The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Fire Festival achievements
It's that time of year again, folks. Frankly, I'm glad to be back in the realm of more reasonable and just plain fun holiday achievements, because I hated School of Hard Knocks, and wound up giving up and quitting the achievement after hours of fruitless battleground deaths. Fortunately, the Fire Festival has a lot less potential to drive you to the nuthouse, and a lot more potential to grant experience, gold, and cool items. From what I've seen, Blizzard hasn't changed the holiday since its 2008 incarnation, which is actually a good thing in a number of ways because last year's revamped and expanded Fire Festival was great.
A note on eligibility: your character will need to be at least 50 to hand in the items needed for King of the Fire Festival, and at least 65 to get the higher-level quests necessary for killing Lord Ahune in Slave Pens. With that said, we still recommend that lower-level characters participate, because you'll wind up with a ton of experience and gold even if you can't complete the meta-achievement.
Should you complete the meta, you will be awarded the "Flame Keeper" title. I've listed all of the required achievements in the order I think will be easiest/fastest for the average player to do.
UPDATE: Your character is currently unable to honor/desecrate any flame (including city flames) that you've honored/desecrated in 2008, which will make getting enough Burning Blossoms to purchase Midsummer clothing difficult, if not impossible. I'm still trying to find official confirmation that this is a bug (and I assume it has to be, as otherwise the meta-achievement isn't doable), but it also appears that fires have been added to Northrend as well. I'm heading ingame right now to assemble a list with coordinates and will update the post later.
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The Fires of Azeroth
This is actually a meta-within-a-meta achievement as it encompasses Flame Keeper of the Eastern Kingdoms, Flame Keeper of Kalimdor, and Flame Keeper of Outland. It requires a lot of legwork and travel time, but should be easily doable for any 60+ character with a full set of flight paths. If you don't have a full set of flight paths, well, now would be a great time to get them; most fires are within a few seconds' walk of a flightmaster. For all new players, in order to "honor" or "desecrate" a fire, all you need to do is right-click on it.
Big thanks are due here to Wowwiki, which very helpfully had a set of coordinates for each fire. The sites for honoring flames aren't the same for the Alliance and the Horde, so I've split them up for separate notation below (but -- as you'll note from the achievement following this one -- you still need to know about the other factions' fires in order to complete Flame Keeper):
Alliance -- Flame Keeper of the Eastern Kingdoms: There are 14 Alliance fires in the Eastern kingdoms, located in:
Arathi Highlands -- Refuge Point at 50,44
Blasted Lands -- Nethergarde Keep at 58,17
Burning Steppes -- Morgan's Vigil at 81,63
Dun Morogh -- Kharanos at 46,47
Duskwood -- Darkshire at 73,54
Elwynn Forest -- Goldshire at 43,63
Hillsbrad Foothills -- Southshore at 50,47
Loch Modan -- Thelsamar at 32,40
Redridge Mountains -- Lakeshire at 26,60
Stranglethorn Vale -- Booty Bay at 33,74
The Hinterlands -- Aerie Peak at 14,50
Wetlands -- Menethil Harbor at 13,47
Western Plaguelands -- Chillwind Camp at 43,82
Westfall --Sentinel Hill at 55,52
Alliance -- Flame Keeper of Kalimdor: There are 11 Alliance fires in Kalimdor, located in:
Ashenvale -- Astranaar at 37,54
Azuremyst Isle -- Azure Watch at 44,52
Bloodmyst Isle -- Blood Watch at 55,67
Darkshore -- Auberdine at 37,45
Desolace -- Nijel's Point at 65,17
Dustwallow Marsh -- Theramore at 61,39
Feralas -- Feathermoon Stronghold at 28,43
Silithus --Cenarion Hold at 55,35
Tanaris -- Gadgetzan at 52,28
Teldrassil -- Dolanaar at 54,60
Winterspring -- Everlook at 62,35
Alliance -- Flame Keeper of Outland: There are 7 Alliance fires in Outland, located in:
Blade's Edge Mountains -- Sylvanaar at 41,65
Hellfire Peninsula -- Honor Hold at 62,58
Nagrand -- Telaar at 50,70
Netherstorm -- Area 52 at 31,62
Shadowmoon Valley -- Wildhammer Stronghold at 40,54
Terokkar Forest -- Allerian Stronghold at 54,56
Zangarmarsh -- Telredor at 69,52
Horde -- Flame Keeper of the Eastern Kingdoms: There are 11 Horde fires in the Eastern Kingdoms, located in:
Arathi Highlands -- Hammerfall at 73,41
Badlands -- Kargath at 4,50
Burning Steppes -- Flaming Crest at 61,30
Eversong Woods -- Falconwing Square at 46,50
Ghostlands -- Tranquillien at 47,26
Hillsbrad Foothills -- Tarren Mill at 58,25
Silverpine Forest -- The Sepulcher at 50,39
Stranglethorn Vale -- Booty Bay at 33,74
Swamp of Sorrows -- Stonard at 46,45
The Hinterlands -- Revantusk Village at 76,74
Tirisfal Glades -- Brill at 57,52
Horde -- Flame Keeper of Kalimdor: There are 12 Horde fires in Kalimdor, located in:
Ashenvale -- Splintertree Post at 69,69
Desolace -- Shadowprey Village at 26,77
Durotar -- Razor Hill at 51,46
Dustwallow Marsh -- Brackenwall Village at 33,31
Feralas -- Camp Mojache at 72,47
Mulgore -- Bloodhoof Village at 53,60
Silithus -- Cenarion Hold at 46,43
Stonetalon Mountains -- Sunrock Retreat at 50,60
Tanaris -- Gadgetzan at 49,28
The Barrens -- Crossroads at 51,26
Thousand Needles -- Freewind Post at 41,52
Winterspring -- Everlook at 59,35
Horde -- Flame Keeper of Outland: There are 7 Horde fires in Outland, located in:
Blade's Edge Mountains -- Thunderlord Stronghold at 50,58
Hellfire Peninsula -- Thrallmar at 57,42
Nagrand -- Garadar at 51,34
Netherstorm -- Area 52 at 32,68
Shadowmoon Valley - Shadowmoon Village at 33,31
Terokkar Forest -- Stonebreaker Hold at 52,43
Zangarmarsh -- Zabra'jin at 36,52
Desecration of the Alliance or Desecration of the Horde
See all those fires I just listed above? Namely, the ones that don't belong to your faction? You get to visit them anyway! Again, this is a lot of legwork, but for most zones you should be able to honor your faction's fire and desecrate the opposing faction's, then simply move on the next zone.
Please note that even on a PvE server you will get flagged by desecrating the other factions' fires, so if you're not overly fond of world PvP, you'll probably want to try this during a slow period (or, better yet, with a group). That said, if my experience is any indication, enemy players will usually leave you alone in the smaller townships and villages because they're occupied getting their own achievements. Enjoy it while it lasts, because after that you get to do --
