Lethal Shots

The plague may have been cured, but the Scourge invasion was far from over. With the appearance of Necropolises over capital cities and active Scourge attacks on zones throughout Azeroth, the Argent Dawn has came out in full force for our defense. And to help them in their efforts, they have enlisted the help of the many adventurers throughout the land, both Horde and Alliance. Naturally, Santyn answered the call.

And what was he rewarded for his effort? Phat lewtz of course! Here’s a few poses of me with my new gear:

Argent Dawn Gear with Banner

Argent Dawn Gear with Tabard

Really, it is a gorgous set of gear, and believe it or not was an upgrade for me. (Sad, I know.) For completion sake I also purchased all the available trinkets. Here’s a list of everything I obtained:

• Blessed Handguards of Undead Slaying
• Blessed Pauldrons of Undead Slaying
• Blessed Greaves of Undead Slaying
• Blessed Hauberk of Undead Slaying
• Tabard of the Argent Dawn
• Argent Dawn Banner
• Argent Tome
• Argent War Horn

Also a side bonus to the event was an insane amount of easily obtained Argent Dawn rep. Useless, I know, but it is nice to be liked by another faction.

For another year at least. I participated in the holiday pretty heavily this year, mainly due to the new Achievement system. It is nice to finally have a way to keep track of all the otherwise meaningless things we do in WoW. (I’m not being sarcastic, I really do like it.)

I concentrated on Santyn for the Holiday Achievements, managing to complete all but 2 of them:

• Bring Me The Head of… Oh Wait
• Check Your Head
• G.N.E.R.D. Rage
• Out With It
• Rotten Hallow
• That Sparkling Smile
• The Mask Task
• The Masquerade
• The Savior of Hallow’s End
• Trick or Treat!
• Tricks and Treats of Eastern Kingdoms
• Tricks and Treats of Kalimdor
• Tricks and Treats of Outland
• Tricks and Treats of Azeroth

I was going for the Hallowed title, but no matter how many times I downed the Headless Horseman and Trick or Treated inn keepers, I had no luck getting the Sinister Squashling for Sinister Calling or every mask needed for A Mask for All Occasions. Hell, I never even saw the Squashling or The Horseman’s Reins drop while farming him.

Also during the event I took advantage of the easy XP from the Candy Buckets to help level my Shaman up, and he was lucky enough to get Sinister Squashling to drop while pulling a few Trick or Treats.

At least that what it has felt like over the weekend. With the coming of zombies to Azeroth, I have been, quite literally, avoiding all major major cities and population centers like the plague.

Now I know some people thoroughly enjoyed the event, some choosing to wreak havoc as a zombie, others choosing to combat the zombie invasion. I myself had no interest in it at all. Sure, I let myself get turned into a zombie once, but the novelty of it soon wore off and I went back to more productive adventures.

The one thing I couldn’t avoid was having PvP play forced upon me, especially in traditional safe havens. Personally, that annoyed the crap out of me. I play on a PvE realm for a reason.

The largest downside of the plague was the griefing. High level players camping lower level zones such as Elwynn Forest, constantly killing any low level player moving through. It was ridiculous.

Blizzard, if by some weird alignment of the cosmos you read my little corner of the Internet, please never do an event like this again.

I love Hallow’s End. It is easily the second best holiday in WoW. The only reason Brewfest beats it out is the alcohol. (What can I say, everything is better when you’re drunk.) And the new achievement system only makes it better.

I spent a good chunk of my weekend doing holiday events. I have Trick-or-Treated every Alliance friendly inn in Azeroth, jammed pumpkins on people’s heads, beat up the Headless Horseman for his lunch money, and ate candy until I puked.

One of the first things I noted was how ridiculously easy it is to make money off this holiday. Simply flying around to all the inns you get 3.75 gold each. And even if you are not at 70 yet, it is lucrative to do for the insanely easy XP.

While you’re at it, go ahead and Trick-or-Treat the inn keepers whenever the de-buff wears off. At very least you get some free food, but what you really want are the wands. With the new achievement system in place, people are paying good money just to have you transform them into various outfits for The Masquerade achievement.

Also while Trick-or-Treating inn keepers you might receive mask or pumpkins. The masks can be collected for the A Mask for all Occasions achievement, and the pumpkins are thrown at other players for yet another achievement, Check Your Head.

You also need to visit one of the starting area villages to participate in a few more holiday festivities. The big one you want is the quest The Headless Horseman. Once you have that, scoot yourself on up to Scarlet Monestary with 4 of your friends and take on the Headless Horseman. Like Coren Direbrew, each person in the group can sumon him once per day, but don’t worry, he is considerably easier to down than Coren. The Horseman drops some nice caster rings, but the main items you are going for is ???pet and ???mount, both of which are needed to complete achievements for Hallow’s End.

With loot to be had, and achievements to earn, holidays are a huge part of WoW. So get out there and make the most you can of Hallow’s End, because with Wrath right around the corner it might be a while before you have the time to completely lose yourself in another holiday.

Blizzard is running an event this month. Dubbed The Spirit of Competition, it is being held in honor of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and runs from August 8 (yesterday) through August 24. To participate in the event, all you need to do is take part in a Battleground (any of the four will do).

Once you have completed a Battleground, win or lose, you should receive a Competitor’s Tabard in the mail. It is a Blue quality tabard with a white background sporting 4 different colored rings, an obvious play on the Olympic symbol. Here is a picture of Santyn wearing his Competitor’s Tabard:

There is also another prize to obtain from the event, but this one requires that you participate in a battleground and win. Every time you win a battleground, you have a chance of receiving a Gold Medallion in the mail. The medallion is used to summon a non-combat pet called the Spirit of Competition. It is a small flying pet that appears to be modeled after a Chinese dragon, which I assume is in honor of the 2008 Olympic location. Here is a picture of Santyn’s Spirit of Competition: