unborn-valkyr
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Patch 5.3's pet battle changes
If you haven't caught the pet battle fever yet, now's a great time to start. New rewards make pet battles a great way to help earn some of your raiding currency, such as Valor Points or Lesser Charms, and mechanics changes make the whole system more transparent and less frustrating. New rewards Tired of killing daily quest mobs for VP? Why not pet battle for it? All of the master tamers in Pandaria, as well as the Spirits and Beasts of Fable, now offer daily quests for their defeat that offer the standard XP, 5 VP and 2 Lesser Charms per turn-in. The Beasts of Fable quest has been split into three parts, giving you a total of 14 pet battles you can do daily for VP, charms, and a chance at a battle-stone. Those battle-stones should be more common as well, with "bad luck protection" added to the game. Every bag without a battle-stone increases the chances of the next bag containing one. If you're using pet battles to level alts, all the pet battle daily quests now award XP as well. All of these quests now show up on the map, so you can find them easily.
Weekly news roundup with Panser of TradeChat
TradeChat's Panser returns with this week's WoW Insider news recap, where we look back at the hottest news from the past week and whatever other kickin' rad things may have come our way. This week's topics include: Ill-gotten goods go to charity Free comics! Would you play a WoW Fighter game? Level your professions in Pandaria! The mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr Patch notes! Is it ready to drop yet? If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave a comment, and come back next week for the next episode!
The ongoing mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
Earlier in patch 5.3's PTR cycle, developer Cory "Mumper" Stockton revealed the Unborn Val'kyr, a new wild pet coming to Northrend. That very night, players began scouring the PTR for any trace of it -- to no avail. A few days later, Stockton asked users on Twitter whether or not they'd found it yet. They hadn't, but as it turns out, at the time of those tweets, the pet had not yet been activated on the PTR at all. Whoops! However, it has been active for quite some time now, and the community at large is still not entirely sure how it works. According to the information we've been given, the Unborn Val'kyr is not a pet that is randomly spawned, but rather only spawns under specific, unique conditions. The pet has now been found and caught, but the conditions under which it spawns to begin with are still unknown.
Patch 5.3: Even more battle pets from the PTR
If you're a fan of pet battles, then patch 5.3 is for you, bringing new pets, new pets, and new pets. And while we were already excited about the creepy/cute Unborn Val'kyr, now Wowhead has turned up more information -- along photos and drop locations -- on what to expect from the pets in the upcoming patch. Many of these are being added to Burning Crusade era raids for the Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition achievement which requires you to collect 10 pets from Karazhan, Serpentshrine Cavern, and The Eye. The reward for collecting all of these pets? It's another pet, the still mysterious Tito. But while most of the pets discovered so far require revisiting old raids, there are also some new wild pets and drops, including the previously mentioned Unborn Val'kyr as well as mini-Gahz'rilla Gahz'rooki, the ooze Filthling, and a couple of adorably miniature Direhorns, the Stunted Direhorn and Direhorn Runt. So what's our favorite? Well, you already know how we feel about dinosaurs.
New raid pets, wild pets, and hit chance system coming to pet battles in patch 5.3
Earlier this afternoon, Cory "Mumper" Stockton revealed a new wild battle pet coming in patch 5.3: the Unborn Val'kyr. If we can all ignore the creepy implications of its name, this will likely turn out to be an awesome addition to everyone's pet collections. Even if it turns out its battle abilities aren't very impressive (and we don't know yet either way), who doesn't want a tiny little val'kyr following them everywhere? In addition to the Unborn Val'kyr, patch 5.3 datamining has revealed the achievement Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition which will add pets to Burning Crusade-era raids, much like those added to classic WoW raids.
