Monday, December 31, 2012

Will a 5.2 Change Help or Hurt Pet Battles?

The changes slated for 5.2 will be, for the most part, a positive change and compromise between fun gameplay and intended gameplay. However, discussions on the WarcraftPets forums brings up some possible downsides.

The biggest one that I see is the "damage to the fleeing pet team" change. Taking into consideration the other changes coming in 5.2, will the damage penalty even be necessary? What is the purpose behind this change anyway?

Currently, the side effect of forfeiting a battle when the pet isn't ideal or desired is that it despawns the companion and its team. When players do this on especially hard to find pets (mainly in order to find a rare quality), like the Minfernal, Scourged Whelpling and so on, it's frustrating for others who would like to simply catch one, regardless of quality or breed. Since these particular pets are rare in the general sense of the word, despawning so many in such a short period of time is detrimental to others' gameplay.

But! With pets not despawning post-patch 5.2, this shouldn't be a problem anymore. Pets that are undesirable will instead be left alone OR manually killed off my players (in hopes to force one of different quality to spawn).

So how is the damage penalty for forfeiting a positive addition to Pet Battles?

On one hand, it does (negatively) reinforce the idea that to find certain pets, you must get your hands dirty and complete battle after battle before finding one. Simply plowing through pets and forfeiting probably isn't how this mini-game was designed to work.

But if you think about it, forfeit-hunting is still going to happen regardless if a damage penalty is in place. Forfeiting is easy, quick, and if I know anything about humans, it's that most generally like quick and easy. Not every practices this, but those that use it now probably won't change how they play the game due to a mechanic like damage after fleeing. If anything, they will find ways around it and continue doing what they've been doing.

At the moment, the damage penalty for fleeing a battle punishes those that may not even use the forfeit method to hunt for specific pets.

IF this damage penalty applies to Tamer battles, it will essentially be putting an annoying roadblock on the dailies. Many players, myself included, tend to forfeit a Tamer match in order to get a satisfactory line up. If my pet isn't strong or a good match up against the first opponent, I'll leave the battle and swap my current team around and then try again.

With this change in place, I'll have to bandage my team up after every swap out. Even if it's just a tiny bit of damage, who wants to start off an engagement without full life when you don't absolutely have to? It will be an irritating and unnecessary extra step.

Negative reinforcement to attempt to back players into a corner of desired/intended gameplay should be the last resort imo. If the goal is to encourage players to not forfeit, perhaps add some incentive rather than a punishment.

Maybe Battle-Stones have a higher drop-rate? Maybe players could earn some type of currency for successful battles that they could use to purchase unique pet items? Bonus experience? There are many options that positively reinforce rather than slapping players on the wrist.

If the goal of this change is to create an environment where all players will have a chance at hard to find pets, the new mechanic coming in 5.2 that doesn't despawn pets when a player forfeits helps this issue more so than a damage penalty. Players hunting for a specific quality, breed, color, etc. will be able to leave pets up for others (should they choose to) without having to go through any extra steps.

So in the end, what exactly does damage to the fleeing party "fix" or resolve? It's punishing to all Pet Battlers (regardless if they use the forfeit method or not), puts an unnecessary roadblock and irritant on Tamer battles (if this new mechanic applies to them, that is), and overall is more negative than positive.

Perhaps I have a knowledge gap, and if there's another reason for this specific change that I'm missing, I'd love to know.

And of course, much of this could change between now and 5.2 release. How the penalty is applied, how much damage, which battles, etc. could play a big factor in whether or not this change will help or hurt Pet Battles gameplay.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

When "YAY" Becomes "yay..."

I hope the holidays are treating everyone well! Technically, I'm still "on break" until the week after New Years, but I still find some time to log on now and then to do the Tamer dailies and level some pets.

Unfortunately, my leveling progress has slowed dramatically, but not just because of the holidays. I'm running out of goals that encourage and drive me to continue leveling.

Actually, that's not entirely true. A better statement would be 'I'm running out of ENGAGING goals that encourage and drive me to continue leveling my pets.'

I still have two goals left on my plate, level pets and upgrade all pets. On their own, though, these tasks are just grinds. There's no excitement behind it since it's just routine and repeat. Nothing new or unexpected usually occurs.

Side note: My other goals don't necessarily involve leveling any pets, as they're mainly collect X non-wild pet. So those are kind of unrelated.

I currently have all the wild pets in rare quality, and all the colors that I desire/are available to me. Breeds aren't something that I want to dive into, since that's a whole new level of obsession. I'm nit-picky as it is; trying to capture specific breeds, in rare quality, of a specific skin... I think that would burn me out.

Prior to completing most of my goals, my driving motivation to level was to capture rare quality pets. It doesn't sound all that exciting, but the rush of FINALLY finding the right one was there. That feeling made the activity enjoyable, and stumbling across what you're looking for every now and then broke the routine and monotony of it all. At the same time I was leveling pets left and right. It was efficient and a stimulating experience at the same time.

All the tasks prior to completion gave me the same sense of motivation to move forward, not just hunting for rares. Finding specific colors, capturing pets in general, etc. But now I'm left with just grinding levels and possibly finding Battle-Stones.

The latter of the two does provide some motivation to complete something PLUS level pets, but unless I have a specific family-type in mind and a place to potentially farm it (while earning pet experience), situations don't always pop up where I can feel determined to do it.

I can't exactly make farming Battle-Stones my "go-to" driving force because... well, it's not entirely possible to "farm" stones. Nevermind the huge RNG factor, there are also only limited spawns for certain pet family-types. This makes it extremely difficult to work on a certain family. I could simply hope for general stones, but for me, it doesn't feel as satisfying if I don't have a specific goal/target in mind.

Simply grinding levels has started to become tedious and boring for me. Am I just burnt out? What can I do do now? Is there any type of engaging task I can do to help inspire myself to keep grinding levels? I'm at a complete loss, yet too stubborn to let it go and leave it as "oh well".

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Have Another Good One


Happy holidays and have a safe New Year to everyone big and small. :)

Friday, December 21, 2012

5.2 PTR Official Patch Notes

Blizzard released a preview of the 5.2 PTR patch notes. Keep in mind that these are subject to change and might be incomplete.
- Supercharge now provides a 125% damage bonus (was 150%), and its cooldown is now 4 rounds (was 3).

- Sprite Darter Hatchling – Evanescence and Arcane Blast have swapped ability positions.

- Nether Roach is now a real roach and can now survive the apocalypse.

- Battle Pet Bandages now stack to 25 and are Bind to Account.

- Battle-Stones now have a chance to be awarded from PVP Pet Battles.

- Pets whose color schemes change each time they are summoned have returned. Older pets with this behavior now have it back, as well as some newcomers.

- Pet levels will now only display on the map when pets are tracked.

- Taming the World now lists its reward correctly in the Achievements pane.

- Level capped players will now have a chance to each Lesser Charms of Good Fortune after winning a pet battle versus a Pet within 5 levels of the highest level pet on their team. Higher level pets will offer a better chance to earn a Charm.

- Winning a pet battle versus a team within 5 levels of the player's highest level pet will now award player experience.

- Fleeing a pet battle will no longer despawn the pet that was being battled, but doing so will now inflict some damage on the fleeing pet battle team.

- Disconnecting from a pet battle will once again respawn the pets you were fighting.

- Any pet that has been killed in a pet battle will now never respawn.

- A number of new pets can be found on the Isle of Lightning, including Rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops.

- Elite Battle Pets have been added to the game world. These rare pets will spawn alone against an entire team. A new quest has been added to track progress as these new pets are hunted down, and defeating that quest will award the new Red Panda pet.
Very interesting! I'm glad the non-wild color-changers will be making a comeback, and some new ones soon? Or existing non-wild pets will change skins each time they're summoned in 5.2? Can't wait to find out. :)

I also can't wait to see what an "elite battle pet" is like.

One thing I hope is that if you happen to engage in a battle with an "elite", you'll be phased out like with the Tamer battles. Unlike a normal wild battle, an elite one sounds rare and difficult. Imagine how heartbreaking it would be if you're nearly done with the battle, but you get pulled out due to world PVP. All that progress for nothing. It's the same with the Tamer battles, so it would only make sense to phase out during an elite one too, right? Well, we'll see.

I'm a little nervous about the new pets on the Isle of Lightning. Rare spawn drops and wild pets are acceptable, but raid boss drops? This worries me a little since I've never been a huge fan of making 10 or 25 people defeat a and then fight over who gets the companion pet. At least with the vanilla raid boss dropped pets, you could go in and kill bosses without having to drag in a full raid of players.

It looks like developers have found more of a middle-ground with the whole despawning situation. Here's my take on the notes above:
- They've added a penalty for forfeiting battles.
Damage to your pet team might not be a complete deterrent to forfeiting while rare hunting, but it does make it clear that it's not exactly how Pet Battles are meant to be played.
- Pets won't despawn if you DC during a battle.
To prevent players from abusing this mechanic in order to save rare pets that may have accidentally been killed, pets that were defeated won't respawn.

This makes me wonder though, will a new wild pet spawn in its place? Or will that team you engage with simply have a dead pet or missing team slot?

Still, it'll be good to have the ability to help others find certain pets again. :)

5.2 PTR Preview

WowInsider is reporting that a new 5.2 PTR build will be deployed soon, BUT it's not ready for player testing or play yet. This doesn't stop us from datamining it though. :P

So far they've found 3 new possible companions:
- Gusting Grimoire (BoP)
- Living Sandling
- Red Panda (BoP)
They speculate that the Gusting Grimoire will be the common pet loot from the upcoming TCG expansion deck (aka: "Floating Spellbook"?), and the Red Panda was datamined from the 5.1 PTR as the reward for an achievement to defeat X legendary wild pets (where X was either specifically named legendaries or a certain number).

Unfortunately, the achievement and pet reward never made it into the live release of 5.1, but it could make it into 5.2! There was some mention of "boss pet battles" being considered where players go up against a legendary version of an existing wild pet. So that could be a thing. :P

Things could have changed since the previous datamining, so we'll have to wait and see!

Second Spellbook? Please Re-Skin!

As reported early October of this year, the next TCG deck will be Timewalkers: Betrayal of the Guardian. The release date is set for February 12, 2013. Cryptozoic recently made the official announcement for this upcoming TCG expansion, but did not list the loot cards for it yet.

Many online card game vendors are still showing a "Floating Spellbook" as one of the loot cards, and since the other two don't sound like a possible pet, it would seem as if this will be the common pet for Betrayal of the Guardian.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is indeed the pet for the upcoming deck, since there's now a spellbook pet model (Lofty Libram). My only hope is that they make the TCG spellbook companion a bit unique either in color, model, or battle abilities. It's understandable if they want to re-use an existing model to save time, but at the very least throw on a new skin, yea? :P

But who knows. Maybe things will change and the Floating Spellbook was just a placeholder. We'll have to wait and see!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Pet Battle Dailies Tracker Addon

I normally don't review addons since I try to keep the ones I use to a min, but I absolutely must discuss this one. It's just that awesome. :P

If you're like me, and you have trouble keeping track of all the Tamer dailies and which ones you've done/haven't completed each day, this mod will be such a blessing! It's called Battle Pet Daily Tamer, and it highlights all the tamer dailies on your world map with the iconic paw print. Once you've completed a daily, the paw print will disappear, leaving only the ones you haven't defeated for that day.



You can view the icon from a range of map views, from zoomed out to zoomed in.


Dailies that reward the bag are marked with a green paw print, while regular pet dailies are shown in blue. By default, only the Grand Master and Spirit Tamer dailies are shown, but you can toggle the regular pet dailies on and off in the interface menu. Yay for options! :D

Another great thing about this addon is that it provides basic information on each Tamer team. If you hover over each paw print, it will show you what family of pets that particular Tamer has on their team, as well as the battle level. This is very helpful, especially for those just starting out and haven't had the time to memorize each team. :)


I adore this addon, and I'm so glad Arvelayne from WarcraftPets recommended it. This mod allows me to multitask without fear of forgetting what my daily progress is each day. I can start doing the dailies, then queue up for a heroic dungeon, play on my farm, and other misc tasks, but I'll still be able to go back and pick up where I left off on my pet dailies.

It's such a helpful mod! Now I don't have to use a spreadsheet and notepad to keep track of my daily progress. XD

All Color Challenges Complete! (For Now)

I actually finished all color challenges shortly after my previous screenshot post, but only just got around to taking screenshots of all of them.

I'm relieved that I finished this prior to the log out fix change. The method of relogging to try and get a different pet skin (only worked with secondaries) came in really handy towards the end of my collecting adventure.

Originally I did it the hard, slow, old fashioned way where I searched for primaries that were rare and a specific color, but after so many possible color challenges that got REALLY tedious. (It did allow me to level up quite a few pets, though.) Utilizing secondary pets that were rare helped a lot.

I'm pretty disappointed that they made removed the ability to do this. It's kinda heartbreaking, especially for those just starting out on progressing with their collections. :(

Anyway, for now, and as far as I can tell, I'm done with all color challengs! All pet models in all available colors, and all wild pets in rare quality.

Whew. It was a fun challenge! I can't wait to see what future challenges pop up. :)



Top: Temple Snake
Left column, top to bottom: Coral Snake, Rattlesnake, Rat Snake, Grove Viper
Right column, top to bottom: Emerald Boa, Moccasin, Coral Adder, Snake

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Hotfix That Doesn't Feel Like a Fix

Mumper announced on Twitter that there's been a hotfix for the logging out/alt+F4 method of exiting a battle and not despawning pets.
"Another note, we have hotfixed the issue with pets respanwing from players disconnecting (alt-f4ing) out of the game."
I don't know how to feel about this fix. On one hand, I can understand that ok, it wasn't intended and therefore it was hotfixed.

However, I think this "bug" did more good than harm overall. Not only did it make accidentally or unintentionally disconnecting during a battle less punishing (because let's face it, ISP providers, modems and routers can act up sometimes), it also made it possible to help friends find certain pets of a specific kind (quality, color, etc.). Since we can't trade wild pets, at least we could use the log out method and still help others find their "perfect" pet.

Thoughtful players also utilized this alt+F4 method to help save rare quality pets that they may not have been looking for. It gave someone else the chance to battle and capture it.

I have to shake my head with this "fix". It bums me out. No more grouping with guildmates to share rares that we find. Kinda disheartening. :\

Edit: Just realized that this will affect hunting for specifically colored rare quality pets. The trick to search for one that's a secondary, and then relogging to force that secondary rare to change colors until it's the one you're looking for, will probably no longer work. :(

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Lesser Charms for Battles

An interesting bit of info came from a blue today on the official WoW forums:
"...the developers are planning to let you have a chante to earn Lesser Charms of Good Fortune through Pet Battles. Basically, if you win, you'll have a chance of receiving charms based on your pet level."
- Draztal
At first glance this sounds like good news. More rewards for the amount of time spent doing something we feel is our own personal progression in the game.

The only downside is that these lesser charms currently don't directly impact pet collecting. If we could use the charms as currency for Battle-Stones or some other pet-related item, this might be an even better setup.

I think that Pet Battles has a need for some kind of consistent reward and/or currency system. Maybe not now since this minigame is still so fresh and new, but down the road. Not because it will make things "easier" but it will help stabilize/balance the gameplay.

There's so much RNG involved in pet battles compared to other aspects of the game. The only constant is the dailies being there every day. It's not a bad thing, but it can be pretty daunting for some people.

A currency/reward system, however big or small it may be, would give players a sense of control over their gameplay. It's a tiny guarantee at something good at the end of the road. You do X amount of work, you will be rewarded Y some amount of time later.

On the other hand, though, having a system set up like that can lead to burn out. Look at the current situation with regular dailies. Raiders feel it's necessary to do them for VP and lesser charms (which turn into greater charms that you can use to gear up), but at the same time they're reluctant to do them because it's so tedious and time consuming yet it feels mandatory. This is not a good position to be in; feeling compelled to do something yet disgusted by it.

Well, anyway. There's no telling what the lesser charms will be used for in the future. Currency for pet items? Perhaps they WILL implement a new and exclusive pet to the charm rolls in raids, and this is their way of compensating some pet collectors who don't really put forth the time to PVE?

I can't think of any reason to not add this small extra bonus to Pet Battles, and if there's a negative to simply rewarding lesser charms for successful battles, it's not coming to mind at the moment.

EDIT: One thing that could potentially be a negative side effect of adding purchasable pet items for charms is the conflict between saving/using the charms for PVE progression or "pet progression". However, if the greater charms still remain reserved for gear rolls, and not turned into currency for both misc and PVE items, it might work out. Greater charms = PVE currency, but those extra lesser charms = possible pet currency...?

Monday, December 17, 2012

Instant Forfeit Macro

Iconyx from WarcraftPets reposted a macro originally from the official WoW forums, that instantly forfeits a pet battle when used.
/run C_PetBattles.ForfeitGame()
Simply create a macro, place it on your bars, and then keybind it. Once you're in a battle, just hit the bind and you'll instantly forfeit the match. You won't have to click on the confirmation box or anything!

Do what you will with this macro, but personally I see it most useful for Tamer battles.

Can't get the right lineup that you want? Use the macro! Your team looks like it's not going to survive the fight? Use the macro! Change your mind about what pets you want to use? Use the macro! Realize that you've selected the wrong abilities for a pet? Use the macro! It just helps speed things up a little bit. :)

Of course, this new trick does have a downside. It makes despawning wild pets in the search for rares that much quicker. Not everyone practices this method of looking for rare quality companions, but for those that do, it will only speed up the process. This might leave very few wild pets behind for others to battle and/or capture.

So if anything, I urge user discretion with this forfeit macro. It can come in handy for personal use, but remember that using it on wild pets (which are meant for everyone, not just individuals) could impact another person's pet collecting experience.

Wild Pet Spawning

When Pet Battles first came out, there was some speculation on how pets spawned in the wild. Do they spawn in as battle pets, or do they generate first a normal critters and then "transform" into battle pets? Regardless of which one is the case, does killing critters help/speed up wild pet spawning?

While hunting for a specific colored, rare quality maggot in Howling Fjord, I stumbled across a possible answer to how wild pets are generated.

There are three clusters of maggots in Howling Fjord. These groups of maggots spawn in as critters. However, after clearing out one cluster of wild maggot pets and after some time, a different group of maggots would DESPAWN, and a new group of wild pets would spawn (same spot). These new maggots were 100% battle ready, green paw print and all.

I can't be certain, but I think the same number of pre-existing maggot critters respawned in as maggot wild pets. So if there were 5 wandering around, after they despawn, 5 battle-able versions would spawn in.

The transition is immediate and very subtle, so I had to sit and watch it happen at least 3 times before I could believe my eyes.

I don't know if this applies to all pets, or just groups of companions, but it's pretty interesting to think about. Any existing critter doesn't exactly turn into a battle-able pet on the spot, but it can despawn and a battle-able pet could spawn in and take its place.

So taking this into consideration, killing critters could potentially help speed up wild pet spawning. Not just because it clears up a "slot" for another critter and/or wild pet, but because it opens up the possibility for a battle-able version of that critter to spawn in its place. This could be based on RNG or perhaps specific spawning script is written for certain critters.

I have no way to confirm this 100%, and I've only experienced the despawn/respawn situation in Howling Fjord. But this is something that's worth keeping in mind when hunting for wild pets.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Seven More Color Challenges Complete

Seven more color challenges done! There are some colors that don't appear naturally in the wild, and if they're not wild, they might not be rare quality. Otherwise, all wild pets are rare. :D

Still working on moths, crabs, raccoons, snakes, maggots, and desert spiders. Nearly finished with all of those since I'm only missing one from each category.

I think after that, I'll be done with all current color challenges! :D


Left column, top to bottom: Singing Cricket, Red Cricket
Right column, top to bottom: Marsh Fiddler, Grassland Hopper

Friday, December 14, 2012

Full Experience For Lower Level Pets

Great news everyone! We won't have to kill off our max level pets in order to grant our lower level ones full experience in a battle anymore. Yay :D
"We’ve been receiving a few inquiries over Twitter and through email regarding Farmer Nishi, so we thought we’d share our thoughts on Pet Battle experience gains with you.

We will soon be applying a hotfix that causes level-25 pets to no longer “steal” experience from your lower-level pets. Previously, if you had a level-3 and level-25 pet grouped together for a battle, the XP earned would be shared between the two at the end. This resulted in some players doing what they could to kill off their level-25 pet so the level-3 pet would get all of the experience. You no longer need to worry about this as the level-3 pet will now receive 100% of the XP that’s earned, so long as it has participated in at least one round of combat."
- Crithto
This hotfix might not take full effect until next Tuesday's maintenance, but this is still great news. Pets no longer stealing other pet's experience will help make leveling a bit faster. No exploits or tricks needed. :)

With the Safari Hat combined with the increase of Pandaria Tamer daily experience gains, leveling should be a much quicker task.

Not only that, but leveling in the wild with max level pets should be more viable than before.

Currently max level pets are eating up some of the experience if they stay alive. Unlike a daily where it's this huge battle and a death isn't uncommon, wild pet battles shouldn't result in deaths, intended or not. But in order to grant your lower level companions full experience, you have to kill off those max level pets in a wild battle. This made leveling in the wild pretty inefficient.

With the experience gain change, we won't have to worry about this anymore. So I can hunt for stones AND level efficiently at the same time!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Retroactive Upgrade to Quality

Mumper recently confirmed on Twitter that developers have worked out a way to retroactively change pet quality!
"I was waiting for confirmation.. Woohoo! Red Cricket, Singing Cricket and Darkmoon Hatchling should all convert to rare now."
This is fantastic news for many that wished for a rare, only to find out that their pet's quality was incorrectly assigned upon implementation.

Unfortunately for those that wanted to keep their "unique" uncommon version of the Darkmoon Hatchling, it seems that this baby birdie wasn't mean to be anything other than top notch.

Side note: I can't confirm this myself, but could it be possible that if you caged the uncommon quality version of the hatchling before fix, that it stayed uncommon...?

I haven't logged in to check my own Red Cricket yet, but I hope it's true! I'm not entirely sure if this new tech has been fully implemented yet, or if it's working on all realms. It might take another maintenance day or more for it to get rolling and make the changes for all players.

So if your pets haven't converted quality, hang tight! Hopefully everything will work out soon.

What Next..

My updated to-do list in no particular order:
- 75 pets to level 25

- all wild pets rare

- raid boss pets

- level all pets to 25

- upgrade all pets to rare

- color challenges / replace ex-color-changers

- Brawler's Guild, get rank 4 for Clock'em

- level/earn rep on a horde character for horde guild "pets"
Unfortunately my resto druid isn't cut out for the Brawler's Guild, so I'm going to have to level an actual DPS character for that. It'll take me some time as I haven't worked on leveling any of my other alts this expansion. There's just too much to do!

That being said, I haven't had much time to level my other OTHER alt on the horde side. I'm in a guild where both guild "pets" are unlocked, I just don't have the reputation to purchase them yet.

On top of that, I need to get to Northrend for the Argent Tournie quest reward companion. Ahhh!

Other than that, leveling and finding Battle-Stones to upgrade pets will take some time, but I plan on breaking up the monotony by doing random color challenges and finding rares in specific colors that I need.

Hopefully if I spread it out between leveling, upgrading, and self-challenges, I won't get burnt out or grow tired of pet battling/collecting.

I think getting bored with pets is going to be a challenge in itself, though. :P

Monday, December 10, 2012

Disagree to Agree

There's been a lot of discussion about the Tamer dailies and using them to power level companions up to level 25. When I say "using", it's probably more accurate to say "abusing" these dailies.

It's been hotfixed, but it was possible to pick up the dailies, win the battle, abandon the quest, and then pick it up again. You could essentially keep doing this and earning a significant amount of experience for your pets, as there was no penalty for doing so. Simply swap in a low level companion to take one hit, and then finish off the battle with a higher level pet. Many players were utilizing this method to earn easy pet experience.

Since this was fixed and you can no longer do this, it's obvious that the Tamer dailies were not designed with this type of gameplay in mind. Developers never intended people to use dailies in such a manner. In the end, it's what could be called an "exploit".

Some players are relieved that this bug has been dealt with, as it was a pretty cheesy way to level up pets. But others are none too happy with the change. For the latter, leveling is a long tedious process, and the dailies trick helped ease that grind.

I can definitely empathize with those that utilized the dailies inappropriately. This isn't an activity I took part in myself, but I do understand the desire to quickly level up pets and get that goal out of the way.

If there's an efficient and fast way to do something, it's only human nature to seek it out and then make use of it to the fullest. We're simple minded creatures like that.

At the same time, I understand where those that felt it was "cheating" are coming from. Abandoning, picking up, and then abandoning quests again and again is a pretty cheap way of doing things when everyone else is going through the "proper" gameplay.

So why the clash between the two mentalities? Why not just agree to disagree and go separate ways?

Well first off, no one likes to be called a cheater lol. That in itself is something any normal person would object to, even if what they're doing is pretty much the definition of "cheating".

Secondly, this isn't something that some collectors can just let go of because of the competitive nature that collecting has taken.

Normally, in an individualistic minigame such as collecting, it wouldn't matter what your fellow player is doing. Cheating, cheesing, manipulating the system, etc. It doesn't really affect how you play, right? Someone could go about it one way, and you could go about it another. In the end, the result is the same. It's still YOUR collection and no one else's. How you attain your ultimate goal is your own concern.

But now there are Pet Battle rankings on Wowprogress, so the "how" does matter to some. How people reached the top or are climbing the ladders is important because there's a much more competitive atmosphere to pet collecting. With any competition, fairness is a factor, and if some feel as though the scales are tipped too much to one side, it's going to be called into question. It SHOULDN'T matter, but when a leaderboard and competition is involved, using a method to rise in ranks that's not condoned by developers does mean something.

While we can try to continue doing our own thing, and attempt to brush off what we now know, it does have a psychological impact on how you play. Even simply knowing that X person is above you on the meters might cause you to unconsciously step up your game. It doesn't generate the same reaction in everyone, but we're all affected by the concept of competition/rankings in some way.

Anyway, Blizzard has made the call on this one. Exploiting the Tamer dailies should no longer be possible, and everyone will have to go about the intended route to reach their goals. But this is something I'm sure some people won't forget.

And Bingo Was His (Her?) Name-o

I just found out that my Moonkin Hatchling is male. What's the problem with that? I named it "Lil Quint" lol!

The genders don't mean much at the moment, but I was curious so I checked out this website. It's a handy site that shows you your current collection's breed plus other information.

Simply select your region, realm, language and then type in your character's name. It'll pull the information from the armory and bring up a list of all your pets.

You can find the gender of each pet listed under "Brd" (short for Breed). Numbers 3-12 are male, while 13-22 are female.

So imagine my dismay when I found out that some of the pets I had named more feminine nicknames were actually boys. It doesn't really change anything or affect gameplay, but it does bother me somewhat.

Still, I'm not going to go and change all the names based on this new knowledge. There are just too many to redo! x_x

I did manage to get some genders + names right, though. It's silly, but I'm slightly relieved by this heh.

From here on out, I think I will be paying closer attention to gender when pairing a name with a pet. Am I being too anal about it? Should it even matter? If a pet looks like a "Sally", should I just go ahead and name it that even if it's technically a boy?

I guess it really depends on preference. If it bothers me enough, I may change them. Perhaps I'll start using more gender-ambiguous names for my future companions. That way it fits whichever gender they might be. :P

But what's been seen can't be unseen. Now that I know what genders my pets are, it WILL have an impact on what I name them, even if it's unconsciously.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Six More Color Challenges Complete!

In order to break the monotony of just grinding out pet levels, I decided to go on a color challenge spree. Most of these were already nearly complete, but I decided to finish them off.

It's really fun trying to complete a color challenge for a specific pet model. At the end, I feel really accomplished, and my collection gets one step closer to being "complete". But let's be honest, a collector will never run out of things to hoard! :P

Why haven't I included some of the most basic pets like rats/mice? Honestly, those are so common and the colors aren't exactly all that inspiring. :x I completed that color challenge without even trying so it wasn't worth noting imo.

Anyway, every color (that's available to players) plus all wild pets are rare quality. Many screenshots after the jump!


Top: Savory Beetle
Left column, top to bottom: Beetle, Twilight Beetle, Fire/Lava Beetle
Right column, top to bottom: Crystal Beetle, Dung Beetle, Gold Beetle

Friday, December 7, 2012

Tweet Tweet

Some recent notable Tweets from Mumper:
Battle Pet Bandages -
Q: Any chance we can see an increase in the stack size for Battle Pet Bandages? I'm using 10 bag slots on them.

A: on tap for 5.2. Will probably make them BOA too.
Safari Hat -
Q: Went through 3 GM's all of which are unwilling and/or unable to send me the hat. Pooey. :(

A: We are working on a hotfix we feel pretty confident about, hold tight.
Color-changers -
Q: After changing the Dragon Kite to a battle pet, was the RNG of 1 of 3 colors removed? I see it only comes in purple now?

A: Yes, battle pets only save one color. We are investigating a way to get color changers back for 5.2.0.
Good to hear that devs are still working on these little nuisances. Hopefully everyone will get their Safari Hats in the very near future, and I can't wait for pet bandages to become BoA. I have so many on an alt that I rarely battle on, but I use to do one of the Tamer dailies lol.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Hunt For Rares or Hunt For Stones?

I have a dilemma. I'm torn between continuing the hunt for rare quality pets, or hunting for flawless battle-stones. Doing both at the same time isn't really an option.

Hunting for Rares
If I continue my original route, and continue to look for rare quality pets, this would mean a lot of time spent (wasted) sitting and waiting for them to spawn. Now that these pets are on staggered spawn times, they're less predictable. They also spawn in much smaller batches, so there's fewer of these gems to go around.

But that's not what bothers me. It's the endless waiting while not doing anything other than waiting. I can't count how many times I've just sat a toon at a spot and then tabbed out to watch youtube or do something else. Every now and then, I'd tab back into game to check if any wild pets had poppped up.

It's not exactly the most interesting, exciting, or even fun thing to do. I mean, it's great if you stumble on a newly spawned wild pet, but when you're actively looking for one, most of your time will be spent staring at nothing.

It's kind of frustrating.

Oh, and I'm not talking about hunting for rares of the more commonly found pets. I'm referring to the wild companions that have specific spawns, only in one zone, and slow repsawn times.

Nevermind the RNG of happening upon a rare version of one of these pets. What about the RNG of even finding one? This makes the hunt for the highest quality a real pain.

I will grit my teeth and do it for the sake of a pet, but this is nothing like vanilla collecting when you were actively going around and doing something that would ultimately reward a pet.

Killing mobs that have a chance to drop a companion, questing for a companion, heck, even collecting the materials and recipe to craft a pet! Collecting back then required action and you felt productive.

Right now sitting and waiting doesn't feel all that productive.

Hunting for Flawless Battle-Stones
Trying to collect specific battle-stones isn't all fun and games either, though. There are specific pets that I'd like to upgrade.

There isn't a problem when it comes to pets in the Critter, Beast, Flying, and Aquatic families. You could easily go out and battle as many of those as you like for a chance at a battle-stone. Since family-specific stones can come from defeating a pet of that particular family, these four stones shouldn't be all that hard to come by. Critter, Beast, Flying, and Aquatic pets are everywhere. The world is saturated with them.

But what about Humanoid, Magic, Dragonkin and Elemental, Mechanical and Undead? Trying to get stones specifically for these families is a lot tougher. There are fewer spawns for these families, and on top of that many of them are the "rarer" (hard to find and slow to spawn) wild pets. Trying to battle a bunch of these for a shot at a family-specific battle-stone is extremely inefficient and near impossible.

If these family types had faster respawn times, maybe it would be feasible. Or if the family-specific stones had a higher chance to drop from these types. But as things are now, it's hard to even find one let alone get a battle-stone from defeating it.

Plus, if I'm using these wild companions as fodder for a chance at a certain battle-stone, it will probably inconvenience others who are actually looking to just collect the pet. While I'm killing the wild pets, someone is desiring to simply capture it.

Blah
Of course I could simply hope RNG is on my side and do the Tamer dailies every day (which I already do), but like I mentioned before, I'd like to upgrade specific pets. It's entirely random which one you happen to loot from the daily reward bag. At least if I'm out battling specific pets, I can have some control over which type of stone I might get.

So which path do I take? Continue to sit and camp spawn points? Go out and camp specific family spawn points? Just battle everything and hope I get a non-family specific stone?

The end goal remains the same: collect and/or upgrade pets to rare. Now I just have to pick how I want to go about this. It's just incredibly frustrating when your options are all pretty undesirable.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Some Insight Into Pet Battles

If you haven't heard the interview with Cory Stockton (aka: Mumper, lead content designer) over at WarcraftPets, be sure to head there now and give it a listen!

I'm looking forward to future patches, but I do agree that 30+ pets each patch would be overkill. Although going from 30 one release to an incredibly small number, like 2 the next patch, would be somewhat extreme.

I think slowly reducing the number with each patch is a good idea. It lets collectors have something new to focus on, but at the same time doesn't overwhelm or underwhelm them.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready for a epic/legendary quality pets and boss battles yet. Would I love to see them? Absolutely. But I haven't gotten to the point where I'm just sitting around, wondering what to do next in Pet Battles. It's not boring and I'm not exactly pining for brand new content just yet.

Plus the thought of epic/legendary pets and "rare" boss battles makes me a little anxious. You just know those are going to be in high demand if/when it's released. Since it's all just being considered and the fine details haven't been hashed out yet, the unknowns are unnerving.

How hard will they be to find/obtain? Can you get ganked mid-boss fight and lose all of your progress? In what way will epic quality pets be introduced? Will there be wild epic pets to catch or will battle-stones from dailies be the only way to upgrade?

And there are so many other questions! For now, I'll just have to sit tight and wait.

Overall the interview was very informative, and shows how much care and thought is put into this mini-game and pets. I love that they implemented gender in with breeds "just in case" lol. If breeding pets becomes a thing, I hope it's not too complicated.

Can't wait to see some skin/model updates and puppy pets in future content patches. :)

Darkmoon Hatchling Mix-up

When patch 5.1 was released, there was a bug with the Darkmoon Hatchling. This caused the pet to be uncommon (green) quality when learned, unlike its fellow DMF vendor pets which are rare (blue).

A fix for this was released, but it only affects the hatchlings that are learned AFTER the fix.

Any Darkmoon Hatchlings that were purchased and learned prior to this hotfix will remain uncommon, according to Mumper. These cannot be changed after the fact.

You can try to put in a ticket to see if a kind GM will refund your tickets so you can repurchase the pet, but it's not guaranteed that a GM will assist. It all depends on which GM you speak with, what their mood is, have they slept well, what time of day it is, which day, if they had their afternoon snack and nap yet...... yea.

*ahem* Anyway!

It's pretty disheartening news, but I guess I'll try my luck with a GM.

Maybe it's my slight OCD. Maybe I'm just picky and anal about trivial things. But I'd prefer it if all similarly obtained pets stay in the same boat.

Plus I feel slightly cheated that I have to pay the price (spend another 90 tickets if a GM won't refund them for me) for something that was not my fault nor could I have known about it beforehand. :\

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

It's the Circle of Life


As Mufasa Quint gazed out over the land, he she turned to Simba the Cinder Kitten and explained, "Look. Everything the light touches is our kingdom."

To which Simba the Cinder Kitten replied, "Wow."

Mufasa Quint nodded solemnly. "A king's queen's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, Simba Cinder Kitten, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new king queen."

"And this'll all be mine?" asked Simba the Cinder Kitten in amazement.

"Everything."

Simba The Cinder Kitten gazed out over the valley and whispered breathlessly, "Everything the light touches... "

Oh don't mind me, just my own little parody of a scene from the Lion King. XD

Monday, December 3, 2012

More Fixes

The wild pets Darkmoon Glowfly and Crow have been fixed! Both are now capturable and come in all qualities. Got myself both in rare. :)

Another fix in the works, if it hasn't already been hotfixed yet, is the Darkmoon Hatchling. Many were scratching their heads as to why this particular DMF vendor pet is uncommon, while all the others are rare. Well, that's a mix up and the hatchling SHOULD be rare too.

There were many other little bug fixes here and there post-patch 5.1. I don't know if I can cover them all, let alone discover all of them lol.

We'll find out tomorrow if the Safari Hat is cooperating and will be sent to eligible toons. Crossing my fingers!

Unless developers change things last minute, you do not need to complete the achievement all on one toon to receive the hat. It's account-wide. And all toons on an account should receive one in the mail. If you've submitted a ticket and a GM tells you anything otherwise, please don't mind them.

Scorpion Color Challenge Complete!

Yay, another color challenge complete. Before patch 5.1, my scorpion pets were color-changers, so I didn't feel the need to collect specific colors. Now that pets no longer swap colors when summoned, I've had to replace certain pets with the actual color that I need.


Left column, top to bottom: Durotar Scorpion, Leopard Scorpid, Scorpid
Right column, top to bottom: Scorpling, Stripe-Tailed Scorpid, Crunchy Scorpion


As per the challenge, all pets are rare! :)

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Collecting the Perfect Color and Quality Tip

Now that color-changers have been fixed and no longer switch skins each time they're summoned, I'm in the process of replacing many pets and acquiring duplicates in some cases. But they can't be just any old quality. No, they must be rare!

This has proven quite the challenge due to my specific requirements. However, Wain from WarcraftPets posted a method for finding that perfect pet.

Rather than looking just for primaries of a specific color and hoping that they're rare, check all pets in the zone for secondary rares. If a second or third companion in the lineup are rare but not the color you're looking for, simply relog.

The pet and its team, as well as the qualities of each pet should be the same after you log back in. However, the skin of each secondary companion has the chance to change!

Note: Only the second and third pets have a chance to switch colors after relogging. The primary wild pet's color is fixed to the one it spawned in with.

With this information under my belt, collecting all the colors in rare quality is going to be much easier (hopefully)! I'll definitely be checking more pets for secondary rares now.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

New Darkmoon Faire Goodies

The DMF is back in town! Don't forget to head over and try you luck at the new DMF Tamer daily. There aren't any pre-requisites, it just costs 1 token each day you battle him.

Note: This daily might be account-wide, so don't be disappointed if you can't complete it on alts for extra tries at the Darkmoon Eye.

Hopefully the daily bag pet won't have a low droprate. I mean, the DMF is only around for a short time each month. Would be a little cruel to make it a super low drop.

There is also a new vendor pet, the Darkmoon Hatchling, which costs 90 tickets. It matches one of the mounts also sold at the faire. :)

Last but not least, there is a new wild pet to capture on the island. The Darkmoon Glowfly! There are some reports coming in that it's currently bugged, though, and only comes in uncommon quality. :(

The original patch notes stated that there would be two new wild pets on the island, but the Crow is bugged and only comes as a secondary, uncapturable pet. This was also the case on the PTR. It's not known if the bug lies with the Pet Journal and the Crow shouldn't even exist in it, or if it should be a capturable pet but for some reason it's not.

In any case, enjoy the faire this week everyone! Good luck on all the new pets.

Hotfixes Galore

I think the Pet Battle dailies are fixed. Or at least I hope they are! They were all available for me today, and hopefully they'll all be available again tomorrow.

Unfortunately the hotfix for the Safari Hat hasn't exactly worked for everyone. Even after this morning's server restart. Although I received a hat on one of my alts, all the others (including my main) have yet to find one in their mailbox. I'm wondering if it was just pure luck that my alt happened to get one.

Hopefully after next Tuesday's server maintenance the Safari Hat will be properly sent out to all toons on eligible accounts.

Another hotfix that might have been released was one for the Pandaria Tamer XP issue. Some are reporting that there seems to be a boost in XP now, while others are still seeing the "nerfed" value. Honestly, I have no way to confirm for sure whether or not the hotfix has gone through and XP is functioning properly. I usually don't use Grand Masters to level my pets, so I don't have a base value to compare current XP to.

Last but not least, there are finally rare versions of the Jungle Grub and Clouded/Silent Hedgehog. Time to go hunting! :)

And thanks to my best friend, who managed to log into his account from all the way on the other side of the world, I was able to collect some of the new raid pets.


My favorite so far is the Mini Mindslayer. Although it's not so mini with a pet biscuit! :P

Friday, November 30, 2012

We Ask, They Answer (Sometimes)

Twitter has proven to be a fountain of knowledge! If you haven't already, follow @Mumper, lead content designer, and keep an eye on all the latest pet updates.

That being said, Mumper updated the status of the Pandaria Tamer XP issue, Safari Hat, daily quests not resetting, and missing rare versions of the Clouded Hedgehog, Silent Hedgehog and Jungle Grub. Hotfixes for these issues and probably more are coming soon, but will need a server restart for them to go into effect.

As I noted in my previous post, some players are already seeing the Safari Hat in their mailboxes. You can try relogging, zoning into a dungeon, or exiting WoW completely and then logging back in to trigger the achievement spam and recieve your very own hat. Sometimes this doesn't work on every toon, and I recommend trying alts with these methods.

With every bit of new content, there are bound to be bugs that pop up. Some will be more severe than others, but at least we can have a little direct communication and find out whether or not they're truly bugs or intended changes. Plus it's great to stay updated on how the hotfixes for actual bugs are going, and if/when they might be released.

Many get upset when they're left in the dark or don't understand what's going on. That's just human nature. With Twitter and the real-time updates/feedback, it's much easier to stay in the know, and in turn helps to reduce the anger that comes with feeling out of the loop.

I love that developers take some time out of their busy schedule to respond to a few player concerns. The communication is great and although there are liaisons between the community and developers, in the form of the forum blues, it's just not the same as a dev answering a question directly.

Anyway, we just need to hang in there a bit longer for all the hotfixes. Hopefully it will all get sorted out by the end of this week!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Looking Sharp!

I finally got my Safari Hat yesterday night! A guildmate suggested I try zoning into a dungeon, and although it didn't work on my main, it worked on one of my alts. :D


Mumper recently confirmed on Twitter that the hotfix for the Safari Hat will be released shortly. Hopefully it will solve everything, and all of our toons will receive this nifty headgear. And yes, he also confirmed that all of your toons should get the item in the mail.

New Summon Random Pet Macros

Here are the new macros for summoning your companions:
/randompet
Summons a random companion from your Pet Journal.

/randomfavoritepet
/rfp
Summons a random pet from your list of "favorites" in the Pet Journal.

/summonpet [name]
Summons a specific pet. You can insert the unique name you've given your pet or the pet's default name.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

My To-Dos

So much to do; I need a to-do list:
- capture new wild pets / replace non-rare new pets with rares

- farm for raid boss pets

- craft imperial silk for two tailoring pets

- spirit tamer dailies

- grand master dailies

- sort through wild pets and find those that were color-changers but now aren't + replace those that don't have desired skin
I'll probably end up adding more to the list, but it's just a place to start I guess. I wish I didn't have to sleep so I could get all of this and more done. :P

More 5.1 Notes

Patch 5.1 is proving to be pretty overwhelming for me! So much to do and so many new pets to collect. I might have to take a breather and just take it very slow. There are only so many hours in a day. :P

Anyway, some misc things that came with 5.1:
- New Spectral Cub (not to be confused with the TCG pet loot card, Spectral Tiger Cub) is in the Pet Journal. It says the source will be from the Blizzard PetStore. Interesting...!

- Specific times for in-game "sunrise" and "sunset" were announced for the NA region. This might help collectors determine when "night" and "day" start/end for the companions that have specific spawning times.

- The Safari Hat is bugged for some players. Players eligible have yet to receive their hat. Those that completed the achievement Taming the World after 5.1 came out probably won't run into this bug. Developers are aware of the hat not being sent out and are working on a fix.

- Many bugs in general! But that's to be expected with new content. One big one is certain pet abilities/attacks don't have the proper animations.

- Tamer daily experience might be bugged and/or nerfed, as reported by users on WarcraftPets.

- The new wild pets have been pretty elusive, most likely due to the new spawning timers. Instead of mass spawning after a server restart or maintenance, pets will sporadically spawn in smaller numbers, but hopefully more frequently. Downside is that it's less predictable now.
"The new pets are on fairly long spawn timers, and are randomized (i.e. will not spawn on server restart). We've confirmed they have been spawning on some realms, so just keep an eye out!" - Bashiok
- Tooltips when hovering over a pet that you have summoned also shows its quality in the name.

- /randompet works now! Hooray for a much simpler macro. :)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Locations of Pandaren Spirit Tamers

Here's a list of where to find all the new tamers, because I had trouble finding the Spirit Tamers after completing the initial quest. Damn you quest tracker/marker! I've come to rely on you so much. :P

Thundering Pandaren Spirit (earth) - Vale of Eternal Blossoms (north of Mogu'shan Palace, in the hills)

Burning Pandaren Spirit (fire) - Townlong Steppes (west of Fire Camp Osul, on the overlook on the coast)

Flowing Pandaren Spirit (water) - Dread Wastes (far south east, the little peninsula jutting out into the water that separates Dread Wastes from Krasarang Wilds)

Whispering Pandaren Spirit (air) - Jade Forest (south of Honeydew Village, north and across the river from Grookin Hill, on top of a large rock pillar)
For the last location (Jade Forest), it's on top of the mountain formation on the map, a little north of the reddish trees (Tiger's Wood).

Monday, November 26, 2012

Bosses That Drop Pets

This is mainly for my own reference so I don't have to keep checking Wowhead.

Vanilla raids that drop pets:
Molten Core
- boss 2, 7, and 8
Blackwing Lair
- boss 1, 3, and 7
Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
- boss 1 and 5 and optional boss 2
Naxxramas (10 or 25 man)
- boss 3 in The Plague Quarter
- boss 3 in The Arachnid Quarter
- boss 3 in The Construct Quarter

Patch 5.1 Scheduled Release: Tomorrow!

Patch 5.1 is coming out tomorrow! I'm excited yet a bit upset at the same time. My best friend whom I've played with and shared nearly every WoW experience with is out of town, and won't be joining me in this new patch adventure. At least not for a while. :(

New Dailies
I'm definitely looking forward to the new Pandaren Spirit dailies. I never got a chance to try these out on the PTR since I pretty much had to start all over.

My plan for the new spirit pets is to choose the one that has the toughest Tamer to beat, since each specific element will have a chance to drop only their corresponding spirit. Example: The Burning Pandaren Spirit daily reward will have a chance to drop only the Pandaren Fire Spirit.

New Wild Pets
I'm most excited about all the new wild pets to capture! I'm going to park a toon at each location so when I wake up, I'll be all set to go.

Expect a lot of people looking for the new wild pets, so there will likely be a lot of competition. There was little to no competition for these pets on the PTR, so it was hard to gauge the respawn time. We'll see how good/bad it is once 5.1 goes live tomorrow.

New Darkmoon Faire Daily
Patch 5.1 is coming out just in time for next month's Darkmoon Faire! A new Tamer will be there and I can't wait to battle him for a chance at a new pet. :)

I REALLY hope that since the DMF is only in town for one week each month, the droprate for the Darkmoon Eye won't be ridiculously low like the Porcupette. We'll have to wait and see, I guess. :\

Vanilla Raid Boss Dropped Pets
I WOULD say I'm excited for the new raid boss pets (and overall I am), but I was looking forward to clearing nostalgic content with my best friend. I guess it will have to wait.

I never attempted to try my luck with the vanilla raid boss dropped pets on the PTR, but from what I understand, they will NOT be 100% droprate. There will also only be one pet from the boss, should the boss feel so inclined to drop one. Thankfully, most of the content will be solo-able.

Battle-Stones
The Battle-Stones will be another interesting feature to finally see firsthand. Since my toons on the PTR never had their current pet collection copied over, I had to start over from scratch. That being said, I never saw a single stone; I wasn't trying extraordinarily hard tbh.

Updated Pet Battle UI
One thing that I have to wonder about is how the updated UI will affect current addons. The Pet Battle UI will show wild pet quality before capture and during battle, but what about addons that do more than that?

I'm currently using an addon that not only shows quality, but also ability/attack cooldowns. This is VERY useful during battles, and helps me gauge when to use what ability next. It doesn't give me a 100% advantage, since abilities are often randomized, but I do have a better sense of what COULD be coming next.

Will addons like this be broken in 5.1? Hopefully the creators will update these mods quickly after the patch is released!

Brawler's Guild
Last but not least, the Brawler's Guild. I'm honestly not looking forward to this very much. If a pet wasn't involved (Clock'em), I probably wouldn't bother with it. The gated access is a real turn off for me.

I guess I have to bite the bullet with this one.

I think that's it for 5.1, but I'm probably missing something. XD There's just so much being released that it can get overwhelming!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Purpose of Polished Battle-Stones?

MMO-Champion reports that patch 5.1 will be out "soon". This could mean within a week or up to three? Or more? We'll see!

A new feature coming in 5.1 is the ability to upgrade a pet's quality using Battle-Stones. There will be two versions, Polished and Flawless.

One will transform any pet you own into an uncommon (green) quality companion, while the other will upgrade your pet into a rare (blue) quality companion. Epic (purple) stones were datamined, but they will not be released any time soon.

These stones will be very rare and random drops from the Tamer daily bag. There's also a chance that you can receive a Battle-Stone after defeating a wild pet, and he higher the level of the wild pet you defeat, the higher the chance of finding one in the wild. Alternatively, if battling is not your preference for finding upgrades, you can purchase Polished Battle-Stones for 1000 JP.

Some stones will be BoP while some will be BoE. Also, there will be general versions and family specific stones.

As far as I can tell, each stone will upgrade directly to whichever quality is designated by that particular stone. NOTE: Using a Battle-Stone on a pet level 15 or higher will cause the companion to lose 2 levels.

For example: Using a Flawless Battle-Stone on a poor quality rat will automatically turn it into a rare quality rat.

If this is the case, what (if any) is the point of Polished Battle-Stones? In terms of quality, rare is currently the best. Choosing to battle with anything other than a rare quality pet can often prove to be challenging and tedious. Even uncommon (green) pets have lower health, lower attack, and lower speed most of the time. This can put your team at a disadvantage.

So if we can upgrade directly to rare quality using a Flawless Battle-Stone, would anyone even WANT the Polished ones? If you can skip over a tier, wouldn't you do that instead of painstakingly try to upgrade one level at a time?

I suppose for those that absolutely can't wait to upgrade a poor or a common pet to rare, and those that don't mind battling with an uncommon companion, Polished Battle-Stones will be a blessing. Is that reason enough to keep them in-game? Even they will choose rare if given the option.

For those that demand the best and will not settle for just uncommon, receiving a Polished Battle-Stone will be a bit of a let down.

It's not as if you can AH, trade, or give away the the Polished stones. From what I can see on Wowhead's PTR database, all the uncommon stones are BoP. There's also no vendor price atm, which might mean you can't vendor them either. That's seems like it's going to be pretty frustrating.

Honestly, I don't see much of a point having Polished Battle-Stones in-game. Even those that are willing to use uncommon pets in a battle will opt for a Flawless Battle-Stone if given the opportunity. Polished stones just seem like an unnecessary filler.

Now, if your pet HAS TO BE uncommon prior to upgrading it to rare quality, then I could see the demand for Polished stones being much higher.

There are currently some pre-MoP pets that are poor or common, but are still fun and I'm sure there are those out there that would enjoy using them in Pet Battles. If these pets could only be upgraded to rare after they've been transformed into an uncommon pet, the Polished Battle-Stones would much more viable. You would need to find Polished stones before even thinking about using a Flawless one on that poor/common companion.

I have yet to find any Battle-Stones on the PTR, so I can't say how this will all work in the end. Perhaps some changes will be made to how the stones function, and both Polished and Flawless will be a necessary part of the upgrading process.

Until then, I'm baffled at the idea of having the option to upgrade to uncommon, when rare is still the best. I mean... doesn't everyone want (to be) the very best? :P

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Grand Master Pet Tamer: Courageous Yon

NOTE: This was written pre-Patch 5.2. Some elements of this write-up may no longer apply, and my team choice(s) have changed.

Next up in the line of Pandaria Tamers is Courageous Yon. When the ability Chew was way overpowered (before the nerf) I struggled so much in the battle against his team. This was the only Pandaria Tamer that I had problems with, until I figured out his team's quirks (and Chew was nerfed, of course XD).


Courageous Yon can be found in Kun-Lai Summit in an obscure cave in the snowcovered mountains in the lower left area of the zone. West of Kota Basecamp if you're looking at the map.
Pet Team: Piqua (flying), Lapin (critter), Bleat (beast)

Team quality and level: Epic (purple), level 25

Notable pets and attacks: Piqua's Lift-Off, Lapin's Burrow, Bleat's Chew
All of the pets on this team have hard-hitting abilities, two of which also include avoidance. There are a few ways you can handle this unique set up: out damage them, out last them, or avoid specific attacks. For me, I've found that avoidance abilities work best. It gives me extra time to work on defeating each pet, without having to resort to wasting a round on healing or hoping a large burst doesn't miss or is dodged.

The most common order in which Yon's pets come out are: Piqua, Lapin, and Bleat or Lapin, Piqua, and Bleat. I've only very rarely come across Bleat as the first combatant when challenging Yon to a Pet Battle.

I go with strong pets for my team on this fight. Undead (with a magic attack) to combat flying, humanoid (with beast attacks) to combat critter, and mehcanical to combat beast.

The key to this battle is timing. You'll want to time your abilities and cooldowns just right so you don't waste them. If you can figure out the quirks and patterns of Yon's team, defeating him will be no problem for you!

Piqua


I use a Restless Shadeling for Yon's flying pet (but I used to use the Wild Crimson Hatchling). Usually Piqua will follow a specific order of attacks, and the one you need to watch out for is normally used during the second round but keep in mind it takes a total of 2 rounds to resolve.

Since Piqua uses Lift-Off as its second attack, I can use any ramp up ability first. This is usually a dot or some other damage increase. During the round where Piqua flies up into the air is when I have my shadeling pop its avoidance move, Phase Shift. If your goal is to prevent any damage from Piqua's Lift-Off attack, any avoidance ability will work, so long as you can time it right.

Phase Shift will last through the damage portion of Lift-Off, leaving my shadeling unharmed. From there, it's just a matter of defeating Piqua before it can get another Lift-Off out. In most cases, a second one doesn't occur, but if it does, Phase Shift will be off cooldown by then. An avoidance move with a short cooldown comes in very handy for this particular match up, just in case Piqua manages to dodge a lot of your basic attacks.

Lapin


The next companion that is sent out to battle is Lapin, the rabbit. Again, the second attack that it uses is most likely the one you need to be aware of, Burrow. Much like Piqua, this move also takes 2 rounds to finally hit.

That being said, I save my Flayer Youngling's avoidance move, Reflect, for the round where Lapin comes out of the ground. This negates any burst and from there my pet can continue to work on defeating this bunny.

Lapin normally doesn't last to get another Burrow off, which is a good thing since Reflect is on a fairly long cooldown. Thankfully, my youngling has quite a bit of burst, and unless Lapin dodges a lot or my pet misses too often, I normally don't have to worry about blocking another round of large incoming damage.

Bleat


This is the pet that gave me the most trouble when the ability Chew was overpowered. The damage this attack did was insane! It was eventually nerfed, but that doesn't mean you should ignore this move completely. Chew can still cause quite a bit of damage to your pet, especially if it's used before Stampede.

Stampede places a debuff on your pet which increases the damage it takes. Combine that with Chew, which already hits for a large amount, and your pet's health could take a nosedive fairly quickly.

Whenever I'm up against Bleat, I find that he will use Chew first, which means Stampede will be second. To try and reduce how much damage my pet will take, I use the Darkmoon Zeppelin's Decoy ability first. This won't block the initial Stampede, but it will prevent Chew from landing. Since Stampede hits multiple times and Decoy only blocks two attacks, my zeppelin can't avoid 100% of the damage during the second round of Stampede.

After Decoy has been deployed, I send out my "ramp up" (Bombing Run) and proceed to knock down Bleat's health as best as I can. Because Stampede is a three round ability and Bleat usually likes to heal himself after casting it, I normally have about 2-3 more rounds where I can just pump out damage on him.

If I don't miss and Yon's pet doesn't dodge, I'll usually defeat Bleat just as he's performing a second Chew (it never has a chance to hit, though). Bombing Run ends up being the killing blow most of the time.

I've tried to use my ramp up ability first, but it never ends very well. It's important to control how much damage Bleat does to your pet, not just how much you can do to it. If your pet can survive the first few rounds of burst, it will have a higher chance of consistently putting out damage later.

As always, the pets and tactics mentioned above aren't mandatory. This is just what I've found to be most effective for me. You can definitely beat Corageous Yon's team with an assortment of other pets and methods; find what works best for you!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Have a Good One!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and excellent Thursday. :)


My Plump Turkey (aka: Gobbles) realized that he's got so much to live for, and that he can make his own destiny. ;)

With this new found zest for life, we headed to Kun-Lai Summit to enjoy the crisp winter air and hangout next to a cozy campfire. Needless to say, Gobbles lived to see another day. :)

Monday, November 19, 2012

Critter Army, Away!

If you're looking for a bit of fun and love critters and companions, I highly recommend getting the Panflute of Pandaria. It drops off Moldo One-Eye in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

I wasn't actively looking to get this item, as I didn't think it would be all that great. I mean, considering the druid glyph, Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature, was bugged for the longest time (it might still be but I haven't checked), and Critter Bites is very limited in terms of flexibility, I didn't think much of yet another item/spell that would cause critters to follow you.

I was so wrong.

The item (not a trinket) has a very short cooldown (1 minute), and the critters that follow you will do so for 15 minutes. The panflute has quite a bit of range, and you can use the panflute on cooldown without despawning your current followers. I haven't found a limit on the number of followers you can have at any given time yet.


Yes, these are flying turtles and penguins! A guildmate who happened to be a mage suggested that I try getting flying critters to follow me, and as it turns out, those critters fly alongside you.

Then he had another brilliant idea: polymorph. Or more accurately, Crittermorph.

If you polymorph any critter prior to charming it with the panflute, they will retain the poly! This led to many moments of hilarity as I scouted all over for every flying critter I could find. The result is the screenshot above. XD

Since these are not true vanity pets, you can't use pet items on them like Magical Pet Biscuits. But I think that's appropriate; think of how obnoxious it would be to have 20+ gigantic sized flying critters following you lol!

For someone like me that was looking for a "pet leash" or something that would allow me to have many pets out at once, I think this a fairly good compromise. They may not be MY pets initially, but they're cute enough that I won't pass them up. :)

Edit: Apparently this is buggy for non-druids (flight-form works just fine as you can see above). Mounting up after using the panflute will cause the critter to freeze in place and it won't follow you. :( Sounds like the same bug that was happening with the druid glyph. Sadness!

Friday, November 16, 2012

Effective Counterpets

There are a couple discussions over on Warcraftpets' forum, and the topic is: counterpets. Pets on counters, what? :P

No, "counterpets" generally means a companion that is strong against a specific family while that family type's attacks are weak against it.

A basic example would be a dragonkin pet with magic attacks up against a flying companion. The opponents attacks towards the dragonkin would be weak, and at the same time the dragonkin's attacks towards the flying pet would be strong. Ultimately, the dragonkin companion would have the advantage in the battle.

So far the community has found at least one example of a counterpet for each pet type:
*Aquatic: Jade Owl (magic with flying attacks)*

Beast: ?? (none atm, but ideally flying with mechanical attacks)

Critter: Flayer Youngling (humanoid with beast attacks)

Dragonkin: Scourged Whelpling (undead with humanoid attacks)

*Elemental: Any snail (critter with an aquatic attack)*

Flying: Sprite Darter Hatchling (dragonkin with magic attacks)

*Humanoid: Any spider or maggot (beast with an undead attack)*

*Magic: Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling (mechanical with a dragonkin attack)*

Mechanical: Any elemental with elemental attacks will work

Undead: Any frog or toad (aquatic with critter attacks)
Obviously, these aren't hard and fast rules, but these seem to be the best counters for each family type so far.

Keep in mind that the ones marked with an asterix aren't absolutely ideal since they might not come in the highest quality (Jade Owl and Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling) or they may only have one strong attack. The quality issue can be addressed once Battle-Stones are released in 5.1.

Some other possible counterpets in the next major content patch:
Flying: Nexus Whelpling, Chrominius

Critter: Kun-Lai Runt, Stunted Yeti
The Corefire Imp was another candidate, but it only has one attack that would strong against critters. The two mentioned above have at least two strong attacks.

Grand Master Pet Tamer: Hyuna

NOTE: This was written pre-Patch 5.2. Some elements of this write-up may no longer apply, and my team choice(s) have changed.

I'll finally be covering the Pandaria Grand Masters! I'm not sure if you're supposed to do these battles in a specific order (per zone level?), so I'll be reviewing each one in the order that I complete them each day.

First up, Hyuna!


Hyuna can be found in The Jade Forest, next to the crossroads of the eastern road coming out of the Temple of the Jade Serpent.
Pet Team: Skyshaper (flying), Fangor (beast), Dor the Wall (aquatic)

Team quality and level: Epic (purple), level 25

Notable pets and attacks: Fangor's Burrow, and Dor the Wall's... everything lol.
I find this pet team is pretty straight forward, except for Dor the Wall. The first two pets can be defeated in any fashion, however dealing with Hyuna's turtle is all about endurance. I have yet to find a way to burst this "wall" down.

I go with mechanical to combat beast, ?? to combat flying (I'm still in the process of finding a magical pet or a pet with magical abilities that I feel comfortable using), and humanoid to combat aquatic. If you've been following my other write ups on other Grand Master Tamer battles, I bet you can guess which mechanical and humanoid pets I use. :P

Skyshaper


Skyshaper has two dots and then a main attack. There won't be much burst damage to contend with when up against this companion. That being said, I think any pet that's strong against flying should be able to go head to head with Skyshaper. Of course, self healing abilities will help.

Since I haven't really found a pet that I'm comfortable using against flying, I've been trying out different ones. Normally I use the Wild Crimson Hatchling since it can not only heal itself, but also has an ability that allows it to avoid some damage. Plus flying attacks are weak against it. If I find a pet that I like that's strong against flying, I may update this later. (I'm trying out Shimmering Wyrmling and Sprite Darter Hatchling next!)

Fangor


Unlike Skyshaper, this sly snake does have some burst. Specifically Burrow and Vicious Fang. Although the latter attack may not seem like it, if allowed to ramp up, it can do significant damage. The best thing to do here is defeat Fangor as quickly as possible while avoiding most of its larger hits.

I use the Darkmoon Zeppelin to deal with Fangor. You need to be aware of each round and the possible attacks though, because you don't want to waste any cooldown ability just as the snake burrows. When it does this, any damage will usually miss, and that means an ineffective attack that's now on a cooldown. That dip in damage on Fangor can make or break the battle.

Since Fangor will usually use Hiss first, my zeppelin can use its ramp up ability without fear of wasting the cooldown since it will most likely hit. I deploy Bombing Run during this round.

The next turn is normally when Burrow will happen, and a great time for my zeppelin to set up Decoy. There's a cooldown on it, but it's not a wasted ability since it can't miss. It also provides a way for my pet to avoid the incoming high damage from Burrow in the next round.

After that, it's just a matter of getting constant damage out on the snake before it can Burrow again. In some cases, Bombing Run won't even have time to resolve and hit since Fangor will hopefully be defeated before then. But I still use the bomb just for safe measure, and in case any of my other attacks miss or get dodged. You never know with RNG!

Dor the Wall


Last but not least is Dor the Wall, and let me tell you, his name isn't just for show!

The name of the game is endurance when up against Dor. He can heal, shield himself to reduce a significant amount of damage done to him, and he has a high burst ability that has the potential to stun.

Luckily, he's usually very predictable and will use each ability once it's off cooldown, so you just have to keep track of each turn. You can use an addon that will show you when an ability will be available for use.

As soon as Dor the Wall comes out, depending if my current pet on the battlefield has enough health to withstand the initial Headbutt, I switch to my Flayer Youngling. Any companion that has an avoidance ability will work here, though. The youngling's especially effective, though, since it can avoid the Headbutt and perform back at Dor.

After the first Headbutt, Dor has two options, heal himself or use his Shell Shield. Once he heals himself, though, he'll just spam Shell Shield. All his other abilities will be on cooldown, which means Shell Shield will have 100% up-time. This is pretty annoying since he'll constantly be taking reduced damage, and will be healing himself up periodically. Your only choice is to just chip away at his health, while enduring the Headbutt burst.

My youngling combats this pretty well. I always have Reflect up for every other Headbutt, and my pet has two attacks to choose from to whittle down Dor's health. After using Reflect, I normally go with Rampage since it's higher burst than the main attack. On top of all of that, the Flayer Youngling's family passive allows it to heal itself a little bit each successful attack. It's not much, but considering how long the fight against Dor can take, it's enough!

Once you learn how to deal with Headbutt, it's just outlasting the turtle from then on out. Bursting him down isn't really an option because of his effective defensive abilities... which he has to spam repeatedly since he doesn't have any other attacks!

As always, the pets and tactics mentioned above aren't mandatory. This is just what I've found to be most effective for me. You can definitely beat Hyuna's team with an assortment of other pets and methods; find what works best for you!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

SC2: HotS Release Date

It's like banelings, banelings, banelings, whooaaaa, like a deadly green landmine!


Couldn't resist!

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm release date was announced today; March 12, 2013.

What's with SC2:HotS? If you order the CE version, you get the Baneling pet!! :D But that's not all, according to Warcrafpet's Twitter, if you pre-order the Digital Deluxe version NOW, you'll receive the companion instantly! As in... today. XD

I just ordered mine, and once the WoW servers come back up, we'll see if this is true or not. If so, I can't wait to start leveling the Baneling!

The Digital Deluxe CE costs $59.99, while the physical box CE copy will likely cost a bit more ($90ish..?) but I haven't read any announcements that pre-orders for the physical version are available yet.

I'm very excited and pleased with Blizzards new approach to CE versions of their games. It's a little less pricey, yet still comes with the bells and whistles that I personally want. The art books, making of DVDs, etc. are really interesting, but those are things that I browse through maybe once and then store away safe and sound. So it makes much more sense for me to purchase a digital version.

Anyway, to order the SC2:HotS Digital Deluxe, go into your Battle.net account management and if you already have SC2 linked to your account, you should see a green arrow (upgrade) indicator on your SC2 game listing. Click that and it will take you to the SC2 page. The purple box in the lower right hand corner will have both normal digital upgrade as well as Digital Deluxe available.

Farewell Felwood

I finally captured a Minfernal. *insert heavy sigh of relief here* After many weeks of periodically checking Felwood with no luck, I decided to just sit and wait.

Actually, it was more than sitting and waiting. I tried the "force spawn" method, where you go around and kill (not battle, just straight up kill) any wild pet that's not the one you're looking for.

The idea behind it is that a zone can only spawn so many wild pets at a time. By killing the ones that aren't the one you're seeking, it allows others to spawn. There's no guarantee that the particular pet you're looking for will be the next one in line, but there's a chance.

So I took that chance and flew around, killing every non-Minfernal wild pet I found. Did this help? Honestly, I can't really say. I don't know if the Minfernals share the same spawn as the other pets in Felwood.

I stopped after a while and just hung about Shatter Scare Vale. A few other players popped up in the area as well.

While this might seem like a bad thing, in some situations, more players in a zone is beneficial.

Yes, there will be more competition, but if wild pet spawning works in the same way as quest mobs do, the more players in an area will cause more companions to spawn and at a faster rate.

It's just a matter of who can get to those newly spawned pets first heh.


Normally I would be ecstatic to finally add a hard-to-find pet to my collection, but I'm mostly glad that the ordeal is over.

Unlike hunting for rares or rare drops, sitting around and just waiting feels very unproductive and unsatisfying.

It's not the same as killing a mob over and over again, with the notion of 'just one more', yenno? At least when you're hunting for a dropped pet, you're actually doing something, even if it's just going through the motions of killing, looting, killing, etc. It's manual labor of love. The psychological factor behind it makes it feel much more rewarding that just hanging around and waiting.

I'd like to be able to say that I'm proud of this pet, but it's not really one that's up there on my list of memorable companions.

Patience may have been necessary, but anyone can sit on a spot and afk until something shows up. It's not like it took massive amounts of effort to sit around. Just required some free time. For me, it's an anticlimactic end to a tedious endeavor.

Needless to say, I won't be visiting Felwood intentionally again for quite a while.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Grand Master Pet Tamer: Obalis

NOTE: This was written pre-Patch 5.2. Some elements of this write-up may no longer apply, and my team choice(s) have changed.

Today I'll be covering one of the "easier" Grand Masters, Obalis. Even cat people can appreciate the awesomeness of pets! :)


Obalis is Kalimdor's Grand Master and can be found in Uldum, on top of the dam just south of the main city.
Pet Team: Pyth (beast), Spring (flying), Clatter (critter)

Team quality and level: Epic (purple), level 25

Notable pets and attacks: Spring's Moth Dust and Cocoon Strike, and Clatter's Apocalypse
I find Obalis' team to be pretty tame compared to some other master pet teams, and if you have companions that are strong against his, you should be able to make quick work of his pets. His encounter isn't much of a burst or longevity battle, but like with any battle, don't underestimate your opponent!

For this particular team I go with mechanical to combat beast, dragonkin to combat flying, and humanoid to combat critter. There are other families that would work well against Obalis' crew; this is just what worked best for me.

Pyth


Out of all the pets, I think the snake is one of the "easiest". It doesn't have a large burst ability (like Burrow), so you don't have to worry about avoiding massive amounts of damage.

That isn't to say you can just eat all its attacks, though. If your pet has an ability that blocks or allows you to avoid any of Pyth's attacks, I would still use it.

I use my trusty Darkmoon Zeppelin to battle Pyth, and unless it gets a string of unlucky misses or my opponent dodges too many attacks, the zeppelin is very effective.

Unlike other snakes that have Burrow, I start out with the Decoy ability first. This will block a lot of the initial damage, so I can "ramp up" in relative safety. To maximize damage though, Bombing Run should be used first, as it has a 3 round timer before it resolves.

After that I do the usual, which is Bombing Run and then barrage after barrage of Missile. In most situations, Pyth will be dead before I have to set up another Decoy, leaving my companion with health to spare for the next pet.

If my zeppelin isn't too low, I usually can toss out another Bombing Run or Decoy at the next opponent in line before switching it out.

Spring


I don't know about everyone else, but Moths are one of the pets that annoy me to no end. Especially if they have the abilities Cocoon Strike and Moth Dust.

Since I haven't found a pet that I like that's strong against flying, I go with the Wild Crimson Hatchling on this fight. Flying is weak to Dragonkin, my hatchling can heal itself, and it has an ability that allows it to avoid (ground) damage for one round.

Spring will usually start off with Moth Dust. It hits pretty hard and has a chance to put your pet to sleep. Since it (normally) uses Moth Dust as its first attack, I just eat the damage. If I'm lucky, though, the Decoy set up by my zeppelin in the previous round might still be there and will take the damage for me. This is situational and depends on which opponent I'm up against first, though, so I don't count this scenario always being the case. If/when Moth Dust does it, I can always heal up after.

Moth Dust has a pretty short cooldown, so whenever I see that it's about to be up after the initial use (I use an addon that shows me), I use my Wild Crimson Hatchling's Lift-Off to avoid the sleepy-time attack.

The next ability that you should be aware of is Cocoon Strike. It's not necessarily a dangerous one, but if you don't pay attention, you could lose ground in this one turn. It will block the first incoming attack for one round, so be sure not to waste any hard-hitting ability (with a cooldown) while Spring is hiding in its cocoon.

If you're using a pet that has an attack that allows it to strike more than once (Triple Snap and Slicing Wind are two examples), use that ability after Spring performs its Cocoon Strike. The first hit will be blocked, but any additional hits will land (provided Spring doesn't dodge and you don't miss). In my Wild Crimson Hatchling's case, Tail Sweep will miss the first hit, but since my pet has less speed than Spring, the ability will hit a second time and that one will land.

Clatter


Much like Pyth, I don't consider this beautiful beetle much of a threat. That is, however, only if it goes last. If it goes first, then there might be some danger. I have to say, though, that I have yet to see this pet be the first opponent during Obalis' encounter.

Clatter's abilities are basic, and nothing too hard-hitting. The only ability that you need to keep an eye on is Apocalypse. It's very situational, and will only really matter if this pet is first in line to battle your team. The longer the encounter draws out, the higher the chance Apocalypse will hit. If Clatter is last to be battled, though, the fight against it usually doesn't take 15+ rounds, so it's negligible.

I use the Flayer Youngling for this one. It has strong attacks while my opponent has weak attacks against it. It's the ideal situation.

Since Clatter isn't all that dangerous, there's no special order of attacks that I use. Normally I just go with the hardest hitting abilities first to burst down the beetle. If ever I feel my youngling's in danger, I always have Reflect to fall back on.

As always, the pets and tactics mentioned above aren't mandatory. This is just what I've found to be most effective for me. You can definitely beat Obalis' team with an assortment of other pets and methods; find what works best for you!
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