Touching bonfires

Well, the Fire Festival's about to end, and if I can get through a few urgent real-life tasks, I plan to reward myself by going and watching the fireworks in Booty Bay - or maybe there'll be some Outland ones too? I think they'd look pretty over Zangarmarsh, but I imagine it'll be Shattrath if it's anywhere.

I seem to have spent most of the last week or two touching bonfires. Santuzza and Iolanthe both did most of the quests last year, including the one where you steal flames from the Horde cities. The one I really wanted to do this year was the one that sends you into high-level instances, because both Santuzza and Iolanthe tried and failed last year, and I *really* wanted a Spirit of Summer. Well, Santuzza is still only level 60, so there didn't seem much point in trying again (because that's what she was last year - long story why she hasn't progressed, which maybe I'll explain sometime). But Iolanthe, at 70, was ready to give it another go - and she succeeded! More of that in a minute, though.

This year I've taken Mabel, Katisha, Gianetta, Hebe and Madmargaret on the Bonfire Tour of Azeroth. This was made much easier by the fact that three of them already had all the flight points, and I combined Gianetta's and Hebe's tours with detours to pick up flight points, so that all my Dragonblight characters now have all the non-Outland flight points. And in doing so I set a new personal record, because Hebe was only 17 when she started \o/

I didn't bother trying to take any of these characters to the in-instance bonfires, based on the fact that I'd already failed with a L60 character who could stealth :p Neither did I try to steal the opposition flames - didn't fancy trying it with Mabel due to her lack of stealth, and none of the others were high enough level to hand in the quest (although they could have got the flames - a bit unfair, but at least I knew about the restriction before I wasted hours trying!) I did try to see how close Madmargaret could get to the Ironforge bonfire, just out of curiosity, and the answer turned out to be that the guards saw right through her stealth as soon as she set foot on the hill up to the city gates, so she gave up.

It actually took Madmargaret a LOT longer to finish the tour than any of the others, but that's because she has no money at all, so she had to either run places despite having the connecting flight points, or do a few quests to make money. But because I'm finding it really difficult to be a rogue, doing quests tended to result in lots of death, and the repair bills used up all the money the quests were making. Very frustrating.

Anyway, a brief guide to the bonfire tour (I'm not going to bother describing exactly where ALL the fires are, because other sources have done that perfectly adequately):

The Festival of Fire (Alliance): Darnassus, Stormwind, Ironforge. I'd forgotten exactly where the Stormwind bonfire was, and spent quite a while riding round looking for it until I remembered - unlike the other two, it's not in a location you're likely to pass anyway. If you're a Horde character trying to steal these flames, I imagine the Darnassus one would be the easiest (being outside the actual city) but I could be wrong - I only tried Ironforge, as I said above.

The Festival of Fire (Horde): Undercity, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff. I had trouble finding the Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff ones with Madmargaret, despite having seen them last year when I stole them. But I can tell that if you ARE stealing them, the Undercity one is a piece of cake - it's not actually in the city, and there are no guards nearby. Thunder Bluff is stealthable fairly easily (in fact I think I found it more easily when I stealthed to it than when I ran to it normally). But the Orgrimmar one is at the far end of the city and involved a LOT of deaths when I stealthed to it.

Note that although there are now bonfires in Silvermoon City, the Exodar and Shattrath City, and you can pick up and hand in all the festival quests at any of them, and interact with the bonfires, they don't actually feature in any of the quests.

Flickering Flames in Kalimdor: Darkshore, Ashenvale, Stonetalon Mountains, the Barrens. These are all easy enough, just annoyingly far from flight points.

Flickering Flames in the Eastern Kingdoms: Westfall, Wetlands, Hillsbrad, Silverpine. Ditto. I remember thinking these would be harder, mainly because I'd never been in Silverpine Forest until I went there to touch the bonfire for the first time (last year), and I only knew it was a Horde area. But of course it's a very low-level Horde area, and I didn't get attacked. Madmargaret had a bit more trouble getting to the Westfall one, but that's because she'd forgotten it was an Alliance area :p

Wild Fires in Kalimdor: Winterspring, Azshara, Un'Goro, Silithus. Assuming you have all the flight points, the only one of these that's hard is Azshara, and that's a NIGHTMARE. Even Hebe, at level 17, managed Winterspring and Silithus without dying. Un'Goro is a bit harder, but if you already have the Un'Goro flight point you can just run round the edge of the crater, and shouldn't die too many times. (See flight point post 2 for details.) Don't be tempted to run to the Un'Goro bonfire from Gadgetzan, though - it's 10000 times harder. Azshara, though - ARGH. Not only is it miles from the flight point, it's miles from ANYWHERE, with lots of high-level mobs around, so you'll die every few steps as soon as you leave the road. And to make things worse, when you're halfway across the zone you start getting taken to the Southridge Beach graveyard (before then, you go back to Talrendis) and it's a long way round fron there, due to the VERY ANNOYING CLIFFS. It's even longer if you forget which of the many inlets is actually a way up from the beach (most of them aren't, and you don't find out until you run to the end). And just to make your day perfect, when you DO get to the bonfire there's a giant spider that scuttles round it, and it kills you before you can open the flame. Your only chance is to wait there (as a ghost) until some helpful player comes along and kills the spider. (Or, of course, get a friend to go wth you and do so for you - but if you have that option, you won't need to read anything I have to say.)

Wild Fires in the Eastern Kingdoms: Blasted Lands, Searing Gorge, Hinterlands, Plaguelands. Assuming you have all the flight points, Hinterlands is the nightmare one on this list. Blasted Lands is fairly easy - it's right by the road, and even Hebe only died once trying to get to it. It's equally easy for Horde despite them having to run from Stonard - the road is no harder than the one from Nethergarde Keep. Searing Gorge is a bit harder, and I died a lot working my way to it from Thorium Point, but it's not too far. There are lots of spiders etc. nearby, and it took me a few goes before I managed to open the flame without getting eaten. Plaguelands is easy if you approach from Darrowmere Lake - see flight point post 3 for details. You will probably die a couple of times when you get close, but not as much as you might expect. I'd recommend Horde to do this too, despite not having the Chillwind Camp flight point. But the Hinterlands - ARGH. Well, it's not too bad for Horde, but for Alliance it's right at the other end of the zone from Aerie Peak, and there are many deaths lying in wait for you en route. The bit near Aerie Peak is by far the worst, because it's quite a run till you make it to the road, and there are wolves and owlbeasts and trolls all over the place. You'll see a LOT of Aerie Peak graveyard while making your way to the road. Once you're on the road, it's a bit better, and the bonfire is right by the road (albeit a long way down it). When you get closer you'll switch to the Overlook Cliffs graveyard, but don't be tempted to use the spirit healer there, because then you'll have the hassle of getting back to the road again, even though it looks closer.

A Light in Dark Places: Dire Maul, LBRS, Scholomance, Stratholme. I'm very unfamiliar with all of these instances (long story) so this was great fun. It was also really hard to solo, even at 70. But I did it \o/ Dire Maul took ages, but it would have been much quicker if I'd done some research first (I'd never been in the north or west bits EVER), because then I would have realised that I needed to kill the wandering Eyes before they spawned pairs of elite demons. As it was, I had to kill the demons, and they were quite tough, and this wasn't helped by them being inseparable. Also, the dogs didn't see me most of the time, but every so often I lost concentration and walked too close to one, and that meant rapid death. What really helped in the end was that I remembered I had some frost oil and a thorium widget in the bank just in case I ever managed to persuade anyone to go through Dire Maul with me, and I went to get them and hence managed to trap the wandering named ogre, and that made all the difference.

LBRS was quite easy eventually, in that it was possible to stealth to the bonfire - and touch it - without killing anything at all, but I got very, very lost and had to go out and back in again several times. As a bonus, though, I think I know my way round most of it now!

The Scholomance one would have been fairly easy to stealth to if it wasn't for the fact that you can't get to it without a unique key that can only be obtained by killing one of the mini-bosses (Rattlegore). This took me a really, really long time (well, not so much him, but his friends), but I did it in the end. It turned out to be impossible to actually OPEN the locked door without unstealthing and aggroing lots of things, but they were easy enough (with the help of my pet trees).

I knew the Stratholme one would be hard, because just about everything in there can see through stealth. I've tried soloing it many, many times, because I was really keen to finish the quests I had in there, and I can't persuade anyone to go in with me. But I discovered that, although if you stealth you get jumped immediately, you can actually get through lots of it without any of them seeing you, if you DON'T stealth. It took me a few goes to work out which way to walk in order to not die - all the info I found suggested that hugging the left wall was a good plan, but I died every time I tried that, whereas walking diagonally through the zombie crowd and over to the right worked quite well. Then I forgot about the rats under the bridge, so they killed me a bit the first time I got to that point. And then of course when I got to the bit where all the Scarlet/Crimson guys are, I forgot I needed to stealth to walk between the two guards at the entrance, and died again.... At least after all that, when I finally DID make it to the bonfire, I managed to touch it without being attacked. And the Spirit of Summer was mine at last \o/

Anyway. Firework time!