The OverAchiever: More new and altered Cataclysm achievements
by Allison Robert 
Sep 23rd 2010 at 11:00AM
As with our earlier article, I didn't bother mentioning any achievement that's completely unchanged, but you'll find everything else here.
Cataclysm Dungeon Hero Fairly straightforward; you'll get this for successful completion of all nine Cataclysm heroics, which I should note includes heroic Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. Even the normal versions of these dungeons are not pushovers -- and to be honest, as a tank, I'm a little nervous about the inevitable transition period from Wrath's festival of AoE to Cataclysm's "CC everything!" model.
This achievement's also required for --
Glory of the Cataclysm Hero Heroics only just became available on the beta (in a manner of speaking; access was bugged for a while, and Blizzard "strongly recommended" that all players copy over level 85 premades for the purpose of testing), so I don't have a lot of information about these yet. Some of the achievements reference NPCs or mechanics that aren't in the normal version of the dungeons (I think).
More information to come, but I think it's safe to assume that, like Glory of the Hero, this is going to be a fairly time-intensive (and PUG-unfriendly) meta. Once stats, masteries, talents and overall class design become a little more stable on the beta, I'll see what I can do to assemble guides on the dungeon achievements.
Glory of the Cataclysm Raider This is similar to the Icecrown Citadel achievements in that the heroic version of most boss fights will be required for the meta, in addition to achievements that will doubtless be easier to complete on the normal version. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The Icecrown frostwyrms were a logistical headache for guild leaders who had to juggle players needing the heroics against players who still needed the "regular" achievements. Any new or reserve raiders who came in just restarted the issue.
Then again, anything's better than a repeat of the nightmare that was Immortal ...
Many of the new professions achievements are predictable, as the new skill cap is 525, so Blizzard's simply bumped up the requirements for achievements awarded for maxed-out professions. From what I can see, the new additions are not currently required for the meta-achievements (Hail to the Chef and Accomplished Angler), so anyone who still needs to get this done will only have to worry about content through Northrend.
More Skills to Pay the Bills Pretty much expected, but with the addition of archaeology, this is going to be a wee bit tougher than its Wrath counterpart. I've been pecking away at it on my beta main, and while archaeology is seriously a lot of fun, it can be slow going due to the enormous amount of time spent traveling and some RNG along the way.
Professional Illustrious Grand Master What a mouthful, but another expected one. I wonder if Blizzard's worried about running out of adjectives to designate the latest high-rank of professions (a problem that's surely occurred when it comes time to name the next arena season).
Working Around the Clock Again, expected.
Cooking
Illustrious Grand Master Cook As expected.
Iron Chef The next step up from Chef de Cuisine. I wonder if Blizzard's going to normalize the number of recipes available to each faction; right now, the Alliance has a pretty serious advantage when it comes to getting 160 recipes with a minimum of fuss.
Let's Do Lunch (Alliance) and Let's Do Lunch (Horde) I've been doing the cooking dailies pretty regularly and for some reason have only ever gotten Careful, This Fruit Bites Back. I'm not sure if this is because the other dailies haven't been implemented yet or if it's just a persistent bit of RNG. Anyway, the Stormwind/Orgrimmar cooking dailies are very much like the Dalaran cooking dailies in that they reward special tokens redeemable for new cooking recipes. Interestingly, they reward a skill point for cooking, too.
The Cataclysmic Gourmet Most of these are the recipes you'll get from redeeming the new cooking tokens with suppliers in Stormwind/Orgrimmar, so you'll be doing dailies for a while before you nab all of them.
Fishing
Illustrious Grand Master Fisherman As expected.
Deadliest Catch With Zul'Gurub going bye-bye as a raid, I don't know if this achievement's going to stick around. Zul'Gurub will still be in the game as a leveling area, but that's about it.
Fish or Cut Bait (Alliance) and Fish or Cut Bait (Horde) In contrast to the cooking dailies, these all seem functional, and none of them require a lot of travel time as long as you can fly in Azeroth. If you can't fly -- as I've discovered on my low-level goblin and worgen characters -- getting around Stormwind and Orgrimmar plus outlying areas can be a real nuisance. Orgrimmar in particular is now much bigger, and the trip from fishing's daily quest giver to, say, the goblin slums for No Dumping Allowed feels like you need to stop for lunch along the way.
The current quests give a skill point but also award the same Bag of Fishing Treasures you can get from the Dalaran daily. I'm not sure if that's intended or they're planning on another set of rewards for the Stormwind/Orgrimmar dailies.
The Limnologist and The Oceanographer I sense the hand of Ghostcrawler at work. Look, Blizzard, just because some yoohoo with a marine science Ph.D. comes to work for you is no reason to make me drag my ass all over the world yanking 84 different species out of waters with disturbingly pedantic salinity specifications.
First aid
Illustrious Grand Master in First Aid As expected.
Preparing for Disaster Between this achievement, the nerfs to healing efficiency and the beefed-up health pools everyone's rocking on the beta, if I don't see some players bandaging themselves at every available opportunity, I will grow violent.
Ultimate Triage Embersilk bandages (the new level/s of bandage for Cataclysm) have been added to this achievement, so if you wind up tackling it at 85, you won't have to go back to Northrend to farm up Frostweave.
Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! We cover 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 Azeroth's holidays and special events. Filed under: Achievements, The Overachiever
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
(cutaia) Sep 23rd 2010 11:11AM
"Then again, anything's better than a repeat of the nightmare that was Immortal ..."
I much prefer the Ulduar model. A ton of rather easy, but fun, achievements. A select group of achievements for the drakes, then some even harder challenges like zero lights, or Algalon's achievements. Seems like the best mix.
Pyromelter Sep 23rd 2010 11:41AM
Also, with Ulduar, the hardmodes generally WERE the achievements (like Firefighter, Heartbreaker, etc). It really is annoying as all get-out that many achievements are nigh impossible on heroic.
Allison Robert Sep 23rd 2010 12:34PM
Yeah, in general I liked the Ulduar model most out of the three raid tiers that awarded drakes for a meta-achievement. The hard modes (especially stuff like three trees, Firefighter, Yogg with 1 or 0 keepers, etc.) were genuinely difficult, and you didn't have to pick and choose between getting the achievement and the heroic version.
In Icecrown, well ... I actually wound up having to use a spreadsheet to track which guild members had which achievements, who'd been there for the heroic kills, who still needed both, etc. And the problem with any new raider brought into this system is that it invariably means another week's worth of having to clear the content mostly on normal rather than heroic (I cannot begin to imagine the nightmare of doing All You Can Eat at the same time as heroic Sindragosa, or combining Deathwhisper's achievement with heroic Deathwhisper). That means another week's worth of clearing content without getting the heroic drops that are increasingly likely to be the only real upgrades remaining. It was just awkward and frustrating all around.
Hollow Leviathan Sep 23rd 2010 1:12PM
I just did an Immortal run last night. All was good up to KT. Apparently the healers 'weren't paying attention' when I said that Ice tombs have to be healed within 4 seconds. $&W@HGE#%fhbew4GG%hsh
Microtonal Sep 23rd 2010 2:47PM
I don't have a problem, conceptually, with hard modes being a significant step up in difficulty, but I much preferred the Ulduar model in that you actually had to *do* something within the context of the fight to activate the hardmodes and/or achievements, and they were largely one and the same.
Flipping a switch in the UI is context- and lore-free, and boring as all get-out.
DragonFireKai Sep 23rd 2010 3:44PM
Personally, I'm just glad they took "I can't hear you over the sound of how awsome I am" off the meta. It was like putting "He feeds on your tears" on the ulduar meta.
The reason for the 2 week model of the Glory of the Icecrown and Cataclysm raider is to mitigate the selling of the mounts that was ovewhelmingly prevelant in Ulduar.
DragonFireKai Sep 23rd 2010 4:03PM
@Microtonal
The reason why they went to a ui based toggle was because some of the switches were rather annoying.
Sure, they were cool at first, but then there were several feats of annoyance which convinced me that it was a less than ideal idea.
I was helping out a friend's guild. I was tanking in the arena on thorim, and the gauntlet group was pushing it. Thorim jumps down, and yells something, and one of the raid members said, "Never heard him say that before...". "That's cause you activated hard mode, dumbass. Ugly wipe ensued.
General Vezax. We stood around for damn near three minutes, waiting for hard mode to start. We couldn't DPS, or we'd kill him. We actually had a few melee DPS excuse themselves to use the bathroom mid fight.
Hodir Hard Mode. When it was progression, we'd have to set up markers, and if we weren't past the marker when the we hit a time check, then we'd wipe it, rather than risk accidently killing him a second late, and missing out for a week.
The unresetable nature of Flame Leviathan, Freya, and Yogg. Once you toggled to easy mode, by god, you were going to do easy mode. no second guessing for you!
Accidently popping the heart on the third heart phase on XT. Fail.
Pretty much the only "organic" toggle in ulduar that weren't flawed were Iron Council, and Mimiron. And Mimiron was an actual button you pushed before the fight, a literal UI toggle.
That being said, I think the Sarth, FL, Freya, IC, and Yogg ideas of multiple degrees of hard mode was a great idea. Just the implementation needed work.
Gamer am I Sep 23rd 2010 11:11AM
At least Glory of the Cataclysm Hero seems to have fewer sub-achievements required than its Wrath version. Honestly, the quantity of achievements in Glory of the Hero is just sadistic.
Allison Robert Sep 23rd 2010 12:38PM
I can understand why it wasn't, but part of me still feels that the Glory of the Hero proto-drake should have been a 310% mount. The meta-achievement takes a lot of work even now, and it has several obstacles only minimally affected by gear (though not most, I admit).
Henrah Sep 23rd 2010 11:14AM
Any word yet on Loremaster?
I understand it's being changed into individual zones, which in my opinion, devalues the original achievement.
Is the current achievement becoming a feat of strength, perhaps with a new title such as 'Ancient Loremaster', or are players who currently have Loremaster just being gifted the new achievements?
Rhabella Sep 23rd 2010 12:13PM
Huh? Devalues the original achievement? If you were able to do loremaster without the help of an addon, then I would absolutely agree with you, but I would bet my house and car that the number of people able/willing to successfully do that is less than 1%.
I will agree that the original loremasters should probably get a special reward or title, but to imply the “value” of an achievement for someone masochistic enough to do it is devalued because it was streamlined implies you have no real understanding of the personality of anyone willing to do that achievement in the first place.
Allison Robert Sep 23rd 2010 12:45PM
Loremaster's still in the game -- GC's been pretty open about Blizzard's desire not to axe achievements if it can be avoided -- and as of now there's no Feat of Strength for having done it in Wrath. From what GC's said, I think we can expect that the number of quests required for it to be revised to reflect new Cataclysm quests, but that's about it.
slartibart Sep 23rd 2010 12:51PM
I don't get why people make it seem as if loremaster is "impossible" minus an add-on.
While it's anecdotal, I did it entirely without an addon, it just takes awhile, and a LOT of travel time. Granted, being a prot pally and able to easily solo some of the quests in dungeons made it a bit easier.
Mayhew Sep 23rd 2010 2:35PM
As someone who did Loremaster pre-nerf and with no addons to help, I can say that my goal was to accomplish the most demanding form of the achievement both to see if it could be done and to say that I did it. The Loremaster of Kalimdor used to be pretty grueling before they nerfed it, requiring 730 quests complete for the Alliance version of the achievement.
Personally, I know that I completed it before it was nerfed, but it would be great to see either some sort of feat of strength associated with the date of completion or else different versions of the achievement to match the different requirements. The meta achievements could be changed to require the less demanding versions of the achievements, but it would be nice to have the more demanding versions still represented in some way (like the way that Brew of the Year is no longer required for the Brewmaster meta but is still a separate achievement).
Ringo Flinthammer Sep 23rd 2010 3:29PM
More than a dozen in my guild did Loremaster before there were any mods that could help with it. It was never that hard.
FoxOfWar Sep 23rd 2010 8:05PM
Loremaster without addons for it, checking in.
Loremaster was not hard, mostly it was just what it says in the tin: a lot of running to different places and doing about 1.5k different "bring me ten bear asses" -type quests.
The new system will make it even easier, agreed.
What I am curious about is whether there will be loremaster-related achievement in the new 80+ areas?
Angrycelt Sep 24th 2010 4:14AM
Another add-on free Loremaster here. Just turned on the low-level quest tracking, and did hundreds of "kill X creatures", dungeon solos, and every pissant little "collect 10 snouts, tusks, beaks, livers, hooves, heads, ears, eyes, and horns" quests.
I bought myself a chopper to at least make the travel more entertaining. Bought my wife a traveler's mammoth for her big run. It's not hard, just time consuming.
gamerunknown Sep 23rd 2010 11:17AM
WTB a nerf to the fishing tournament. I don't care if it'll no longer award a title and doing it the old fashioned way becomes a feat of strength, its the last achievement I need for finishing the entire professions tab :(
Thundrcrackr Sep 23rd 2010 11:37AM
If they made it a daily thing that would be amazing.
SpaceGoatPriest Sep 23rd 2010 11:49AM
I do really see how they can "nerf" it. They added another whole chance per week on Sat (granted that one is almost all RNG). The one on Sunday buffing the "drop rate" won't make it easier, just it will end faster.
If you are really having problems with it, get about 5-10 friends on Sunday and have them "fake" fish in the pools. Most people will ignore a node being fished, plus you will know exactly where the next closest node is.
Honestly I like the fact that this particular achievement is equally as challenging no matter the level or what kind of gear or DPS you put out. There is a little bit of RNG with some actual strategy. It is an achievement that is a true achievement to have.