Corpsebryde wrote:Lol, all these funny stories make me want to go out and tame a spider now; but I'd never use it since my "spider" of choice is Huckleberry my silithid.
You know, I was having that exact same problem! Who needs a stinkin' SPIDER when I have Thrakkzoth, genius extraordinaire, master tactician, and the one of the fattest head that is so fat it's fatter than a fat thing that is fat. I love Thrakkzoth to
bits, especially now that it finally made it out of its unstable childhood phase* and doesn't have to be hovered over constantly to try to head off its trouble-making. And it's so pretty, I could watch it rampage around all day! But I've always had a bit of a fond spot for spiders, and the new ones have such nice artwork, and anyways it's not like I NEED any particular pet ability to do my dailies in a timely manner, so nobody's going to care if I pick up a spider purely for recreational purposes. Yes.
So I went out and tamed all the common fire-spider skins I could get my hands on (was a good day for it, the
broodlings were up) and sat around Dalaran trying to click with each one. Red's too... something, I don't know what, but it doesn't
work. Green is okay but there's not enough contrast. Yellow just feels boring. Not worried about orange, I can't tell it apart from red without a side-by-side comparison; purple looks great, but what's that, epic rarespawn camping in the middle of the most heavily-trafficked area in the game right now,
no thanks. I glumly determined that fire-spiders are not for me, at least on this character.
Then I remembered that the fire-spiders of the Firelands aren't the first spiders on fire by a longshot. So I nipped off to my original molten spider spot and made friends with Ishnate. This has reminded me of several things: mine spiders are neat but they can't match my love for the right tarantula. Tarantulas are the Original Fatties of hunterpetdom. Also I am an evil, evil person who derives great entertainment from bringing an ancient Vanilla-era model of fiery spider to the territory of the latest fiery spiders, and imagining how many new players I confuse: "huh, that doesn't look like the red one or the purple one or the green one. Where the heck are those from?"
So these days I'm still rampaging about with Thrakkzoth as I daily my way across the Molten Front, but I'm ALSO having a ton of fun with Fatlava, aka Ishnate. It's so easy to forget, amidst all the careful number-crunching optimization of hunter pets, that for a lot of purposes it doesn't make any difference whether you use the BEST pet, or the pet you have fun with.
Last-ditch rerail attempt: I had to hop in the water the other day with Ishnate out and saw its swimming animation. Oh my word. For a pet that already has the look of having a near infinite volume, the way it was wiggling its legs managed to make it look even more voluminous. And just... I can't describe it. Look for yourself.
Help help I can't stop giggling! It loses something when it's not side by side to a Tauren to show off how BIG it is, but let me assure you: it's huge, it's wiggly, and it's hilarious. Not quite as amazing as Pydar's flying, but still.
*
pro-tip: if your trainer assigns you the task of taming and raising a notoriously intelligent and frequently malicious beast, you should probably not pick out the largest, most cunning, wildly aggressive juvenile specimen you can find. At least not if you value your immediate sanity, free time, and well-being.
No nearly as cool as the flying spider.
Orpheus and his precious tarantula swimming animation still have top ranking, but I am enjoying the fire spider movements Arachne has as well - they really do look amazing flying through the air and such.