Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[Vasken]

I'm sorry, I can reroll if you'd like.

Hehe, sorry. Don't need a reroll, was just stunned! Love the pet! I just think I won't be able to abandon it again if tamable hydras are released.

(Justsmashingthescreenshotbuttonahem)

[Rathidion]

Rathidion:
White Cataclysm Crocolisk

Alright! I finally got around to doing the report on this white Cataclysm Crocolisk, and here we go!

Model: I love the Cataclysm Crocolisk model - it truly looks quite scaly and almost sinister. HungryAl was no different, looking grouchy and terrifying by my side. The model itself is a nice off-white colour, with black accents (Including the teeth!), giving this croc almost a monochromatic feel to it, other than the eyes. He truly looks sinister.

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Animations: For the most part, I think the crocolisk animations are good, with a notable couple exceptions. When this guy runs, it looks like his back is broken into 3 parts, but other than that, he's quite nice. The idle animations look quite nice and also threatening. However, where these guys really shine is when they're swimming. They look completely at home in the water, and the swimming animation makes their walking seem labored.

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Combat: I love crocolisks as tenacity pets, especially at levels between 20 and 60. Their slow is super-amazing, because even if you manage to pull aggro from the croc, you have plenty of time to lose the aggro to your pet before the mob gets to you. Also, this particular skin looks quite nice under the effects of Bestial Wrath.

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Overall, I'd give this model an 8/10. Sadly, he has been abandoned, for him and I didn't click super well - certainly not as well as his cousin Gustave - the green cataclysm crocolisk. Overall, he gets a recommendation from me.

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Feel Free to roll me again
Info:
Name: Rathidion
Level: 84 (feel free to roll up 85)
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Cunning or Ferocity please (my stables are full of tenacity pets) - No monkeys.

[TygerDarkstorm]

All righty, first up is Fiona and Honey, the brown bear.


Let's take a closer look.

Starting with the first photo from the top left, we have the general overview of the bear. The color's not terrible, a nice, golden brown with some darker brown streaks. You can see a little bit of strangeness to the body, but most noticeable is the weird slope in the back. I'm pretty sure that if their backs were level it would make them look more natural and probably cause the front legs to look less awkward and buggy.

The second picture is a close-up of where the right front legs clips into the bear's stomach. This was originally pointed out by another person in this thread and is quite noticeable after it's pointed out to you.

The third picture is a close-up of the split the lip does going up to the bear's nose. Not real sure why Blizzard let such an obvious design flaw make it through but such is life. You can also see how the lip pulls away strangely from the teeth to try and resemble a snarl.

The fourth picture is of the tail area. You can see a weird glow map directly underneath the tail as well as the weird triangular flap of flesh.

The fifth picture is to show the awkwardness of the arm movements when the bear rests. Another awkward arm movement can be seen in the picture of Fiona taming Honey--because you can't see the arm bending properly (and I don't think it does) it looks like her arm is breaking as she swings at me.

The sixth picture is a side view of the face where you can see how the eyes are sort of a strange color compared to the black and dark brown bears. It also shows you further how strange the "snarl" is (female worgen inspiration anyone?).

The last picture is the strange way the wrist looks when viewed from the front. Almost as if Honey doesn't have a wrist at all.


Bear animations are pretty simple. When idling they'll occasionally swing their head from side to side and do a silent roar. While swimming they bear paddle. They have a very lopey, sort of bumbly run, likely caused from the slope in their back. Bear sounds are befitting of them in combat--they grunt and roar--nothing too annoying.

I apologize for the combat pictures looking a little meh; I could not get a screen of the bear casting demo roar for the life of me; you can just barely see it on the right picture. Cialbi has some great shots of it in one of his reviews.

Bears make adequate tanks; demo roar reduces the physical damage of enemies within melee range of them by 10%. This means your bear will take less damage as well as help them generate some AoE aggro. Their damage out-put is decent as well. Ruffley used her bear, Riff, to solo Deadmines; I found that even with Demo Roar he struggled holding AoE aggro even though I was only attacking his targets so at low levels they're not necessarily super efficient, but still a nice choice of tank pet. Plus, they eat everything so it's easy to keep them happy until you get your hands on the glyph (or when 4.1 comes out).

Despite the glaring flaws in the bear model, Fiona will be keeping Honey. I'm gaining a better appreciation for bears as pets after they lost swipe and I feel like this skin is pretty under loved. I actually think it's a rather pretty looking skin and I like the way Honey looks with Fiona.

Ruffley's report to come soon. Hope you all like the new formatting.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Dara: I'm sorry you didn't like your white dino, but it's understandable since you've already bonded with Krush. Where you see 'icky' with the white one, I'm like 'aw, he's so pretty.'

Rath: The Cata crocs are gorgeous aren't they? I have the green one as well. I love the screenshot of your white one under BW, looks like he's trying to imitate the purple Cata croc.

Here we go...Come with me...There's a world out there that we should see...

Daranara:
Grey Rhino


Rathidion:
Red Hyena


Enjoy!

[Daranara]

Tyger: Yeah, I can get the rampant favoritism, I just wasn't expecting to dislike him THAT much. Normally I can find something positive about them

But oh man, rhino! I've never had a rhino before! This is actually going to be exciting!

[TygerDarkstorm]

Yeah. I figure everyone has their own view on the different skins which is why I love reading these reports. Especially for repeat tames that I know I've done in the past. I love seeing the pet through someone else's eyes.

My first ever devilsaur was the white one. He looked great with my troll, but when I took her pure SV, I got rid of him. Retamed the white on my orc, Vitani, but he didn't match as well. Ended up trading him for King Mosh.

I look forward to your rhino review. I went from absolutely hating rhinos to falling in love with them when I got one for my challenge a while back.

[Cialbi]

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/download/file.php?id=8167

Your demise shall be pink and painful

I apologize for the combat pictures looking a little meh; I could not get a screen of the bear casting demo roar for the life of me; you can just barely see it on the right picture. Cialbi has some great shots of it in one of his reviews.

Thanks! Honestly, that was about two dozen screenshots that I took to get those images, and even then the damn blue exclamation mark was impossible to see since it popped up inside of the target dummy's head

Hey! Bad Tegan; no eating your nameplate!

This screenshot was with both Taunt (the red lines above the bear's and the dummy's heads) and Charge (the red shading of the bear and the ground animation for Demo Roar) being autocast with Demo Roar

[TygerDarkstorm]

Yeah, I definitely don't have as much patience as you so I'm glad you got some neat shots of the animation.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Time for Ruffley's report! I decided to go tame the former menace of Redridge that is Bellygrub. Bugger used to be level 22 in a 15-20 zone and he hit like a truck. I died quite a few times on my lowbies to him.



The boar models are starting to show their age, but I truthfully don't have much to complain about them. The top left photo is a body shot; you can see that he's a nice golden brown color that fades into white and then gray by his mane. You can't see it as well in photos, but when you view them close up, their head looks a little strange where it meets their body, kind of like they're missing a neck.

The top right photo is a from behind shot just to see how blocky they look. You can also see that the tuft of the tail is low res and 2-D looking.

The bottom left photo is a close-up of Rocky's adorable face. I love his beady little black eyes and that too cute pink nose! His tusks are a little low res looking.

The bottom right photo is an example of the mane textures and how terrible they look.


I felt that saying was suiting as boars have some of the most adorable pet animations. When boars run they stretch those little legs of theirs all the way out which makes them look like they're doing this cute little sprint. Their piggy paddle is also very cute to watch as they try to propel themselves with those little legs. And the most adorable of all is their idle animations. There's the butt wiggle, the ground sniff, and their eager look from side to side. They make squealing noises when in combat, nothing I find too annoying and rather fitting.

I once more apologize for the bad combat shots; I need to practice at getting better ones.

Boars provide a 30% bleed increase debuff; fairly useless for BM and SV, but makes them a decent tank pet choice for MM hunters. I wouldn't recommend bringing them to a party; if you're needed for this debuff (and most bleed classes provide their own), then I'd recommend a hyena for superior damage. These guys do make decent solo pets, however, and they have a ton of charm and personality.

Ruffley will be keeping Rocky for now until she's high enough level for him to be corrupted into a hellboar (although, I love his personality and little pink nose so much that he may never change at all).

More please.
Name: Ruffley
Level: 24 but feel free to roll ahead
Exotics: Not yet
No monkeys or gorillas please

Name: Fiona
Level 21 but feel free to roll ahead
Exotics: Not yet
No monkeys or gorillas please

[Cialbi]

Hey, that was a nice shot of Rocky using Charge and Growl. You're not doing bad at all!

In fact, I need to start making combat pictures again. I know I'll be trying to spot the Pin animation when my assigned demon dog uses Lock Jaw.

[Belleirle]

Now that raiding is done for the week, I have time for some more rolls

Name: Belleirle
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: None this time

[TygerDarkstorm]

Hey, that was a nice shot of Rocky using Charge and Growl. You're not doing bad at all!

In fact, I need to start making combat pictures again. I know I'll be trying to spot the Pin animation when my assigned demon dog uses Lock Jaw.

Aw thanks. The shot that you're referring to is my favorite of those three.
I'm going to assume people don't mind my new formatting since no one's complained about it. I like it a lot; I have a lot of fun messing with Photoshop, and combining the pics like that saves space on my Photobucket and takes up less room in the post.

Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.

Tyger(Fiona):
Red Crab


Tyger(Ruffley):
Yellow Hyena


Belleirle:
Brown Scarab Beetle


Enjoy!

[Ana]

I get around to do my assigned onces after the weekend Desided to keep the weekend WoW free , so this time i be a little late on my reviews, but they are comming

[TygerDarkstorm]

No worries, take your time!

[Cialbi]

Well, my dad is being screwed over by the company he works for, and is now actively hunting jobs. Right now, it's almost as if he doesn't have a job. So, long story short, the account is expiring on the 21st, and won't be renewed for the time being. Good thing I'm paying my way through school right now with scholarships.

So, I'm going to cobble together what I have accomplished thus far for my latest challenge, and won't ask for a reroll. Sure, I still have an entire week, but guess when my finals are?

Now, to copy over the screenshots, and get going on editing...

[TygerDarkstorm]

I'm sorry to hear that Cialbi. I hope your dad will be able to find a new job soon; I know what it's like to be stuck in the job hunt and in need of money. I wish you the best and look forward to your last report (for now at least).

[Cialbi]

Cialbi (Nazthandol)
Blue Demon Dog


Happy hunting

Shorelfon was assigned this very dog when I did a Pet Theme Challenge, oddly enough. So, meet Cyanide:


But, Shorelfon isn't Nazthandol. So, the demon hunter agreed to let the tauren take care of Cyanide for a few days.

Nazthandol wasn't so pleased to find out that Cyanide was so tiny.
Regardless, they went hunting in Stranglethorn Vale.
The results weren't much more impressive, unfortunately.

I did a pet report on a red crab not too long ago, and found then quite competent for a survival hunter who just wants his pet to keep his enemies out of melee range. Ruby the crab did a good job of that, using Charge and Pin quite effectively.
Nazthandol was considerably less impressed. He is a beastmaster, and as such he uses Kill Command a lot. The problem is that Kill Command will override whatever the pet is doing, and if the pet is channeling an ability, it will just cancel that instead of returning an error. So, using Kill Command will interrupt Lock Jaw, as well as other channeled abilities like Froststorm Breath and Pin. So, that kinda defeats the purpose of Lock Jaw (and Pin, for that matter); it doesn't enable you to kill an enemy quicker if you're a beastmaster.

Another issue that came up is that pet pathing sucks. No news there, right?
Umm, wrong way there, Cyanide. *grumble*
Here, I'll use the lingering spell effect from Serpent Sting and the streaking spell effect from Dash to approximate their directions of travel.

To keep BM from being crippled by this fact, they extended the range at which your pet can use Kill Command (that is, how close your pet must be to the target in order to hit it with Kill Command). So, the problem is less noticeable. Not so when your pet is running circles around an enemy that should have been rooted several seconds ago.

As I mentioned earlier, my experience with a crab went quite well, and I didn't have a problem with this. That would be because crabs are Tenacity pets, and can get Charge as soon as they get Pin. Charge has a 1 second immobilize, giving plenty of time for the crab to slide across the ground to the target in question and Pin it in place. Dogs have Dash, however, and don't get access to Charge until the pet is level 44. So, with the issues I had, I must conclude that Lock Jaw is effectively worthless for the first 22 levels that you can have the ability. You're better off using a crab (not even that if you're BM) or a spider until Charge is available for your dog to learn. Sure, you can send in your dog first and use Lock Jaw before firing a single shot, but that's no consolation in emergencies or PvP.

Well, we somehow managed to kill Bangalash, and I got a shiny mantle. We then went off to do a photoshoot. But first, here's another good size comparison, with the size difference exaggerated a bit by the angle. Doesn't change the fact that we tend to play with the camera at a similar angle, so this is the impression one gets when it comes to the size of a dog next to a Tauren.

So, we went over to that goblin place in Stranglethorn, and took pictures. No, that other goblin place in Stranglethorn!

Muscular creature with very short hair, if any, on most of the body. I think that's a fitting description of a demon dog.

They have one idle animation that they do periodically; the puppy hop. I finally got a good screenshot... and kinda regret that now.

Yep, their jaws are pretty messed up. It normally isn't very noticeable, and the hop animation happens so fast that you probably don't get a chance to see this image unless you get a screenshot in at the right time. Here's what the teeth normally look like; I suspect that the teeth and jaws were designed to give this appearance. Also note the horns growing out of the face, which is another characteristic of the demon dog model.

Sp, speaking of flaws, the one that I found the most annoying is the hind legs have a point where they become ridiculously thin, and look liable to snap like a twig. *cringe*


Nazthandol is going to return Cyanide to Shorelfon ASAP, and probably won't be getting another dog. Shorelfon, on the other hand, has something special planned for Cyanide; seems the demon dog is to become a full-fledged demon hunting dog. But, that won't be for another ten levels.

On a final note, here's a silly image:

And so begins my hiatus from hunter pet challenges. I'll probably still comment, but won't be doing challenges myself for a while. Although, I may just decide to buy one more month's subscription for now, since the day that my subscription runs out just had to be the day that my spring vacation begins.

Big thanks to Kormai and TygerDarkstorm!

^ from http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic ... 9&p=191767

[TygerDarkstorm]

All right, so I finally quit being lazy and got Ruffley's report done. Her challenge was: .

Sunny is just a standard Northern Barrens hyena; very easy to find.

Looks:

As per usual, going from left to right. First we have the basic body shot. The yellow color is actually far more lovely than I originally thought; not dull at all. Note the hunched posture and the awkwardness of the head-neck-shoulder area.

The second picture is a close up up the mane--while not as terrible looking as a boar's, it's still pretty low res and ruddy looking.

The third picture is the infamous uni-boob apparent on hyenas after being given the coyote skeleton (I believe that's when the uni-boob occurred if I read posts here correctly). This flaw is most noticeable when the hyena scratches itself, but you can see it when they're just standing if you're looking for it.

The fourth picture is a focus on the legs. I think they're intended to have a sort of ruddy look to them, but instead it almost comes off like they've been burned.

And the last picture is a closer look at their face. The big round, Mickey Mouse years are adorable and suiting to the animal, however, the solid black eyes with the white dot and the boxy, pixellated muzzle are just kind of icky.

Animations and Sounds:

Like the photo says, these guys share their animations with the coyote model wolves and foxes as they're on the same skeleton. The top picture is my favorite; it makes Sunny look so beautiful. ^_^ The top picture is also a good example of how hyenas used to hold their heads; I like that position better. Anyway, since they're on the wolf skeleton, hyenas will sniff the ground and scratch themselves as they idle. I thought they howled, but after a few minutes of staring at her, Sunny never did the howl animation.

The coyote skeleton does create a flaw in the run movement on hyenas. If you watch closely while your hyena runs, their backs look like they're breaking, which is something Sunny shares in common with female worgen. Turn a female worgen to the side and watch them cast mutilate, their backs break pretty badly. Anyway, I forgot to take a swim shot of the hyena swimming and I apologize; however, if you've ever seen a wolf or fox swim, you know how it works.

Hyenas are also fairly quiet pets. They make a sort of high pitched snarl like noise when going into combat, and that's about it really. And hey, when you play a worgen, almost every pet is quiet next to you.

Combat:

Hyenas are ferocity pets so they perform quite well in the damage department. Getting all these pets with bleed increasing debuffs makes me contemplate learning how to play MM. Yes, hyena's special ability increases bleed damage by 30%. I never play MM so it's kind of a whoopty do sort of thing since the other bleed classes bring their own bleed increase ability. Also being ferocity means that Sunny won't take a beating quite as good as a tenacity pet, but as a BM hunter, I don't have too many issues soloing with whichever pet I feel like having out.

And...Fiona's report to come when I decide not to be lazy. >_>

[TygerDarkstorm]

I do hope we'll keep seeing you around for comments Cialbi until everything gets sorted out for you.

[Lupis]

Green and purple ravager review!

He's in an easy to get to place, so there's no worries on having a hard time getting to or finding him. Just a quick jump through the Dark Portal and you're almost there.



Now, I decided to get a lot of pics to speak for me here. Both Model and Skin will be addressed at the same time.



At first and second glance, he's a very handsome fellow. Somewhat small built, his model doesn't have any obvious problems. I like the skin a lot - a nice blend of the two colors. It's not too bright, but eye catching none the less. The only thing I don't like about his model is the weird saddle-like way his bottom part works. It really does look like a saddle, and that's just weird. I can imagine a gnome riding around on one.



Up close you start to notice that he's a bit low def- not too big a problem, seeing as some other pets are far worse (*cough* Mastiffs *cough*), but still a little disappointing. I was also surprised to see that he has very plain brown eyes. I would have expected them to be bright purple or green to match his exoskeleton. His jaw is nice, and his teeth aren't 2d, which is a welcome change from many pets.



Lastly, the small ridge of spikes on his back is painfully 2D, and obviously so. A problem a lot of pets have.

Running, he looks a bit like this:



Which is kind of nice. The hanging open jaw is hilarious in every way. I can't see any problems with it, and it's pretty cute.

Idles. He has one animation, and it's so rare for him to use it that I couldn't get a pic of it after sitting around for five minutes. Which stinks, because it's adorable! He opens his jaws very wise and looks around. I can just imagine him going "ORLY?!".

Swimming: Adorable at first. A little creepy when you look at it from behind...

His idle swimming is nice, legs stretching out under him.



When he's swimming and you're seeing it from the side, it's pretty cute. Somewhat octopus like, retracting and extending his legs in unison.



But from behind, that's different. It's creepy!



It looks so alien... (It's a ravager, you idiot, Lupis! OF COURSE it looks alien!)

Lastly, attack animations. They're very nice. He has three he rotates through - bite, leg attack, and spin.

The bite is exactly what you'd expect.



The leg attack is pretty complicated and nice, rearing up to lash out twice with both front legs.



It was very hard to get a picture of the spin - he doesn't do it often, and it's very fast. However, it's really cool. He leaps in the air, curls up into a spined ball, and spins at the enemy. Ever seen Sonic do that kind of thing? Just like that.



I did a little questing with him. As a cunning pet, he could be a tank or a dps pet - I chose DPS. He's very nice, though I imagine he'd be best with a melee-heavy group, as his special adds on to the physical damage a group deals on a target. Overall a very neat pet, but not something that matches Vallrok at all.

Another? :->
Vallrok
82 BM
Exotics? Sure
Restrictions? No monkeys!