From what I’ve gone through, it was worth being taken advantage of when it came to the badges in Mount Hyjal. The place is a deathtrap. Not only do you have to watch your back, you got to watch out for flying meteors being flung at you by killable 85 Elites, which can do a shitload of damage. It’s like soloing a Level 85 Dungeon. Still, it’s a good challenge. I really want this on the live servers.
You unfortunately can’t fly. Have to use ground mounts. I believe its due to how hot the air is. Plus, if you remember from the Firelands Hatchery, the NPC said the air is thin.
How I got there, as I predicted I got the 20th badge today. Hamuul, the Taruen you give the 20 badges to, nearly dies of a trap by what is known as a Druid of the Flame. His body is now badly burned, and it’s unknown if he’ll survive. But you got to ignore this since the portal to the Firelands is now active.
So you step through, and immediately you’re under attack by spikes underground that seem to follow you everywhere you go. You have to kill this high HP boss to gain a base of operations there. Once done, Malfurion activates a seed which will be used as a base. Once the tree is fully grown, .. well, I dunno what happens.
Now, not only do you still got to get more badges to call for help (which requires 300 badges), but you can turn them in to get some nice gear from the quartermaster there. Some of the gear requires you to complete specific dailies to unlock.
There’s also achievements, and I got one called “Flawless Victory”, which involves killing a Molten Behemoth (the 85 Elites) without taking any damage. This is easy for any ranged/caster class with a pet. But getting said achievement wasn’t something I was aiming for. Staying alive was! I accidentally went too far away from the quest area and got myself into a heap of trouble. Barely survived the encounter.
So, you start doing dailies to get “acquainted” with the hostiles there, such as the 85 Elites I just mentioned. You don’t have to go far, as due to the tree, they come right over to it. But you still have to run right into the fray to do other quests. The ones I had to do were basically to set up defenses to keep the baddies away from the Hyjal portal, and heal warriors that were badly injured. This reminds me of what I saw when I first entered Outland, many years ago. I was there when the Dark Portal opened.
Once you get all of those dailies done, you’re pretty much on your own ’till the next day. So I decided to go back to Hyjal and saw two new quests. One involved Hamuul, and the other involved Ragnargos’ minions in Sethria’s Roost. This one is to go there, and you become leader of a team to kill six of these 85 Elites.
Well, they aren’t that bad until they start summoning small non-elite Fire Elemental adds, and my pet can’t seem to pull aggro off of me with them. They can unfortunately hit me pretty hard. I don’t think I’m going to do that daily again. Especially due to the “come back tomorrow and we’ll do it again” part of completing the quest.
The elites also do this fire shield, making them immune to all attacks. But I guess the only good thing about this is the elites aren’t taggable. Other words, you can get help with one without being in a group.
So anyway, I got all of them done. But probably the best thing is I’m making a shitload of money here! Already I have over 6k. I will definitely come back to continue these dailies.