It's hard to properly measure the scale of the impact World of Warcraft has had on the video game industry and gaming landscape as a whole. With a shift in the concept of how much attention and obsession a single game could command, it changed how developers make multiplayer games and created an entire community all its own. Even with new MMORPGs and similar games emerging and, in some cases, drawing players away from WoW, there will never be another MMORPG like it. As such, there's a real possibility that WoW will never be topped.Of course, World of Warcraft is no longer in its heyday. Its community is less than satisfied, it's losing big streaming names like Asmongold, and its parent company, Activision/Blizzard, is up to its elbows in trouble. Even so, the game still has a dedicated community built on years of comeraderie and shared struggle. After all, WoW has some of the most famously monumental challenges of any game on the market today, requiring the coordination and cooperation of many players to emerge victorious.That said, even among World of Warcraft's many challenges, there are some that stand out as particularly difficult. Many of these are not the raid battles, but rather the achievements of WoW. Some flow naturally from gameplay, like participating in Tormentors of Torghast or other events, but others are more strenuous, difficult, and, to be blunt, ridiculous. Here are some of the most difficult and strenuous to obtain achievements in World of Warcraft.
Only The Penitent
Let's start off with something (relatively) simple, something that, in theory, only requires a little bit of cooperation and coordination, something WoW guilds are famous for. Only the Penitent requires a group of at least six players to activate two flame orbs on either side of the Druid of the Flame in the Firelands. They have to do this at the same time without getting hit by Kneel Before the Flame, an attack that goes off at regular intervals and requires players to actually kneel (via command /kneel) to avoid the move. It seems easy in theory, but if anyone gets hit (even summoned pets), or the flames are not activated at the same time, no one gets the achievement. The rage inspired by failing here could almost match the anger from fans following the loss of WoW's timewalking XP boost bug. But still, this is on the lower end of the frustration spectrum, as there's much worse on the horizon.
What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been
Only the Penitent, theoretically, takes a few minutes to complete. What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been is a bit more time consuming, as it takes, at minimum, the passage of a full year to complete. That's because completing it requires completing every achievement for every yearly event in World of Warcraft. Hallow's End, Noblegarden, Winter Veil, Children's Week, Brewfest, Love is in the Air and Lunar Festival must have all achievements associated with them completed. Even ignoring the fact that lower level characters cannot feasibly complete some of those achievements, and the fact that achievements like School of Hard Knocks (a Children's Week achievement) are tough to get for anyone, that's a lot to do.
And if any achievement is not earned during its festival, players have to wait a whole year for the opportunity to come around again. This is a longstanding achievement too, but it has a decent percent obtained rate among accounts, proving that it takes more than this to get players to delete their WoW accounts after so much time. Once again, this is on the lower end of the frustration spectrum. From here on out, the words "grind" and "grinding" become far more prevalent.
Going to Need a Bigger Bag
Released alongside the Mists of Panderia expansion, this one was meant to give players an incentive to thoroughly explore the then new Timeless Isle. It requires players to acquire several different items dropped by the enemies of Timeless Isle, forming a large collection of rare or rarer drops. On the surface, this one sounds pretty simple, but not all of these drops are created equal. Some can only be found through random spawns, and of these, there are a few that do not spawn regularly at all.
Even if these rare spawns are encountered, the drop rates for the required items are often very low. Monstrous Spineclaws and the dragon Huolon are particularly aggregious, having low, random spawn rates and low drop rates for their items. Huolon even has guides dedicated to farming it in multiple servers. A new area is always fun to explore, but not this fun. This sort of grind, which has little to no guaranteed payoff, is the sort of thing that made many players fed up with World of Warcraft's subscription model.
Warlord of Draenor
Taking its name from the expansion that spawned it, this achievement requires PVP skills, a side of the game that fewer players dip into. First, players must construct the Gladiator's Sanctum and raise it to level 3. That's the easy part. Then, players must complete every Nemesis quest from the Sanctum. Each Nemesis quest requires the player to kill a whopping 500 players in PVP of a race belonging to the opposite faction. That means a player must defeat 3,500 players total in Draenor PVP specifically, then complete the Fight, Kill, Salute! quest. It's the exact opposite of WoW players coming together in solidarity, and a true bloodbath - but not as much as the next achievement.
The Bloodthirsty
This achievement is simple and close to impossible: score 25,0000 PVP kills. As mentioned above, PVP is not something most players dip into, and this kind of dedication is rare. Completing this achievement gives the title "The Bloodthirsty," and nothing else. In the same ballpark as this achievement is "Hero of the Alliance/Horde," which requires scoring in the top 0.5% of players for a PVP season, and "Khan," which requires a player to complete multiple achievements in five separate special PVP categories. World of Warcraft may boast some of the hardest bosses in gaming, but the endless grind of battle required for these three achievements may well eclipse those fights.
A Horde of Hoofbeats
Mounts are an important part of World of Warcraft, and much beloved by players. Great mount collections can include anywhere from 50-100 mounts if the collector is truly dedicated, and they have to be considering players can't exactly ride more than one mount at a time. This achievement requires collecting mounts; four hundred mounts, to be exact. This is an extreme number, especially considering the prize is just another mount. At that point, some players would just find it nicer to have a round number at the end of it all. It's not exactly easy to get mounts either, with many even rarer than WoW's rarest obtainable pets.
Insane in the Membrane
Last but not least, no list of difficult WoW achievements would be complete without this one. See, players can gain reputation with many different factions through quests, and use reputation to earn prizes. However, some factions have very few ways to earn reputation, requiring grinding, and also have no prizes to be earned from that reputation. Rather than fixing these problems, Blizzard decided to make a joke out of the factions in the form of this achievement. Reaching high reputation with the most useless factions in the game completes the achievement, requiring a truly absurd amount of time grinding specific quests. The reward is a title: "the Insane," a title that, after spending so long on this achievement, feels somewhat justified. Even after so many WoW expansions, this achievement remains unmatched when it comes to wasting time.
World of Warcraft is available now on Mac and PC.