My pet challenge for Finduilas was a pet I would have never thought of to tame: the ghostly blue two-headed vulture. This pet is special in several ways. First: it's one of the ghostly pets every hunter (not only beastmaster) can use, like the ghostly wolf or the ghostly snow leopard. Second: I think he's the last appearance buff pet that still can be tamed with his cosmetic effect.
I knew about the tame with the glow still attached to the pet and had already tamed this pet successfull on my Tauren hunter. So when I got rolled this pet for Findu my goal was to tame it with the glow again and then try out things I wouldn't dare on my Tauren. I set out for Blade's Edge Mountains to this little Arrakoa camp in the south. The Arrakoa Wing Protectors summon the birds to protect them when they are hurt. My first challenge was not to kill the Arrakoa so they could run off to their summoning circles. I had to take off my polearm and hit the Arrakoa with my fists between three and four times then he would run away and summon this bird. I had looked up a taming strategy earlier and knew that this pet would despawn after 1 minute. In the guide buried deep in the forums here I read that if you started taming at exactly 49.5 seconds after spawning you would get the birdie with glow. I think Findu has a little bit too much haste for the 49.5. seconds to work for her, because when I did the 49.5 seconds I got the bird without glow just flapping next to me. With a bit of trying I found that 51 seconds was too much, the pet would despawn before the tame finished. The 10th try worked like a charm. I started taming with 50.5 seconds and the tame went through but I didn't have a pet. I logged out and saw it next to Findu in the log in screen. Back into the game I could call the pet and there he was, with glow. Before the 10th try I had joined groups with a friend of mine who needed to get into a raid. Her toon was named Erax. As she seemed to have been my lucky charm I asked her if it was okay to name her pet after her toon. So my birdie was now named Erax.
Erax didn't have any abilities in his pet bar at first. I was a bit scared that he might not have his special abilities, but after giving him skillpoints I found his abilities in my spellbook and could put them in the bar.
Sorry for the tiny swimming pic: Erax didn't like to take photos when in the water.... I have to say he does a very gracious swim with slow movements but he didn't like pics of it..... His swim is like the flying animation only he lowers his head further down.
In the pictures you can see his pretty and strong glow after beeing tamed and during our screenshot session in Stormpeaks.
Erax is a pretty bird. I love his turqoise color combined with a dark grey. It's really pretty. In comparison to the other ghostly pets he looks rather solid and only in front of certain backgrounds you notice that he's ghostly. I usually can't stand the tail "feathers" of carrion birds, they are the thing that keeps me from bonding because I think they look like a plucked chicken. But Erax' tail looked nice, I think the green is still feathers on his tail and not just some naked flesh like with this birds with only one head (they are worse for me).
I forgot to take a pic of his heads, but he has really nice little yellow eyes and a feathery collar around his neck. In comparison to my tiny bloodelf Erax is a really big pet. Unlike with my chimera he never was in the way when looting or targetting things.
After taking pics I took Erax to a random dungeon with me. We got into Deadmines right in the middle of a fight with the two dps members dead and tank and healer only barely alive. Erax and Findu made quick work with the mobs and after rezzing the other two we went on. Erax is a ferocity pet and I love the dps output of this family. As a beastmaster I depend on my pet's damage and Erax did well. Sadly his special ability is something that is covered as soon as you have a tank in the group. Erax would reduce the damage all enemies deal in a range of 8 meters by 10% - an ability each tank has (at least I think so, bears do have for sure, warriors, too. Only one I'm not sure about is a dk and pally.). My deadmines group really was bad. I think without me and Erax they would have never made it. The warrior dps kept on dying because the healer had problems keeping everyone alive, the tank pulled too many groups and died, everyone was bad at dps, so Erax and I ended up dealing almost 60% of the total damage alone. Eventually with many deaths of tank and warrior and near-wipes we made it. Reliefed I left the group.
Erax does not only look pretty, his fighting animations are nice to watch, too. He rises up, lets himself drop down on the target and attacks it with beak and talons. His screech ability makes a purple effect around the target. His fighting is very fluid and dynamic.
After our dungeon I finally go my lazy butt up to unlock Therazane with Finduilas. So Erax and I went to Deepholm. He looked so pretty and nice there with the bright lights and colors. We killed evil people, summoned dragons and finally got called to Therazane herself. We rescued the world pillar by helping the earthen ring and made good gold selling crap items and getting quest rewards. A few hours later we had made it. Erax had been tanking like a champ and his screech helped him hold aggro on several mobs as long as I didn't multishot too often. He's no tenacity pet, but from all my ferocity pets he definitely was the best tank.
To finish our day properly we went into a battleground. I had heard about the bird loosing the glow if the master or the pet dies and I wanted to try it out. Of course it had to be my most hated bg: strand of the ancients. Like Acherontia mentioned several times the pet hp bug is most annoying there. If you are on a demolisher and it crashes and your pet appears next to you you mostly get hit by something, be it some frostnova or a bomb and the pet dies, because it doesn't have his full health yet. THIS BUG IS FU***** ANNOYING!!!!!!!! Ehm, sorry for that outburst but I really hate it.... The Alliance group seemed to be only healers and rogues with and occasional mage here and there. We died and died. Erax and I tried our best, but as soon as you were alone at least 3 rogues began stabbing you in the back. It was no nice bg. Good thing was only that with rogues and healers you won't win a battle and after some epic fights in front of the golden gate Horde won. I had noticed in the battleground that after the first rezz Erax' glow had dimmed down a bit, and the glowing only was now on top of him. Before he had glow over and under his body. But the glow didn't go away. It's faint now, but you can still see it. And we died a lot, so it only dims down one time. But I think you can see that he's ghostly better now the glow is not so strong anymore.
Erax is a pet I never would have tamed for Findu. But I like him. During our time together he grew on me. He will stay until I will need the stable place when Mop comes out. He was a good questing companion and I want to try im out in a better battleground where he can prove his value with his screech better. In strand of the ancients with all the rogues we died too fast or I was driving a demolisher so he couldn't do much.
It was my last challenge for now. After my wedding I might do an other one, so long I will check to read all the awesome stories.
No I didn't Megatron, in fact I'm doing it right now. And my names not starscream!
