Planning for the Hallow's End title
A lot of folks found the article on planning for the Brewmaster title helpful, so we thought we'd put one together for the upcoming Hallow's End holiday as well. Getting all of the sub-Achievements for the Hallowed Be Thy Name Achievement will reward the title "The Hallowed," but frankly I think this one is going to be a little tougher than the Brewfest one. As with Brewfest, part of the Achievement is going to depend on getting very lucky with a drop, but it's also going to depend on getting lucky with a few other things.This, however, is going to be the first holiday after patch 3.02 hits with the Achievement system firmly in place, so you'll be able to track Achievements ingame for the first time (by the way, "Y" is the default hotkey for pulling up your Achievement screen).
Even if you're not interested in the Achievement, you have another reason to participate, at least for the Headless Horseman kills: we're pretty sure his loot table's been updated and expanded, and you'll have a chance at a permanent mount drop (his horse, not the temporary broomsticks from last year).
But if you want to be (Your Name Here) The Hallowed?
In what I expect to be a rough order of ascending difficulty:
- Trick or Treat!: Easy, easy, easy. This is a gimme.
- That Sparkling Smile: Tooth Picks are random drops while trick-or-treating but not, I believe, terribly uncommon. This is unlikely to be tough.
- Out With It: If you can make yourself sick on Halloween candy in real life, managing it ingame isn't too much of a stretch. Tricky Treats are "drops" from Headless Horseman kills, and you'll get dozens of them from little pumpkins you can click after a kill.
- The Savior of Hallow's End: These were easy and fun quests to do last year, so unless Blizzard's changed them significantly, they should be quick. More importantly, doing one will also reward you with a Weighted Jack O' Lantern, and you'll need at least 10 of these to do the Check Your Head Achievement listed below because the Jack O' Lanterns are single-use items.
- Bring Me the Head of...Oh Wait: The Headless Horseman isn't a very difficult fight -- the real difficulty, as with Brewfest, is going to be finding people able to summon him after your group's exhausted its own summons. But killing him once for this Achievement isn't hard at all.
- Tricks and Treats of Azeroth: This isn't hard, but it will require a certain amount of time invested running all over the place to visit candy buckets. Doable as long as you've got an hour or two to yourself, or if you can knock off a few buckets per day.
- Check Your Head: This one won't be tough as long as you've done the Savior of Hallow's End quests enough to get 10 Weighted Jack O' Lanterns, or gotten them as drops off the Headless Horseman.
- G.N.E.R.D. Rage: I'm not positive but I think these are a new addition to the holiday; I don't remember them from last year and I can't seem to find much information on them. I'm guessing they'll be a random drop from Treat Bags you get from innkeepers, or from the Smashed Pumpkin Loot you get at the end of doing the Savior of Hallow's End quests. If so, 50 Honor Kills shouldn't be too hard as long as you're hitting the BG's regularly -- the only trouble will be getting enough G.N.E.R.D. candy to re-buff yourself after a death (unless the buff lasts through death, which I doubt it does).
- Rotten Hallow: The Horde and Alliance counterparts are (respectively) Stinking Up Southshore and The Power of Pine, and Ruined Kegs and Crashing the Wickerman Festival. Not too hard, particularly if you do the quests with a few friends as a precaution against being ganked by bored players camping the quest spots.
OK. All of these are reasonably easy and will just require some time invested, and a 5-man group for the Horseman. But this is where things get a little trickier, and far more dependent on luck.- The Masquerade: This is the easiest of the three harder sub-Achievements, because the wands involved have multiple charges. The wands are random drops from Treat Bags and Smashed Pumpkin Loot, but there's a pretty good chance that, if you're going for this Achievement with a few friends, between all of you you should be able to cover the wands needed. So, while there's an element of chance involved, Hallow's End spans nearly two weeks and odds are very good you'll run across each wand if your posse is diligent.
- A Mask For All Occasions: This is going to be a matter of luck, pure and simple. The masks are BoP items randomly looted from the treat bags given to you by innkeepers, and you can't trick-or-treat more than once per hour. You can also occasionally find them from Smashed Pumpkin Loot, but it's entirely possible (and, as a matter of fact, very likely) that you'll get a lot of repeats and there'll be a few masks you're missing by the end of the holiday. The only thing you can do to increase your chances of getting each mask would be to trick-or-treat every hour you can, and do the Savior of Hallow's End quests as much as possible.
- Sinister Calling: This is where you need one hell of a lot of luck, unless Blizzard changes the abysmal drop rate on the Sinister Squashling. Wowhead lists it as a 2% drop, which I can well believe after killing the Horseman dozens of times and never seeing it last year. You'll also need a Hallowed Helm for the Achievement, although the drop rate on that is considerably better at 9%.
Filed under: Tips, How-tos, Events, Features, Bosses, Guides, Mounts, Achievements






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Derek Oct 12th 2008 6:10PM
Wow, I can see it now. I'm going to work my ass to get all of those achievements! Nice guide.
dcwdvl Oct 12th 2008 6:12PM
Blizzard should remove the requirement for the Sinister Squashling from Sinister Calling, and then provide the pet as an achievement award for completing everything, along with the title.
Slynx Oct 12th 2008 6:22PM
I agree. Achievements in the game should not require insane amounts of luck. If its anything like the mount/remote from brewfest i'm already crying at the sight of trying to achieve this. I ran brewfest maybe 10 times a day every day (but two) and I've only seen the mount drop twice and the remote once (lost both times with my shitty rolls).
Im still going for the title, but its already turning me off from the event.
Schadenfreude Oct 12th 2008 8:07PM
Same here, not to mention I'm going to have to wait for the second Squashling--I know the other guy who wants it in my small guild in real life, and he is twice my size. Sigh.
Trueheart Oct 12th 2008 9:02PM
/agree
This new system is called "Achievements", right? Here's what Merriam-Webster has to say about that word:
1: the act of achieving : accomplishment
2 a: a result gained by effort b: a great or heroic deed
3: the quality and quantity of a student's work
You set a goal, you work toward it, and you achieve it.
How is getting a good roll out of the RNG to see the Squashling drop, followed by another good roll to win it, an "accomplishment" or "a result gained by effort"?
Now, I'm really stoked about the whole accomplishment system. But especially with time-limited holiday events, could "earn the capricious favor of the entropic gods of the RNG" not play such a large role? I suppose the drop rates might be greatly adjusted this year, but if the Squashling is anything like the mount drops from Brewfest, I don't really see this as an "accomplishment". Some people got lucky and nabbed a Kodo their first day in. A lot of commenters claim they ran Direbrew 5+ times every day and never got a mount. Some did little work to get the reward; others put in a lot of work and ended up with nothing to show for it. That's the RNG, and that's not an achievement.
Maybe Blizzard has a different philosophy regarding holidays in general--the "cool" stuff stays on very low drop rates to remain rare; if you keep running holidays, eventually you'll get something rare/cool. I'd like to propose making the cool stuff "expensive"--in terms of effort required to obtain it--is a better way to go. I'm thinking of Brewfest '07 here, where if you wanted the ram, you ground out 600 tickets for the ability to purchase it. That kept me engaged and running all the dailies every day, and at the end, I was excited to get my ram. Yes, anyone and everyone *could* end up with a Brewfest ram that way, which makes it less rare--but no less cool. And honestly, in the intervening year, I've seen very few other people riding around on a Brewfest ram, so I'm not at all convinced that system made the ram less rare.
One more point here--the toon that got the Brewfest ram was my warlock, because I though the glowing green eyes on the epic version fit that toon. My main is a paladin, and I can't really see him riding that ram. The beauty of the system of Brewfest '07 was that I could choose--I decided a certain of my toons wanted a reward, and I was able, with a little diligent effort, to get that reward for that toon. My paladin still ran Brewfest and got the clothes, but didn't bother with the ram. All in all, I had a blast with Brewfest '07--because achieving (there's that word again!) my desired reward was within my power, as a player.
Looking at Hallow's End, I'd really like to make my paladin "Trueheart the Hallowed". If it required consistent effort throughout the event, I'd stay engaged and enjoy my accomplishment at the end. If I put forth consistent effort to have a small chance at getting what I'm aiming for, and the RNG didn't favor me, I'd honestly think twice before really engaging Winter's Veil.
So, Blizzard, if you're reading (and we hear you do keep an eye on this site), here's my proposal: that offering players guaranteed rewards based on effort in game is superior offering players rewards that may or may not come with effort--superior in terms of player engagement with the content and ultimate player satisfaction. Especially with seasonal, time-limited holiday events. I'm sore that I've never seen the Triptych Shield of the Ancients from the Chess event despite months of weekly Karazhan runs, but I know there's always next week (at least until we're off for Northrend). Knowing there's always next YEAR for this Hallowed achievement is a much more bitter pill to swallow.
Fenrix Oct 13th 2008 12:04AM
Please, Blizzard, remove "Sinister Calling" as a requirement for "Hallowed be Thy Name". Keep the accomplishment, but break the link like you did with the Children's event ("Veteran Nanny" IIRC). Unlinking a FULL collection of masks might not be a bad idea either (such as requiring a single mask for the meta-achievement but not the full set). Alternately, make the masks tradeable (feel free to stick a duration on them, or make them summoned items so they disappear on logout). Please remove reliance on the RNG from the Achievement system.
superfrank Oct 13th 2008 6:19AM
seriously, blizzard should just give the best gear and titles to everyone as soon as they hit 70.
turtlehead Oct 13th 2008 8:41AM
"How is getting a good roll out of the RNG to see the Squashling drop, followed by another good roll to win it, an "accomplishment" or "a result gained by effort"?"
How is not "a result gained by effort"? Grinding for a cosmetic doodad, RNG included, is the very definition of effort.
I think the achievement stuff is darn silly but it seems to make people happy which is no small thing. However, I'm mightily annoyed by all the whining about achievements *in some cases* being difficult. I'm using a very broad definition of difficult here. Parking on a holiday boss for a random drop is annoying but not hard. There's a truly strange sense of entitlement to these achievements. Some will be dead easy, some will be truly hard, and many will be your payout for a zillion hours doing nothing but seeking the ones which scratch your particular special moist place. What's the problem? If you want another flaming horse because the eyes are a different color then suck it up and go do it. It's your choice. It has no in-game benefit beyond aesthetics. In your own words: "You set a goal, you work toward it, and you achieve it."
I passed on a bunch of squashling drops last year because I knew others were excited and I'd ditch them for bank space within a week. Same with brooms. Passed on Baron mount twice pre-BC (.02% drop rate? something like that) and MgT bird mount many times as well (twice on MgT patch launch day). Could've extorted gold for my rolls but that'd've been nothing but being a jerk.
vlad Oct 13th 2008 11:58AM
yea, and everyone that didnt play before this year should get the blue brewfest stein and credit for all pre bc raid boss kills.
guess im lucky cause "Sinister Calling" is allready acheived :)
Heilig Oct 12th 2008 6:15PM
Blizzard has already said this event starts and ends at 4:00 AM server time on the listed dates.
minimagicman Oct 14th 2008 11:39AM
I'm afraid this is not true. I went to brewfest on the last day at about 2:30 AM ST and it was gone... o well teaches me to procrastinate.
Zakk Oct 13th 2008 2:33AM
@minimagician
"Blizzard has already said this event starts and ends at 4:00 AM server time on the listed dates."
"this event starts and ends at 4:00 AM server time"
"this event"
Hehehe ^^
Rexigar Oct 12th 2008 6:20PM
I'm not very lucky when it comes to drops. During Brewfest I attempted the boss a few times with 5 summons.
In all those attempts and groups I have not seen the mount drop :(
For the amount of time these holiday events come I wish the drop rates were much higher, its not like its a legendary drop.
But these guides do help a lot and I will made the best out of the event.
Thanks.
Angry Joe Oct 12th 2008 6:21PM
"...and don't forget Blizzard's penchant for ending events at midnight on the last day (i.e. as October 31st becomes November 1st, that is)."
From a blue (Kisirani):
"To clear this up right now:
Hallow's End begins on October 18th at 4:00AM server time and will end on November 1st at 4:00AM server time."
Source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/10971859278-halloween-events.html
LostOne Oct 12th 2008 6:27PM
Holy cow...I don't have that kind of time to farm all that, guess this will be another holiday title I don't get.
After all the farming I did for a squashling last year (at least 80 kills) and only seeing it drop twice and go to other people? Screw that.
BillDoor Oct 12th 2008 6:52PM
There is no requirement that you do ita ll this year. Do what you want, do more next year, and maybe more the year after that.
abz Oct 12th 2008 6:36PM
I already have the squashling does this mean i gotta get it again?
z3rb Oct 12th 2008 7:02PM
No, if you've already got it and haven't destroyed it, it's all good.
karrde Oct 12th 2008 7:13PM
Nope, the game should recognise that you already have it and give you credit.
Dightkuz Oct 12th 2008 6:38PM
Achievement System is coming with this next week's patch?!