Pilgrim's Bounty - Cluck Cluck, Goes the Chicken

Second day of Pilgrim's Bounty: Bush Chicken acquired! I was somewhat worried that I wouldn't have any luck getting this pet (without resorting to buying it off of the AH), so I'm relieved that I can check this pet off my list.


The Bush Chicken is a possible drop from the new reward bag, Pilgrim's Bounty, from the holiday dailies. The five dailies aren't account-wide so you can complete them on multiple characters. All you need is cooking, any skill level works. You can do the quests even with cooking 1; as you complete quests, you'll be required to cook different/more things which in turn raises your cooking skill.

I had to level cooking on a few of my toons, which was time consuming but worth it in the end. The only issue was the RNG. There were reports that some had the Bush Chicken drop on their first few toons, while others said they didn't get the pet until 8+ toons down the line.

In the end I was part of the latter camp, and after nothing on the first day (30+ bags, that's 6+ toons) I finally received my little chicken on the second day. :D

I won't go into any kind of guide or walk through, but here are some things that I observed while working my way through the dailies.

• You can level cooking to 300 with JUST the holiday food that's required for the dailies.

• While leveling cooking using the holiday recipes, don't vendor the food. You can save them and turn them in another day.

• Purchase extra materials from each city's vendor (mainly city specific materials; pumpkins, cranberries, sweet potatoes), cook them all at once, and save them to turn in the next day. The turkeys are a bit of a pain though, but easy enough to find/kill.

• Mages are a godsend! My OH and I teamed up and we made use of each other's mages heh.

• Chef's Hat makes things go by much faster. Especially if you're leveling cooking and need to make 100 pumpkin pies or whatever.

This might seem like a grind, with a relatively low drop rate, AND it's limited time (only one week) but the consolation is that it can be completed on multiple toons each day. As long as your character can learn cooking 300 (level restrictions may apply), you can have an army of toons farming this pet for you. It WILL eat up a large portion of your day, though, but little things like the Chef's Hat and mage portals help.

Overall, I'm satisfied. I put time and effort into collecting a pet and was eventually rewarded. Plus now I have a ton of toons with at least 300 cooking, if not higher! :P

Pet Collecting In Week Two of WoD

It's been a little while since my last post, but with good reason! I've been slowly but surely collecting the new WoD pets; there are roughly 30ish pet left for me to collect.

Some of my favorite/notable acquisitions this past week, three out of the seven Mastering the Menagerie pet drops, the OH gifted me the Draenei Micro Defender, and after many days of chasing around dig sites all over Draenor, I finally discovered and completed the Ancient Nest Guardian!


Ziri'ak Junior, grow up big and strong and maybe one day you'll go off on follower missions too. :P

I should also mention that I've collected the 10th anniversary pets, Molten Corgi and Hatespark the Tiny. The former is adorable, even if he butt scoots and leaves behind a hot mess lol.


Blizzard must really adore the corgi, though, because it's being mailed to ALL my characters that log into the game during the anniversary. You can only have one in your journal and you can't cage it; I feel bad about it but I've had to destroy the extras. :(


Hatespark, appropriately named
Hatespark the Tiny, as much as I don't want to talk about him, I feel I have to. This pet is going to fall under the same category as Lumpy did back in the day for me. Terrible collecting experience, left a bad impression on me, glad to have it in my pet army, but it will forever be stained with a not-so-nice memory.

This teeny fire elemental comes from Ragnaros, the last boss of the anniversary edition of Molten Core. The raid is 40 man and tuned for level 100 players (item level 615). Oh, but did I mention it's LFR only? So unless you have a full group of 40 friends/guildmates, you'll be pugging this raid. It's...not fun.

On the first day of the anniversary, I was excited and amped to head out into what I thought would be a nostalgic raid. Instead I faced a terrible bug (or player griefing), where you queued into a completely cleared Molten Core raid. Ragnaros was dead, no reason to be in there. That happened quite a few times initially. Eventually Blizzard sorted it out and prevented players from joining a completed MC, but by then I had already developed a bad impression of the event.

At some point I decided to brave the queue again, and my god. It's not pug friendly in the slightest. I lost track of how many times we wiped and how many hours I spent in there, just on my first run of MC LFR. Yes, I said first, because it was one of FOUR in one night.

You would think that after so much headache and time spent, the pet would be 100% drop, right? Nope. It's not even close to 100% drop rate. On the plus side, there's no loot lockout for the anniversary raid, so you can keep queuing for MC and still be eligible for loot each time. But after hours and HOURS of being in the cesspool that is LFR, no loot lockout isn't much of a consolation.

It's not even that I found the raid too difficult or anything. I think if it had been tuned down to say 10 or 20 man, and I could go in with ONLY guildmates and friends, it would have been a blast. Re-figuring out strats, laughing at each others' mistakes, and just remembering the old days.

But the fact that it's 40 man, and if you don't have that many for a full guild raid, you're force to pug...it's painful. The environment is just terrible; people yelling at each other and arguing over things. People who put only the barest minimal effort into it. And then there are griefers who are only there just to cause chaos and revel in others' anger and frustration. In one of the runs I was in, someone decided to pull an unnecessary pack of imps, wipe the raid, just so he could run to the wall behind the imps and mine a node. REALLY?!


I now know why this pet is named the way it is. If Molten Core LFR doesn't instill some sort of deep anger/hate within you, I tip my hat to you for your resilience.

After four runs, my OH took pity on me and decided to do something about my struggle. He purchased Hatespark the Tiny from the AH for about 15k (paid way too much in my opinion), and surprised me with it. I was very grateful but still upset over the experience at the same time.

It's supposed to be a fun event, right? A way to enjoy a celebration of the past decade of WoW. Yet it was so discouraging. The raid atmosphere AND the low drop rate on the pet. I can see a lot of collectors getting frustrated over this, eventually resorting to just purchasing it off the AH, which makes me sad because it would have been great to actually participate in something enjoyable and festive.

Anyway, I'm going to put it behind me now. As adorable as I think Hatespark is, I don't think I'll be bringing him out much. Unpleasant memories that are still too fresh in my mind. Glad that it's over and the pet's collected, disappointed that it was such a painful experience.

Quintessence vs. Quintessence (of Light)!

Oh boy. There's been a whirlwind of stuff going on. Between reaching level 100, upgrading my garrison to level 3, and of course, collecting pets...there's just SO MUCH. Do all the things!

I've completed a multitude of pet tasks since I last wrote; collected all of the Draenor wilds, defeated all of the Draenor trainers, built and upgraded my Menagerie to level 2, etc. As much as I'd love to log every single moment, it would take me far too long and there's a lot of other stuff I'd like get started on instead.

However, there's one moment I'd like to capture: Quintessence of Light visited my Menagerie today! :) This is the first time I've seen and battled her on live. She's a lot more difficult than what I remember from the beta, partially because her fight was incomplete during testing.


Anyway, because she's been updated since I last fought her, it took me a few attempts to finally find a strat that I'm satisfied with. It's probably not foolproof and RNG could interfere with a win, but I'm happy with it for now. With my terrible memory, I need to write it down.

Infected Squirrel (P/B 1,2,2 - H/P would work just as well, possibly better)
Sprite Darter Hatchling (2,2,1)
Nether Faerie Dragon (S/S 2,2,1 - unsure about other breeds)

Round 1: Diseased Bite
Round 2: Creeping Fungus
Round 3: Corpse Explosion
Round 4: refresh Creeping Fungus
Round 5: Free swap in; Sprite Darter Hatchling - Moonfire
Round 6: Life Exchange
Round 7+: Arcane Blast with last two pets until Quintessence of Light dies

This will have to do for now until someone else comes out with a better strat. And, yes I'm aware of the "howl bomb" strat, but I didn't want to have to fall back on a default strategy to win. Maybe if I'm in a rush or if an encounter just can't be won any other way, I'll use it. If there's another method, though, I'd prefer it over the howl bomb. It's just more fun for me, and I don't feel like I'm cheesing the game.

Ok well, that's pretty much all that I wanted to catalog for now. There's more that I want to write about but my guildmates are calling me for more heroic dungeon runs. :)

First Pet Get and My Other Newest Additions

I collected my first pet yesterday while leveling in Shadowmoon Valley. Umbrafen Spore! As soon as I entered the area with the giant mushrooms, it instantly triggered what I would call a "pet-sense" lol. In reality, I simply remembered how troublesome it was on beta to figure out how to get to the object that drops the pet.


Needless to say, I talked my OH into coming with me to climb the mountain, and jump down onto the giant mushroom to collect the spore. He's not a pet collector, but looting treasures around Draenor rewards experience so... why not? :D hehe!

Why is this pet on a leash when you summon it out? I have no idea. Sure, the leash could just be an artifact of that time when its model was that of a balloon. But I'd like to think that it's tied down because it NEEDS to be. Ever heard of a dangerous spore? Well I have one (or two, or three) in my collection now. :P

I haven't been focusing too hard on getting pets. There are still quite a few I'm missing. My goal was to get started on my horde toon too, and get that Engineering and Tailoring going. But between the lag, queues, and disconnects, that hasn't really been an option. So I've just been leveling my main.

Other pets that I have managed to collect during my leveling adventure (in order of acquisition):

• Crimson Spore - Obtained while doing the early quests in Gorgrond. Again, made it a point to drag the OH for treasure! XD
• Mudback Calf - Captured while in Gorgrond. I remembered how rare these wild hippos were on beta, so as soon as I saw one I trapped it. Nevermind if it was poor quality, that's what battle-stones are for!
• Doom Bloom - I remembered the rare in a cave that drops this pet from the beta. Hey, rares give experience too! Feeeeeed me, Seymour
• Stonegrinder - Another treasure that I couldn't pass up. While I danced around lasers and stuff, the OH charged straight through lol. GEEZE.
• Teroclaw Hatchling - "Me: Come loot this nest! OH: Why? Is it a ques- oh..." haha
• Shadow Sporebat - Again, these were fairly rare on the beta. They only spawn in a teeny tiny little area of Talador, and they share spawns with other wild pets in the immediate area. First thing I did when I reached that area was capture the first one I saw.
• Flat-Tooth Calf - Same deal as the Mudback Calf. Didn't want to pass up the only one I saw!
• Kaliri Hatchling and Veilwatcher Hatchling - Finally traveled to Spires of Arak to level, and oh looook...a pet battle daily! And what do you know? The NPC sells a pet after you've defeated him. Bye bye 1k gold without any hesitation! :P

I haven't leveled any of them yet because I'm still trying to finish up leveling myself first lol. Hopefully server maintenance will end on time (not holding my breath :P), and I can get back to the grind and collecting pets. :)

So Long Pandaria, Hello Draenor

WoD is almost upon us. I'M EXCITED YET NERVOUS AT THE SAME TIME.

*ahem* Yes, so. My plan for launch night? I'll be leveling my main as much as possible, while parking a second (horde) toon at her garrison. It's going to be a challenge to multitask, but it seems necessary in WoD. So many things to collect from so many different aspects/areas of the game.

I've planned out my garrison progression for my alliance toon, so hopefully all goes to plan. My toons are all set up with their professions as well, although I'm sad to say that my horde Tailor is a bit behind. She can always play catch up in Draenor, but she won't be benefiting from having an already maxed profession at the very start. Oh well.

Some notable stuff that I want to log for future reference:

- Bronze Whelpling will still be available post-WoD release.

- Quest chain that rewards Iron Starlette is NOT going away once WoD is released. Pet will still be available post-expansion.

Am I ready for this new expansion? I want to say yes but...well, here's hoping! At the very least, my army of pets is ready to travel to the new world. :P

The Look-a-Like Challenge - Part 9

While going through the new transform spells coming in WoD (I'm making a list of possible future look-a-likes hehe), I saw a few spells that are currently available that I somehow overlooked. So...time to look like some pets! :D


Pet: Stinker or any of the wild skunks
Ability: Curse of the Skunk
Notes: Only Pandaren in the starting zone of The Wandering Isle can get this look. It can be obtained by traveling to The Singing Pools and finding the pool of water with a skunk sign in it. Walking into the water will transform you into a skunk, and leaving the water returns you to your normal state.



Pet: Jade Crane Chick or Azure Crane Chick
Ability: Curse of the Crane
Notes: Only Pandaren in the starting zone of The Wandering Isle can get this look. It can be obtained by traveling to The Singing Pools and finding the pool of water with a crane sign in it. Walking into the water will transform you into a crane, and leaving the water returns you to your normal state.



Pet: Chuck
Ability: Curse of the Crocodile
Notes: Only Pandaren in the starting zone of The Wandering Isle can get this look. It can be obtained by traveling to The Singing Pools and finding the pool of water with a crocolisk sign in it. Walking into the water will transform you into a crocolisk, and leaving the water returns you to your normal state.

It should be mentioned that you CAN use Skymirror on yourself when transformed into any of the above. This allows you to move about as whichever look-a-like without being constrained to The Singing Pools area, and you get to keep the costume for a bit longer. (The croco one is by far my favorite; it does an adorable roll mid-air when you jump! XD)

With this in mind, other players MIGHT be able to get the three above costumes if a Pandaren that's finished leveling in The Wandering Isle transforms into one of the above and uses Ai-Li's Skymirror on themselves just before choosing a faction and being ported to that city. I haven't tested this, though, so I don't know if the Skymirror's effects will persist through the whole RP.

If you can keep the Skymirror costume even after being ported off of the isle, anyone else with a Skymirror can also pick up the transformation.

A word of caution, if you do try this, remember that you can't go back to The Wandering Isle after you leave. This means you can really pick only one if you decide to port off the isle.

And yes, I leveled a Pandaren just to get to The Singing Pools. :P I'm debating whether or not I want to go one step further and test if I can pick a faction, keep my costume, and share it with friends. XD



Pet: Sprite Darter Hatchling
Ability: Archmage Nakada's A Nakada Special
Notes: As far as I know, only Alliance can get this costume. If you speak with Archmage Nakada in the Mage Quarter of Stormwind and accept the offer in his dialogue, he'll turn you into one of four transformations (with a 30 minute debuff; you can't spam him for different costumes until the debuff has worn off).

It only lasts for 5 minutes, but using a Skymirror will make it last longer.



Pet: Mana Wyrmling or Shimmering Wyrmling
Ability: Archmage Nakada's A Nakada Special
Notes: As far as I know, only Alliance can get this costume. If you speak with Archmage Nakada in the Mage Quarter of Stormwind and accept the offer in his dialogue, he'll turn you into one of four transformations (with a 30 minute debuff; you can't spam him for different costumes until the debuff has worn off).

It only lasts for 5 minutes, but using a Skymirror will make it last longer.



Pet: Kirin Tor Familiar
Ability: Archmage Nakada's A Nakada Special
Notes: As far as I know, only Alliance can get this costume. If you speak with Archmage Nakada in the Mage Quarter of Stormwind and accept the offer in his dialogue, he'll turn you into one of four transformations (with a 30 minute debuff; you can't spam him for different costumes until the debuff has worn off).

It only lasts for 5 minutes, but using a Skymirror will make it last longer.



Pet: Crawling Claw
Ability: Archmage Nakada's A Nakada Special
Notes: As far as I know, only Alliance can get this costume. If you speak with Archmage Nakada in the Mage Quarter of Stormwind and accept the offer in his dialogue, he'll turn you into one of four transformations (with a 30 minute debuff; you can't spam him for different costumes until the debuff has worn off).

It only lasts for 5 minutes, but using a Skymirror will make it last longer.

BlizzCon 2014 - Pet Stuff?

BlizzCon coverage of the livestream - pet stuff? Pet stuff please!

• Charity pet coming in December. 100% of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross Ebola relief effort.

More coming soon (hopefully!)

New DMF Trainer, New Pet, Lots of RNG

A new trainer has arrived at the DMF, Christoph VonFeasel. He's apparently Jeremy Feasel's older brother? haha

Well, here's the start of another (possibly long) grind of attempts for the new pet, Syd the Squid. I've even enlisted the help of my OH by trading him my pets and then directing him on what to do for each match up lol. "No, no wait, hit Lift Off instead. Nooo you forgot to put Extra plating on." I'm sure he'll be glad when this is all over XD

Strategy (from WarcraftPets) for my own reference: Bronze Whelpling (SS 2,1,1) + Iron Starlette (HP 1,1,1) + Carry pet

• Tail Sweep
• Tail Sweep
• Lift Off
• Tail Sweep until Syd dies
• Early Advantage onto Mr. Pointy
• Swap to Carry pet once whelpling dies and thenswap immediately to starlette
• Windup
• Powerball
• Powerball (if Pointy's shield is still up)
• Windup once his shield is down
• Windup (against Otto)
• Superchange
• Windup

Month 1

Day 1a: no pet
Day 1b: no pet
Day 2: no pet
Day 3: no pet
Day 4: no pet
Day 5: no pet
Day 6: no pet
Day 7: no pet
Day 8: no pet

Month 2

Day 1a: no pet
Day 1b: no pet
Day 2: no pet
Day 3: no pet
Day 4: no pet
Day 5: no pet
Day 6: no pet
Day 7: no pet
Day 8: no pet

Month 3

Day 1a: no pet
Day 1b: no pet
Day 2: no pet
Day 3: Syd the Squid! :D

Busy, Busy November

Reminders for myself of upcoming WoW events. There's SO MUCH THIS MONTH!

• Sunday, November 2: DMF (new pet, Syd the Squid)
• Friday, November 7 & 8: BlizzCon 2014 (pet-related news coverage?!)
• Thursday, November 13: WoD release (all the things!)
• Friday, November 21: WoW's 10th Anniversary starts (two new pets, Molten Corgi and Hatespark the Tiny)
• Monday, November 24: Pilgrim's Bounty (new pet, Bush Chicken)

The DMF will last the entire week, so I just need to remember to do the daily every day. I plan on being on right as the faire opens up, so I can sneak in that extra daily before it resets. I may even enlist the help of my other half...after teaching him how to Pet Battle, that is lol. He was into Pokemon, it shouldn't be hard at all. :P

I'm hoping there will be some awesome pet-related news announced at BlizzCon. Developer Jeremy Feasel already hinted that they may share some info on the next Raiding With Leashes set of pets and achievement. Here's hoping we hear a lot about that and more. :D

I plan on going HAM once WoD comes out. Between release day and WoW's 10th anniversary, I'm probably going to try and level a few toons to max. The anniversary Molten Core raid where the pet drops from is level 100 only, so poop. 8 days to get as many toons to max, for as many tries for the pet as possible. Even if you can just re-queue over and over again, and still have a chance to have the pet drop for you on every single Ragnaros kill, having a number of max level toons will be helpful/necessary for other expansion activities anyway. TONS of new pets to collect!

After that, it's Pilgrim's Bounty. I still have no idea where the pet will come from since the Pet Journal is vague. Doesn't seem like it will be a pet from a vendor, so perhaps a quest? Wowhead hasn't listed any new Pilgrim's Bounty quests or rewards that I've seen, though. The only clue we have to go on is a Tweet made by Feasel a while back.

.@perculia Bug, you rescue it from a delicious doom during Pilgrim's Bounty :)

— Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) July 18, 2014

Sooo... we'll have to just wait and see.

In December it will quiet down a little, just in time for Xmas huh? The DMF will be back again, like clockwork. I don't recall seeing any new pets listed for this year's Feast of Winter Veil, although there are new toys.

Whew! It's going to be busy in-game for the next month or so. I'm excited while also a little anxious. Don't let me down, myself. Get those pets! :)

SAVAGE Grommloc!

Due to a migraine, I missed a doozy today -- Grommloc was finally mailed out to those that purchased a BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket! Yay another pet to add to my army. :)


Grommloc supersized and fearing any who stand in his way
He doesn't have any idle animations, but he will do a small roar and fear wild pets and critters around him. The large groups of critters in Valley of the Four Winds is a good spot to watch him do his thing. Weaklings, flee puny critters! :P

I did try to get him to scare away some level 1 cows in Stormwind, but they didn't seem phased by Grommloc's savageness. Cows are fearless...? lol

I've yet to try out Grommloc in battles. I don't PVP so his breed (P/S) probably won't matter too much for me. Not even sure P/S is good for his set of abilities. But I suppose that's ok if it's not. Pets that cost RL money that are amazing in battles due to a strong breed + strong moveset can be controversial.

All pets in general are "must haves" for a collector, but a "pay-to-win" pet that changes the metagame upsets the balance and perceived fairness since some will be able to afford it while others won't.

So if Grommloc doesn't have a very good moveset and/or breed, I'm ok with that. It's fine if it's just a fun vanity pet that will hang out with you and scare away cowardly critters. :)

Besides, he's a murloc that has hair on his head. WTF. That's unique in itself XD

----------------------

And on an unrelated note, developer Jeremy Feasel dropped a hint of what's to come at BlizzCon. I'm excited and can't wait to learn more!

@perculia @gloriaboboria @liopleurodonic @undeadgoat @perksnpeeves @TheCrafticus We'll be there, with secret Raiding with Leashes III info..

— Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) November 1, 2014