The random pet challenge: v2.

[Foru21dr]

I have now leveled my hunter to 85 and am now ready to try a random pet.

Name Bitka - Horde
Exotic pet yes
Level 85
Pet families you REALLY don't want - I will try anything.

[TygerDarkstorm]

was my challenge this time.

I've been looking for a wolf for Vitani for a while now, but am having trouble clicking with skins. I actually had this skin a while ago, but since I don't remember it well enough to make a report, I went ahead and tamed a new one.

I decided I'd go look for Gorefang so a quick zeppelin ride from Org to Undercity and a short flight to Silverpine brought me to this guy. Tame's easy enough, he's only level 10, and being a wolf, he eats meat, so easy feeding for anyone who's low level or prefers feeding with food as opposed to the mend pet glyph.


Looks wise, this skin's not terrible. It's kind of a pretty shade of silver, although I can see how some people just view it as a dirty white. One sort of glaring error that's popped up with the worg models is all the lines that have appeared all over their bodies where their fur breaks. My graphic settings are on high, but it doesn't seem to be too noticeable with this guy.


In the animations department, I feel that worgs are kind of meh. They don't have much of an idle animation, which is great if you're into pets that aren't real spazzy. Since they share animations with the mounts, their lack of any real idle is to be expected. My biggest complaint with these guys is that they look like they have a broken leg or something with they run, and their swim animation is goofy as well.

I took this guy out to Twilight Highlands with me for some mining in the caves. I opted to go survival as I'm usually BM and see how well he could hold aggro. He did better than I thought he would. As expected with SV, if I attacked at the same time as he, I usually ended up with aggro, easily solved with a misdirect. If I gave him a second or two head start, we could down the mob before I caught up to him in aggro.

On the way to TH, I was flying over Wetlands where the raptors are at. Hovered my mouse over the mini map and saw the Razormaw Matriarch was up. I made a quick diversion and Gorefang and I paid her a quick hello and thanked her for giving me my third mini pet egg.


Overall, this guy isn't as terrible as I remembered, although I think I'll still keep my eye out for a different color/model of wolf to keep permanently. The 5% crit buff is really nice as well, I saw lots of pretty yellow numbers running around with him. =P

[TygerDarkstorm]

Another please?
Name: Vitani
Level: 84
Exotics: Yes
No restrictions

[Aeliel]

I had the Purple Serpent:


Again, no pictures. I'm lazy.

I went for Venomtip on my 85 hunter for this one. I know they exist in Wailing Caverns but I get lost so easily in that place it's not funny, and... yeah. No.

Overall I liked this better than the blue-green one - the colors seem fancier, and the added contrast of the dark purple on the face gives it more definition. and it's definitely less creepy when it doesn't tower over my character like it did with the goblin. Still really impressed by the swimming animation; the green poison bolt, on the other hand, seems more out of place somehow when coming from the purple serpent - I'm guessing it's because of the color. I dunno.

Ultimately, I let this one go too. Despite the fact that I liked it better, the hissing still creeps me out.

And I'll have another go, since this one was a second snake.

Vanity
level 63
No snakes. Everything else, I'm game.

[Shade]

Merlyn: you really should go check out the completely new Troll starting area. Just like Gnomes got their own starting area, Trolls have their own now too. It's fun...much more fun than the belf starting area now.

Oh I have! I've played the starting zones for Worgen, Troll and Goblin just to see what they look like now.

Merlynshade (Gypsí) (If you don't want to go into BFD I can roll an alternative)
Ancient Sea Turtle

>_<



Already have him As soon as I hit 24 I que'd myself for a group in there and tamed him during that run.

He doesn't hit horribly hard-but then as long as it doesn't kill me I don't think of it as horribly hard. Tamed him while the rest of the group ran to open some treasure chest for a quest.

He's a lovely turtle, had him on Shade until she could tame Terror, and I plan on him being the permanent turtle for Gypsi. His swim animation is adorable, and he looks like such a cranky old man... If you have any interest in him, I highly recommend him.

Roll again perhaps?

[TygerDarkstorm]

Why not just do a report on it if you already have it?

[Lupis]

Murggh. Finally getting my Owl report done!

Okay. My owl.
Tamed a Barn Owl in Duskwood with no difficulties, and was instantly impressed. He's very pretty, and very large! So beautiful! I really enjoy his flying animation, too.
So yes.
Animations: I love the flying animation, as I mentioned. The flap doesn't bother me, I actually find it calming. His attack animations are nice, swooping down to strike at his opponents with his pretty tail feathers sweeping along behind him. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that while idle he sometimes drops down, then flaps back up - though it's not a big deal. That, and his walk animation is boring.

Battle: Well, he's a cunning pet. That, and he's a Bird of Prey. Combined, those don't make for a great tank. I've never found a reason to approve of Snatch, which is only useful in PvP and I don't like PvP. As a cunning pet, I feel odd about his dps, and his tanking is under par. My tenacity pets have enough trouble with aggro - ferocity and Cunning pets struggle greatly.

However, I really like his looks. The silver eyes, gold beak, and dark feathers look really nice in my eyes, and I think I'll keep him around. I may not use him, though... He'll be the first I ditch if I have others to tame.

Anyway! Another? This one for a different hunter.
Rassaa, Alliance
Level 85
Exotics? Sure!
No restrictions - even rares are fine.

[Shade]

Why not just do a report on it if you already have it?

I kinda did already.

He's a lovely turtle, had him on Shade until she could tame Terror, and I plan on him being the permanent turtle for Gypsi. His swim animation is adorable, and he looks like such a cranky old man... If you have any interest in him, I highly recommend him.

To restate:
He's a great turtle, not a hard tame at all and makes for a good tank pet. Not much more to say on him, getting to him is not hard all, just que up and ask your party if they don't mind you taming him during the run. He doesn't hit so hard that he would kill a hunter at the same level as him.

Can't think of much more to say. I can't take as many pictures to describe the run to him as I've done that tame awhile ago O_oU

[Konor]

This does look sort of look like fun and I have several stable slots empty

Name: Konor - Horde
Exotic pet: Yes
Level: 85
Pet families you REALLY don't want (or specific skins): Cats. I already have TONS of them.

[Carnifex]

This seems like a fun idea! Can I queue for a random assignment too?

Name: Eiderdown
Level: 82
Exotic families: OK
Special restrictions: Nothing that's only available on the PTR (such as the new green Evalcharr chimaera). I don't know if PTR exclusives are even an option, but just in case.

Thanks!

[Kormai]

They aren't. Since Mania is so awesome to have included a little triangle with ! beside it I exclude those when rolling. Unless the patch came out today (I don't know I'm still lying in bed posting this from my phone). Either way I will update this in an hour or so with rolls.

[Siliverin]

havent been able to get on for my new challenge but @ kormai "?": Yeah i would get the pink one again, OR the purpley one :3

[Kormai]

My fave tallstriders are the pink, purple and teal...such pretty colours!

Bitka
Purple Boss Silithid


Tyger (Vitani)
Black Scorpid


Aeliel (Vanity)
Red Mastiff


Lupis (Lassaa)
Colour-Changing Crocolisk


Konor (Something for all your cats to play with!)
Ghostly Green Owl


Carnifex (Eiderdown)
Black Monkey


Merlynshade (Gypsí)
Green Raptor

[TygerDarkstorm]

This challenge has a thing for rolling pets I've had before.
I'll get on it in a bit.

[Akycha]

Sorry about the delay on this. I will admit this tame was a bit hard on me; however, it has a happy end.

Report on Green Turtle(He's actually a tortoise but that is besides the point)


I went off to hillsbrad to tame a Snapjaw. I have fond memories of hanging out with them while fishing there. I haven't actually been in hillsbrad since the shattering except on the edge for archeaology. Seeing what had become of the rest of the place made me feel sick to my stomach.

The Snapjaw that I chose was more than willing to leave that place.


We had a picture session and he worked that camera.


When putting this together I realized I had a bunch of idle screenshots but no side, back or top pictures. Maybe he was shy of the camera after all. Below is the one non-idle picture I had.


Still feeling a bit sad, we went off to Tol Barad and beat up Tank. The turtle's swim animation is utterly adorable if not at all realistic.


I think Tank barely tickled the turtle. We didn't bother taking any pictures. I'm going to have to find a harder tanking challenge for all these tenacity pets I keep getting.

In order to find something more challenging I piled up a good 7 or 8 spiders on him. I took a picture, but it just shows a mass of spiders so I'm not going to bother putting it up. He couldn't keep aggro of them all over the aggro I generated from mend pet. So, I had to use FD and MD multi-shot liberally. When I ended up having two broodmother adds, I used 'move to' to move him out of the poison puddles. There were no turtle deaths involved so all was good. One thing I did notice is sometimes he would randomly switch targets then go back to the original target. I wonder if he was spreading taunt around like the worm does spit.

In the middle of doing the Tol Barad dailies, I realized I hadn't yet named him. That is when realization struck why he made me smile and sad at same. The only name that came to mind was Tilly, which is the name of the turtle on my other hunter. Tilly was Ghamoo-ra, but since the change in model I hadn't taken her out or played that hunter really. So, with a teary smile I figured out why the turtle seemed so right and wrong to me.

We went out and did some archeaology to think about it all.


While we were at the fossil bank in western plaguelands, the turtle told me this place looked much better than home and he was going to stay there. I also realized that for now at least Akycha wasn't ready to have a turtle. So, I gave him a pat on the head and said goodbye.



Now for the happy ending. I went back and let the Ancient Turtle go and went searching for Tilly. I was surprised when I ended up with the blue turtle instead, but originally Tilly was tamed for who she was more than the color.



Another please
Akycha
85
Exotic
no restrictions

[Mozag]

I love that last picture of Akycha and the turtle saying their goodbyes. I swear it nearly brought a tear to my eye!

[Kalhoun]

This ended up being more like a story of me discovering a new pet family, and not really just about what I was assigned.



Green croc this time.

Tenacity pets and I get along very well, so I was pleased to be assigned a croc. I've never actually tamed one before, which seems odd given the number of hunters I've played over the years. I looked up the special skill and felt pretty "meh" about it (it's one of those slowing abilities). But I do like big, snappy reptiles, so off I went to find a green one in the Wetlands.

Found one. Tamed it. Hmmm...



I liked the low profile and the designs along it's side. But I really didn't like how the skin would squash and stretch with it's movements. Also... the face was really not clicking with me.



Rather than give up right away because I didn't like the skin, I looked up other options on Petopia. Gosh-Haldir, the green Cata skinned croc, caught my eye. On a whim, I flew over to Loch Modan, and there she was waiting for me.



Her face is much cuter, I think. So smiley! And the skin is so much more detailed and smoother.

I decided to take her along with me for my daily Anzu kill.



No mount. But by the end of that run, I was growing quite fond of the croc's toothy grin. I named her Beulah.

Beulah came along with me while I did dailies. She held aggro, even at lvl 82, and had that Tenacity hardiness that I love.



By the end of my dailies, Beulah had dinged 83. I also remembered I had one of her babies, who joined us for a few adventures.



So I think Beulah is staying. Her special ability really doesn't do much (it doesn't seem like many mobs run from you, and even then... I can just shoot them with conc shot), but she's still a good little tank.

============

Kalhoun
Any level
No exotics
No restrictions

[TygerDarkstorm]

I love the green Cata croc skin. ^_^ I went and tamed Gosh-Haldir on my hunter (turned her into a boy named Nero), and specced him for PvP, although when I'm BM spec he holds aggro like a champ.

[Mozag]

I love the green Cata croc skin. ^_^ I went and tamed Gosh-Haldir on my hunter (turned her into a boy named Nero), and specced him for PvP, although when I'm BM spec he holds aggro like a champ.

You stole the words right out of my mouth, with the exception of mine being called Coin, and not being specced for PvP. Still, fantastic aggro on my BM hunter. In fact, at present he is her only tanking pet.

[Kormai]

On my baby Kormai on Nesingwary I went through the Silverpine quests to see what they were like. I saw the swamp cata crocs that change between two colours and I wanted one. I tried to tame during a quest but I had 3 "protectors" with me for my quest and they kept killing them or pulling aggro. So I said to myself I'll just come back when the quest is done. When I finally remembered to come back and tame...they were phased out! And I couldn't find anymore.

So I decided to go look for Gosh-Haldir...like 5 minutes later a guildy in Loch Modan said in guild that she was up. She waited the like 15 mins it took me to fly to Hillsbrad and run all the way down. I named her "Palustris" after the species name for the "Mugger crocodile", which I thought she looked a bit like. Kormai still uses Palustris and she's great .