Welcome to ZAGGARAT ( Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons), a comprehensive zone by zone guide to wrapping up every achievement you need. You can view all instalments by clicking here. The printer and screen friendly guides can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

Ghostlands, Eversong Woods and Tirisfal Glades move us deep into Horde Territory.

Scarlet Monastery, Scarlet Halls and Zul’Aman will provide some challenging content but if you’re on a PvE server then there’s little to do in these zones other than exploration and pet battles.

If you’re on a PvP server it’s a great opportunity to practice your Orcish. ‘Kagh! Grombolar’ (Deploy the yak!) and ‘Bin mog g’thazag cha thrAkk gezzno’ (It looks like your face caught on fire and someone tried to put it out with a fork) are some of my personal favourites. Just kidding, Blizzard has made it pretty difficult to communicate cross-faction and are constantly updating their algorithms to prevent it, so most of your time here will probably be spent avoiding guards, getting the spacing right in D a p Ee bb (Y o u Lo se) and reminding yourself that killing lowbies is mean and no yard stick of your PvP prowess.

Other things that may happen while you’re completing your achievements in these three zones:

• You may break some electronic equipment on your desk after the fourth time you try to fly in Ghostlands and realise you can’t.
• You may feel a bit bad when a fresh level 12 Rogue, with a glinty eye and a sorely misguided sense of how well stealth protects him, skulks up behind you and crucifies himself on your lightning shield.
• You may start to individually name each of the Maggots and Spirit Crabs you battle in the hunt for a rare Larva.
• You may fantasise about winning a championship spelling bee with the word Lordaeron, then realise it’s way past time to get a life.

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(Editor’s note: I just wanted to say what an amazing feat Jemima has pulled off with these Zaggarat guides – if you find them as incredibly useful as I have already, please use the donate link below – proceeds will be forwarded onto Jem for her work)

Welcome to ZAGGARAT ( Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons), a comprehensive zone by zone guide to wrapping up every achievement you need. You can view all instalments by clicking here. The printer and screen friendly guides can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

This week’s ZAGGARAT takes us to the Plaguelands where we first meet the Argent Dawn and Argent Crusade. This region also presents the first at-level dungeon with achievements – Scholomance.

I have to admit I used to hate both the Plaguelands. Apart from being drab and in desperate need of Zap Beezlerocket’s Interdimensional Cobweb Cleaner, they were awfully grindy and extremely difficult to move about in unaccosted. Install a beach, equip each of the mobs with a selection of bead jewellery or teach them how to braid hair and you’d have yourself a tropical holiday but Blizzard chose a different path when revamping these zones and they did a pretty good job.

Both Plaguelands are now cut-scene central. Lore-buffs will appreciate a personal introduction to Highlord Tirion Fordring and the story around Andorhol in Western Plaguelands has been condensed, tarted up with some cut-scenes and is much easier to follow. Those of you who are just after Blighted Plaguehawk will have to /popcorn while you quest as these zone-excusive battle pets aren’t available until after Andorhal is phased.

Eastern Plaguelands is tied together through the story of Fiona’s Caravan, with Gidwin and Tarenar providing all the quintessential elements of an epic Dwarf meets Blood Elf tale – friendship, paladin humour, tragedy, betrayal, ultimate reunion and a serious amount of rep with Argent Dawn.

In fact, you get Revered about half-way through the zone. A few repeatable quests later, one of which can be done in Heroic Scholomance and you’re Exalted.

Stratholme, surprisingly, still has a lot to offer achievement hunters. You need to do both live and dead sides to get Stratholme and credit toward Classic Dungeonmaster but the live side offers four books for Well Read and a repeatable quest for 2000 Argent Dawn Rep. Aurius Riverdare, on the dead side, has a chance to drop his gorgeous… er, I mean… very manly, Deathcharger.

Scholomance is where it’s all at, though, with some of the easiest and one of the hardest achievements to get your Reins of the Crimson Cloud Serpent. Shouts go to lancore89 of wowhead who developed some macros that have made Attention to Detail very much easier as well as any healer that has managed to retain their sanity after completing School’s Out Forever. Also don’t forget to grab a full supply of disguises for Polyformic Acid Science completed throughout the rest of Panda’s dungeons and The Invasion of Draenor from Lilian Voss’ room in either Heroic or Normal for Well Read as this is the only place you’ll find this book in the game now.

Download the screen-friendly version here

Download the printer-friendly version here

(Editor’s note: I just wanted to say what an amazing feat Jemima has pulled off with these Zaggarat guides – if you find them as incredibly useful as I have already, please use the donate link below – proceeds will be forwarded onto Jem for her work)

Welcome to ZAGGARAT ( Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons), a comprehensive zone by zone guide to wrapping up every achievement you need. You can view all instalments by clicking here. The printer and screen friendly guides can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

This week’s ZAGGARAT covers Arathi Highlands, Hillsbrad Foothills, Silverpine Forest & Shadowfang Keep and The Hinterlands.

Shadowfang Keep presents some of the easier Cataclysm dungeon achievements to be had at level and they’ll be cake at 90 if you take a friend or two with you. I’m sure there are some Hunters and DKs that have already soloed these, but for most of us mere mortals Cataclysm Heroics are still cause to cash in a few favours with your guildies.

Pet Battle achievements are also starting to mount up now. If you’ve been monitoring some of the meta achievements along the way, you’ve probably already collected: An Uncommon Find, A Rare Catch and High Quality for capturing uncommon and rare quality pets; That was Close for capturing a battle pet at less than 5% health; Master Pet Battler for winning 250 pet battles and Win Streak for winning 25 in a row.

I’ve taken to capturing a pet as soon as I see it and then continuing to battle as I quest throughout the zone until I get a rare. I’ve added a new note to the guide [zone exclusive!] if you won’t come across this pet in any other zone. So if you’re going for Quality & Quantity catch your rares while you’re there!

Arathi Highlands features the Tiny Twister, Silverpine is home to the Blighted Squirrel and The Hinterlands gives you Jade Oozelings. Hillsbrad Foothills, however, is one of the meccas of battle pets. Where Red-Tailed Chipmunks frolick with Infested Bear Cubs, Lofty Librams float through the crater of Dalaran and where Plants vs Zombies meets WoW in Lawn of the Dead at the Brazie Farmstead. It’s a fun quest and mini-game all rolled in one with Brazie the Singing Sunflower as your final reward. Best news is, it’s repeatable – worst news is you can’t play it on the train on your way to work.

Next week we visit The Plaguelands and the first of our Pandaria Dungeons in Scholomance, Ghostlands, Eversong Woods, Silvermoon City and the first of our Rep Guides with the Agent Dawn & Argent Crusade.

Download the screen-friendly version here

Download the printer-friendly version here

(Editor’s note: I just wanted to say what an amazing feat Jemima has pulled off with these Zaggarat guides – if you find them as incredibly useful as I have already, please use the donate link below – proceeds will be forwarded onto Jem for her work)

Welcome to ZAGGARAT ( Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons), a comprehensive zone by zone guide to wrapping up every achievement you need. You can view all instalments by clicking here. The printer and screen friendly guides can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

This week’s ZAGGARAT features Stormwind, the Stranglethorns and Zul’Gurub.

For the last two expansions, Stormwind City has been the Alliance mecca and, without question, now serves as the most significant hub for Achievement hunters in the entire realm. In fact, compiling everything to be achieved in Stormwind required four pages of listings.

Mounts and cooking recipes feature prominently but Stormwind also houses much of Azeroth’s history for the Well Read achievements. It’s the fashion capital of the Alliance, if you call getting a haircut and donning a new tabard fashion and there’s also a disturbing amount of the realm’s cheese available in this one cosmopolitan hub.

Northern Stranglethorn started our four-expansion adventure with those crazy Nesingwarys and was most people’s first experience with open world PvP. Has anyone else ever thought that the goblins in Booty Bay look a little too much like BDSM Leather Men for comfort? Fitting, I suppose, since many of my first PvP encounters occurred outside the Gurubashi Arena and felt like I’d paid for such services.

The Stranglethorns now are a treasure-trove for Pet Battlers. The schism that divided Stranglethorn Vale into the North and Cape also gave rise to lots of interesting new quests, so if you haven’t completed the zones since, they’re worth a look.

The return of Zul’Gurub heralds the return of the prized Razzashi Raptor and Zulian Panther mounts at a staggering 1% drop rate. And I, for one, can assure you how much I missed farming Zul’Gurub every week during those few months of reprieve to help my husband maintain his car… er mount… status. /end sarcasm.

Despite everything there is to be accomplished here, it’s a good time to talk about what’s not included in these Zaggarat Guides.

Reputations and factions: I’ve included how to procure the windfalls of gaining reputation that help earn other achievements like Mountain-o-Mounts and Thirty Tabards but not the achievements associated with earning reputation themselves or any notes on how to.

Daily Quests: achievements associated with daily quests haven’t been included here. Daily quests tend to be associated with a faction or a secondary profession. So while the Twilight Highlands ZAGGARAT may indicate you need to fish up a Striped Lurker for The Catalcylsmic Gourmet, it won’t tell you that you need to complete three cooking dailies to earn the tokens to buy the recipe in Stormwind.

Those sorts of achievements will be covered in a separate guide.

Low-level dungeons: ones like Stormwind Stockades, that don’t have a heroic mode, any boss-by-boss achievements and can easily be soloed by a 90 are included as a breakout section in their relevant city or zone and don’t have an entire page devoted to them.

PvP: this is a world of achievements unto itself. I have included some of the open world and city PvP achievements like For the Alliance! and Gurubashi Arena Master, but PvP achievements will, on the whole, be covered in another series.

World Events will also be covered separately, although by the time I’ve finished every other guide I’ve an idea for, it may be a Level 100 guide.

Next week: Ironforge, Dun Morough, Loch Modan and the Wetlands.

Download the screen-friendly version here

Download the printer-friendly version here

(Editor’s note: I just wanted to say what an amazing feat Jemima has pulled off with these Zaggarat guides – if you find them as incredibly useful as I have already, please use the donate link below – proceeds will be forwarded onto Jem for her work)