Desecration of the Alliance or Desecration of the Horde

See all those fires I just listed? More specifically, the ones that don't belong to your faction? You get to visit them too! Again, this is a lot of legwork, but for most zones you should be able to honor your faction's fire and desecrate the opposing faction's, then simply move on the next zone.

Please note that even on a PvE server you will get flagged by desecrating the other factions' fires. If you're not fond of world PvP, you'll probably want to try this during a slow period (or, better yet, with a group). That said, if my experience is any indication, enemy players will usually leave you alone in the smaller townships and villages because they're too busy getting their own achievements. Enjoy it while it lasts, because after that you get to do --

King of the Fire Festival

This achievement is awarded for stealing the flames from four enemy cities and completing a turn-in quest for all four. When you right-click the enemy capitals' fires, a small flame appears in your pack as a quest to turn in at a Festival Loremaster (located around major city fires everywhere). Grab all four flames (Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Silvermoon, and Undercity if you're Alliance; Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, and the Exodar if you're Horde), and you'll get a final quest called A Thief's Reward that, once completed, will give you the King of the Fire Festival achievement.

Alliance

Undercity and Thunder Bluff are easy; Orgrimmar and Silvermoon can be painful.

Stealing Thunder Bluff's Flame: The Thunder Bluff flame is located on Spirit Rise at 20,26. The city can be a nuisance because the bridge system has a tendency to confuse players, but on the bright side, TB is usually deserted. If you have Slow Fall/Levitate, a parachute cloak, or a lucky Noggenfogger slow fall effect, you can also jump off the mesas after getting the flame and evade any guards or players chasing you. Tip: follow the signposts, and then mouse over the doorway of each bridge-building to confirm it heads to the Rise you want. 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: The Orgrimmar flame is located at 46,38 in the Valley of Wisdom (the area in front of the building housing Thrall and the shaman trainers). This tends to be the most difficult of the Horde fires to capture; Orgrimmar is typically the most crowded city and the fire is located pretty far in. For Alliance players, it's 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, this route will at least keep you away from the masses of players congregated between Orgrimmar's bank and AH. Either way, try to do Orgrimmar during a slow period.

Stealing Undercity's Flame: The Undercity flame is 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 you will get PvP flagged because the Ruins are Horde territory. While you're there, 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

I would recommend doing these in the following order:

Stealing Darnassus's Flame: Darnassus is a freebie; you'll find the flame located outside of the city proper in Rut'theran Village at 55,91 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 50,72 around the entrance to the Stormwind Stockades. 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 pretty good. If you get mobbed, try to zone into the Stockades and wait a few minutes. 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 and probably will follow you back there.

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

Burning Hot Pole Dance

Sounds simple, right? Well, it would be, but buying these threads is going to run you 400 Burning Blossoms if you're starting the holiday from scratch.

Do yourself a favor and get the Fires of Azeroth, Desecration, and King of the Fire Festival achievements done first. As of 2009, Blizzard's also provided a ton of fires throughout Northrend (you can find the locations and coordinates here; we won't be discussing them in OverAchiever as they're not actually part of any achievements) as another source of Blossoms. These -- and the Festival dailies, easily doable with the NPCs located around any capital city fire -- 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 is 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 or the Brazier of Dancing Flames, you're going to have to: a). put some work into the torch-juggling dailies: b). complete the Northrend fires, and/or: c). sell the clothing back to the Midsummer vendor for a refund. Actually, you may want to do that last part anyway (assuming you don't want to keep the Midsummer costume), as you'll need a bunch of Burning Blossoms for Juggling Torches. UPDATE: Don't bother. We've received multiple reports now that Blizzard's axed your ability to sell the clothing back to vendors for a refund. If you need to get this achievement, that's 400 Burning Blossoms you're not going to get back.

Torch Juggler

If your computer wheezes its way through Dalaran 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.

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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.

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Filed under: Achievements, The Overachiever