style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136); font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;">The
Achievements of Naxxramas
Luckily, there are plenty of achievements available in Naxxramas (Naxx)
for those players that want to fill in their achievement point total.
In Naxx there are 38 achievements; 19 for 10-Man and 19 for
Heroic/25-Man instance runs. That may seem like a large number of
achievements (which it is), however most of them are fairly
straightforward and require completion of the various wings or downing
the bosses.
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The overall achievements include 14 of the straight forward
“kill” achievements, 22 boss-specific achievements
and 2 special achievements for not having anyone in the raid die. Of
course all of these achievements are part of the meta achievements;
Glory of the Raider, and Glory of the Heroic Raider. These two meta
achievements once provided a Proto-Drake with 310% flight speed, until
Patch 3.1 when Blizzard removed it (like the Amani War Bear from
Zul’Aman). Players can still get the achievement, just not
the drake.
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This guide assumes that you have cleared Naxx or have read the overall
strategies for each of the fights so that you are familiar with the
mechanics of each of the encounters. If that is not the case, please
review the rest of the guide to get a well-rounded read on the fights,
and then come back to hone your skills.
The Undying versus
the Immortal
There are two very popular achievements to strive for while completing
Naxx in its entirety. These two achievements require no special action
on the part of the raiders, except that none of the raid members may
die. If one dies, the entire raid will have to wait a week to try for
that one again. There are quite a few players running around with the
“the Immortal” after their names, so it can be
done. The group must be quite prudent while avoiding all of the silly
ways to die in the instance such as playing frogger in the Construct
Quarter. Keeping your wits and not overextending during the boss fights
and trash pulls will earn you this title, but it is difficult.
The Killer
Achievements
Clear each of the quarters of their bosses and you will receive the
following 14 achievements (listed in alphabetical order):
- The Arachnid Quarter, both Normal and Heroic (25-Man)
- The Construct Quarter, both Normal and Heroic (25-Man)
- The Military Quarter, both Normal and Heroic (25-Man)
- The Plague Quarter, both Normal and Heroic (25-Man)
- Sapphiron’s Demise, both Normal and Heroic
(25-Man) - Kel’Thuzad’s Defeat, both Normal and
Heroic (25-Man) - The Fall of Naxxramas, both Normal and Heroic (25-Man)
These are straight-forward in design, but can be difficult to complete
as you have to clear the complete instance twice - once on normal
difficulty and once on heroic. Please refer to the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/instances/naxxramas/bosses">boss
strategies section of the Naxxramas Guide for information on
how to complete these kill quest style achievements.
Once groups get accustomed to downing the bosses, the next rung in the
ladder of difficulty is to attempt some of the hard-mode achievements.
These achievements require the raid to be more creative in how to
accomplish the goal of killing the boss. Some of the added layers of
difficulty include lowering the raid’s frost resistance (See
“The 100 Club” below). Others require the raid to
intentionally make the encounter more difficult while still completing
the clearing of the boss.
Boss Specific
Achievements
All of the following achievements can be completed in both the Normal
mode and Heroic mode. Unless otherwise specified, the strategies for
the heroic achievement are the same as the normal.
And They Would Go Down
Together
style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136);">Defeat the Four Horsemen,
ensuring that they all die within 15 seconds of each other.
This is a coordination of DPS fight (like so many fights
in the game). Dropping all four targets within 15 seconds is true test
of DPS management. There is a 20 minute enrage timer, so speed is not
critical. Coordinating the timing is. The most widely used method for
completing this achievement includes two tanks, three healers, 5 DPS
split amongst melee and ranged.
The four bosses consist of 2 melee (Thane and Baron) and 2 ranged
attackers (Zeliak and Blaumeux). Have the two tanks take the melee
bosses to their standard corners near the door and two ranged attackers
take the ranged bosses back to their corners in the back. The melee
tanks will both need a healer and the ranged DPS on Zeliak will need
one as well. Hopefully one of the DPS is a hybrid (Retribution Paladin,
Enhancement/Elemental Shaman, Feral/Balance Druid, etc.) and can heal
the other ranged on Blaumeux.
Once set up and started, the front melee tanks and back ranged DPS
tanks will still need to switch like normal at 4 stacks (switch means
that they meet halfway and taunt the other player’s target so
that effectively you have switched tanking targets). The stacks of
debuffs will quickly outrun the healing if you go over 4 stacks of the
debuff.
Once in the rhythm of switching and watching the health bars of the
bosses, there needs to be coordination of the damage being done. When
the bosses get to 10% health the balance is critical. At 3-4% pop
Bloodlust/Heroism (assuming you have a Shaman) and everyone should blow
through their cooldowns to burn their targets as fast as
possible. You may have to experiment with your group
composition to even out the damage, or you can attempt to rotate damage
dealers when the tanks are switching targets. At that point
it’s about group preference and whether throttling DPS is
easier than migrating people around the encounter.
Arachnophobia
style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136);">Defeat Maexxna within 20
minutes of Anub’Rekhan’s death.
This is a speed test. How quickly can you get from
Anub’Rekhan’s corpse to downing Maexxna? The key to
this achievement is to not waste time (obviously!). Put master looter
on someone who can stay at Anub’Rekhan’s and The
Grand Widow’s corpses and dole out loot while the rest of the
party continues clearing trash on the way to the Grand Widow and
Maexxna. If your group isn’t chain pulling, then you
won’t get through the trash and both bosses in time. Work on
staggering the pulls by the tanks, and don’t dilly or dally.
Make Quick Werk of Him
style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136);">Kill Patchwerk in 3 minutes
or less.
This is another straight forward achievement where the
goal is pure DPS. In this fight there should be a tank on Patchwerk, an
OT for the Hateful Strikes (2 OTs in Heroic), while DPS pours it on and
the healers never stop healing. During this fight, Heroism/Bloodlust
from a Shaman is imperative as the raid will need to be running at
about 73,000DPS for a 25-Man raid. This fight is very straightforward,
it just takes damage, and lots of it.
Momma Said Knock You Out
style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136);">Defeat Grand Widow Faerlina
without dispelling Frenzy.
Unlike the previous achievements, this one requires a
different strategy than the typical clearing strategy. Usually the
Grand Widow’s apprentices are killed during her Frenzy time
which automatically dispels the Frenzy. There are two basic strategies
for completing this achievement.
First strategy:
well-geared tanks, have them agro swap during her Frenzy and eat the
damage. This requires strategic use of cooldowns for damage mitigation
and that the healers are having a good night.
Second Strategy:
strategy, the second strategy is to have the entire raid focus on
downing the boss while the well geared tank uses every damage
mitigation cooldown available and “eats” the
damage.
can hit for 20,000 (approximately 15,000 in normal mode) during Frenzy,
so gear on the tank(s) and healing output is essential.
Just Can’t Get
Enough
style="color: rgb(29, 66, 136);">Defeat Kel’Thuzad
while killing at least 18 abominations in his chamber.
This one will keep you on your toes. Completing a KT
defeat is fun enough when the skeletons, abominations and banshees are
strolling in on their own; this achievement requires that you pull
additional abominations from the rooms. Through the normal course of
the fight, 6 abominations will head towards the center of the room.
This means that your group needs to pull an additional 12. The good
news is that there are plenty of abominations to pull in the alcoves,
and the better news is that they are not linked to the other mobs in
the same alcove – if you can complete surgical strike-pulling
and just grab the abomination. One way to get those additional 12
abominations is to have two tanks each pull 2 groups of 3 abominations
through a series of trade-offs. For example, tank one pulls, the
abominations get burned down, tank two pulls while tank one lets the
abomination debuff wear off, then tank one pulls again. The timer is
ticking, so don’t waste time. This all happens prior to the
real fight with KT so think of it as an appetizer that eats like
dessert.
Shocking
Defeat
Thadius without anyone in the raid crossing the negative and positive
charges.
There are two standard methods for completing this
encounter (which really starts after the first two adds are killed and
you head to Thadius). There is the four corner strategy or the more
popular Positive one side of Thadius, Negative on the other method.
Either one can help you gain this achievement, but the reality is that
everyone needs to pay attention. As we all know, raid attention span is
just barely longer than a global cooldown, so have them all juice up on
ginko bilobo or some other attention remedy. Your odds will go down
sharply if someone doesn’t make the jump to the platform at
the beginning of the fight as well, so make sure everyone practices
their Mario jumps.
Spore Lose
Defeat
Loathebin without killing any of the spores.
Unlike many of the other achievements, this one will make
you change up your normal strategy. The spores have very little health
and any AoE damage will kill them (yes even Molten Armor if a mage is
close, or Searing Totem). All classes should remove any passive shields
such as Thorns, Lightning Shield, Retribution Aura, etc. Next, all
classes need to use only focus fire on Loethebin. Any multi-target
attacks will hit the spores and they will drop. This includes,
hunter’s multi-shot, Paladin’s Divine Storm and
Hammer of the Righteous, a whole host of Death Knight abilities.
This achievement isn’t that hard, but it is completely
contrary to the standard strategy for the encounter. Hold
focus fire, let the spores do their thing, and hunker down for a low
DPS version of the fight. You need to keep up the DPS blasting though,
the timer is ticking.
Subtraction
Defeat
Thadius with less than 9 people.
Just to make sure we all understand the syntax, the
achievement is gained by defeating Thadius with 8 people or less. Less
than 9 is a cute way of saying 8. For this achievement, composition is
important because during the first phase with the two adds, you need
two tanks. One of those tanks needs to be able to switch over to be a
real contributor during the Thadius part because you’ll be
down 2 players. The overall boss strategy stays the same as a
non-achievement run. A typical group composition would be: Main tank,
Hybrid off-tank (to switch to DPS), 2 Healers and 4 DPS. You must
maintain significant DPS to beat the enrage timer, so the healers will
have to be on top of their game as well. It helps if one of the DPS is
a hybrid and can drop a heal or two as needed. If done correctly, the
raid should also get the Shocking achievement because you
shouldn’t be making your healers work overtime due to missed
polarity shifts.
The Dedicated Few
Defeat
all of the bosses except the Four Horsemen with less than 9 people.
Two key components to this Achievement: it
doesn’t have to be completed in one raid lockout timer
– it can be accumulated over time; and as noted above, the
Four Horsemen are not part of the requirements. Since Dual Spec became
available, it seems as if this should be an easier achievement to get,
but some of the fights are downright tricky without those other raid
members. The key ingredient to this achievement is gear and experience.
Each raid member will need to be well geared – essentially
each player in the raid is equal to 1.25 times a normal raid slot (each
person is making up 1/8th of the 2 missing slots plus their own slot
(check my math)). The other key component is fight knowledge. Each of
the players must know the fights quite well so tanks aren’t
wasting time pulling something off of someone who pulled aggro, and the
healers aren’t being overworked, etc. The strategies of the
individual fights don’t change, just the amount of resources
available does. The tough fights are Gluth (bring someone who can kite,
or a Death Knight with Frost Presence to deal with the Chow) and
Sapphiron. Sapph is a tough one as everyone must stay out of
the blizzard. Healers don’t have time or mana to heal some
wingnut standing in the blizzard.
style="width: 220px; height: 190px; float: right;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/70030">The
Hundred Club
Defeat
Sapphiron without any member of the raid having a frost resist value
over 100.
We got this one by accident and without even knowing that
we should have all of our frost resist gear. This achievement is very
straight forward. The biggest problem is making sure everyone removes
frost resist gear and buffs. As with a regular Sapphiron kill, staying
out of the blizzard is a key idea.
The Safety Dance
Defeat
Heigan the Unclean without anyone in the raid dying.
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/70031">
This achievement turns an easy fight into a stressful race
around the floor tiles. The actual fighting portion of this encounter
is trivial compared to the molten slime component. This achievement
doesn’t change any aspect of the approach to the encounter,
so read up on that section of our guide. Killing Heigan is cake,
running across the floor in unison and dealing with lag issues and
overall raid attention span are the hard parts.
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