Guess who's finally getting his promised report done?
I elected to report on the
Spectral Bear; better known as Arcturis.
As a pet family, Spirit Beasts have always taken after Cats. They remain the only pet families that can truly stealth, and also received Roar of Courage, which is probably the most powerful special ability in terms of DPS as far as hunter pets are concerned. However, death knights will, and warriors & shamans can, provide an equivalent buff (the caveat for warriors and shamans is that providing this buff limits what other raid buffs they can provide, so it will depend heavily on spec and raid comp for those classes). But, if you have a Spirit Beast instead of a Cat, then you get an extra benefit; their exotic ability, Spirit Mend. A heal with an almost negligible focus cost that functions like a druid's Regrowth (powerful heal with both instant healing and a HoT), Spirit Mend is easily one of my favorite pet family abilities. The limitation on this ability doesn't come from the strength of the heal, but the length of the cooldown. Overall, Spirit Beasts have truly become more than flashy trophies for hunters. I honestly just wish that another Spirit Beast skin would be developed for a new named mob that
isn't a rarespawn, but that's another topic.
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Arcturis is a rarespawn found in Grizzly Hills, and only has one spawn point and an exceptionally lengthy spawn timer. It's worth noting that Arcturis does not count towards the Northern Exposure or Frostbitten achievements; the beast was implemented
after those achievements. If someone is arguing otherwise and wants to kill Arcturis, then they need to re-read their achievement criteria.
I shall include my taming story, since it's more interesting than how I got Grubthor (multiple flybys, one day Grubthor set off _NPCScan, I tamed Grubthor... very anticlimatic story). Late one night (it may have already been the early morning) I was questing in Grizzly Hills, working my way towards the Grizzled Veteran achievement. Why I was doing this, I couldn't tell you; I don't remember having much of any reason for doing so. This was back in patch 3.3 when we still had a maximum of 5 pets, and Call Stabled Pet, but anyone who kept up on the news from the Cataclysm beta knew that the stable system was going to change. I, like many other hunters, had a full stable.
As it turned out, I wasn't alone that night. Some random priest, who happened to be leveling through Grizzly Hills at the time, announced on the general channel that Arcturis was up. I...didn't know what to do. I use Call Stabled Pet, and take a look. Eranugarr; no, that's my raiding wolf. Hooch; no, that's The Beast, and I'm not going to try and retame
that puppy. Cyfaillid; no, that's the Silithid Ravager, and will probably no longer be tamable once my stables expand (I wasn't particularly well-informed with Cataclysm news at the time). So, that leaves me with Fonlithien (Ghamoo-ra) and Argolak (Rotting Agam'ar) as the pets I can afford to abandon. Since Fonlithien is my soloing pet, and I do a lot of soloing, that leaves me with Argolak. So, I pick Argolak and close the stables window, and respond on the general channel. I quickly get invited to a group, and flew over to the priest's location. Abandon Pet, Freezing Arrow, Tame Beast; the tame itself was uneventful. I then proceeded to spend the next half hour or so running around, zapping critters with Spirit Strike, and then using Eyes of the Beast to run around and zap flagged NPCs with Spirit Strike. I later named him Aquind, after my brother's first character (a druid) that he had deleted at some point because neither of us knew how to drop professions. Maybe Aquind had gone off to help with Vordrassil, then some terrible accident occurred that left part of him roaming Grizzly Hills as a feral spirit? At any rate, Aquind has since been with Cialbi through a lot, becoming one of Cialbi's key pets even after his stables were expanded. I doubt that Cialbi will ever tame another Spirit Beast, because he will always be relying upon Aquind.
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Arcturis has a very unique model. It has the same skeleton as tamable bears, but not quite the same model. Arcturis is based off the following model:
But, Arcturis isn't merely a ghostly version of this model; there are other details that aren't on the above base model. First off, Arcturis has a horse mane.
It's kinda pixellated, but at least it doesn't look as obviously 2D as the horse manes on many other beasts. Second, the less opaque parts of Arcturis actually have a very neat texture, reminiscent of light refracting through the rippling surface of water.
I honestly never noticed this before I undertook this pet challenge. If you look closely at Kormai's signature, you can see the same effect playing on Arcturis in that image. However, I should point out that this is a static feature; these lines won't move if you keep the camera (and bear) in one spot. The third feature that distinguishes Arcturis from the base model would be the 'spectral smoke'.
It will be visible in many of the other screenshots that I'll post. The spectral smoke will emanate from somewhere between Arcturis's shoulderblades, and lazily drift upward as it fades out of existence. These wisps of spectral smoke will otherwise be stationary; when running, Arcturis will leave a breadcrumb trail of spectral smoke. Interestingly enough, spectral smoke isn't unique to Arcturis; Gondria will emit the stuff as well. The following screenshot is of Cialbi and Aquind with a friend of mine, shortly after taming Gondria.
Aquind and Amethyst, the kindred spirits.
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I may love Aquind to death, but ever since taming him I've found the flaws with the model to be painfully obvious. In short, here is what I am talking about:
Not only can you see the mouth when looking at Arcturis from behind, you also get a pretty horrible view of the model. All those clashing lines don't really make me think 'bear' so much as 'fail'. Frankly, it looks horrid, and appalled me when Arcturis first ran to my side as my pet spirit beast. But, that first glimpse of Pixel-Ass Bear didn't last long, as my new spirit beast did what any newly tamed cat will do; enter Prowl (Spirit Beasts have since had their ability renamed Spirit Walk, but that's a purely aesthetic change).
So much better - but so much slower. I then chose Boar's Speed when talenting my new pet, a talent that I almost never use, and ever since Aquind has spent most of his time Spirit Walking. I think he actually prefers that. Over time, I've been bothered less and less by the downside of having a half see-through bear, and now accept Aquind for what he is. He still looks much nicer imo when he does the Spirit Walk, though.
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Some pets don't show the same as the hunter when Camouflage is active; glows and effects failing to get muted is typical. Some beasts (typically the 'ghostly' pet models) won't render properly and become completely invisible. With Arcturis, this is true of every part of that bear save that grin.
I refer to Arcturis under Camouflage as the 'Cheshire Bear' (Click on the image below).
Oh, and final pic is just for the
's
I believe that Frankie gave my cockatiel some ideas, and he wasn't to be outdone by some flightless bird. Poor Aquind.
_
Well, I went ahead and renewed my account for one more month before hunkering down until the family's financial situation improves. Who knows, I may get lucky and land a paid internship next school year. Anyways, I'm not quite ready to ask for another random assignment just yet. Maybe later this week.
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After a few moments of thought, I decided to name her Brandy, after a dog my family had when I was really young.
sorry)
I used wowhead and wowpedia to go through all the quest chains, went to all the quest givers in the chains and no one had any quests. I put in a ticket and they said "Thank you for contacting us, this is a known issue that we are working to resolve." I other words: Yeah we know and we'll fix it eventually. I'm guessing I was phased from a quest giver or something because 3 months later...about a week and a half ago...I did the process again and finally found a quest where there hadn't been one before.
Also note that this was after my paid race change to Worgen and before I begged them to change me back...she is not the same 
). The colour is pretty, the animations are smooth and I love her squee!
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