Whilst we wait for Warlords

We know that Warlords will be released in around three months, with the systems patch happening in around two months time.

This means that now is the perfect time to finish off any achievements or things which would either be impossible or irksome to do once we’re into the content Warlords has for us.

With a guild group I got the gold challenge modes done yesterday – when Warlords hits the transmog sets, titles and mounts will no longer be obtainable. If you’ve already got one of the challenge mode reward mounts when Warlords hits then Blizzard have said it’ll go accountwide and you’ll be able to get the other three mounts as well.

So the question is – what else do I have to do in this lull?

Hunter pets

I’ve written a post about me being a bad hunter and not having raid buff pets. Whilst this is something which should only take me an afternoon to do, its not high on my list of things to do.

Status Good to get done before Warlords, but not the end of the world if I don’t

9,999 bones with a side order of primal egg

Specifically, 9,999 giant dinosaur bones so I can purchase a mount – Reins of the Bone-White Primal Raptor.

Whilst doing this with my hunter – mostly thanks to her being a skinner – I’ll have a good chance of getting Primal Eggs as well. I’m just missing the Black Primal Raptor mount you can get from those!

Status

Better to get done now whilst in Pandaria. It should take a couple of days to farm up all of the bones.

The leather will be useful in making Magnificent Hide

Seeker of knowledge

Ah, this pain of an achievement. The Seat of Knowledge rewards the title “Seeker of Knowledge” – a nice title for a character doing archeology.

However it means you have to find not just normal versions of artifacts. No, you have to find pristine ones!

I’m on the home leg with this one, I only need to find a Pristine Pandaren Tea Set to complete it.

Unfortunately it seems the Pandaren were somewhat clumsy with their tea sets. Or my dwarf fingers aren’t so gentle. So far I’ve found 36 of these tea sets and not one of them is good enough to be considered to be “Pristine”.

I’ve ended up doing all of the “Collector” achievements whilst chasing this – in fact right now the only archeology achievement in the game I’ve not done is The Seat of Knowledge.

The problem here is three fold. First I need a Pandaren digsite – not guarenteed and you can only use a Lorewalker’s Map to randomize your digsites once every half hour if you have no Pandaren digsites up. Oh and there is no guarentee that the ones you get instead will be Pandaren either!

Then you need to actually have a tea set to solve – again, something you don’t control. And if you don’t have a tea set, well, see point 1 – you need lots of Pandaren fragments to complete all of the artifacts not involved in the making of tea.

Finally, you need one of the tea sets to actually be pristine – apparently there is a 10% chance of a tea set being pristine. So I’ll be some time yet!

Status

Do whilst in Pandaria. Unknown how long it’ll take thanks to RNG, but likely to be long. Spent 4 hours on Sunday night chasing this, with only two normal Pandaren Tea Sets to show for it.

That said, it does mean I’ve got lots of Restored Artifacts to buy older fragments with! So far I’ve managed to get the Tol’Vir mount with this and I’m now working on Troll archeology to get Zin’rokh!

Brawlers guild

Oooh look! Another mount! You can buy the Brawler’s Burly Mushan Beast when you reach rank 10.

I’ve started poking at this and already reached rank 3 on my main – him being geared in heroic Seige of Orgrimmar gear kind of helps here! But I know that it’ll get far more complex later and I’m sure a lot of cursing will be done down the road.

I’ve been using the excellent guides at WoWHead to help with this task:

The comments on individual bosses can also be quite useful. It’ll be interesting doing some of the later ones as a shadow priest – I’ve already flipped over to the procy talent build for the initial bosses. I’ll probably tweak talents on each of the later bosses however.

Status

Do before the 6.0 patch which preceeds Warlords as I believe the current Brawlers guild will no longer be available then – with a new one in Warlords instead.

Will probably take at least a weekend to do

Bloody coins

Ah PvP, something I’ll often do in the tailend of an expansion. Currently my frost mage is having lots of fun deep freezing other players and spamming ice lances onto them!

She is also serving Ordos, using Fire-Watcher’s Oath to get Bloody Coins from battlegrounds and world PvP.

These coins will be used to buy another mount – the Ashhide Mushan Beast – using 500 coins.

Unfortunately you need to get killing blows to gain coins – no guarentee given the typical battleground scrum! Plus the item only gives you a 10 minute buff whilst having a 10 minute cooldown – if you die with the buff on, you have to wait to reapply it.

Which is probably why my mage only has 150 of the 500 coins she needs. But she’s getting there, slowly. And she is getting more 550 gear which is really helping.

Status

Better to do before Warlords hits and I have to gear up for new PvP seasons.

Plus we don’t know if the Fire-Watcher’s Oath will still work post-Mists. It probably will, but better safe than sorry…

Sky shard farming

Yet another mount-related thing to do – getting the 10 Skyshards together to create a Skycrystal so I can remove Alani‘s protective shield so I can kill & loot Reins of the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent from it!

I have 5 skyshards already, but I know from experience that it will be a long & hard slog cursing RNG to get the other 5 I need!

Status

Better to get done now whilst in Pandaria. I think you may find me in Guo-Lai Halls on my warlock… but it’ll take some time!

One to do with lots of Potions of luck

Other mounts

The observant will note that a lot of these things are mounts. That there is a 250 mount achievement in Warlords may have something to do with my mount chasing! There is a source of mounts which I’ve not covered yet – dungeons and raids! I’ve got a few of this already, so why not add a few more! It was the Godmother who inspired me to start another instance mount grindfest.

Mount Source
Armored Razzashi Raptor Bloodlord Mandokir in Zul’Gurub HC
Should be soloable these days – heroic means once a day per character
Blazing Drake Deathwing in Dragonsoul normal/heroic
May well need a group for this as Dragonsoul could be fun to solo – Ultraxion and Spine are the worst
Drake of the South Wind Al’Akir in Throne of the Four Winds
Need to see if this is soloable
Experiment 12-B Ultraxion in Dragonsoul
If we try for the Blazing Drake we’ll have to kill Ultraxion anyway! Questionable as to if its soloable.
Flametalon of Alysrazor Alysrazor in Firelands
Alysrazor should be soloable, although she is somewhat twitchy about despawning if there is only one person.
Life-Binder’s Handmaiden Deathwing in Dragonsoul, heroic only
Not possible to solo yet – if nothing else you have to clear all of Dragonsoul on HC. Including HC spine.
Phosphorescent Stone Drake Aeonaxx, Deepholm rarespawn
Ah, the joys of the rarespawn. A “sit and wait” mount
Rivendare’s Deathcharger Lord Aurius Rivendare, Stratholm
Trivially soloable these days
Time-Lost proto-drake Time-Lost Proto-Drake, Storm Peaks rare spawn
Another rare spawn, but one which is heavily camped
Red Qiraji Battle Tank Zone drop in AQ40
Run into AQ40, kill mobs to first boss. Run out & reset instance. Repeat 10 times.

There are some others – like Mimiron’s Head, Invincible and the Pureblood Fire Hawk – which I’ve not included as they’re even more of a pain to get to than the ones above! I should also get around to doing the meta-achievements for mounts at somepoint as well.

Status

Can be done at any time, but can you think of a better time to do this than in the between expansion lull?

One to do with lots of Potions of luck

Monk to 90

The monk is the only class I’ve not leveled to 90 and my dwarfen monk is currently level 86. Soooo close.

No achievements or mounts associated with this one, just for a change!

Status Would be nice to do before Warlords, not essential. Would take a couple of days I think, although the monk buff from their daily may shorten that

Horde to 90

Most of my characters are alliance. As a result I’ve not really experienced the horde side of the game and there are some nice quest lines there. And there are some stories which start on the alliance side and only finish with the horde – the Worgen starting experience is probably the best example this.

If I do get my horde to 90 then I’ll end up getting the Double Agent achievement.

Status Can be done at any time, not essential

Poke Hearthstone

Another one to file under “Wait, its got a mount? Sign me up!” – the Hearthsteed from winning three Hearthstone games in play or arena mode.

Status Can be done at any time, not essential. Should only take a weekend or so I hope

Proving grounds

I’ve never really poked the proving grounds – probably since I’ve not really felt the need to do them. Plus being scaled down to 463 gear, understandable given what the proving grounds are for, can make things fun if you’re used to higher gear levels.

I’ll probably do this one on my warlock, taking adventage of the set she built for challenge modes as the same scaling is present there.

Status

Better to get done before Warlords as the achievements become feats of strength, but with no mounts & only titles associated with them I’m not in any real hurry.

Warlords is supposed to have new proving grounds which are better balanced for more classes – right now some classes are just better than others in the proving grounds. However it looks like the improved proving grounds maybe taking a back seat to Blizzard actually getting Warlords out in a reasonable timeframe.

So there you go. Achievements, titles and six more mounts if I can get all of the above done!

Given all of the above, I’m glad that Warlords is ~three months away!

This entry was posted in Mists of Pandaria, Mounts, Waiting for Expansion and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

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