Random Pet Challenge [v4.0]

[Ana]

That selfie is brilliant! That as an awesome read

[TygerDarkstorm]

Very nicely done Zebab! Love the selfie!

[Varethyn]

Apologies but I'm going to have to postpone my challenge due to real-life health issues. Been sick and dizzy all weekend and it doesn't look like it's about to let up any time soon.

[TygerDarkstorm]

No worries. Go take care of yourself and feel better. Sounds like you need a doctor. <3

[Nefretiti]

So .. my first report

Bixy was travelling through the Barrens when she decided to stop for a brief rest.

Hmm .. wasn't there sun here a moment ago? but before she could react there was a loud ping as something .. or someone pecked at the crystal on her helm, looking up she jumped back as she saw a white tallstrider stand uncomfortably close dodging another peck at her helm "Hey! stop that!" she flailed at the bird who just cawed and came in for another peck.




Bixy harumphed and decided to continue her journey when she realized the bird was following her "Hey what!? .. off with you!" the bird just cawed and looked at her causing the small gnome to harumph again "Oh fine .. come along then but don't blame me if you end up on someone's dinnertable" earning her another peck at her helm which had her ears ringing.



The gnome looked up at her strange new companion "Hrm .. I suppose you need a name then .. given the dents on my helm .. I'll call you Peckers" earning her yet another ringing peck on her helmet causing the gnome to grumble and wave at the irritating bird.

Okay so .. sorta rp done on to the other points.

The tallstrider is a decent tank and a okay damage dealer over all, the attack animation is a mix between clawing with its feet and lunging forward to peck at the enemy


The run looks okay over all but I personally wish they'd kept their old run with the craned neck rather than the stretched out one they have these days.


The model shows its age but not as badly as some others, it is blocky in places but it's fairly tolerable,



Conclution
I personally have always liked tallstriders but have never managed to be able to click with one but I think Peckers is here to stay. they're a fun and unusual pet with over all decent abilities and dps output.

[Rhyela]

I really like tallstriders too, but the new run kinda ruined them for me. Your new friend is really cute, though!

[Ana]

Aww I love the white tallstrider I remember i had one on Abricot back when I played

[TygerDarkstorm]

I love tallstriders and feel like the only Petopian who doesn't mind/likes their new run.

[Nefretiti]

Soo .. the porcupine.
(Sorry for the lack of screenies in this one, was hard to get good ones due to the size of the critter)

Seri asked for the blue rather than the red porky and after a wild chase and nearly getting whopped by the Sha she managed to find Bristlespine and place the flare well enough for the tame to finish.


and as the little fellow seemed rather peeved at their new situation the lil one kept trying to prickle Seri's legs so hence the name Prickles .. rather unimaginative but it fits.

After some food bribes Seri got Prickles to stop trying to exact revenge and decided to take him questing in Highmountain.




After killing various mobs both soft and stone Seri was treated to a another attempt to implant those spines into her calf before the lil guy settled down.
And they have the ability rest, where they curl up into a ball for awhile. looks kinda funny


So .. Points.

Combat : the animations seems to be a mix of biting and scratching with a front paw. doesn't look half bad with the model.
Running animation : It seems to be this cute little skipping/galloping and it fits the creature pretty well.
Model : the model is very nice, my only gripe is that it could be a mite larger but over all it's something I personally could learn to tolerate.



My impression : over all a fun pet with pretty good damage output and a handy size for dungeons and raids. as stated above it's a mite on the small side for me but despite that I think Prickles is here to stay.

Moar rolllssssssss

Serinar
Level : 100
Exotics : No, survival hunter.
Mechanicals : not right now, I am hoping to be able to afford the trinket someday.

Bixy
Level : 51 currently.
Exotics : yes
Mechanicals : Yes

(If you don't mind doing two rolls again that is, otherwise just do one for Seri.)

[Aweena]

The brown spotted goat:

Naisya Steelfeather woke up the day after a drunken party in Bradensbrook, "ugh my head" she moaned, as she sat up slowly her bleary eyes focused on a brown spotted goat cozying up to her, "where did you come from little guy?" blinking to get more focus Naisya realized she was in a stable.

After a while Naisya got up and walked out of the small stable meeting the owner of the goat and stable, "So ye finally awake lass, Good now ye start training Shaggy" Blinking in confusion Naisya asked "Training Shaggy?" "Aye lass ye bet me ye could teach him to be a propper battle goat!" the owner smirked with glee shining in his eyes, Naisya not one to back out of a challenge left with the goat following behind bleating happily.


I was going to do an RP integration but Shaggy does not really fit my character that well.

So here is the review:

I love the model and skin i might even make a goat themed hunter at some point a real farmer guy.


As for the fighting animation i think its a little sad that he kicks out with his front legs instead of headbutting.




Running animation is as it should be a majestic GOAT with his herd of ewe's


Swimming i did not get a screenshot off but its an adorable paddle like all other non watery type pets.

Sound he is rather quiet when idle but on click he will bleat at you and during fights there is a lot of bleats but he is rather quiet otherwise.
All in all i like the goat as a pet just not for this character who is a role play main he does a nice job of keeping agro and the dps is as it should be in what i managed to see, He wont be staying in my stable thou since its rather full i will be returning him to bradensbrook to run free with his ewe's, i will always remember him for the weeks i used him for literally anything i was doing apart from rp.


With this we walk off my friend.

I will be making a new hunter someplace just for this i like Nhee's use the pet for 10 lvls way of doing it so

Name: Nahame Wildhoof
Level:10
Exotics: no
Restrictions: none

[Ana]

I like both the porcupine and the goat good screenies for both of them. Fun to stalk this thread

[TygerDarkstorm]

Sorry, I've been rather lazy lately. Nef, you're allowed to request as many rolls as you'd like. Unless we suddenly get a huge influx of people interested in this, then I might start limiting them. However, two isn't much at all.

Nefretiti(Serinar):
Dark Grey Draenor Raptor


Nefretiti(Bixy):
Diseased Gazelle


Aweena(Nahame Wildhoof):
Totally feel you on the goats; like porcupines they seem to kind of underappreciated as pets despite being newer because they're kind of awkward or something.
Gold Lion


Sorry for the delay; happy hunting folks!

[Aweena]

The rake it is let hope he does not eat my tauren...

[Nefretiti]

Oo interesting rolls I will probably get to taming them tonight or tomorrow since I have friday off.

[Nefretiti]

So .. the raptor.

Seri decided to go for the Gorgorond raptors and intially tamed the wrong green but released it and continued looking, eventually she found the correct one.





I decided to take her out and do the two remaining artifact questlines.









I decided to name the raptor Midnight due to her beautiful bueishgreen color.
Model : This raptor is beautiful, textures, coloring, the slight shimmer effect on its back, it's easily one of my favourites.
Combat : good dps but rather weak, during the questlines Serinar died several times due to beeing overwhelmed because Midnight died and she weren't able to rez her in time.
Animations : smooth and flowing for the most part,running is one of the better ones and fits the model well.
Oppinion : Due to the raptor appearing to be weaker than many other pets for some reason I don't think Midnight is going to be staying in Serinar's stables despite her beauty. just died too easily, even Seri's owl did a better job than Midnight and that just made it too frustrating.

[Nhee]

Midnight is gorgeous :O Draenor raptors are so underrated in my opinion.

Aaaand

This is my report for the Orange Tarantula, which I used from level 40-50.



I was thankfully already in Orgrimmar to drop off Lopen, so Dustwallow Marsh was a swift ride away. I swam around the pesky Alliance outpost, ran up the Dustwallow shore, and quickly found a tarantula who was just minding his own business near the Raptor nests.



One tame later, and he was mine! I knew from the moment I saw my roll that I was gonna name him Sadeas. In the books, Sadeas is an arrogant and pompous warlord who will stop at nothing to acquire more riches and gain power. He is the sort of character you just love to hate, and is associated with the colours red and green. All in all, a perfect match for this spider.



Right off the bat, I want to say that this is a great looking pet. Aside from some slight pixelation on the legs, the model still holds up. I always found tarantulas to be very dull looking compared to other spiders, and was very surprised to see just how colourful and vibrant Sadeas actually was, with the green venom complementing the yellow and orange hues of his fur.
And I just fell in love with his beady black eyes. They are so full of expression and personality, especially when compared to the lifeless eyes of the moths. Of course your mileage may vary, depending on how you feel about spiders, but I found a lot to love about this model.
The animations are great too. When idle, he would never really stand still, always shuffling his legs around and occasionally looking from side to side.
The attack animations are really nice too. He would coil back, then leap forward and attack with his venomous bite and sharp claws, accompanied by a threatening hiss.



The real standout though is the swim animation. I can imagine this would look unsettling to someone who hates spiders, but I thought it was very nice. When idling underwater, Sadeas almost looked like a furry, red jellyfish.



As you can see from the screenshots, we went questing in Eastern Plaguelands. I absolutely love this zone. It shows great use of phasing, and has a very engaging main story. Travelling and questing with Fiona and the Paladin Pals is a blast, and I love how they integrated classic EPL stuff like Darrowshire into the main questline.



And all throughout this, Sadeas proved to be a great companion. Even in cunning spec, he handled the elite mobs of Darrowshire with no problem, and it was cute to watch him run alongside the Caravan.
Spiders still have their special skill, Web Spray, which is a 6 second slow on a 10 second cooldown. Used in conjuration with concussive shot or wing clip, you can pretty much keep your target slowed indefinitely. While I only really used this to run away from bad pulls, I can see it being very useful in PvP. If Nhee ever ventures into a battleground, it will most likely be with Sadeas at her side.



Eastern Plaguelands came and went way too fast, and after saying farewell to all our new friends, we found ourselves onboard a rocket to one of my other favorite areas - Badlands!
At first we continued on our merry way, questing along, when suddenly I found that Sadeas had been replaced with a bunch of orcs!



I tried everything I could to get rid of these jerks, but they would just not go away. And well, that made me a bit ornery. It took me nearly a week just to get the motivation to finish the quests, kick the orcs to the curb and get poor Sadeas back, but once I did, Badlands went by in a heartbeat. We took our part in Wrathion's origin story, saw Rhea meet her untimely demise, spent an embarrassingly long time solving those annoying Iron Dwarf puzzles, and - of course - heard three drunks' completely factual recount of what happened the day that Deathwing came.

And soon after, only a few quests into Searing Gorge, we reached level 50!
This pet was a very pleasant surprise. As I mentioned before, I never really paid much attention to the tarantulas. But Sadeas was such a presence! Great animations, the model and texture still looks good despite their age, and he had tons of personality. Add to that one of the best non-exotic PvP pet skills, and this is just an awesome pet overall. Sadeas has given me a newfound appreciation for tarantulas, and I do now consider him the second member of Nhee's core pet team.


(Please disregard the hideous armor)

Name: Nhee
Level: 50
Exotics: no
Restrictions: No moths, no mechanicals

[Nefretiti]

So .. the diseased gazelle

Bixy ventured out to Felwood to find one which was pretty easy.
She named the lil bugger Spook




The model isn't too bad but the textures of the diseased gazelle is just so strange, with stretching and weirdness all over.





The combat animation is kicking out with it's front legs and it looks rather odd, the back bends in a rather unnatural angle and the front legs looks somewhat stiff.




The running animation however looks fairly okay for the model, it's a reasonably natural looking gallop.



Conclution : The diseased gazelle has many flaws but for some inexplicable reason it has endeared itself to me somewhat despite the texture issues and odd looking animation, the zombie look and pixelation in places is something I'm unsure of weather or not I can overlook, I may let Bixy tame one of the other Gazelles to see how they feel before deciding on weather or not to keep Spook.
Over all it seems to be a decent pet, it does okay damage and holds aggro reasonably well.

[Rhyela]

Midnight is really beautiful, Nef! And Nhee, I find Sadeas to be completely adorable. I do see the spunk in those beady eyes. Cute!

Here is my report for the Yellow Worm!

I'm not a huge fan of worms, so I wasn't sure how this would go. I decided to tame Parasitus in EPL because I thought his large size was kinda cool, plus I already had a decently close flight path so it didn't take too long to get there (despite my getting lost in the mountains in the Hinterlands.....). Parasitus wasn't up when I first checked, but I logged on the next morning before work and found him swimming around in that nasty lake.



He didn't look so big at first, but once I got in close to tame him, I saw just how big he really was.



A few seconds later, however, and the creature was mine. I named him Gregory, keeping with my "human names" theme. We immediately hearthed back to SW to avoid any potential PvP conflict. I think this picture pretty much sums up how I felt about this guy, lol.



But, I thought that maybe using him for ten levels would help. So, off we went! Sadly, I didn't get any good dungeon or BG pics, so the following ones will hopefully suffice.

Even tamed, his size is quite large, especially under Bestial Wrath. If you're into big pets that aren't obnoxiously big, this might be the pet for you! I like that he's tall, but not wide so he doesn't take up tons of space when you're questing and trying to loot. That is a plus!



His combat moves were surprisingly pretty plain. He seems to only have one combat animation: lunging forward and biting. In fact, he lunges so far forward that he goes through the target. And with no noise that I ever noticed, it makes him a bit lackluster in the combat department as far as I'm concerned. And his family ability, Burrow, does so little damage that I almost never used it.



His swimming animation was fairly straightforward. He stretches out and undulates slowly. It looks very natural, and shows again how long/tall he is.



The model itself is...okay. You can tell it's old, but it's not nearly as dated as the old cats and hyenas and the like. I do like the rich golden color, it went nicely with Dansen's mog. I was glad that I got the yellow worm rather than the white, because I might have had the heeby jeebies the entire time.



His idle animation is also pretty plain. He occasionally looks back and forth with his mouth open. The idle animation doesn't seem to trigger as often as other pets, so I often had a hard time getting a decent picture because he refused to do anything but sit still. I think I've heard some say that worms have a cute face with personality, but I personally didn't see it. Maybe I'm just not a worm person.



That being said, I do think they'd make a really appropriate pet for an undead hunter. That might be about the only race that would look right with worms, at least in my opinion.



I hate saying it like this, but I kinda couldn't wait to get to 50 so I could get another roll. I didn't hate him as much as I thought I would, thanks to spending more time with him than I normally would with a worm. However, it still didn't make me like him. He's just kinda...there. He had some things going for him, like his height and color, but overall worms just really don't do anything for me. And he never really did seem to have any personality. He was very "meh" the entire time I had him.



And now, time for my next challenge!

Name: Dansen
Level: 50
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: 41-50 please, and I am still unable to tame mechs.

[Aweena]

Golden Lion:

While out camping on the plains of Mulgore, Nahame noticed a small lion stalking towards her "Must be lost" she thought.



As he got closer she noticed more about him, he looked very intelligent and rather like a runt.



Deciding it was time she got another pet she got up and tamed him, having him bonded to her she decided to name him Leothe for lion.



End of RP bit.

So the Lion i know i am a little nostalgic, the model shows it age with angles and sharp edges here and there like the mane.



All in all i love cats and the golden skin with patches of white is not bad for its age he is an adorable old cat.
fighting is a mix if raking his claws down the enemy and lunging forward with only one paw raking across so not bad at all.





His run is the same as any other cat a smooth gallop




and as a role player i figured id add how he walks i love the cat walk its this slow stalking where the shoulders move up and down as he switches paws it really suits a majestic cat /lion.




Swimming is the same adorable paddle as wolfs and a lot of other four legged mammals.





I took him with me in to a few dungeons and he sometimes had to tank when the warrior died or otherwise did not keep aggro, All in all i find the lion a great all round pet he kept the mobs of me fine even in only ferocity spec and he had a good base dps the road from 10 -20 was way to fast even with out heirlooms i will be keeping Leothe in my stables.



and a few pictures of our time in the barrens hunting quillboar.

And for my next roll:

Name: Nahame
Level: 20
Exotics: No
Restrictions: no mechanical's

Adding another lowbie i find this is a fun way to level chars.

Name: Zeti
Level: 10
Exotics: No
Restrictions: No mechanical's

(I made these on Darkmoon Faire EU for those who want to come along for 10 levels here and there)

[Nhee]

Rhyela that selfie made me laugh. Dansen looks like a very unhappy camper.
And Leothe is so cute! As cool as Sambas may look, there is just something special about those old vanilla lions.

And Still trying to get the motivation to do Odarin's report. He's a Draenei, so getting him to the barrens is gonna be.. fun. XD