I've always had a strong connection to hunter-like classes in video games due to my love of animals in real life. I have quit a few pets in real life. By a few, I mean a lot. It was a logical choice for me to make a hunter, but unfortunately I wanted to make a human and humans didn't have the option of being hunters yet, so I made a warlock instead who I collected minipets on. It wasn't long before I caved and made a night elf hunter as well, much to my mother's annoyance since I had been using her account at the time.
When MoP came out I felt a strong urge to play WoW again. It got only stronger when I saw Patrannache and heard of the new hunter tracking for Pandaria rare hunter pets. I was lucky enough to get MoP for my birthday only a couple of months after the release. I got my main (my human warlock. She may not be a hunter, but she's my baby) to 90 and set out to get my hunter to Pandaria to tame Patrannche. However, once I got to leveling my hunter I didn't feel the attachment I used to have to her. She felt like a chore.
Que the creation of Catraina. I've wanted a human hunter since the beginning and decided to start fresh one on a new server. I felt an instant attachment to her. She got her own personality very quickly and I knew Savage was the perfect pet for her. I leveled her quickly with the full intent of getting her Savage as soon as possible. Then as soon as I hit Northrend things changed. I felt like I needed to tame Arcturis. I started out disliking Arcturis after we first found out about him but over the years I've warmed up to him and even started to like him better than Loque, the spirit beast I had my heart set on from the moment they were first introduced. I never felt like I would tame him though.
I had a really strong feeling that soon after I dinged level 74 he'd spawn. I wasn't wrong, about ten minutes after landing in Amberpine Lodge yesterday he spawned. What I wasn't expecting was a griefer killing him in the middle of another hunter trying to tame him.
While that initially discouraged me, I still had this strong feeling that this wouldn't be a long camp and decided to stick it out. If anything this was a sign that he was meant to be mine since I was right about him spawning. I cleared my cache, started up a camp fire, and pulled out Otso, my Hyjal bear cub to keep me company. Not that I really needed the company, hunters were swarming the area, but it created a nice RP feel. A hunter and her bear cub waiting alone in the uncharted wilderness for a legendary beast to appear to them.
It wasn't long before somebody decided it would be funny to pull out their tamed Arcturis to set off everybody's NPCscan. Tired of clearing Arcturis from NPCscan only to have the jerk come back, I took a break and watched TV for a couple of hours and came back about a half an hour before 11PM. If the 6 hour min spawn time was right there was a chance that he'd spawn anytime after that. After about 2 hours I took another break since there were about 7 other hunters there and if he did spawn I probably wouldn't be the one to get him. When I got back on I found the area empty so I took a picture of Catraina and Otso together because let's face it, the hyjal bear cubs are QTs.
At about 3AM I decided to call it quits for the night and start up the search in the morning. When I logged on the next morning he wasn't there, and I had chores to do, but I put the volume all the way up and told my mom if she heard the sound of NPCscan to get me. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, no Arcturis spawn while I was cleaning. I came back and decided do some other things online instead of just looking at a WoW screen with nothing going on. About two cracked articles later it happened. NPCscan went off. I thought it was just somebody pulling out their tamed Arcturis as a joke again, but as I pull up my screen and he's directly in front of me. Without even thinking I smashed the tame button, not wanting another hunter to get him or some jerk to kill him again. I had a plan for taming him, but it went out the window when I actually saw him in front of me. I forgot to even get screenshots during the tame!
When the tame was done I couldn't believe it. I was so sure somebody was going to kill him mid tame, or hit him to get his focus off of me and onto them, but it went flawlessly. When I was done other hunters were /cheering at me. I wasn't really expecting that since the night before somebody started swearing at us and complaining like it was our fault that CZR put us against eachother to compete for him. I had to /hug a high level horde hunter beside me for not killing him. I actually started screaming like shiny ponyta guy once it sunk in that he was mine. My mom thought I was screaming because my dog killed one of my pet rats.
Typically I try to screenshot my pets where I tamed them, but I didn't want to be that jerk who sets off everybody's NPCscan so I took him to the Darkmoon Fair instead.
I still think Savage is 'the one' for Catraina, but I'm still extremely attached to Arcturis. He feels like my first 'real' rare tame. I've tamed plenty of unique rare spawns in the old world on Cat, in fact I'm fairly sure all but one of my pets is unique, but this is the first time I actually worked for it. Actually I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've actually worked for anything in WoW. Typically I'll camp for about twenty minutes before saying 'screw it' and hearth my butt out.
I may find myself camping for this guy sometime soon as well.
