Taming luck question

[Shandele]

How and again how do you guys get so lucky with rare tames?

I can spend two days 24 hours literally sitting around (I have no job at the moment) and never find a single rare spawn no matter what rare it is. I use NPCScan but it has been of no use.

I cannot figure out how people get so lucky with these tames. Again, you have zero idea for the most part when these mobs spawn unless someone happily tells you from either taming one or provided they announced it through the general channel.

So how!? I know I sound 'upset' but geez when you spend as much time as me to tame a rare, you might see where I come from.

Any tips? I use WoWhead.com and multiple other resources to help but still no results >_<

[Kurasu]

In my case, 'luck' is exactly what it has been. I don't camp. I do drive-bys and pray. Sometimes, the drive-by will pay off. Most of the time, it doesn't. I don't actually pay attention to most people who say they killed or tamed a rare, unless they have proof of it, so for me, spawn timers are pretty much useless.

[Jin]

That's just what it comes down to i guess. Luck. But well, if you want biggest chances I've found trying to camp from early morning til noon works best for me, late night everyone else camps

[Karma]

I do random drive-bys--and sometimes only get to see Arc and Skoll tamed in front of me and then cry silently while /waving the lucky hunter. Loque was my hardest, and happened on him purely while down there fishing. Skoll is my last spirit beast needed, and I have tamed/kept/and or /released almost every rare in the game up to Cata. I have never known which or what timer any rare was on, just used random luck.

I know this does not help, and wish you much luck in finding a beastie you are after. Any one in particular you would like to get?

[Arisia]

Not sure about anyone else, but I *sit* there... for days at a time sometimes. Skoll took me 2 weeks... Gondria almost a month... even Arcturis took 14 hours of sitting nonstop, never logging and dragging the darn laptop with me everywhere during that time.

Way back when, years ago, when I wanted the teal tiger whose name I forget right now, I worked from home and had Wow in the background and sat at one spawn point 14 hours a day for a MONTH.

It depends how long you sit in the one spawn point, and IF the rare spawns in that point. Hell, three months later, I STILL do not have Krush, because I tend to miss him; my health and work only give me 5-6 hours a day to sit with WoW in the background, and apparently he diesn't like those six hours. ::

My advice is to pick the ONE pet you want the most, and do all the research you can-- visit WoWhead, Petopia and anywhere else that talks about the pet. See where it has spawned the most, and then pick a day, get up at 5-6AM and SIT there. Bring a book. :: It might take a few days, but if that's what you want, it ends up being worth it in the end.

[Lisaara]

Like everyone said...random drivebys or I do actually camp.

My first spirit beast was Loque'nahak. Guess what? I camped 3 DAYS for him.

Day 1: Saw him by south gorilla spot after 6 hours. He was killed by an MM dwarf hunter that just wanted the loot. Thing was...he killed him while I was taming him.

Day 2: Saw him by the north gorilla spot 16 hours after the last time. I land and was about to tag. A draenei shaman jumps down and steals him from me.

Day 3: I found him by the North Gorilla spot 16 hours after the last time. I land and try to start the tame but a black gorilla interrupts me and starts wailing on me. I feign death and whisper a DK that was helping me look for him to come get this monkey off my back. The DK was on the other side of the basin and had slow flying. So I had to sit and watch Loque walk across me. DK made it and Loque was mine. I was shaking....so bad....

I found Loque another time on my second hunter on accident. i just happened to park in the north gorilla spot and not 30 minutes later, he popped up right beside me!

[Slickrock4]

What are your professions? Why I ask is that to help make the search bearable is to have mining or herbing. Find a route in the area with the mobs you want to tame, and profit.

[Araela]

Make sure you delete your Cache folder in your WoW folders because if an animal is cached in your NPCscan (you've seen it tamed by another hunter, etc) it will not register on your NPC scan alerts. A lot of it is luck and persistence and it sounds like you are persistent! Keep trying!! It will pay off.

[Faolchu]

I know how you feel in Wrath I hit 80 pretty quickly compared to most of the hunters on my realm and spent every second of my spare time camping Sholozar trying for Loque'nahak. And his eventual tame kind of set the tone for all my tames since, I flew back to the UK to spend xmas with my family and due to the bodyclock issues I was up at 5am and thought I know I'll just have a quick check and suddenly he was there .

Skoll when he came in I flew around for ages then came into another hunter who was camping one spot and told me to go away as he was taming skoll first and he didn't want me to steal his tame. So I flew over the other side of storm peaks right into skoll and tamed in there .

Gondrida/King Krush were just random flybys as was Ghostcrawler/Sambas.

But today we were just going to do Blackwing Descent for the first time and being in Org as the summons were going out I thought I'd go check for Terrorpene, he spawned right in front of me and just as I tamed him the accept summon popped up .

But anyway the point of all that...I often camp these rares for untold amount of time, jump out of my bed halfway through the night if I wake up to check their spawn points quickly and yet the only times I regularly tame them are just because the stars align and I happen to be in the right place at the right time. If you are camping and not having any luck you can try one of two things take a bit of a break from camping and do the occasional fly over or just try to spread the word that you'll pay I dunno 1k gold to the person who tells you where the mob is if you manage to tame it.

[Karma]

I got SKOLL! I saw him tamed this morning, my first time ever seeing him in the wild. 13 hours later on a casual drive-by--there he was in another spawn point! I tagged, trapped, tamed. I have never camped a rare, just do drive by looking. Have all the pre-cata spirit beasts, now to get to 85 and gets the new two spirit beasts. I did not want the flaming turtle, but Sambas, maybe. Good luck, just keep looking.

[Jin]

Also with the Cata rares, well it makes a big difference if you stress the leveling I think. For every passing day more and more people will come to the new zones.

[Shade]

For my first SB, I hunted Loque'nahak.

Spammed General chat, offered a tip if found and tamable and spent hours flying in circles.

Ended up getting Skoll first becuase a friend spotted him and whispered me.

As for Loque? Took me four bloody months, and I got him on a flyby while I was going to camp to take a FP out of the zone. Love my little guy but also still resent how much time it took to get him. Right after I tamed him I said what the heck and went to look to see if Gondria had popped.

She had and got her about ten mins after Loque. (Lost her when they updated the stables, she and another pet disappeared. Went up there determined to camp to get her back and the first spot I checked there she was. Tamed her again, returned to look at my stable and my missing one had been returned, lol).

Got Arcticus just doing the Argent Tourney quest where you kiss the frogs. Took the FP to Amberpine Lodge and then my NPC scan went ballistic. Tamed him for the heck of it.

Camped about three hours for Ashtail after the Shattering.

Checked back and forth for a few days on Numaroc randomly once I had the stable space for him. Got him after about five days.

Went after Slaverjaw when my old red hyena was turned into an ugly mutt. Went to his spawn point,, forgot to clear s stable space, so I went back to do so. took the FP back, mounted up and ran to the spawn point, and he was just there waiting for me.

Had to pay 500g for a raid group to go in and get Chromaggus, once in, he wasn't a hard tame.

Got Karoma tonight flying around checking spawn points for him and Sambas. A druid yelled out in general chat that he was up and I went bolting over there hit the ground running and tamed as soon as I was in range. Love this guy.

Am currently sitting in one spot waiting for Sambas, though I doubt that I'll be that lucky tonight.

[Bubu]

In my case, 'luck' is exactly what it has been. I don't camp. I do drive-bys and pray. Sometimes, the drive-by will pay off. Most of the time, it doesn't. I don't actually pay attention to most people who say they killed or tamed a rare, unless they have proof of it, so for me, spawn timers are pretty much useless.

Same here.
Ether you got a luck and going to get rare, ether not.
Period.
I got all my 4 beasts this way, and most of the other rares.

[Naiaara]

I used to sit and camp, just like you did. After four spirit beasts and multiple rares, I no longer do that. Instead, I check spawn points every hour and half hour. Early in the morning is a prime time to get rares, from about 12 midnight until 5 or so in the morning. I have never really had any luck looking at other times of the day.

[Macha]

My "luck" seems to be my early shifts. I used to have to wake up at 5am to get to work, and I'd do a lap in game before I went to work. That's how I got Loque and Krush, both without ANY competition or opposite faction scares.

Now that it's Christmas time, I'm stuck on the night shifts, and sarcastically blame those shifts for me not having anything cool yet from Cata.

[Shandele]

WTB luck?

Yay! I found Ghostcrawler at 1:49pm central time on Farstriders! He was in the upper northwest area directly west of the L of L'Ghorek.

[Siliverin]

for me some where just casual looking others i sat and waited... never moved or anything. on sambas, i killed stuff and skinned em so while i was campin i was getting mats to lvl my lwing npcscan and silverdragon are a big help ( when hunter pets dont set them off xD ) i think most boils down to luck, patience and wating and not leaving the spawn point ( unless there are multiple spawn point) if there is more then 1 spawn point, mayne you can ask a guildie or 2 to help you cover them

[pengupuff]

It helps to have friends who know that you're a rare hunter.
I tamed 3 spirit beasts just from people I know whispering me like "hey, there are spirit beasts up."
I tamed Krush solely because a priest friend of mine was available to bubble me.
As far as camping vs. drive-bys is concerned, I have camped MANY pets but only benefited from it twice: once with OCJ, and most recently with Madexx. All of my other rares were tamed after many, many random fly-bys.

Ultimately it boils down to patience, and most of all you can't let the hunt consume you. I'm pretty chill about WoW, but I almost drove myself crazy looking for Krush, to the extent that I felt like I couldn't enjoy the game until I found him. And you know what? He decided to spawn for me after I had stopped obsessing over it so damn much.

I would suggest avoiding camping altogether unless you're really determined to get something as soon as possible. Otherwise, it's probably less mind-numbing to check the spawn points in the early morning hours; anytime between 3am and 10am server is awesome for finding rares in my experience.

I used to offer gold rewards in general chat for anyone who found the pet before me, but I would advise against this unless you have an unusually kind server. People are generally dicks about it. I have even seen people get entire groups together just to search for the pet I was looking for and kill it, just to spite me, even though I was offering 1.5k gold for it. :p

[han]

I do drivebys or camp out at the spot and do something else and check periodically. I cannot bear to stand there for hours camping anymore as I have done too much of that back in the Everquest days for far far FAR too many things. Keys, rare mobs, rare item ground spawns, epic quest mobs on random 36-72 hour random spawns, you name it. It has killed any desire to camp at one spot more than 5 minutes.