Going back and doing some of the holiday events has definitely been part of the WoW Classic experience, and especially the Wrath Classic experience, since Wrath is when achievements came in. Achievements give you something like a definitive path through an event and, with the meta achievement, reward you with a title so you can say, “Been there, done that, got the title” and never worry about investing much effort going forward.
Given that sort of “been there, done that” attitude, there are a number of events I haven’t done in a long long time, so this is also sparking a bit of memory. And then there are the problems. I’ll get to the problems.
Also, if you want the real details on all of this, WoW Head has a nice guide to the event and details on all the achievements.
The Required Achievements for the Title
The requirements for the meta achievement always set the goals for me for a holiday event in this era.
What you need to finish up
Chasing Candy Buckets
There is a jack-o-lantern at selected inns throughout Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, and Outland that you need to visit in order earn achievements that roll up to the Tricks and Treats of Azeroth achievement on the list above.
This nice part is that if you did any of it last year, that rolls over to this year. No need to start over. As it turned out, I did all of the Outland inns last year. I did not, however, do many of the old Azeroth locations, so that became the biggest travel effort. Still, an evening of traveling around while listen to podcasts and an audio book was all it took.
Also, this is a good one to do with alts not at the level cap because, with Joyous Journeys still up, each inn is worth almost 5% of a level.
South Shore Clean Up
Was the Rotten Hallow achievement really this small back then? I recall a version where you actually go bomb the other side or something. That must come later.
The effort here is going to find the Wickerman outside of the Undercity. There is a round trip involved. But you just show up, get the update, and go back to Southshore. Beware the guards around the Wickerman. They are level 60, so at level 80 they won’t pose a threat, but they went and one-shotted my then level 44 rogue who went to do the achievement as well.
Meanwhile, the cleanup aspect of the achievement is just waiting for some stink bombs to appear then using the quest item. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Fight Fires in Dun Morogh
The easiest way to finish the Savior of Hallow’s End is to show up after everybody else has done the work, click on the pumpkin remains of the Headless Horseman, then be on your way.
It will just wait for you
If that isn’t a possibility then, if you’re on the alliance side, go to Kharnos in Dun Morogh and do the event with a few people.
Seriously, I caught up with Ula at the Goldshire version of the event and tried to help her and, even with about a dozen people throwing water, even after forming bucket brigades, we blew the event.
Then the three of us, Fergorin having joined up, went to Kharnos and did it without any problem. The fires there start in two locations, don’t spread very fast, and with some strategic placement, can be wrapped up in about 2 mins.
And then the Headless Horseman shows up and you sneeze on him at level 80 and he falls over dead.
Collecting up those Wands
The one achievement that will take a real group effort is The Masquerade, which requires you to be transformed by all seven of the wands found in trick or treat bags. You cannot, as I recall, just do drive by transforms with them, they only work on people you’re grouped with.
The Headless Horseman
This part is actually pretty easy, and a big endorsement for the return of the Dungeon Finder. I queue up every morning with all five of my level 80s to run the instance event. This is especially quick since three out of five of my characters are arguably tanks, so I put them in for tank and DPS roles.
Wilhelm is absolutely a tank
You queue up, jump in, click the pumpkin, then let the DPS with 5K+ gear scores who are putting out 3.5-4.5 DPS burn the horseman down, then the head, and repeat until the loot appears.
It’s not much, but it is honest murder
Of course, the loot I want is his mount. So far I have seen, across my characters, both brooms, all three rings, the Baleful Blade, the hallowed helm, and the Sinister Squashling… the next topic is about that pet in particular.
I have yet to see the Horrific Helm and the mount, which are naturally what I really want. But there are still many days to go and I get five chances a day.
The Broken Achievement
Finally, there is probably the reason I won’t get the meta achievement and the title, as one of the achievements is broken. I cannot get the second half of its requirement.
The achievement
Well, “broken” is the wrong word probably. You can get it. But you can only get it with ONE character on your account.
The problem is that with the new combined pets and mounts UI that came in with the Fall of the Lich King patch, you can only claim a pet or a mount ONCE per account in Wrath Classic. And this achievement doesn’t simply require you to obtain the Sinister Squashling, but also to claim it. But you cannot claim it if you have collected it on another character already.
The unclaimable pet
I realized this too late as I figured it would be like some of the other achievements, where collecting in on one character would count for all characters. But no, while every character on my account got the Albino Drake for having 50 mounts, only the first character that collected the Sinister Squashling got the update.
Without that I cannot get the meta achievement.
Now, maybe Blizzard will fix this. I have seen this issue reported multiple times in both the US and EU forums. I have also opened a support ticket about the issue, though the canned response told me I should go check the forums or WoW Head if I am having problems with an achievement. I do hate canned responses that indicate that the company hasn’t bothered to read your issue description. But at least I was able to re-open it with a further comment about what was actually going on… not that my first message was anything but a detailed description of the issue.
We shall see. My confidence in Blizzard being able to address an issue is low. They have a demonstrated history of being deaf to player issues in the past. Still, they have fixed a few bugs here and there in Wrath Classic, though others still remain. (You can, for example, still fall through the world doing Boneguard Commanders. I saw one go under ground this past week.)
And maybe this won’t matter. Maybe I won’t get zapped by all the wands. But it is a pretty big blocker if I get everything else done.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 