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Breakfast Topic: The game's most famous rare
I was taking my main through the new set of Northern Barrens quests recently when I found myself running across rare spawn mobs a lot. This in itself isn't all that surprising; you'll run across rare spawns pretty commonly whenever zones aren't occupied by eager levelers. I saw Elder Mystic Razorsnout, Swiftmane, and for the first time ever, Humar the Pridelord. Humar is well known as a popular hunter pet, and until Wrath, he was the only black lion in the game. And that got me to thinking: What is the game's most famous rare spawn? If I had to settle on one, my vote would be the Time-Lost Proto Drake, which has driven legions of players to the nuthouse in an endless struggle to find it, let alone kill it. Close behind would probably be Loque'nahak, another famous hunter pet. Curiously, it feels like most of the game's really well-known rare mobs are actually fairly recent additions to the game, although people who played during classic WoW might disagree.
Patch 4.2: Skarr and Karkin are hunters' newest pet taming challenges
We've already previewed the first 8 new, rare hunter pet taming challenges that are coming in patch 4.2, but Blizzard was not yet done adding to the list! Two new hunter taming challenges have appeared on the PTR -- Skarr and Karkin. Skarr is an obsidian black cat with glowing eyes and what appears to be a molten temper. He lives on some floating rocks beyond Fireplume Peak in the Molten Front and requires some tricky jumping to get in range to tame. Since flying mounts are not usable in the Molten Front, you had better put those Super Mario platforming skills to work. Skarr's attack start off weak but ramps up over time, so you had better get moving.
Patch 4.2 New Hunter Pets: All 8 rares found
Yesterday, I found Ahnka, the spirit tiger roaming the Regrowth looking for trouble. The stalwart hunters at the Petopia forums have found all of the new tameable hunter pets coming in patch 4.2 to the new daily questing hubs, The Molten Front and The Regrowth. The eight new pets include two spirit cats (Ahnka and Magria), a spirit owl (Ban'thalos), and five uniquely colored lava spiders from the Firelands (Solix, Skitterflame, Kirix, Anthriss, and Deth'tilac). Each of these creatures provides a unique challenge to the hunter trying to tame them. Taming one of these unique creatures will be a mark of prestige to the hunter toting them around, not only for their rarity. Some of the lava spiders have some pretty tricky mechanics; Deth'tilac, especially, feels like a marathon. Here's a compilation of all of the new eight hunter rare taming challenges coming in patch 4.2.
Patch 4.2 New Hunter Pets: Ahnka
Patch 4.2 introduces two brand new daily quest hubs to Cataclysm called The Molten Front and The Regrowth. Yesterday, Blizzard updated the public test realm to include a new tidbit of information about eight new unique and rare creatures that would provide unique challenges to tame them by savvy hunters. 8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges. source I hopped on to the PTR this morning and, lo and behold, found the first of these eight new challenges -- Ahnka, the spirit cat.
Cataclysm hunter pet highlights
The highest highlight of all the new pets that came in with the shattering of Azeroth and the Cataclysm is, of course, tameable Chromaggus. Well, at least he's the highlight in my eyes, since he dropped the sexiest shield ever and I've always loved him. Especially when he dropped it for me. But Chromaggus is far from the only new pet you could tame in Cataclysm, if you were of a mind to. There are new skins, a new spirit beast, and whole new pet families to consider. As that maven of hunter pets Mania pointed out, this may be the best expansion ever for hunter pet collectors. New pet families Beetles Tenacity pets that like fruit and fungus, these are bugs. Just imagine Neil Patrick Harris reading your pet's mind, and you're in the ballpark. Dogs Ferocity pets with a fairly broad appetite, these will eat meat, cheese, fish, bread, fruit, and fungus, so they're easy to feed. They're dogs. I'm positive you know what a dog is. Foxes WoW Insider shadow priest columnists, they like to eat public adulation. Ferocity pets like the dog, with a hankering to snack on meat, fish and fruit. They do a little dance which is painfully adoable, like what I imagine gnome shaman's ghost wolf forms would do. Monkey Cunning pets that enjoy fungus and fruit and being fairly closely related to humans for a pet. What's next, Vrykul pets? Actually, that would be pretty cool. I'd tame King Ymiron myself. Shale Spider These seem to be an exotic Tenacity pet (which means only beast mastery hunters could tame one) that are made of stone and that eat meat, fish, raw meat, and raw fish. Why they don't eat rocks is beyond me. There's more than just new pet families, however.
Cataclysm Beta: Chromaggus tameable by hunters
Here's some pretty awesome news from the maven of all things hunter pet-related, Mania: Chromaggus is tameable on the beta servers. Chromaggus is a boss in Blackwing Lair known for keeping healers on their toes with a variety of debilitating debuffs, for making magic users curse his name thanks to a shifting resistance shield, and for dropping the coolest-looking shoulder armor in the entire game. You need be a beastmastery hunter to tame him, as he is a member of the exotic Core Hound family. Not only is he a great pet for a nostalgic, old-world raider, he also has a very nice-looking, unique skin, and he'll be in high demand for certain raiding groups, as Core Hounds now provide Ancestral Hysteria, a Heroism replacement. For my own part, if he remains tameable when Cataclysm goes live, I know I'll eventually be pulling my old hunter out of the mothballs and calling in a few favors. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Scattered Shots: Pet tanking
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. As hunters, we spend a lot of our down time engaged in awesomeness. On long weekends, we strip down and roll around in awesomesauce; we drink it and bathe in it it and steep ourselves in the awesome until we reek of it, until we radiate awesome so strongly that it even starts to rub off on those around us. Pet tanking is yet another example of this principle in action. Grandpappy Frostheim always used to say, "If you want a job done right, do it yourself. But if you're getting a good drunk on and good enough is good enough, send your pet to do it." With the right pet, the right talents, a bit of gear and a pinch of forethought, our pets can make surprisingly formidable tanks. Our pets can easily tank, for example, any dungeon and any heroic in the game. We can even tank raid bosses. And I'm not talking about just the easy stuff in Naxx, either. We can tank a goodly number of ICC bosses including, as you can see in the video above, Sindragosa (and we don't even need another tank to help out in Sindragosa phase 3, either). So join me after the cut and learn how!
The Daily Quest: European style
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. This week's EU forum watch brings you the best of the official forums, European style. OutDPS has a cure for the lagging hunter pet, increasing their DPS by a bit. Shields Up really likes the two piece tier 10 bonus on the resto shaman set. Killing 'em slowly looks at his elemental shaman twink gear. The German WoW fansite buffed.de is collecting photos of the players and their avatars for a large gallery. Go check it out and contribute if you want! Cynwise's Battelgrounds takes a look at heirloom gear for the lowbie battleground player. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Patch 3.3 PTR: Meet Arcturis, the newest and coolest Spirit Beast
I was listening in on the Twisted Nether Blogcast and heard Nibuca mention that the new Spirit Bear image we reported earlier this week had been identified. Sure enough, I head over to the one place I knew would have the answer, Mania's Arcania. Sure enough there it was, Mania had a long post giving all the details. Mania's Arcania member safrienaer reported that they had found the new spirit beast on the PTR Patch 3.3 in Grizzly Hills, north of Amberpine Lodge. Along with some really cool screenshots, safrienaer went on to describe that at the moment Arcturis doesn't have any special sounds. However, Mania thinks, and I have to agree, that we'll probably see some polishing of the graphic with some special glowing effects and sounds before the completion of the testing of Patch 3.3 on the PTR. On a final note, Mania noted that Jangalian did some research on Wikipedia and found that it seems our new Spirit Beast might be a reference to Arcturus Mengsk from StarCraft. Anyways, I'm excited about the prospect of taming Arcturis. My only problem will be stable slots and having to pick a new Elvis related name that matches his personality. (Edit: I owe Jangalian an apology for overlooking that she had originally provided Mania the information about the different possible references for Blizzard choosing Acturis as the name for this really cool Spirit Beast.) Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Mining the armory for Hunter pet statistics
With Hunter pet information recently added to the armory, Data Miner Zardoz has wasted no time getting his hands on the raw Hunter pet data and breaking it down. The data is only for level 80 Hunters, and only 10,000 of those at that, but it still gives a very interesting snapshot of what's going with the Hunter's best friends. It might not be too big a surprise that Cats are far and away the most popular pet at a count of around 9500, nearly doubling again the amount of Wolves, who come in just under 5000, which are in turn used in numbers over twice as much as the next popular choice, Gorillas, who are just above 2800 in number. Now mind you, this information does take into account pets that are in the stables as well, and there's certainly the possibility that a lot of them have just stayed in the stables for a long time.
Hunters discover "new" Worgen pet
As the holiday weekend rolled around, we started to get a number of tips that Hunters were successfully training themselves a...Worgen pet? Worgen?!? How was this level of cool allowed into the game without anyone knowing about it until now? Well, it turns out that the Worgen pet is in fact a very clever use of game mechanics somewhat akin to those used by Hunters in order to tame the (now sadly vanished) Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Garwal, a warg NPC in northern Howling Fjord who can turn into a Worgen as part of a questline (the link is the Horde version, but it's the same for both Horde and Alliance) can actually be tamed and kept in Worgen form if the timing is right. Mania's Arcania has a look at the process used here, which involves a little math, a little guesswork, and the strategic use of Wyvern Sting.
Hunter pet tanks Heroic Sapphiron
Remember Durante of Hydraxis, who briefly became a hero among Hunter for tanking Gruul with his pet? Well, he's at it again with Bubbles the Gorilla still at his side. This time around his stalwart monkey took on Sapphiron, deep in the bowels of Naxxramas.In order to get the job done this time around, Durante mentions in his thread on the official forums that he had to do some pretty significant Stamina stacking, and his DPS was quite nearly nonexistant with the spec and equipment that allowed this to happen. He did just over 900 DPS over the course of the encounter. The raid didn't seem to need to stack any extra healers for this, but the five that were there had to be on top of their game. One attempt was cut short when Bubbles ate a pretty hefty crit, and pets can't be crit immune. Threat was a little dicey at first, Durante says, DPS really needed to hold back for awhile. They managed it though, and that's really all that counts.I wouldn't say that this is a sign of Hunter pets taking over as Tanks or anything like that, but it was probably incredibly fun for Durante and his guild. I have no idea where his guild (which is recruiting Healers, apparently) sits on the meter between "Casual" and "Hardcore" but even the most hardcore guilds need to have a little fun sometimes and I think this qualifies.
Wrath of the Lich King: Hunter roundup
So, Wrath of the Lich King is here, and it is awesome. We here at WoW Insider want to make sure you have all the tools you need to oil your guns, string your bows, and feed your pets. Let's take a moment and review all the basic sources of information you can use to help propel your level 70 Hunter into Northrend, on to level 80, and then on to greatness! GENERAL TIPS
