The OverAchiever: Continuing Littlest Pet Shop

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, nothing will drop for us.

This week we return with the second installment of our guide to Littlest Pet Shop. I apologize, folks -- turns out this'll require one more after this. We're going to use today to tackle all of the game's dropped, Argent Tournament, and profession-related pets, so I can give you a choice between grinding your guts off or spending yourself into the poorhouse. Fun!

As always, WarcraftPets.com is your best friend here.

NPC drops

If you're a very lucky person, grinding these pets should be a breeze. If you're like the rest of us, you may have to find some "luck" via the Auction House, but be warned that the vast majority of dropped pets are extremely expensive.

• Azure Whelpling Dropped very rarely by level 48 to 55 mobs in Winterspring.

• Black Tabby Cat For years, this pet was a major headache for Alliance players to get, as it dropped commonly off the Dalaran Spellscribe in Ambermill and very rarely off local Dalaran mobs, all of whom were friendly to Alliance. These days, you'll find it -- again, rarely -- off a host of level 17 to 26 mobs hostile to almost everyone in the Hillsbrad Foothills. However, if you've got a character at level 85 who often gets the Call to Arms, you're probably most likely to find it in the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries. The Black Tabby was also the subject of one of my favorite Around Azeroths.

• Crimson Whelpling Dropped very rarely by level 19 to 25 mobs in the Wetlands.

• Dark Whelpling This one's a bit eccentric. Rather than being dropped in just one zone, you have a chance to nab it off seven types of mobs in the Burning Steppes, Dustwallow Marsh, the Wetlands, and the Badlands. See the linked Wowhead entry for the mob list.

• Darting Hatchling This one's also a bit eccentric, though most of the "hatchling" pets are. It drops off Dart's Nest, a rare spawn raptor's nest in the extreme northern end of Dustwallow Marsh.

• Deviate Hatchling Dropped by the Deviate Ravagers and Deviate Guardians in Wailing Caverns (they're the raptors at the beginning of the instance).

• Disgusting Oozeling This was once unique among noncombat pets in affecting your stats. Unfortunately, it affected them for the worse: Anyone who had one of these babies out suffered a -10 defense skill, or something to that effect. While that's no longer the case, it's still somewhat unique in being a sort of indirect drop. It has a small chance to appear in an Oozing Bag, which itself has a small chance to drop from 47 different ooze-type mobs around the world (too many to list here, so just click the link for the Wowhead rundown). Bottom line? Statistically, you'll probably have to kill in excess of 2,000 oozes before you'll get a pet.

• Elementium Geode This is first and only pet that can be mined, and it appears (very rarely) off Elementium and Rich Elementium veins in Deepholm, the Twilight Highlands, and Tol Barad. if you're not a miner, check the AH, but be prepared to pay dearly. I have yet to see this pet go for less than 1,000 gold on any server.

• Emerald Whelpling Dropped by the Noxious Whelp in Feralas, a new addition as of Cataclysm. Until this expansion, the Emerald Whelpling was by far the most frustrating of the tiny dragon pets to collect, as the Adolescent and Dreaming Whelps they once dropped from in the Swamp of Sorrows shared spawn timers with another green whelp NPC that didn't drop the Whelpling, and there weren't a whole lot of them around to start with.

• Firefly Dropped very rarely by the Bogflare Needler in northern Zangarmarsh. You're going to have to kill additional wasp mobs in the area as, even though they don't drop the pet, they share spawn timers with the Needler.

• Fox Kit One of the all-time cutest little pets to come along, the Fox Kit is a drop off the Baradin Fox mobs running around the northern part of Tol Barad.

• Green Wing Macaw In contrast to most drops, this is actually easy to get, particularly once your character has outleveled the normal version of Deadmines. Its drop rate is about 3%, and there are plenty of Defias Pirate mobs on the ship for you to kill.

• Gundrak Hatchling Dropped by the Gundrak Raptor mobs around (where else?) Gundrak, the northeastern section of Zul'Dark in Northrend.

• Hyacinth Macaw Oh, lord. Historically, this was probably the game's most difficult pet to get, with a reported 1 in 10,000 drop rate off Defias mobs in Stranglethorn Vale. The scarcity was so legendarily difficult that the Hyacinth became (to my knowledge) the only epic pet in WoW. These days, not only is it a drop from the Call to Arms Satchel, but it also looks like it's now a zone drop off any hostile mob in Northern Stranglethorn/Cape of Stranglethorn. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's all that common, but it's a lot easier to get than it used to be, which is good news for all those of us who gave up after farming Defias mobs for weeks on end.

• Leaping Hatchling This little guy is a drop off the rare spawn Takk's Nest in the northeastern part of the Northern Barrens.

• Mojo This little guy is a unique case. While you're in Zul'Aman, Amani Hex Sticks drop off most of the trash mobs there, and you can /use them on the Forest Frogs around the dungeon's western lake. Most of the time they'll turn into Human, Blood Elf, or Troll vendors who are ecstatic to have been de-hexed, but occasionally you'll get the emote, "Mojo leaps in your bag!" When that happens, you'll find the pet in your packs. The "drop rate" on Mojo seems to have been substantially increased in the level 85 heroic version of Zul'Aman.

• Mr. Grubbs Ugh. I don't understand the attraction of a grub pet, but to each his own. Like Mojo, this is one of the more interesting dropped pets. He drops from the Hidden Stash randomly dropped by Eastern Plaguelands mobs. However, in order to get the Hidden Stashes, you have to have a buff on you called Fiona's Lucky Charm, obtainable from the quest Fiona's Lucky Charm at Fiona's caravan in the southwestern end of the zone. As long as you've got the buff, Zul'Masher (the moribund Troll temple in the northeastern part of EP) is probably the most efficient place to grind.

• Phoenix Hatchling This is one of the most consistently popular pets, and with good reason: It's eye-catching, really pretty, and there's even a bit of lore to it ... sort of. Kael'thas Sunstrider, in his form as the last boss of Magisters' Terrace, is famous for his other phoenix pet. You can grab the phoenix on either normal or heroic.

• Ravasaur Hatchling This drops from the rare spawn Ravasaur Matriarch's Nest in southeastern Un'Goro. Horde players with the Venomhide Ravasaur may want to pick this up as a companion for their mount, though regrettably they're not an exact physical match.

• Razormaw Hatchling Like most of his other hatchling brothers, the Razormaw can be picked up from a rare-spawn nest -- in this case, the Razormaw Matriach's in northeastern Wetlands.

• Smolderweb Hatchling Ugh again. For all those of you who do not have nightmares about Lower Blackrock Spire spider pulls, this guy drops off Mother Smolderweb, although it was once the subject of cute little quest from a goblin mercenary in the Burning Steppes.

• Sprite Darter Hatchling For years, this was an Alliance-only quested pet, but that's no longer in the game, as far as I'm aware. That's kind of a pity, as the Sprite Darter quest was rather charming, which I think played a role in the pet's Alliance-side popularity. These days, the cute little darter is a zone drop in Feralas. This is nice for the Horde, which once had to farm them off a very limited set of sprite darter mobs, but not so nice for the Alliance, which lost a cool quest.

• Tiny Shale Spider Dropped by Jadefang, a rare spawn in northeastern Deepholm.

• Worg Pup Another Lower Blackrock Spire drop that was once a Burning Steppes quest, but this time you'll find it off Quartermaster Zigris.

Page 2: Argent Tournament and profession pets >>