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The OverAchiever: Hunting rares and you -- A guide to waiting around for months
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the thrills of real-life hunting (lots and lots of waiting around) are yours to be had in-game. Admit it: You still get a little thrill of excitement whenever you run across a rare mob. There's always that thought that this -- this -- is going to be the time you kill something with a silver dragon around its portrait and something fantastically rare drops. Maybe it'll be a world drop like the Lei of Lilies. Maybe it'll be one of the game's first epics, a Staff of Jordan. Maybe you'll go out of your way to kill something and find a plate Of the Boar shoulder on it, and you'll wonder why you bothered in the first place. But hunting rares is, as they say, the triumph of hope over experience. There are four achievements in the game concerned with hunting rare mobs, and they'll keep you running around Outland and Northrend for a while. These achievements might get a lot harder when Mists of Pandaria hits due to cross-realm zones. They're not exactly easy to do right now, but they certainly won't get easier if you have to compete against a raft of off-server players. While we're not 100% certain that that's how things will function, right now I would classify these as achievements to do sooner rather than later. The only reason they weren't listed in that column is because I didn't think of them, but a few canny readers made the Cross-Realm Zones + Rare Mobs = Oh Shiznit connection.
The OverAchiever: 5 lucrative achievements
Last week we discussed a set of achievements likely to drive the average player to the poorhouse. This week, in the spirit of consoling people who may not necessarily have a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth in their immediate future, I'd like to present a series of 5 achievements where at least one of the following is true: They're an unusual means of making gold in a way people wouldn't necessarily expect, or: It would be almost impossible not to make a pile of gold while doing them. Now, a disclaimer; the most obvious picks here would be achievements like Got My Mind On My Money or The Bread Winner, but they're more a record of your previous looting and questing rather than being something you really have to go for consciously. I'm on the lookout for slightly more interesting ways to grow rich from achievements that are not so directly concerned with moneymaking:
Patch 3.2 PTR: Finding the Raptor Pets
For those of us who like to collect stuff in WoW, one of the cooler announcements for patch 3.2 was the inclusion of a whole new set of raptor hatchling pets, dropped around the world by rare and elite raptors. Of course, it was also an announcement of dread for serious collectors who can tell horror stories of killing thousands upon thousands of slimes and dragons for rare pets before. But will it be all as bad as that? WoW fansites have been on the case.Mania, maven of Hunter pets, has also been looking into the drop rates and drop mobs, and has compiled a handy chart on her blog. Between Mania and the news on Warcraft Pets, it seems we can mostly confirm that the rare raptors (such as, for example, Takk the Leaper) will always drop their pets, while those that drop only off elites have a very rare drop rate more similar to the aforementioned slimes or dragons.
The Queue: Buzz buzz
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Today's edition of The Queue is a pretty short one, but it's an important one. I'm making a change to the format of this column, which will be explained in our very first question of the day. Why is it so short? When you read the answer to the question, you'll understand. I just ran out of steam after pulling that off. elstor asked... "What's with the music lately? Why did you have to start this?!" It's something we did for giggles once, people liked it, we kept doing it just for kicks. I'm pretty bored of it though! We should pick a new Whatever of the Day instead of songs. Extreme Stunt of the Day?Read this edition of The Queue while doing a kickflip out of a burning building and through the moving blades of a helicopter, then land in the middle of the ocean where you will wrestle a shark. While covered in bees.
Ask a Beta Tester: Raids, rare mobs, and more raids
We've had a lot of class-specific questions lately (especially Hunters) here on Ask a Beta Tester, but since I don't play every class, I can't answer all of those. However, I've forwarded some of them on to our motley crew of bloggers, so we'll hopefully be able to answer you soon. Until then, let's get started on some other things, shall we?Robert M asked a pair of questions...Is there going to a difference in the number of badges the same boss drops in the 10 man and the 25 man?There isn't a difference in the number, no. However, there is a difference in the type of badge. The 10 and 25 man loot is tiered, and the 10 and 25 man badge loot is tiered in a similar way. The badge loot you can get from grinding 10-mans is not the same as grinding 25-mans.Will you be saved to a raid in the 10 man and not be able to do the 25 man that week? it seems like a 25 man geared toon could help the guild in the 10 if its a slow week or some of the raid members have a RL issue.The 10 and 25 man raids have separate raid IDs, so doing them both in one week won't be an issue.Read on for more answers to your questions!
Rare mobs in classic, BC, and Wrath
Rare mobs are one of my favorite unexpected pleasures in WoW. It's such a thrill to be questing or grinding along and see that silver dragon; it adds a lot of flavor to what could otherwise be some boring runs through out-of-the-way zones. In fact, that's an upside to the current depopulation of Azeroth: I find many more rare mobs, since no-one's been by to kill them in an hour or two. Fun fight, interesting mob, automatic green. However, when Burning Crusade came out, it was discovered that all the Outland rare mobs were also elite. There was a blue post around the time that defended the decision as allowing them to put better loot on the mobs, making them walking treasure chests (BC also has no world treasure chests, sadly Thanks; I guess there are still new things for me to learn in BC) . But it did make them basically unsoloable, which takes a lot of the excitement out of spotting one, at least for me: by the time I get four more people to come help me out, I don't really care any more.
Some Hunter pets not losing size or elite status when tamed
So by now, I'm sure a lot of people have seen it: A Hunter accompanied by what looks to be a pet on steroids, with a huge size and an elite target frame. No, Hunters have not gained the ability to become even more imba, it appears to be a display bug. Since 2.4, elite and rare (aka silver elite) pets aren't quite registering properly once tamed, as they appear to keep their size and show up as elite in status (though apparently not in stats) until the hunter logs off. As a result, you may have seen Gutripper tearing up Blood Elves in Dawnblade Village, or King Bangalash frolicking around Booty Bay. Rest assured (or be disappointed) that you probably won't see them that way for long, and a hotfix is on the way. Mania speculates that the bug may have something to do with the implementation of Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuits, which seems very possible. Maybe when they messed with the coding to allow pets to grow larger, much like the PTR bug where non-combat pets grew giant, it caused elite pets to grow a bit larger too, or at least not shrink like they should. Either way, enjoy your new massive pets while you can, Hunters, I'd imagine a hotfix will come either this Tuesday or the next.
