Advertisement

The OverAchiever: Guide to Pilgrim's Bounty 2011

Allison Robert
Updated ·8 min read

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we're too full to move.

For all you dedicated achievement hunters out there, Pilgrim's Bounty is not part of the year-long meta What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, but that's not to say that the holiday's without its share of charms. While the Pilgrim meta will grant both the Pilgrim title and the plump turkey pet, the holiday has an absolutely unbeatable side benefit -- it's the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to level cooking to 350. Pilgrim's Bounty is tailor-made for players who want to level cooking on a bunch of alts or anyone who never got around to doing it on his or her main.

We haven't seen any new information emerge on Pilgrim's Bounty over the past year, so the holiday probably hasn't changed much from its 2009 and 2010 incarnations. As always, I'll be around as the holiday goes live to update or clarify any portion of this guide. This year, Pilgrim's Bounty runs from Sunday, Nov. 20 through Saturday, Nov. 26.



"FOOD FIGHT!"

"FOOD FIGHT!" is a very simple achievement. Bountiful Tables are located in each capital's feasting area, and all of them are very large and easy to spot. Each chair at the tables is actually a vehicle. Mouse over the chairs and you'll see them clearly labeled: "The Stuffing Chair" or "The Turkey Chair." You can only pass a dish already located at that chair. If you're sitting in the sweet potatoes chair, you can pass sweet potatoes, and so on and so forth. Once you've taken a seat (and for this achievement, it won't matter where), you'll find five options available.

  1. Eating turkey If you're in the turkey chair, this will always be an available option; otherwise, it must be passed to you.

  2. Eating cranberries If you're in the cranberry chair, this will always be an available option; otherwise, it must be passed to you.

  3. Eating stuffing If you're in the stuffing chair, this will always be an available option; otherwise, it must be passed to you.

  4. Eating sweet potatoes If you're in the sweet potatoes chair, this will always be an available option; otherwise, it must be passed to you.

  5. Eating pie If you're in the pie chair, this will always be an available option; otherwise, it must be passed to you.

The only thing you need for this achievement is to have someone else sitting at the table, which should be easy in the holiday's first few days. Sit wherever you like, target a fellow player at the table, and use the first option (to "pass" a dish) repeatedly. Rather than passing it, you'll eventually throw it at them and get your achievement.

As with all holidays, Pilgrim's Bounty tends to be busiest in the first few days and more particularly at server high times, so I would advise doing this early.

Sharing is Caring

As with "FOOD FIGHT!", Sharing is Caring is an achievement done while seated at a Bountiful Table. You'll need to visit all five chairs at a table and select the first option (again, passing the dish) at each one. No other player is required to be at the table for you to get this. However, if the feast area is crowded and players aren't budging from their own chairs, you can get this achievement by visiting different chairs at different tables. You're not restricted to just one.

Now We're Cookin'

Now We're Cookin' requires you to cook all five holiday recipes. You'll need to have at least 280 cooking skill to make all of them, but if you haven't leveled cooking, don't worry; Pilgrim's Bounty exists for just this reason!

The recipes you'll need are all from a single book sold for one silver by Pilgrim's Bounty vendors (all of whom will be located conveniently in feast areas). The book is called the Bountiful Cookbook and requires only 1 cooking skill in order to use. Right-click the book once it's in your inventory, and it'll give you all five recipes.

The recipes you'll need to cook are:

Pilgrim's Bounty vendors sell the Simple Flour, Refreshing Spring Water, Mild Spices, Honey, and Autumnal Herbs you'll need for all five recipes, so you won't need to make any special trips for ingredients beyond turkeys. You don't even need to train cooking elsewhere; there'll be a cooking trainer in the feast areas too! Vendors in Stormwind/Undercity, Orgrimmar/Ironforge, and Darnassus/Thunder Bluff will also sell you the pumpkins, cranberries, and sweet potatoes (respectively) you'll need, so until you reach 280 cooking skill you won't even need to set foot outside your faction's major cities. If you want to make things especially convenient for yourself, make sure you cook at least 20 of each recipe so you can turn them into holiday NPCs for Pilgrim's Progress.

Once you get to the Slow-Roasted Turkey recipe, you'll need to make a hunting trip to Elwynn Forest or Tirisfal Glades. For the length of the holiday, low-level Wild Turkey mobs with two HP spawn all over these zones, and their meat is a 100% drop. As long as you're out stocking up on them for cooking purposes, you might as well do ...

The Turkinator

The Turkinator could reasonably be considered the holiday's toughest achievement. Each time you kill a Wild Turkey mob, you'll get a 30-second stacking buff named Turkey Tracker. The object of this achievement is to kill 40 turkeys without letting the buff drop. As such, every time you kill a turkey, you'll have 30 seconds from each kill to find and slaughter another one. Do this successfully 40 times, and you'll get Turkinator.

This achievement attracted no small number of complaints last year, mostly due to uneven mob spawns and griefing by other players (druids abusing Travel Form and Moonfire were a particular sore point). While this year's holiday will probably be less hectic, as many players already have the Pilgrim meta on their mains, you're still better off abandoning attempts at The Turkinator for a day or two if your server's very busy. While there are a lot of turkeys available in both zones and they respawn quickly, it can still be difficult to get a perfect 40-mob killing spree if you have serious competition for the spawns. I'll put it this way -- finding and killing as many turkeys as you want at any point during this holiday is not difficult. It's finding and killing 40 of them within 30 seconds of each other with competition nearby that can get hairy.

I've been able to manage this for two years running by circling Brightwater Lake in Tirisfal, but even if you don't work with a set path, you can make it easier by making a /tar Wild Turkey macro and just spamming it. Nearby turkeys will light up, so head for the nearest kill, spam the macro again, and keep at it. As an aside -- yes, players with instant nukes have a significant advantage here, so just be aware that any competition from nearby druids and mages (among others) can put a real dent in your ability to do Turkinator.

As a number of our commenters have suggested, Tracker Snacks can really come in handy on this achievement if you're not a hunter. It does require 400 level cooking, so unless you buy them off the Auction House, you won't have easy access to them unless you've already leveled the skill.

Click Part 2 (below) for the rest of the guide!

Part 2 >>