Shuki (my Troll huntress) was recently tasked with taming a little dark grey monkey. Now straight away, this struck me as amusing, cause the exact same model had just been filtered out when clearing up my stables only yesterday. While I'd originally used him as a PVP pet when Shu was leveling, that was back in the 30s, and I've since tamed Deth (Ultraviolet) who tends to be my PVP pet (for the rare times I PVP these days).
Regardless, I hopped on the zeppelin to STV - not with the intention to get one of the same-model Vale Howlers, but to head into the Deadmines to grab one of those guys instead. Surprisingly, the zep was waiting for me - which tends to never happen (it's usually just phasing out of sight when I get there) Mounted up and flew my way over to Westfall. Since my hunters generally play 'solo', and are usually horde-side, it took a couple of minutes to trundle my way down to the Deadmines entrance, but I found it quickly enough. After poking my way through the ogres and such, I get to the area with the mining monkeys. The first two I saw happened to be the right color, so I decided to release one from his chains (and helped him enact some revenge upon a nearby goblin), and tame the other.
I went with the same name my old one had, just cause I did like the name - it felt like it suited a monkey. After taming, this guy was pretty quiet at first. I figured he was just shy - getting used to being free of his ball and chain and all that. However, as we exited the Deadmines, a little bit of his true nature began to show when he sneakily tried to drop a banana peel at my feet. When I caught him in the act, he seemed to want to try and distract me by grabbing my hand and leading us forward.
We made our way back to Org, ported to the Jade Forest, and flew out to the Vale. There were Mogu and Quilen that needed clearing out, and Tumbles seemed rather keen to get started. In combat, he certainly liked to grab attention - often gathering more mobs than intended (he seemed to especially like the Quilen around the stormcallers). When he saw the size of some of the creatures out there, he had a tendency to run back towards me with mobs on his heels. Though I didn't have much of a chance to make use of his blind ability, he was relatively sturdy - nowhere near the bulkiness of Shu's beetle of course, but he somehow managed to 'tank' multiple mobs.
He seemed to be pretty lucky with loot - one of the mobs he pestered even dropped a Skyshard for us, and another an ancient guo-lai cache key
In battle, he was rather aggressive - yelling and screeching at any mobs who patrolled near us, but quickly retreating when they actually responded to his taunts.
Since there was an item in Kara that I wanted, I figured I'd take him into there to help out. Apparently, the generally dark, cramped passages reminded him a bit too much of the mines where he came from - he wound up wrapping himself around my head and refusing to move, letting out anxious shrieks to the nearby ghosts.
I figured it was unfair of me to make him continue, and ported out so he could rest up.
I'll admit, his animations do bug me - even if monkeys do actually walk like these guys, it always felt like he was trying to veer off to the side. His swimming animation wasn't too exciting either (though perhaps I've been spoiled by Ultraviolet's swimming in the past)
Overall, he's a pretty cute little guy - cheeky and loud, but sweet underneath. It was nice being able to hang out with him again, though I will most likely be releasing him out to get to know the Vale Howlers.