I've spent hundreds of hours to become one of just 0.13% of Warcraft players who have Dragonflight's ultra-rare meta achievement, and WoW did it suck

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(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

At the end of the last couple of expansions, Blizzard has given World of Warcraft players a meta-achievement to conquer: An achievement made up of hundreds of other achievements, the “I’ve done everything this expansion had to offer” medal of honor.

Dragonflight is no different. The A World Awoken achievement dropped as part of the 10.2.6 patch on March 19, and players have been struggling to finish it up ever since. Just an estimated 0.1295% (about one-eighth of one percent) of all players have picked it up so far, according toData for Azeroth.

It awards a nifty mount—a Bakar, or giant dog, that played a role in the story of the expansion. A nice reward in theory, but chasing this meta achievement has made me want to take that dog to the pound instead.

I’m a heavy Warcraft player: I did every questline in Dragonflight, and maxed all the major factions, before this meta landed. I do reasonably well at dungeons (3250 Mythic Plus rating) and raids (8/9 Mythic Amirdrassil, working on my personal Race to World Last before the tier is over). I have the previous meta-achievements, hundreds of alts, the Waist of Time, and all those other “this took way too long to do” sorts of checkmarks.

And there werestillparts of this meta-achievement that made me want to set my PC on fire. (I might yet; at the time of this writing, I’m stuck waiting for a couple of random spawns to finally put this thing to bed.)

Why has this meta-achievement, in particular, been a nightmare?

Randomness, when you’re trying to do a big achievement in a short-ish amount of time, feels terrible, especially when you’re required to do ALL of something. And consistency should be key—if earlier achievements weren’t consistent, they should be before something like this gets released. But people are going for it anyway, becausethey really want that mount.

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Let’s dive into the pain and suffering: Here are the five worst parts of Blizzard’s new meta torment.

5. Loot specialists should be tossed out the nearest portal

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

Whoever designed the Forbidden Reach zone’s meta-achievement, which is part of the overall Dragonflight meta, needs a hug. Not only does this zone alone require that players kill EVERY rare-spawn elite on the island (most others only require a selection of the total), but one of the rares spawns ANYWHERE, despawns after a time, despawns if you don’t kill it quickly enough, and spawns IN STEALTH.

I’m calling you out, Loot Specialist. Or I should say I called you out, before terminating you with extreme prejudice, after I had to spend dozens of hours trying to find you. We are not friends.

4. Cloudy with a chance of seething

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

Then you look further and realize that it’s 200 creatures in four zones. Okay, 800 creatures. Still doable. But wait, it’s 200 creaturesin each of four storm typesin each of the four zones. So… 3,200 creatures. Uh…

Now add in that the storms are random spawns, so you may go, as some of my friends did, a full week without seeing a particular storm type present in a particular zone. The storms spawn in elite areas, so the majority of what you’ll be killing are high-health elite mobs. And every mob in the area doesn’t count; only select ones do. So all those elementals and their protectors that spawn in the middle of everything you’re killing? No credit. This non-elite? Counts. That one? Nope.

Some of the areas (Obsidian Citadel for instance) are tiny, with spread out groups of things to kill, making it slow as a fiery snail mount to plink your way through 200 of them. And until a recent hotfix, storms spawned one at a time, instead of in twos as they had at the start of the expansion.

I’m in a storm, all right. A storm of rage.

3. Say cheese

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

The Legendary Albums quest requires you to (again!) snap pictures of ALL the rare characters that happen to be next to the course as you float down a river or in the air in a balloon, taking pictures as part of the cataloging world quests scattered all over the islands. This would actually be alright, because those guys are there 100% of the time when the quest is up…

…Except the quests are, again, not up 100% of the time—so you’re stuck waiting until the magic combination of mojo occurs in the quest rotation, so that you can get that last picture you need to complete the quest. I’m looking at you, Nat Pagle. Or I wish I were.

2. Zaralek Cavern treasures and rares deserved to be buried

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

Zaralek Cavern’s underground rare spawns used to be fine, a normal sort of random rotation, until the way they spawned was abruptly hotfixed into a confusing morass of “stuff spawns but not here”—and good luck figuring out where “here” is.

The rare items achievement in this zone was horrific mostly due to the Seething Cache, the random-time-spawning, only-one-person-in-the-zone-gets-it, annoying-as-hell treasure. The achievement required you to getallthe treasures in the zone.

Yes, the achievement was eventually hotfixed after a full week to no longer require this particular treasure, but that was after I’d already spent dozens of hours camping, server hopping and popping back there every time I had a break in-game.

1. I don’t even like birds and dogs any more after Tetrachromancer

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

It’s a nice idea; your bird (ohuna) or dog (bakar) is with you for every hunt, and it gives a bit of personalization. It’s NOT a nice idea for the meta for the entire expansion to require every single rare, random-drop color.

Honorable mentions: Not terrible for everyone, but terrible for some people

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

WoW: Dragonflight meta achievement hunting

Not every achievement in the meta is horrible for everyone. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t terribad for some of the folks trying to finish it up. Here are some other items on the “it may not affect you but someone hates it” list:

TOPICSBlizzard Entertainment

TOPICS

PRODUCTSWorld of Warcraft: DragonflightWorld of Warcraft

PRODUCTS

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5. Loot specialists should be tossed out the nearest portal#

4. Cloudy with a chance of seething#

3. Say cheese#

2. Zaralek Cavern treasures and rares deserved to be buried#

1. I don’t even like birds and dogs any more after Tetrachromancer#

Honorable mentions: Not terrible for everyone, but terrible for some people#

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5. Loot specialists should be tossed out the nearest portal

4. Cloudy with a chance of seething

3. Say cheese

2. Zaralek Cavern treasures and rares deserved to be buried

1. I don’t even like birds and dogs any more after Tetrachromancer

Honorable mentions: Not terrible for everyone, but terrible for some people