Right, so, Ashtail! (I stuck this up on Blogger as well, he's too pretty not to show off, even if it winds up sounding like I'm criticizing him--which isn't actually my intent
)
The Tame
I had a lot of fun playing with this little guy. When I first went to pick him up (I flew over from Twilight Highlands as a Horde), he actually wasn't spawned. I did a double-check on Wowhead for his timer & spawnpoint, parked myself, entered him into NPC-Scan and waited. About a half hour later, he spawned.
When he's "wild," he's apparently a rogue--he'll use Shadowstep and Evasion on you while fighting. Well, cunning devil! Oh wait, I mean Ferocity. I named him Smoke due to his color, and off we went.
Model & Animations
The first thing I did was take him for a run around Orgrimmar and have a look at his idle animations, and at his Trick. Blizzard still hasn't changed Trick in that the fox will carry on using it even when the player is moving, so you can have a fox out now racing at 100%+ speed along the ground on its two back legs
The animations are smooth, but the run looks somewhat awkward--the back bends in two different places depending on whether he's gathering up or flexing. It's a bit hard to catch in a screenshot, but maybe this will give an idea. (Notice also the way his front leg thins down oddly far when running.)
"Party Animal"
Oddly, because he shares the Coyote model animations, he howls--though soundlessly.
He also has--and warning, you
cannot unsee these:
He has a massive overbite--it's more noticeable at some times than others, but from the side, his upper "snout" goes quite a bit farther than his lower!
And also, his ears move ludicrously far when he does his sniffing-the-ground idle animation--they actually cover his face
As for his model and appearance, he's looking good! His colors are a soft blue-gray, very pretty to look at and shading into a dark navy blue and then black on the legs. His tail has a pale tip, and his underbelly and throat, along with his face, has pale gray-white markings. His eyes actually glow, a very bright and pale aqua blue. His model and skin are both advanced Cataclysm tech, so they're very smooth and pretty to look at.
One odd thing that I noticed, though, is that from the front he always looks either startled or completely blank--his eyes are really widely spaced, and very round.
He makes no idle sounds; his in-combat noises are quiet, but I personally find them somewhat irritating. Mind you that's a personal thing; many people might find them endearing!
His overall size is pleasant; he's about the same size as a coyote-model wolf pet, perhaps a bit smaller. He is large enough to feel like a solid presence at your side without becoming overly large or obtrusive, or detrimental to targetting.
Utility
This pet seems pretty useless in PvP. Maybe it's just me, but I'd think non-BM hunters would want a root and likely a Cunning or even Tenacity pet, and that BM would want something with a damage boost or more adaptable utility. The AoE debuff is okay in huge groups, like Tol Barad, but it doesn't affect casters and doesn't buff you at all.
In group PvE, tanks will cover the fox's debuff. In solo PvE, though, this guy's pretty nifty--his AoE debuff will both help him keep aggro on multiple mobs and will allow him to take a bit less damage from physically-attacking enemies. If you like the look of a fox and want somewhere to use it, I'd think that questing and grinding is his place to shine!
All in all, this is a fun pet to play with, and overall he's pretty to look at. For me, though, some of the animation quirks put me off, and his relative uselessness probably means I won't keep him around (a Spirit Beast's damage buff + aggro generated by Spirit Mend, along with the utility of Spirit Mend itself, leaves little competition for me
). He's fun, though, and he's pretty, and I'm guessing a great many folks really love this guy to death!
