Tips for Brewfest keg runs

Brewfest is in full swing, and there's on aspect that most participants dread: Keg running. It's not terribly hard once you know how it goes, but figuring it out can be a real pain. Let's see if we can ease the learning process, shall we? Here are some things that worked for me:
- Take a walk (or run) up and down the course before you start the race. Find out where all of the apple barrels are on the course. There should be one at the beginning, one at the end, and two spaced out in the middle. You don't need all four of them, but knowing where they are is the important part.
- Let's pick which ones you want to use. Let's number them: The barrel at the beginning is #1, and they're in numerical order from there, #4 at the end. Ignore #1 and #3. Pretend they don't exist. They aren't there. There are only two apple buckets, #2 and #4.
- Put your ram reins on your action bar somewhere, don't try to click it in your bags. You want to steer with your mouse, and use your other hand to mash the hotkey is much as possible. You can do this entire race full speed in the red. If you hit barrel #2 and #4 every time you pass them, you'll never need to slow down.
- Get a feel for how close/far you need to be from the NPCs to get a barrel and/or turn in the barrel. You don't need to get all up in their face, so you can save a few seconds each time getting a feel for this.
- Why am I using barrels 2 and 4 and not 1 and 3? Because on the Alliance side, barrel 1 is inside some stupid tent that doesn't let my ram get back out without getting stuck and I waste a ton of time.
- Finally, steady wins the race here, and in the barking quests as well. Don't panic about the time; just get into a rhythm and try to stay there.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Events
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Marbles Sep 24th 2008 12:58AM
This is roughly how I do it on Horde side, but I haven't been able to beat 9 yet. Takes me about 50 seconds for a roundtrip (earning 30 seconds back for a barrel return).
Yet I read about people getting 40(!) tickets for a run - that's twenty barrels returned!
Do the Alliance have this event *much* easier, or am I simply doing something wrong?
Urza Sep 23rd 2008 11:14PM
This is the alliance quest that has you running from the party to Kharanos right? I did it in 4 back and forths, don't go over 80 fatigue and you'll be fine.
Angus Sep 24th 2008 7:56AM
The previous hordeside strat is wrong and will net you about 6 tokens less than the optimal path. I regularly get 22-24 with a much simpler path.
Step 1: Head straight down to the canyon, along the left side. Gallop the entire way.
Step 2: There is an apple barrel right before the canyon. Use it, you should have around 65 when hitting it.
Step 3: Head to the tosser, look down in front of him, there is a dark crescent in front of him, about 5-10 yards. This is your turn point. When you hit this, mouse turn straight around, you will hear the keg noise and see it show up in your inventory and log.
Step 4: You should still be at full gallop. If you did it right, the animation from the barrel will hit you around 70 and near the entrance of the canyon. Stay at the right and the moment you can swing to the apple barrel, do so. You should be at 95 when it resets.
Step 5: Fly down the road, go PAST him and swing in the back yard with the kodo to the apple barrel. This ensures he actually gets the keg. You reset your ram and repeat the process.
The barrel behind the thrower loses you 1-2 total tosses and should be avoided. You may have to slow down at first to a canter to get the timing, but once you have the pathing down, you will pretty much always get 22+ tokens in the time.
splice42 Sep 30th 2008 8:40AM
Yes. THIS.
12 barrels is perfectly doable with this strat. Hitting 3 apple barrels or getting 9 deliveries is wrong. Best way this year is barrel #1 to barrel #3 to thrower and back at top speed all the time. It's important to go no further than the left edge of the crescent as you'll lose time and sometimes even exhaust your ram before the hitting the apples. Even with mistakes & the thrower being finnicky I get at least 10 barrels every time.
Lianne Sep 24th 2008 7:59AM
I tried this 3 times before I realized the apples were even there! :P
For Horde I hit the barrel on the right of the path on the way out, and the one behind the keg thrower (on the left of the road) on the way back. I did it in 2 minutes.
harywilke Sep 24th 2008 10:35AM
a note on the barking quest: after you have barked at all the required places, you can hop off your mount and get on your normal mount. unlike the barrels quest where you need to be on the brewfest ram, the barking quest dosen't require you to be on it when you finish the quest, only during the quest for the barking.
Syme Sep 24th 2008 12:17PM
The barrel that was on the east side of the road in Durotar is not there this year, at least on my server. Last year I was able to shave a lot of time off by turning back well before the guy who give you the barrel, but not this year. Then I found out that there was no kodo to buy and stopped doing it altogether.
Thirsty Oct 5th 2008 1:27PM
Can anyone confirm the cooldown for this event? I have read 18 hours.