All the info you need to complete Worldsoul-Searching, the expansion-wide meta achievement for The War Within

We now have our first look at the all-encompassing mega-achievement for The War Within, Worldsoul-Searching, and while you’ve certainly got your work cut out for you, there once again isn’t any one part that should prove impossible even for the casual player. All of the required achievements are available right now, which means that you can set yourself up to collect a big fat 100 achievement points as well as some fantastic rewards as soon as the achievement goes live at Midnight’s launch.

In addition to collectibles that you’ll earn along the way for required meta achievements relating to zones and patches in The War Within, we are getting a double-whammy prize for being expansion completionists. As is tradition with these meta achievements, there is a unique and very cool mount reward: the Geargrinder Mk. 11. You’ll recognize this monstrous, spiked tank of death from the Liberation of Undermine raid’s first encounter against Vexie and the Geargrinders.

We recently heard that some legacy achievements would reward Player Housing decor retroactively, and that also looks to apply going forward as well. In addition to your very own killdozer mount, Worldsoul-Searching will award a Replica Dark Heart of Galakrond. No word yet on exactly what this could be, although I’d wager all of my Puzzling Cartel Chips that it’s large, void-y, and ominous-looking.

There are dozens of individual achievements that you’ll need to earn that add up to one monstrous meta. If you’ve been keeping up with the content of The War Within, then you might just need to fill out the corners to ride off into the sunset atop a mechanized Goblin ride. If you’ve been dabbling, then you’ve got some catching up to do. Let’s look at what’s involved for each of the components of Worldsoul-Searching.

Get your raid on

You’ll need to play nice with your fellow heroes of Azeroth, as the meta will require you to defeat all of the raid bosses from The War Within. It was a very tidy expansion for end-game large-group content, with each of the three seasons adding a single raid with eight new bosses.

The achievements you’re looking for are Nerub-ar Palace, Liberation of Undermine, and Manaforge Omega. The good news is that these bosses can be vanquished on any difficulty, even LFR. Make sure you check off each of these before the launch of Midnight, when these raids will go into the doldrums between current content and easily soloable legacy instances.

Explore, explore, and explore some more

A good deal of exploration is involved in any expansion, and the meta for The War Within will require you to poke around every nook and cranny of the four zones available at launch for All That Khaz and The War Within Pathfinder.

• Khaz Algar Explorer is earned by fully exploring each of the four Khaz Algar zone maps
• Loremaster of Khaz Algar involves both the main story of each zone for Isle of Dorn, Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azj-Kahet and the Sojourner achievements for completing all of the side quests in those four areas
• Khaz Algar Flight Master is another fairly automatic one, since you’ll be visiting each location across the four starting zones. Make sure to unlock all of the flight paths as you explore
• Khaz Algar Glyph Hunter takes you into the skies to collect a handful of Skyriding glyphs. You won’t need to gather the K’aresh ones for this meta, so focus on the four starting zones.
• Khaz Algar Lore Hunter has you chase down 20 different objects that tell stories of the people and places of Khaz Algar
• Khaz Algar Diplomat involves reaching rank 25 with all four of the factions introduced in Season 1: The Council of Dornogal, The Assembly of the Deeps, The Hallowfall Arathi, and the Severed Threads.
• Allied Races: Earthen is awarded for completing the short quest line that unlocks the Earthen as a playable allied race

Now where did I put that Dark Heart?

You Xal Not Pass is the Season 1 meta achievement that awards a monstrous void buddy that carries you around on its head. The four initial zones, plus Siren Isle, have their own sub-metas that require some rare-camping, treasure-hunting, event participation, random rock-throwing, and (as is tradition) expressing love for a variety of critters.

It’s fair to say that this is the largest component of Worldsoul-Searching. Luckily, we have an entire guide dedicated to spelling out each of its pieces and how to go about earning them.

Gone Delvin’

Glory of the Delver sounds intimidating, but it doesn’t include some of the extremely wide achievements like completing Tier 11 Delves as each role (damage dealer, healer, and tank). Keeping with the theme of this expansion’s big meta achievements, it feels like more of a mandate to fully experience Delving. You don’t have to master them, but you do have to get the full experience.

• Delve Loremaster: War Within involves completing each Delve’s three or four story variants. This does include the three Delves added in 11.1 and 11.2, but it will be much less annoying to complete now that you can mouse over a Delve on the world map to check which story is up instead of physically visiting the entrance
• Leave No Treasure Unfound requires locating all of the Sturdy Chests inside of each Delve. This can be tricky to fully complete, as many of the chests only show up during certain story variants and they aren’t indicated on the minimap
• Sporesweeper, Spider Senses, and Daystormer ask you to complete Delves on at least Tier 8 while avoiding a signature environmental hazard. There’s no way around this one, so practice on lower tiers and save it for season’s end when you’ve got better gear if you’re struggling to down the boss without getting exploded by a mushroom blast
• Brann Development only requires you to raise your spelunking partner’s level to 25. Given that his level cap is now 100 and experience below last season’s cap of 80 is massively boosted, this one should be automatic even for players who are just starting out in their Delving careers
• Finally, you’ll need to vanquish any of the three seasonal end bosses. Zek’vir, The Underpin, and Nexus-Princess Ky’veza all have achievements for defeating them on the lower ‘?’ difficulty, and it appears that any one of those three will suffice for the Glory of the Delver meta

Several Nights at the Gallagio

Going Goblin Mode is the Undermine equivalent of You Xal Not Pass. You’ll need to get to know the backalleys of the Goblin capital fairly well, but it actually won’t take that much elbow grease or time on the clock to earn this one.

• Adventurer of Undermine tasks you with slaying ten rare mobs across the city. Right now these timers seem like they are on hyperdrive, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding enough unique enemies and crossing this off the list
• Treasures of Undermine involves collecting fifteen trinkets from around the zone
• Nine-Tenths of the Law is worth it on its own for the reward. By locating five lockers around Undermine, you can find and combine the pieces of a Mega-Mecha Gorilla pet. A strange series of events leads to this achievement also awarding 5 Trader’s Tender
• Read Between the Lines requires finding and reading seven lore books scattered across town. In addition to some juicy additions to the story of some of Undermine’s main characters, you’ll also get a neat desk toy
• That Can-Do Attitude is earned by finding a few dozen discarded cans around the streets and giving them a good kick. Keep an eye out for these while you’re on foot and remember that you can kick each can more than once.
• You’re My Friend Now is something I wouldn’t recommend in real life. When you see a rat, grab it! When you nab all five Grabbable Rats and pop them onto your shoulder for a quick ride, you’ll get credit for the achievement

Your big ceiling crystal is still broken

While it might seem a bit daunting to have to max out your reputation with the minor faction that is the Flame’s Radiance for Owner of a Radiant Heart, you’ll be able to knock it out without too much effort it you add it to your weekly task list. The renown track only goes to 10, rather than the 25 levels that most of the other major factions require.

If you’re still filling out the void-corrupted shelves of your wardrobe in preparation for Midnight, then you can complete the Nightfall event each week for 400 reputation. If instead you’re planning on riding a Void-Scarred Lynx into battle against the armies of darkness, then look to the Radiant Incursion repeatable quests which award 100 reputation each and a chance at a purple kitty mount.

Way, way out of this world

Unraveled and Persevering is the final leg of this marathon, taking you across K’aresh for Yet More Clicking On Things.

• Remnants of a Shattered World takes you in and out of Phase Diving in order to hunt down all 19 rare spawns on K’aresh.
• Treasures of K’aresh is an extensive list of 27 caches that you need to find
• Explore K’aresh is earned by visiting every part of the zone map
• Bounty Seeker requires four of the weekly warrant quest lines that you can pick up in the center of Tazavesh
• Dangerous Prowlers of K’aresh is not as intimidating as it sounds — you’ll be zipping around to find and pet six purrkins
• Power of the Reshii unlocks when you fully upgrade your Reshii Wraps over several weekly lockouts by adding Ethereal Strands
• Secrets of the K’areshi involves locating ten lore objects scattered around the zone

Final thoughts and advice

There’s no way to claim that this isn’t a gigantic list of things to do spanning every single major part of The War Within. However, I am going to rate Worldsoul-Searching as the most forgiving and least painful expansion-wide meta achievement we have seen so far.

It’s interesting to take a look at what’s not included. Long grinds such as A Long Fuse are notably absent. More complex or time-consuming achievements like Echoes of Danger and the full Ecological Succession meta aren’t required. We can skip pain points like waiting weeks to see the exact right World Quest for For the Collective, only for it to be bugged or tedious.

If you’re coming back to World of Warcraft from a long absence, you have your work cut out for you. My advice is to not even think about the meta achievement until you’ve finished your initial play through of The War Within. Once you’ve experienced the story and all of the zones, then come back to this rundown and see what major components you’re missing.

For players who have been zipping around Khaz Algar, Undermine, and K’aresh with Alleria Windrunner for the last fourteen months, my suggested strategy is to divide and conquer. Make checklists of things you’ll need to do daily (like checking Delve stories) and weekly (like zone events and K’aresh warrants). Focus on one treasure-collecting or cat-petting achievement at a time.

Most of all, I advise you to have fun. If you’re not enjoying the process of slowly grinding your way towards this pinnacle then…don’t. Play some PVP, or farm transmog, or play a different game. Come back when camping rare spawns while listening to a podcast about Forsaken Paladins sounds like exactly what you want to do for an hour.

Finally, be sure to take your time. This achievement is in no way time-sensitive. It will be very satisfying to roll up to the gates of Silvermoon City atop a shiny new geargrinder for Midnight’s launch, but if that’s not in the cards for you then keep chipping away until you can see necrotic glow from Galakrond’s Dark Heart at the end of the tunnel.