff. I got the brazier on my hunter (he already has the pauldrons from a few years back), the dress, shows and pauldrons for my pally and I want to get the pet for my mage.
I made hundreds of gold on my hunter doing the fires and my pally, who was level 65, has made about 3/4 of a level and a decent amount of gold on her world(s) tour. :)
voit starr Jun 23rd 2008 11:37PM
woot :P Ahune dropped me a nice deathfrost enchant.
also oceanic sever (nagrand) we have a huge issue trying to catch those damn torches
Nuok Jun 22nd 2008 7:22PM
The new boss is by far the funest 5 man boss in the game, i did it like 5 times on normal and did the heroic too. I really hope he's left in the game.
Rob Jun 22nd 2008 9:56AM
I started out Saturday honoring and desecrating all the flames in the Eastern Kingdoms. Being alliance I was killed most horribly in Brill. I could have killed the 70 mage but he did that ice immune thing and the 70 druid finished me off. I really wanted the Brazier of Dancing Flames and it was just as fun as I imagined.
Zeldaguard Jun 22nd 2008 10:41AM
I had a great time yesterday honoring and desecrating flames! It actually took me almost all of yesterday, but I have either honored or desecrated EVERY flame in the entire game (still need to do the capitols and I think maybe the ones in STV). I made somewhere between 500-600 gold! =-O Anyway, it has been a lot of fun so far especially because you can go to all the flames w/ a friend. Still haven't downed Ahune cuz I had a crappy PuG group Sat. morning, but I'll fix that today. :)
Elystus Jun 22nd 2008 10:54AM
Well, my favorite part of the event so far was the quest when you turn into a crab to spy on the naga. Some stupid Alliance person would keep killing them every single time they spawned, so me and another paladin flagged for pvp. (I play on a PvE server) The Alliance person attacked us and we gunned her down fairly quickly. To our astonishment, the other Alliance in the area began to cheer for us. Possibly my favorite PvP experience ever, just because of how the Alliance reacted afterwords...
Teleri Jun 22nd 2008 12:16PM
Had the same problem with a druid on my server, it was a quite a pain and really made it go longer than it should of. And to make matters worse, when you flagged to handle the problem. It became a battle royale for everyone. Other than that, all the other events were fun and I still need to get a handle on the torch tossing.
jtrain Jun 22nd 2008 11:24AM
Tried Ahune several times, first few on heroic and last on normal. He's noticably more difficult than the horseman. We had a decently geared group, and decided after a couple of attempts to bump it down to regular mode and give it a go. Even on regular, he gave us a run for our money, but we did down him first try. I highly recommend a pally tank to keep all the adds grouped up. The elementals don't have a lot of hp, so you can AoE them down pretty quick.
Now that I know you can get all the cloaks, the staff, the pet and the enchant on regular, I don't know if it'll be worth it to attempt on heroic just for those pendants.
Calaana Jun 22nd 2008 11:40AM
I love it, even the torches.
A little tip for the oceanics/high latency folk - try to stand ahead of the shadow. Because of the latency, your right under the torch serverside. Sort of like this poorly rendered ascii diagram:
==========torch travel=====>
^
O
T
(__) /\
Where (__) is the torches shadow, and the badly drawn mage pile of letters is you.
Lori Jun 22nd 2008 12:31PM
The festival is ok, I guess. I expect to be doing lots of flame honoring on alts. Thought I had torch tossing figured out (use overhead view) on first alt but couldn't hit anything on the next. I couldn't see any torch catching shadows so that seemed impossible. I didn't think about latency but it makes sense. Anyway, torch tossing/catching is out for me.
RogueJedi86 Jun 22nd 2008 2:20PM
Turn up spell detail to max. That's what shows the shadows.
rick gregory Jun 22nd 2008 1:56PM
So far, I LOVE it... Sometimes I login mostly to hang with friends, so I just flapped around to the various fires and honored/desecrated them yesterday afternoon. But my fave part so far? I took my rogue, flew to Azshara, jumped from the bridge to Ashenvale into the river and swam south to Orgrimmar... stealthed in.... found the fire... lots of Horde around... let an Alliance raid distract them... and then stole the flame, vanished and stealthed out. The most roguish thing I've done in months. Great fun!
Weavlux Jun 22nd 2008 2:42PM
I solo'd the IF and SW fires without being caught or dying, and I did the Exodar and Darnassus fires with a friend. Right now I need about 27 more flames to get the dancer, cause I guess I missed some towns in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Fun stuff.. still need to do Ahune.