Treasure Goblin Now Here!

The Treasure Goblin has arrived! Those that purchased the D3:RoS Digital Deluxe should see it in their in-game mailboxes soon if not already. Collector's Edition purchasers will need to wait to redeem their CE version of the game.

What great timing - just yesterday night I was enjoying the latest D3 patch with a friend and we killed many-a-goblin lol. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think/wonder about when I would be acquiring my very own little goblin hoarder. :P

This little guy will occasionally take his sword out and swing it around before throwing it up and into his gold sack. He hemorrhages money when he walks around, which kind of irks me since I have a compulsive desire to pick up those coins that are dropped haha.

Glad to finally have the Treasure Goblin in my collection. Now it's time to level him up and give him a name!

Possible WoD Pet: Weebomination

LeCraft Tweeted a sneak peak of a possible WoD pet, the Weebomination!


The pet is not yet complete, and he asks for suggestions on what abilities should fill in the Weebomination's moveset. Some of the more obvious ideas are abilities that abominations already have, like a "meat hook" ability, corpse-explosion, and other undead-type attacks.

I'm no battling expert, so I'll just let those more invested and experienced in pet-theorycrafting assist in creating a monster. :P

My curiosity lies with where this pet will come from, it's base quality (it's shown as rare in the journal, but that could be a result of an upgrade), and if it has any interesting idle animations/interactions. I'd love to see it hook critters while out and then explode on top of them or something lol. No? Just me? Yea, Perhaps it would be too annoying to have to constantly re-summon the Weebomination. Maybe a rotting/poison effect then heh.

I'm pretty thankful for this little teaser. Pet news is running fairly dry these days now that MoP is slowly coming to an end and WoD is still not quite ready for a full reveal. Everything's been a little dull as a result. Hopefully this is just one of many teasers (or a full disclosure!) to come in the near future.

The Look-a-Like Challenge - Part 7

Welp, this might be the last Look-a-Like post until WoD. I've pretty much exhausted all ideas and haven't found any other creatures that look like pets that I can transform into. Here's hoping that there will be more fun (pet) transformations in the next expansion. :)

If anyone has any creative ideas of ways/things to turn into a pet, please let me know!




Pet: Stripe-Tailed Scorpid or any Scorpion pet
Ability: Rik'kal the Dissector's Mutate
Notes: Friend/raid and Ai-Li's Skymirror required

For this look-a-like you'll currently need an entire raid to assist in clearing up to Paragons of Klaxxi in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. Once we reach the next level cap, this might be do-able alone or with with fewer players.

During the Paragons encounter, Rik'kal will randomly turn a player into a scorpion and/or players can click on his dead body to receive the ability to mutate into one. This buff only lasts for 20 seconds, but a friend using the skymirror will prolong the transformation.

Patch 5.4.7 - Dread Hatchling and Changes to 15 Abilities

Patch 5.4.7 was released today and changes include a new addition to the Pet Journal and 15 updated abilities.

The Dread Hatchling was officially added to the journal, but we'll have to wait a while longer before collecting it. Players that purchase the WoD CE or the Digital Deluxe will receive the pet once the expansion is released (or a little sooner - just keep an eye on your mailbox).

The pet is quite adorable, and you can check out its idle animations in the Pet Journal preview window. It does a cute little hop and then proceeds to squawk or cheep a few times. If only we could zoom in a little more to see the preview better lol. :P

Developer Jonathan LeCraft called for feedback on some of the more disliked/least effective pet abilities a while ago, and it looks like adjustments based one some of that feedback went live. The majority of changes involve damage/healing/hit chance values being tweaked slightly. A list of all the abilities that were updated can be found here. Changes weren't noted though, so if you're curious about what was altered you'll have to find an older version of said ability to compare.

EDIT: A more detailed list of the ability changes can be found here.

As with all patches, the potential for bugs is there. Some players may find that a few pets have gone missing post-patch (specifically RAF and Blizzard Store pets), but this should be resolved after a realm restart. I'm guessing they will roll out restarts late tonight; check your Pet Journal again tomorrow. We'll see if missing pets are returned or if it's an ongoing bug.

UPDATE: More information on missing pets and mounts here.

Thundering Serpent Hatchling No Longer Unlockable "Soon"

Yesterday Blizzard announced that the Pandaria Challenge Modes would be closed off and no longer completable in the near future. Challenge Mode achievements will turn into Feats of Strength and rewards will be unobtainable once the "season" ends. New instances, achievements and rewards are likely to come with the next expansion.

This is fairly significant for pet collectors, considering one pet is tied to the Pandaria Challenge Modes. Guilds who have yet to unlock the Thundering Serpent Hatchling by completing Challenge Conquerors: Gold - Guild Edition will be out of luck once the current Challenge Modes are closed. Granted there are some guilds who have this pet available and would welcome pet collectors to join just to obtain the pet, but it's still disheartening to hear that future guilds won't have access to the hatchling.

There are a few things Blizzard could do to keep this pet accessible to the majority, though none of it is likely.

- Stick the Thundering Serpent Hatchling as a reward for the next set of Challenge Mode achievements

- Provide another source for the Thundering Serpent Hatchling (quest, drop, vendor, etc.)

- Create another guild related achievement (that's not expansion-exclusive) with the Thundering Serpent Hatchling as a reward

Considering how Blizzard is ok with the Challenge Mode transmog sets and achievements becoming unobtainable in the future, I highly doubt they would make an exception for the pet. The argument that the pet will still be around and not completely inaccessible (although you have to find a guild, get into it, and then reach certain reputation with said guild first) will probably also keep them from providing another source for this pet.

While I understand the reasoning behind it, it's still a downer. No one likes to have things taken away from them, and guilds that haven't unlocked this pet may feel that way. The hatchling itself may not be removed, but the option and the chance to acquire it for a guild will be gone.

There's still some time before the Challenge Modes are closed (I believe the official cut off is patch 6.0), so it's still possible to complete everything. Some players and guilds will end up scrambling to get it done, even going to such lengths as to pay others to unlock the achievements and pet for them. It's a fairly common practice apparently, and with the Challenge Modes going away "soon", the demand and prices will only go up. I find it distasteful, but I can't say that I'm against it 100%. I don't blame those offering this service or those taking it. If anything, I feel that Blizzard's choice to lock the Challenge Modes is in the wrong here, as it will cause desperation and panic.

A smaller concern is that guilds will start charging collectors to join and acquire the pet. This doesn't worry as much though, as WarcraftPets has an open guild (US server Madoran, horde - Magical Menagerie) for everyone to join (for the pet or otherwise).

The pet isn't being removed or going away, and so long as players can find the right guild to join it will be available to collect. Yet there's still a sense of loss for future players/guilds who won't have the satisfaction of unlocking the Thundering Serpent Hatchling for themselves. Times change and we have to move forward, I get that. In Azeroth, Blizzard dictates the when and why, and all we can do is try to adapt and cope. It's still a sad day when we "lose" a pet due to those changes.

Happy Valentine's Day 2014

It doesn't matter who or what, spend some quality time with someone/something you care about! Give your pets an extra tight hug this year for me. :)

Have a good one!

Tranquil Mechanical Yeti Schematic Quest Missing

It was brought to my attention on WarcraftPets that the quest from Umi Rumplesnicker that trains eligible engineers the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti schematic, is no longer available (as of around patch 5.2). The quest, A Yeti of Your Own, was either removed or severed from the quest chain, and it's unknown if Blizzard intends on bringing it back in the future.

Fortunately, engineers that learned the recipe prior to the quest's disappearance can still craft the yeti. The pet can also drop from Blingtron's daily quest. It has quite a low droprate, but the pet is still obtainable.

Now that this pet can only be obtained as a drop or as a trade/purchase, I wonder if that will affect the pet's price on the Auction House. The recipe isn't exactly super rare or difficult to craft, though, and I'm sure many long-time players can craft the pet. I don't follow the AH trends very much, so I'm pretty clueless as to what will happen to the supply and demand.

I'm curious as to what exactly happened to the quest, and wonder if its disappearance was intentional or not. I'm not aware of any major changes in Winterspring or the quest chains located there pre or post Patch 5.2, so I can't think of anything that would cause this quest to go missing. If anyone has some insight on this, please share! I'd love to know. :)

Until more information surfaces, I'm currently leaning towards the point of view that its removal was ultimately intentional. With the implementation of Blingtron and his ability to drop all engineering pets, perhaps Blizzard decided to streamline the acquirability of the yeti and reduce the number of sources it can come from.

Even if it wasn't an intentional change, Blizzard might be ok with the way things currently are. The Tranquil Mechanical Yeti is still completely available, trading/buying from an engineer that can craft it or from Blingtron's daily, so it's possible that they see the original quest as unnecessary now.

Well, that's all speculation on my part. We'll see what happens in the future.