Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[Melentari]

I was assigned a Violet Dragonhawk - and luckily enough, I already had one in my stable. Meet Zonaren.

Since I already had him, there aren't any taming pictures. Instead, I offer pictures of his very pretty skin. He really is a nice looking thing, with those huge, almost butterfly-ish wings, and a tail like an in-game hippogryph. I love his flapping. He also looks left and right constantly, which bugged me while I was trying to take screenshots of his face, but I eventually got one.

I tamed him because I always figured I should have a dragonhawk, but I didn't want either of the orange ones from Eversong. Since I couldn't get into Zul'Aman or Sunwell Plateau alone to get one of the other colours, I settled on one of the easier to get models out in Shadowmoon Valley. I'm still not sure if I particularly like this skin or not, but it's what I have.

His attacks are pretty self-explanatory:

He sets things on fire, lunges in to bite them, and then arches to smack them with his tail. It's a nice set of moves, for all I don't think that tail smack would do much good.

I usually use him in dungeons instead of doing solo quests because my main spec is Surv, and that buff to magic damage is really helpful. But today, I stuck with my BM questing spec so I could try him out against some mobs in the wild. I discovered a few things I didn't know before.

Although he's a Cunning pet instead of Tenacity, unlike Spycrab, he actually could pull aggro off me and he kept it. He also took surprisingly less damage than Spycrab did, despite being specced for DPS instead of tanking. However, his DPS as BM was less than I liked.

Overall, I'm keeping him unless I actually get to a yellow or blue dragonhawk and find I like those skins better. I'm not really attached to him. The skin, though pretty, isn't one I'm thrilled to see beside me. It seems neutral and lackluster compared to the contrast of the others. He's a good Surv dungeon pet, but I wonder just how annoying those wings might be for a tank, given that they'd be flapping in their face all the time.

Though I really do want to try one of those yellow ones. Ah well, here's hoping I can get to them eventually!

I'll put myself in here for another.

Name: Melentari
Level: 85
Exotics: Yep, I have a BM offspec.
Restrictions: None that I need a group to get to on-level. I just don't have the resources. Lowbie dungeons are fine.
Rares: Gondria, Olm the Wise, Magria, Ban'thalos, Terrorpene, Ankha
Honourable Mentions: Ghost Sabre, Alystros the Verdant Keeper (yes, there's an owl with his skin, but taming him was an adventure)

[Sarantha]

Bone spider. I tamed Terrorspinner when I ran across him in Zul'drak while doing my "hunting for pets for other people" thing and traveling Northrend. He was HUGE when I first saw him and I just got this "tame this pet right now!" feeling from him and so I did. Here's two pics. One while being tamed (shows how huge he is) and one after tame, and various other pics:





Side/back view:



Spin in combat. Webbing is his best ability, like most spiders:



Idle animation, which is rubbing his front legs together. He does not do it often, but when he does its really cute:



Spin and Sara in Hyjal, the best place for taking screenies imo. Very nice lighting there:



I like Spin much more than I thought I would. He's much more unique than a lot of the lava spiders now, I think. You see lava spiders everywhere and this guy NO WHERE. I'm the only person I've seen on my server using a bone spider of any type, and I think they look really cool. Like all spiders, his best ability is web as I said above. Its great in pvp and really helps while doing dailies as well. As cunning, he's not the best raid dps pet, and has no special ability besides web that could be used as utility. I still love him and plan on keeping him for sure. His model is not rare, so if you like spiders, definitely tame Terrorspinner or a lookalike. You won't be disappointed.

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Will review whichever is rolled for me. Black windserpent, white windserpent, yellow worm, red devilsaur. For now. Am going through pets as we speak to see if there are any I really don't need and could drop for a free slot so I can get more rolls.

[Serenith]

For my random pet challenge, I had the color changing worg.



After I tamed this guy in The Storm Peaks, I sat and thought up a name. I decided on Pepper, cause the colorings just reminded me of ground pepper. It seems like it makes more sense for the darker color, but I’ve seen lighter shades of color in ground pepper before, so I suppose it also works for the lighter color too.



Pepper the Color Changer =/



I took Pepper into a dungeon, and although I didn’t finish the dungeon due to my random packing at the time, it was smooth sailing. The 5% critical strike buff was helpful I’m sure, we had a lot of buffs so it was nice to get use out of the 5%. (I was never good at numbers, so I don’t know how well pets compare, I just don’t find that stuff important since I am not a hardcore raider/pvper, so I generally just pick pets I like and roll with it.)



When it comes to WoW, I’m not a huge fan of wolf models. I like the older versions, but I just really think they need graphics upgrades. So generally I don’t prefer to keep a wolf as a pet, even when they are highly thought of due to their buff. And the Northrend worgs, well they just look sorta awkward. They have tiny wastes and look malnourished, and their jaws seem detached to me. Give me a cat over a worg any day, even when the buff is overridden. Thats just my opinion.

Now the fact that this guy is a color changer makes it a bit more interesting. I always thought I would like the idea of taming a pet that would change colors as you call him, but having one is a different story. I find it a bit odd to be honest, and not in a good way. I found that the varying color made it hard to bond with Pepper. And its interesting to me, that having two worgs instead of one to represent each color would be easier to bond with for me. I think its the inconsistency in my active pet that is the problem, but that problem may not exist for some players, so a pet like Pepper would be something neat to have.



On to the sound effects, well, I was never fond of the worg sound effects, and I’m not quite sure how to explain how it sounds. And their animations are a bit dull, I watched Pepper attack a dummy for 8 minutes and it just seemed lame, I prefer the old wolf model animations over the Northrend worgs animations. Oh and the swimming animations are pretty basic, they look like a subtle doggy paddle (thats the best way for me to describe it)

The special ability that wolves get is Furious Howl, that increases the crit strike chance for party members by 5%. This is a preferred hunter pet buff from what I have seen.

Wolves as a family are ferocity pets, so they are better spent as DPS pets, but when I have growl on, Pepper managed to keep aggro off of me, though my tank pets do a better job. Pepper lacks the same defense system that tenacity pets can spec into and I found myself hitting mend pet more often than I would like when solo questing.

Overall, I do not intend to keep Pepper, I like the name and thats about it. I just have no desire to keep a pet for a buff, cause thats all Pepper will do for me, and I can get that same buff from a devilsaur since I am BM generally 99% of the time. Oh and this challenge has made me realize color changing pets are not for me.

[Sesamee]

My pet this time was a Blue Warpstalker. I love my Gazzarak so was interested to see how a different color would do. These warp stalkers are found only in Vash'jir. I didn't quest there so had to do about a half hour worth of quests to get the sea mount. No biggie as I wanted one anyway. I love the sea horse, I think it's such a cool mob. Getting rolled this pet made me get off my butt and finally get one so bonus!!


I finally made my way to the Abyssal Depths and tamed the first one I saw. You have to look for a while because they go in and out of stealth. For some reason the name Bruce got stuck in my head so that's what I called him. Tame was easy, nothing notable at 85.


Warp Stalkers don't really shrink that much when tamed. Here you can see the size difference between a pet version and wild version:


His combat animations are kinda boring but he makes up for it with the cute factor. He does a bite and a small lunge. Their special ability, Time Warp, is a ranged 50% slow. Pretty handy for a tank pet. Although, I really think these are better as ferocity pets. They just don't' seem very tank like but they hold their own. And I also think it's totally out of place for them to have a water warp stalker without any physical differences to the ones living on land. That just strikes me as odd and I don't like it.


Warp Stalkers being a tank with a slow are kinda middle of the pack when it comes to utility. Where they really shine is with the cute factor! They're just plain adorable! I mean look at that face, who wouldn't love it?


Bruce has beautiful blue tones all over his body with red stripes and purple on his claws and extremities. I think he's gorgeous! I love the idle animations they do, they look around a lot, look back up at you, etc. It's very endearing!


My favorite animation shown here! Sometimes it looks like they're sniffing around toher times it's like they're checking in with you. It's my favorite thing about this pet:


Oddy, Bruce is blue but he showed up as Olive on my log in screen. I do not nor have I ever had an olive warp stalker so this was weird!


I love Bruce and if it weren't for already having Gazzarak, renamed Nyx, I would keep him. But Nyx is too dear to me so she's staying! She came along on my trip to pick up Bruce. She looked adorable doggie paddling her way around Vash'jir lol:


Warp Stalkers are great pets and I encourage everyone to check them out. They're special ability, a ranged slow, is nice but their cute factor seals the deal! Bruce has been released back to his watery home waiting for some hunter, who doesn't have their very own Nyx, to come tame him! Don't make him wait too long now!

[TygerDarkstorm]

The reason the blue warpstalkers look green on login (and in the stables and armory I'd imagine) is because they used to be a color changer with the blue and green skins before Blizzard made them only blue. For whatever reason, they never fixed the login, stables, and armory screens with both this mob and many other skins that share a similar fate.

[Sesamee]

Ok that makes sense now! I figured it was some sort of glitch!

Name: Sesamee
Level: 85
Exotics: yes
Restrictions: none
Rares I have: Loque, Magria, Terrorpene, Olm the Wise, Arcturis, King Krush, Deth'tilac, Aotona, Nuramoc, Skarr

[Kalhoun]

I always had fun doing this before my break from WoW, so I'd like to do it again.

Name: Kalhoun
Level: 85
Exotics: Yeppers
Restrictions: None
Rares I Have: Sambas, Loque'nahak, King Krush, Ankha, Magria, Karoma, Terrorpene, Jadefang, Red, Blue and Green Madexx (I also have Gezzarak and Gorebite but I don't know if they count)

[Ilanthe]

Assignment: Brown Condor

For my assignment I decided to tame the Twilight Firebird from Mount Hyjal. To be able to tame the bird you need to be on or past the "wave two" quest for them to be present.

Meet Vlad.



It took a bit of work, but I eventually managed to find the right spot where i could tame him in BM spec. I hit him with Concussive shot and immediately started tame, and just before he got back out of range it finished.

His special Ability is Demoralizing Screech which reduces physical damage by 10%. The ability is one that should already be present for most tanks from Demoralizing Roar, Demoralizing Shout, Scarlet Fever, and Vindication. Because of this, it only brings its DPS which should be comparable to other ferocity pets which means it's unlikely to be part of most hunters callable five.

One interesting note is that it is one of only two pets apparently that learn their ability prior to 20, so it is very useful for a 19 twink hunter.



As for his looks, I really like the look of these birds, definitely one of my favorites. He's been my companion from level 82 to 85, and i'm keeping him around.


I'd like a new challenge!

Name: Ilanthe
Level: 85
Exotics: Sure
Restrictions: None
Previously Done: Brown Worm, Brown Condor.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Sorry these rolls are coming so late, I've been very addicted to League of Legends and City of Heroes of late.

Talody(Jandos):
Purple Nether Ray


Talody(Lael):
White Ghost Cat


Melentari:
Yellow Hyena


Sarantha:
White Wind Serpent


Sesamee:
Magria


Kalhoun:
Blue Crab


Ilanthe:
Black Owl

[Sarantha]

White windserpent. I have a lot of pics of her. She's just very photogenic and has really cool animations. She's common, so you can find her anywhere. Here's some starter pics:







Side/back views:







Water and combat. Her swim animations are amazing. Lien is so graceful. She looks like she was MEANT for water:







Sara and Lien, twice:





Best model of windserpent out there, imo. She's really graceful and a very nice looking pet. Her Lightning Breath isn't bad in raids either, if you have a lot of caster dps. It increases magic damage by 8%. A very nice caster buff in raids. She's also quite fast and looks it. If you like really pretty, rare (because hardly anyone tames this model), and graceful pets, get a white windserpent of this type. The Outland version is pretty, but this one really takes the cake because its not spiky like its Outland counterpart and its really worth taming.

Name: Sarantha
Level: 85
Exotics: Yes
Restrictions: Will review whichever is rolled for me. Black windserpent, yellow worm, red devilsaur, King Krush (finally!)

[Sesamee]

My pet this time was Magria, one of the challenge tames added in 4.2. The challenge to Magria is that the more armor you have the harder she hits. To tame her you want to remove all your gear that has an armor value on it. She pats a pretty large area and there are many mobs around so since you are buck naked, you should take care to tame her away from other mobs who will kill you. Luckily I already had Magria so I didn't have to go through the camp for her. When I was on my way into the MF to do dailies my add on went off and there she was. While mid tame an Alliance Warlock tried to kill her out from under me and she one shot him. Karma's a bitch, ain't she! That gives me a little chuckle everytime I think about it ! I thought about naming her Karma but settled on Freyja, the norse goddess who rides around in a chariot pulled by cats.

Here's my pretty girl. She is my favorite of the translucent cats and is one of my favorite pets.


For this review I decided to take Freyja along on my tournament dailies in Icecrown. For all the flack that Wrath gets, Icecrown is an amazing zone, I loved questing there and the scenery and graphics are gorgeous. Freyja looked great there!


Here she is killing some mobs. I had to kill so many to get credit for the quest because while taking screenshots, Freyja had killed the entire pack, lol. And you don't get credit if your pet kills a mob alone! As a ferocity pet I used a glyphed misdirect to help her hold aggro on multiple mobs.


Her combat animations are paw swipes and bites while lunging back and forth. Every so often you'll see some red streaks through the air.


Here I was suppossed to be jousting but I lost my lance so I just decided to kill everything the normal way and I still got credit. This mob is one of the Commanders and took forever to die because he had a buff which makes him take 90% less damage. Being lvl 80 he didn't do a ton of damage just took forever to kill. It was fun though to see Freyja chasing him all over lol:


I managed to snap this great screenshot with lightening in the background. I love Icecrown for scenes just like this. It's a gorgeous zone.


Being a spirit beast, Freyja is exotic and can only be used when I'm in my BM spec. She has a small heal which, honestly, I don't even notice but I've read in some places that in comes in handy for others. She's amazing for damage though. I have her spec'd for maximum dps as shown:


These next shots were taken a while ago during the Hallow's End holiday. I got transformed into a wisp and Freyja and I had a nice game of chase . You can see how she looks different in different lights:




This darker lighting shows off her blue color very nicely!


I highly recommend this pet! She does great dps and, like I said, she is the most beautiful of the three translucent cats. Thanks for checking out my girl!

[starkittens]

Sesamee, gondria was a wowLK pet, it's Magria that's one of the new ones...

[Serenith]

Blue or purple, they look the same =P (Well, I suppose they don't but they are very similar. She just mixed up the name if you ask me )

Oh and it does look like thats Magria, so she was right about it being the new 4.2 tame. (It looks like a blue kitty to me)

[starkittens]

lo, i thought so, was just correcting

[Serenith]

All she had wrong was the names, she did report the correct pet, hehe.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I love this one; her tongue is sticking out!

[TygerDarkstorm]

All she had wrong was the names, she did report the correct pet, hehe.

The kind of ironic thing though is that I listed the pet as Magria in the rolls because it was one she said she had. XD I usually hand out the spirit beasts/special rares by name.

Also, I was going to point out that the name of the pet was mistaken as well so there's nothing wrong with gently reminding her. The only reason I would correct it is because I don't want any person reading this and not familiar with the pets to confuse the two.

[Kalhoun]

I was assigned the old world blue crab model. Since I've been in Northrend a lot lately, working on the Argent tournament dailies, I decided to tame Kili'ua.

Upon meeting Kili'ua, my future pet's personality came through right away. This mob is gigantic, but after taking a few swipes at me, he bugged and completely stopped attacking. He just stood there, staring at me.



These crabs have such a worried expression. That coupled with him freezing up while attacking me gave me the idea to name my new crab Wimpy.



I swear at one point the crab mouths actually had the individual "teeth" properly cut out. It was back in Vanilla. Sadly I don't have a screenshot of a crab from back then, as I've gone through several computers since. Shame the shapes are not cut out anymore.

ANYWAYS. I'm a fan of the blue crab models. I love the markings on their backs. And they're SHINY.



Crabs are quiet pets, in both sounds and animations, and I like quiet. They just look from side to side while idle. They alternate attacking with each pincher when fighting, and they have a paddling swim animation. Pin has that typical purple aura effect that most movement impairing spells have.

I spec'ed Wimpy for DPS, despite being Tenacity, and took him to Heroic UP for a try at the blue proto drake. I noticed he picked up a pretty pink color in there. Maybe he's flushed with excitement.



He did a pretty good Ghost Crawler imitation while in camo.



While trying to sneak past a group of Vrykul, we accidentally aggro'ed them. I blame Wimpy, since that never happens with my Spiritbeast. WAY TO GO, WIMPY. While trying to kill these guys, I noticed aggro problems, and I can only assume it was from the crab ability Pin. Turning it off solved the problem.



Wimpy seemed nervous to take on Skadi. Oh Wimpy, don't be nervous.



See? You did just fine.



No protodrake. Wimpy did just fine with all of the adds, but I still much prefer doing that run with my spirit beast - it goes much faster. Such is the dps of a Tenacity pet.

I really like the old school crab models, but my dislike of their Pin ability always keeps me from having one for very long. My dog has a similar ability, but as a Ferocity pet his dps at least makes up for it - I turn his ability off and still burn mobs down well enough. I really hope at some point in the future Pin is either fixed to not be channeled or replaced with something better (making it like the croc's Ankle Crack ability would be nice). I PVP often, but I had no desire to take Wimpy into any BGs because of how poopie Pin is. The fact that Kill Command breaks it makes me a sad Beast Master. But then again I think my croc has thoroughly spoiled me. You could turn Pin off and spec a crab into all of the straight tanking talents and it would probably do just fine, but I have more than enough tanky pets that I'm attached to right now. I would rather use my turtles or my beetle for heavy duty tanking, like soloing Stonecore.

So I released Wimpy. He was cute, but just not cute enough. Maybe some day we will be reunited, but I don't see that happening while Pin stays the same.

[Kalhoun]

I'd like another roll, please!

Name: Kalhoun
Level: 85
Exotics: Yeppers
Restrictions: None
Rares I Have: Sambas, Loque'nahak, King Krush, Ankha, Magria, Karoma, Terrorpene, Jadefang, Red, Blue and Green Madexx

[Sesamee]

All she had wrong was the names, she did report the correct pet, hehe.

The kind of ironic thing though is that I listed the pet as Magria in the rolls because it was one she said she had. XD I usually hand out the spirit beasts/special rares by name.

Also, I was going to point out that the name of the pet was mistaken as well so there's nothing wrong with gently reminding her. The only reason I would correct it is because I don't want any person reading this and not familiar with the pets to confuse the two.

Oops! Idk how I got that wrong. I knew I was doing a report on Magria lol! Just one of those brain fart moments lol. I'll edit my post! That's what I get for multitasking while at work !

eta: when I edited my post I noticed that I called her Gondria at first then Magria! I can't believe I didnt catch that!