Project Lore

I got the unfortunate notion last week that I wanted more flying mounts. Specifically, those glowy, bright Netherwing dragons that look awesome as they streak through the sky, leaving a luminescent haze in their path. So for the past 4-5 days, I've been questing in southeastern Shadowmoon Valley and soaking up a dose of that Burning Crusade content that I missed out on during my break from WoW in 2008.

And so, this is how I came across the Dragonmaw race questline. It starts with a race against Oldie McOld. You, upon your epic flyer (and disguised as an orc upon a netherwing) must fly within range of your opponent and not get dismounted as he weaves around crystals and twists through the sky, heaving pumpkins at you all the way. The races get progressively more difficult, and so does dodging whatever your opponent throws at you -- be it skulls, lightning or meteors. If you successfully get through all six races, you earn the Skyshattered achievement.

And now thanks to a 3.3 change, the achievement is much easier to get. I read right over this change in the 3.3 patch notes and didn't think much of it:

• Knockbacks no longer dismount players. If on a flying mount, you will be knocked back a short distance before being able to resume flying.

As it turns out, the change is huge to this particular questline, which used to be probably the most difficult quest while flying in the game. Now it can still be a bit tricky, but as I understand it, not nearly as much as before. So those of you who have avoided this rep grind or even this achievement in the past have reason to try again.

I took the tactic of flying above my opponent and trying my best to dodge whatever came my way. It worked pretty well until the second-to-last race against Wing Commander Mulverick. This was the first quest that gave me any sort of trouble. Mulverick sends lighting your way as you chase him, and many times the bolts knock you back and out of the minimum range required for the quest.

It took me about five or six tries to get past Mulverick and on to Captain Skyshatter. The trick I took with him is to stay almost on top of him as he flies. The race is a bit shorter than Mulverick's, but the range you have to stay within also seems a bit smaller. When he hurtles meteors at you, the key for me was a quick recovery through hitting my spacebar. If I took too long to regain control after getting knocked back, he'd get out of range and I would fail the quest.

Of course, when I started these quests I had no idea that they had been nerfed through that knockback change. I was quite proud of myself for getting through them so easily, until I realized the reason why. I won't complain, because I'm happy to have the achievement. But I also have a morbid curiosity for whether I could have been able to do it pre-Patch 3.3. I may never know.

For those of you who got this achievement the hard way, how long did it take? I heard guildies' stories of working for weeks to get it. If you don't already have it, does the change encourage you to go give it a shot?