Treading Magma

[Technowitch]

Terrorpene. The bane of boredom. The elusive terapin.

I'd been camping Terrorpene off and on for weeks, often just moving on when it was clear either (1) I was about to be bored out of my skull waiting for nothing or, more often, when there were other hunters around camping him as well.

Today, I was sitting on my favorite rock near the far southern spawn point, wondering yet again how badly I wanted this turtle -- didn't even bother to clear NPCscan cache because everybody who has one as a pet dings the entry. Started looking through Petopia to consider if maybe I should just go tame a desert scorp (for the disarm)...looked up to see a red dot move across my mini-map. At first, illogically I thought it was an enemy player -- "What is that, a DK?" -- then I looked behind my character on the screen to see a familiar red turtle amble by.

No one around. Tried to tame, but out of range. He wasn't going to be near any rocks and I didn't want to take the time to mount up and move further down the pool and look for a rock along his path.

I hopped into the lava and waded and swam after him. Literally treading lava, I tamed the turtle while taking heavy magma damage, and succeeded with about 1/3 of my health remaining. I mounted up and got the hell out of there as fast as I could, deciding the feeding and training could wait until later.

I would not recommend the lava swimming unless you have a lot of health and good equipment. I'm L85 with a mix of crafted, PvP, and a couple of epics (total item level 349) -- not as well-equipped as the serious folks, but better than quest blues & greens.

BTW, I know this will be irrelevant in 4.1, but until now, a good place to level pets for L85s is Twilight Highlands, Victor's Point (post quest phase). Lots of Ogres and Ettins that spawn, plus NPCs to helpfully keep them occupied. The turtle is pretty tough, and I can see why it's a popular tank pet.

[scottyy]

Grats on your tame and I found the best way to level them is by doing TB dailies, you get a lot of exp and get your dailies done.

[sXe Angel]

Or a full clear of HoO will lvl pets fast. I mean full clear, all 4 bosses on the second lvl and the outdoor boss. Do it on heroic for even faster pet lvling.

[Ambs]

Grats on your tame, and being able to survive it! ^_^