The OverAchiever: Guide to Fool for Love achievements
The in-game holiday Love Is In the Air begins Sunday, running February 7th (3:00 am server time) through February 21st (3:00 am server time) this year. Doing most of the achievements related to the holiday will reward you with the meta Fool for Love, the title "the Love Fool," and one more notch in the long trek toward What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.
Love Is In the Air has been markedly changed for 2010; Blizzard's eliminated much of the painful RNG that drove players up a wall in 2009, and right now you can expect a rather cool and fun little holiday that's not entirely unlike Brewfest in its approach to achievements. You can do dailies and other quests for Love Tokens, and buy holiday items from vendors in addition to enjoying some stuff that's just for fun.
But you're here for the meta, right? We all know you want that drake. Before we get started, I would advise reading our FAQ article on Love Is In the Air if you're not already familiar with the holiday.
Be Mine!
This achievement was the subject of much hue and cry in 2009, and for good reason -- whether you got it or not was entirely up to the whims of the RNG gods. So many players were left out in the cold that Blizzard eventually implemented two hotfixes: an increase to the drop rate on the Bag of Candies (which were then contained within Gifts or Pledges of Adoration that city guards and NPCs gave you), and a change to the achievement that involved having to eat only 6 of the 8 candies rather than all of them.
This achievement's now substantially simpler; the Bag of Heart Candies can be purchased for the low price of 2 Love Tokens at any Lovely Merchant (located in major cities). If you don't get the specific candies that you need from one bag, just buy another, and keep doing so until you've nabbed them all. Alternatively, you can check the AH; because the heart candies aren't BoP, they can be sold or traded between players.
Dangerous Love (Alliance) or Dangerous Love (Horde)
This is a short but fun questline that will involve running around Stormwind (for the Alliance) or Orgrimmar (for the Horde) on a goblin NPC's bidding to investigate the recent goings-on of the Crown Chemical Company. If you don't start off in either city, an NPC in any other major city (located around that city's designated "holiday area") will direct you there via Uncommon Scents (Alliance) or Uncommon Scents (Horde). Quest progression after that is as follows:
Something Stinks (Alliance) or Something Stinks (Horde)
Pilfering Perfume (Alliance) or Pilfering Perfume (Horde)
Fireworks at the Gilded Rose (Alliance) or Snivel's Sweetheart (Horde)
Hot On The Trail (Alliance) or Hot On The Trail (Horde)
A Friendly Chat... (Alliance) or A Friendly Chat... (Horde)
After finishing the questline, the goblin will offer you a daily quest to kill Crown Chemical Company NPCs and disable one of their chemical vats, but where the quest sends you will depend on your character's level. Finish the daily for the first time, and you've got the achievement.
Fistful of Love
What an...interesting title, Blizzard.
Getting a Handful of Rose Petals is easy enough; they're sold in quantities of 5 for 2 Love Tokens at any Lovely Vendor, and you'll need 11 Handfuls to nail all the race/class combinations listed for the achievement (so bank on spending 6 Love Tokens). The extras won't go to waste; you'll need one for Flirt With Disaster (see below), and you can always use the 3 extras to annoy your friends.
The real trouble is going to be finding the less common race/class combinations, and on most servers it's the effort to find a troll rogue that'll drive you up a wall. Happy hunting!
Flirt With Disaster (Alliance) or Flirt With Disaster (Horde)
You'll need another Handful of Rose Petals for this one, in addition to some booze and perfume (the different varieties of which are sold by Love Vendors for 1 Token each).
If you're Alliance, toss on some Perfume, buy enough alcohol to get "completely smashed," and stumble your way over to Sraaz, the gnomish pie vendor who paths around the Great Forge in Ironforge.
If you're Horde, toss on some Perfume, and BEFORE you go to Undercity for this achievement, make sure you stop and buy alcohol elsewhere. Curiously enough, there doesn't seem to be any alcohol available in Undercity; you'll have to bring some with you, or else fly to Tarren Mill. Jeremiah Payson, the cockroach vendor, is located under the bank steps.
Charming (Alliance) or Charming (Horde)
This used to be the achievement known as Heartmender, which involved giving 20 Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets to players with broken hearts. I suspect Blizzard decided to overhaul it because your ability to get the achievement depended entirely on how many players were participating in the holiday, got broken hearts, and were in a convenient place to be "cured." This had the unfortunate effect of anyone with a broken heart getting chased down by a howling pack of players intent on getting their achievement, with only one among them able to get credit for the cure. Yes, it was fairly annoying.
Now it's about creating Lovely Charm Bracelets, with the mats being 10 "charms" per bracelet. Once you speak to Kwee Q. Peddlefeet in any major city for the daily quest concerning a Lovely Charm Bracelet gift for various faction leaders, he'll give you a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit. This will enable you to collect Lovely Charms from any non-gray mob you kill (or any non-gray mobs that dies to another player while you're grouped), and you can make one Lovely Charm Bracelet for each 10 Lovely Charms you collect. Consequently, you'll need 120 Lovely Charms total for this achievement, which -- if you don't go out farming for them on their own -- amounts to 3 days' worth of dailies giving bracelets to faction leaders.
