The OverAchiever: 3 achievements to stop slacking on and do right now

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, our laziness catches up with us.

There are a few achievements in every expansion that manage to get away from us. I'm not talking about stuff that we shouldn't reasonably expect to get (your completion percentage on dungeon and raid achievements will inevitably nosedive if you can't make raids anymore), but there's always some stuff that people feel they should have gotten or worked at for ages that never turned up.

Now, you're reading OverAchiever because you're a dedicated achievement hunter or enormously entertained by the people who are -- and I think you know what this is like. There's almost a sense of hostile guilt as you look at the stuff you don't have, because those unfinished percentages taunt you. Sometimes it's not your fault. Sometimes, however, you just need to get off your arse.

These are three achievements -- easy, medium, and hard -- that players often put on the back burner while occupied with other pursuits. Two of them just got a lot easier -- or at least faster -- to do after patch 5.0.4, and all three will get more inconvenient when Mists of Pandaria hits.

Oh, and for pet collectors, we have some welcome news inside about Tol Barad.

Easy

The Baradin's Wardens (Alliance) or Hellscream's Reach (Horde) reputation grind is a little monotonous but still extremely easy as long as you're willing to keep at it. For the PvP-phobics among us, it also doesn't require you to kill any of your fellow players, although it has to be said that you'll benefit from those who do (you moral lightweight, you).

I trust we all know about the daily quests on the peninsula, but 250 reputation with your faction is also awarded for each win in Tol Barad for which you're present, and winning grants you access to additional dailies on the island. You'll only get six if you check just the once, but assuming you win again, a different NPC may spawn with three other quests. In total, there are 12 potential dailies you can get in Tol Barad itself, assuming you get lucky with quest giver spawns. However, if you don't, or if your faction isn't that great about winning Tol Barad, just keep chugging away on the peninsula quests.

This is an especially good time to knock off the Tol Barad reputation grind, since the number of dailies you can do in a given day is no longer restricted.

What do you get for all your hard work? In addition the reputation achievements linked above and another notch toward exalted, finishing the Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach reputation grinds will give you access to a tabard, pet, and two mounts.

Oh, and as an aside for pet collectors: The once-elusive Fox Kit can now be purchased from your Told Barad quartermaster as well! You'll have to be exalted in order to get it, and the cost is a jaw-dropping 200 Tol Barad commendations (as expensive as the drake mount), but it'll keep you from having to run around the peninsula killing foxes in the hope that they'll drop a kid of theirs.

Medium

I actually started writing this article because I still have a few achievements left to go on Glory of the Cataclysm Hero, and this is a really good time to knock them off. A lot of specs have just gotten serious buffs in advance of Mists, and I've noticed higher overall DPS in my 5-mans since the patch hit. (I will admit this is possibly just a matter of luck, as I've also heard from players on specs that haven't fared quite so well.)

If you're not running with a guild group, you'll be at the mercy of puggers' moods, but it's been rare for me to get a negative reaction while asking a group if they're interested in going for an achievement. It turns out that a lot of players are reasonably close to the meta and keen on doing achievements even during a PUG. Go ahead and ask. The worst that can happen is that they'll say no and spend the rest of the run silently judging you, being significantly harsher in their assessment of your performance than they would have been otherwise, and you spend the rest of the day in a total funk.

No, seriously -- ask.

What do you get for all your hard work? The Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake and the happy knowledge that you'll never have to coordinate I Hate That Song in a PUG ever again.

Hard

If you're lucky, you could theoretically nail Scourer of the Eternal Sands easily before Mists hits, but it's just as likely that you'll find yourself running rings around Uldum and cursing the fact that this achievement exists at all. We ran an OverAchiever on how to get Scourer of the Eternal Sands more than a year ago, and I am still among the forlorn souls pecking away at the Mysterious Camel Figurines. I already spend a lot of time in Uldum waiting for lightning to strike in the form of the Crawling Claw, the Qiraji Battle Tank, and the Vial of the Sands recipe, so I figure adding one more statistical nightmare to the mix can't hurt.

Do yourself a favor and download NPCScan, which has been updated for patch 5.0.4 and will make a huge difference to the overall ease of searching.

What do you get for all your hard work? Not only do you get the Reins of the Grey Riding Camel, but you also get the title "the Camel Hoarder."

Enjoy working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on patch 4.3 achievements, our guide to Mountain O' Mounts, and a good, hard look at what's wrong with archaeology and how Blizzard could fix it.