Will update this as I find the changes this year. Feel free to read Lunar Festival 2008 and 2007 for my old notes.
The Boss: Omen
Okay, he's not easy to kill. Everyone has to avoid his Starfall and it's easy to die at 70 or lower (I spent most of the fight waiting to rez), and it took us 10 minutes with over 20 people in disarray, BUT I helped kill him after he'd already been tagged (thus he was NOT my kill) and still completed the quest -- all you have to do is stand on his corpse and get the buff.
Yup. That's it. Any level can swoop in and get it. And you can still get it if you're dead -- just run and stand on his body when you rez until it gives you a quest complete message:
The best day to do Omen is today, when there's a lot of people gonna be looking to group for it, both alliance and horde -- they will not stop to check your level and gear like they might later in the week. If your raid group isn't inviting people, feel free to ask the leader for an Assist (they can right-click, Make an Assistant) and you can invite people from General chat (/join general). The fight is really about numbers if your team doesn't know what they're doing. Just keep piling more and more people on him.Enemy Cities
I had hoped I'd found a cute trick to get in and out of enemy cities easily -- you can port to any city from the moonlight in Moonglade -- but you can't use the invitation to port to enemy capitals. :*( I tried and it just moved me 5 feet over, still in Moonglade (though it did burn my invitation cooldown).
So just take off all your gear and look forward to a nice slew of deaths if you're under level 80. The city guards are 75 and see through stealth.
Elders
There are good walkthroughs on gathering all the coins on Wowwiki, so I won't bother telling you more than my own issues and any tricks I find. I will warn you that I'm not doing the coins in Northrend this year, so I won't have any information on those.
- The guy in Azshara is at the very southeastern tip between a statue's severed legs.
- The chick in Dire Maul (Feralas) is not actually in the instance. She'll be near the pit where rare mobs sometimes spawn, and one of those mobs (Skarr) has 12% droprate of Orb of Deception. This elder is also located in a spot that will flag you for All PVP. This means that not only will you be flagged for PVP, anyone from your own faction can attack you as well as the opposite faction. It fades shortly after leaving the arena pit, but don't enter if you think someone might attack you.
- In Lower Blackrock Spire, you might as well go ahead and do the spider and worg pup pet quests since you're in there anyway.
- Blackrock Depths has huge patrols that see through stealth. I suggest level 80, a group, the key to all the shortcut doors, or someone with high lockpicking.
- In Shimmering Flats, you may want to pick up a 1g Ancona Chicken from Magus Tirth and the quest Freedom for All Creatures in Feralas, which is an 8-quest chain (alliance only) that leads to the Hinterlands and gives you a Sprite Darter Hatchling pet.
Not everyone loves pretty dresses or holiday achievements the way I do. So if you don't want an Elder title, consider a Violet Proto Drake too much hassle, and (horror of horrors) don't even care about the holiday clothes, there are other more practical reasons you might consider making the effort to visit all 75 locations.
Every elder increases your reputation with all parts of your faction (alliance/horde) by 75. This means 5625 rep for visiting all the elders, though humans have a racial rep bonus.
Getting coins also counts as a quest per elder, in case you're working on The Seeker. That's 75 quests, but it takes some running. If you like titles, I suggest finishing exploring for The Explorer since you're running all over the map anyway.
Posts
I wanted to thank you, one, for the link to WoWwiki and their guide. I was having trouble finding it on my own! The other reason I had to comment was to tell you how much I love your new banner!
ReplyDeleteIt is wonderful! Too bad there was no room for Alexstrasza in there, too :(
you know what.... all the new elders in northrend (and northrend instances) are male. no cute chicks in dresses -.-
ReplyDeleteTy Shawndra. :) *happy dance*
ReplyDeleteno cute chicks in dresses
This is very wrong. >.< Bad Blizzard!
Remember, until they introduced the Blood Elves, the Horde had to get by with the lady Trolls.
ReplyDelete>.>
I'm not surprised that all the new elders are crotchety and most likely perverted old men.
Just got my 50 coins achievement and figured out, "hey, 50 coins is all the non-Northrend Elders!" Maybe I'm just slow. I didn't actually get all the non-Northrend Elder's, though. I missed the one in Stratholme and instead found one in Valliance Keep.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the hardest to get were the Elders in Thunderbluff and Orgrimmar. I guess it's nice being Alliance and having an Elder of the Horde (Undercity) that's not actually in the city past the guards. At level 59-60, at least, reaching the other two meant dying multiple times. Hitting 60 and getting the swift mount was definitely a big help getting past guards.
Poor Hordies not only have to go inside all three of Stormwind, Ironforge and Darnassus . . . but also have to get to Dolanaar on the Teldrassil side of Darnassus.
For Alliance, as long as you're in Orgrimmar anyway, it's just a short jaunt (and for me, level 60 resto Druid, two more deaths) to Ragefire Chasm. How many times do you plan to enter the city anyway, right? I assume that for Horde similar reasoning applies to being in Stormwind and hitting Stockades.
The toughest Dungeon Elder to get was probably in Maraudon simply because the instance is geographically long and he's waaaayyyy at the back.
Though I have to admit I just kinda' lucked out finding the Elder in Lower Blackrock Spire since my dungeoneering buddies and I went through that instance for the first time this week. I'm not actually familiar enough with the instance to give instructions to get there or judge how hard it would be for a level 70-80, but he's not too far into it.
In Zul'Farrak, the Elder is in the pool area where you summon Gahzrilla. Take a left when you get the choice in the instance and the paths take you straight there.
In Sunken Temple, turn left up the spiral stairs, turn left at the top. If you can't stealth, there are some green dragonlings that are packed too tightly to avoid at a couple of junctions . . . but they're just level 45ish non-elites.
The Blackrock Depths Elder is right in the Ring of Law. Just head straight in, cross the first main room and there you are. It was actually the easiest one, by far, even though the demon hounds can see through stealth. They're only level 48-50ish. That's a small enough aggro radius at level 60 that you could just be careful where you walk and they leave you alone. Should be even easier at 70-80. The Elder is standing on the grating that starts the Ring of Law "event". There's plenty of time to hearth out of if you want to avoid it.
There are several Elders it took some time for me to find because they are scattered away from any cities or outposts.
Felwood (Nightwind). I just assumed the guy would be near the neutral camp, Emerald Sanctuary. Turns out the Elders are not placed for most convenient access. They're often placed in ruins with lore significance. Imagine that. He's just off the west side of the road a little north of Jaedenar.
Winterspring (Brightspear). Southwest of Everlook, on the eastern shore of Lake Kel'theril, in the Ruins of Kel'theril.
Azshara (Skygleam). Like you say, in the southeast corner. There are a series of bridges connecting groups of naga. You cross a couple of them getting to Ravencrest monument.
Tanaris (Ragetotem). Southwest corner of the desert in the Valley of the Watchers. Right by the entance to Uldum.
Un'goro (Thunderhorn). On a small knob at the northern edge of the Silithid Hive (Slithering Scar) in the south central crater.
Silithus (Primestone). Northwest corner of the Crystal Vale in the northwest corner of Silithus, surrounded by a relatively dense quantity of Air Elementals. Kill some while you're there. They have a pretty good drop rate of Elemental Air, Breath of Wind and Essence of Air which are all used in various professions and auction nicely.
Blasted Lands (Bellowrage). In the camp in front of the Dark Portal.
Burning Steppes (Rumblerock). At the top of a mountain crawling with Ogres called Dreadmaul Rock in eastern Burning Steppes. Rumblerock is at the top of Dreadmaul Rock. The path to get there kinda' winds its way up and, iirc, starts on the northish side of the mountain.
Searing Gorge (Ironband). Southwest corner of Searing Gorge. Across the road and up the mountain path west of the Searing Gorge entrance to Blackrock Mountain.
Hinterlands (Highpeak). Almost dead center of the Hinterlands in the Creeping Ruins.
Eastern Plaguelands (Windrun). In Crown Guard Tower, the southwestern tower.
Western Plaguelands (Meadowrun). There is a bridge connecting Eastern and Western Plaguelands. Meadowrun is a little north of the road a little bit into the Western Plaguelands across that bridge.