The OverAchiever: Completing the Lunar Festival Achievements [Updated x2]

Saturday marks the beginning of this year's Lunar Festival, an in-game event celebrating the real life celebration of the Lunar New Year. With plenty of quests, party favors and, of course, shiny clothes, you'll have many chances to complete the meta-Achievement To Honor One's Elders. Not only will this result in the title "Elder", but you'll be another step closer to a Violet Proto-Drake,
Having experienced this event twice, the big question is what's new this year? Though all of the Achievements are new, they cover older quests. The only difference is the brand new Elders of Northrend Achievement and the additional elders added to the Elders of Dungeons Achievement.
After the jump, an overview of how to complete To Honor One's Elders
UPDATE: Looks like the minimum level needed to complete the meta-Achievement is 80 as one of the Elders can only be found in the Heroic version of the Wrath instance Gundrak. According to this comment on WoWHead, you must kill Moorabi to open the secret tunnel to the Heroic-only boss Eck. Standing in the same room as Eck is Elder Ohanzee. Also, Omen has been verified as a level 80 raid mob this year.
UPDATE v2: Updated a few directions and added link to player list of other Achievements to grab while pursuing coins.
City Activities
In each major city in Azeroth, revelers will appear in glowing lights surrounded by fireworks. Find an NPC there with a quest exclamation over their head. They will start you on the quest that will give you your teleport to Moonglade. At the same time you can do these two Achievements.
Frenzied Firecracker Achievement
Purchase 10 Festival Firecrackers from the Lunar Festival Vendors (or buy them from an Engineer), drag those firecrackers to your spell bar and spam fire 10 of them in 30 seconds. You have to be quick to do it all in time considering the cooldown on the firecrackers. Don't worry, they're cheap to buy.
The Rocket's Red Glare
Similar to the Firecracker Achievement, buy Red Rocket Clusters off the vendors and shoot off 10 in 25 seconds. The difference here is you need a cluster launcher which can be found next to the vendors. Don't buy the little ones on the vendor, they won't work for this Achievement.
Turn in the quest, get your scroll, stand in the moonlight and teleport to Moonglade.
Moonglade Madness
Once there, take the road north around the east side of lake in to the small village. There are docks overlooking the lake where you will find the NPC Valadar Starsong. He gives quests that lead to the following Achievements:
Lunar Festival Finery
Purchase any one of 6 festival outfits from Valadar himself for 5 Coins of Ancestry. Coins covered more below.
Elune's Blessing
Valadar will give you a quest to take down Omen, the level 80 two-headed dog that can be summoned in the lake at Moonglade. You can help take him down if there is a raid in progress even if you are not in the raid. When he goes down, just step into the red circle that appears around him to complete the quest. Watch out for his AE Starfall ability during the fight. If you're looking for a detailed strat, try WoWWiki's guide to Omen (and don't forget your candle.)
This Achievement may or may not be retroactive, so if you have your Lantern reward from previous years, you may still have to participate in the raid again this year for credit. I had my Lantern, didn't have the Achievement retroactively and had to destroy my Lantern to be able to complete the quest and get the Achievement.
Coins Across Azeroth
The Coins of Ancestry are the currency in this event and you can get one Coin from each of the 75 Elders in the game simply by talking to them. You will also work you way through the following chain of Achievements:
- A Coin of Ancestry
- 5 Coins of Ancestry
- 10 Coins of Ancestry
- 25 Coins of Ancestry
- 50 Coins of Ancestry
Though you only need 50 Coins to complete this Achievement, you are going to need all 75 to finish the following Elder Achievements to complete the meta-Achievement:
- Elders of Eastern Kingdoms
- Elders of Kalimdor
- Elders of the Alliance
- Elders of the Horde
- Elders of Dungeons
- Elders of Northrend
- WoWWiki has an excellent walkthrough of the pre-Wrath 50 Coins for both Alliance and Horde.(ProTip: mouse over the coordinates listed to see pop up map of location]
- Wow-Pro has a detailed walkthrough for the Horde including maps showing Elder location in hard to find areas.
- Exact locations of the new 25 Northrend Elders can be found in this forum thread, but has not been verified.
Also, the /hug player blog has an excellent list of other Achievements you can complete while after all the Coins including many older dungeon Achievements.
AddOns R Us
The TourGuide AddOn now has a Lunar Festival mod (Curse/WoW Interface) that will direct you to the pre-Wrath Elders based on the WoW Wiki coordinates. Not all the information is there, but enough to get you through some rough spots.
That should be enough to get you the Elder title and a few more Achievements under your belt. If you come across any more resources I can add to this list, leave the link in the comments below. Don't forget that you can also spend your Coins on items during the Festival like fireworks and Festival Dumplings (tip: try eating one of those and drinking at the same time for super mana regen while sitting.)
Filed under: Factions, Guides, Achievements, The Overachiever
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
bmiller Jan 23rd 2009 9:33AM
Am I the only one glad there's no PvP with this event?
"Kill 10 (opposite faction) in 20 yards of (WSG Elder)"
Astemus Jan 23rd 2009 10:29AM
Amen, i'm not looking forward to the children's week achievement, kill other players with their orphan out...
h8rain Jan 23rd 2009 11:04AM
Since I will be traveling all around vanilla WoW, I might just do the explorer while I am there.
I don't mind the PVP, but the winter one was crazy. One death, and you have to finish the battle to get the suit again. Especially frustrating as a feral druid. The halloween had the candy, which if you died, you could just eat another one when you rez'ed.
Grim Jan 23rd 2009 1:35PM
Omen does appear to be retroactive, as I have the achievement for it. I'm not sure if you need the quest reward or not, but I most likely still have it amongst all the clutter I've built up from the world events. :P
Todd Jan 23rd 2009 2:39PM
"Elune's Blessing" is retroactive. I have it already done from the previous year. I saved my lantern, so that might be why.
hupsohl Jan 24th 2009 6:33PM
This was not retroactive for any of my characters. I had to destroy the lantern from my bank before I could finish the quest to get the achievement (the lantern is unique).
Todd Jan 26th 2009 12:46PM
That's really odd. I can't even tell you why mine was retroactive and others' weren't. I did end up destroying my lantern, just to complete the quest anyways. That's an easy 13 gold to make for a quest event. Can't pass that up.
Seb Jan 24th 2009 5:02PM
Anyone else noticed that the Thunder Bluff elder is called Ezra and has a Phoenix Hatchling pet?
/salute Ezra
Carrie Jan 24th 2009 7:59PM
I noticed the pheonix companion but didn't notice the name. Boy those lvl 75 elite guards spawn quick up there these days... and they stun, knockdown, dismount, see through shadowmeld, see through feign death... argh.
That truly is so sweet.
Good job, Blizz. Nice touch. /salute
Kien Jan 24th 2009 7:18AM
Omen is a lvl80 Boss Mob, with 5.5M hp....6am is not a time to find a raid group.
Grim Jan 24th 2009 11:25AM
Didn't read through comments, so sorry if mentioned already...
but if you have an alt (or starting one):
FYI: You can port to Moonglade, wait on invitation cooldown...then port to another city (ie: easy way to get flightpaths without running)
Riftsrunner Jan 28th 2009 5:56PM
Especially for the wetlands run for the alliance IF/MH flight path. Not as important now that the boats have changed, but still was a how I got many of my alts this path.
Scones Jan 24th 2009 12:21PM
Great guide but what luck, my World of Warcraft time runs out the day before hand...
Ivan Jan 24th 2009 1:45PM
Sorry, elders aren't there when you're in the phased versions of Orgrimmar and the Undercity.
Riftsrunner Jan 28th 2009 6:06PM
Are you able to cross Tirisfal Glade to the main gates of UC, since the Elder is not located inside the main area of UC and the elevator to the surface is essential broken. (not that I think they would put them there anyway)
Ivan Jan 29th 2009 4:05AM
Actually I'm not sure for Undercity. In Orgrimmar there are just no players, no npc's besides the guards and Thrall and none are attackable (they won't attack you if you run into Orgrimmar rather than using the portal from Stormwind)
peter59 Jan 24th 2009 4:55PM
you can't achieve the meta achievement @ lvl 75 .. you need to be lvl 80 and almost well geared to go to Gundrak on Heroic according to this :
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=13065#comments
I've went here tonight with my DK on normal Gundrak (I'm lvl 79) and I was unable to rech the spot where the elder was... after some digging I found on the wowhead comments that this elder can't be reach in normal mode.. Blizzard you s..k !!
Drgnspirit Jan 25th 2009 11:41AM
me and the wife do have a question. will the achievements reset for next year or will they stay and let us continues on where we left off?
bebot Jan 26th 2009 10:36AM
Have any rogues stealthed thru instances to get all the coins, or do you have to actually kill some bosses to get the coins?
Drgnspirit Jan 26th 2009 12:39PM
i ment yearly festivals. will the achievements you get this year reset for next year