The OverAchiever: Do them now!

We've had some recent news concerning achievements in categories we've already covered, and my original intent this week was to play catch-up with that in addition to finishing off the new reputation, world event, and feat of strength achievements in Cataclysm. However, given equally recent news concerning achievements that are set to become feats (and may do so as early as patch 4.0.1), I thought it would be more sensible to cover the stuff that you'd want to do as soon as possible before it disappears.

I've cross-checked the list of known Cataclysm feats of strength against the feats already present in game, and as far as I know, this should be a comprehensive set of current Wrath of the Lich King achievements that will become inaccessible as of patch 4.0.1, patch 4.0.3, or Cataclysm's release (or at least, a comprehensive list as of the current beta and PTR builds).

I've written this list assuming the following:

• Although it hasn't been officially confirmed that all of these will disappear in patch 4.0.1 or 4.0.3 rather than the expansion itself, for the time being, I'm guessing it's one of the two patches you need to worry about.
• With the recent announcement of arena Season 8 ending on Oct. 12, 4.0.1 may hit in less than two weeks. Zarhym's post just made it clear that the season could end as early as the 12th, not that it definitely would, and there's still a lot of stuff to fix on the PTR and beta -- but every Tuesday from hereon is a potential patch day.
• Accepting Oct. 5 or 12 as possible patch dates, I've included an opinion on the feasibility of getting the following achievements done as quickly as possible.

Future feats of strength

1,000 Dungeon and Raid Emblems and 2,500 Dungeon and Raid Emblems As justice and valor points are replacing the badge system, you can kiss badge achievements goodbye.

• Doable before the patch? Depends on the character and how much time you've spent in 5-mans. If you're starting from scratch, you may not have the time to run the 200+ dungeons (assuming you're using the dungeon finder, awarding extra triumph badges) you'd need even for the 1,000 Dungeon and Raid Emblems achievement. A character that's been 80 for a while and run 5-mans regularly might be close.

A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity This is what rewards "the Argent Defender" title, if you're not familiar with it. The achievement involves the successful completion of ToGC-10 while preserving all 50 attempts with a very strict set of guidelines on the gear involved. In short, you can wear anything that's below ilevel 245, and there's a limited amount of ilevel 245 gear allowed. Despite the gear requirement, players at 85 will sport much higher health pools than their counterparts at 80, which would really defeat the purpose of this achievement, so ... feat.

• Doable before the patch? We've briefly touched on this in OverAchiever: Dungeon and raid titles. ToGC-10 is significantly more forgiving than its 25-man counterpart, but the achievement removes any true gear advantage you might have had versus the content. Additionally, unless your raiders happen to have a lot of tier 8/lesser tier 9 or comparable quality gear sitting around their banks, farming up the gear required can be time-consuming. if you're otherwise familiar with ToGC-10 and can handle the gear issue, you should be OK. If you're not familiar with ToGC-10 or 25, you are very likely to lose this achievement at some point to a wipe.

A Tribute to Insanity (25-player) and A Tribute to Insanity (10-player) In the interests of not making this a long list of ToGC achievements, consider this an umbrella heading for the 25-attempt, 45-attempt and 50-attempt achievements on both 10- and 25-man. All of 'em are going bye-bye. As with A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity, these achievements would be much easier with Cataclysm health pools, so there's little point to keeping them around as anything other than feats. That said, I'm curious if the health boost would actually make heroic Anub'arak harder, given the healing mechanic.

• Doable before the patch? If you're in Icecrown gear, you should be able to swing the 10-man achievements, although the period of time afforded for any practice you might need is quite low. I'm not sure about the 25-man version. A perfect ToGC-25 run is still a tall order, because Anub'arak's a nasty fight for anyone new.

Conqueror of Ulduar and Champion of Ulduar These are the 25-man and 10-man achievements, respectively, for doing each Ulduar boss without any deaths. In contrast to the Immortal and Undying achievements from tier 7, they're on a boss-by-boss basis. Even if you lose someone on, say, Mimiron, that won't affect other bosses.

• Doable before the patch? Yes, although you'll have limited time to try again if you do lose someone on an encounter. It goes without saying that you should probably not combine this achievement with a drake run on either 10- or 25-man; it's still easy to lose someone on achievements like Firefighter and One Light in the Darkness.

Deadliest Catch With Zul'Gurub's disappearance as a raid comes (I assume) Gahz'ranka's disappearance as a raid boss.

• Doable before the patch? Yes. You'll have to make a trip to Nat Pagle out in Dustwallow Marsh for some Mudskunk Lures, but this should be a quick achievement otherwise.

Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich? As with weapon skills, unarmed skill is being cut from the game. Protection warriors, paladins and death knight tanks followed by melee DPS (barring feral druids) are the most likely to have this or be close to it, given the number of angry mobs who can Disarm tanks, but anyone can get it.

• Doable before the patch? Yes, as long as you've got a spare hour or two to run around punching mobs. My main is a feral/resto druid who is almost always in form and started off with something like 47 unarmed skill as a result; near as I recall it took her roughly two and a half hours to go from 47 to 250 skill. The last few points will take you a while. I parked myself in a little inlet below Crusaders' Pinnacle in Icecrown and just chain-pulled the undead mobs wandering the area one by one. A lot of Wowhead commenters recommend fighting Mistress Natalie Mar'alith in Silithus. She will heal herself regularly once low, and if you're a caster class or spec with little melee damage, you can fight her for a good long while before she'll finally croak.

He Feeds On Your Tears (10-player) and He Feeds On Your Tears (25-player) Again, achievements like this are pretty pointless with the kind of health pools you'll see on Cataclysm players, so out they go. For some perspective on this issue, a level 85 premade on the beta servers right now is sitting on around 85,000 health from pre-heroic blues.

• Doable before the patch? Yes, although it's touchy. A single mistake by one player can eighty-six the achievement for you, given Algalon's Big Bang ability. As with the other ToGC and Ulduar achievements that are becoming feats, it's not that the achievements are extraordinarily difficult if you're in ICC gear -- it's just that it's still easy to lose them if the raid is inexperienced or if someone's not paying attention, and we're running out of the extra time you'd need to get another try in.

Hero of the Zandalar Tribe Zandalar reputation actually isn't too tough to farm if you can solo the raid, and even if you're starting from scratch, you can probably manage it before 4.0.1.

• Doable before the patch? Yes, but I'd get a move on, particularly if you play a class that can't realistically solo the raid or if you're hitting ZG with other people who need rep. Fortunately, Zul'Gurub is on a three-day reset, and if you're really hard up for reputation, you can kill the trash, let them respawn and farm them all over again, killing the bosses only before the reset.

• Doable before the patch? Yes. If you don't have one or more of the weapons in question, you can visit weapon vendors around the world and buy white-quality versions. They don't do a lot of damage in relation to their green, blue or epic counterparts, but that's perfectly suited to your purpose anyway.

Operation: Gnomeregan (Alliance) and Zalazane's Fall (Horde) Blue posters have mentioned that these events will be available only for a limited time, and it's very possible that they'll disappear when 4.0.1 and the new world event for Deathwing's emergence starts.

• Doable before the patch? Yes, assuming your character is at least 75 to get the last quest in either series. They're fun, give two nifty rewards and don't take a lot of time to do.

Swift Razzashi Raptor and Swift Zulian Tiger I'm putting these here just to be safe. Getting the raptor from Bloodlord Mandokir or the tiger from High Priest Thekal is technically a feat of strength already, and Blizzard actually has not said anything specific concerning their disappearance in Cataclysm. I'm not sure whether that's a nod to the fact that they're already feats, so their absence from the game won't change anything, or if they're going to be dropped elsewhere. For the time being, I think it's safer to assume that they, like the rest of Zul'Gurub, are disappearing entirely.

• Doable before the patch? Sorry, folks -- this one's entirely a function of RNG, as anyone who's tried to farm them can tell you. One of my buddies who desperately wanted the tiger farmed Thekal as many resets as she could manage for the better part of two years and never saw it; another hit ZG on a lark to farm up some rep and got it on the first try.

The Immortal and The Undying High HP pools, Cataclysm, yadda yadda. These achievements, particularly Immortal (once among the rarest and toughest raiding achievements in the game) were the scourge of tier 7 raiders and cost many players a shot at the black and plagued proto-drakes.

• Doable before the patch? Yes. Even PUGs should be able to manage these, as long as all the players involved are familiar with Naxxramas and nobody's computer is gasping its way through the raid. That said, if it's your first crack at Immortal, you'll be introduced to a miserable truth with which tier 7 raiders were intimately familiar: You can lose this achievement to the dumbest crap imaginable.

Zul'Gurub The beloved 20-man raid of classic World of Warcraft is going bye-bye as an instance. Instead, you'll find it as an outdoor questing area in the revamped Stranglethorn. It's a little bittersweet -- ZG is among the earliest raid content that Blizzard ever did, and it played a role in the Corrupted Blood incident, allowed for the use of druids as tanks on Jin'do and fun stuff like the mounts and Polymorph: Turtle.

• Doable before the patch? Very much so. Technically, you only need to kill Hakkar to get the achievement, but the rest of the raid is well worth your time as a peek into the raiding past.

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