Random Pet Challenge [v3.0]

[TygerDarkstorm]

I ended up getting rid of the black old world scorpid, he decided he liked TH enough to call it home. I like my Madexx model way better and I dislike having duplicates of the same pet in my stables. Selket earned her position as THE scorpid of my stables shortly after I tamed her and she emoted at me.

[Mozag]

I love the black scorpid model too much to get rid of him on Mozag. I tried today, reasoning with myself for a good half hour that I really don't need two scorpids. That having two scorpids is a bit silly anyway, since I don't PvP, and scorpids aren't really good tanks for her, since she's MM, and they're unnecessary in dungeons and I have a red Madexx, and so on and so forth. But I looked at my lovely Warlust and knew that he just had to stay.

[Aeliel]

I had the red dog from Scarlet Monastery. (The last three rolls in a row have been instance tames for me. This thing hates me, I swear. )

Coming up on Scarlet Monastery. Yes, I have a sparklepony. Don't judge, it keeps me from having to deal with those ugly wyverns.



After making my way through a maze of twisting corridors (okay, not really, but bear with me, it adds dramatic flair ) I spotted my target!



And he decided to be a pain and hide behind a column. No, little goblin, the column isn't tamable, sorry.



After readjusting my position, here we go. Note the Scarlet lady who wasn't particularly happy I was taking her pet to be my pet...



Uh oh. This thing's bigger than me.



Despite having qualms about the size of the dog and worrying that he'd just bowl me over in his enthusiasm to get some revenge on the Scarlet people, I agreed to go smack Herod over in the Armory. Apparently he'd stolen a bone from the puppy once, just to be mean. Alright then.

"That the guy?" "Yup."



(Insert carnage here. Mostly because I'm godawful at taking in-fight screenshots.)

After killing Herod, we made our way out of Scarlet Monastery and travelled to Hellfire Peninsula, where we booked the first flight to Nagrand. I took him for a tour of Garadar and the surrounding area...



And he decided he liked it here. Especially the size of the "snacks".



So there I left him, to enjoy his new-found freedom.

---

Now for a more normal review.

I like dogs, or at least the concept of it. This is the third dog I've tried (one on my lvl85 hunter, and this is the second I've tried on the goblin). They just don't seem to click with my characters, though, which is a pity - and my stables are full enough that taking up a space for a pet I never actually take out is a waste.

For a ferocity pet, dogs hold threat pretty well - particularly so once I turned Lockjaw off of autocast, since while he was channeling the pin he wasn't building any threat at all and mobs tended to come over and chew on my face afterwards. For some reason, though, in any multi-mob pull I would pull threat on all the mobs the dog wasn't directly targeting even if I sent him in first and only shot the mob he was targeting. (And no, I didn't use Mend Pet.) Is this normal?

I forgot to check his swim animation, but I did note something about his run animation that bugged me. While running in a straight line alongside with me, he'd fall behind, run faster to catch up, end up going too fast, slow down to a walk for a couple of steps, go back to a normal run, fall behind, lather rinse repeat. I haven't noticed any of my other pets do this, but perhaps I'm just unobservant.

Anyway, this was fun, even though I ended up not keeping him. Maybe when I make a third hunter...

[Acherontia]

Right! I was assigned the purple dragonhawk:



I decided to grab the one from Shadowmoon Valley, which is of course much easier to get to than the ones in TK. There was one quietly waiting on a hilltop so I snagged him, and thus begins my review!

The VERY first thing I noticed is that Dragonhawks have a very nice diet. They can eat the two most common foods, Fish and Meat, and they also are happy to consume any Fruit you might happen to have, which I did. So while they aren't quite a "trash food" garbage-can pet, they certainly won't be hard to feed!

I couldn't think of a name right away, though I tried. The colors are beautiful, with a variety of shimmering pinks and purples and interestingly-contrasted aqua-colored eyes. The model seems to me a bit simplistic, and kind of flat, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I went to Storm Peaks to resume my TLPD camp, and the first thing I saw was Skoll. I quickly called out my guildmate--who has been searching for him for weeks. She is ALWAYS offline when I see him, and he was actually up for over an hour last night before server reset. I'd gone up and told him "YOU! Come back here when she's ONLINE!" and so he did There were a few wracking moments when she got a "you already have an active summon" message and had to relog whilst another player sat targetting Skoll, but he was nice & let her tame without incident! I happily decided that the dragonhawk was a good luck charm and went to get a screenshot on the mountain overhead, and promptly slipped and fell to my death.

You can just see my feet.

I tried a second time and wasn't so clumsy, although my sentiment of "good luck dragonhawk" had quickly vanished Then I sat around for awhile at a TLPD camp spot. I noticed the dragonhawk's idle animations; he glances from side to side now and then. They are rather limited. That said, he does have a sort of "wise" expression on his face, at least to me, so the more sedate animations seem to fit.

Well, after awhile my husband/guildmate turned up. He showed me the inscription-made Origami Ooze, which kinda brings out this pet's colors!

So! I went off to Utgarde Pinnacle heroic, where I got yet another screenshot of the beautiful colors on this guy. He truly does look good in any lighting.

While I was there, I had a look at his swimming animations. They are pretty plain--it's his flying animation but slower, so while it's nothing flashy, it's fairly logical. I did a couple quests with him, and he's got decent attack animations and sounds. The sounds are both fitting and unobtrusive. About this time, I picked the name Solaris, just because it sounds sunny

I did a couple dps tests on the dummies regarding his buff. It actually is a good buff to my shots (Arcane, Cobra and Serpent Sting) even as BM, but as the pet is not level 85, it's hard to compare it to say a Roar of Courage. The debuff itself does add about 700 dps to my personal damage compared to no (de)buff at all. It doesn't seem like it would be a major dps loss, in any case, to bring it to a Heroic if you're running with say, a guild group consisting of yourself + two mages, and wanted to provide this debuff for them.

In closing, the pet itself is solid. It's a Cunning pet, which I'm liking more and more for both PvP and situationally PvE. But the colors and style, while gorgeous and striking, simply don't match my orc. My orc seems fierce and stolid, the dragonhawk magical and somehow ephemeral--but it'd be awesome with a blood elf or the like, I'd imagine.

I've wanted to keep a pet with this ability for awhile, but I just can't justify saving a stable slot for a pet I really don't click with. While I recognize the beauty in it and see where a lot of people might love it, it just isn't for me. It was still a fun ride, though!

P.S. Roll me another, if you could!

* Acherontia
* Up to lvl 85
* Exotics Fine
* No Spiders/Dragonhawks if possible!

[Pawtrack]

I'll take another, I think!

Name: Velyana (forum name: Pawtrack)
Level: 14
Exotics: too low
Restrictions: none

[Kormai]

Pawtrack: I'm sorry it was such a long journey but I was pretty restricted by your level (which is fine!) and thats what I ended up rolling. Thanks for being a good sport!

Serendipity (Myriana): I'm glad you ended up liking the outlands model wind serpent. Those are so far my favourite kind of wind serpents but since they share the buff with dragonhawks, Kormai has a dragonhawk and Kari can't have the red wind serpent...she has the blue because of my colour scheme.

Tyger: Every time I see a picture of a hunter with Madexx I like him more and more...stop tempting me!

Kalhoun: I can't help but think the pictures of the demon dog in funny poses makes him look like kind of a goof ball!

Aeliel: LOL, what do you mean I can't tame the pillar!? And I'm sorry about the instance tames! There are so many requests that I try to remember what I've given people before but I forget more often than not. But now I will remember hahaha.

Acherontia (HA! I can spell your name without thinking now!): I totally agree with you that the dragonhawk doesn't quite fit your hunter...understatement. But thanks for reviewing it, it is quite pretty; Dragonhawks are a much better fit with belfs .

Rrrrrrrrrroll up the rrrrrrrrim to win:
(Somehow I think only the Canadians will get that reference )

Cerah (Leata)
I'll be completely honest: I'm sorry but I don't have time to look through everyones armory. If I roll something you have already tamed on any of your hunters just write a quick review (no need to go tame it again!) and ask for a reroll. I am totally fine with hunter themes though (I'm OCD like that too so don't worry).
Armored Brown Boar


Cerah (Toeph)
Blue Serpent


Cerah (Lydeea)
White Wind Serpent


Raziya (Malaika)
White Rhino


Serendipity82 (Elsi)
Blue Nether Ray


Veph
Dark Red Parrot


Tyger (Vitani) My god you've been level 84 for like 2 weeks!!!! (<3 kidding!)
Purple Hyena


Kalhoun
Green Sporebat


Acherontia
Green Cataclysm Crocolisk


:::OR:::

Yellow Shale Spider


Pawtrack (Velyana)
Red Lynx


Enjoy

[Acherontia]

Excellent, I'll do this one tonight or tomorrow Thanks!

P.S. Congrats and WOOT at remembering my silly name's spelling now

[Kormai]

P.S. Congrats and WOOT at remembering my silly name's spelling now

It isn't that bad...now all I need is to learn how to pronounce it!

[Vephriel]

Rrrrrrrrrroll up the rrrrrrrrim to win:
(Somehow I think only the Canadians will get that reference )

Haha! Yup, probably just us Canadians. http://woweh.com/?p=95

Amusingly enough, the dark red parrot is one of the recent additions to my stables, but I shall write up a report on him! ^^

[Tessara]

Interesting idea! It sounds like fun, so I'll give it a go!

Name: Pyrotess
Level: 85 (I'm game for taming anything level 1-85)
Exotic: Doesn't have a preference one way or another
Restrictions: No monkeys (can't stand them). No wolves, cats, or hounds (I have too many).
Note: Has a preference for white or blue pets

[Miraga]

Sorry this is so late! College and life are just like BLARGH right now >___<;;

I got the grey spider so off I went to Wetlands! I'll admit, I saw what I got and was like "Ew... gross... Why would anyone want a spider pet?" BUT, it was my challenge so I grabbed one.

This is Jax the spider!




I think he looks pretty nice. I don't think he matches my night elf very well but I think he would go great with a night elf with white hair or a white/grey tauren... and pretty much any undead lol.

I took him with me to Outlands to do a few quests. He can't hold aggro well because, well, he's a spider lol. I'm also too low level to have misdirect so I had to send him in, wait for him to hit the mob, do some damage and FD, rinse and repeat. I didn't feel that his special ability was particularly helpful with just questing since he'll just be like "WEB ATTACK!" and the mob will be stuck to the ground even though he wasn't going anywhere.

I did some PvP with him and there he was much more useful! Silly warlock! YOU CANNOT RUN FROM MY SPIDER! Unfortunately, I think I had some bad luck and everyone was like "AH OMG SPIDER! KILL IT!" and he died a lot.

All in all Jax was a neat pet. I wouldn't use him for anything other than PvP, though. He just doesn't have anything that I need when I go out to quest or grind. I ended up letting him go back in his little cave in Wetlands. He skittered away to happiness, I hope.

Could I get one for Miraga?
-level 85
-exotics okay
-no spiders or carrion birds.

PS: I also like Jax's bubblebutt :3

[Acherontia]

Wheee! I'm back, having taken a bit of time doing the Green Cataclysm Crocolisk:



The Tame

I found that the only true green that I can tame is a rare, Gosh'Haldir <The Clutch Mother>. Well, I love a challenge, so out I went to Loch Modan. I stood in the center of the lake bed where she's meant to spawn, scanning the surface--and realized that although I couldn't find the beast, she was on my tracker. I couple minutes later I realized that she was sneakily slinking around behind me.

I had to laugh at this; it was almost like she was being sly I was turned a bit toward her in that screenshot, even! Anyway, I turned around, still grinning, and hit tame;

--it went off without a hitch. I named her Ninja due to her sneaky tendencies ;D

First Impressions

I would never have considered taming this pet on my own, but I'm glad I did. She's very very pretty. As my last review, this pet looks like an easy feeder. She will scarf down meat or fish. She is also fairly quiet, low to the ground (so won't cause targetting issues) and pleasant to look at. I got a look at her in a few different lightings--as I'll show--and I really do think she's quite pretty in all of them. She is also a bit different (both in sound and model) from the Old World crocs: she is quieter, and I think I actually prefer the hisses and grunts of the old guys. I could be wrong about this. Her model is cleaner, with a higher poly-count but fewer scales & textural details.

Her colors are utterly gorgeous. This is an image of her later on in Stranglethorn, highlighted at the top and not on the bottom:

In Badlands lighting shortly after taming, from back & front:

From behind and in more reddish lightings, you can really make out the more subtle rust tones on her skin:

And here's the head; the model's jaws and throat look particularly "real:"

Initial Travels

I took her around a bit to check out her animations. First I looked at her appearance (for lols) lurking just beneath a swamp's surface:

I had a look around the Loch, where noisy carrion buzzards are feasting on long-dead plesiosaurs. Then we went toward Wetlands; overlooking it, the dam is destroyed and the pools of remaining water look stagnant--perfect for crocs

I had a look at her swimming animation once we arrived in the deeply flooded fields beneath the dam. The swimming animation's not as smooth as I remember; it seems overly fast (tested with & without Boar's Speed) and somewhat stiff. It's still a logical animation, though, so I could live with it.

Further Testing

Having a look at the croc's family skill, I couldn't help but notice it seems directly designed for PvP. As a Tenacity pet, in PvE the beast would tank, so a snare is rather pointless. Accordingly, I specced her for PvP and queued with some guildmates for a Warsong Gulch. I'd like to just take a second to compare, here--I use a Chimaera, which is Cunning with a ranged snare. While I've -never- had a problem with this pet dying, or even being particularly vulnerable, I had wanted to try a Tenacity pet in PvP for awhile. If you're not BM and are looking for a snare pet, you could opt for both a Crocolisk or a Warp Stalker. The Warpy has a 25-yard snare, with a slightly longer cooldown, while the croc's is a melee-range snare with a shorter cooldown. With my BM talent Longevity, the croc's snare is up for 6 out of every 7 seconds.

Ninja performed well, although to be fair the WSG was absolute chaos. I missed my chimaera's ability to get a melee off me if, for example, a rogue opened on me while I was kiting something else--a target swap with the chimaera instantly slows the rogue, whereas with the croc, you need to wait for her to get into range. Still, she was tough, and her low, unobtrusive height (and grass coloring, probably!) meant that she wasn't targetted by players. This can be a bad thing (a player beating on my chimaera is soon to be dead) or a good thing (by keeping her free to move).

Anyway, she's DEFINITELY a solid choice for at least non-BM PvP. She managed to charge & snare an opponent who ran in behind our fighting group & nabbed the flag--for some reason she left my target & ran behind me, and when I looked, she'd stopped him from getting out the other way.

In closing: I think this is a very solid choice for PvP, particularly non-BM PvP. I was surprised by how much I liked her colors & attitude; I really can't describe how vibrant and tough she looks. I also think she happens to look particularly good next to female orcs, at least moreso than the dragonhawk She's enough of a pleasant match that I'm having trouble just abandoning, and may keep her for a few days, even though I can't really justify it (I have a good beetle for tanking, and a chimaera for PvP already!).

Anyway, apologies for the wall of text & the mass of images, but I really enjoyed this pet and I wanted to share. Thanks for rolling it for me; I'm glad I had a chance to play with her!!

[Pawtrack]

My assigned pet was the red lynx from Eversong. At first I thought this would be easy, after all, I allready had some of the flightpaths needed. Running to Eversong would be a breeze, right?

Wrong.

The abridged, picture-book version of my journey:

But finally, I managed to tame a lynx!

And now, my review of the red eversong lynx:

The stealth of the cats is pretty useful in BGs, though I tend to turn it off when soloing, as by the time my pet creeps over to the mob, I've fallen asleep, and the faster I can quest, the better -- I don't want to be slowed by my pet. I couldn't find much wrong with their animations, and their roaring and growling sounds I don't mind. I like the idle animations as well. My only problems with the model was that it didn't look like an actual lynx at all (you'd think the blizzard designers would at least do a quick google search to see what a lynx looked like -- what's with the long tail and ears? ) and that the underbelly was too orange for me, and I thought it should have been whiter (ended up abandoning my red lynx for one of the starving ghostclaw lynx -- or lynxs? -- wandering around in ghostlands, which I liked the look of much better)

A very tough pet to get as allaince (again, XD) but well worth it IMO, I love the long ears and fluffy face!


Oh, and I'll take another if you don't mind.

Name: Velyana (forum name: Pawtrack)
Level: 15 (dinged just from exploring XD)
Exotics: too low
Restrictions: none

[Juxia]

I've not done this before but I think it's about time I signed up, especially as I've got a lowbie hunter who would be perfect for this

Name: Hoatzin (forum name: Juxia)
Level: 21
Exotics: too low
Restrictions: none

[Foru21dr]

So I had the purple Boss Sithlid.
Purple Boss Silithid


I went to find her in the Ungoto Crater hive. Down in the hive I spot her and boy was she huge. She could barely fit in room she was in. I was impressed with her size.
I have in my stable Harakiss, and love the sithlids. I play a lot in the battlegrounds, and these are great pvp pets. Same holds here for this girl. She was great in the bg's specially in the ones where there is a flag carrier. She rooted many and enemy when we played.
I also had her with me in Sholazar basin as I was on the hunt for Aotona. We never did see that bird, but we did stop by to take on the elite that is here (sorry I don't remember the name). Being that she was 82 and I 85, he stood no chance. But I do like the way they have her attacking an enemy. Those long arms look vicious, and she stabs with them. They make for one deadly attack.

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I will say though.. She can't really swim worth a darn.. She does not have a swim animation, she just moves her legs like she is walking in the water. Also, she is not as jittery as her cousins only real idl animation is the raising of her abdomen like she is stretching some and a slow up and down motion. She aslo has a thumping noise she does every once in awhile. It took me a long time to realize it was coming from the sithlid. The first few times I was looking around to see if something was coming to attack as I did not know what it was.
All in all she's a great pvp pet. She has a great root, and her added ability is a plus as well. I did released her back in the wild though as I have Harakiss in her place, and I just couldn't part with her.
Here we are with her back in her hive and we part ways.

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[Shade]

New rolls (Including un-rolled on requests from version2):

Merlynshade (Gypsí)
Black Axe Monkey

I've actually already tamed this guy before, so I'll let you know what I can about him.

As a higher level hunter, he is ridiculously easy to get to and tame. Even at 34 he's not that hard to get in the Deadmines instance, which is the only place to get him.

- Model: Hate it. I'm sorry but there you go. When you have him standing still, the pickax goes through the ground and looks glitchy-perhaps that is why they are going to be removing the axe in 4.0.6. I'm also not fond of his run animation. He does this run that makes it look like his body is going to two different directions, or his back legs are trying to jump forward over his shoulder. Bah-was really disappointed in this to be honest.

- Skin: Not fond of the red face with the green eyes. Xmas anyone? Of the monkies, I only think this one:



Has a decent skin. All the others, I really dislike the eyes on.

- Animations: See the Model section of the review.

- Sound effects: Decent. Sounds like a monkey. Can get a bit annoying-but then I usually turn my sound down if a pet sound annoys me.

- Food requirements: Fruit and Fungus make it a bit less versitle, when most all of my other pets eat bread or meat.

- Tanking ability: Can hold aggro well enough on a lowbie.

- DPS output: fair, not my favorite for dps-its been pretty generalized for all pets-but, give me a wolf.

- Pet family abilities: Bad Manner, while a bit amusing, is rather.. old after a bit.

- Utility: Cunning pet-which I tend to stay away from generally speaking, so I'm not the best to compare it to other Cunning pets.

Another roll perhaps? Gypsi, now a level 36 NE Hunter.

[Aeliel]

Hehe, don't worry about it on the instance tames. I enjoy the adventure, and it's not that difficult when I outlevel the place.

(Although that said, with my luck, I'll get like... the warhound from Ramparts or something like that to tame next... just you watch...)

Let's tempt fate:

Vanity
Level 64
Anything goes, even exotics (5... more... levels... agh)
No snakes. I'll take anything else.

[Airwyn]

Sorry sorry sorry for the late report!!! Ok well my random was the white moth http://www.wow-petopia.com/look/mothskinwhite.html
I've always like mothies and tamed the tan one from Grizzly Hills but abandoned him for some rare. So I was pretty excited to be able to go and get this pet.

First off, she's so pretty! Beautiful skin, I love the black and white contrast. Named her Charm, just seemed like a fitting name. After the tame I checked out the animations and I dont mind the light wing flappings and the swim animation was a bit lacking but not bad. Her damage output was actually really good! And for a ferocity pet she holds aggro very well! Serenity Dust was also interesting, it was a nice interrupt and I imagine would be really useful in pvp but I dont pvp All in all, I found this pet to be very well rounded.

I have like 5 or 6 open stable slots and I've decided to keep her
I'd like another random please

Airwyn
No level restrictions
Exotics: Sure
No cats please, I have enough of them but other than that, no family restrics

[Cialbi]

Nice reviews!
@Acherontia: I actually consider the snare that crocs apply to be a nice threat bonus for tanking, as well as giving your pet time to reclaim aggro when fighting something that has an aggro wipe mechanic (grr, ZG berserkers... *twitch*). So, I consider Ninja to be very much worthwhile keeping; have your beetle as your high-damage mitigation tank, and have Ninja be your high threat tank.
...as you may have observed, I'd hate to see Ninja be cast out of the stable when you actually like the model!
@Foru21dr: To confirm, the Gorishi Fledgling Colossus the only boss-ithid that makes the random 'thump' noise?

...and, I will be able to tame a Vale Howler today!
Already have a name picked out, and a list of things that Cialbi needs to do anyways. I do not plan on keeping the little ape, though.
Once again, sorry for the delay (I, like Miraga, have been suffering from college overload).

[TygerDarkstorm]

I'm pretty sure that all the silithid boss models make the thump noise. I know my Kri does it for sure.