King of the Fire Festival

Stealing the enemy's fires from their capital cities, by comparison, is a riskier proposition, but still doable if you're not averse to the possibility of dying a lot. King of the Fire Festival is awarded for stealing the flames of four enemy cities. When you do this, each flame appears in your packs as a quest to turn in at a Festival Loremaster (located around major city fires everywhere). Do all four, turn them in, and you get the achievement.

ALLIANCE

Undercity and Thunder Bluff are fairly easy; Orgrimmar and Silvermoon can be a royal pain. Due to the relatively decentralized nature of the Horde's intercity transportation system, you will probably spend more time both in transit and stealing fires than your Horde counterparts. I would recommend starting with Thunder Bluff.

Stealing Thunder Bluff's Flame: Thunder Bluff can be a nuisance because the bridge system confuses players unfamiliar with the city, but TB is generally uncrowded. If you have Slow Fall/Levitate or a parachute cloak, you can just jump off the city after getting the flame and evade the guards and any players in the vicinity. Tip: follow the signposts, and then mouse over the doorway of each bridge-building to confirm it heads to the Rise you want. The Thunder Bluff flame is located on Spirit Rise at 20,26. After this, visit Bloodhoof Village to desecrate the flame there, then ride out of Mulgore, desecrate the Crossroad's flame, ride east to get Razor Hill's, then ride toward the extreme northwestern edge of Durotar to get to Orgrimmar's least-troublesome entrance.

Stealing Orgrimmar's Flame: This is the most difficult of the Horde fires to capture, as Orgrimmar is typically the most crowded city and the fire is located fairly far in. It is probably easiest to enter the city from the little-used western gates and just stay on that road until you reach the flame. While this leaves you susceptible to high-level players porting in from Dalaran in the Troll huts located over the pond to your right as you ride in, it doesn't expose you to the masses of players congregated between Orgrimmar's bank and AH (which is what you'd have to deal with going in through the southern gates). Either way, try to do Orgrimmar during a slow period. If you want to head straight to Undercity afterwards and there aren't any high-level players around looking to pick a fight, ride out of the city and take the zeppelin straight to UC.

Stealing Undercity's Flame: The Undercity flame is by far the easiest of the four Horde fires to steal and is located in the Ruins of Lordaeron courtyard at 68,9. You don't actually have to enter the city, although Alliance players will get flagged as the Ruins are Horde territory. Alliance players with higher-level toons than I've got will have to confirm this for me, but I don't think it's possible for Alliance to use the Orb of Translocation to get to Silvermoon. Ride to Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands (detour to Brill to desecrate that flame) and take a flight up to Zul'Aman. Ride to Silvermoon (and desecrate the flame at Tranquillien along the way).

Stealing Silvermoon's Flame: The Silvermoon fire is located at 69,39 in the Court of the Sun at 69,43. Silvermoon itself is generally not crowded and you should have little trouble.

HORDE

Historically it was a bigger hassle for Horde to get the Alliance fires than vice versa, because getting to either Ironforge or Stormwind's fires obligated you to run past the most crowded portions of the cities (even if afterwards you could use the Deeprun Tram to make the other city somewhat easier). These days, between the Stormwind docks and the Deeprun Tram, it's now possible for Horde to get all four Alliance fires without having to deal with the more crowded trade areas.

As such, I would recommend doing these in the following order:

Stealing Darnassus's Flame: Darnassus is the one freebie; you'll find the flame located outside of the city proper in Rut'theran Village as soon as you step off the boat from Auberdine (that said, you'll still have to get through the city to get the flame in Dolanaar for Flame Keeper of Kalimdor). When you're done with both fires, catch the boat back to Auberdine, desecrate the flame there, then transfer to the one heading to Azuremyst so you can do --

Stealing the Exodar's Flame: The Exodar's flame is located in the Crystal Hall at 41,25. The Exodar is generally uncrowded and this one shouldn't be too difficult, but the fire is still pretty far into the city. When you get off the boat, take the side entrance into the Exodar (located to your left off the road) in order to avoid as many players as possible. While you're on the Draenei islands, desecrate the flames at Azure Watch and Blood Watch. Afterwards, head back to Auberdine and transfer to the boat heading to Stormwind for --

Stealing Stormwind's Flame: The Stormwind flame is located at 38,61 around one of the entrances to the Stormwind Stockade. If you're coming from the docks, you should be able to avoid the more highly-trafficked portions of the city, but the odds of running into some high-level players are still decent. If you get mobbed, try to zone into the Stockades for a respite. Afterwards, mount up, ride for the Deeprun Tram, and head to Ironforge.

Stealing Ironforge's Flame: The Ironforge flame is located at 64,24 in the Hall of Explorers. You can get to it relatively fast if you're coming off the Tram (head out, hang a right, steal the fire, then sprint back to the Tram). Bear in mind that while the Tram is neutral territory (and on a PvE server your flag will drop there after 5 minutes), anyone who decides to make your life difficult can certainly follow you back there.

Got all four flames? Head back to a Festival Loremaster, turn them in, and enjoy your achievement.

Torch Juggler

It's a cruel joke on Blizzard's part to ask people to do this in Dalaran, which is such an almighty lagfest on so many servers, but it can't be helped. If your computer usually wheezes its way through the city at server high time, you'll definitely want to wait for a slow period in order to get this achievement done.

What you will need to do is purchase around 20-25 Juggling Torches from Midsummer vendors, then hotkey them somewhere convenient. Using a torch will allow you to target a specific area where you want it to land. Target it at your feet, then spam the hell out of your torch hotkey. This will automatically force each torch to come down where you're already standing, so you can instantly "juggle" it back. Use of the torches doesn't trigger the global cooldown, so as long as your latency and framerates are cooperating, you should be able to "juggle" 40 torches easily within the space of 15 seconds.

Ice the Frost Lord

Easy, easy, easy -- and if last year was any indication, lots of fun. You will already have this achievement if you're sitting on Tabard of Summer Skies or Tabard of Summer Flames, but for everyone else, the quest chain that leads to slaying Ahune starts with Earthen Ring Elders located around city fires everywhere. However, you need to be at least 65 to get the follow-up quest to head to Outland, then hit Slave Pens and kill Ahune. Ahune will drop an item (group loot) that starts Shards of Ahune, rewarding you with your choice of tabards and 20 Burning Blossoms.

For anyone doing the Ahune encounter for the first time this year, we wrote a guide on how to handle the fight here. To our knowledge, his loot list hasn't been altered from 2008, which means that the gear will be of the most use to players still leveling through Outland, but you can always keep trying for the wee Scorchling pet he drops.

Burning Hot Pole Dance

Sounds simple, right? Well, it would be, but buying these threads is going to cost you.

Do yourself a favor and get the Fires of Azeroth, Desecration, and King of the Fire Festival achievements done first. This will leave you with a ton of Burning Blossoms, which are the currency needed for purchasing items from Midsummer vendors, including the three clothing items required.

The 3 items you need for the set are:

• Mantle of the Fire Festival: 100 blossoms

• Sandals of Summer: 200 blossoms

• Vestment of Summer: 100 blossoms

Why the shoes cost so much compared to the much flashier chest and shoulder pieces, I can't say, but the full set will run you 400 blossoms. This should be easily doable if you've completed the achievements referenced above, but it will mean that if you're still interested in purchasing the Captured Flame pet and the Brazier of Dancing Flames, you're going to have to put some work into the torch-juggling dailies in order to get enough. Unless Blizzard has changed the number of Burning Blossoms awarded by Midsummer quests and achievements (or nerfed the cost of vendor items), I don't think it's possible to purchase everything if you're starting from scratch. It should be possible to get the clothing and either the noncombat pet or the brazier, but not the pet and the brazier.

Stay tuned, however. It's possible that Blizzard's changed the number of Blossoms awarded or nerfed the cost of the items you'll need, and I'll update the guide if so.

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Filed under: The Overachiever