The OverAchiever: More new and altered Cataclysm achievements

This week we're returning to a look at new and altered achievements to expect in Cataclysm, but today's outing is going to be a little murkier than our previous examination of general, quest and exploration achievements. While those seem within a stone's throw of being done, today's achievements -- dungeons, raids and professions -- concern content that's often been inaccessible or buggy on the beta. There's also the minor matter of raid content that's not yet been implemented, but we'll hazard a few guesses anyway.

As with our earlier article, I didn't bother mentioning any achievement that's completely unchanged, but you'll find everything else here.

Dungeons and raids

Cataclysm Dungeon Hero Fairly straightforward; you'll get this for successful completion of all nine Cataclysm heroics, which I should note includes heroic Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. Even the normal versions of these dungeons are not pushovers -- and to be honest, as a tank, I'm a little nervous about the inevitable transition period from Wrath's festival of AoE to Cataclysm's "CC everything!" model.

This achievement's also required for --

Glory of the Cataclysm Hero Heroics only just became available on the beta (in a manner of speaking; access was bugged for a while, and Blizzard "strongly recommended" that all players copy over level 85 premades for the purpose of testing), so I don't have a lot of information about these yet. Some of the achievements reference NPCs or mechanics that aren't in the normal version of the dungeons (I think).

More information to come, but I think it's safe to assume that, like Glory of the Hero, this is going to be a fairly time-intensive (and PUG-unfriendly) meta. Once stats, masteries, talents and overall class design become a little more stable on the beta, I'll see what I can do to assemble guides on the dungeon achievements.

Glory of the Cataclysm Raider This is similar to the Icecrown Citadel achievements in that the heroic version of most boss fights will be required for the meta, in addition to achievements that will doubtless be easier to complete on the normal version. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The Icecrown frostwyrms were a logistical headache for guild leaders who had to juggle players needing the heroics against players who still needed the "regular" achievements. Any new or reserve raiders who came in just restarted the issue.

Then again, anything's better than a repeat of the nightmare that was Immortal ...

Professions

Many of the new professions achievements are predictable, as the new skill cap is 525, so Blizzard's simply bumped up the requirements for achievements awarded for maxed-out professions. From what I can see, the new additions are not currently required for the meta-achievements (Hail to the Chef and Accomplished Angler), so anyone who still needs to get this done will only have to worry about content through Northrend.

More Skills to Pay the Bills Pretty much expected, but with the addition of archaeology, this is going to be a wee bit tougher than its Wrath counterpart. I've been pecking away at it on my beta main, and while archaeology is seriously a lot of fun, it can be slow going due to the enormous amount of time spent traveling and some RNG along the way.

Professional Illustrious Grand Master What a mouthful, but another expected one. I wonder if Blizzard's worried about running out of adjectives to designate the latest high-rank of professions (a problem that's surely occurred when it comes time to name the next arena season).

Working Around the Clock Again, expected.

Cooking

Illustrious Grand Master Cook As expected.

Iron Chef The next step up from Chef de Cuisine. I wonder if Blizzard's going to normalize the number of recipes available to each faction; right now, the Alliance has a pretty serious advantage when it comes to getting 160 recipes with a minimum of fuss.

Let's Do Lunch (Alliance) and Let's Do Lunch (Horde) I've been doing the cooking dailies pretty regularly and for some reason have only ever gotten Careful, This Fruit Bites Back. I'm not sure if this is because the other dailies haven't been implemented yet or if it's just a persistent bit of RNG. Anyway, the Stormwind/Orgrimmar cooking dailies are very much like the Dalaran cooking dailies in that they reward special tokens redeemable for new cooking recipes. Interestingly, they reward a skill point for cooking, too.

The Cataclysmic Gourmet Most of these are the recipes you'll get from redeeming the new cooking tokens with suppliers in Stormwind/Orgrimmar, so you'll be doing dailies for a while before you nab all of them.

Fishing

Illustrious Grand Master Fisherman As expected.

Deadliest Catch With Zul'Gurub going bye-bye as a raid, I don't know if this achievement's going to stick around. Zul'Gurub will still be in the game as a leveling area, but that's about it.

Fish or Cut Bait (Alliance) and Fish or Cut Bait (Horde) In contrast to the cooking dailies, these all seem functional, and none of them require a lot of travel time as long as you can fly in Azeroth. If you can't fly -- as I've discovered on my low-level goblin and worgen characters -- getting around Stormwind and Orgrimmar plus outlying areas can be a real nuisance. Orgrimmar in particular is now much bigger, and the trip from fishing's daily quest giver to, say, the goblin slums for No Dumping Allowed feels like you need to stop for lunch along the way.

The current quests give a skill point but also award the same Bag of Fishing Treasures you can get from the Dalaran daily. I'm not sure if that's intended or they're planning on another set of rewards for the Stormwind/Orgrimmar dailies.

The Limnologist and The Oceanographer I sense the hand of Ghostcrawler at work. Look, Blizzard, just because some yoohoo with a marine science Ph.D. comes to work for you is no reason to make me drag my ass all over the world yanking 84 different species out of waters with disturbingly pedantic salinity specifications.

First aid

Illustrious Grand Master in First Aid As expected.

Preparing for Disaster Between this achievement, the nerfs to healing efficiency and the beefed-up health pools everyone's rocking on the beta, if I don't see some players bandaging themselves at every available opportunity, I will grow violent.

Ultimate Triage Embersilk bandages (the new level/s of bandage for Cataclysm) have been added to this achievement, so if you wind up tackling it at 85, you won't have to go back to Northrend to farm up Frostweave.

Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! We cover everything from Glory of the Hero and Insane in the Membrane to Master of Alterac Valley and Lil' Game Hunter, and you can count on us to guide you through Azeroth's holidays and special events.