Magic Pet Mirror Fun - Emote Animations

As you may already know, I'm incredibly excited about Patch 6.2, mainly because of the Magic Pet Mirror. This fun little toy is probably my favorite new feature of the upcoming patch, and will definitely be my first purchase from the new Menagerie vendor.

I did some testing on the PTR using the Pet Mirror and found out some neat things.

• Any action performed (other than walking, running, and jumping) after using the Magic Pet Mirror will remove the effect.
• The costume can be Skymirrored and/or copied by other players.
• It has a one hour cooldown, and it applies a 10 minute buff.
• Stacks with other toys but only if you use the other toys first and then the Pet Mirror.
• Stacks with Pepe/Mesmerizing Fruit Hat on a few pets, but only if you apply Pepe/Mesmerizing Fruit Hat first.
• Can't be used on pets that can't battle.
• You can perform certain emotes as the pet you mirrored!

NOTE: As of Patch 7.2/7.3, nearly all Pet Mirrored appearances can wear Pepe on their head!

The last part was the toughest to test. With a long cooldown and hundreds upon hundreds of pets to go through, it took a long time of cycling through characters to use their Pet Mirror (they don't share an account-wide cooldown on the PTR). I finally finished last night, though, and have a somewhat complete list of which Mirrored Pets have emote animations!

One thing to note about this list - Unfortunately I don't have an infinite amount of time to spend on the PTR testing each and every single pet for animations, so for pets that have the same or similar model (such as all the rabbits, cockroaches, etc.) I tested one and figured that any animations performed (or not performed) would also apply to the others that shared the same look.

So my list doesn't include EVERY pet (because, c'mon, that would be nuts), but it should cover all of the pet models.

Another point I should make - I didn't try out every single emote, just the main ones. Certain pets that are based on player-character models will probably be able to do all of the emote animations that players have.

I took some example screenshots for each tested pet (didn't capture all animations), but since there are over 70 images I'm only including the ones that I found the most interesting in this blog post. If you're interested in taking a look at all of the screenshots, I've created a gallery here.

Anyway, the list is long but I've sorted it by pet families and in alphabetical order. Some Mirrored Pets don't have any emote animations, but I included them anyway because... well, silly reasons. ;)

Latest Update: September 2, 2017

Aquatic

      

Aqua Strider

• mountspecial

Hydraling

• cower

Pandaren Water Spirit

• cower

Spiny Terrapin

• cower
• sleep

Why I'm Wary of the 6.2 Legendary Boss Pet Dailies

I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately, which saddens me somewhat. But with or without me, the 6.2 PTR is in full swing and just recently the legendary boss pets of Tanaan Jungle were updated.

New unique locations for each of them, legendary quality/stats, and nearly all of them now have complete movesets. Details on each can be viewed either on Cymre's blog post or @patf0rd's google document.


In total there are 15 boss pets to defeat (I thought there were only 14, so one must have escaped me), and each one awards Fel-Touched Pet Supplies. There are only four new pets that drop from this reward bag so far, but my hope is that more will be added. Perhaps versions of the actual boss pets that we have to defeat? I'd love a Bleakclaw of my own! :3

I mean, four new pets out of 15 possible bags really feels uninspired, and it makes it difficult to believe it will be worth taking the time to travel to each legendary pet and completing the battle every single day. Dedicated collectors will definitely attempt it, but I can't see very many keeping up with the routine after a while. It just screams "burn out". If there were more shiny new pets/things to collect from the daily reward bags, that might add more incentive to do them all and continue doing them.

Going through and trying to find/defeat each one the other day on the PTR left me exhausted. I managed to find seven out of the 15 before throwing in the towel for the night. If it takes that long to travel to and complete all 15 dailies, I may just skip the majority of them and park alts at certain ones. Because ouch, it was time-consuming and frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, though. I think (and I hope) the travel time will be reduced now that the location of every boss pet has been revealed, and an efficient route will probably be plotted out by testers. Plus, once further testing is done on the PTR, the community will create ideas and suggestions for effective strategies to beat each legendary as quickly as possible.

Still, it worries me that there are so many, so spread out across Tanaan Jungle, a zone that's not exactly a breeze to navigate through. There are level 100 mobs crawling all over, with some boss pets behind level 100 elites. The terrain is hilly in some parts, with crevices and other geographical traps/obstacles, so it's not really a walk in the park either.

Even with pre-determined teams to use against each boss pet, the battles do take some time, being legendary status and all. The gimmick for these encounters, Fel Corruption, also slows down the fights.

Combining travel-time with how long it takes to complete each pet battle adds up to quite a pain. I'm currently under the impression that you'll need to set aside a good chunk of time to do your round of legendary dailies each day. Either that or split up the battles throughout the day, half in the morning, half at night, or something like that.

If that's something your schedule can't manage, then the next best thing would be to park alts at specific boss pets (probably the pets you find easiest to beat) and just log on to complete those. Keep in mind that Tanaan Jungle is gated, and I don't know if sub-100 characters will be able to travel to that zone without phasing issues. So unless you have max level toons, it might not even be possible to use alts to get through at least a few dailies a day (for those with busy schedules and don't have the time).

So while I'm excited for new content and new pets, Draenor's version of BoF (supersized and fel-touched) has me wary. 15 pets to travel to, without flying, and 15 legendary/gimmicky battles to complete. It sounds like you'll need maybe a solid hour or more to get through them all, but we'll see. It will be up to each collector to determine if the four new pets are worth the (potentially large) amount of time spent traveling to and doing these new dailies.

Thankfully 3 out of the 4 Fel-Touched Pet Supply pets can be caged, but the one that stands out the most, Nightmare Bell, cannot be caged. Looks like I'll be doing the dailies until I get at least that pet. After that, it's hard to say if I'll keep up the routine for the others, or simply resort to trading/buying them.

Early testing on the PTR has me somehwat biased, leaving me with a not-so great impression of the battles so far, but I'm open to changing my mind in the future, of course.

Patch 6.2 PTR: Who Wants To Be a Pet?!

UPDATE: @perculia pointed out that there are a few other new pets that aren't in the Pet Journal yet. We'll see if, when and/or where these pets will pop up.

Fire Pup
Nightmare Bell
Purple Calf

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

Patch 6.2 dropped on the PTR yesterday evening, and ahhhhh! All the pet things! So far there are 13 new pets (not counting Graves, which was implemented during the 6.1 PTR) and 3 new pet-related toys.

NEW PETS IN 6.2

• 4 wild pets - All from Tanaan Jungle
  

  Bloodbeak
  Cerulean Moth
  Fen Crab
  Violet Firefly
  

• 4 pets from new Menagerie vendor - Tiffy Trapspring (A) and Giada Goldleash (H):
  

  Bloodthorn Hatchling - 50 charms
  Dusty Sporewing - 50 charms
  Glowing Sporebat - 100 charms
  Lost Netherpup - 200 charms

• 1 pet from a quest - Reward from "A Fel Puppy Of My Own", completed in Tanaan Jungle
  

  Fel Pup

• 2 pets from a DMF vendor - Galissa Sundew
  

  Blorp
  Ghostshell Crab

• 1 pet from a DMF achievement - Reward from achievement: That's Whack!
  

  Hogs

• 1 miscellaneous pet - Tribute to Blizzard Community Manager Nethaera
  

  Nethaera's Light

Nevermind that Blorp looks hilarious (finally, a derp fish!) and that we get to finally add Hogs to our collection (I MIGHT nerd rage at the Whack-a-Gnoll mini-game though...), I think the most exciting pet for 6.2 so far is Nethaera's Light. Obviously it's a tribute pet to the one and only Nethaera, but how you obtain it is just as special!


The Pet Journal tooltip mentions Dalaran but that's it. So I took a few of my toons to the floating city and did a /tar Neth. I immediately found a floating candle, except it wasn't a wild pet or even a pet at all. Nethaera's Light is an NPC in Dalaran, which puzzled me.

I figured I'd probably have to do something like an action or emote in order to trigger an event, but I wasn't sure what. So I pulled up a list of all possible emotes in WoW and started going down the list. Turns out that /cheer will do it, but you have to do a few times.

   
You can tell if you're doing it right if Nethaera's Light begins to burn brighter with her flame growing into a flaming orb. Eventually the orb will explode with a small firework burst and voila! The pet will be added directly into your Pet Journal. (see images above)

Once you earn the pet, the Nethaera's Light NPC will despawn and spawn elsewhere in Dalaran. I've found at least 3 different spawn locations so far. Oddly, you can collect Nethaera's Light multiple times, with a max of three, although I'm not sure what you would do with three of them since they can't battle. It will fly alongside you, which is a nice touch.

Nethaera's Light has a small, adorable idle animation. Sometimes her flame will go out but with a small firework, it reignites shortly after. This little candle's light will forever shine! :)


Toys toys toys
On top of new pets, there are new toys that relate to pets. One of which I'm extremely excited about. All three are sold by the new Menagerie vendor in your garrison.

Indestructible Bone - 50 charms
Spirit Wand - 100 charms
Magic Pet Mirror - 500 charms

I bet you can guess which toy is my favorite out of the three. If not, maybe you should take a look at my Look-a-Like Challenge series haha. :P


I managed to test the Magic Pet Mirror a little bit before the PTR went down last night, and here's what I've discovered so far:

- Usable on any summoned pet that can battle
- Must have the pet out and targeted to use
- Applies a 10 minute buff to you
- Casting (or entering combat) will remove the costume
- Shapeshifting will remove the costume too

Since you can't keep the costume while doing every-day things, such as raiding, Ai-Li's Skymirror will definitely come in handy. Good thing both toys, the Pet Mirror and Skymirror, share the same cooldown time, one hour.

I'm still testing the mirror and there are other things I'd like to try out. You can't apply the buff while in flight form or mounted, but what if you were to use the toy prior to either? Could I be a little flying pet perhaps?! One can hope lol. :3


The other toy that I tried out a bit on the PTR is the Spirit Wand. It's similar to Glyph of Shadowy Friends, except it applies a ghostly, spectral visual instead of a dark, shadowy one. First pet I tried it on, Lil' Bling because yenno, he needs to be even shinier than he already is? heh

Unlike the glyph, it's not passive and must be actively used on your summoned pet. It applies an indefinite buff though, so you really only have to worry about re-applying it when you zone, log out, or unsummon your pet.

I'm looking forward to 6.2 and anything else they have in store for pet collectors. This first round of updates is really exciting though, so I don't know how Blizzard is going to top this PTR patch. Do they even need to? XD

Racing For a Pet

The Darkmoon Faire is in town and the Race MiniZep is finally available to collect! Hope you like obstacle courses. ;P

In order to earn this new pet, you'll have to complete The Real Big Race (not to be confused with The Real Race from last month's faire - the new one is on the opposite side of the docks from the previous race) within 20 tolls or less. You must use a specific vehicle as well, the Rocketeer, which is basically like a mechanical tallstrider. It's got some neat tools that come in handy during the race though.

For me, it helped to watch a video (or two...or three) before attempting it. I found the ones listed in this thread quite helpful.

Honestly though, I kept hitting a wall of roughly 21-22 seconds, and shaving off those last few to get 20 tolls or under was a pain. I don't even remember how I did it exactly, perhaps I just got lucky. Since I'm not confident in my ability to run through the course, I won't even try to attempt at a guide lol. My heart was literally about to pound out of my chest each time I got close. It was nerve wracking and I don't think I'll do it again if I don't have to lol. I'm just not good with timed content!

One thing I must say, you can tell that the Rocketeer vehicle was created specifically for The Real Big Race. It felt pretty clunky in the other version of the race. Its tools didn't feel like they fit well with the mechanics of that particular course, and I swear it almost seemed as if it was slower than the normal tallstrider.

But yay, new pet! I had tons of Mech stones just waiting to level it up to max.


Much like the Darkmoon Zeppelin, if you bring out a Lil' XT or Landro's Lil' XT near it... well let's just say he just doesn't know how to play nice. XD It's got a strange bug where it doesn't disappear immediately when destroyed by XT though, and it hovers around for a while before finally disappearing.

Not the Experience!

Pet Battlers received quite a shock this past week. The large amount of pet experience rewarded from Erris the Collector and Kura Thunderhoof suddenly dropped to almost nothing. With the nerfs to the Menagerie battles, there was some worry that the new 6.1 trainers were being handled in the same way. Nooo, not another nerf?!

But it turns out that the experience reduction was a bandaid until an exploit involving Erris and Kura can be properly addressed and fixed in a future patch. Bashiok provided an explanation on the official forums:

"There was an exploit where you could leave the fight at the last possible moment, receive the quest XP, but not complete the quest, and it was being used to great effect by those that were aware of the bug. As it's technically an exploit it's not something we generally add to our hotfix notes. Fixing the core issue isn't possible until a client patch, and so in the meantime we lowered the reward substantially. With the fix in an upcoming patch we'll raise the XP reward back up again too."

Some have criticized Blizzard for punishing everyone instead of only punishing those that utilized the exploit. While it is an extreme change, I'd like to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt that it will indeed only be temporary until a proper fix is in place.

I don't see this as a punishment for anyone. It sounds as if the exploit is still possible and won't be fixed until a client patch, which could take time to create, test and release. So it makes sense that Blizzard would temporarily push the pause button on the Erris and Kura experience rewards; it would be irresponsible to let an exploit run rampant otherwise.

Should those that made use of the exploit be punished? Personally, I don't care all that much. Leveling pets isn't exactly difficult these days, and someone power leveling their pets in no way affects me or my collection. Everyone has their own personal moral compass, so I'll leave it at that. :)

I have to admit that I'm not all that confident that a fix will be implemented and the experience levels will return to normal though. There are never any guarantees when it comes to this game, but I do trust that Blizzard developers do try their best to follow through with their intentions/goals. So if they say that they will fix the exploit and bring back the experience reward in a future patch, I'd like to think that they will do everything in their power to make that happen. But who knows what obstacles they may run into or other issues they may not be able to overcome.

All in all, I'm hopeful but at the same time I'm preparing for the bad news down the road.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for Erris and Kura to reward a significant amount of pet experience again, as that one battle got my OH to start leveling a few of his pets here and there. It's convenient and simple, and on top of the experience you earn from the battle, you also receive more levels via the three battlestones reward. Because of these things, he didn't mind doing one pet battle each day, which I applaud him for since he's typically not into Pet Battles lol. If this one trainer can spark his interest in pets even just a little, it's a win in my book!

For his sake and others that enjoy the no-fuss battle, I do hope things return to normal in the near future.

Fun Funnies For 2015

Yesterday was April Fool's Day, and as always there were pet-related pranks to be had!

In case you missed them, WarcraftPets had the chance to "preview" evolving battle pets. If the last pet's evolution wasn't a dead giveaway that this feature wasn't meant to be, then I don't know what was. As always, Drrum did an extraordinary job on the graphics for this year's joke. :)

Blizzard had special Patch Notes for 6.1.4, and they included Pet Battle "updates":

Pet Battles

• The Pet Battle Surrender ability has been renamed to Rage Quit.
• Cat pets will now constantly appear under foot and trip you when you attempt to walk anywhere.
• Players can now use the /pet emote to earn experience with their combat pets. While targeting a summoned pet, simply use the /pet emote over and over which will show you gently giving it some much needed attention while earning a small amount of experience for each use. We're not sure what this does for the mechanical and undead pets, but just go with it.
• Beaver-type battle pets' teeth are working again.

If you pair the new /pet emote feature with the pet evolution one...it almost sounds as if it could work. :P Of course I don't think we'd want to lose our awesome pets as they are now. Nah, let's just keep collecting more, adding new looks and skins as we go!

Speaking of more pets...(and this one isn't an April Fool's joke, I don't think)...

.@Takayamasama Some players are hitting the cap, do you want more than one THOUSAND pets?

— Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) April 2, 2015

Um. YES?!

The conversation was related to the topic of what should future longer, harder follower missions reward. Someone said battle pets and well... unless the developers are willing to raise the cap, it might be unlikely we'll see pets as a mission reward. Unsure of how I feel about pets as mission rewards, to be honest, but we'll see.