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The OverAchiever: Do them now!
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's time to get a move on. 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.
"For the Horde" gets world-first A Tribute to Insanity-10
With the heroic versions of Trial of the Crusader going live yesterday, raiding guilds are already venturing into the more challenging versions of Tier 9. As of evening Tuesday EST, the European guild For the Horde has claimed a world-first A Tribute to Insanity-10 (a no-wipe full clear of the instance) on 10-man heroic Trial. Unfortunately, I don't speak German so I might be missing some of the finer points related on their website (anyone who can shed more light on this, please drop a comment!) but it looks like they weren't deliberately aiming for the achievement until they reached Anub'arak with all 50 attempts remaining, and then decided to go for it. Next in achievement progression? A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity -- repeating it without any gear from 25-man ToC, which is broadly equivalent to the Herald of the Titans achievement. Ouch.Boubouille at MMO Champion has since confirmed that the Swift Horde Wolf and its Alliance counterpart the Swift Alliance Steed are drops from the tribute chest upon completion of the no-wipe clear, and it's quite possible that the mounts also drop from the 25-man version as well. However, I doubt we'll be seeing A Tribute to Insanity-25 this week, as none of the guilds doing the heroic-25 mode have reported a wipe-free experience thus far.We'll keep an eye on guild progression for you, and congratulations to For the Horde!
Crusader's Coliseum tribute rewards are ilvl 272
Patch 3.2 brought with it three new tiers of gear, corresponding to the various difficulty settings available for the Trial of the Crusader raid. The items coming out of the 25-man heroic version, at item level 258, are leaps and bounds above what was available in Ulduar -- and if you thought that those were pretty good, you're in for an even bigger surprise if you manage to complete the dungeon's tribute run. Boubouille, head of the Data Miners' Guild and captain of the starship MMO-Champion, pulled the full list of loot available in the raid from the official Armory site. Players who accomplish the feat of completing the full heroic 25-man dungeon without wiping once will receive a chest with one of several ilvl 272 cloaks in it. At ilvl 272, these cloaks are the best items in the game. Even ignoring their item level, they're extremely well-itemized, and offer something for even some oft-ignored specs ... even Elemental Shamans, thank God. And with the next-highest item level being 258, the cloaks are a full tier above the heroic 25-man's gear. To put that into perspective, moving from 10-man Ulduar to 25-man Ulduar is only a jump of 6 item levels. This also means that, if dungeon difficulties and item levels continue to progress in the same way they have been for the previous two content patches and no half-tier steps occur, we could be seeing the following approximate item levels in the Icecrown Citadel raid:Normal 10-Man: 258Heroic 10-Man/Normal 25-Man: 272Heroic 25-Man: 285, with probable level 298 super-rewards. Though Patch 3.3 is supposed to be WOTLK's last content patch, if it's not, we could see item levels bust 300 in this expansion. Crazy!
