My Teams For Tanaan Boss Pets

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I've been doing my 6-9 boss pet route (pictured above) on 3 characters for almost a week now, and I think I've got the run down pat.

I'm aware that howl-bomb pretty much finishes all of the NPCs off easily, but it's such an uninspired and boring strat to me. Instead, I've gone with my own teams.

I took ideas from @SerrinneWoW's Wowhead guide, then mixed and matched those with my own ideas. I wish I could say that the Wowhead comments on the boss pet pages also helped, but unfortunately those comments are largely filled with "howl-bomb works for all lawl"-type of remarks.

Anyway, the teams that I use work roughly 90% of the time. With bad RNG, I sometimes have to restart the fight. Secondary pets such as snakes and crabs can be my downfall (but not always), especially if they're P/P breed. Ouchies. Still, I'm satisfied with how it's been working out for me, which is well enough for my liking.

You could probably replace some of the pets that I use with other, similar ones. The Emerald Whelpling did well in place of the Emerald Proto-Whelp, for example.

As for the breeds, those are just the ones that I have. I'm sure other breeds could work (maybe even better than the ones I chose), but I haven't bothered to test them.

And yes, MVP of Tanaan pet battles is the Emerald Proto-Whelp. This little guy does some serious work!


Mirecroak -

• Bush Chicken (1,1,1)
• Ikky (1,1,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Tainted Mudclaw -

• Ikky (1,1,1)
• Bush Chicken (1,1,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Felfly -

• Sentinel's Companion (2,2,2)
• Dread Hatchling (2,2,2)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Corrupted Thundertail -

• Stormwing (1,1,2) or Lil' Bling (2,2,1)
• Mechanical Axebeak (S/S 2,2,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Dreadwalker -

• Soul of the Forge (1,1,1)
• Kun-Lai Runt (P/S 2,2,2)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Vile Blood of Dreanor -

• Infinite Whelpling (P/P 1,1,1)
• Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling (1,1,2)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Crused Spirit -

• Zandalari Toenibbler (P/S 2,2,2)
• Stinker (1,2,2)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Bleakclaw -

• Nexus Whelpling (1,2,2)
• Sprite Darter Hatchling (2,2,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Felsworn Sentry - (Testing this team a few more times before settling)

• Shard of Cyrukh (1,1,2)
• Kun-Lai Runt (2,2,2)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Any suggestions on how to improve these teams is welcome and appreciated! :)



EDIT: Continuation of my route with more teams. (Aviana's Feather from Felsworn Sentry to Throne of Kil'jaeden)

Dark Gazer -

• Fel Flame (H/P 2,2,1)
• Infinite Whelpling (P/P 1,1,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Skrillix -

• Fel Pup (2,1,1)
• Lost Netherpup (2,2,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Netherfist -

• Fel Pup (2,1,1)
• Lost Netherpup (2,2,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Direflame -

• Eternal Strider (P/S 1,2,1)
• Electrified Razortooth (1,2,1)
• Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P 2,2,2)

Patch 6.2 So Far...

It's been a couple of days since Patch 6.2 was released and I've managed to make good progress collecting the new pets.

All of the wild pets are now in my pet army, including the two elusive "only one spawn at a time" pets (Crimsonwing Moth and Sapphire Firefly). The latter two took me some time to find, and to be honest it was getting pretty frustrating towards the end of my search. I'm glad I managed to find both before I raged quit though. Neither was rare when I captured them, so I had to burn two upgrade stones on them.

With wild pets, the new menagerie vendor pets, and Nethaera's Light and Fel Pup checked off my list, all that's left are the RNG pets. That is, the drops, the rep grinds, and the missions/garrison campaigns that I have to wait to pop up. I'm already making a dent on the dropped pets though.

On day one of the patch I managed to complete Tiny Terrors in Tanaan, although I kind of cut it close to the daily reset. But can you blame me? It took me literally hours to complete all 15 in one sitting. Nevermind how difficult or how long each battle was, the travel time is what made it especially painful.

Some of the pets are hidden away in obscure and hard to reach areas, most of which are surrounded by level 100 mobs (sometimes elites). Being the first time I traveled to each one on live, I didn't quite know the best ways to get to a few of them. It didn't help that the in-game map isn't exactly accurate when it comes to terrain and geographical obstacles. I can't count how many times I ran into an impassible hill or crevice, and then had to make a wide circle to go around. Yikes did it take time.

But with that achievement under my belt, I've basically said screw doing the full route. Each day since, I've only traveled to 6-9 legendary boss pets. Less on my alt because she doesn't have Aviana's Feather, and more on my main because she does. See the image below for the path that I take daily; I start at the Vault of the Earth flight path.


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If I have time and I feel up to it, from the last point I Aviana's Feather to the four boss pets in the north, near the Throne of Kil'jaeden. I completely skip the two outlying ones because pft. And I mean, 13 out of 15 isn't bad at all. That's 13 bags and 13 possible chances of getting a pet. :3

Speaking of the bag-dropped pets...


Yesterday the Periwinkle Calf dropped for me! My first one from the Fel-Touched Pet Supplies. I believe it dropped after my 22nd bag.


And today, after completing my route of 9, the Nightmare Bell dropped. :D I'm especially excited about today's pet because it's the only one from the bags that isn't a re-skin of an existing pet. Plus I struggled an unusual and frustrating amount on some of the later fights today. I normally don't have too much trouble on these fights, but an uncommon P/P snake with 8 rounds of Fel Corruption was kicking my ass for a while bleh.

So I'm very grateful and pleased that something awesome came out of my efforts. Made the failing worthwhile. :P

I've heard a few complaints about the legendary boss pets, and how little of a challenge they are for some. But "hard" and "easy" is relative isn't it? Someone with deep knowledge about breeds and counters will have a much better time than someone who doesn't. Same for those with a large pet collection versus someone that only has a few.

One thing that I can somewhat agree with is that there isn't a lot of necessary variation between strategies used for these new legendary battles. You can pretty much use the same teams (or a very similar team) for battles against boss pets of the same type. Up against one of the flying ones? Sentinel's Companion, Emerald Proto-Whelp and maybe one other to round it out, if not the Dread Hatchling. The same can be said about the other pet types, and the Emerald Proto-Whelp is pretty much MVP for all my boss pet teams.

I'd still categorize these encounters as decent as far as end game content goes, though. With rotating backline pets that have rotating abilities, and a tough frontline legendary boss pet (some that come back to life for a few more whacks at you), I'd say your novice and average Pet Battler will probably take a couple of attempts (if not more) to get some of these pets down. Naturally, veteran battlers won't have much trouble, but maybe the long travel time makes up for that? :P

Anyway, that about sums up my 6.2 experiences so far. I'm soooo looking forward to collecting more pets!

The Look-a-Like Challenge - The End

With the addition of the Magic Pet Mirror in the upcoming 6.2 patch, the Look-a-Like Challenge series is done for.

The new toy will allow you to look like any of your (combat) pets, making the search and need for NPCs that look like pets unnecessary. I'm excited for the Pet Mirror in 6.2, but at the same time I'm a little sad to see this project come to an end.

It was a fun challenge and I thoroughly enjoyed the hunt for NPCs to turn into. Some of them required a lot of brainstorming and testing.

Thank you to everyone that provided helpful information on different pet look-a-likes, and thank you to my OH for assisting with the tougher costumes.

I look forward to doing a new, similar challenge/project, whatever that might be! (Any ideas/suggestions are welcome :D)

Collecting Reputation Pets In Patch 6.2

Wowhead has some new guides that will interest collectors in 6.2. Order of the Awakened and The Saberstalkers. Both factions have pets for sale but only to those with the right reputation.

For the Order of the Awakened, it seems as though there's only one main way to earn rep - complete the daily quest Unseen Influence for 1500 reputation.


You won't want to miss a day since you need Exalted with the faction before you can buy the Blazing Firehawk.

At the rate of 1500 per day, it'll take a total of 28 days of dailies. If you're lucky enough to come across a Medallion of the Legion it will cut down your grind time by roughly one day per medallion.


The Saberstalkers might be an easier rep grind, if you don't mind killing (elite) mobs over and over that is. You need to defeat blackfang NPCs in Fang'rila for their claws (the currency to buy Savage Cub) anyway though. Only Revered is necessary and you'll need 1500 claws.

It's tough to estimate how long it will take to reach Revered since there's a few different mobs that you can kill. The majority will reward 30 rep each, while the Fang'rila rare elites give 600 a kill. On top of that there's a weekly quest that rewards 3500 rep.

If you complete just the weekly, it'll take you 6 weeks to reach Revered. But it's almost certain that the grind time will be less since you have to kill the NPCs for claws and will earn reputation alongside that.

And of course, the Medallion of Legion mentioned above can be used for this faction too.

Keep in mind that all of these values are before any reputation bonuses, such as the buff from the level 3 Trading Post. I don't know if Order and Saberstalker reputation is affected by rep modifiers, but I'm hoping so!

Graves Collected!

Update: This little guy is just full of surprises!

Developer Jeremy Feasel pointed out on Twitter that Graves responds to not only /dance, but also /cheer, /talk, and /roar. Tried it out in-game and I feel bad for roaring at him because he ends up cowering. :( Still cute though :)

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After a day of waiting (and some worrying), I finally received Graves! Wheee!

I logged into Heroes early this morning and was prompted with a notification that I had earned Graves (and the Hearthstone card back), so of course I had to log immediately into WoW and collect my little golem.

He may not have been able to help in the battle in Heroes, but he can come help me in Pet Battles instead! In just a few stone tosses (ok, maybe 24) Graves was quickly level 25. :)


Graves has some interesting animations. He idles about and also occasionally sits down. If you emote /dance at him, he'll do a cute little dance on his tiptoes (pictured above).

Additionally, he'll cast his signature telegraphed stun move and then stomp the ground (pictured below). If you've played Heroes before, you'll recognize this is the same move that Graves' larger counterpart does down in the mines on the Haunted Mines map.

     
It doesn't actually do any damage or stun, though. How neat would it have been if it had a daze/stun effect (but not an actual stun) like when Nuts throws acorns at you? Would have been really appropriate. :)

Overall, I'm pretty please with Graves. I haven't tried him in Pet Battles yet, but I hear he's decent. I don't know if he's an OP "must have" like a few other promotion pets though.

Regardless, I'd still recommend collecting Graves. It took some grinding in a game genre that I wasn't familiar or comfortable with, but it was worth it. He's got neat idle animations AND player interaction. Plus his flavor text and background gives me the feels in my heart-space...even if he's not the prettiest pet. :P

Blizzard is slowly working on sending out this pet to everyone (those eligible should have it by the end of the week), so check your Heroes account every now and then for the achievement prompt.

Good luck to everyone still working towards collecting Graves!

Crimsonwing Moth and Sapphire Firefly: One Always Spawned

Last week developer Jeremy Feasel (aka: @muffinus) responded to the concerns voiced about the upcoming Crimsonwing Moth and Sapphire Firefly spawns in 6.2. I tested it on the PTR, and at the time the moth did not have an instant respawn once one was captured.

"They were intended to be instant-respawn, fixed. There will always be one up."

It's great that these two wild pets have an altered spawning mechanic and they won't be exactly the same as the Unborn Val'kyr. Having at least one up at all times will make it a little less painful to hunt for.

I'll be honest and say that I'm still not thrilled about the way the pets are being implemented, but at the same time I'm grateful for this change to the original Valk spawning. It's as good a compromise as we'll get.

What will this mean for collectors, though? Once all of the pet spawns are discovered, there will be a lot of camping, sitting and waiting and server hopping. It will be a free-for-all, first come, first served. This in itself could be frustrating for some, especially those on a PVP server (yikes), but it's probably the lesser of two evils in this case.

I'm debating whether or not I'll be the first ones out there hunting for these two pets. Or if I should wait a few weeks until after the initial excitement dies down. Normally I go with the former. Word of new pets doesn't spread as quickly as a flashy new mount, and I've found that participation in the search for pets mostly picks up rather than dies down after the first few weeks. Only after maybe months does the interest waver.

Anyway, we'll see how I feel. Since these two pets are nothing spectacular and I'm not all that enamored by their spawning mechanic, I may just put it off until I've collected all the other 6.2 pets.

Then again, the itch to collect them all straight away might be too much to bear. My obsession with pets might compel me to sit for hours on end waiting for these two pets, against my better judgement. Well, that's what developers are hoping for right? Silly collectors like me who will do almost anything for a pet heh.