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The OverAchiever: Guide to Lunar Festival 2012 achievements

Allison Robert
Updated ·11 min read

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we burn through a lot of shoe leather.

The Lunar Festival is one of WoW's more fun and forgiving holidays, and this year it runs from Sunday, Jan. 22 until Sunday, Feb. 12. That's right, folks; you've got three weeks to get everything done, which is definitely a good thing if you're new to the holiday and unfamiliar with the amount of travel time it requires. The basics of the holiday involve talking to a number of elders to honor them, receiving Coins of Ancestry in return, and then using the coins to purchase holiday items. The To Honor One's Elders meta-achievement is also a requirement for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so if you're still after a Violet Proto-Drake, make sure you get this done.

The Lunar Festival is definitely not one of Azeroth's more difficult holidays, but it's time-consuming if you're starting from scratch due to the number of NPCs you'll need to hunt down. However, it's also a good time to do World Explorer and Surveying the Damage for just that reason.



Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms


Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms, as with most of the elder-related achievements, is easy to do as long as you don't mind traveling. All you have to do to honor the elders is find 'em, right-click on 'em, and have a nice chat. They're always sitting in a big beam of light, so they tend to stand out. You'll need to speak with all of the following elders in the Eastern Kingdoms in order to complete this achievement, and I've listed them in rough order from the northern part of the continent to the southern.


If you don't have a coordinate addon, elders are nonetheless pretty simple to find: Look for the telltale pool of light! Elders are rarely located all that far from flight paths.

Quick note concerning Elders of Cataclysm, a separate achievement You may or may not want to do this at the same time you're doing the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor achievements due to the direct ports to each Cataclysm zone available from Stormwind/Orgrimmar. If you're starting on a fresh character, it's probably easiest to just do them all at once. I've listed the relevant elders here for convenience, but bear in mind that you'll still need to port to Vashj'ir and Deepholm.

Elders of Kalimdor

Once you're all set with the Eastern Kingdoms, hop a boat or zeppelin to the west in order to do Elders of Kalimdor. Again, I've listed them in order from the northern end of the continent to the southern.


Elders of the Alliance

You'll also need to talk to a series of elders located in capital cities for Elders of the Alliance and its Horde version, which means the oft unpleasant process of having to enter enemy cities. This is somewhat easier these days now that you can fly straight into most enemy cities, but the odds of being knocked off your mount by airborne guards or hostile players are still pretty good. The three Alliance elders are easy enough to reach if you're Alliance, but Horde will have some work to do here. Keeping this in mind, the instructions below are written with an eye toward locating elders if you're a member of the opposite faction, and I've retained instructions on how to find the elders on foot if your character isn't able to fly yet.

  • Bladeswift the Elder 33,14 in the Cenarion Enclave in Darnassus. This is located in the northern part of the city and just south of the Howling Oak district. Sorry, Horde -- without a flying mount, this elder is a real beast to reach. You'll have to run in off the boat to Rut'theran Village, get past the guards, hang a left, and make a beeline for the Cenarion Enclave. This will keep you away from the most crowded area of Darnassus (insofar as any portion of Darnassus could be termed crowded). As long as you're on Teldrassil, keep heading east afterwards to talk to Elder Bladeleaf in Dolanaar. If you have a flying mount, simply fly up the side of Teldrassil after taking the ferry over from Darkshore.

  • Bronzebeard the Elder 29,17 in the Mystic Ward of Ironforge. If you're Horde, hang a left after entering the city's front gates and drop down into the trench that runs the the length of The Commons -- this should get most of the guards off your tail. Keep going, and the first ramp up from the trench should put you within sight of Elder Bronzebeard. At this point, you can hearth (if possible), port to Moonglade using a scroll from a Festival Harbinger, or get to the Deeprun Tram so you can knock off the Stormwind elder without having to enter the city from the front gates or harbor.

  • Hammershout the Elder This guy is much easier to reach now than he was in days past and can be located right outside the Stormwind gates.

Elders of the Horde

Nowadays, it's a little more troublesome for Alliance to reach the Horde elders for Elders of the Horde than vice versa, and the odds of your attracting attention while doing at least the Orgrimmar leg is reasonably high. As with their Alliance counterparts, the Horde elders are simple to reach if you're Horde, so I'm writing this with an eye toward the difficulty of reaching them as an Alliance player.

  • Darkhorn the Elder 52,59 close to the Undercity/Stranglethorn zeppelin tower. This one has always been the worst of the Horde elders to reach, and that hasn't changed in Cataclysm. Honestly, if you're on foot, this is an ugly, ugly trek. As always, you're probably best off zoning into Orgrimmar from the western gate if you're confined to a ground mount and riding in through the troll district. Your aim is to reach one of the elevators to the zeppelin/flight master plateau, which you can do by taking a left out of the troll district and then a right through the tauren district, or by taking a right out of the troll district and then a left down the ramp to an elevator. Once on the plateau, head for the eastern zeppelin tower. Try as I might, I cannot think of an easy or fast way to do this if you don't have a flying mount -- and even if you do, there are constant flying guard patrols right around the central portion of Orgrimmar anyway. I've heard other people suggest just taking the zeppelin from Undercity, which is pretty convenient as it does dump you right off where Elder Darkhorn is, but you will be swarmed by guards. On the bright side, once you've talked to Darkhorn, the worst part of your Elder meta is over.

  • Wheathoof the Elder 72,23 on Elder Rise in Thunder Bluff. This is an elder named for Ezra Chatterton, a young player who died in 2008 and was the first to receive a phoenix mount. Ezra Wheathoof is one of Blizzard's in-game nods to him (he's actually a copy of Ezra's character, Ephoenix), and you'll note he's the only elder to have a pet with him (not surprisingly, a phoenix). Because Thunder Bluff is usually deserted, you should encounter minimal player resistance, but you can still cut down on encounters with Horde players by using the northern elevator if you can't fly. Hang a quick left into the bridge building after you come up (mouse over the beam over the entrance to see where it goes to confirm you've got the bridge to Elder Rise), and head over; you'll see the elder to the left of the big druids' tent on Elder Rise. If you're getting harassed by Horde players or guards, you can jump off the Rise afterwards, although I recommend having a slow fall effect of some kind prepared so that you survive the jump. If you're flying, getting to Wheathoof will be absurdly simple -- just fly over to the Elder Rise and talk to him without ever getting off your mount.

  • Darkcore the Elder 66,38 in the Ruins of Lordaeron above Undercity. This guy's easy to find, although with increased Horde traffic on the zeppelins during the Lunar Festival, the odds of running into high-level players getting on and off the elevators are decent. Ride or fly into the Ruins of Lordaeron above the city and keep going straight; you'll find the elder in the circular throne room along with the rest of the Lunar Festival NPCs.



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