Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[TygerDarkstorm]

I like to squishy squishy. I like to squishy squishy.

Xella(Basanti):
Yellow Hyena


Tyger(Venjin):
Red Scorpid


Tyger(Ruffley):
Yellow Scorpid

[Chimaera]

Report on the Pink Tallstrider

I've always been a moderate fan of tallstriders, it had just never crossed my mind to get one out of all the other things I could choose.
After reading that Mazzranache had babies following him (her?), I decided to go to the Southern Barrens and get my strider there instead. :3



I ended up naming him Lomani, a word that I'd chosen from the Taur-ahe language primer on WoWpedia, since I'm terrible at naming.
I took him to the Crossroads and walked around a bit, looking at his talents and abilities and such.

Tallstriders only eat fungus, fruit, and bread, so getting the food usually means specifically buying it from a vendor unless you've got your mend pet glyphed.

His animations and model are pretty smooth for a vanilla model. There was only one thing I noticed about the model that bothered me, the two tails of hair that hang by his neck are a little bent-looking near the tops.
Other than that, he looks great. His skin and colouration give a good impression that he's mostly hairless, and the little mane of fur on his neck bobs around as he idles.
I find his idle animations pretty cute; he either picks his head up for a moment as if he's yawning or making a noise, or preens himself.

I don't have much to say about his running animation. Looks nice and smooth like most of his other animations. It doesn't make him look like the fastest animal in the world, but it looks pretty natural, and it looks like he could get a good burst of speed out if he needed to.




He's got pretty standard attack animations. I only noticed two- a basic peck and another peck that looked like he was lunging forward more and putting more power into it.



I don't find his ability extremely useful most of the time, but in a few Mana Tombs runs it gave us a little more time to interrupt healing spells that were being cast.
One thing though, is that he sometimes will chase after a critter after a pull is over. I'm guessing they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in the dust cloud AoE.

I haven't noticed much of a difference between Lomani's dps and my raptor's, but my raptor is slightly higher because of the armor debuff he gives things.
As a tank, he's better than I expected. He needs a kill command off the bat to be able to keep aggro, but once he has it he's pretty decent. He takes a bit more damage than my turtle and doesn't have the same AoE threat generation, but he's good to use if I need to kill things a little bit faster.

He's also a pretty vocal for a pet. I personally don't mind the constant squawking since I love birds, but I've had people ask me to use a different pet because he was annoying them.

Overall, he's a good pet, but I wouldn't be the first to recommend a tallstrider.
Lomani has earned his place in my stable, however. His utility is pretty situational, but he's good to have around and just looks great next to a tauren. =D

[TygerDarkstorm]

I love tallstriders, they have some of the best personalities. ^_^ My troll's tallstrider, Itty, looms over her mistress and is very protective.

[Lupis]

I think my request for rolls wasn't seen.
I would roll for myself, really, but that seems to take out the fun for me. Sorry about that! *Feels rude now*

[Calmai]

I think my request for rolls wasn't seen.
I would roll for myself, really, but that seems to take out the fun for me. Sorry about that! *Feels rude now*

xD Same here.

[TygerDarkstorm]

It actually looks like I missed the rolls that were requested on page 43 and I apologize.

Lupis(Vallrok):
Grey Gorilla


Calmai:
Orange Turtle


Kalhoun:
Orange Dragonhawk


::OR::

Color-Changing Hyena

[Lupis]

It's fine, Tyger. Thanks for rolling for us in the first place!

[TygerDarkstorm]

My pleasure. Guess in my sleepiness doing some of my reports, I missed the roll requests and forgot to go back for them. >_<
I blame Squish.

[Daranara]

May I have another, please? :3 I think I forgot to ask last time :B

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

[Calmai]

Thanks! I'll get started on locating one of those turtles tomorrow. :3

[TygerDarkstorm]

Daranara:
Black Beetle

[TygerDarkstorm]

All right, so first is Venjin's report on .
I'm also including a looks only report for Ruffley since they both had scorpids.

So for Venjin, I went out and found the rare spawn in Tanaris named Scorpitar. This guy sits in the middle of an abandoned camp with a circle of stealthed black scorpids around him.

Looks:

So as you can see, Reginald doesn't really match Venjin at all, but that didn't stop him from developing quite the personality and making me attached to him. So Reginald is this very lovely blush red color (don't tell him that though, being resembled to make-up is not manly), with black markings and white/grey highlights (top right).

The old world scorpid models are starting to show their age, but I think that's what gives them their charm. The most noticeable flaws I see are the 2-D effects on their claws and tail (top middle).

I love Reginald's face, he's got these angry, blue old man eyes, and a little black spot that looks either like a nose or little mustache (bottom left). Also when viewing him from the front, his carapace starts looking all spiky (middle left). Reginald has large pinchers like an emperor scorpion (bottom middle), which, if I'm not mistaken, the larger the pinchers, the less venemous the scorpion. When viewed from behind, you can see that Reginald's chitin is a lovely purple color...er...I mean...manly purple color.

Animations and Sounds:

Reginald makes the typical scorpid sounds, lots of cute little chittering while he's in combat--nothing obtrusive. His idle animation is now the (in)famous scorpid wave (top left). When he runs, he skitters along the ground, tail and claws bobbing up and down (top right). I love the scorpid swim, when idle, they bob in the water, little legs treading and tail and claws lightly moving up and down (bottom left). Their swim is much the same, only they kick with their legs and use their tail like a big oar (bottom right).

Combat:

So I did something a little different and took Reginald out questing in Hyjal, unfortunately, the combat shots didn't look nearly as good as the dummy ones do, so it was back to the dummies I went. I specced him for a more DPS oriented build in case I decide to use him as a potential PvP buddy. Venjin's BM specced so he held aggro well and took very little damage. He has two combat animations, a left punch (top right) and right punch (bottom left).

The scorpid special is Clench, which disarms the enemy target's main hand and ranged weapons. I find this ability useful for both PvE and PvP. For PvE soloing (and potentially a group if you just feel like hanging out with your scorpid), the ability can be left on auto-cast as your scorpid will only use it on opponents that can actually be disarmed. I'd recommend micro-managing it for PvP as it's got a longish cooldown and I'd hate to waste it too early or too late depending on your situation, as well as not to waste it on something useless, like disarming a caster.

Overall these guys are pretty solid, all around pets for all specs of hunter. I really love the way this skin looks, and even though he doesn't match Venjin (matching is for sissies), she'll be keeping Reginald.

And now Ruff's looks report on .
Ruffley tamed her yellow scorpid, Monty, from out in Desolace; they're very easy to find in the north.

Looks:

I'm increasingly impressed with the range of colors on pets that end up looking good with Ruffley; this guy is one of them (top left). For those of you who follow Roxie, you know that she has (had) one and absolutely loved little Lahney so I share a particular fondness for this color.

Monty is a very beautiful canary yellow color with black markings and white highlighting (top right). His claws and tail suffer from some 2-D texturing (bottom left, second from right). His face has the same blue eyes that Reginald has, although Monty doesn't seem as angry to me (second from bottom left). When viewing Monty from behind, his chitin is a reddish brown color that complements the yellow skin (bottom right).

Monty will be sticking around with Ruffley as I like scorpids, and, as aforementioned, have an attachment to this particular color. However, I was planning on getting Ruffley the common brown Madexx skin so now I'm going to have to compare the two when Ruffley reaches that level.

More please, this time one for a new hunter of mine.
Name: Venjin
Level: 81
Exotics: Yes
No monkeys or gorillas please
Rares I have: Loque, KK, and Aotona

Name: Daliah
Level: 13 and growing; feel free to roll ahead
Exotics: No
No monkeys or gorillas please

[Calmai]

This time, Cal'mai was given a notice that the Farstriders lacked aquatic or amphibious pets! She took it upon herself to remedy this. She found her friend, Night, in the city and invited him along on an adventure! He happily agreed.



The two made thier way out to Tarren Mill, but found no turtles in the river that satisfied Cal'mai. The two of them headed up through the Western Plaguelands and into the Hinterlands, where they were attacked near Raventusk village by a giant blue turtle! It didn't satisfy her, she wanted orange. So, in defense they killed the turtle as painlessly as they could and went to find a Saltwater Snapjaw.



After taming, Night suggested that she name the turtle Majesty! He even spelled it out for her, and though he spelled it wrong she thought this was cute and kept it anyway. The turtle seemed to like it. Cal'mai had to coax the turtle into performing her special ability, which was a shell shield. She decided this would probably be very useful in the future.



She found the turtle kind of cute! Good and solid.

She observed her fighting in Farstrider's Square on the dummies. The turtle had three attacks, all of them biting. One of them was a simple snap. Another was like a head-thrusting snap with more power in it, and the last was like a swiping snap. ((Unfortunately, I couldn't get any good screenshots.))

Cal'mai decided it would be cruel to keep the turtle in the stables, and so decided to take her out to the Elrendar River in Eversong. She'd live there, to be collected if ever Mai needed her for something. She seemed to like it, and took to the river almost immediately. No lack of fish to eat!



((THIS PIC IS SO CUTE AHHHH))

Overall, Majesty had earned her place. She was staying.


Another, please~!

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.
Rares I have: Karoma, Ghostcrawler, Grubthor, and for honorable mention Ayamiss

[TygerDarkstorm]

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep...

Tyger(Venjin):
Red Crab


Tyger(Daliah):
White Tallstrider


Calmai:
Yellow Hyena

[TygerDarkstorm]

All righty, Venjin's report on . Going to use a lot of copy/pasting from Fiona's report on the same crab.

Looks:

When you start to take a close look at older crabs like Cake here, you start to notice that just about every texture on them is very low res. He's also very shiny and glossy looking, especially on the white parts between his shell. He has black accents on his shell and legs and at the tips of his pincers. His little eye stalks are cute. Overall, nothing really terrible about the model other than the low res texturing everywhere. I like the black accents on this skin much better than the green on the bronze crab.

Animations and Sounds:

Crabs have one idle animation and that's to look from left to right. He does a cute little scuttle for a run and when he swims, he propels himself with those big pincers. Crabs are quiet pets, not making too much of a peep even in combat.

Combat:

Cake is a tenacity pet so his specialty is going to be in tanking mobs and doing okay damage. He has two combat animations, a right hook (top right) and a left hook (top left).

The crab special ability is Pin, a channeled root/snare. This can come in handy for SV/MM hunters as it will hold the target in place while you blast a full round into them--they'll likely be dead before Pin is done, however, if they're not, you've also probably just earned aggro for yourself and Pin has a lengthy cooldown. For BM hunters, this ability is largely useless unless you micro-manage it between Kill Commands, otherwise KC will interrupt your crab's channel. As another added note, most BM pets should never lose aggro (even without MD) to their master making Pin situational, and mostly PvP oriented, at best.

I've been in debate about keeping Cake on Venjin, but since I've chosen to primarily play her as BM, I think I'll let him go knowing that Fiona will be giving him a home.

[Amayane]

Nice idea, i'll try:

Name: Amayen
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Rares I have: Skoll, Loque, Gondria, Karoma, Sambas, Krush, Aotona, Nuramoc, Spiteflayer, Terrorpene, Ashtail, Ravasaurmatriarch

I'm open for every pet

[TygerDarkstorm]

Amayane(Amayen):
White Armored Chimaera


::OR::

Black and Green Felboar

[Nubhorns]

Skin: Ancient Sea Turtle
Mob: Ghamoo-Ra (23-24, Blackfathom Deeps)
Family: Turtle
Tree: Tenacity
Special: Shell Shield

This one started off a little weird as well. I started the run to BFD from Ratchet, of all places, and had to stop an empty my stables twice. >_>

I finally found Dishu, who I had been quite fond of for a while.

Dishu!

WoWScrnShot_032811_131559.jpg (237.56 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

Went and put Brax(my spider) back and resumed the run. I got confused and thought BFD = Darkshore, and stumbled upon...

I don't really like cats, but cats sure like me.

WoWScrnShot_032811_141732.jpg (340.92 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

Call me the Crazy Cat Cow.

I was running back and got pounced by a guard on the way back, who one-shotted me(predictably). Guess who was here to greet me upon return?

One of my favorite old-world rares...but not who we're looking for!

WoWScrnShot_032811_142106.jpg (215.94 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

My stables were full. I didn't think to stop at the Zoram'gar Outpost and waltzed right into Blackfathom Deeps after saying good-bye to Shadowclaw.

Ooh, scary!

Goodie was less than impressed.

WoWScrnShot_032811_143452.jpg (107.38 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

Right after I took a screenshot my PuG queue popped, so I had to do a speedy tame before I could enter the dungeon. This gave me a bit of time to see how he behaved in fights!

Turtles are the poster children of the Tenacity tree. While any pet in that tree can make a viable tank, turtles and beetles are possibly the most 'useful' in terms of skills. With their Shell Shield ability, they do have a smidgen more survivability than, say, a boar or a bear. I specced Roo here for tanking, which he sadly did not get to do much of - this was one of the rare times in which my Scholomance group did not fail horribly. He put out decent damage, but I switched him out with my cat once he hit 43 to get a little more done DPS wise. :)

Shell Shield!

WoWScrnShot_032811_154758.jpg (201.32 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

He takes hits like a pro, although I never had to trigger shell shield. He could easily take three or four guys on his own, but I had to be careful as he doesn't have taunt or thunderstomp yet.


As for his skin, it's much nicer than the older skins, without any of that funky...fuzzy stuff lining the spikes on his shell. There's some nice detail, and he's got bright, intelligent eyes. His scales are green and his shell is a dull off-white with tan and green accents. It's all in all a very nice skin, but it doesn't look so great beside Caboodle. She already has a tank, Frisbee the Beetle, so I don't think I'll be keeping Roo. And while he won't be staying with me, he inadvertently brought about two new friends. :)

I won't be keeping Roo, but he sure is purdy.

WoWScrnShot_032811_155852.jpg (169.44 KiB) Viewed 3170 times

Moar pleez!

Name: Caboodle
Level: 44
Exotics: Not yet. :(
Specifics: No monkeys, anything else is fine. :)

Name: Veeka
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes!
Specifics: No Northrend/Cata rares please. :)
Rares I Have: Karoma, Terrorpene, Madexx(Green), Zaricotl

[TygerDarkstorm]

All righty, Daliah's report on .

I got Tonic from Northern Barrens and thankfully only died once on my journey through Ashenvale. Also, I epically failed the combat section of this report, forgetting that Daliah hasn't hit 20 yet and doesn't have access to pet specials and talents.

Looks:

I'm a big fan of tallstriders and I love the way Tonic looks with Daliah (top left). Tonic is a nice white color all over her body with red eyes, a black beak, and dark aqua feather details (second from left). I really love Tonic's face. The edge of her beak where it meets her head is tinted dark aqua (top middle). Her beady red eyes are fierce and protective and she has little freckles under her eyes. The dark aqua feathers on her are low res and 2-D and the neck feathers tend to clip through her chest. But even so, I often find myself preferring tallstriders over foxes when choosing between them for the debuff and looks.

Animations and Sounds:

One thing everyone should know about tallstriders is that they are very cheeky and full of personality. These guys make everything their business. They have two idle animations, one where they stretch their neck up and caw (top left) and the other where they preen themselves (top right). Their run is very suiting to a large, flightless bird and the animation is smooth enough (bottom left). I find their swim adorable as they kick with those powerful legs, flap their useless wings, and bob their heads (bottom right). They make squawking noises in combat.

Combat:

So yeah, I should have included my combat shots with the animations because I forgot that Daliah doesn't have access to Dash and Dust Cloud yet. Anyway, tallstriders have two combat animations, a regular bite where they step forward with their left foot (bottom right) and a more exaggerated bite where they step forward with their right foot (top left).

The tallstrider special ability is Dust Cloud, which causes all enemies within 10 yards to have their melee and ranged attack speed reduced by 20%. This ability can be useful in a group if all the other major buffs are covered--it can help out both your tank and your healer if you've got hard hitting mobs. This can also help keep your pet from taking less damage while out soloing. I suppose it could be useful for PvP as well, but I would personally prefer a pet that offers some sort of CC or something.

More please.

Name: Venjin
Level: 81
Exotics: Yes
No monkeys or gorillas please
Rares I Have: Loque, KK, and Aotona

Name: Daliah
Level: 18 and growing
Exotics: No
No monkeys or gorillas please

[sameyer716]

This thread rocks. I've been looking for an excuse to create a new Hunter. I'm also thinking that I could use a good challenge. So here's what I'm considering. How about I make a new hunter, get 25 random pets from you guys, and update all of you on my progress leveling?

Name: Not made yet. (Will be horde)
Level: Not made yet. (Up to 85 is fine. I'll tame as I go.)
Exotics: Yes!
Restrictions: Only one of each family. Rares and Spirit Beasts welcome. Nothing I can't tame solo, but I don't mind camping for beasts if I have to. Like I said, I'm looking for a challenge!

Reviews will be posted as I reach the appropriate levels, tame them, etc.

Thanks a lot!