Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[TygerDarkstorm]

Teehee, at least it's a tallstrider skin that hasn't been reviewed yet. I'll get on my report after I get off work.

[Lupis]

Gorilla challenge! Sorry this is so late.

Anyway, the gorilla was very easy to find. There are tons of them in Stranglethorn.



First things first, this gorilla is HUGE. Almost as tall as my troll! He's very solidly built and actually somewhat appealing at first glance. His colors are a soft off-white and an orange-pink, with pretty ice blue eyes.

I was put off by a few things, though. First off, his fingers. They're very thick and blocky, the back ones completely flattened, the front ones broken strangely so they'll curl into fists. The back feet remind me of thinly stuffed felt toys, flat with features just stuck on top.
His face is pretty ugly, but I can live with that. His teeth are 2D however, and his facial hair looks odd. Who knew gorillas had half a goatee and stringy mutton chops? Bleh, it's really not well animated and looks very nasty.

His idles are played extremely often. There are three of them - one where he just shifts his weight, which is fine. The other two are much larger and more often used. He rears up and pounds on his chest for one, which would be fine if he didn't have a Beer Belly To End All Beer Bellies. His other is to scratch his butt, which has a very large and obvious crack. Luckily fur covers it up pretty well. Still, the buttscratch really isn't that great, especially with his expression of relief that he takes on whenever he uses that idle. >.<

I noticed that his hands cut through his fur when he uses the chest pound idle, too. It's not terribly obvious, but it's there.



His animations are fairly nice overall. Running is well done, with a bit of a sideways gait. He has three different attacks, one to rear up and hit the enemy with both fists, one to backhand the enemy, and one to punch the enemy. I assume enemies wouldn't like him, because being backhanded by a gorilla can't be fun.

His swim animations are... not so nice. They're kind of disturbing. He hovers in the water all splayed out, and swims by moving his limbs in some strange way that looks just wrong. I don't know how to explain it other than strange.

Anyway. In battle, he's a good tank (Tenacity) and a fairly good DPS pet. His special is an interrupt/silence. I did a bit of experimenting and he does in fact smartcast, so you can leave that ability on. A pretty good pet, really.

Overall, I do kind of like Gorillas, but this skin is a little lackluster to me and I won't keep him. Some day I might get a red or silver gorilla, but not at the moment.

Another? (Two character)

Rassaa (Rares Only, stable full)
Rares I Have: Madexx (Blue, Green, Black), Karoma, Terrorpene, Zaricotl, Spiteflayer, Ghostcrawler, King Krush, Sambas, Jadefang, Olm the Wise, Deathmaw
Honorable Mentions (Not rare, but somewhat hard to get/unusual): Chromaggus, Oil-covered Wolf

Vallrok (Any pet, including the rares I have, if you want)
Level 82, BM
Exotics? Sure
Restrictions? No monkeys, gorillas are okay.
Rares I Have: Pogeyan, Rak'shiri, King Krush, Loque'nahak, Gondria, Arcturis, Skoll, Aotona, Shadowclaw, Duskstalker
Honorable Mentions: Ghost Hydra

[Chimaera]

=D Here's my report for the Green Ravager
I'll have my report on the white turtle done soon.


I have to say, this girl was a pain to get. My other option was a beetle, which I didn't particularly like, so I took the journey out to Bloodmyst Isle to get a ravager.
I named her Iliad, after Homer's epic poem. After nearly dying to fatigue, almost being shot down by Darnassus sentinels, and playing dead on a boat, I thought the name suited her.

I didn't think I'd end up getting too attached to Iliad, but she's grown on me. :3 Ravager models are clean and have no flaws that I noticed, and are brightly coloured, exotic looking critters.
They're not as loud as a tallstrider, but have a unique call. It almost sounds like a mix between a hiss and a roar, and while attacking, they remind me of an alien disguised as a woman shrieking as she tears away the human disguise. :'D
They're clearly insects, but I think they could possibly be reptillian as well. Ravagers only eat meat, though based on how they look, I think that's pretty obvious.

Ravagers are in the cunning family and have a pretty unique special ability. It's called Ravage, ironically, and it increases physical damage taken by an enemy by 4% for 25 seconds. I'm not sure if hunter abilities count as "physical" damage, but Iliad's utility was much appreciated by the warrior and paladin DPS in my group.
I didn't notice much of a change in dps between her and my raptor, Lakkari, though I think even before she had caught up to me in level, Iliad was doing slightly higher damage.

Ravager idle animations are pretty standard. Iliad sways a little bit while she's standing, and occasionally turns her head to raise her quills and growl at something. Most likely a squirrel or a leaf, as my guess would be that ravagers don't have the best eyesight, judging by the size of them. They seem like a creature that relies more on smell and perhaps feeling around with her legs.


Ravagers are quick on their feet and lean forward while running, though keep themselves upright when they're walking normally. Their quills also lay a little flatter while running, presumably to increase speed. She makes a small noise when she runs as well, I can't put my finger on what to call it, but it's a bit squeaky and reminds me strongly of insects.


Almost like an alien raptor, ravagers are cunning and ruthless in battle, biting and tearing at foes with their powerful clawed feet and fangs.
I noticed three distinct attack animations for Iliad- a lunging bite, clawing with her front legs, and a jumping attack where she does a flip midair. I assume this attack is relating to stabbing enemies with her quills, but I could be wrong.


Though their swim animation is pretty clean too, ravagers look a bit out of place in the water, In my opinion at least, they clearly weren't built for water travel. (I also don't think I've ever seen wild ravagers living near water).
It's a very cute animation, though. The ravager uses its four legs to propel forward, and looks like a squid or octopus the way it moves through the water.


Overall, I'm glad I chose Iliad over the beetle, and I'll definitely be keeping her. 8D
I'm not sure how much actual use she'll see, but I'll probably end up keeping her with me when I'm doing dungeons, and use her if the group has more physical than spellcaster dps.

[TygerDarkstorm]

One very cool thing about ravagers is that their special buffs their own damage too, which helps them keep aggro while soloing.
I have that same ravager on my worgen hunter. It's a neat color. I <3 ravagers.

[Chimaera]

Ooh, that's especially good then, since I'm BM. : D
I'll roll again for Okiwa, since the white turtle's review is a matter of when my boyfriend wants to level those characters again. (leveling my troll hunter with his priest)

Name: Okiwa
Level: 65
Exotics: Nope :c
Restrictions: No mastiffs or diseased pets

[Litlemouse]

Name: Litlemouse
Level: 80
Exotics: Yes, have King Krush and Spirit Leopard
Restrictions: Nightsaber (or Moonstalker?), I have one, also the brown-black elite dino from Un'Goro (forgot his name). I've got a fox too. sry I have alot of pets.

[Cialbi]

Ravagers are in the cunning family and have a pretty unique special ability. It's called Ravage, ironically, and it increases physical damage taken by an enemy by 4% for 25 seconds. I'm not sure if hunter abilities count as "physical" damage, but Iliad's utility was much appreciated by the warrior and paladin DPS in my group.

Your auto shots deal physical damage, as do Steady Shot, Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot. As such, this is a powerful debuff for MM hunters. Also, along the lines of what TygerDarkstorm was pointing out, your pet deals 100% Physical damage, including Kill Command (exception given to Thunderstomp, Froststorm Breath, and Burrow Attack, but they aren't available to Ravagers). Thus, it is also a powerful debuff for BM hunters.

[TygerDarkstorm]

So I went out and did the impossible with my challenge. I went and tamed a wild Azunara!

Looks:

Because Venjin's armor is darker, at a first glance, this bird seems to match her (top left). And while I like the idea of a crow pet, I just don't feel it's right for Venjin--I much prefer my Aotona.

So if you haven't guessed, this is the basic night elf druid flight form, a black crow with elf ears, yellow eyes, and blue-grey feet (top right). No offense to druids, but this model looks *old.* Something about the feather texture just screams low res and flat; because of this, it makes the sheen the feathers look like they're supposed to have look incredibly tacky, in my opinion.

At a first glance, the face on these birds is very striking, especially with those orange-yellow eyes (top middle). But I can't get over how corny the elf ears look on a hunter pet. I was under the impression the ears were only for the druid flight form--I'm wrong as usual. The beak and facial feathers look a little low res as well. I actually like the detailing on the feet, however (middle), even if the claws are low res.

From the back, there's just all sorts of bad, feathery mess. The tail is a flat, 2-D texture that just sort of sits there and deforms itself (bottom right). Looking at them from the back is a hot mess.

Animations and Sounds:

As usual I had something playing in the background of WoW so between that and my game crashing on my at the target dummies, I forgot to pay attention to this birds sounds. Being that it's a bird, I'll assume it squawks (I'm a genius). Like other birds of prey and carrion birds, the crow's idle animation is to flap quickly up into the air and then slowly settle (top left). When they fly by your side, they have a pretty standard flying animation that looks smooth (top right). Like carrion birds, these guys actually have a swim--it looks similar to their flight animation, but slowed down and with what looks like a slightly different wing movement (bottom two on right). Also, I could not get Azu to perform Trick for the life of me, which seemed ironic because I was under the impression that the druid models were the ones that used it.

Combat:

I was too lazy to go find a humanoid to screenshot Snatch with--sorry. It was annoying enough to have the game crash at the dummies in Org for whatever reason. Anyway, Azu was attacking the dummy so fast that I had trouble telling exactly how many attack animations she has. From what I can tell in the screens I picked, she has potentially 3 various claw attacks. It's pretty fun to watch them fight, although hard to capture because they move so fast.

The bird of prey special ability is Snatch, which disarms a humanoid target's ranged and melee weapons. This ability truly shines in PvP against melee and other hunters (bwahahaha), but can also be useful for PvE against a hard hitting boss/trash mob and can help out both your tank and healer. After using my parrot on Ruffley, I am happy to report that birds *will* smartcast Snatch--what this means is that your pet is capable of determining which targets are and are not able to be disarmed. While it's probably safe to leave this on autocast in PvE, I'd recommend micro-managing it for semi-serious/serious PvP.

I did let Azu go roam the wilds once more after finishing my report. The black crow doesn't really suit Venjin, and I'm not sure I could get over those goofy ears on a hunter pet.

More Please.

Name: Venjin
Level: 82
Exotics: Yes
No monkeys, gorillas, or demon dogs please
Rares I have: Aotona, Loque, KK
Honorable Mention: Harakiss

Name: Daliah
Level: 20
Exotics: No
No monkeys, gorillas, or demon dogs please

[Xella]

I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, I just wanna something-something *clap clap clap clap*


The purple-and-green tallstriders are found on a floating rock south of Terokkar (technically it's part of Terokkar, but not a place most people go). I remember, though my hunter's leveling was not high on my priorities at the time, going out to visit them when they were first added, and going "wow, that's a tallstrider worth having!" After which, by virtue of already having my cat and sporebat and "tame mob to learn skill" still being active, and only having three stable slots, the idea was promptly forgotten.


These guys are huge in the wild. HUGE. Ginormous. Large enough that it didn't occur to me that I would need to either zoom out further or turn off my UI in order to get a clear taming shot. Whoops.


Meet Vorparadis, named after a very minor character in a later book in the series I am currently listening to while wandering around the universe. The original Vorparadis (or maybe it's Vorparadise—it's pronounced vore-paradise, anyway) is a tottering old Imperial Auditor of Barrayar, who's of the "typical crotchety old man" stereotype, where nothing the younger generation(s) do is right and proper and his greatest joy is to rant and rave on the topic of how good the "old days" were. Though I'm not sure why the name came to mind while viewing this creature, nor do I envision him kvetching to/about Miles (my mini-scarab, named after the main character of the series in question), the name felt right, to the point where I can't imagine giving it to any other pet. First time that's happened to me in a long, long time o_o;


Vorparadis has both a distinct run and walk animation, which remind me (understandably) of the way an ostrich moves. The two animations flow reasonably well into one another, so the brief spurts of energy where he'll sprint forward to "catch up" to me while I'm walking weren't as awkward as some critters can be (*coughSilithidcough*). As usual, the swimming animation inspires a far lengthier dissertation—in both the idle and moving swim, the proto/vestigal wings flap a little and the long legs kick powerfully to propel him up/forward. In fact, when swimming on the surface of the water, a tallstrider seems to almost resemble a swan... except that the forward movement is also accompanied by a stronge surging of the head and neck, making them appear as if they're trying TOO hard to be a swan. This farcical movement is strangely endearing, and (on a tight time crunch to grind out the last 10% of my guild's experience in the hour or so 'til reset) I spent several minutes swimming in circles on Tol Barad Peninsula, watching Vorparadise plug along and smile.


As a determined carebear on a PvP server, and as the minority faction (Horde outnumber us 3.5:1 at last count), Tol Barad Peninsula tends to be a death sentence if you're not with a group. Unfortunately, it's also the best place for concentrated solo guild experience. Strangely, for the first time in several months, not one of the myriad of Horde on the peninsula even looked at me twice. It certainly wasn't my gear level—my warlock was chain-camped when she first stepped foot out there, and my shaman suffers the same fate, despite being nearly half in heroic raid gear (or mostly epic PvP gear, depending on how paranoid I am when out there on her). It's not my guild—all of my characters on Bloodscalp are in Draconic Savant, save my bank alt (who is 83 and likely won't ever go out and do dailies). It might have just been chance—who can say if the folks I ran into are similarly carebears, and the overall pacifist attitude of the Peninsula tonight was a fluke?—but it might also have been Vorparadis. At 82/83, and being a relatively obscure pet, and looking as WEIRD as he does, maybe he worked as a "wow, I can't believe this person is willing to walk around with THAT gorgeous specimen of proto-avian indifference at their side. Surely, I must not mess with them!" charm? More experimentation is required.


As gorgeous a bird as he is, Vorparadis does have some issues. His colouration all works in harmony with itself—purple, green, and orange is a triad of colour that often looks good together, and black goes with everything. Unfortunately, as nice as his colouration is (much better than Mazzranache, whom I had in my stables from my previous "hooray, stable slots!" taming sprees), the texture on his body confuses me. Being very ostrich-like, you would expect him to have feathers, but instead his body is pebbled, as if he were a reptile. His "wings" continue this texturing, ending in two claws that feel somewhat out of place and enforce the feeling that Tallstriders are the "missing link" between devilsaurs/raptors and the rest of Azeroth's avian population. The skin close to his face is wrinkled as a reptile (or the hairless sphynx cat), furthering the feeling of "this is not a feathered beastie." What feathered/haired sections are on him are quite pixellated, and clip into his body as he moves. Finally, his eyes are just WEIRD, being simply a part of his overall texture and therefore unblinking. Never enter a staring contest with a tallstrider... unless you're a female troll (Ohhhh burn!).


Tallstriders have two attack animations, both reminiscent of the "drinking bird" toy. A lunge with the left foot forward brings the hard beak down upon the enemy, while a lunge with the right foot brings it down to the ground. In both attacks, his "tail" wraps itself under his body, making him look tailless from certain angles. His racial special, Dust Cloud, is a 20% ranged/melee attack speed debuff that lasts for 30 seconds and has a 40s CD. It's a 10 yard AoE and will hit ANYTHING in range—neutral mobs, critters, whatever. Anything that is hit with it isn't likely to run far enough to leash before the mobs you're fighting die, and he has a habit of running off after these creatures, often body-aggroing more along the way. Additionally, while Dust Cloud generates aggro, it's not enough aggro for Vorparadis to hold aggro against anything—one tick of Mend Pet will send any mobs he's not directly attacked straight to me. If Dust Cloud hits a person of the opposing faction and there are guards around that get ticked off at such things, you WILL get your face pounded flat into the ground, and if they're malicious enough, the Horde in question WILL stand right next to your pet in order to trigger this outcome. Tallstriders are a ferocity pet, and they share their racial special with Foxes, who are ALSO ferocity (much to my continual headscratching). At one point there must have been some discrepancy between tallstriders and foxes (Petopia itself lists Dust Cloud as being 10%, 8s, 40s, with Tailspin 20%, 30s, 25s) but this appears to have been fixed in-game. Thus, the only difference I can see at a glance between the two pets is appearance and personal preference.


Overall, Vorparadis and I got along swimmingly! I'm not sure if I have room for him AND Pandora (my fox) in my stables, but luckily I have some common-skinned tenacity pets (and if worse comes to worse, two extra spirit beasts) I can abandon in order to make room while I decide between the two. He and I managed to get the last 10% of our daily guild exp cap done, and he got nearly to 85 in the process. It may have taken two expansions (or thereabouts) and a race change, but Basanti has finally gotten the strider she saw and admired so many years ago.

Name: Basanti
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: None
Rares I Have: Skoll, Arcturis, King Krush, Sunblade Dragonhawk, Grimtotem Spirit Guide, Ghostcrawler, Corpse Scarab (the bitty beetle from the Anub'Rekhan encounter Spiritbinder found!)

[Ana]

Xella, i really like the last screenie. Its like his is saying " Im home" He is georgeus with you and so big!! Looks awesome with your hunter

[Kormai]

What do you hear? ... Nothing but the rain.

Lupis (Rassaa)
Terrorpene


Lupis (Vallrok)
eee!
Loque'nahak


Chimaera (Okiwa)
Armored Brown Ghost Boar


Litlemouse
Yellow & Green Core Hound


Tyger (Venjin)
Harakiss/Princess Yauj


Tyger (Daliah)
White Wolf


Xella (Basanti)
OMG I was contemplating going to get this, the pictures make it look so cute!
Corpse Scarab!

Enjoy

[Lupis]

Oh yay, two pets I love! I'll get on it as soon as I return from my walk with my dogs.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Tyger (Venjin)
Harakiss/Princess Yauj


Tyger (Daliah)
White Wolf

Hara will be so happy I get to play with her. ^_^

The white wolf should be interesting. It'll end up matching Daliah and then I'll have to decide between it and my Blackrock Battle Worg.

[Kormai]

The white wolf should be interesting. It'll end up matching Daliah and then I'll have to decide between it and my Blackrock Battle Worg.

Yay!?

[Chimaera]

xD Believe it or not, Okiwa's got the ghost boar already. I can still do a report on it though if you want.

[TygerDarkstorm]

That's the idea, to do reports on pets we already have. Who knows that pet better than you if you already have it.

[Chimaera]

Exactly. =D I'll get working on my report soon, then. *pats Steeltusk*

[TygerDarkstorm]

I've been toying around with the idea on getting a ghost boar for one of my toons so I look forward to your report. ^_^

[TygerDarkstorm]

Tyger (Venjin)
Harakiss/Princess Yauj

Venjin used to have the dark purple and red brain bug, but after a change in hair color and little use of the poor guy, I realized he wasn't the silithid for me. Instead, I kept getting this idea in my head that I wanted the blue brain bug, and more specifically, Harakiss. She was out there waiting for me.

After I tamed her, I had no idea what to name her. I really love the names that the brain bugs have on their own since they're very suiting for silithids and sound like what they would name themselves. But I knew I didn't want to name her Harakiss, it just felt too long. I kept calling her Hara, and then added the troll suffix 'jin' to it so she's become Harajin. ^_^

Looks:

I *love* the way Hara looks with Venjin (top left). Their blues and greens sync really well together, I think.

For such an old model, there are very few major flaws with these guys. Harajin is a very beautiful sky blue color with light green highlights and black claws and markings (top right). As is standard with a model this old, the claws are very low res.

The actual body of these guys is rather tiny consisting of nothing more than a cylinder and some legs--the bulk of them is made up by their giant...head...thing--hence their nick name "brain bug" (bottom left and right). I love Hara's face, she looks so calm and peaceful, like a protective mother (bottom middle). And since these guys are insect-like, they have a giant, stinger thing on their face--I'm not sure if it's their mouth, like a mosquito, or a nose sword.

Animations and Sounds:

So brain bugs are a little strange when it comes to sound; when they perform one of their idles, they make a strange "thock" noise, but in combat, they make no peep at all. I suppose that's good for hunters who like quiet pets.

They have two idle animations, one where they they sort of fluff themselves up and settle themselves (top left), and one where they look from side to side (top right). I like the way brain bugs run, they look as if they're gliding across the ground on skates (bottom left). They don't have a proper swim animation, and instead just walk under the water (bottom right).

Combat:

I like watching brain bugs fight, they look pretty vicious. Hara has three attack animations, an upward slice with that nose sword thing (top left), a right claw slice (top right), and one where they leap out and lash out with both claws (bottom left). These guys are cunning pets so they also put out pretty decent damage. Hara also makes a pretty decent tank for soloing and she held her own in Deepholm even though she's a couple levels lower than the mobs there.

Being an exotic pet, Hara has access to two special abilities, Qiraji Fortitude--a stam buff the same as a priest buff--and Venom Web Spray (bottom right)--a ranged web attack that roots the target in place. This primarily stands out as a PvP ability handy at keeping pesky melee at bay as well as briefly stopping fleeing casters. This can be useful in PvE as well (mostly micro-managed and not left on autocast for picky tanks) for fleeing mobs or snagging a mob that's running toward a squishy party member until the tank can get it under control again. Overall, these guys are handy to have around in case you're missing a priest and wish to cover the buff.

I really love Harajin and find that she's just beautiful. Surprisingly the "thock" noise doesn't bother me at all on Venjin whereas it drives me nuts on my orc with Kri. Daliah's report to come later.

[Azunara]

Azu is very happy you let her go. xD