Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[TygerDarkstorm]

She'll be comin' around the mountain when she comes.

Tyger(Venjin):
Brown Chimaera


Tyger(Yzma):
Purple Wasp


Tyger(Ruffley):
Yellow Firefly


::OR::

Dark Grey Worg

[Zuilu]

I'd like a random pet Please no spirit beasts, I have all of them, and try to avoid the higher level rares (Sambas, Terropene, etc) Since I've got those. ^^

[Nubhorns]

Eeeek I swear I posted my report on the green serpent AAAGES ago! I feel so silly. :x Sorry guys!

It's been months now, but I'll cobble together what I can remember.

H'OKAY. Lets do this.


Skin: Blue-Green Serpent [x]
Mob: Murk Spitter (Lv. 46-47 in Sunken Temple)
Family: Serpent
Tree: Cunning

Cutshaw in his native habitat: Temple of Nerfbat.

WoWScrnShot_020411_101238.jpg (97.62 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

The files I have cropped in my folder are listed as cut_1.png and so on. A re-inspection of my Screenshot folder tells me his name was actually Cutshaw! Hello Cutshaw, long time no see! If you have leveled an alt through the higher 40s you have probably done Sunken Temple at one point in time - my friend was particularly bad about facepulling things on her main and then falling down the pit of death. Apparently she wasn't the only one, because post-Shattering you will notice the hole has been covered, there's only one floor and there's some snobby dragon standing around giving you quests. Tch.

Turns out the inside of the instance wasn't the only thing to get violated by the Nerfbat's cold, uncaring...erm, bat. You can enter the actual temple as normal, swim under the stairs and go into the main room to see...uh, the instance portal? Alas, it is true! You can no longer get lost in the Temple looking for the instance portal, should you die. If you want this snake however, eat your map and spin in circles because you have to get lost to find it.

I'm serious.

Murk Spitters are hidden fairly well in the Temple and they are not located inside the instance, I believe, so you have to crawl through zombie trolls and the like to find one. They're big and green and the only mob with their skin. It's been a while since I've been here, so I had to wander around for close to ten minutes before I found one. And then I accidentally shot it and had to find another one. Cest la vie. The good news is that there is a spawn point for a treasure chest(of the silk variety if I remember right) located in the Temple as well so you have a chance to grab a blue while you're in there.

He's got quite the cold look about him, doesn't he? Pretty icy. Frigid.

WoWScrnShot_020411_101247.jpg (144.91 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

Cutshaw. Not a punny kinda guy.

WoWScrnShot_020411_101601.jpg (172.79 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

Cutshaw here is a gorgeous snake, as most of the serpent skins are. In his natural habitat a diet of petrified trollflesh, frogs and the occasional adventurer has made his skin a glossy teal, almost. Like other cobras he's got frills along his neck and back - these ones in particularly are a very pretty orange and gold gradient, with just a touch of green. His back has moar(!) gradients in the form of stripes - his fade from a bright bright bright cyan to a muddled cream-white, almost like his belly. It's pretty enough in the subdued lighting of the Temple, but once you get out into the open it's very bright and quite attractive. Aside from the "HAY MAH TEEFS STIKKIN OUTA MAH MOUFS RONG" issue that all serpents have he's very nice looking. His idle is a simple glance back and forth, and a hiss.

He's trying to touch his nose with his tongue. Alternative caption was ":D".

WoWScrnShot_020411_101559.jpg (164.72 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

Serpents tend to be pretty large. Even at 82 he was a good head or two taller than Veeka, who is an Orc. I can only imagine how big they'd be compared to Dwarves or Goblins.

You ever tried to screenshot something twice as long as you while it's swimming? I don't have any screenshots of Cutshaw doing his 'I am a snake in the water hurr durr' act but I'm sure people who have done reviews on Serpents will. He sorta wriggles through the water.

Anyway, the smell of dead Troll was giving me Orgrimmar flashbacks(thanks, Gamon) so I hauled this sucker out to Uldum to get some proper lighting. I was on my half-hour break from camping Karoma, so I don't think I was looking for Madexx - not that he showed up. Jerk.

IS THAT CINDERBLOOM!?

WoWScrnShot_020411_104519.jpg (168.78 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

Combat with serpents is cool for a lot of reasons. One, you can make jokes about kicking butt with your snake who can be named Pants and/or Trouser for added hilarity, and two, the animations are pretty badass. Oh and the debuff is nice, but everyone mentions that so I'm focusing on animations/look here.

He holds threat well enough, although admittedly I wasn't doing balls-to-the-wall all out for screenshot purposes. One of my favorite things is that the serpent's main attack is a bite...and if you watch closely, his fangs actually extend out much like they would in real life.

Veeka photobombed my cool combat screenshot!

WoWScrnShot_020411_105033.jpg (130.49 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

As made clear by the message earlier up in the post, I didn't keep Cutshaw. I let him go a few days after taming him because he just doesn't fit Veeka's character, frankly. His animations and sounds are very nice, though, and if you want a 'unique' skin that isn't all over the place and/or extremely bright or obnoxious, the green is verrah nais. Very nice. Hurr.


More please! I'll get them done this time!

Name: Caboodle
Level: 34, closing in on 35 although I can probably make close to 40 if need be. :B
Exotics?: None yet. D:
Specifics: No cats or monkies, please. I have three cats already. :x Rares are fine.

Name: Veeka
Level: 85
Exotics?: Sure.
Specifics: No monkies, and nothing I'd have to camp excessively for as that makes me cry.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I'd like a random pet Please no spirit beasts, I have all of them, and try to avoid the higher level rares (Sambas, Terropene, etc) Since I've got those. ^^

If you could please post in the correct format as demonstrated on the first page, that would be nice. Also, all of the really hard to get rares are never rolled for, and if you get rolled a pet you have, it's asked that you please make a report on it anyway.

[Kormai]

Nubhorns: That is a really pretty coloured snake; a shame that it is in a place almost no one ever sees!

I will posting about some new ideas brought to you by Cialbi, Tyger and I once I have done some dusting!

Nubhorns (Caboodle)
Red Fox


Nubhorns (Veeka)
I promise to not make you cry
White Vulture


:::OR:::

Colour-Changing Hyena

[Geshou]

My challenge was to tame a green nether ray.

Still cant get pictures. Im sorry.

Taming it:
I tamed a Bloodthirsty Marshfang from Zangarmarsh. I tamed it the regular style: Freezing trap.
I named him Jak. Why? First thing that came to mind.

Looks:
It had very good looks. It had something that looked like tusks in its face. ( That i liked ) It had like, four smaller glowing eyes and one big glowing eye.
On the back it had a... special pattern that i dont know how to bescribe. Its fens on the front sides were very cool too.

Battle:
I tried a dungeon with this pet too and it... sucked. It did very low damage, took aggro from the tank a few times
and its special ability were worthless to me.
Didnt have time to do a pvp with it.

Last part:
Its swimming animations was its regular walking animations ( Or flying animations if you want to say that ) but slower.
Its diet is the worst for me. I never have fruit or meat in my bag. Its battle sounds... never heard any. ( Maybe im deaf? )

But in the end, I released it in the Slave pens. I hope it has it good with the nagas. It had good looks, but it was worthless in battle. You will only see me with one
if they make them stronger and better in battle.

Thats all folks.

No more rolls for me in a while. I have decided for a pet i will get.

[TygerDarkstorm]

K, my first report is from Venjin on .
These guys are easy to find out in southern Azshara.

Not real sure why I named him Manticore...the name just seemed sort of fitting I guess.

Looks:

This is one of the colors that I had never tamed before because I always thought it would be kind of blah--turns out I'm wrong and it's actually a pretty nice color. I think one of my favorite things about it is that it's not a boom in your face color like KK, Nuramoc, etc (I'm not saying those pets are bad colors as I love my KK, I'm saying it's a different kind of appreciation of color). Before I keep rambling, the base body color is red-orange, a black mane, cream colored belly and feet, and the wings are cream, red-orange, yellow, and dark brown on the tatters (top left). The wings are beautiful and the colors glow so they look sort of like flames.

Their tails are interesting, instead of being furry, it's pink and black and scaly--a tad strange looking, and yet, somehow, fitting (top right). Also looking scaly is their necks (bottom right).

All chimaeras have two heads(talk about a head case! bad pun, sorry >_<), and on the old world chimaeras, the left head has two horns and the right head has one, and both heads always have their mouths open and their tongues hanging out (bottom left).

Animations, Sounds, and Combat:
I'm including the animations and sounds with the combat because chimaeras don't have an idle animation (I don't count hovering there and flapping in place because it doesn't really come out that way in a pic).

Chimaeras are pretty basic when it comes to animations, they flap in place, they fly smoothly by your side when you run, and they fly under the water as they swim--not much variation really (top 2 photos on the left).

To tell the truth, I forgot to pay attention to Manti's sounds, so I'm going to bet that it's safe to say chimaeras are pretty quiet in combat as I typically remember loud pets.

That pic of Manti dashing in to the dummy spouting lightning and fire is probably one of my favorites and gives a good show casing of the chimaera in action in combat. Being exotic, chimaeras have two abilities--Frost Breath and Froststorm Breath (creative naming there Blizz -_-).

Frost Breath slows an enemy target for 5 seconds on a 10 second cooldown (7 seconds with longevity). This ability is *fantastic* for PvP and makes chimaeras one of the best kiting pets for BM when combined with frost traps. This ability can also come in handy for PvE to help a tank catch straying mobs as well as keep runners from going out of range while soloing. Froststorm Breath is a channeled AoE attack that requires a lot of setup to make sure the chimaera fires it properly in PvE, making worms a more superior pet choice for BM AoE (worm's burrow also scales better with our stats). However, my favorite thing to do with Froststorm Breath is go rogue hunting in PvP. See a pesky rogue disappear, start spamming Froststorm Breath and running around (it stays casting while moving). I made a rogue miserable in WG by doing this. Also, it should be noted that Froststorm Breath can not be autocast by the chimaera and must be activated manually.

Overall, I really like Manticore, but he doesn't match Venjin very well so she sent him on his way. I'm going to try rehoming him on Ruffley to see if he matches her.

My other reports coming soon.

[Zuilu]

Sorry about that ^^'

Name: Zuilu
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: No monkeys/apes. -shudder-

[Kormai]

Geshou: Thank you for your review. It's always a learning experience and although I get disappointed when someone doesn't fall in love with a pet, I'm sure they will find something they love sooner or later.

And now for some experimental randomness! Cialbi proposed this idea to Tyger and I. Given that the Random Pet Challenge is here not only to help people fall in love with new pets but to also help other people with opinions, I feel this idea would help very much with the latter.

Very Rare; Quite Common
As most of you know, in the normal Pet Challenge, Tyger and I exclude the very rare and hard to get pets such as all the Spirit Beasts, WotLK rares and Cata rares. Of course, because we don't include these, they never get reviewed (except the one special time when I got Acherontia to review Loque'nahak...ignore that ). The reason we do that is because we don't expect someone to go out and spend a week camping King Krush or Terrorpene just so they can review them here. That would be torture! So instead, what Cialbi suggested, was to add another optional category called "Rares I Have."

Rares I Have
In this new section you can put down any unique rares you have tamed that you wouldn't mind writing a review about. Or if you are currently camping Aotona/<insert rare name here> and would tame her/it regardless, you could probably put those in this section too. As mentioned before this extra section would be completely optional, and you would only put a rare in this category if you were willing to write a report on them.

Cialbi's example request:

Name: Cialbi
Level: 85
Exotics: Sure
Restrictions: No monkeys or red bats
Rares I Have: Arcturis, Albino Eyegouger, The Razza, Grubthor, Zora

This way, people can see other hunters' opinions on the very rare pets before they go and spend hours/days/weeks camping them. And to kickstart this new idea, Tyger, Cialbi and I are going to do some reviews of our unique rare skins.

A few of my pretties!!!!
Kormai
Ghostcrawler


Kormai
Nuramoc


Kåri
Jadefang


Kåri
Skoll


Normal Roll
Zuilu
Beige Moth

[TygerDarkstorm]

Ruffley's already got a review on OCJ in the works. ^_^ I'll have Venjin review Aotona and I'll get a review of Sambas going (THE WORLD WILL BOW BEFORE TWINKIE *ahem* >_>).

These won't come until after I get the reviews of my other challenges up, which won't be until after I get off work.

[Cialbi]

I am excited about this! So excited that I wound up with >150 screenshots. Don't worry, I've been culling them again and again until I get a far more reasonable number of shots, then I'll also be combining some into larger images. I'm almost at the point of writing reviews; still need to finish image editing.
_

I've elected to review two unique rares that Cialbi has tamed:

Arcturis


Grubthor/Oozeworm

[Cialbi]

This review is of a certain kind of worm that can only be found on two NPCs, Grubthor and Oozeworm, and both are rarespawns. I haven't heard much in the way of spawn timers for either of these rares since the latest patch, but I do know that before that patch, Grubthor had a fairly long spawn timer, and Oozeworm had a ridiculously long spawn timer. Even if their spawn timers are now closer together, I recommend trying for Grubthor in Silithus rather than Oozeworm in Dustwallow Marsh, due to the differences in traffic through those zones. This was my strategy, detouring into Silithus on my way from Uldum to Theramore whenever I needed to get to Stormwind.

So, I finally found and tamed Grubthor, but took a long time coming up with a name.
Meet Aquaregia

The term aqua regia ('royal water') is a common name for a mixture of two strong acids that is capable of dissolving gold. Seemed to be a fitting name for a gold-colored beast that spits acid.

I find that the colors on Aquaregia contrast in a manner that I really like. The beady green eyes give him an air of mischief, as you will see later. The skin is overall quite striking, and my personal favorite of all the worm skins available.


Like any model in the game, there are flaws.

The upper right image shows how the eyes aren't exactly attached to the rest of the face; look at the eye on the far right. The head is also clipping that protective flap above his head. The upper left and lower right images both show how thin the mandibles look when viewed from the wrong angle. The lower left image shows how during some animations, the mouth closes in a sloppy manner that causes parts of the mouth to clip. But, as you can see, that's a whole lot of nitpicking, and I find that the ld world worm models to be surprisingly well done. No clue why they have both mandibles and a beaked mouth, but then again I don't burrow through the ground by using my face and mouth as a drill.

Worm animations are fairly simple, but graceful. It should be noted that, with exception to the slithering tongue, worm animations are the same as snake animations. Their idle animation is nothing that hasn't been seen here before; peering from side to side.

Their run animation is a snakelike slither. Looking at the midsection from the front reminds me of the lower half of a skier doing moguls, which is a quite graceful animation.

But, what really takes the cake is their swim animation. I won't try to describe it, except to say that the Snake/Worm swim animation is tied with the Wind Serpent swim animation as being my favorite swimming animation in hunter pets. Instead, I made a collage of us swimming down to the bottom of the second Well of Eternity that is surrounded by the roots of Nordrassil (BTW, it's really deep, so you'll need to have some way of breathing underwater. Cialbi had Hydrocane equipped for that swim).


Upon resurfacing, I got a nice screenshot. Unfortunately, it is a cannot-unsee image, and shows what is a major reason for some people to not tame an old world worm.

You've been warned. It doesn't disturb me, since I think that he looks more like a pencil than anything else.

Surfacing.jpg (50.31 KiB) Viewed 3841 times

A weird thing happened when I used Burrow Attack. Rather, it failed to happen

They're taking damage from Burrow attack, but Aquaregia just sat there, idle as if her weren't in combat.

One more interesting discovery; worms will use the same animation as the swimming idle animation when they are sent flying through the air.

We were just blowing off some steam built up from having the Ruins of Eldarath as an archaeology digsite. That place is ridiculously large for a single digsite.

While Burrow Attack no longer holds aggro (and no longer has an animation, apparently ), I believe that worms are still great pet tanks with great threat generation. The reason, apart from them being Tenacity, is their special ability. Acid Spit applies a debuff to its target, increasing all physical damage taken by 4%. A hunter has to be BM to tame a Worm, and of all the attacks that BM hunters use, only auto shots, Kill Command, Multi-Shot, and Kill Shot will benefit by having the Acid Spit debuff applied to their target. When considering how much of a threat gain that is, Kill Command isn't counted because all the threat generated by that attack goes to the pet and not the hunter. So, Acid Spit is only going to cause a small increase in threat output by a BM hunter. Contrast that to the Worm applying the debuff, or any other hunter pet for that matter. For a hunter pet, every single attack available to them will deal Physical damage, save Thunderstomp, Burrow Attack, and Froststorm Breath. While increased T-stomp threat would certainly be nice, you won't be seeing a Worm applying Acid Spit to more than two targets at a time. Burrow Attack drops aggro anyways, and Froststorm Breath is exclusive to Chimaeras. So, hunter pets get a significant damage increase from attacking a target affected by the Acid Spit debuff, and an even more significant threat increase thanks to Kill Command. Hence, a net threat increase for the pet relative to the BM hunter.

[Lupis]

Finally got my White Spiky Crocolisk review done!

These guys only come on two mobs, one 37 and one 82. The lower level one is a rare spawn, so he'd be fairly hard to find. I know I couldn't find him when I checked. The second one is easy to find, but you must be high level. I tamed a Neferset Crocolisk.



Lets take a look, shall we? First things first, the model and the skin. Immediately I noticed that he has a beautiful skin. The grey is slightly greenish tan and even yellow in parts, with pretty cream/yellow stripes coming up from his belly. The stripes really struck me as well done and very nicely colored.



And look at those pretty eyes! Bright, bright green, as can be seen below. His teeth are well animated, 3d and a striking dark grey. His horns are the same color. I really like how uneven his teeth are - I think "Snaggletooth" just about sums it up.



I always thought his fins were dark navy blue, while everyone else says they're black or dark grey. We're both wrong, it's a mix. A blend of dark grey with a subtle hint of blue, it adds a splash of blue to this mostly green, grey and yellow skin. Very pretty!



Now, lets look at the problems this model has. Note that these can be opinionated.
First, the ugly sockets that his legs are stuck into. It looks like rolls of fat are built up on top of each leg, or they're made out of legos or something like that. Eeewww.



His front legs also have a texture that was stretched out to distortion, and his neck at certain angles looks like it was just pasted onto his body. Not overpoweringly bad, but a little noticeable.



And, well, he's FAT. This isn't a problem for everyone, I just think he looks overly round and pudgy.



Moving on to animations! He has one idle that he cycles through very often, swinging his head, snapping his jaws and lashing his tail.



Wait a minute!



As for running, it's a fast waddle with a madly swinging tail. At low levels when he's a very small pet, this makes him look spastic. It improves at higher levels.



His attacks, also, are fairly boring. He lunges forward to snap at the enemy, and sometimes does a more flashy snap. Note that getting a picture of the simple attack is REALLY HARD! I didn't manage, and only got a hundred pictures of the croc ending said attack, as you can see here.



His flashy snap at the enemy makes him lunge forward, raising off the ground to swing his head and bite. Unfortunately it propelled his head through the training dummy. D'oh!



Where this pet really excels, though, is swimming. He looks incredibly natural. Idle, he hangs calmly in the water like a log. Very realistic.



His swim is impressive, legs close to his body as he waves his tail like a real alligator would. Very smooth and fluid.



And as for sounds, well, he's a crocolisk. He gasps loudly quite often and makes loud snapping sounds when he fights.

Now then, DPS and tanking. DPS wise he's not so great, unless specced into DPS talents. He's tenacity, so his main purpose is to tank, and tank he does. Very well. However, his special skill, Ankle Crack, isn't very useful in solo/PvE. I can only see it being very useful in PvP, and by that point a hyena would be better for the damage it does.
I trust my crocolisk to be a great tank, though. My ghost hydralisk is my favorite tank of all my characters.

Overall, a very enjoyable pet, though again Vallrok won't be keeping it. I'm glad I got to test out that skin, but he has a hydra. The other hunter I'm leveling at the moment has a crocolisk, however, and I'm really enjoying the pet. (Yellow one from Dustwallow)

Another?
Vallrok
BM level 82
Exotics: Sure
Restrictions: No monkeys, please! Gorillas are fine though.
Rares I Have: King Krush, Loque'nahak, Gondria, Skoll, Arcturis, Aotona, Rak'shiri.

[Daranara]

Oh man oh man oh man you guys!

*cough* Okay, sorry. Let's start from the beginning.

My pet this time was:



The white old-world chimera!

Then I got this roll, I kind of sighed. I do not like chimeras. The old-world ones were funny looking, and the Outland ones are terrifying toothy monsters. But I agreed to do this, so I soldiered on.

I quickly decided if I was going to do this, I was going to take the named one. So I sought out the last named white chimera: Brumeran. He was not happy to see me, as you might imagine.



Eventually though, I managed to convince him to give me a second look.



And soon enough, he was at my side. Presenting, for your perusal, the chimera extrordinare, Bob and Poe!



Okay, so a history of the name. I have a terrible habit of treating things with multiple heads like each head has his own unique personality, so I end up trying to name every single head when I have things that have more than one. Of course, this means I have to try and come up with names that fit in the slots of my games or whatever. Both Bob and Poe are short, and so they often fit pretty well. This pet was no different.

Here's a quick history of the name!



He's a bit of a far cry from the usual Bobs and Poes, eh?

Anywho, let's have a look!





Bob and Poe are a lovely white color, with various shades of blue as shading and accents. Both necks have a gorgeous blue mane. Seriously, I love this color. Along the sides and bottom of their necks there are scales, though they fade into fur on the body.

His heads have very severe expressions, and the craziest long nostrils. Their mouths are filled with the usual 2D teeths, and long forked tongues in the same color as their heads. But erf, the horns. I honestly think this pet would be made so much better if each head had the same number of horns. Preferably two. That's just me, though.



From behind, now! From behind you can see that the mane goes most of the way down the back. You can see the edges of his wings have faded into blue at the edges. The edges of the wings are ragged and holey, as though life is rough for our new friend.

His feet have clawed paws, and are very cute. Granted, they only ever just dangle, as chimeras never land or attack with their feet. I personally think this is a sad fact, though I can understand that trying to fold up these wings would be difficult and not really worth it.

Their tail is hairless, mottled, and blue. It kind of reminds me of a rat's tail in texture. It splits into two near the middle, and the ends have tufts on them, like a lion's.

Overall, this is a -very- pretty model. I kind of love this color scheme, and the model is highly detailed and pretty fluid.

There are only two real disappointments I have. First, this is a -very- low and horizontal model. He doesn't fly high, and he occasionally feels like a big, low flying sheet flying about knee height, clipping into you. Oh yes, did I mention he clips into you when you're standing around? Yeah, totally does.

The second thing is his animations. There's not much in the way of variation of animations. He kind of flaps along, kicking his little feet. Most of the variation is in his fighting. When he fights, he chomps with his heads and sometimes does a pretty swooping motion, like so:



It is my favorite of his animations. But yeah, he can flap and kick his feet or kick his feet and flap. Don't look for a wide range of moves, is what I'm saying.

But anyway! Let's talk about combat!

Bob and Poe are a cunning pet, which means he'd probably be fun for PVP. He has a slow for a special, which is nice on runners. He chomped aggro pretty well, but he's a touch on the delicate side. Not a tank, this kid.

His other special is this:



Froststorm breath! An AOE you have to set off yourself, but it comes in the form of a prettypretty blue flame. It's kind of fun to set off and then go running around to watch it spread.

So! while running with him, Bob and Poe garnered quite a bit of attention. There aren't a whole lot of Chimeras around on my server, and the ones I do see are all Outland-style, so it's a little understandable. While running dailies, I was asked more than once what on earth my pet was, or told how neat he was. All the rare pets I have, and it's Bob and Poe that's the crowd pleaser. Who would have guessed?

In conclusion, chimeras are pretty okay pets. I have been converted. I will be keeping him happily!

Okee, one last slot! May I have another?

Daranara
level 85
exotics okee!
no restrictions!
Rares I Have: Loque, Skoll, Arcturis, Gondria, Karoma, Ghostcrawler, Krush, Sambas, Jadefang, Madexx (black), Olm, Lord Kri.

Now, I'm not sure if Olm or Kri would count as "rares", but since they can be a pain to get at, I thought they might? If not, feel free to ignore them :3

[TygerDarkstorm]

Lupis: Ankle Crack is actually an incredibly handy soloing ability for non-BM hunters, especially as they're leveling. I use one on Yzma and I don't even bother waiting for the pet to get there and attempt to get aggro before unloading on the mob since Ankle Crack will keep them slowed before they get to me. Just how I see it though. ^_^

Also, it wouldn't be Vallrok without Skoll so if you don't mind, I'm gonna preset your roll to him. If you want a reroll, just let me know.

Lupis(Vallrok):
Skoll


Daranara:
Gondria


Dara, I preset yours to Gondria just so we can get some of the rares reports going, if you'd like a reroll though, let me know.

[Daranara]

Hey, no worries! I've been wanting an excuse to take some pictures with her anyway!

[Cialbi]

Well, depending on whether or not I can fall asleep soon, I may do my Arcturis report tonight, but it wil probably have to wait for tomorrow. I'm also debating whether or not to post a silly extension of my latest report; I just so happened to notice a trend when looking through the dozens of swimming screenshots I had taken...

[TygerDarkstorm]

All righty, Yzma's report on .

Meet Cleo, a purple wasp from Feralas (her name was supposed to be Clio, one of the Greek muses from the Disney movie Hercules, but I mistyped it and it stuck).


Looks:

This is the second time I've made a review on one of these lovely wasps--the first time on Venjin for the theme challenge. I'd never had a silithid style wasp before and, just like then, I'm still moved by how they look (I know, that sounds corny but it's true). This purple is really pretty in game with the usual black silithid markings and pink wings (top left).

The center grouping of pictures is to highlight those different regions. The...claws I guess...are the usual low res texture used on pets and wasps have about six of them, the stinger also seems to have a low res texture map and almost seems as if it's loosely connected to the body--kinda looks weird if you stare at it too long. The faces of the silithid model wasps are really cool looking--the shape and the eyes just seem fierce yet regal to me.

And from the back you can see the lovely wing detailing as well as her traditional silithid patterning (top right).

Animations and Sounds:

Wasps are very busy little...bees...Their wings are always flapping and make a nice humming sound that I find soothing. They are also always moving their little claws around. For their idle, they clean themselves, and they do it often, even managing to twist their heads in painful angles (top left and right).

I believe their run and swim animations are the same, although her swim picture sort of makes it look like she's trying to paddle with those claws (bottom left and right). I like the way the wasps fly, it seems befitting of the way they're built--in my head I refer to it as an undulating like movement, and after looking up the definition, it's pretty accurate.

Combat:

Wasps only have one combat animation, and that's to latch onto their target with their claws and jab that stinger into them. I actually really like it and never actually noticed it 'til now.

Now, I'm not very familiar with wasps and their special, and since a dummy's not a good way to test that, I'm going to borrow (read: steal) Cialbi's assessment from the pet theme challenge of its usefulness in PvP:

I'll point out the advantages of a wasp in PvP. You get access to Swoop, which is to be used instead of Dive (not both at the same time; that's a waste of focus). So, a wasp can immobilize your opponent for one second, and already be in melee range by the time that second is up. This means that avoiding Icewind's Sting is next to impossible unless Hand of Freedom or an equivalent buff has been applied to the wasp's target. On top of that, your pet gets to spend those 2 seconds merrily gouging your opponent, unlike a bat that applies its stun at range and then flies into melee range and begins attacking. Finally, the CD on Sting is shorter than that on Sonic Blast.

I suppose there could be a few PvE uses for it as a PvE ability as well, but I'm too tired to think of them at the moment. I'd also like to point out that if doing PvP with friends, make sure they're aware when you have your wasp use its stun since it puts all stuns on DR.

My next reports to come after I've had sleep since I feel like I might be starting to get sick.

[Lupis]

FARON!!
Yes, you're right. Vallrok *must* do a Far- I mean Skoll review.

Okay. Here goes. Expect a lot of screenshots.

Skoll review.

The spirit beast Skoll is infamous, being one of the Northrend rare spawns. He's a heck of a hard pet to find. And when he first came out, I was sure that I hated him. I hated the Saber Wolf model, and he looked too bright. Ugh!

Skip forward a few days. I'm on vacation at the beach. I'm losing sleep because I can't stop thinking about Skoll.

A couple days after I got home, I went to Storm Peaks and, lo and behold, Skoll was up.

Now, for the real review, starting with the model and the skin I hated. Though lightning is often flashing over him, this is what he looks like plain.



Simple, no? Regardless, I love it. He's using the Saber Worg model that I don't like, but I love it on him. His waist is very, VERY thin, and his ruff is tall and spiky. His jaws are... broken. >.> The first Saber WOrg I tamed was named Brokenmaw for a reason. Anyway, the skin on him makes up for all this. It's a sort of dark navy blue, tinted very slightly green. The color reminds me of deep sea creatures. On his legs the dark blue brightens to electric blue, as with his face. His mouth, teeth, claws and eyes are a very bright blue-white.



Oh, and he glows a bit. There's a blue glow centered on his shoulders, though it shows coming from his mouth, too.



Here's the best part, though: Lightning!





It constantly flashes over him and it's VERY hard to get a good picture of it.

I noticed that his mane has the 2d problem, but it was dealt with fairly well. There's another, smaller mane under it that makes it look a lot better.



Animations! Running, he runs like a worg. Some people think worgs look like they're limping badly when they run, but I've never actually seen how it does. Guess I'm just bad at seeing things. xD



And, running forward... This would be a scary sight to see.



Idle he has two animations, but one of them is so rare that I've only seen it perhaps once. That would be his howl animation. He wags his tail fairly often, though, and he has a well animated tail that looks very nice. Isn't he cute?



Now, attacks. He has three animations, two lunge/bites and a howl. The bites are only slightly different, coming in from different sides.







HOWL! Unfortunately, this animation takes so long that it's cut off halfway through every time.



Fighting: He's a Ferocity pet, so he's DPS based - and DPS he does! Spirit Beasts are my pets of choice for heroics. Now, he's not an amazing tank. He needs Mend Pet to be up most of the time, and he can't AoE aggro. His only multiple-mob aggro ability is his Spirit Mend heal.
Speaking of Spirit Mend, I love this ability. Running lowbies through dungeons is much easier when you can heal them up in an instant. It's a little cumbersome to use, but it can be a nice pick-me-up.
He also has Roar of Courage, which is very nice if you don't have a DK or a Warrior.

Overall, I love this pet. He's one of my favorite pets out there, if not my favorite, just for sentimental reasons. He's so closely tied into my troll's RP story that he's taken the place as the main character - the troll is just 'that guy'. It's Faron and Vallrok, not Vallrok and Faron. And you'd better know it, because Faron Is Watching You.



Edit- another?
Vallrok
82 BM
Exotics? Sure
Restrictions? No monkeys! Gorillas are okay.
Rares I Have: Loque, Skoll, Gondria, Arcturis, Aotona, Rak'shiri, Pogeyan.

[Kormai]

Lupis
Yellow Wind Serpent


Just gotta get a few screen shots of my lovely Jadefang's attacks