Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[TygerDarkstorm]

Lupis (Vallrok)
Yellow Armored Chimaera

*Squees!* I LOVE this chimaera color. ^_^

*Eagerly awaits the report*

[Nubhorns]

Hi guys! Low on screenshots today as I have a hard time really connecting with this pet and quite a bit has already been said about foxes anyway.

The pet in question is...

Skin Name: Red Fox
Mobs: Hill Fox(16, Loch Modan), Whitetail Fox(35-36, Eastern Plaguelands)
Family: Foxes
Tree: Ferocity

:D

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Meet Monty!
I don't have any screenshots of taming Monty as I took them on the other computer a few days back and forgot to upload them. Monty is a Whitetail Fox from the Eastern Plaguelands. I ventured over there at 35 on my Tauren hunter and...didn't pick one up for a while. A great deal of the foxes you first see are 36. D'oh! The first few 35 foxes I found were ninja'd by the cold, uncaring teeth of the roaming mastiffs in the zone - if you're the appropriate level, do be careful if you go to tame one alone. An empty stable and a melee + ranged combo can make things pretty nasty.

I'm on a boat! ...zeppelin. Same thing.

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Foxes share the skeleton of the coyotes, which is another favorite of mine. He has comically big ears and spindly legs, which I may be biased towards seeing as I draw most of my canines much like that. He's got green-yellow eyes and teeny tiny little claws for toes. His fur is really a bright orange, but it's most reminiscent of red foxes(although those can come in a whole different range of non-red colors), with a bright white belly and tail tip. His legs fade into black along with his claws. He's pretty much your basic 'fox'.

The fox model is really quite angular in some spots(it's most obvious in the face), but I think it suits them fairly well. They have the same idle animations as the coyote: sit and scratch, and a sniff to the left and right which they do pretty frequently. I don't know if they howl, though. Their special, 'Play', is cute enough but has a few glaring errors that bother me enough to not use it. The dance looks much, much better with coyotes and their thicker legs.

Sticklegs!

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They also seem to lean forward a little too much for me. The back legs could probably stand to inch forward a bit, so they look less like they're about to fall over. I know it's not a particularly natural stance for them, but still.

As for combat, Foxes do a renamed Dust Cloud that puts them in an enraged state, causing them to mercilessly hunt every critter in the zoneslows enemy attack speed within a 20 yard range. And makes them crittervores. Woe unto the poor hunter with Tailspin on who doesn't notice the single rat caught in the fray, who promptly takes off towards the giant, sleeping boss with the fox hot on its tail. Probably best to play with it off, unless you can reliably pull your rabid critter-killing maniac back to your side in time.

DPSwise they're ferocity pets, so they put out a decent chunk of damage. Without any damage buffs though, they aren't quite as useful as cats or spirit beasts - but they can be a heck of a lot cuter.


Monty is, frankly, downright adorable, and so it breaks my heart to say I don't like him as much as I thought I would. Generally I'm quite fond of foxes, especially the red skin, which is really the only one I can stand. I may look into getting him on my main, but Caboodle is just not a fox person.

Taking this moment to say the Move To command is infuriating.

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I've been hunting Zaricotl on and off for Veeka's report - I may just get my old Zari restored instead. In the mean time, I'd like another for Caboodle here. :)

Name: Caboodle
Level: 37(although I do plan on grinding it out to 40 today)
Exotics? Not yet!
Specifics: No monkeys or cats, please. :B
Rares I Own: Pogeyan, Humar, Mahamba, Silithid Harvester

[Reyvteil]

Name: Reyvteil
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: None
Rares I have: Madexx, Loque Nahak, Nuramoc

Can't wait to see my random pet!

[Kormai]

So the hunt for Kari & Kormai's Madexxs begins...

Nubhorns (Caboodle)
Awww I didn't realise you had abandoned your Zaricotl! I can reroll if you want.
Ancient Sea Turtle/Gamoo-ra


Reyvteil
Red Firefly/Blacksting

[TygerDarkstorm]

Oooo, I'm interested in that firefly report. I saw one in Ironforge today on my mage and they're surprisingly pretty. =3

[Kormai]

If I had the need for a wasp/the room in my stable, that is the wasp that Kormai would have. They are very pretty.

[Belleirle]

My report on Grey Turtle .

Just a warning, there might be some copy/paste with a few parts from my previous Turtle.

I head off to Dustwallow Marsh to find myself another turtle. Spotted one quickly and flew down and hit tame. She seemed a tad grumpy at first, but warmed up to me. I figured since I already had a Turtle named Cooper, that it would be funny/kinda cute to name her Alice.


The turtle model is still ok with me, but it does have it's flaws. Their shell looks a little strange with how it's put together, and the lining texture between each sure doesn't help. They have that wierd little second shell, although that could just be me not really knowing what turtles are like actually. Their feet/nails are a little low res too. Their very sharp, pointed nose just looks bad, and when combined with how the eyes are set makes them slightly frightening to look at head on. As for this color skin, it's an odd combination of colors, but I really enjoy how they look. Seafoam green and pink wouldn't be my first idea as colors for a grey turtle. Alice as magenta-purple eyes, which go with the pink of the shell lining. I'm liking this skin over Cooper's orange model.



There's nothing to noticeable about turtle animations for the most part. They aren't really slow or fast when running, and their swim animation is much like their running one. While idling, they do a body shuffle turn to look to a side and will also streatch their necks out and sniff the air with their heads held high. Alice as made no idling noise that I've heard.


When fighting, Alice was a great tank, better than my other turtle. This was probably do to a different spec compared to Cooper though. She also did more dps than some of my other tanky pets. Her spcial ability, Shell Shield, is a damage reduction for her, which makes her a great tank for solo or even groups. She does make sound when fighting, a kind of chomping sounds almost. Her fighting animation is a basic bite really. I managed to catch a picture of thunderstomp this time though


In the end, I plan on keeping Alice over my other turtle Cooper, but I'll wait til I need some more stable space before setting Cooper back into the wild.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Frankie is quite the riot. He's like "Hey Mom! Hey Mom! Look at me!"

[Daranara]

@LupisDarkMoon: Yeah, I couldn't very well describe the swim, so I just gave the animation.

Anywho!

My round this time was for the white fox! I quickly flew off to my favorite one ever: Winterspring!

After flying around in pretty much every part of the zone aside from the part I wanted, I managed to find a snowfrolic fox! I considered her for a moment, pondering her name. I very nearly named her Franziska, due to her coloring, but since I already -have- one, I went with the next best thing.

Presenting for the forums: Adrian the fox! cookie if you catch the reference.



Despite being called "white", she's really more of a light powder blue color, with a white underside and long black socks. Her eyes are a bright pinkish color, which shows up against her fur nicely.



From the front, we can see that (now it may be my settings) that the texture where her inner ears meet her head is met in a kind of sharp line. Aside from that, there's no real glaring errors I can see. I love her delicate little feets~



Oh wait, scratch that. When she does her sitting down idle animation, her chest goes all pointy and awkward.



But hey, look at her cute little feet! Is her neck a little long? I can't decide.

Animation wise, if you've seen the coyote models, you know what to expect. Snuffling around, scratching, the occasional howly. She's pretty sweet, overall.



Combat wise, she's pretty solid. Her attacks are lunges and chomps, biting her enemies into tasty noms.



This is the only picture I managed to get, but on some of the bites, her jaw unhinges and she ends up with a 90-degree angle mouth. It's a little awkward.



Her special is tail spin! Like dust cloud for tallstriders, it reduces attack speed. It also manages to hit every critter within range, sending her off after them once her target is dead. Kind of cute sometimes, but overall it's a bad thing.

Overall, if you don't mind keeping track of your pet's specials (or keeping them on passive, I suppose), a fox isn't such a bad choice!

May I have another? The usual info applies, rare reviews are perfectly fine (with strikes being the ones I have already done):

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

[Nubhorns]

Erm...so this one started out a little funny.


Skin: White Vulture
Mob: Zaricotl(48 Rare, Badlands)
Family: Carrion Birds
Tree: Ferocity
Special: Demoralizing Screech

Zaricotl. Who doesn't remember that name? The sucker was hugely OP for the zone, flying out of nowhere and mercilessly ganking everyone like a rogue on crack. With wings.

I tamed this guy after his molt, and at the suggestion of my friend promptly named him Pickles. I don't usually like flying pets, much less birds. Carrion Birds on a whole tend to be forgotten by a lot of people, or at least lumped in with the Birds of Prey. Unlike their BoP friends(lol), Carrion Birds are ferocity pets.

This means that in theory, your dinky little vulture can do just as much damage as your giant lion.

ANYWAY. Pickles was my bro. We didn't go 'everywhere' and there were some times when he sat in my stable working on his crocheting skill or whatever, but I liked him because he was 'so ugly he was cute' and so he had a relatively solid spot in my stables. I believe I dropped him to tame Madexx or something along those lines, shrugging it off and saying I'd just go pick him up again later.

Understandably, Pickles was pissed. When I got the roll to do a review on him I parked Veeka in the Badlands where he spawns - could never find him. Days passed. Nothing. I finally put in a ticket today to get my dear Pickles to come home.

Blizzard has a Bird Whispering dept. just for people like me.

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So with Pickles back by my side stuffing his face with as many dragon flanks as I'm willing to spare, we can get this review on the road.

Pickles: o_______o

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Vultures are ugly, as Pickles here so kindly displays. While they're not exactly lookers in real life either, the white skin sort of takes it to new levels of silliness completely appropriate for this hunter. It transcends ugly, morphing into this adorable bird-shaped ball of ugly that rivals mastiffs and 'cannot unsee' plaguehounds. He's ugly and he knows it. And if you tell him he's ugly, he'll just give you that "o_______o" face.

FLAP FLAP FLAP

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His skin is a curious shade of orange with red and yellow tints. Makes me think of candy, namely Starbursts. His feathers are bright bright bright white, even when I'm not mousing over him(although it's a lovely creamy white color in the right light), and his wingtips, claws and beak are black. He has these hilariously funky-looking cracked-out red eyes - they make him look more than a little Axe Crazy.

Like a phoenix, only it's a vulture.

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His tail feathers are the same beautiful orange gradient as his skin, which seems a little funny in retrospect but suits him quite nicely.

Even at 82 this bird is absolutely huge. Did I call him dinky earlier? He's not. He's bigger than my wolf.

IT'S...HUGE.

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The Carrion Bird special is Demoralizing Screech. It's nothing to write home about. The same as demo roar and demo shout, only on a dps-oriented pet. I still have some apprehensions about letting a bird tank, but I hauled butt out to Uldum to find out.

Chicken vs Lizard.

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I...am pleasantly surprised to say that Carrion Birds are competent solo "tanks" and moreso in the DPS department. They are cats and wolves of a different skin.

Chicken vs Bug.

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Would I bring him to solo harder content? Probably not - I'd feel more comfortable with my boar or turtle. For things like lower level Wrath dungeons where the dps enables you to mostly negate the need for a real 'tank', I might consider it. I have to get him to 85 first!

Bye bye, Pickles!

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Gonna finish Caboodle's new one before I ask for another for Veeka here. :)

[TygerDarkstorm]

Cool thing about carrion birds as well is they can function sort of like AoE tanks with their screech even though they'll be squisher than a tenacity or cunning pet.

[Kalhoun]

I haven't done this for quite some time, but what the heck... I'd like to go again. And I'd be very happy to blab on and on about any of the rares I have.

Name: Kalhoun
Lvl: 85
Exotics: you betcha
Restrictions: Zero!
Rares: Sambas, Karoma, Loque'nahak, Skoll, Harakiss the Infestor, King Krush, Gezzarak the Huntress, Gosh-Haldir

[Xella]

Presenting for the forums: Adrian the fox! cookie if you catch the reference.

Oh man, Adrian and Franziska. Two of my favourite PW women!

Anyways, I'll give this a go, though I'm not 85 yet so that sort of cuts out some of the options D:

Name: Basanti
Level: 83
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: None
Rares I Have: Skoll, Arcturis, King Krush, Slaverjaw, Harakiss the Infestor, Mazzranache, Gosh-Haldir, Grimtotem Spirit Guide (does that count as a rare nowadays? Oh well, included anyway!)

[TygerDarkstorm]

You can participate in this at any level you want.

Also, just as a note guys, the rares I have section is for the hard to get rares, not easy ones. If it's an easy to get rare, we assign them anyway as well as an alternative pet in case you don't feel like looking for the rare.

[Daranara]

Presenting for the forums: Adrian the fox! cookie if you catch the reference.

Oh man, Adrian and Franziska. Two of my favourite PW women!

Teehee, cookies for you! :3 I kind of love them :B

Anyway, man Zaricotl is pretty neat! I might have to nab him on my black/white/grey pet hunter once she's big enough.

[Calmai]

Name: Calmai
Lvl: 85
Exotics: Yep!
Restrictions: I already have two wasps and two Devilsaurs, so I'd prefer something a little different but I'm not picky. The only thing I say no to is monkeys. They're so ugly and I can't stand them. D:
Rares I have: Karoma, Ghostcrawler, Grubthor, and for honorable mention Ayamiss

[Chimaera]

This looks pretty fun. 8D

Name: Okiwa
Level: 64
Exotics: No, too low level
Restrictions: No "diseased" pets or dogs, please
Rares I already have: Deathmaw, Pogeyan, Old Cliffie, Grunter

[TygerDarkstorm]

Let's see if I beat Kormai to the rolls today. Adding one for myself as well.

Kalhoun:
Bronze Crab


Xella(Basanti):
Yellow Worm


::OR::

Green Cata Crocolisk

Gosh is only a level 15 rare, she's basically always up.

Calmai:
White Worg


Chimaera(Okiwa):
Pink Tallstrider


Tyger(Venjin):
Red Beetle


Tyger(Ruffley):
Blue Cata Crocolisk

[Kormai]

You did, because there was a dumping of snow yesterday and the snowplough came in the night. So I had to shovel out the bottom of the driveway. What happened to spring!?

Also I know I still have two other full rare reports to do but I got lucky (after 6 hours of camping....the lucky is that it was a colour I wanted) and Kormai got a new pet last night! So since we have many reviews on Madexx and his abilities I'm just going to do an appearance review on the red skin. Gotta go take some screen shots and I'll post it later this evening.

SQUEEEEE it's so pretty!!!!!

Kormai
Madexx (red)

[TygerDarkstorm]

Bummer about the snow, Kormai.

Also, I'm copy/pasting my report on the blue croc from the theme challenge.

Meet Molly, my Mahamba. <3
It took me about two days, I think, of camping before Mahamba spawned for me, and then I was torn on what to name her. I really like her given name and what it stands for (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamba in case you're wondering), but after reading through a couple of threads here about how people hate it when you give a rare it's wild name, there's usually a nagging voice in the back of my head. Mahamba eventually told me that calling her Molly was fine and that she preferred it--I've grown to really love the name for her. ^_^

Molly is the queen of Ruffley's stables and she damn well knows it.

Looks:

Molly is a beautiful blue-gray color with a teal colored belly--the teal extends up her body (and on her feet) kind of like stripes which makes for a really nice effect. Her fins are green and her spikes and teeth are a silver color (top left).

Her tail has three spikes on it, and when she wags it, you can kind of see where the joints are instead of it being fully smooth (top middle). Another really weird thing I noticed, that's hard to capture in screenshots, is her very back feet. As she shifts her weight back and forth, her ankles break (top right).

She has a nice, flat, crocodile head filled with real sharp teeth instead of bad texturing (bottom left). Her eyes are also a gorgeous light blue glow map.

And one last strange thing that I noticed Lupis point out in the single pet challenge thread is where their legs connect to their body (bottom right). I'm not sure if those are supposed to be fat rolls, or if they're left over from when the designer was sketching how to draw the beast and they made it to the final model or something.

Animations and Sounds:

Now, anybody who's ever had an old world croc knows just how noisy these suckers can be while idle, however, if that's the only thing keeping you from taming a croc, I recommend a Cata croc skin. Molly doesn't make a peep by my side and just makes her usual hissing and snapping while in combat.

Crocs have two idle animations, their usual one is them swinging their tail and shifting their weight (top left) and the second is the side to side head snap (bottom middle).

The crocolisk run is often described as being waddly and back-breaking (top right, bottom left). This is true, although I find that the bigger the croc gets, the less their back seems to segment. Crocs look the most natural in the water, floating there like a log when idle and using that big tail like a rudder (top middle, bottom right).

Combat:

Crocolisks have a couple of different attack animations. They lunge and bite (top right) and they swing and bite (bottom left). They're tenacity pets so they won't kill your DPS, but they won't do as much damage as a ferocity or cunning pet.

The crocolisk special is Ankle Crack (reduced movement speed by 50%) (bottom right). This ability is fabulous for soloing, chasing down runners, and in PvP. I don't go far without my crocs anymore, especially on SV hunters. Ankle Crack lets you unload all you want into your target with the reassurance that it'll be dead before it reaches you. It's also a handy ability to have around to keep runners from getting too far in a dungeon, or to kite that pesky melee in PvP.