Holiday Achievement Guide: Merrymaker

Don't bother reading this... just go to wowhead's guide.
I give up on writing guides... I didn't even enjoy this, so why bother?


Merrymaker|Merrymaker

 The lowest level required to complete all components of this achievement is 70. The recommended level is 77. I will provide info on the level requirements of the individual achievements for those of you in the lower levels who at least want to complete as much as they can.

On Metzen! Required level: 40

The quest chain required to complete this achievement requires level 40 to accept.

This quest chain is trivial at max level. Metzen can be found in Lost Rigger's Cove in Tanaris surrounded by Southsea Kidnappers in addition to an army of other Southsea pirates OR at a small Dark Iron camp in Searing Gorge surrounded by a small number of level 45ish Dark Iron Kidnappers.

It doesn't matter which location you go to, but I'd suggest Searing Gorge if you're Alliance since it's so close to Ironforge and somwhat near Stormwind.
If you're Horde, I'd suggest heading to Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff because they're closest to Tanaris.

If you're going to be making suicide attempts by trying to free Metzen before getting pummeled to death, you must know that freeing Metzen is a two-step process: First, you must right click on him after coming within range of him, then you must select the option in the dialog box to sprinkle the reindeer dust on him. So be sure that you have enough leeway when using this method.

Scrooge|Scrooge Required level: 1

Easy. Throw a snowball at King Magni Bronzebeard for Alliance OR Cairne Bloodhoof for Horde.

There are many ways to obtain snowballs, the easiest way is to purchase a stack of 5 for 10 copper from Wulmort Jinglepocket in Ironforge or Seersa Copperpinch in Thunder Bluff. You can purchase snowballs from other Smokywood Pastures vendors, but the two I mentioned are closest to your snowball targets.

'Tis the Season Required level: 70

Things you'll need:

• Red Winter Hat or Green Winter Hat which has a 100% drop rate on certain Northrend mage-ish dungeon bosses.
  
• Red Winter Clothes or Green Winter Clothes made by tailors with these patterns
  
• Winter Boots made by leatherworkers with this pattern
• Graccu's Mince Meat Fruitcake 
• 20 contained in Smokywood Pastures Extra-Special Gift awarded (within 48 hours) of completing the Metzen quest.
• 1 contained in Smokywood Pastures Sampler awarded (probably within an hour) after completing Treats for Greatfather Winter.
  

Technically, this achievement could potentially be completed at level 1 since...

1. the winter clothing has no level requirement.
2. Treats for Greatfather has no level requirement (see Mince Meat Fruitcake info above.)
   
3. it is possible to loot a winter hat randomly during the Winter Veil as a world drop from any mob.

BUT due to the unreliable world drop rate on the hats, I've set the level requirement to 70 which is the minimum level required to enter the Nexus. The Nexus being the lowest level dungeon with a boss that will drop the hat. Also, please keep in mind that the hat is only lootable by a single group member so be ready to run the Nexus 5 times in a row.

Simply Abominable Required level: 30

This achievement requires that you complete a quest chain that has you venture to the Alterac Mountains in search of some missing holiday treats that were stolen by The Abominable Greench!

The Greench is a level 36 elite, so if you're well below level 40, you may want to bring a friend or two along for assistance.

Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's (Alliance) Required level: 1 Recommended level: 25+

Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's (Horde) Required level: 1 Recommended level: 77

 To complete the Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's achievement, you must use Mistletoe on all of the "brothers" of your faction. There is no level requirement for obtaining Mistletoe and there is no level requirement for using it.

Alliance	Horde
Brother Nemetz in Stranglethorn Vale Brother Anton in Nijel's Point Brother Wilhelm in Goldshire Brother Karman in Theramore Brother Kristoff in Stormwind Brother Joshua in Stormwind Brother Crowley in Stormwind Brother Cassius in Stormwind Brother Benjamin in Stormwind	Brother Malach in the Undercity Durkot Wolfbrother in Warsong Hold Brother Keltan in Icecrown

The Alliance must visit 9 brothers, but most of them are in or near Stormwind and the rest are trivial to reach at max level.
The Horde only need to visit 3 brothers, but one of them is almost impossible to get to below level 77.

Brother Keltan is a tough elf to reach. Not only is he in the level 80 zone Icecrown, but he's high above the ground on the Horde gunship Orgrim's Hammer. The only way to reach Orgrim's Hammer without Cold Weather Flying skill is by warlock summon or recruit-a-friend summon.

Note: I've also heard that corpse crawling can work because when you die in Icecrown, you are placed on a flying spectral gryphon that allows you to retrieve your corpse from hard-or-impossible-to-reach places. They say that dying below Orgrim's Hammer and using the gryphon to rez on board the gunship is possible. Be aware that the gunship moves around on the map and special timing may be necessary for success. Another thing to note is that it may only work when the gunship is over higher ground because vertical distance from your cold, lonely corpse could be too far to allow a resurrection.

I can't confirm this method and I'd never recommend corpse crawling anyway because it just doesn't seem right to subject your avatar to intentional and repeated death, but you need to do what works for you.

He Knows If You've Been Naughty Required level: 1

Open a present under your faction's Winter Veil tree.
The presents will not be available until Christmas day.


With a Little Helper from My Friends 
Required level: 1 Recommended level: 10+

You'll get very familiar with the location of at least one Winter Wondervolt machine before this achievement is complete. Using the Winter Wondervolt machine will turn you into one of Greatfather Winter's little helpers. You must earn 50 honorable kills while in the form of a little helper. Little helper form does not last through death. This achievement sucks. Start working on this one as early into the holiday as possible. Unless you are a PvP master who could achieve The Grim Reaper on a regular basis, this one could take you multiple days if your playtime is limited or if you just suck at BG's.

I can't really think of any viable methods for levels 10 and under to get into any heavy PvP action for this achievement. It's definitely possible, but you'll have to come up with your own solution!


Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la Required level: 70
This is one of the achievements that inspired me to write these guides. In order to gain access to the bombing daily quest required by this achievement you used to have to complete a short quest chain of level 70 group quests to gain neutral reputation with Ogri'la. A recent patch lifted this requirement and you can now reach neutral reputation upon interacting with an Ogri'la npc.
To get started, fly up to Ogri'la and pick The Crystals from Chu'alor. After completing it, take Our Boy Wants To Be A Skyguard Ranger from Torkus. Next, take The Skyguard Outpost from Chu'alor and head over to the Skyguard Outpost and turn it in. Completing Bombing Run from Sky Sergeant Vanderlip will open up a slew of Sha'tari Skyguard dailies. Bomb Them Again! is the one to which we've been trying to gain access.
Fresh Holly can be obtained by /kissing Winter Revelers. Preserved Holly is obtained as a reward from the Metzen the Reindeer quest which you should have already completed.
It may take a bit of practice to get the hang of bombing effectively, but there is no time limit and if you're blasted off of your mount, there really isn't any great danger, especially at 80. Just bandage up if necessary and re-mount and keep bombing. The key is keep moving as you toss your bombs. If you stop in midair, the cannons will shoot you down very easily.
Don't waste your Holly trying to keep your mount in reindeer form while bombing as it is only required while turning in the quest. You will most likely get knocked off your mount several times especially if you are new to this quest.


Let It Snow Required level: 1
This is another simple achievement with no level requirement. Just stroll around Dalaran with your eyes peeled and snowflakes bound to a hotkey. Snowflakes can be obtained by performing a /kiss at your nearest Winter Reveler.


The Winter Veil Gourmet Required level: 1... I think?
The only requirement for this achievement is a cooking skill of 325 or higher. I'm honestly not sure if cooking still has a level requirement. For a guide on leveling your cooking please visit wow-professions.com's cooking 1-450 guide.

You must learn and cook three festive treats to complete this achievement. All three recipe's can be purchased from Wulmort Jinglepocket in Ironforge or Penney Copperpinch in Orgrimmar.


A Frosty Shake Required level: 30
This achievement requires that you wear a Winter Veil Disguise Kit in Dalaran and /dance with another player who is also wearing a Winter Veil disguise. The disguise kit is obtained via mail as a reward for completing the Stolen Winter Veil Treats quest and requires one Snowball per use.

Fenrisúlfr (fen-dwelling wolf)

So, I've still been playing on Fen. Haven't been doing any heroics or raids at all... mostly solo play doing old dungeons and doing quests. He finally managed to snag Loremaster by finishing up in Grizzly Hills with Mrs. Fen while she was leveling.

There was much excitement to be had at Brewfest this year because it would be the final holiday achievement needed by most individuals who were going for the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement and the awarded Violet Proto-Drake. This drake is so beautiful and so much fun that I've decided to get one on Bloor this year. Mrs. Fen gave me the idea to write and post detailed guides for completing the Holiday achievements for What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been. I think that's a GREAT idea and I'm planning my first one for the upcoming Winter Veil. So stay tuned for that.

Now, with all the huge changes to hunters coming in Cataclysm, I don't really have much of a drive to try to get Fen into any serious raiding. I'm content with playing him the way I've always played him... solo and casual... still an achievement whore.
Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited about the upcoming changes to the hunter class... but it leaves me feeling like the current iteration of hunters are sorta... in limbo? I guess. I'll be excited to explore the new Azeroth and do all of the new quests and all of that, but until then, I'm not really considering doing any type of endgame content on my hunter. Right now, I'm working on a few old quest chains involving the Hydraxian Waterlords and the Brood of Nozdormu. One of them has a feat of strength attached to it and the other will net me a epic cooking recipe! Both of these goals require a lot of rep grinding... but I honestly think I've had worse rep grinding experiences. I just need to sit down and do it one day. I'm also farming the Beaststalker's Tunic in order to complete the quest chain that will allow me to complete my tier 0.5 set.


The most exciting thing I have planned is to race-change Fen to a worgen. If you're familiar with Norse mythology, then you know that Fenrir (fen-dweller) or Fenrisúlfr (fen-dwelling wolf) is a monstrous wolf who is the son of Loki and father of Sköll and Hati and is foretold to kill the god Odin at Ragnarök.
I'm very excited about this because I remember when I first started playing WoW and creating my first avatar and how I was a little disappointed about how the Horde had Tauren but the Alliance had no anthropomorphic animal races. So, like all the other n00bs of Warcraft, I rolled a Night Elf huntard! Because hunters got pets and Night Elves were the "best-looking" or maybe... "tallest?" race of the Alliance. I'm positive that the Worgen hunter will very quickly become the new Night Elf hunter and I'll be jumping out of the pan and into the fire! Oh, well...
Worgen as a target race probably won't be available for a good several months after the release of Cataclysm so I've got a good while before my dream will become a reality.

The Raiding Scene

In non-WoW news: Fen Jr. will be born any day now. Mrs. Fen is getting rather large and can't hold the infant too much longer. To quote a certain Kazakh journalist, "I am very excite!"

Well, Fen got into his first 10man Naxx run months ago... it was fun. He hasn't seen another raid (or even 5man) since then.

Bloor's been running a lot of heroics (ToC and daily mostly) and he's been into Naxx several times and Ulduar once or twice as well as a few other raids.

Short guild history:

• I dropped Bloor out of Fallout to join Chains of Honor. Ran some Naxx, OS, tried Maly... DK whined because he couldn't keep up with the sparks. Think he was a keyboard turner and/or tab targeter. Irritating to say the least.
  
• Chains disbanded/merged with AllGodsMustDie... for whatever reason, I did not follow my guildmates.
• Ran around guildless for a while.
• Cousin got into a guild called The Band of the Red Hand and got me an invite. Ran some Naxx, but didn't seem to have the CC to down Gluth. Ran some other stuff too.
  
• Band guildmaster went on a short hiatus and I didn't feel at home AND I didn't feel like I would be having much time for raiding with my son coming really soon... so I /gquit quietly.
• Hopped into my bank guild Azeroth Bancorp and developed my glyph business and made some good money.
• Just the other day, my cousin asked me to come back to Band saying that some annoying guy who I only vaguely remember was /gkicked for being a d-bag. I didn't care about the annoying guy, but I been feeling a bit of /quitters remorse. He said they wanted me and my warlock super powers back. I acquiesced. Still don't feel at home, but I really can't expect instant feelin-at-homification. Trying to remain optimistic. We'll see how it goes!

I want to send the guildmaster a wowmsg kinda explaining why I just bailed without saying anything. I had intended to do so weeks ago, but if I procrastinate on something, I'll usually forget to do it. Perhaps I'll do that tonight... or put it off some more...

State of the Horde

Okay, I'm back. I may not be cut out for wow-blogging or blogging in general... but I'ma keep trying!

So, I don't remember if I mentioned previously that I deleted my paladin Brosephus. I've also decided that even though I really enjoyed the play style, I do not want to try to roll a paladin at this time. I have quite a few alts I am trying to work on and until I at least get them to max level, I've no plans to start ANOTHER avatar. (I've also decided to use the word 'avatar' exclusively now... it just sounds so much cooler than 'toon' or even 'character.')

I'm STILL trying to finalize my decision on the avatar I wish to roll Horde side with my wife... who still isn't too far ahead of me... as we've been focusing on finally leveling her Draenei hunter main to 80 (she's about 25% into 79!) And she's been working on her tailoring and enchanting on her warlock and actually just hit 45 from looting Hallow's End Trick or Treat buckets all over Azeroth.

Anyway, I've kind of lost interest in my Troll hunter Cythaeras... I like the avatar a lot, but I feel bored playing the hunter all over again (which was the SAME reason I was hoping to enjoy her.) I'm also having odd feelings about playing Fen right now... for reasons I'll definitely cover in a future post.

I took another stab at rolling a Hordie to companion my wife's warlock. I wanted to pick a class and race that I hadn't really played before and that would also be helpful to her class. I decided to try a Forsaken priest. I'll have to let you know how it turns out since I have yet to even log in to watch the opening cinematic, but I'm kinda looking forward to getting started with him.

I also started a Blood Elf rogue named Malady that I plan on twinking at 19... And here in this moment (as I write this post) I am reconsidering my previous statements about rolling a paladin... Perhaps I'll twink a paladin instead of a rogue? Hmm, something to think about...

If you've got anything to say about anything that I talked about, feel free to comment below!

update

Looks like it's been another month without an update. I'd say sorry, but I'm not sure if I'm apologizing to anyone... yet.

Welp, here's what I've been up to:

Most of my play time has been spent on Bloor. I've been leveling him like crazy! I want to have another toon at level cap that can be useful in dungeons as well as an alt that is just plain fun to play. I finally settled on Enchanting/Inscription because of the ability to easily create enchanting scrolls to put up in the AH as well as the uber inscription shoulder enchants which are supposed to be better than the ones that the Sons of Hodir have to offer. I'll be darned if I'm going to do another Hodir grind again anytime soon.

I've only been getting on Fen to do cooking dailies and that's about it. I really need to work the Outland cooking and fishing dailies into that little routine in order to up my chances of picking up a few more companions as well as a cooking recipe.

My next alt project is my new Night Elf dr00d Ambroszya. I plan on dual-speccing her tree/boomkin or tree/bear. Our guild could use another healer or two and I've always wanted to try healing. We'll see what happens. She's already 13 and I decided on Skinning/Leatherworking if not for the decent epic BoPs, then for the gold I can (hopefully) make from selling leg armor kits.

MIA

Sorry I've been MIA for about 3 weeks over a month now. Things have been kinda busy at work and I've been working on achievements and rep while at home.

I did manage to get Elder as well as the Love Fool... no thanks to the CRAZY RANDOM drop rate for Bag of Candies.) No Perma-Peddle this year :( But I think I may have enough Lovely Black Dresses for just about everyone in my guild. Okay, maybe not... but I got a lot of dresses and I am in a smaller guild, so... yeah.

Blogging frequently may not be my strong point, and I hope to change that. I also hope to improve the quality of my posts. I want to provide interesting material. I want to entertain as well as inform... I don't want to just talk all about all my in-game achievements and stuff. I also don't want be talking about the same old thing that every other blog or news feed is talking about. I'd like to find a niche. I don't have to be the ONLY only one in said niche, but I don't want to just get lost in the mix... Or do I?

Thanks for reading!

Elders of the Dungeons

Well, on the 24th, I went back to the Elders of the Dungeons achievement page on Wowhead and started looking through the comments to see how difficult it was to get to each elder and where they were located. Go check it out for yourself and you will see several comments stating that Elder Ohanzee in Gundrak is in "Eck's room"... which, apparently, is only accessible on Heroic mode.

So, needless to say... ding!

Lunar Fest achievement progress:

As I failed to mention previously, I already had most of the Lunar Festival achievements completed retroactively from last year. All I had left to do this year was set off some fireworks, visit some elders, and kill a two-headed demon dog.

I'm done with everything except the Northrend dungeon elders. The fireworks were trivial. My cousin and I picked up the Omen quest, rode over to the other side of Lake Elune'ara, rode through the moonbeam glowing over Omen's corpse, then rode back to turn in the quest :) This was after I flew all over Northrend chatting it up with all of the elders there. Now, all that's left is Elders of The Dungeons.

Yesterday, before I dinged, my buddy invited me to run Drak'Theron Keep for the elder there. He's in a pretty hardcore raiding guild, so he and his guildies pretty much pwned the place up and now I'm one elder closer to completing my festival achievement.