Droplet’s Guide on How to Drive Yourself Completely, Irreversibly, and Brainlessly Nuts by Playing World of Warcraft


There’s always something wonderful and exciting about playing World of Warcraft, from levelling to raiding to even just fishing. The game is full of niches to fit every player’s needs, which is probably why it’s the most successful MMORPG in the world today.
However, there’s always that one... thing that drains the fun and makes you want to hit your head against the wall repeatedly until you bleed and need to rush to the hospital. Those wonderful gruelling grinds, frustrating attempts, or just plain boringness after hours and hours of repetition; we’ve all done it at one time or another. So I am creating this guide for all you masochists out there to test yourself against and possibly go insane; or just to amuse everyone else so they can laugh at anyone who actually attempts these.
So, in no particular order, I present the nine worst achievements in the game available today, and how to get them.

1. Accomplished Angler

This achievement is, plainly, an RNG nightmare. The meta-achievement consists of 14 different achievements, most of which are not hard to accomplish. However, four of them will become the bane of your existence very quickly.

First off, there’s [The Coin Master], which requires you to fish up 52 different kinds of coins from the fountain in Dalaran. Conveniently, the gold coins you fish up can be thrown back in the water to increase your chance of fishing up more coins, but it doesn’t speed up the process much.

It gets progressively more RNG dependent from there. [The One That Didn’t Get Away] requires you to fish up an incredibly rare fish; most of which are located in very specific remote areas and have a theorized drop rate of less than 0.1%. And let’s not forget Mr. Pinchy, who will have you fishing in Terrokkar pools for days to get his magical crawdad box. The grinds not over once you get the box though; you get three wishes, where you have a one in five chance of actually getting the pet. Did I mention you have to wait two days in between wishes?

And finally, what I consider to be the most difficult achievement of the entire meta: [Master Angler of Azeroth]. This achievement doesn’t rely on RNG as much; instead, it depends on your competition. Although it has been made considerably easier with the introduction of the Kalu’ak fishing derby, this achievement functions as a chokepoint, as only a certain amount of people will be able to get this achievement every year. There are many guides written on how to win the derbies; however it will all depend on your luck and how many people are competing against you.

2. One Hump or Two?
This feat of strength has been introduced with the release of Cataclysm, and is awarded upon looting the extremely rare [Reins of the Grey Riding Camel]. This mount drops off a creature called Dormus the Camel Hoarder, who will only spawn if you are teleported up to his platform near Un’goro. How do you get there, you ask? Easy, loot something called the Mysterious Camel Figurine. Not so easy is the fact that this item is supposedly on a 24-hour timer, turns into dust 95% of the time when you loot it, and is already extremely camped. Getting this mount will require a lot of patience and camping for days on end. My suggestion is to persevere, because eventually many of your fellow campers will lose interest.

3. Illustrious Grand Master in Archaeology

Also new to World of Warcraft is the profession of archaeology. Blizzard has done the impossible by creating a profession that is more boring than fishing. There’s not much to it: check your map for digsites across Azeroth and go there, then use your survey button to do some treasure hunting by heading in the direction your telescope is pointing in and eventually you’ll find archaeology fragments. Put these fragments together and voila! You create an essentially useless item. If you get lucky, you’ll be assigned to a rare project, where you could make something incredibly rare. Although the idea is exciting, these projects are few and far between, meaning you’ll probably be spending hours on end running across Azeroth to create useless items. Did I mention that it takes ages to level up?
There’s no real way to speed up the process; just put on some music and dig, dig away, and don’t expect to be done in a day.

4. What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

The folks up at Blizzard can be quite sneaky sometimes. Take this meta-achievement for example. It requires a whole year to do, which of course takes a whole year of subscription fees. And if you happen to miss out on one of the world events, then expect to wait a whole year again to finish it.
Upon completing this you receive the violet proto drake which, like every proto drake, looks fantastic. However it is made up of so many gruelling achievements (I’m looking at you, [School of Hard Knocks]) that without constant attempts, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to get this within a year. Again, there is no way to speed this one up; just remember to mark your calendars for every event and knock out those holiday achievements before it ends.

5. Hero of Shattrath

The Scryers and Aldor are two integral, yet conflicting, factions of the City of Shattrath. Although their enmity travels back years, players can choose what faction they decide to side with. Of course, Blizz added a method for those crazy types to switch from one faction to another. First you must reach exalted with one of the factions, which involves turn-ins of faction specific items. That’s the easy part though. After you’ve done that, get ready to massacre huge amounts of basilisks if you want to raise reputation with the Scryers, or spiders if you want to raise reputation with the Aldor.
If you are planning to become exalted with Scryers after Aldor, seek out a blood elf named Arcanist Adyria in Lower Shattrath. She will ask you to bring dampscale basilisk eyes to her, which can be found on the basilisks scattered around Terrokkar Forest. You need 1344 of these to get back up to neutral, while your Aldor reputation is destroyed in the process.
If you are planning to go from Aldor to Scryers, there is a draenei in Lower Shattrath named Sha’nir who will accept 8 dreadfang venom sacs at a time to go from hated to neutral. These sacs are found on Dreadfang spiders located all around Terrokkar. Again, you will need 1344 sacs to get up to neutral, after which you must hand in marks of Kil’Jaeden and Sargeras to gain reputation.
This feat of strength is a pure grind that is achievable, but not easy in the least. Always remember to take breaks!



6. Bloody Rare/Frostbitten

Everyone loves finding rare spawns. They give you a huge chunk of XP while levelling, look different from your average mob, and are just plain exciting to find. There’s also a way to hate rare spawns, which tends to happen when you pursue Bloody Rare or Frostbitten in Outland or Northrend respectively. See, these achievements require you to kill every major rare spawn on these continents, which will drive you nuts for weeks. Most of the rares are on extremely long and variable timers, and aren’t that easy to find. They have different pathing routes, some tend to get eaten by guards (*cough* Doomsayer Jurim *cough*), and they bring you to tears when you find them already dead.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is called NPCScan. This addon is a rare-spawn-hunter’s saviour: it scans your cache to find the names of certain rares, and when it does it pops up on your screen with red flashing lights and a targetable icon. Install NPCScan Overlay with it, and your life just got a whole lot easier.
If you do plan to complete this achievement, make sure you clear your cache every time you get a false alarm because of hunter pets and dead rares so that you can find them again. Also it’s best to research on Wowhead for every mob to get the general gist of their spawn timers. And, although it’s not everyone’s ideal way to hunt, searching during off-peak hours will increase your chances of finding a rare alive and ready to be murdered.

7. The Loremaster

Questing. We’ve done it since day one of WoW. Some of us are great at it, some of us just suck at it and like to grind, and others despise it. But almost everyone loves a new shiny title beside their name to show off, which is what [The Loremaster] awards. With the release of patch 4.0.3, this achievement has become a lot more interesting and streamlined, giving zone achievements for old world instead of continent-wide achievements that had you searching for quests for ages. It still doesn’t make up for the fact that it takes forever.
If the character you wish to get this achievement on is an enchanter or gatherer, you’ll be able to make a lot of profit out of it; archaeology can be levelled while questing too. Cataclysm quests make this achievement a lot more enjoyable than it used to be, so make the most of it, and maybe even read the quest text!

8. The Justicar

Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch are the three original battlegrounds from vanilla WoW, and all three have associated factions. [The Justicar] requires you to reach exalted with all three factions, which can be extremely difficult.
Depending on your battlegroup, one faction will usually win more than the other, and if you’re on the losing side this gets a lot tougher. To gain rep with the Silverwing Sentinels or Warsong Outriders, you have to cap the flag or win the game. This takes ages upon ages to get up to exalted. For the Frostwolf Clan or Stormpike Guard you must complete various tasks such as destroying towers or capturing graveyards to gain reputation; this is the easiest of the three. For League of Arathor or the Defilers, you earn 10 reputation for every 160 resources gathered.
If you’re usually on the losing side of battlegrounds, expect to be doing a lot of them for a very long time. On the plus side, you can knock out a lot of the achievements required for [Battlemaster].

9. Insane in the Membrane

This is a feat of strength even Blizzard admits is crazy. To achieve it, you must raise your reputation to honoured with Bloodsail Buccaneers, and exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel, Ravenholdt, and Darkmoon Faire. Formerly Shen’dralar was included in this list; however the faction has been removed as of patch 4.0.3.
To gain reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, you must kill Booty Bay guards by the hundreds. You will eventually reach honoured, and can even go up to exalted if you wish. To do this you must be level 85 or have some level 85 buddies willing to bring you along. After this, head over to Gadgetzan to Lost Rigger Cove. The place is littered with pirates that you can kill for meagre amounts of rep with the Steamwheedle Cartel, but it adds up.
Once you’re done with the pirates and goblins, you can either choose to raise your Ravenholdt reputation or Darkmoon Faire reputation. For the former, you will need a rogue of preferable level 50 to pickpocket heavy junkboxes off of mobs. The best place to do this is in Blackrock Depths. Hand in about 1400 of these, and you’ll be exalted.
After this, you’ll need one of the following options: an herbalist or a whole load of gold. You’ll need to craft epic Darkmoone Faire decks that give you 500 reputation a pop. Hand in a metric ton (well, really 78) and you’ll be exalted. And there you go! A shiny new title at the expense of your sanity!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide, and remember, play responsibly!
~Droplet of Eonar US