Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[Sarantha]

Will still participate if you want, but I have filled my stable slots for good now and won't get getting rid of any. I just tamed Gezzarak the Huntress and love her. So I'll only be able to review pets, not take on new ones. If you still wanna do pets for, I have all the Cata/WOLTK rares (spirit beats, Sambas, spiders, etc) and will review them and post images. If not, I'll back out for now until Blizz gives us more stable slos!

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Can only review pets. Stables are full. Have all Firelands and Cata/WOTLK rares, and Gezzarak the Huntress, along with a yellow dragonhawk and a sword in the head wolf.

[meepitco]

I'm sorry to say this, but I had to abandon my Orange Shale Spider to tame Kirix, is it alright if I do a review on Kirix in stead? Or any of the pets in my stable:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/m ... lea/simple

I can always go tame another own too =)

[banur]

Red Scorpid:


Luckily the rare version, Scorpitar, was around and a few screenshots and a tame later this little guy was mine.


The skin is red and white with a red-brownish tone on the underside. I haven't noticed that scorpids have a special color on their underside until Rhanyas review on the brown one (those with the gorgeous blue tone)...


..but once I tamed a brown one there was one thing that threw me off. I'm glad the red one brushes his teeth.


The attack animations are those that you expect from a scorpid: pinching and slashing.


His special ability is a ten second disarm that was quite useful against those bladestorming warriors who thought they could best a hunter.
Despite being a tenancy pet, I felt that he would drop rather quick and needs more attention than my usual turtle for soloing.
Scorpids love to run around and they don't even make much noise!

But as soon as you stop and stand around they seem to mutter and wonder why you have to stop.

During my daily quest routine I saw him with one of those Emberspit scorpids, discussing the size of their stingers I guess.


Getting chromied!


But a scorpid has even more features like the following:
Toe nail clipper

Rubik's cube solver

That's almost a swiss army knife!

I think the red scorpid is a cool pet and I would soo keep him if Meepit hadn't found the blue Madexx and made me jelly!

On a side note Sara what do you think about the "squish sqash squish squash" sounds that beetles make while moving?
I found that annoying but noticed that it seems to be the same sound spiders make.

Meepit what seemed to be the issue that made the sporebat pull all the mobs? Was it the Sporecloud ability?

For the next tame:
Cares
85
BM available
no restrictions

[Finduilas]

Oh a beetle *bounces up and down* - I'm not home this weekend (and my parents don't have wow on their computer ), so I'll have to do my review next week - but I promise to do it as soon as I can.

To banur: I'm glad I could show you something new with my review on the brown scorpion - I'm glad that it really seems to help other hunters to read the reviews. A reason for me to continue doing them I really like purple tone you scorpion got on some of the screenies. Did you take them all by night (I suppose your first one was at nighttime considering the stars)?

[banur]

Yeah I tamed him at night and the other ones are in dark places and caves but here are another two I just took in the sands of Uldum:
There are indeed more purple tones overall.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I like that red scorpion skin. I have one on my troll hunter named Sir Reginald--he's a grumpy old man of a scorpid, but he's still willing to protect his mistress.

And I might as well throw some rolls out.

Korpinsulka:
Green Serpent


Snuffley:
Orange Shale Spider


Tygard(Nellon):
Pogeyan


Sarantha:
Yellow Dragonhawk


Meepitco:
Green Fire Spider


Banur(Cares):
Red Warp Stalker

[Sarantha]

Yellow dragon hawk review. I love her and tamed her back in BC from one of her nasty little troll masters forcing her to kill people on command! Now she loyally serves me. She has a very large wingspan for a dragonhawk and is one of my favorite colors. Blue would be my favorite, but I love Iduna too much to get rid of her for taming a blue one. Iduna has a story! Here's an image of her by herself:



Iduna and I sitting by each other, nice backshot of her from above:



Iduna and I swimming in the lake near Nordrassil. Her swimming animations look more like flight animations, but its still better than the lame animations some pets have:



Nice pic of Iduna swimming next to me on top of the water in the lake by Nordrassil. The water pixels and the dragonhawk just looks awesome. I love the way they designed dragonhawks and I love my Iduna:



Sara and Iduna, enjoying the peacefulness of Hyjal and its nearby lake. I really love dragonhawks. I would give up my entire stable for a spirit beast dragonhawk (well, maybe not Kirix, whom I love dearly) and just adore their models so much:



In review, she's a pretty good dps pet and she looks really unique. I had many people asking where I got her and for a non-rare thats a pretty neat thing to hear. Most people don't run around with dragonhawks as pets. Their special ability is an aoe fire breath that I find really useful while doing dailies or farming. It increases magic damage taken by 8% which is really good when using arcane shot or in a raid with multiple casters. She's really good at helping caster dps in a raid. As for tanking, she's not too good at that, but she is cunning, not tenacity, so don't expect her to take on loads of mobs and live. Use her for cannon fodder or to help out casters if need be. She's useful and looks very pretty. Not a wasted tame at all, imo, especially considering my own little made up story to go along with her.

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Can only review pets. Stables are full. Have all Firelands and Cata/WOTLK rares, and Gezzarak the Huntress, along with a yellow dragonhawk and a sword in the head wolf.

If you want more than 5 pics of a pet or pics of the pet doing something else, say so. I just take pics that I find flattering and I don't want to overload people with a slower connection's computers by posting a zillion images.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Sarantha:
Solix


Originally I was going to do a report on this handsome fellow, but I just don't have the time for these reports anymore and I haven't found the will/desire to make myself put them together and post up my rather lengthy and detailed reviews.

Anyway, the only request that I have for you with this one is that at the beginning of your report, you please, briefly, go over his taming strategy.

[Sarantha]

To tame Solix: I set down a slowing trap, waited until it was off cooldown, pulled with concussive shot, and started running like hell, dropping another slowing trap once he passed (missed!) my first one (note that you MUST run with aspect of the cheetah/pack up or you will die and fast, unless you have a pocket DK to just chain him, then you can tame him right off and don't even have to watch his buff), I ran strafing, which is pretty much the ONLY way otherwise you'll die if you turn around to look behind you or to shoot. While strafing, I was barraging him with concuss as much as possible and dropping slowing traps when I could. He does miss some, which sucks. I died at least 10 times while attempting this, but eventually got it right and tamed my orange Fireass (what people call him, not MY chosen name) with less than half health left after his buff dropped. You have to use concuss and traps to get his buff to drop so you can tame him. He was a serious pain and I wanted to light a fire under his ass after all that. Here is a nice overhead shot of him in Hyjal. You can see his flaming ass very well. I don't want to take him to Molten Front and set off scanners, so I think I'll stay in Hyjal for this review:



Front view of him and Sara:



Here's one of Solix in the water. He looks dead, like all spiders, and does not have a very good swimming animation:



Solix actually swimming. His animations are still pretty crappy and he looks like he's doing all he can get gtfo the water:



Sara and Solix sitting in Hyjal, staring at each other. She's hoping he doesn't light her ass on fire:



Back after seeing the movie and restarting comp. Those were my other images of Solix. Anyway, I like Solix as a spider and a pet, but he isn't my first choice. The orange isn't my favorite of colors. Still, he is a good dps pet and is one of only two actual unique spiders, so I do like him for that. He is a handsome little devil and gave me a run for my money (literally! 100g in repairs!) just trying to tame him. I use Kirix as my main raid dps pet, but Solix is still really neat and I like him. Anyone who likes unique spiders should def look into taming him. He and Deth are the only unique spiders in game.

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Can only review pets. Stables are full. Have all Firelands and Cata/WOTLK rares, and Gezzarak the Huntress, along with a yellow dragonhawk and a sword in the head wolf.

[Finduilas]

I finally did my report for Bounce, the beetle. Here it is.

I got assigned the yellow beetle. There are several of them, but as I don't mind a challenge, I decided to get on from Blackrock Spire, a Spire Scarab.
My fiancé gave my his company with his druid. I always get lost in the Blackrock, even have problems finding the right entrance and he knows it and guided me.
With a few shortcuts we quickly reached the place where the Scarabs have their homes. I stepped in, tamed one, while my fiancé took care of the scorpions trying to hit me. I named my new fellow Bounce. We even found a rare worg-master, who left the mini pet for Wick.
Here is Findu taming future Bounce:

And this is Findu with Wick, Bounce and their mini-worgs:


Appearance and Animations:

First thing I noticed about Bounce: He is huge. Finduilas really looks kind of tiny next to him.
Next thing: he matches her pvp cloak
His colour is a nice golden yellow with blue paintings on his back. He looks kind of metallic with his golden shimmer in sunlight.
Bounce really looks like a beetle. He has these tiny legs and I always wonder how he manages to balance on them.
His head seems kind of small compared to his body, but he probably doesn't need a lot of brain, 'cause he doesn't have too much to do (I'll explain later).



His animations are partly really good, partly non existant.
While standing around he can't stand still, he is in constant motion with his legs. Sometimes he makes a little dance from one side to the other which looks a bit odd for such a huge creature to dance on tiny legs, but nevertheless it's cute.
Swimming animations: not there. He does not swim. He just stands in the water fidgeting around and sometimes doing his dance... When you swim, he just runs at your side - yes, in the water like he was on solid ground.

Sounds:

At first I didn't notice him making any sounds. He doesn't "say" anything when I send him into combat and this bothered me a little bit. Does he understand me? Does he approve or not? Is he eager to fight or not? I know, I never heard a beetle in rl making any sounds (as my fiancé told me "have you ever talked to a beetle?" - no I didn't...) but still. I never heard a chittering scorpion or a barking fox either, but in Wow they do make sounds. So no sounds for Bounce in combat.
But after a while and turning my music all down, I heard a really silent clicking of him when he's walking. A sound, finally. I was reliefed to have heard at least one sound of him.
But I don't like pets that are too silent. So I always found Bounce a bit creepy. But no sounds and no swimming animation: this pet doesn't need a big head with brains in it...

Fight:

Bounce is a tenacity pet and got my tank for my molten front dailies. He did really well and I never had to use mend pet once and he never had to use his "harden carapace" ability. So I sent him to one of the giants to fight him off, they did a little stomping challenge, you can see it in the pic, I shot it when both, Bounce and giant, stomped at the same instant. Bounce won the stomping challenge without problems, without mend pet and his ability.
Bounce can get even bigger: first time I used bestial wrath with him, I thought he would never stop growing. He gets quite a bit bigger than Findu (proof in pic in right corner).



Conclusion:

Bounce is a great tanking pet, I like his look and the beautiful colours. But I can't live with a pet without sounds when it comes to fights.
I didn't really bond with him, but I like him. I'll set him free again somewhere in Tanaris or Uldum, so he can return to his species.
I visited Dante with him and they got great friends, so perhaps he can greet Dante's friend Madexx...


Sidenote:
I tamed Aotona a few minutes ago, so the report on him is going to come soon!

[Calixte]

Apologies for my lateness in doing this report! I finally did it and here it is.

I had the brown condor:
I'm not a big fan of the carrion birds. They're kinda yucky, I always thought. But I dutifully went out to Redridge and tamed a Dire Condor. I started my first tame on an easily-reachable bird, but then a higher-level human paladin went out of his way to kill my tame. Really? Why randomly grief your own faction in Redridge? Anyway, as I was hunting for another bird, I noticed that these guys land and idle on cliffs and such. It's not just like they land and fold their wings, though. The wings stick straight out! It's kind of silly, and something I wish my pet would have done after I tamed him.

Here's where I meet Fearow, my new condor! In the background you can see one of his friends sitting with his wings stuck straight out. Silly birds! Poochyená and Fearow look pretty ferocious together. I like it.

Appearance
As I said, I'm not a big fan of the carrion birds. However, this bird's coloring is absolutely striking! He's not really brown, but more of a gold/bronze color. Here's how he looks in Redridge: I love the contrast of the gold and the black on his wings.
I never thought the carrion bird heads and faces were particularly attractive, but in person they're kind of hilarious. He looks like a little old man!

Animations
Not much to discuss here. He seems to move more normally than the parrots and owls do, and his wings don't break as strangely when he's idly flying next to my standing toon. His "run" is a smooth glide next to Pooch, and his idle is just wing flapping and a little air "bounce". He's difficult to see in combat but does a lot of wiggling around. In general I wasn't a big fan of standing idle with him, because he doesn't just snuffle around or scratch like a fox or coyote. He's so full of wiggles and movement, with his constant flapping and bobbing.

Sounds
I didn't mind Fearow's sounds overall, although his idle sounds are a constant flapping that sometimes psyched me out (after months of Aeonaxx camping, any wing flaps get my heart racing!) His entering combat screech really isn't that bad, and is pretty quiet considering. I'm not sure my melee party members were pleased with Demoralizing Screech right in their ears, but it didn't bother me all that much. Overall he's a pretty quiet guy, at least out of combat. If you're hoping for a pet with soft sounds in combat, you may want to look elsewhere. Fearow was a little shrill.

DPS and BGs
I can see that having a carrion bird in your party might be beneficial, especially at earlier levels where tanks are still learning about their cooldowns or might not even have any yet. Fearow and I ran a section of Maraudon, with a tank who was a total idiot and killed himself all over the place. I like to think my pet helped the healer out a little by preventing some of the damage from going out. He didn't hold aggro well at all! Overall I didn't feel he was a primo dps pet, but I can see where he would be useful.
As far as battlegrounds go, well...I hate pvp. I'm not sure why I keep deciding to get into WSG, which I especially hate. Alliance always gets spanked on my server, and I'm running without heirlooms so I get a lot of grief I felt Fearow did okay here, but he is a Ferocity pet and not really meant for pvp. He saved me from a nasty rogue several times, but we also died A LOT. Here he is flying alongside me as we head towards the Horde flag.

Overall
I did find Fearow really pretty to look at, at least as far as his coloring is concerned. His face is pretty hilarious but I didn't like it hanging there next to me all the time. I think flying pets bug me because they bounce around in the air right next to my toon, and he was no exception. He is not as poorly animated as the birds of prey are, and his movements were pretty smooth. He's noisy in combat, but his idling is accompanied only by a soft wingbeat sound. He's an acceptable dps pet, but definitely not good for tanking. I would prefer a crocolisk or gorilla for tanking, and a bird of prey or spider for pvp.

I did not end up keeping Fearow, but it was good for me to run with a pet I wouldn't have considered otherwise!

Yay another!
Name: Poochyená
Level: 41
Exotics: Not yet
Restrictions: None!

[TygerDarkstorm]

Sarantha:
Skarr


Calixte( Poochyená):
Grey Turtle

[Sarantha]

Skarr: Tamed by pulling with tame beast, then casting silence shot. After he was silenced, I cast deterrance and tame for real. I tamed him easily without even going below half health. Here's a really good close up of him:



Here's a pic of him doing a kitty-yawn in Hyjal:



Skarr and Sara front-view in Hyjal:



Skarr fighting a spider solo in Molten Front. He has all the normal cat animations in combat. The clawing, slashing, biting, etc animations and he is a good dps pet. He made short work of this spider:



Skarr swimming in lava. I was lazy and didn't go back to Hyjal for a better swimming shot, but be assured he has all the "cat in the water OMG GET ME OUT" animations the other cats do:



Inadvertent picture I took when Skarr aggro'd a nearby Molten Behemoth. He almost solo'd this baby and barely went below half health. He's an awesome pet:



Skarr and Sara facing each other, as I always end my pet challenges with. A spider somehow found his way into this pic, but I tried to get only his ass:

]

In review, I like Skarr. He looks more awesome than I thought he would and he's a really great dps pet. I love the way his eyes glow and his metallic looking skin. He really hits stuff pretty hard and almost solo'd an elite without going below half health. Skarr is definitely worth the tame if you can find it. As I said before, you have to pull with tame beast, silence him, then deterrance and tame for real. There is no REAL need for deterrance but it helps if you make a mistake or happen to be on a pvp server. He makes little growly cat noises like all other cats, as well, for those curious. Sometimes he will do this on his own, other times when he's clicked on. He yawns a lot and basically makes "I'm soooo bored" movements when idle for too long. Skarr likes to be out there killing stuff!

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Can only review pets. Stables are full. Have all Firelands and Cata/WOTLK rares, and Gezzarak the Huntress, along with a yellow dragonhawk and a sword in the head wolf.

[Finduilas]

Yesterday I finally found Aotona for Larkania. I had found Loque and Krush while searching for him. Rehomed Loque and tamed Krush, but let Krush go again in the wild, because I wasn't able to release Njenna, my brown T-rex.
I had nearly given up on him but then I thought, whatever and gave it a try. The second spot I looked, my NPC-Scan blares at me and Silverdragon's drums go off. There he is, flapping around in peace. I took a few screenshots and then tamed him easily.
For me Aotona is a girl and I named her Mapiya. She's almost as big as my wyvern in the wild, but shrank down a lot after taming.



Colour and Skin:

Mapiya is a very nice blue and purple with even a few white feathers. She has a black beak and black talons.
I like her look in general, but always thought, that she looked a bit too fancy next to Larkania. She is just so bright - I think she would look lovely next to a nelf with purple hair.
Something that's often been said here in the forums is the angle in which her wings bow - not normal - just eeeks how's that possible?

Animations and sounds:

Mapiya is constantly in motion, flapping besides Larkania, sometimes flapping a bit higher, then a mini-drop and flapping again. I tried to make her do a trick, but it doesn't work. My owl doesn't either. Lazy birds... So you can scratch off "trick" for her and exchange it with something other in her bar.
Her swimming animation is to do the same flying animation, only slower.
In a fight she attacks the enemy with her talons and seems to rip him apart. I took my screenshot of her infight on a puppet in Orgrimmar, as all my shots from Bgs and dungeons were really crap. But even the puppet in Og seemed to loose a lot of blood during the fight.
Her sounds are amazing: she screaches like a real parrot. I even expected her to repeat some words soon



Fighting:

I took Mapiya to a hero dungeon with me, and she did quite well. She attacks her target with her talons and a lot of wing flapping. Her talent tree is Cunning, what I don't prefer for pve, but like in pvp. In the dungeon I really missed a cat or wolf at my side, their roars/howls just help a normal 5-man group normally more. Mapiya's ability to snatch an enemies weapon works on some mobs, even on some bosses and it's funny to see a boss trying to hit with his fists. Because of this, I would take her out for such fights, but normally use a cat/wolf. Her dps is good, but not the best, but for a cunning pet I think it's really ok.
Then I took Mapiya to some bgs with me. In Twin peaks I really loved her. There were two really nasty rogues, but she stole them their weapons and then they were hitting like little girls. I think, that these two rogues never had a bird of prey before against them. They tried to hit me again and again. But always when they showed up again, the snatch cd was ready to be used

Conclusion:

Mapiya is a beautiful pet, but I think she is too shiny and colourful for Larkania's stable theme. I already have an owl and the grey parrot from deadmines and don't need a third pet from this family. It will be hard to let her go, because she is rare and a pain to get and because I know that many hunters are looking for her, but I really didn't bond with her and Larkania. I have Aotona with my orc and love these two together, I think I will look at it as a kind of rehome.
This parrot is a really nice pvp-pet. At least she was for me. I wouldn't use her in pve, but only to snatch bosse's weapons *snickers and hides*.

An other roll please:
This time for my new baby hunter.
Name: Nerdanel (Belf)
Level: 19, but I'm going to level her today, so you can give me to 25
Exotics: not yet
restrictions: level is enough
Rares she has: I have Echeyakee

[Sakiki]

Name: Sakiki
Level:85
Exotics:yes
Restrictions:I have many rare pets and the Meg spirit beast is the only SB I do not have but many of these rare pets I own I have never used except for show.

[Sarantha]

That is a gorgeous review of Aotona. I AM STILL LOOKING for her to this day. Her and King Krush. I got all the other rares by barely batting an eyelash, but these two elude me. And blue Madexx. Can't find a single hunter on my server that even HAS him as a pet, so he either doesn't spawn or spawns and gets killed every time. I think I already posted my roll. Under the Skarr review. Just wanted to compliment Aotona and how much I still love/want her even now.

[Finduilas]

Thank you Sarantha
I really love doing the reviews and I really like Aotona, too. It was really sad for me, that I didn't bond with her on Larkania.
She is as rare on our server. I never saw her since Cata came out and before Cata only twice with an other hunter (already wrote that somewhere). She was a pain to get for my Orc. I had been camping almost 4 weeks and never saw her.
I wish you all good luck! *passes Larkania's Aotona over*

[Sarantha]

WTB trading pets feature!

[Mizree]

This was fun When I get the pics sorted I will add them

Mizree

Brown Serpent.

I had avoided the cobra style snakes as pets up till now, so this was interesting.

Over all the Skin is nice looking. They did a good job on the subtle tones, and did not look bad next to my hunter.

Animation and sound were pleasant, The snake sounds were a nice change over my normal cats and wolves. The swim animation had to be the one I liked best. It actually swims like a snake will.

I did several days worth of dailies with this pet and while it has much less health then most of my pets, it held up well.

Over all this is a nice pet if you like the style, I will not be keeping him most likely ( if they ever let us tame the ground snake style I will tame one of those )


SheezaPain

the black monkey

I had been farming deadmines for that stupid Purple Parrot for days, so I was already sitting at the entrance.

A quick trip into the mines and Little Monk was mine.
We continued on in the mines to look for the parrot, killing everything in our way. But no parrot yet again I am starting to think it is a myth.

As a pet this little guy is cute, and holds up reasonably well . I quested with him and he is fun to play with. At this lvl he seems fine for solo questing and I did not get the chance to take him into any instances at my lvl.

I will be holding on to him for a while to see if he bonds with Sheeza.

Would love to get a new roll with both


Name: Mizree Orc
Lvl: 85
Exotics: Sure
Restrictions: Rather not do another snake just yet but anything else is fine including the new rares.

Name: Sheezapain Worgen
Lvl: 42
Exotics:NA
Restrictions : just has to be something my lvl can tame And more then willing to travel to find a pet.

[Finduilas]

Update for my Baby hunter's roll, she leveled up quite a bit.

Name: Nerdanel (Belf)
Level: 27
Exotics: not yet
restrictions: level is enough
rares she has: Ashtail (fox), Nix (wasp), Echeyakee (not really rare, but for me he is special), strider clutchmother
hard to get pets she has: a moth from bloodmythos isle and the white serpent from the wailing caverns finishing ritual.

You can give me a pet that's not too easy to get, Nerdanel doesn't mind a journey to get a new companion.