Rare Pet Respawn Timers

[François]

This depends a lot on server population and time of day, at least for Northrend rares. After getting both frostbitten and bloody rare, taming all spirits beasts and tameable northrend rares (most of them twice or three times), as well as TLPD on two toons, I can make the following observations:

- Northrend can have four (could be three, but i've seen enough to think it's four) rares up at any time. Rares do not have a "one per zone" requirement, nor do they share spawns (other than vyragosa and tlpd).

- Northrend rares can respawn within a range of 6-24 hours. Your server will roll a number 6-24 from the moment a rare is killed, and assigns that number as the timer.

- Northrend rares with multiple spawns do not have a "favorite" spawn point. Spawn location is entirely random.

- If your server has four rares alive, the timers for all other rares continue ticking down until one of the existing rares is killed or tamed. At this point, any timer that has elapsed can fire and spawn its mob.


What this means is that respawn times are heavily-dependent on server population and time of day. The more rares that are being killed, the more that are free to spawn. I'm obviously not 100% on any of this, but from everything I've seen, I'd bet the farm that this is how Northrend rares function

[Ryai]

No one has really confirmed the only 3 to 4 rares up at any one given time in Northrend tho. Because well you can't really be sure if someone killed a rare already or not; or if someone had killed a rare and another imediately jumped up. I mean some mobs are skinable. Some are far out of the way. Even if you're using a 310% mount and NPCscan/silver dragon, the corpse may despawn before you get to where the mob was. So one mob may be up when infact there were 2 mobs up.

Only way this will be truly confirmed is if Blizz comes out and says; mean even Devs have given different answers concerning rares. No one really knows.

Besides is a bit silly that only northrend rares would have a 'Only 3-4 up at a time' limit.




Anyways back on topic; No one knows the respawn timer of Large Loch Crocolisk? :(

[François]

I understand the concern, but this has also been (extensively) documented by other people. I did it with a group of friends over the course of several hours during a very off-peak time, and we were the only players personally killing, taming, or skinning the mobs. If memory serves, we killed over a dozen rares in this period as a group, and observed the spawns. It became very predictable. In vent: "Alliance mage is looking at Icetip. Gonna kill him"..."Terror Spinner just spawned"...etc. I'll edit this post when I find the guy who really went nuts with this and did it for an extended period with a raid group of 15 people or so.

We never had more than 3 rares up, never lacked complete* coverage over every zone, and we sat with them until the absolute last minute (bonecarver in grizzly hills walked around for nearly an hour) before killing them. At that point we'd reshuffle within our zones and one of us would --always-- find a rare that had spawned within the time it had taken to make a 310% mounted pass through the zone. Again, this became very predictable. *I only say there could have been 4 because the dude we had in howling fjord was massively afk for chunks of the evening.

I wouldn't call it "silly" , because it's either an accurate idea of how rares in northrend function, or a crazy crazy crazy mathematical coincidence. So although you're right that I cannot confirm it, I've read and seen enough personally to be as confident as possible.

[Vephriel]

*nod* We may not have completely thorough information, but in the Petopians Guild on Nesingwary we have also spent a lot of time doing what François described. When someone's looking for a rare we've gone on Northrend sprees and covered every zone, keeping vigilance on spawns and kills. It does indeed seem around the number 4 mark for maximum rares on the continent at one time. Again, it's nothing 100% verified, but there's a lot of info and proof to back up the assumptions.

[Calomel]

Anyways back on topic; No one knows the respawn timer of Large Loch Crocolisk?

I'm looking for this, too.

[Adam-Savage]

Example.. When looking for King Krush.. he was killed from under me. Took that time and then marked out the times for potential spawn times every 8.5 hours.

I predicted, two days later, a 10:30 spawn. He spawned at 10:15.

Sounds more like luck to me, but either way, gratz!

It all depends on how long he had been up for before someone found and killed him.

[Adam-Savage]

This depends a lot on server population and time of day, at least for Northrend rares. After getting both frostbitten and bloody rare, taming all spirits beasts and tameable northrend rares (most of them twice or three times), as well as TLPD on two toons, I can make the following observations:

- Northrend can have four (could be three, but i've seen enough to think it's four) rares up at any time. Rares do not have a "one per zone" requirement, nor do they share spawns (other than vyragosa and tlpd).

- Northrend rares can respawn within a range of 6-24 hours. Your server will roll a number 6-24 from the moment a rare is killed, and assigns that number as the timer.

- Northrend rares with multiple spawns do not have a "favorite" spawn point. Spawn location is entirely random.

- If your server has four rares alive, the timers for all other rares continue ticking down until one of the existing rares is killed or tamed. At this point, any timer that has elapsed can fire and spawn its mob.


What this means is that respawn times are heavily-dependent on server population and time of day. The more rares that are being killed, the more that are free to spawn. I'm obviously not 100% on any of this, but from everything I've seen, I'd bet the farm that this is how Northrend rares function

This would explain how my friend was able to get all 4 spirit beasts one right after another. The first tame could of triggered the other to spawn and so on.

[Kalliope]

One person who has documented the Northrend rares meticulously and who has provided a massively helpful resource for TLPD hunters is Ponderance.

First, concerning the rare spawn cap I speak of. This has been mentioned and discussed on forums - I don't have the patience to go back and find links for examples, but I will however explain how we explored this theory and tested it for ourselves. During the time in Storm Peaks on Undermine and the following weeks of helping other campers get what they were after, we met people who were going after Frostbitten. Various discussions including the theorized rare spawn cap took place and we decided to plan a night to get as many people online as we could and drop an entire night into seeing if we could figure this out.

There were a little over 25 of us, I forget exactly how many. We spent the first hour locating some rares, found 3. Luckily they weren't tameable so we were able to pay people off to not kill them and sat on them while we checked rare spots in the zones we were covering. The 3 rares were watched as the rest of us flew around trying to find any other rares for a good 9 hours. Nothing new. So we killed crystalbark, and within just a handfull of minutes bonecarver spawned out in grizzly hills. We killed another and the zul'drak sentinel spawned shortly after. We waited an hour with those 3 up before killing more, not finding anything. Then we killed one and very shortly after another spawned. So, regardless of people claiming 5, we think it's 3. Well, I do. A few people argued it could al just be chance but barely any of us wanted to do that again. After all, it was a lot of dead time.

And even though I believe it's 3, I put 3-5 on the facts page just so hopefully I wont get angry emails or comments in-game that I'm an idiot and it's 5. Sigh.

(Source)

[Adam-Savage]

One person who has documented the Northrend rares meticulously and who has provided a massively helpful resource for TLPD hunters is Ponderance.

First, concerning the rare spawn cap I speak of. This has been mentioned and discussed on forums - I don't have the patience to go back and find links for examples, but I will however explain how we explored this theory and tested it for ourselves. During the time in Storm Peaks on Undermine and the following weeks of helping other campers get what they were after, we met people who were going after Frostbitten. Various discussions including the theorized rare spawn cap took place and we decided to plan a night to get as many people online as we could and drop an entire night into seeing if we could figure this out.

There were a little over 25 of us, I forget exactly how many. We spent the first hour locating some rares, found 3. Luckily they weren't tameable so we were able to pay people off to not kill them and sat on them while we checked rare spots in the zones we were covering. The 3 rares were watched as the rest of us flew around trying to find any other rares for a good 9 hours. Nothing new. So we killed crystalbark, and within just a handfull of minutes bonecarver spawned out in grizzly hills. We killed another and the zul'drak sentinel spawned shortly after. We waited an hour with those 3 up before killing more, not finding anything. Then we killed one and very shortly after another spawned. So, regardless of people claiming 5, we think it's 3. Well, I do. A few people argued it could al just be chance but barely any of us wanted to do that again. After all, it was a lot of dead time.

And even though I believe it's 3, I put 3-5 on the facts page just so hopefully I wont get angry emails or comments in-game that I'm an idiot and it's 5. Sigh.

(Source)

Interesting..When your looking for one rare and he isn't spawning then go hunt for the others to make the one u want spawn hopefully. This does explain why the spawn times are all over the place at times.

[Ceravan]

Another thing to think about, is the rares in Northrend share spawn timers too, with each other and with other rares that aren't tameable. Think the Time-Lost Proto Drake shares their timer with Gondria or the Sholazar basin rares. So may wanna check it out and take that into account.

[Ryai]

Another thing to think about, is the rares in Northrend share spawn timers too, with each other and with other rares that aren't tameable. Think the Time-Lost Proto Drake shares their timer with Gondria or the Sholazar basin rares. So may wanna check it out and take that into account.

No. The TLPD only shares a spawn with Vyagosa, the rare blue dragon in stormpeaks and it's been proven those two are Independant of all other northrend spawns.


And ty Kalliope for posting the proof I requested :)



And concerning Large Loch Crocolisk- atm its spawn timer seems to be greater than 4 hours. I'm gonna risk it and chance it's 5-6~ hours for respawn time.

[Pent]

One person who has documented the Northrend rares meticulously and who has provided a massively helpful resource for TLPD hunters is Ponderance.

First, concerning the rare spawn cap I speak of. This has been mentioned and discussed on forums - I don't have the patience to go back and find links for examples, but I will however explain how we explored this theory and tested it for ourselves. During the time in Storm Peaks on Undermine and the following weeks of helping other campers get what they were after, we met people who were going after Frostbitten. Various discussions including the theorized rare spawn cap took place and we decided to plan a night to get as many people online as we could and drop an entire night into seeing if we could figure this out.

There were a little over 25 of us, I forget exactly how many. We spent the first hour locating some rares, found 3. Luckily they weren't tameable so we were able to pay people off to not kill them and sat on them while we checked rare spots in the zones we were covering. The 3 rares were watched as the rest of us flew around trying to find any other rares for a good 9 hours. Nothing new. So we killed crystalbark, and within just a handfull of minutes bonecarver spawned out in grizzly hills. We killed another and the zul'drak sentinel spawned shortly after. We waited an hour with those 3 up before killing more, not finding anything. Then we killed one and very shortly after another spawned. So, regardless of people claiming 5, we think it's 3. Well, I do. A few people argued it could al just be chance but barely any of us wanted to do that again. After all, it was a lot of dead time.

And even though I believe it's 3, I put 3-5 on the facts page just so hopefully I wont get angry emails or comments in-game that I'm an idiot and it's 5. Sigh.

(Source)

I am going to play devil's advocate here...

He said that he had 24 others (25 total) helping him "test" this... if I were to say I had 75 people logged on to test this, with 3 people in each spot that he had his one person, and they were more spread out.... and instead of 3-5 rares up at once I said we saw 6-8 rares up at the same time... which one of us would seem like we did our homework better? (What I just typed is entirely hypothetical and surely not true, so don't start rumors about there being 6-8 rares up at the same time in NR.)

I am not saying he is lying, but what I am getting at is how do we know he actually did this? Blizzard devs not even knowing, or at least saying they don't know, the actual spawn rates makes what he is talking about speculation and assumptions.

I did try to "test" this out (like many of you have probably ) by forcing a rare spawn to spawn... but with me being able to fly so fast and the other two people ONLY checking out the rare spawns in Sholozar... anyone could have came along and killed a rare where I was flying to to see if a rare was there. I flew around every known spawn point in NR TWICE using SilverDragon and NPCScan, while the two other hunters hung out in SB... and I only saw one rare mob down in Howling Fjord... not even a dead rare... no bodies... but like I said though... I do not have 1000% flight speed, so anything could have happened in one part of NR while I was on the other side of NR.

I did not read the source from the quote, so I am unsure if he has videos or sworn testimonials from people who helped him... but I am really curious HOW he proves he did this... because even though Northrend isn't becoming a ghost town, there will be less people around so searching for rare that you have to kill in order to force a spawn will be a pain...

[Lisaara]

does anyone know the actual respawn timer of King Mosh? I keep seeing 180 hours but that seems ridiculous!

[Adam-Savage]

One person who has documented the Northrend rares meticulously and who has provided a massively helpful resource for TLPD hunters is Ponderance.

First, concerning the rare spawn cap I speak of. This has been mentioned and discussed on forums - I don't have the patience to go back and find links for examples, but I will however explain how we explored this theory and tested it for ourselves. During the time in Storm Peaks on Undermine and the following weeks of helping other campers get what they were after, we met people who were going after Frostbitten. Various discussions including the theorized rare spawn cap took place and we decided to plan a night to get as many people online as we could and drop an entire night into seeing if we could figure this out.

There were a little over 25 of us, I forget exactly how many. We spent the first hour locating some rares, found 3. Luckily they weren't tameable so we were able to pay people off to not kill them and sat on them while we checked rare spots in the zones we were covering. The 3 rares were watched as the rest of us flew around trying to find any other rares for a good 9 hours. Nothing new. So we killed crystalbark, and within just a handfull of minutes bonecarver spawned out in grizzly hills. We killed another and the zul'drak sentinel spawned shortly after. We waited an hour with those 3 up before killing more, not finding anything. Then we killed one and very shortly after another spawned. So, regardless of people claiming 5, we think it's 3. Well, I do. A few people argued it could al just be chance but barely any of us wanted to do that again. After all, it was a lot of dead time.

And even though I believe it's 3, I put 3-5 on the facts page just so hopefully I wont get angry emails or comments in-game that I'm an idiot and it's 5. Sigh.

(Source)

I am going to play devil's advocate here...

He said that he had 24 others (25 total) helping him "test" this... if I were to say I had 75 people logged on to test this, with 3 people in each spot that he had his one person, and they were more spread out.... and instead of 3-5 rares up at once I said we saw 6-8 rares up at the same time... which one of us would seem like we did our homework better? (What I just typed is entirely hypothetical and surely not true, so don't start rumors about there being 6-8 rares up at the same time in NR.)

I am not saying he is lying, but what I am getting at is how do we know he actually did this? Blizzard devs not even knowing, or at least saying they don't know, the actual spawn rates makes what he is talking about speculation and assumptions.

I did try to "test" this out (like many of you have probably ) by forcing a rare spawn to spawn... but with me being able to fly so fast and the other two people ONLY checking out the rare spawns in Sholozar... anyone could have came along and killed a rare where I was flying to to see if a rare was there. I flew around every known spawn point in NR TWICE using SilverDragon and NPCScan, while the two other hunters hung out in SB... and I only saw one rare mob down in Howling Fjord... not even a dead rare... no bodies... but like I said though... I do not have 1000% flight speed, so anything could have happened in one part of NR while I was on the other side of NR.

I did not read the source from the quote, so I am unsure if he has videos or sworn testimonials from people who helped him... but I am really curious HOW he proves he did this... because even though Northrend isn't becoming a ghost town, there will be less people around so searching for rare that you have to kill in order to force a spawn will be a pain...

sholzar basin is the only place really that has high traffic so if they started from there it is possible. My friend was able to tame all 4 spirit beast literally one right after another and she showed me them to prove it.

[François]

Yup. Ponderance is what I was looking for, thanks. His information is legit and well-documented. Of course, he could be a sociopath and spreading lies and fake testimonials is what brings him satisfaction, but I am surely a name you can trust, and I've followed his blueprint and observed the same thing on a few occasions

(I am playing devil's advocate to your devil's advocate)

I highly doubt that the devs do not know the respawn rates. They could be saying that tongue-in-cheek, as the fact is that respawns are a range of, say 6-24 hours, and they can say "dunno" without lying due to the fact that it could be any number within there. That would be my guess. We did it with 6-8 people, and that was more than enough to sit with a rare, sweep the zone for others, then come back and sit with that rare. If you're not killing them immediately, and doing when there are ~25 people logged in total on Northrend (including us), you simply don't need more than a couple people per zone. More than 4-5 would certainly be overkill. I did concede that we could have missed one, but it's very, very unlikely. It's not too fun, but you will be cured of any skepticism if you try it yourself!

[Kalliope]

I did not read the source from the quote, so I am unsure if he has videos or sworn testimonials from people who helped him... but I am really curious HOW he proves he did this... because even though Northrend isn't becoming a ghost town, there will be less people around so searching for rare that you have to kill in order to force a spawn will be a pain...

Read his site. The man is obsessive, like we are. Ponderance is also very, VERY thorough when he documents information. He has testimonials from people he's helped. He has screenshots of the TLPDs he's tracked down (and we're not talking just solo shots here). Pond has put in more than enough man hours to convince me that he's telling the truth, regardless of whether he has 100% documentation on every single data point. He's earned that level of trust by proving his integrity overall.

(Read the site.)

Also, in regards to the issue of forcing a spawn, from the Facts section:

Time-Lost Proto-Drake, as confirmed by a blue post, does despawn after a period if nobody is able to "catch it."

It stands to reason that this applies to all other Northrend rares as well. Spawn timers may stretch out longer than they currently do, but the rares will still cycle out if left undiscovered. I have a theory that sitting with a rare spawn keeps it spawned, because that part of the game needs to continue to exist to support the player inside it. This way, that section of the game never unloads, along with the rare spawn. Just a theory, since no one can really prove what happens to a rare that no one is watching unless they have firsthand knowledge of the system as to what will happen (cause if no one's watching, how can you tell if someone doesn't come along and kill it?). I submit to you Outland as proof of this theory. If there wasn't some sort of cap/despawning system in place, then virtually every Outland rare would be up simultaneously in the dead of night on lesser populated servers. And trust me, I've checked. They aren't.

That's just my theorizing there, not Pond's. Seriously, read the site.

[Pent]

Heh. Alright. I'll take a look.

Maybe he should do a server transfer and come help me get TLPD on all of my characters.

[Kalliope]

You know what's funny? Pond actually plays on Area 52. You could hire him to camp for you. You can actually verify firsthand that Pond's telling the truth.

[Raydex-of-the-dawn]

Large Loch, from what I hear, is 1.5-2.5 hrs (possibly as low as .5 hr). I think OCJ might be a little longer (me and another hunter on the server were discussing our respective camps).

[Lisaara]

OCJ is a lot longer than that. 12 hours atleast.