You Do Not Meet The Requirement

Khorah from WarcraftPets asked a really good question about the vanity pets that have unique functionality that will be accessible to all toons in MoP. Namely the Argent Squire and Gruntling as well as the Guild Herald and Page. Will these companions behave the same way regardless of the toon you summon them on?

The simple answer: Nope!

Currently you can summon these pets on any toon (regardless of faction), but unless you've purchased the Argent Pony Bridle for the Argent Squire/Gruntling on the toon you're summoning the "pet" on, you won't have access to his additional mail, vendor, and banking features.

The Guild Herald and Page are in the same boat as the Argent companion. Unless you're on a toon that's in a guild, the vendoring aspect of these two pets won't be available to that particular toon. You can still summon them, but they will just be humanoid companions without any additional vendoring ability.

Side note: I'm still not sure if we'll actually be able to summon cross faction pets once MoP goes live. At the moment, I can summon my Argent Squire just fine while on a horde character on the beta. This might be changed in a future build, though. We'll see.

I'm also unsure if you'll be able to "use" these companions' additional features if you DO meet the requirement(s) but they're of the opposite faction. Asking an alliance Guild Page to sell stuff to your horde character seems kind of strange. And how on earth do you coax an Argent Gruntling to accept a Pony Bridle that was purchased from and meant for alliance lol?


Fun fact: If you do summon a cross faction pet and try to talk to him, the speech will be jumbled jargon. Very fitting and amusing!

I'm not sure whether or not I'm for or against being able to summon a horde pet while on an alliance character or vice versa. I think it's pretty interesting for RP purposes (I'm thinking something like, "I captured this alliance and now he's my prisoner of war!" lol), but it does feel a bit out of place at the same time.

It also puts pressure on collectors to create toons for the "other side" just to collect a companion. Not everyone is against jumping through hoops for their collections, but some might feel disgruntled about having to level up to the appropriate level for the Argent pet and reputation grinding with a second guild to acquire the Herald and Page.

But to each their own! Personally, I'll be working on my alts to gather as many pets as I can, regardless of faction.

PS: For those who already completed the pet collecting achievements on one toon, you'll be able to summon the reward pets (such as Nuts) on all toons in MoP. This is due to the fact that the completion of these achievements will be cumulative across all your characters.

Happy Patch Day Collectors!

i just bought my armadillo pup and guild herald. i'm thrilled! just some things to note on both pets:


armadillo pup

- doesn't make any sound.

- its idle animation is... *drum roll* it curls up into a little ball! but don't worry, he won't be shy for too long and will gladly unfurl to chase after you if you leave its side. :P

guild herald

- this man... pet... is on the same cooldown as the guild page. the herald is on a shorter cooldown than the page (4 hours vs. 8 hours), but they still share the same cooldown lockout. interesting.

- he sells the guild rewards also like the guild page.

- the only differences i can see between the two is the clothing that they wear. on-click vocals. ...haircut?

- other than that, it's a clone of the guild page. heck, they even cost the same amount of gold.

Patch Soon, Hooray!

according to mmo-champion, patch 4.0.6 will be released this week! in addition to the change to both the armadillo pup and guild herald (will only require revered reputation with your guild to purchase after the patch goes live), here are a couple more tidbits on what's to come:

- Additional animations have been added to the Armadillo Pet guild reward.
- The Disgusting Oozeling no longer applies a debuff which reduces defense, a deprecated stat.

i'm quite excited for the armadillo pup! i'm not even sure what the original animation(s) was for this little one, but adding even more is intriguing.

unfortunately, there is still no mention of the united nations "bug" and if there will be a "fix" for it or not. it's frustrating and aggravating, but my hope is that blizzard is delaying any response on this issue to give themselves some extra time to work on the dark phoenix hatchling and make it more unique/desirable. am i being too optimistic? well, we'll see.

Another PTR Patch 4.0.6 Update

well it looks like another guild rewarded pet will be receiving a change in the next patch. there was already an announcement that the armadillo pup will only require a revered reputation (down from exalted) with your guild to purchase, but now it seems the guild herald will also be following suit.

The guild faction requirement on the Guild Herald has been lowered to Revered reputation. - source

however, with no hint as to when patch 4.0.6 will be released onto live servers, if you've been maxing out your guild reputation each week (from day one of cataclysm) and/or if you're human, you should be reaching exalted status in about 3 weeks or so anyway. in the end the reduced amount of rep required for these two companions may not even affect some players (so long as the patch isn't released any time soon).

i think most can rejoice in the changes, though. with these two pets needing revered in the next patch, that leaves only the dark phoenix hatchling requiring exalted, which seems pretty fitting.

i'm really excited for the armadillo pup, though. possibly more so than the dark phoenix hatchling. why? well the phoenix is still a phoenix, despite it being a dark purple instead of a fiery orange. it's basically a color change of an existing model. the armadillo pup, though? it's an entirely new critter, and an adorable one at that if the beasts wandering around in uldum are any example or hint as to how the vanity pet will look like. new doesn't always equal better, but it's certainly an exciting prospect! :D

First Month of Cataclysm

this first month of cataclysm has been a busy one, but i think i'm done with the new pets that are "farmable", and now all that's left are the ones that i'll just have to be patient and wait for.

pebble or the armadillo pup should be next, but it will depend on how soon patch 4.0.6 is released and whether or not my server gets more pebble dailies between now and then. my guild is awfully close to unlocking both the dark phoenix hatchling and the guild herald, so i'm expecting to see those two soon too.

by the time all's said and done, my hope is that the northrend children's week quest will be fixed and i'll finally be able to adopt a curious wolvar pup. plus there's also the possibility of new cataclysm children's week quests with even more companions? y/y? yes please! :D

strangely enough, my predictions for which new pets i would obtain first and last in this expansion were completely off. the ones that i had planned to make a priority somehow ended up towards the bottom of my list, while those with initially low priority surged to the top. go figure!

my collection's never quite complete, as usual, but for now i can take a moment to simply enjoy my new companions. i love hanging out in stormwind while waiting for guildies for a dungeon and just watching my pets chase me around. do i have a favorite cataclysm pet? hm... not yet. they're all really awesome.

all of my older pets get some loving too, of course. that's what the "summon random pet" macro is for! :)

Guild Herald and... Moonkin Pet?!

mmo-champion has found a possible upcoming beta build (13202). some changes were made on how the guild herald is obtained:

- Profit Sharing now requires 100,000 gold, up from 50,000 gold. Now rewards the Guild Herald companion pet.

- Saving For A Rainy Day now requires 200,000 gold, up from 100,000 gold. No longer rewards the Guild Herald companion pet.

oh and did i mention...

- Moonkin Hatchling - Right Click to summon or dismiss a Moonkin Hatchling.

*_* yes, you read that right. a moonkin hatchling. if i didn't know better, i'd think 'extremely late april fool's joke? or.. an extremely early one?'

no other information on this pet yet, but you can be sure i'll be stalking all the beta databases and the beta itself in an attempt to find out more!

Pets With... Cooldowns?

so mmo-champ is reporting that in the most recent beta patch the guild page and the guild herald companion pets will have pretty long cooldowns. 4 hours for the herald and 8 hours for the page. according to their tooltips, these two companions only last 5 minutes once summoned, so it makes me wonder with such long cooldowns and short durations... how on earth do we classify them? are they TRUE companion pets, or are they to be considered more in line with an item like jeeves? (should be noted that jeeves is listed under "combat pets" on wowhead.)

this is somewhat of a puzzle for me. obviously jeeves is NOT a non-combat pet. it definitely does not meet the requirements to be even considered a companion. let's refresh our memory on what it takes to be a vanity pet (as defined by warcraftpets.com):

to be considered a TRUE vanity pet..