1. Introduction
Welcome to this guide on how to obtain the meta achievement [Glory of the Cataclysm Hero] and receive your [Volcanic Stone Drake]. I will take you through each dungeon, roughly ordered by the difficulty of the achievements from easiest to hardest. This is my subjective opinion, and may not reflect your experience of the difficulty. It may be noted that I play a mage.
2. General information
Before you start, I strongly suggest that you get a full group of guild mates and/or friends, and that you agree on doing any achievements in the respective dungeon that someone might need. I know a lot of people don’t like doing these achievements, especially the ones that require you to go out of your way to fulfill the requirements for. Ideally you get a group together to do ALL of the achievements. It is certainly possible to do them all in a single day if you are efficient (and a bit of a no-lifer like me).
Most of the achievements are relatively gear independent. A group of ilvl 346 members should not have any gear issues with any of the achievements, but a freshly dinged group will probably struggle on a few of them, which I will point out.
The guide is quite big, and it is meant to be a help on achievements that you are unsure of how to complete, rather than a guide to be read from start to end.
3. The dungeons
The Stonecore
There is only one achievement in this instance (not counting [Heroic: The Stonecore]), and it’s on the last boss. The instance itself is quite unforgiving, and so is the achievement, as it is very hard if you don’t do it on the first try. Luckily, this is pretty easy.
[Rotten to the Core] – Defeat 60 Disciples within 10 seconds during the High Priestess Azil encounter in the Stonecore on Heroic Difficulty.
Info: The disciples you have to kill are called Devout Followers, and have 16k hp each. They will spawn continuously during the encounter, but there are already exactly 60 standing in front of her when you get there. These will NOT respawn if you wipe. You can kill them normally for the achievement, but I am unsure if they count towards it if they are sucked into a gravity well. The achievement is rewarded as soon as 60 disciples have been killed (within 10 seconds of the first), and you do not have to defeat the boss on the same attempt in order to get it.
Strategy: This is very straight forward, have the tank pull all the adds, get some threat, pull the boss, pop cooldowns. The healer needs to be on the ball and use high throughput heals until the adds are dead. The dps should blow them all up as quickly as possible after the tank has a little bit of threat. AOE that isn’t limited to a certain number of targets is strongly suggested, as killing even one disciple too early might ruin the achievement as you only have 10 seconds to finish all 60, and you only have one good try.
Alternative strategy: If you already killed the disciples in front of her, I’m sorry to say you’re pretty much fucked for this reset, but what you can do is have someone root and slow the spawning adds until you have 60 of them, then blow them up and pull them into the gravity wells (I’m not sure if the latter counts, but I think so). The gravity wells should be quite huge at this point, and can eat a lot of adds. It’s important that you track the achievement so you don’t accidentally kill one off and start the timer, then finish the rest too late.
Difficulty: Medium
Vortex Pinnacle
This instance has two achievements to complete; one on the last boss and one that must be done throughout the run, but can be completed after the run is finished. There are no one-attempt-per-instance achievements in here.
[Extra Credit Bonus Stage] - Collect 5 Golden Orbs in a single visit to the Vortex Pinnacle on Heroic difficulty.
Info: There are at least 8 of these orbs in total, they are big and golden.
They are placed on semi-random places in the instance. This means they can always be found in the same general area, but some of them have a few different positions they can spawn in.
You can gather these orbs during the run, or after all bosses are killed. It doesn’t matter who collects them, everyone will get the achievement once 5 are collected, and there is a counter at the top of the screen which shows up once the first has been collected.
Strategy: To collect an orb, simply right-click on it while within looting range of it. There is no actual loot, it just disappears after you click it and the counter goes up. To make things slightly difficult, all the orbs are placed in locations you can’t reach while standing still on the floor. Most of them are placed off ledges which will require someone to jump off a ledge to get them. A warlock can use his demonic portal to get back up from where he jumped, while others will be ported to the entrance of the instance after the jump (at release you were simply lifted back up on the platform, but this was changed due to exploits). There are (at least) 3 orbs before the second boss. There are 2 orbs at Altairus, the second boss’ platform which can only be obtained during the encounter by being carried up by the tornadoes he spawns. This is quite difficult, because you have to aim your launch perfectly so that you are at the peak of your flight exactly as you pass under the orb. These two can be skipped without having troubles getting the achievement. There are also (at least) 3 more orbs after the second boss, two which are easy to get and the last being tricky as you need slow fall combined with Zephyr (the swirly things that boost your run speed when close) or Sprint (Swiftness Potion doesn’t give a high enough speed boost). It might also be possible with just nitro boosts but I can’t test that. Keep in mind that you only need 5.
Difficulty: Easy
[No Static at All] - Completely avoid the Static Cling effect during the Asaad encounter in the Vortex Pinnacle on Heroic Difficulty.
Info: Static Cling is cast throughout the fight, twice between every force field/storm combo. The first of the two is cast shortly after Chain Lightning, and the second somewhere around 15 seconds later. With a cast-time of only 1second, everyone has to be on the ball and react fast. The ability isn’t interrupted, but it is avoided by being in the air by jumping when he casts. The achievement is personal and can be reset and attempted again by wiping. It is quite obvious if someone fails, as they will be rooted to the ground for 18 seconds or until dispelled. Note that immunities like Divine Shield and ice block don’t work to negate the ability.
Strategy: As mentioned, everyone who wants the achievement must be on the ball and jump every time he casts Static Cling. If you jump as soon as you see it, you should not ever be in danger of jumping too early, unless you have a superhuman reaction time. I recommend for the healer to get the boss on focus and have a good focus target’s cast bar up. For dps it is important not to link chain lightning much in order to minimize the healing required, so the healer can focus on jumping like the rest of us with easy jobs. As mentioned, this achievement is achieved individually, so that it doesn’t require everyone else to avoid every static cling in order for you to get the achievement.
It should be noted that this achievement can be cheesed with Levitate. Note that taking damage will remove levitate, so players should always be ready to jump, as a minimum of one player will get knocked off his levitate by chain lightning.
Difficulty: Medium
Grim Batol
Alright, there are two achievements in here, both can be attempted more than once per run. One is on the first boss and the other is on the last. It may be noted that the two achievements are located at entirely different places in the achievement tab, making an exception to the standard sorting per instance.
[Umbrage for Umbriss] - Defeat General Umbriss while he is affected with Modgud's Malice in Grim Batol on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Modgud’s Malice is applied to the boss near when a Malignant Trogg (it is surrounded by a purple cloud) is killed close to him. Several of these can spawn during the encounter. Modgud’s Malice increases damage dealt by 100% and lasts for 20 seconds. It may be noted that Modgud’s Malice will spread to healthy troggs close to it if he is killed with any of them nearby. This shouldn’t really be an issue.
Strategy: To get this achievement you simply have to kill the Malignant Trogg close to the boss when he is at low hp. An initial wave of troggs will spawn quite early on in the encounter, and that wave contains one Malignant Trogg. It should be CC’d throughout the counter by a reliable CC i.e. polymorph, fear etc. As long as there is a Malignant Trogg alive, no more of them will spawn, but if you accidentally kill it, you should get a new one in a later trogg wave.
The boss will [frenzy] at 30%, giving him 50% attack speed and 50% physical damage. A tanking cooldown should be saved for the very end when the trogg is killed, as you will find the boss hitting quite hard with both Modgud’s Malice and Frenzy up. The timing shouldn’t be hard at all, as Modgud’s Malice lasts 20 seconds. There may be an issue of survival though.
Difficulty: Easy
[Don’t Need to Break Eggs to Make an Omelet] - Defeat Erudax without letting a Faceless Corruptor begin to cast Twilight Corruption on any of Alexstraza's Eggs in Grim Batol on Heroic difficulty.
Info: The Faceless Corruptors will spawn right after Shadow Gale has finished casting. They spawn by the entrance to the room, and will walk towards the eggs on each side of the room (one to the left, one to the right). They are immune to roots, taunts, stuns and knockbacks but can be slowed. I haven’t tested, but I assume they are also immune to silence. As the achievement states, you have to prevent them from starting to cast Twilight Corruption, which they will do once they reach the eggs. Stopping them from finishing a cast is not enough.
Strategy: You will need at least one person with a strong slow (minimum 50%), preferably two. If you have two melee dps, you will want them to go on one add each, as there is little time to run across the room between killing the first and the second. Having the tank help on one can be useful if you are low on dps, or are heavy on melee dps. If you have ranged dps, focusing one down while putting a strong slow on the other is probably the best option. The most important thing is to get slows up and start killing them ASAP when they spawn.
Difficulty: Medium
Throne of the Tides
Throne of the Tides has two achievements revolving around keeping a certain add alive for longer than usual, and then killing it in an unusual way. All mobs are spawned during the encounter and thus it can be attempted as many times as is needed.
[Old Faithful] - Get Lady Naz'jar to kill one of her minions with her Geyser ability in Throne of the Tides on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Lady Naz’jar will go into her alternate phase at 67% and 33% health. During this phase she will channel “watery tornadoes” from the center of the room and be invulnerable. Three adds will spawn, 2 casters and one melee. You have to keep one alive until the phase is over and then kill it with her Geyser ability to get the achievement.
Strategy: When she goes into the add phase, kill her two caster minions first and keep the melee alive, as it is easier to position on top of the geyser for killing. The geyser does a little over 100k damage, which means the add should be just below this to ensure it is killed by it. When her invulnerable phase ends, the entire group should group up so that the geyser can only spawn in one place. Keep the mob on top of it either by rooting or simply tanking it there until the geyser blows (have the tank pop a cooldown if he is going to risk soaking the geyser too). Achievement is rewarded upon the death of the minion.
Difficulty: Medium
[Prince of Tides] - Defeat an Unyielding Behemoth while you have the Tidal Surge effect during the Ozumat encounter in Throne of the Tides on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Only one Unyielding Behemoth will spawn per attempt, and it does so very early in the encounter. The biggest add is the Unyielding Behemoth. Tidal Surge is the buff you get at the end of the fight when you’re meant to kill Ozumat himself, and increases your damage done by a lot. If a party member is dead when the Unyielding Behemoth is dead, he/she will not get the achievement as they will obviously not have the Tidal Surge buff.
Strategy: Simply tank/kite the Unyielding throughout the entire encounter and kill it in the last phase. This obviously puts extra strain on the healer, so play well. Once the last phase start and you get the Tidal Surge buff, poke the Unyielding Behemoth with a stick and it will fall over dead, as everyone will do roughly ten times more damage than usual.
Difficulty: Medium
Shadowfang Keep
Five bosses, three achievements (first, third and last boss). All of them can be attempted as many times as is needed.
[Pardon Denied] - Defeat Baron Ashbury without letting him heal with Stay of Execution in Shadowfang Keep on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Stay of Execution is cast very shortly after Asphyxiate has finished casting, and it takes roughly one second before the first heal from it goes off. He can heal with Mend Rotten Flesh without causing the achievement to fail, but it will prolong the fight unnecessarily. Any passive healing/hots ticking during asphyxiate will be useful, as he uses current hp at the start of the cast to calculate the damage asphyxiate does.
Strategy: Make sure you have different dps assigned to interrupt different abilities. Preferably a long CD interrupter should interrupt Stay of Execution as it isn’t cast very often (Counterspell on a 24 second cooldown has a lot of time to spare). Using abilities like Healing Rain or Healing Stream Totem before Asphyxiate and a HoT on the tank if possible will help survival a lot, as everyone will be at 1 health after Asphyxiate and you will receive no healing from Stay of Execution. The healer should throw a QUICK heal on the tank after Asphyxiate and then proceed to cast an aoe heal on the group so they aren’t killed by [Wracking Pain].
Difficulty: Hard
[To the Ground] - Defeat Commander Springvale without allowing him to receive Unholy Empowerment in Shadowfang Keep on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Unholy Empowerment is not the same as Unholy Power. Unholy Empowerment is an ability that all his adds can cast, and it gives the boss 1 stack of Unholy Power and heal him for ~4% of his max hp. The Wailing Guardsman also has an aoe interrupt he can cast from time to time which can be easily outranged, and the Tormented Officer has another ability with a cast time called Forsaken Ability which makes someone randomly do less damage (it’s a dispellable curse). Only Unholy Empowerment needs to be stopped from casting.
The boss will also generate stacks of Unholy Power by himself, but this has nothing to do with the achievement.
Strategy: What I have found most effective is to just have the group kill one add (agree on the left or the right), then the other, while one person is responsible for interrupting Unholy Empowerment on the mob that is second to die. This is repeated until the boss is dead. The boss will shout every time the adds spawn and they will reach the doors entering the room a few seconds later. In my opinion this is the easiest tactic, if you have CC for undeads you can CC one of them while you kill the other, but it should be easier to kill off every add wave that spawns instead of trying to pull off a naxx40 Gothik-CC fest. One more thing to note is that the adds can’t cast Unholy Empowerment on the boss if they are not in line of sight of him.
Difficulty: Medium
[Bullet Time] - Defeat 12 Bloodthirsty Ghouls with Pistol Barrage and then defeat Lord Godfrey in Shadowfang Keep on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This achievement is reportedly quite buggy, as he will on some attempts refuse to deal any damage to the ghouls with his Pistol Barrage, making the achievement impossible. If it happens to you, reset/wipe and try again. Anyhow, this is how it should work: The boss will periodically spawn 6 adds at a time (has a cast time, not interruptible), then proceed to load up his Pistol Barrage just after. Pistol Barrage is a cone of rapidly firing bullets aimed in the direction of the tank. The adds have low hp and will die very quickly if they stand in the Pistol Barrage.
Strategy: The tank should use some sort of aoe ability to try to aggro the adds as soon as they are all up and move slightly backwards while the boss is charging up his Pistol Barrage, so the adds are just in front of the boss when he starts firing. There is a risk the healer will have aggro on one or more ghouls, so I recommend the healer to stand behind the tank, about 10-15 yards behind him so that he is not hit by Pistol Barrage, but the adds will still move in front of the boss and into the barrage if he aggroes them. It will take a minimum of two waves of ghouls to complete the achievement (6 adds per wave), but you should probably do it until you are sure at least 12 of them have been killed by him, as you will have to finish the boss off before you get the achievement.
Difficulty: Easy
Blackrock Caverns
Four achievements in here, Beauty is the only boss without one. Once again, all of them can be attempted as many times you want.
[Crushing Bones and Cracking Skulls] - Defeat Rom'ogg Bonecrusher after using his Skullcracker ability to kill 10 Angered Earth elementals in Blackrock Caverns on Heroic difficulty.
Info: Skullcracker will one-shot any add within range regardless of their hp. 5 of them spawn each time Quake is cast as long as all 5 party members are alive. Skullcracker is cast at 67% and 33%, while Quake is on a timer that doesn’t reset when Skullcracker is cast. You will always get at least 2 waves of adds (unless you have imhuman dps or are in gear waaaay above ilvl 346), most likely 3 before he casts his second Skullcracker.
Strategy: This is pretty straightforward. Tank picks up adds and boss is brought down to Skullcracker percentage. You should only get one wave of adds before the first one. After freeing the chains, all adds will be positioned right in front of the boss. You can either aoe slow, stun or root them, or have the tank just tank them there and take eat the Skullcracker if your group lacks all of the above. The tank should survive without problems if he is topped off or uses a cooldown. Repeat for the second Skullcracker, only this time you will have most likely have 10 elementals alive. Finish off the boss to get the achievement.
Difficulty: Easy
[Arrested Development] - Allow all three of Corla's zealots to evolve, then defeat Corla after slaying the evolved zealots in Blackrock Caverns on Heroic difficulty.
Info: The evolved zealots are identical to the ones you find elsewhere in the instance, which means their damage is significant. Their Gravity Strike is still unavoidable, and will hit for 60% of a tank’s (or anyone with aggro) maximum health. Shadow Strike still hits for 70k shadow damage if not interrupted.
If you didn’t already know, you evolve the zealots by letting the beams build up 100 stacks on them. Upon evolving, they will generally aggro the closest target, so the tank must be quick to pick them up. They may also start casting Shadow Strike the instant they spawn, and this MUST be interrupted, especially if it is targeting the tank.
Corla provides an aura to all friendly units within 40 yards (HER friends, not you) that doubles movespeed and attack speed, which means the zealots will hurt a little more than the usual ones. Gravity Strike and Shadow Strike won’t hit any harder or be used any more often because of this, but the increase in autohit damage of the zealots is noticeable.
Strategy: The fight is fairly straight-forward, though quite gear-dependant. You have to go through ~7.8 million hp instead of Corla’s regular 5.4 million, and there is a lot more damage going out than usual. You should start the fight by letting one zealot evolve as soon as possible, but keep the 2 others from evolving. Only ever have one zealot up at the same time, or they are likely to wipe the floor with you. If you are somewhat undergeared, you may want to delay letting new zealots evolve until you have tanking cooldowns up again and/or the healer has a good amount of mana again through regen (Corla hits weak).
You need at least 2 interrupters for this fight: one to interrupt the boss’s fear, and one to interrupt shadow strikes. The adds will still use their random-targeted Force Blast which stuns for 2 seconds. This can’t be avoided, and thus it is important that beam-soakers move out of the beams as soon as their unevolved adds drop their stacks, because you might be unlucky and get yourself evolved if you get stunned at a bad time.
Difficulty: Hard
[Too Hot to Handle] - Defeat Karsh Steelbender after he has reached 15 stacks of Superheated Quicksilver Armor in Blackrock Caverns on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This achievement is obtained by doing the boss like he should usually done (unless you have a very good group, and don’t even reach 15 stacks before the boss dies without letting the stack fall off). The boss doesn’t need to have 15 stacks at the time of his demise, but he must have had it at some point during the fight. Not letting the stacks drop means there will be no adds, and the fight is quite simple.
Strategy: Do the boss like normal. If your dps is exceptionally good or the tank is very quick at moving him through the fire you may have to stop dps on him, but it generally shouldn’t be an issue. The tank just needs to make sure he doesn’t let the stops fall off, at least not before he is at 15.
Difficulty: Easy
[Ascendant Descending] - Defeat Ascendant Lord Obsidius without any party member reaching 4 stacks of Crepuscular Veil in Blackrock Caverns on Heroic difficulty.
Info: The two Shadows of Obsidius will apply this stacking debuff to whoever they have aggro on if they are within melee range (its visual effect is a beam, but it is only applied in melee range). The debuff reduces healing done by 24% per stack, maxed out at 96%. If you have aggro on both of the two it will take max 5 seconds to get 4 stacks of it if you stand in melee range of them. The stacks reset rather quickly when it’s not refreshed.
Strategy: Assign someone to kite both adds, preferably someone with an aoe slow and/or root. Having a range ability to do some threat with is also very handy. Mages, frost in particular, should have a very easy time kiting them. The adds can be slowed and rooted, but are immune to both stuns and disorients. When Obsidius changes position with one of his shadows, the threat on the replaced shadow will be reset, so it must be picked up by the kiter. The position swap only happens at 67% and 33%.
Difficulty: Medium
Halls of Origination
7 bosses and 4 achievements, 3 of them are challenging. 2 of them can only be attempted once per run, and one of them can be quite challenging.
[I Hate That Song] - Defeat Temple Guardian Anhuur without allowing him to sing Reverberating Hymn for more than 15 seconds in Halls of Origination on Heroic difficulty.
Info: I think this achievement’s wording is either wrong, or the timer is not accurate, because I got this the first time I did this boss and we didn’t exactly have perfect execution. Anyway, I will assume that any bug is hotfixed in this guide. You need to start pulling the levers within 5 seconds of him starting to sing his awful song, and then not get interrupted. You will also need to interrupt the boss’s song after the levers are pulled. The boss will teleport to the center of the platform before he starts singing. This happens at 67% and 33%.
Strategy: You need to have 2 teams of 2 players assigned to lever-duty. It would be a good idea to leave someone that can interrupt a cast upstairs, be it a felhunter or a resto shaman, as the boss needs to be interrupted after the levers have been pulled. Alternatively one of the people jumping down can sprint back up and be ready to interrupt as soon as the lever has been pulled.
Each team must consist of one person to aggro the snakes and one to pull the lever. The person to aggro the snakes should always jump down just before the other to get initalaggro on any snakes close to the lever. Pull both levers and interrupt the boss ASAP.
Info: The camels used for this achievement are found at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the boss, and count as vehicles. There are only 5 camels there, one for each person. Mounting one before all the trash is killed will make you unable to obtain the achievement, regardless of you staying on top of it until the boss is killed. If you dismount from your camel it will despawn, and they can’t be mounted up on during combat. They will not respawn, which means you only have 5 individual tries to get the achievement, (1 for each person, but some may already have it, giving other members more than one chance).
The camels will allow you to move while casting, which in turn means you need to hit escape or some other macro for interrupting spells if you want to interrupt your cast. You also can’t use pets while on the camel, so pet classes will suffer.
The boss has two abilities that will dismount you: Ground Spike and Quicksand. You will get a crumbling earth animation under you before a Ground Spike pops out of the ground under you, make sure you move out. Quicksand has a swirly sand animation and will generally spawn under random people. Move out fast to avoid getting dismounted.
Strategy: Avoid spikes and quicksand, kill boss.
Difficulty: Easy
[Faster Than the Speed of Light] - Complete the Vault of Lights within 5 minutes of entering in the Halls of Origination on Heroic difficulty.
Info: You only have one attempt per run to get this achievement. The timer starts as soon as you start the event with Brann Bronzebeard, and ends about 10 seconds after killing the last elemental miniboss.
Strategy: You have to move fast, moving alone will take well over a minute in total. Two of the minibosses can be extra punishing depending on your group setup – the fire elemental if you are melee heavy (fire aoe in melee that MUST be moved from) and the air elemental if you are caster heavy (aoe cast interruption). If you have heroism/bloodlust/time warp I strongly suggest using it on the harder of these two.
The troggs in the room will keep respawning, but they have very little hp. You shouldn’t stop to aoe them down on the way, just kill them while moving and/or stop just before a miniboss to finish off the small ones. Some of them are slightly stronger than others, but they still hit like flies and should be cleaved down while killing the miniboss to maximize damage.
To sum it up: Don’t stop, don’t die, dps hard.
Difficulty: Hard
[Sun of A….] - Defeat Rajh before he completes an entire recharging phase in the Halls of Origination on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This achievement is a dps race, and wise use of cooldowns is needed to get him down in time. He will start out with 100 energy, and use 20 energy every time he used one of his three abilities. Summon Flame Orb (1.5 sec cast) and Inferno Leap can be interrupted, and it is important that you do so, because then he will not spend energy on casting it (you also avoid damage). Once he has used up all his energy he will teleport to the middle of the room and start channeling a rather powerful aoe while regenerating 5 energy per second. You have 20 seconds to kill him when this starts.
Strategy: Heroism/bloodlust/time warp will make this achievement much easier than if you don’t as the fight only lasts for about 1 minute. You should try to tank him near the middle, so melee (and tank) don’t have to move far when he teleports to the center and starts channeling. You want to pop heroism/bloodlust/time warp when he has roughly 40 energy left to get the full benefit (depends on your luck with his abilities). The healer should have everyone topped by the time the recharge phase starts, and he may want to help dps to get the boss down in time. A viable strategy is to have an offspec healer (generally a caster) to be able to win the dps race. It shouldn’t be needed if you have a good group with heroism/bloodlust/time warp, but it might help if you’re lacking in the dps department.
Difficulty: Hard
Deadmines
6 bosses and 6 achievements. Hooray!
[Ready for Raiding] - Do not get hit by Fire Wall in the Glubtok encounter in Deadmines on Heroic difficulty.
Info: The fire wall start being summoned when Glubtok teleports up in the air at 50%. The fire wall will be harmless until it is fully summoned (you will see it, but it will not be as dense as it is when fully summoned), so you have about 3 seconds to get in a position that is not on the firewall. It will then proceed to rotate clockwise around the room. Melee will have to be particularly careful to not get hit by it when they dps the boss, but it is still very easy.
Strategy: Don’t stand in the fire. Bring the boss down to 0 health.
Difficulty: Very easy
[Rat Pack] - Kill 20 Mine Rats during the Helix Gearbreaker encounter in Deadmines on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This achievement can be earned over several tries, but it can easily be completed in one go. From time to time the Lumbering Oaf will pick up a random player and charge into the pile of lumber on the rail tracks. When he does this, about 8 rats (critters) will spawn shortly after impact, and they can be easily killed with any aoe ability. Kill them all 3 times and you will have the achievement.
Strategy: This achievement is probably the easiest one to do as long as you know what to do. Simply kill the rats that spawn and you will get the achievement. If you have too good dps, slow down a bit so you have time to do the achievement in one go. Three charges are required to get 20 if you start at 0. Even if you wipe, you will not have to start over as the counter doesn’t reset.
Difficulty: Very easy
[Prototype Prodigy] - Keep the Prototype Reaper from falling below 90% health during the Foe Reaper 5000 encounter in Deadmines on Heroic difficulty.
Info: The wording here is a bit off, because you will fail the achievement if the Prototype Reaper EVER falls under 90% during the run. This means that if you wipe you are almost guaranteed to fail the achievement, and if it drops below 90% on trash you will also fail. During the encounter itself the only thing that can damage the reaper is the boss itself, as it is immune to all damage the fire elementals may try to do to it.
Strategy: Clear all the trash in the room without using the Prototype Reaper, as the trash cleaves and they cleave hard. While it is possible to completely lock them down with the Prototype Reaper, I wouldn’t risk it. You can use the fallen reapers after you have shut them down though.
When you have cleared all the trash, run outside of aggro range of the boss so you have time to pick up the Prototype Reaper and get in position. You should tank the boss upstairs while the prototype reaper deals with the fire elementals downstairs. The Prototype Reaper shouldn’t help with dps on the boss at all because of Overdrive and Cleave will quickly fail the achievement for you. It’s adviseable to let a melee control the Prototype Reaper because it quite frankly sucks to be melee on this fight.
Difficulty: Medium
[It’s Frost Damage] - Allow three Freezing Vapors to cast Coalesce during the Admiral Ripsnarl encounter in Deadmines on Heroic difficulty.
Info: If you haven’t discovered this the hard way yet, a Freezing Vapor will cast Coalesce when it is left alive for too long and allowed to grow too big. They will then explode for about 100k frost damage to anyone remotely close to them, and knock them faaar away. This explosion can be line of sighted relatively easily by moving inside the little house on top of the boat. The vapors will stand still while casting Coalesce, which has quite long cast time. Luckily, you do NOT have to kill the boss to get this achievement, but someone must survive until all 3 coalesces have been cast so they don’t reset and the boss respawns.
Strategy: Generally, you don’t want to have 3 of these explosions at the same time, unless they actually explode at roughly the same time. The only time it is possible to get 3 explosions at once is at the end of the encounter, when 4 of them spawn at the same time at around 10% hp. You can choose to ignore one add at a time during the encounter and have everyone move into the hut for the explosion, or you can let the last 4 explode at the end before you finish off the boss (you will have to slow down dps on the boss at the end or they will not explode). This achievement isn’t really too hard, but the results are often fatal.
Difficulty: Medium
[I’m on a diet!] - Do not gain more than one stack of Nauseated during the Cookie encounter in Deadmines on Heroic difficulty.
Info: You get one stack Nauseated when you eat “Bad food” (food with green swirly clouds over them), and you lose one stack when you eat “Good food”. So in order to get this achievement, you must always eat at least one good food for every bad food you eat. Eating a good food will give you a stacking buff that increases haste by 30% per stack and lasts 30 seconds (refreshed when good food is eaten). This haste buff is not negated by bad food. This achievement is personal.
Strategy: Everyone in the group can get this achievement rather easily. As long as you don’t eat two bad foods in a row you won’t get more than one stack of nauseated. It is also important to note that there will be more bad food than good food on the deck, so it’s important that nobody are greedy and eat good food just to get the haste buff stacked without eating a bad food first. Alternatively you can have one person who doesn’t need the achievement to be on duty to clear up the bad food (leave some good food for him too). This person should not be the healer and it is a great advanatage to have divine shield or Ice Block to clear the debuff once you get a high stack.
Info: You only have one attempt per run to do this achievement, and it is one of the hardest to do. You will need to not die to the various environmental hazards that are put out while moving quickly through it and killing things quickly. Note that the nightmare elixir will always fade before you engage Vanessa VanCleef, but you should pay attention to the achievement tracking timer to see if you fail it or not.
Strategy: If you used heroism/bloodlust/time warp on Cookie or Ripsnarl, it’s adviseable to wait until the debuff has no more than 3 minutes left. I have found that the best place to use this is during the last part of the encounter where you have to save the humans from the worgen on the boat, as this is the time where you spend the most time killing stuff. In general you should let the tank go first, as the mobs you kill hit quite hard on non-tanks and dead people will very likely ruin the achievement for you. Note that you have to actually pull Vanessa to get the achievement, so if you have only a few seconds left (which is likely), just have the first person to get up to her pull her rather than drinking up first. Also make sure no one are afk before you start the event…
Difficulty: Hard
Lost city of Tol’vir
While there are only 3 achievements in this instance I consider it to be the hardest instance overall as all 3 of them are quite a challenge.
[Acrocalypse Now] - Defeat 20 Frenzied Crocolisks within 10 seconds during the Lockmaw encounter in the Lost City of the Tol'vir on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This is quite hard to do, as the crocolisks hit hard, can’t be tanked properly and only spawn 4 at a time. They spawn rather quickly though, and will focus on a random person (he will get an arrow above his head). The crocolisks will rip apart anyone that is not a tank if many of them are allowed to hit him/her for a few seconds. Therefore everyone who can need to help slow and root the crocos.
Strategy: It can be quite hard to count how many crocolisks are up, and some might die to collateral damage (from slows, roots, random aoe and such), but it shouldn’t take all too long to get 20 of them. The challenging part is staying alive until then and keeping them somewhat clumped up so you can kill them within 10 seconds of each other. As mentioned in the Info section, they need to be slowed and kited by everyone who can help so the person they focus on doesn’t get killed. When you have enough, make sure the timer hasn’t started due to one dying the last 10 seconds to collateral damage, then blow them up. They have 38k hp and should die quite quickly.
Difficulty: Hard
[Kill it With Fire!] - Defeat 3 Burning Souls during the High Prophet Barim encounter in Lost City of the Tol'vir on Heroic difficulty.
Info: A Burning Soul is simply Soul Fragment standing in fire, or having stood in fire less than 4 seconds ago. They spawn during the “dark phase” of the boss , and will move from the player they spawn on to the dark phoenix. The fire you have to kite them through is spawned by the burning phoenix’s wherever it moves in the first phase.
Strategy: In phase one you should make lots of fire trails by kiting the burnig phoenix all over the place. When you bring the boss to phase 2 (starts at 50%) make sure he is some distance away from the fires you have made, as the boss will deal damage to anyone standing close to him during this phase (don’t stand in the ring of light!). Then it is up to the tank to kite the phoenix to the opposite side of the fires from where the soul fragments spawn while the dps burst it down while it is burning (it will get a buff that indicates it is burning, and this buff will refresh itself while it is standing in fire).
Difficulty: Medium
[Headed South] - Defeat Siamat, Lord of the South Wind, with 3 stacks of Lightning Charge in Lost City of the Tol'vir on Heroic difficulty.
Info: This is (in my opinion) the hardest achievement of them all. A Lightning Charge is gained when standing on top of a Servant of Siamat when it is killed. Only 3 of these spawn during the encounter, and the boss will go to phase 2 when the last of these to spawn is killed. Lightning Charge is a debuff which lasts 30 seconds and stacks up to 3 times (obviously). So everyone who needs the achievement needs to stand on top of the adds when they die, and they have to be killed within 30 seconds of each other. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. [Lightning Charge] increases damage taken by 33%, damage done by 10% and haste by 10% per stack. This means that everyone will take double damage but deal some more damage as well once the stacks are obtained. It is important to note that the achievement is individual, and if you die you won’t get it (you obviously lose the charges). Furthermore, it’s not very easy to bring the boss down to very low hp just before you get these charges, as he has a shield that reduces all damage taken by 90% in phase 1. This shield is normally applied a few seconds after he is pulled.
Strategy: First of all, this reported has been reported to be exploitable with an Army of the Dead, as the boss will often put off casting his shield until the army is over, allowing you to bring him very low. If you don’t have the advantage of doing this (or don’t want to), try and do as much damage as you can within the first 2-3 seconds of the pull, as it makes quite a significant difference.
Generally you want to get the boss to roughly 50-60% hp before you bring him to phase 3. He will continue to spawn Minions of Siamat which cast Chain Lightning until they die. They need to be killed asap, but try to kill them far away from the boss, as they will spawn a zone where they die that will hurt if you stand in it (and become especially deadly at the start of phase 2). These zones last until the boss is dead. Meanwhile the boss needs to be DPSed down as much as possible. He will go down very slowly with his 90% damage reduction, but every bit helps.
Once the boss is at a satisfactory health level, you have two ways to go into the last phase, and it could be argued which is better.
Strategy A: Get all three adds low and kill them at the same time while the whole group is grouped up on them. Everyone will get 3 stacks of it and then they will be knocked around in the air as the phase transitions (you might get knocked off the platform, try to reach a tornado ASAP to lift you back up). Then nuke the boss down before the debuff wears off and pray you don’t die. Heroism/bloodlust/time warp is very useful here. So are healthstones and healing potions.
Strategy B: Kill the last add to spawn FIRST (while the whole group stands on it), as this will trigger the last phase to start. Once he is done knocking you around, kill the last two while the whole group stands on them to get to 3 stacks and proceed to kill him. This is probably the safer option, because there is a high risk of dying when being knocked around with a 100% damage taken debuff on you.
Either way, you will need a good healer and controlled killing and interrupting of the minions or the healer will run oom quickly.
Difficulty: Very hard
4. Conclusion
If you have completed the entire list you will receive a mail from the Postmaster as if you had forgotten to pick up your materials from disenchanting something, but it contains [Reins of the Volcanic Stonedrake]. This fabulous mount will carry a miniature version of yourself in its claws as its animation is bugged at the moment (it still looks cool though!).
I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures, as I was quite limited on time with the Holidays and all.
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Mythic+ Dungeon Adjustments - 27 April
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