Lunar festival is Here!

at 2 am January 22nd the Lunar Festival kicks off in Azeroth.  So whats new in our Chinese inspired holiday?  Nine new elders with the Elders of Cataclysm achievement and a new pet!  I think its a pitty the achievement didnt get a workover like Hallowseve did but we can hope its in the future.

Warcraft's blog post 'Moons + Explosives = Lunar Festival!' gives you an idea of why its a party.  Sometimes a little bit of context can make things a lot more fun.

So, what is there to do in the Festival?


The main thing is to visit the elders.  They give you a decent chunk of reputation with your main faction cities (Stormwind, Orgrimmar, etc) - over 5k last year!  The coins turn into schematics for fireworks (engineers) dresses patterns (tailors) or festival pants suits and dresses.  Each of the (now) 84 elders gives 1 token so chose your purchases wisely.  The new pet costs you a whopping 50 of  your tokens.  Oh I almost forgot, visiting them gives gold too.

There is a huge downside though.  They have placed elders in Dungeons you cant get into unless your max level.  While there is some things a low level can do this blocks them from completing the achievement for the Long Strange Trip meta achievement.

Oxhorn he makes the Pant Suit work.

13 of the old elders were in dungeons, 59 out of them.  I don't know what kind of a mix the new elders will have but it sounds like its going to take a bit of work to get the pet on any lower level character.  One good(?) thing is that you don't have to go to Outland just Northrend.  So you can death flop your way across the landscape as a level 1 on an elder hunt if your determined enough.

If your a tank do NOT let the chance to get Elune's Lantern pass you by.  From the Elune's Blessing quest it allows you to make Elune Stone's at the rate of one a day.  They create the bright moonlight illuminating a spot that we used before there were raid markers as our pull point lights and their still great at the task since you can hotkey them instead pf having to futz around with Activision-Blizzard's menu.

If you have leftover coins pick up some festival Dumplings and save them for leveling.  Since they feed you a percentage of your health and not a set amount their good for any level.  Remember in 3-6 months we will be seeign a new expansion and leveling again.

So you visited your elders, you got your lantern, anything else to keep in mind?  Why yes! The Elune's Candle is used to weaken Omen in the quest but it is also just lots of fun to shoot fireworks at people.  at 10 silver for 88 charges you get a tons of use out of them.  I like saving them and using them in battlegrounds macroed to an ability for a little surprising sparkle in a fight.

I cant say for certain but it seemed like some people were confused enough it gave me an edge.