Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we discover that love is not free.

Hot on the heels of the Lunar Festival comes another WoW holiday! Love is in the Air returns this year from Sunday, Feb. 5 through Sunday, Feb. 19. Personally, I can't see too many players logging into the game on Super Bowl Sunday for the purpose of celebrating love and all its many-splendored things, but to each his own. After many tweaks to the holiday, it's definitely one of the less annoying and RNG-riddled outings from the What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta. Before you ask -- yep, it's required if you're still on the warpath for your Violet Proto-Drake. The finished holiday meta will also reward the title the Love Fool.

If you're completely new to Love Is In the Air, you'll probably want to read our FAQ on the holiday. Otherwise, we'll be dealing with the holiday achievements here. There are only two optional ones if you're going for the meta, so I've listed all the ones you'll need first.

Be Mine!

Be Mine! is no longer the nightmare that it used to be. The Bag of Heart Candies can be purchased for the low price of two Love Tokens at any Lovely Merchant (located in major cities). If you don't get the specific candies that you need from one bag, just buy another, and keep doing so until you've nabbed them all. While it's theoretically possible to get all eight candies you need from just one bag, the odds of this happening aren't high. Most players wind up buying three or four bags to get everything they need.

Dangerous Love

Dangerous Love concerns a short but fun quest line that will involve running around Stormwind (for the Alliance) or Orgrimmar (for the Horde) at a goblin NPC's bidding to investigate the recent goings-on of the Crown Chemical Company. If you don't start off in either city, an NPC in any other major city (located around that city's designated holiday area) will direct you there via Uncommon Scents (Alliance) or Uncommon Scents (Horde). Quest progression after that is as follows:

1. Something Stinks (Alliance) or Something Stinks (Horde)
2. Pilfering Perfume (Alliance) or Pilfering Perfume (Horde)
3. Fireworks at the Gilded Rose (Alliance) or Snivel's Sweetheart (Horde)
4. Hot On The Trail (Alliance) or Hot On The Trail (Horde)
5. A Friendly Chat... (Alliance) or A Friendly Chat... (Horde)

After you finish the quest line, the goblin will offer you a daily quest to kill Crown Chemical Company NPCs and disable one of their chemical vats, but where the quest sends you will depend on your character's level. Once you've finished the daily for the first time, you'll get your achievement.

Fistful of Love

Fistful of Love. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Getting a Handful of Rose Petals is easy enough; they're sold in quantities of five for two Love Tokens at any Lovely Vendor, and you'll need 11 handfuls to nail all the race/class combinations listed for the achievement (so bank on spending six Love Tokens). The extras won't go to waste; you'll need one for Flirt With Disaster (see below), and you can always use the three extras to annoy your friends.

The real trouble is going to be finding the less common race/class combinations, and on most servers, it's the effort to find a troll rogue that'll drive you up a wall. As with all the holiday achievements concerned with tracking down race/class combinations, Fistful of Love is probably going to be more difficult in Cataclysm now that there's no neutral city for both factions to occupy. Your best bet is probably to hang around a popular area for dailies or questing (e.g., the Temple of Earth in Deepholm), or failing that, flying directly to an enemy city and hoping for the best.

Flirt With Disaster

You'll need another Handful of Rose Petals for Flirt with Disaster (Alliance)/Flirt with Disaster (Horde), in addition to some booze and perfume (the different varieties of which are sold by Love Vendors for one Token each).

• If you're Alliance, toss on some Perfume, buy enough alcohol to get "completely smashed," and stumble your way over to Sraaz, the gnomish pie vendor who paths around the Great Forge in Ironforge.
• If you're Horde, toss on some Perfume, and before you go to Undercity for this achievement, make sure you stop and buy alcohol elsewhere. Curiously enough, there doesn't seem to be any alcohol available in Undercity; you'll have to bring some with you, fly to Tarren Mill or (because the Lunar Festival is still on) walk upstairs to the Lunar Festival area to purchase some. Jeremiah Payson, the cockroach vendor, is located under the bank steps.

Charming

Charming isn't too tough, but it does require some legwork. Once you speak to Kwee Q. Peddlefeet in any major city for the daily quest concerning a Lovely Charm Bracelet gift for various faction leaders, he'll give you a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit. This will enable you to collect Lovely Charms from any non-gray mob you kill (or any non-gray mobs that dies to another player while you're grouped), and you can make one Lovely Charm Bracelet for each 10 Lovely Charms you collect. Consequently, you'll need 120 Lovely Charms total for this achievement, which if you don't go out farming for them on their own amounts to three days' worth of dailies giving bracelets to faction leaders.

I Pitied the Fool

Bleh. I'm not a fan of the PvP achievements like I Pitied the Fool, but oh well. Fortunately, doing this tends to be more travel-intensive than difficult. The Love Fool can be purchased from any Lovely Vendor for 10 Love Tokens, but the catch is that the item's a one-use only deal. As a result, you'll need to shell out 50 Love Tokens in order to get this done, but it's as simple as dropping a Fool, targeting it, and typing /pity in your chat box (or, for convenience's sake, creating a macro to do the same).

If you're doing this achievement at the same time as a few buddies or guildies, multiple players can use the same Fool, so you don't necessarily have to pay for all of them yourself. Have a friend drop a Fool, everyone around can /pity it, then you can move on to the next spot.

The locations are as follows:

• Arathi Basin blacksmith Make sure you see the Blacksmith zone title flash on your screen before you drop this, but this is easy. You should be able to drop it just about anywhere on the central island in AB and get credit.
• Battle Ring of Gurubashi Arena The Gurubashi Arena is located in Stranglethorn Vale north up the road from Booty Bay. You'll need to enter and drop down from the spectator stands into the ring below in order to get credit for this. Bear in mind that the battle ring is a free-for-all PvP area; you can be attacked and killed by any player in the game here, even those of your own faction.
• Culling of Stratholme You do need to be inside the instance. Whether it's normal or heroic doesn't matter, but you have to be at least level 75 to enter the normal version (and 80, obviously, for heroic).
• Naxxramas As with Culling of Stratholme, you need to be inside Naxx to get credit for this (where doesn't matter). If you're not planning on running Naxx, group up with a buddy or two, convert the group to a raid, zone in, drop the Love Fool, /pity it, and be on your merry way.
• Wintergrasp Location doesn't seem to matter here; as long as you're in the Wintergrasp zone, you'll get credit.

Lonely?

If you want to use your own basket for Lonely? (although you'll still need to get someone to sit underneath it with you), the Romantic Picnic Basket can be purchased for 10 Love Tokens from any holiday vendor. Buttermilk Delights can be found within the Box of Chocolates buyable for another 10 Love Tokens.

If you don't want to spend the tokens, just sit down next to anyone who's dropped a Romantic Picnic in Dalaran, right-click the picnic basket, and then eat your Buttermilk Delight. If you do have your own Picnic Basket, drop it anywhere in Dalaran, and odds are good that someone will happen along to join you over the course of the holiday. Failing that, asking a nearby player usually works, although Dalaran's not quite as full these days. I'd advise doing this in the early portion of the holiday as a result, as the city will likely go back to being a ghost town as players finish off achievements.

My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns is probably rolling over in his grave at the standard English spelling of My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. For this, you'll need to nab a Bouquet of Red Roses or Bouquet of Ebon Roses drop, both of which will appear off a few specific 5-man bosses. Last year, you could get roses off:

• Admiral Ripsnarl in heroic The Deadmines
• Corla, Herald of Twilight in Blackrock Caverns (normal or heroic)
• Drahga Shadowburner in Grim Batol (normal or heroic)
• High Priestess Azil in Stonecore (normal or heroic)
• Lord Godfrey in heroic Shadowfang Keep

Only one bouquet drops per kill, so you may have to roll for it against the other people in your group. However, because you can also get bouquets off the normal versions of Corla, Drahga, and Azil, you may just want to bum rush these dungeons with some friends and then reset as many times as needed if you all need bouquets.

Nation of Adoration

Nation of Adoration (Alliance) and Nation of Adoration (Horde) will give you something to do with all those Lovely Charms you're getting. In each major city, Kwee Q. Peddlefeet will offer you a daily quest to bring a Lovely Charm Bracelet to the city's corresponding faction leader (e.g., Varian Wrynn in Stormwind, Garrosh in Orgrimmar, etc.). The quests aren't mutually exclusive -- you can bring a Bracelet to Magni Bronzebeard and then head for Kalimdor to give one to Tyrande all in the same day -- so the only limiting factor is how many Lovely Charms you've got on you. You'll have to farm 40 to make the necessary bracelets.

The Rocket's Pink Glare

The Rocket's Pink Glare is very simple. Love Rockets are purchased for five Love Tokens in packs of five. Once you've got 10, this achievement couldn't be simpler; drag them to one of your hotkeys and spam it until you've got the achievement. You should be able to shoot 10 off within 20 seconds very easily.

Players have reported issues with lag affecting their ability to get this, so if you're playing with high latency, you may want to get a few extra rockets just in case, go to an uncrowded area, or try this during one of your server's slower periods.

Shafted!

Shafted! is easy, easy, easy -- as soon as you get the item you need. The Silver Shafted Arrow is buyable in packs of five for five Love Tokens (so 10 tokens total). As soon as you've got them, shoot any player in sight who doesn't already have a noncombat pet out. Once you've got 10, you're all set.

The achievement doesn't work on players who already have a pet out because the Arrow gives the targeted player a temporary noncombat pet. Because you can only have one out at a time, the arrow won't work on any player who already has one, so be careful if you're trying to shoot anyone in a huge pack where it's difficult to tell this.

Sweet Tooth

All of the candies needed for Sweet Tooth can be found in the Box of Chocolates you can buy for 10 Love Tokens. Stuff yourself with all four (you can combine the Buttermilk Delight pig-out with Lonely?, above) and you're golden.

Not required for the meta

There are some achievements related to the Love Is In the Air holiday that you can do just for fun and aren't required for the Love Fool title.

Lovely Luck is on Your Side

Lovely Luck is on Your Side requires -- what else? -- some luck. The Lovely Black Dress is indirectly buyable for 20 Love Tokens. What you actually do is buy the Lovely Dress Box, then right-click to open it. Please note that, even though the dress can be traded between characters, you will only get an achievement from looting it from the BoP box that you'll obviously have to buy yourself.

Perma-Peddle

Perma-Peddle was once one of the game's more frustrating holiday achievements. Once upon a time, you needed to get very, very lucky with a Truesilver Shafted Arrow, which was a 1% drop from a gift/pledge from a city NPC or guard. Thankfully, these days they're buyable for 40 Love Tokens.

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Enjoy working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on patch 4.3 achievements, our guide to Mountain O' Mounts, and a good, hard look at what's wrong with archaeology and how Blizzard could fix it.

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