Archive for the ‘Pets’ Category

I was in Stormwind on New Year’s Eve, and got – for whatever reason – a desire for the croc pet from the Outlands fishing quest. I’d read about it in the Warcraft Magazine online preview, and decided it sounded easy enough to get. Rather then waste my hearth to Dalaran just to get to Shattrath, and rather then pay a mage to port me there, I used my ‘ultrasafe’ transporter. Ultra safe my foot – it turned me into a Night Elf for an hour! When I got to the fishing quest dude, Old Man Barlo, luck was with me as he was handing out the Crocolisks in the City quest that night. Yes! That quest was reported to have something like a 70% drop rate in the reward bag of a croc pet, so I was psyched. I took the portal to Stormwind and fished my crocolisk up in short order. While I was headed back to the mage’s tower so I could take the Blasted Lands portal, a level 17 paladin stopped me. He wanted someone to help him get the head of Bazil Thedd from the Stockade Riots. I agreed and we swept the place quickly. My Hand of Reckoning – my taunt – was killing mobs. He got what he came for, and as we were leaving he stopped to ask how I got to be a Night Elf paladin. I laughed and told him, ‘transporter malfunction.’ He just said, ‘oh,’ and left.

I took the Blasted Lands portal, went through the Dark Portal, and flew to Old Man Barlo near Shatt. Turning the quest in, I got my Bag of Fishing Treasures, and inside, was Snarly’s Bucket, home of the pet (Snarly) I started this whole process for. Hooray! To wrap up a good night’s work, I watched the New Year’s fireworks in Shattrath.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I was back in Wintergrasp today and had my ineptitude driven home. We won another close defensive battle by blockading the one broken wall to the inner section of the fort where the inner sanctum’s wall/door is. We’re getting good at that, it seems.  Anyway, what I was saying about my ineptitude was that afterwards, a couple people posted their recount stats. The leaders showed players with 13k+ total damage done. I checked mine (I recently switched to Recount instead of Skada), and I had done less then 1.2k. I also died three times. I guess that’s my answer then. I really can’t compete there any more. Keep in mind that I was prot again (I think I fit a better utility role that way), not ret, so my damage was down from that alone, when you factor in stats, talents, and gear. My only bright spots were holding my own against a swarm of Hordies on more then one occasion. Once, I was fighting an Orc, when a Blood Elf came in, another Orc, and finally someone’s pet (a Devilsaur, of all things) before I had to bubble and heal. The bubble wore off, and I was again assailed, this time by the first Orc, a Tauren, and that Devilsaur again, at which point I finally fell. Not bad holding their attention that long, but c’mon, is it really worth bragging about taking longer to die? I’m supposed to kill them, not take solace in being a difficult target. Anytime I went to the front lines I died (or nearly did) in seconds. A few times I was able to run back and heal, or use my Lay on Hands or bubble spells, but that meant I was occupied and not doing anything to help.

I mentioned filling a utility role when specced prot. That’s because I can use Avenger’s Shield, augmented with Shield of the Templar, to silence three foes at once at a distance. My Titan-forged Rune of Determination helped allot, cutting down on time I spent stunned. I guess if I’m satisfied not being a key part of the attack, I can keep coming back. I just can’t expect to be anything more then a utility player/distraction.

Ok, so it’s note quite a “Catch-22,” in that there’s no catch, but Lug is level 22. He picked up dual-wielding at level 20, as you can see. I hit 22 in Stonetalon Mountains with Pig at my side, but for kicks I went back to the Crossroads and picked up Stridy. You remember him, right? My Tallstrider? Well, I learned that it wasn’t just having not played in a while that made Pig feel like such an improvement; Stridy just sucks. Now I’m at a quandary… do I get rid of Stridy, or hold on to him in hopes that I’ll find a use for him someday? I’ll have to think that one over.

It’s been an interesting evening so far for Gav. For one, I was test driving the nUI interface overhaul mod, and I disliked it. I actually came to hate it after it got me killed by a Blood Elf paladin in Sholozar Basin when I couldn’t find my powers to save myself after getting jumped. Why was I PvP in the first place? I actually came to the rescue of a Night Elf death knight under attack by said BE paladin. We killed it, but while fishing for the Ghostfish, the BE jumped me and I was unable to fight back. I promptly unloaded the mod.

In other news, I spent the last day or so with Gav in the Outlands, leveling my cooking skill, ultimately to level 350. I took that to Dalaran for a break when I noticed a blue “!” mark that I’d never seen before. I checked it out, and it was Katherine Lee, grand master cooking trainer, and questgiver for the cooking daily. Sweet! I promptly took up Cheese for Glowergold, and had it done in minutes. I can understand how that quest could be a pain in the ass sometimes, with people running all over each other to collect wine glasses that are sitting out, but it was easy this late at night when I was about the only one doing it. I got a bag of spices, as well as my first ever Dalaran Cooking Award. I was stumped as to what I was supposed to do with the award, but I ultimately found out that I could buy more recipes, Northern Spices, and a goofy chef’s hat. Not too exciting, but whatever.

Finally, I did complete the Ghostfish fishing daily, and of all things I got the Strand Crawler vanity pet. Not bad.

Here’s a picture of me and Li’l Smoky.  I ran through the back door of Gnomeregan the other evening to nab Smoky’s and Pet Bombling’s schematics, and later got around to making Smoky. As you can see in the pic, he lives up to his name.

It’s neat that both Gnomish and Goblin engineers can make these pets, but that kind of kills their rarity. Now, everyone can have their own Li’l Smoky or Pet Bombling.

In any case, it’s another pet towards the Shop Smart, Shot Pet… Smart achievement, which would net me the Reeking Pet Carrier.

Do I really want a skunk, though? Not really. I just want the next achievement’s pet: the Little Fawn. Now THAT’s a rare pet.

This is a quickie post to say that Pig is actually a little hard on my heart. lol Seriously, I can’t count the number of times since getting him I’d be running along and he’d lag behind, falling off-screen. Being a natural paladin, seeing just my avatar is nothing odd to me. What is odd is Pig suddenly catching up with me. At least four times in the last 12 hours I’ve had an “OMG something’s attacking me!… oh, it’s just Pig” moment. I’ve also had several, “Wait!! What the hell happened to Pig? He was just… oh, here he is” moments as well.  *sigh* Why can’t I just remember he’s there and not panic when he disappears and then panic again when he shows up?

Pets. The bane of the average class.

Some of you may remember that, sometime about 65 million years ago, I mentioned that I had a Tauren hunter named Lug. Well, I don’t play Lug a whole lot, sadly, for reasons unknown. I think it’s partially because I like playing Gavelier so much, but it may be also because of my now-ingrained anti-Horde mentality from all of the Horde raids Gav has been witness to in his 75 levels (oops, spoiler!). I do like playing as Lug; I enjoy the hunter style and I like the Tauren race the most out of the Horde’s cast of creeps. I also like Mulgore, the Tauren homeland. Well, I logged back in to night, spurred by an article on WoW Insider on hunter pets. I was inspired to get Lug a new pet; a Tenacity pet. He had a tallstrider named Stridy, but the article suggested that a tenacity pet was more my style, and tallstriders are ferocity pets. What I needed was a pet to tank for me, since I could dish out plenty of damage myself.

I wanted a turtle at first, but I couldn’t find any low enough a level, so I was going to hunt for a crocolisk on the shores of the river between Durator and the Barrens. As I left Ogrimmar, however, I saw a boar. He was kinda dumpy, real pale and only level 9, but he was there. I looked up boars as far as hunters’ pets on Wowhead, and I saw that they ate nearly anything, and were also tenacity pets. I suddenly wanted no other pet; I didn’t really want a crocolisk anyway, and I couldn’t catch a turtle, but it was more then that. This… pig was calling me. I tamed him on the spot and he instantly was made level 10. I took the boar, now named Pig, to the Barrens to level him up. Before long, Pig was level 15 like me, and soon after, he and I hit 16. We were a little wrecking crew across the Barrens. We completed all of the quests in my log, and then some, finally following a quest line back into Mulgore. There, we wrapped up all of the quests I left there, as well. As we frolicked back down a hill, coming from a quest to kill Supervisor Fizsprocket of the Venture Company and get his clipboard, I snapped the above picture. I also hit level 17 while out and about tonight. Lug and Pig; this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.