The OverAchiever: End of the Glory of the Hero
by Allison Robert 
Jun 10th 2010 at 7:00PM
This is the full Glory of the Hero guide, organized by dungeon:
- Part I: Ahn'kahet
- Part II: Azjol-Nerub and Culling of Stratholme
- Part III: Drak'Tharon Keep
- Part IV: Gun'drak
- Part V: Halls of Lightning
- Part VI: Halls of Stone
- Part VII: The Nexus
- Part VIII: The Oculus
- Part IX: Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle
- And today's guide, Part X: Violet Hold
The Violet Hold
Violet Hold is arguably the easiest heroic in Wrath. It's considerably less punishing than the Burning Crusade heroic on which it was patterned (Black Morass) and the achievements are all pretty easy as well. There's one that'll require you to return to VH until you get all of its bosses, but that shouldn't be an issue if you're using the dungeon finder, given its propensity for landing one there every other day. The other days, naturally, are all Halls of Stone runs.
Much like Make It Count, this is the kind of achievement you'll probably get without expending any real effort. There were plenty of fresh '80s who got it in the weeks after Wrath shipped without even knowing what the defense crystals were, and it's only gotten easier since.
You probably won't get it in any PUG where Ichoron is one of the bosses -- popping the defense crystals is very common for that boss -- but otherwise, I would be very surprised if you couldn't manage the achievement with any given dungeon finder group. Because it's eighty-sixed by anyone using a defense crystal, you may want to mention the achievement at the beginning of the run and ask people not to use any, but it's probably unnecessary.
Speaking of Ichoron ...
Easy, easy, easy. The five red defense crystals located around the room (see above) will, when used, shoot out bolts of magic frying each add, and you just need to make sure one's clicked fairly early in each add phase before they get close enough to each other to merge. The hardest part about the achievement is just landing a Violet Hold run where Ichoron spawns in the first place.
If you want to organize it a bit, have one dedicated DPS position him/herself next to a crystal before each add phase and simply click it as soon as the adds spawn. While the individual crystals can't be used more than once, Ichoron only has three add phases and there are five defense crystals, so as long as the player simply moves to a fresh one before the next add phase, you've got the achievement in the bag.
However, because using the crystals is actually easier than DPSing each add down individually, clicking the crystals is the default means of handling the fight -- at least, that's been my experience having tanked the place for what feels like millions of years. Again, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't manage this in any random dungeon finder group.
Lockdown!
This one's allllllll RNG, and there's nothing you can do to improve your odds one way or the other apart from running Violet Hold as much as you can. The minimum number of runs necessary to get all of the bosses is three -- only two of the "random" bosses spawn each run, and there are six total -- but you'll likely have to run more than that.
A good friend of mine went the better part of two months without once seeing Erekem, and an unfortunate player on Wowhead took almost a year to get it (!). As for me, it was several weeks before I got a run where Ichoron spawned. These are all outliers though ... I think. Keep trying!
A Void Dance
This was on the tough side to heal back when Wrath shipped, but nowadays most PUGs do sufficient damage to Zuramat that he dies before the void sentries really become a concern. It's a lot like Dehydration in that the achievement method -- in this case, zerging the boss and ignoring the adds -- has actually become the default means of dealing with the encounter simply because it's less of a hassle.
If your group's on the undergeared side, his buff Shroud of Darkness can be dispelled and the group can blow some survivability cooldowns, but this achievement is doable even for fresh '80s in blues.
Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! We've covered everything from Glory of the Hero and Insane in the Membrane to Master of Alterac Valley and Lil' Game Hunter, and you can count on us to guide you through holidays and Azeroth's special events.
Filed under: Achievements, The Overachiever
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cendrekai Jun 10th 2010 7:06PM
I still don't know what these Defense Crystals are! Where are they?
Pyromelter Jun 10th 2010 7:11PM
Eh, I know of 2: when you come down the stairs to enter the floor, there is one along the wall to the right, and another along the wall to the left (these are the half walls that are connected to those initial stairs). No idea where the other 3 are tho.
Doug Jun 10th 2010 8:09PM
See the image at the top of the article for what they look like. There is one just the left of Ichoron's pool as you are facing it, one is on the wall to the right of where Lavanthor comes out, one is along the wall to the left of the steps going up to Erekem's room. There is also one on the walkway directly above Ichoron's pool. Right now I can't recall where the last one is.
Squatstopee Jun 10th 2010 9:17PM
I ran VH from the time I hit 80(couple weeks after wrath went live) until the Argent Tourney went live without knowing about the defense crystals. Only seen them used once lol.
Joefredzob Jun 15th 2010 10:10PM
For all those times that I get VH, i just can't get dehydration and a void dance. The DPS assigned to the crystals is always too slow, and one of the DPS kills at least one of those void sentrys. And that's if I even get those bosses. Oh well...
Vladeon Jun 10th 2010 7:09PM
Good guide, but one thing I would add is that if you're melee for dehydration, you can just position yourself so that when Ichoron explodes apart, and subsequently throws you back, it'll throw you to a torch. it's pretty easy as the torches are pretty easy to spot along the wall of the place.
Auroman Jun 10th 2010 7:47PM
I found A Void Dance to be surprisingly tricky as RNG often dictated one of the adds get cleaved/multishotted/AoE'd. A quick notice you'd like the achieve is recommended.
KPB Jun 14th 2010 4:32PM
Yeah, that seems to be the biggest problem now a days. The wrong player getting the shroud and it's blown. A pally or DK with consecrate or DnD down can easily kill off one of the voids with out being able to do anything about it. Warrior, blood dk, ret pally, elemental/enhance shaman or any other number of classes that use an ae/cleave ability in their normal rotation can blow this with out even realizing it.
I recently leveled up my dk and just got this achievement just by getting lucky. I was tanking as a frost dk. Got the boss and I made sure not to drop DnD and was lucky enough to get the first shift. Just made sure not to use Howling blast, Bloodboil or any other ae attack and the boss died before anyone else got shifted. Easy achievement. But it could have just as easily been missed because someone else got it and killed off the voids with out even trying.
Kaz Jun 10th 2010 8:04PM
Part of the trouble with "A Void Dance" is if you get Shroud of Darkness on a player that uses AoE ablities in their rotation. Sometimes the AoE will kill the adds. So its really important to mention the achievement so people know to only focus fire the boss. These days the boss should go down so quick it shouldn't be an issue, but back when Wrath was fresh abilities like DnD and Concentrate could mess up the achievement.
Siantha Jun 10th 2010 9:53PM
If you have multiple level 80 toons or some helpful friends, they can start H VH, then bail out when a particular needed boss comes (e.g. Ichoron). Then bring in the character you want the achievement on. You can even extend the lockout if you can't run the instance on the same day.
Kroof Jun 11th 2010 1:19AM
I would just like to point out how fail this guide is.
Yes, it does indeed help you get the glory of the hero achievement.
However, taking over a year to write a guide is ridiculous.
By this time most people who actually care about these achievements have either already gotten them, or found other guides.
It is only made worse by the fact that the guides are split into multiple sections and WoW.com is notorious for having a terrible archive. One that makes it almost impossible to find anything over a day or two old.
I realize that there are very important changes that needed to be covered over the last year. I'll try that on my professors when I turn in half an assignment three months after the semester has ended. They won't notice right?
Baba Jun 11th 2010 3:26AM
Stop titling your blog posts like that Allison! I'm taking a revision break from WoW and still need to complete a few of the achievements, you nearly gave me a heart-attack!! O.o
lol
clundgren Jun 11th 2010 12:42PM
The defense crystals are without question the strangest feature I can think of in any heroic. Take Ichoron, for example: the boss fight is essentially a player clicking 3 times on a button. Oh, and then you dps his last 50k hps or so. That's it. I'm a ret paladin, and even I figured out how to do it after a few dozen tries.
icepyro Jun 13th 2010 12:51PM
Yeah, I didn't see this post until now, sorry.
It may be interesting of note that in all my pugs, I've never known of these defense crystals and what they do. Even in normal while leveling, with several groups actually making it to the door, I've not seen the crystals used unless that explains why Ichoron is faster on some than others.
Still I have gotten Dehydration and helped several others get it without the crystals. In todays pugs, it should be more a matter of location and how much ranged/aoe dps is present than much other factors.
If you tank it where he comes out (in the pool), no globules will be very close giving ranged time to down them. If you tank it by the door, the globules will have to go up the stairs which gives time to AOE down (in addition to nice long range). I've even seen someone get the achieves from the middle of the room if all three dps are ranged and can do crazy dps.