A Wild Dread Hatchling Appears!

The MoP Digital Deluxe was officially archived today. It's no longer available from the Blizzard Store. But with this end, a new beginning—the WoD pre-orders are now available. Purchasing the Digital Deluxe will reward both the pet and mount immediately, so be sure to check your in-game mail!


Confirming previous datamining, the Dread Hatchling does indeed have a brief heart animation over its head when you mount up on either the original Raven Lord mount or the new Dread Raven.


Each time I see this, I imagine it chirping, "Are you my mommy/daddy?" :P

Unexpected Bug
The Dread Hatchling is currently cageable, however, this is a bug that will be fixed soon. There are also reports that relogging after caging will result in a new pet in the mail.

I'm not sure how Blizzard will resolve this issue after fixing the bug. There are already mentions that the hatchling is popping up in Auction Houses on multiple servers. Will all cloned hatchlings be removed from the game? Will players that sold their pet receive an infraction on their account? Will they be able to re-acquire the pet or will it be gone for them forever?

In any case, it's not advised that you cage and sell/trade your hatchling. It's unclear what the consequences of doing so will be. You could lose your hatchling completely. :(

All I can say is that out of respect for the game and for the developers, keep your Dread Hatchling safe and sound in your Pet Journal.

Edit: Apparently if you purchase a caged Dread Hatchling without having already purchased the CE or Digital Deluxe, you cannot use the pet. This is a good solution for all of the duplicate hatchlings without having to manually go through and delete them.

UPDATE: A fix was implemented within the hour of the discovery of the bug. The Dread Hatchling cannot be caged now.

5.4.7 PTR: Warlords of Draenor CE Pet Datamined

There was a recent PTR update, and an absolute gem was datamined! The Warlords of Draenor Collector's Edition pet is...*drumroll* the Dread Hatchling!

WowInsider posted a video of what it will probably look like since the version in the PTR Pet Journal is merely the Anzu boss model. It still resembles the Raven Lord and shares strikingly similar body structure to the Ji-Kun Hatchling, but you can't deny that it's absolutely adorable.


You can also check out a video preview of the Dread Raven Mount in the WowInsider link as well. It appears to be a combination of a protodrake, skyscreamer and Anzu. There's already a mount that you can acquire from the Raven Lord himself (heroic Sethekk Halls only), but unfortunately that mount does not have the ability to fly while I'm guessing the Dread Raven will.

Wain from WarcraftPets brought to my attention something interesting relating to the original "raven mount", a spell called Dread Hatchling Love Trigger. If the spell name is any indicator of what it may do, it sounds as though the Dread Hatchling will "love" (floating hearts over its head?) the mount version of itself. Interestingly enough though, instead of interacting with the new Dread Raven Mount, this love spell is tied to the original raven mount. It's possible that this is to give a small nod to mount collectors that have obtained the original version, so as to not take away from their achievement and prize.

On the battling side of things, LeCraft Tweeted a teaser of the hatchling's abilities and stats. I'm not a battling expert so I can't comment on this pet's potential, but it does seem to have similar moves to the Gilnean Raven and Crow. With so many healing comps running amok in PVP, another counter is probably be appreciated by the battling community.

I'm pretty eager to get my hands on this cute little birdy, but will have to wait since a release date hasn't been announced yet.

It's curious to me how the WoD CE pet is essentially a baby Anzu, so I'm wondering how that ties in with Draenor. Did the Raven Lord come from there? Are there other creatures similar to him wandering around the draenei world? What significance does he have in the upcoming expansion? I can't wait to find out the answers!