I finally had time this evening to do my random pet challenge! My assignment was to tame a
Black Monkey.
My Tauren hunter journeyed far south, down to the cape of Stranglethorn Vale, in search of her target: a
Skymane Bonobo. As far as I'm aware this is the only non-color-changing black monkey available. Eventually, on the small island of Jaguaro, she located the native habitat of her prey. It was actually sort of hard to find one alive because a Goblin shaman and Worgen rogue were grinding there and killing everything. Eventually, I caught a respawn.
He didn't like Eiderdown very much at first, but with a banana and a little coaxing, he eventually came around!
In terms of appearance the black monkey looks OK, but I'm not a fan. I just don't think monkeys are a very cute or appealing animal, so there was no real draw. I gave him a fair chance though. His color seems more of a dark ashen-grey rather than true black. I didn't have much to complain about with the skin, except that the whiskers are that type of rigid-looking, "flattened" hair you see on old-world lions' manes.
He has two idle animations, which occur often. He scratches his butt...
And he rears up and beats his chest.
It was hard to get clear screenshots of my monkey in motion, but his swimming animation is a loose butterfly stroke, which I liked. The walking animation is fine--he paces slowly with knuckles on the ground--but you'll hardly ever see it. His running animation is a quick lope on all fours, which I thought looked pretty bad. He runs with a sloped posture that looks like he's about to lose his balance and topple over on his side. The speed also seemed like a poor match for his actual running speed, even without any speed-increasing talents. Because of this hunched running posture, I decided to name him Igor. The attack animations are pretty simple. He hops and smacks the enemy with his fists or lunges forward and punches.
Igor's former buddies didn't approve of his change of heart and reacted with hostility.
As you can see in this comparison, the Skymane Bonobos shrink considerably after taming. For some pet families, I find their midget size really annoying, but it fit with Igor; I wouldn't expect a monkey to be very large anyway. (Almost every pet looks small next to a Tauren, though, so it may feel different for shorter hunters.) I'd expect that being a small target would help a monkey survive better in PvP.
In combat the monkey chattering noises weren't as loud as I had expected. They have a lot of different sounds but are actually a fairly quiet pet.
Together Igor and his new master said goodbye to Jaguaro Isle and set off for new lands.
Eiderdown spent the day adventuring with Igor, showing him sights and experiences he had never imagined before during his simple simian life in the jungle. Together they encountered many strange and hostile creatures...
Visited mysterious places far from home...
And even met some new people!
Igor held aggro about as well as any other cunning pet I've tried. Kill Command and Growl was generally enough for weak single targets, maybe an occasional Intimidate. That said, he was not great at it. Igor was bad at tanking multiple mobs, or any mobs that hit unusually hard. He took damage very quickly and I had to use Mend Pet often to keep him alive. I would definitely not recommend a monkey for tanking anything difficult. Bad Manner is currently fuctioning as a stun, not a blind, so it did not break on damage. That made it useful enough to leave on auto-cast. When Bad Manner gets changed in the next patch to correctly break on damage, I suspect it will only be helpful in PvP.
In the end, a travelling life wasn't suited for Igor. Adventuring was fun, but in the end he wanted to settle down and live peacefully at home. Knowing that Igor was no longer welcome at home, Eiderdown brought him to a new jungle, Sholazar Basin, where he could feel comfortable and fit in with the locals. At level 83 he had become significantly more powerful than he started out back in Stranglethorn, so she knew he could protect himself and his new neighbors.
My conclusions: Igor was certainly not a bad pet, but he didn't significantly stand out. I seriously disliked his running animation, and he was at best a mediocre tank, and his DPS was lower than some of my other pets with more beneficial abilities. Bad Manner was OK, but not a big bonus in PvE. So overall I'd choose my awesome serpent over Igor (or another monkey) in basically any situation requiring a cunning pet. PvP is where a monkey would really shine... but I don't PvP much at all on my hunter, so that wasn't enough of a benefit to me to want to keep a monkey around long-term. It was fun to try out a new pet family, though.
