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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast topic: The impossible achievements
by Amanda Dean 
May 9th 2009 at 8:00AM
Every evening there's a guy on my server who spams looking for group for an "experienced" group to do the Less-rabi and Make it Count Heroic Dungeon achievements. This has been going on for weeks now. I kind of feel bad for the guy. Some of the dungeon achievements are harder than others, but these have clearly been a pain for him. He really wants the Glory of the Hero achievement, and I hate the Occulus enough that I really can't bring myself to help him. I never hear him complaining about the achievements being difficult, he just keeps at it. It's actually quite admirable. My guild has a few overachievers in it. We usually do the best we can to lend them a hand, but they seem to grind endlessly to earn their points.
I don't usually go off in search of achievements, but there's one I just can't seem to get. Since I'm playing Druid it seems appropriate to get the Guardian of Cenarius title/achievement. The problem is not that it's difficult, but since my character was created after WotLK was released, I have no Cenarian Circle rep to speak of. I find it hard to make the time to go back to the old world and grind rep while still working on endgame progression.
What's your elusive achievement?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
naraiswin May 9th 2009 8:53AM
i just cant seem to get my hands on pinchy i have no luck with fishing ever.
ironjaw took me 1200 casts...
sewer rat took 760
neither of which i caugh my friend caught both of them for me
ironjaw on 3rd cast rat on 1st
i mega raged so im thinking another atleast 400 till pinchy im up to 300 at the moment
Marveen May 9th 2009 10:59AM
This. Annoying RNG luck with fishing catches (turtle mount, mr pinchy, ironjaw, the one that didn't get away, ...) is such a pain in the arse. And seeing every Ret in my group (we have several) riding on their turtles even if they just picked up fishing when 3.1 came out.. -.-
Michelle May 9th 2009 8:53AM
To quote Mia, "I would love Blizzard to implement a new side faction which contains a long and tedious rep grind for a vanity reward. "
Blizz has been there, done that. They're trying to move away from the tedious grinds of Vanilla WoW and making it more fun with achievements, dailies, etc. I know I don't miss the days of Wintersaber rep grinds pre-BC.
Michelle May 9th 2009 8:56AM
Realized I should have just hit the reply button. >.> It's alittle late now for that though.
Miatela May 11th 2009 9:19AM
Hehe, well it took me long enough to find this reply button so...
By no means should the rep grinds be something mandatory but purely something optional. I know it isn't a hugely popular aspect of the game but I really like just being able to mindlessly kill mobs when I want to chill with the guarantee that eventually, if I keep doing it, I will gain something. It is for this reason I am finding farming Deathcharger's Reins to be ever so irritating. To have done 120 runs since the nerf and roughly 200 prior with the prospect of doing infinitely more before seeing the item isn't too fun.
I remember reading a blue post that stated they had brought in some new RNG calculations for quests that meant the more mobs you killed, the higher the drop rate for the item became. I would love to see something like this implemented for mount drops, perhaps a hard cap to guarantee a drop when your statistics hit some very high number like 2000 kills?
elstor May 9th 2009 9:14AM
Do the hack. Or was it hotfixed out now?
Kemikalkadet May 9th 2009 9:16AM
Stranglethorn vale fishing tournament.
Only achievement i need to get the salty title and i've not managed to win it so far. Being on a pvp server doesn't help as the zone gets pretty violent, added to that there's some ass that got his title ages ago yet still wins maybe 1/3 of the tourneys thanks to his pocket army and friends waiting to summon him at the questgiver, ganking any horde that tries to turn in the quest before he does.
danawhitaker May 9th 2009 2:19PM
I've come to the opinion regarding that fishing tourney that anyone who's previously won it should not be allowed to participate in it again, especially now that there's an achievement for it. It's selfish to continually win and prevent other people from a chance at even getting the achievement like that.
Reinhold May 9th 2009 9:32AM
The Insane
Schwiiing May 9th 2009 9:30AM
I SO want this title... but I can't see myself getting it.
Shadri May 9th 2009 9:30AM
Mountain o' Mounts!
I always need a big goal to focus on when playing, and though I'm working on Glory of the Hero too, that doesn't keep my solo play time occupied.
Loremaster was last, as I am a lore junkie, and now it's Mountain o' Mounts. I want that Dragonhawk for my BElf so bad.
Scaramanja May 9th 2009 9:40AM
The hack was hotfixed. Your best bet to get it now is to find a competent resto Shaman, then pay him 100 gold to repsec twice. Once to go into elemental for 5/5 Reverberation and once to go back to a respectable resto spec. With 5/5 Reverberation on the healer, 1 tank, 3 DPS it is easily accomplished. The DPS can concentrate on just plain whaling on the guy, tank can usually put on mostly DPS gear and the Shaman uses Earth Shock on the first 2 casts. Once the dude hits 50% is when the fight gets really interesting. Above 50% he can cast the transformation every 10 seconds. Under 50% he can cast it every 5 seconds, this is why Reverberation is so important as it drops the cd on shock spells to 5 seconds. The Shaman needs to basically hit Earth Shock on the first cast under 50% then cast it again every time it cools down. I have done this achievement 4 times for people in this manner.
RetPallyJil May 9th 2009 9:41AM
So let me get this straight:
It's harder for you at level 80 to go beat on level 60 monsters and get rep than it was for everyone else to try beating up level 75+ monsters while being level 70?
You lazy slob. I hit exalted with Argent Dawn at level FIFTY-SIX ... pre-BC and in quest reward gear, tyvm.
MusedMoose May 9th 2009 9:48AM
He didn't say that it was the killing that was difficult, but that it's *finding the time* to go back and do the grind that he's having trouble with.
Please, read what someone's written before you start calling them names. It makes you look foolish when you don't.
Miatela May 9th 2009 9:45AM
That method was fixed a few minor patches ago. Around the time Gotta Go! was nerfed, Watch Him Die, Respect Your Elders, Less-rabi, Volazj's Quick Demise and Make it Count were made a lot more difficult as those encounters could no longer be exploited to get the achievements.
I would say that Less-rabi is almost as bad as pre-nerf Gotta Go! although I never properly attempted the latter I did spend 4 nights using a high dps and strong interrupt group (Elemental shaman, rogue, mage, druid (myself) and druid (feral tank)) trying to get Less-Rabi. Our major problem wasn't so much getting the interrupts (with a rogue using AR and FoK / Kick and an Ele shaman with Reverb. there shouldn't be a problem) but Moorabi would often decide he just wasn't going to play nice and randomly despawn mid-way through the attempts.
MusedMoose May 9th 2009 9:44AM
For me, it's the Loremaster achievement and title. I'd love to have it for my arcane-spec mage, as it seems so appropriate (going to get Well-Read for her even though there's no reward), but I just can't bring myself to sit down and do every single quest I can get my hands on. I'm something of an altaholic, so I've done the low-level quests over and over again; going through them all with a high-level character just doesn't sound like much fun.
Miatela May 9th 2009 9:49AM
Just going to add that 5/5 Reverbration is not a fool proof method. We had our elemental shaman use this for a night of attempts and often when his CD for shock came off (which should be exactly when Moorabi attempts to transform) he would hit the shock only for Moorabi to use the ability 0.5 to 1.7 seconds later.
I wouldn't imagine this as being an issue of competence as he is a rather good player.
Boize May 12th 2009 2:32AM
I also, as a druid, really wanted to get the Guardian of Cenarius achievement. In BC, I ran SV so many times, and handed in so many Coilfang Armaments, just so I could get the Hippogryff.
Once the achievement system came out, and I saw I could get that title, I immediately went down and sat myself in Silithus, grinding the mobs there to get up my CC rep, which was... low.
Xanwryn May 9th 2009 9:57AM
I'd just like to note that no achievement is impossible... just takes work.
Work hard and prosper.
Arivia May 9th 2009 10:09AM
It may not be on exactly the same level, but when I got Argent Champion this last week, there was a lot of vindication.
See, my Argent Dawn rep grind starts at level 50, on my very first character. I go to WPL, find Chillwind Camp, get my Commission, and say "I like these Argent Dawn people. I'll grind with them till I go to that Outland thing at 58." Queue days of grinding out mobs in Andorhal for 1 or 2 rep until revered.
So while everyone else gets it by soloing Strath (which I will admit I did from 11000/21000), I still feel an element of "You don't know what that title really means." when I see someone else with it.