More WoD Previews From LeCraft

LeCraft Tweeted another teaser of what's to come in WoD.


"If you see this on PTR, don't worry... we'll be adding way more trainers to it."
It would appear that the developers have decided to implement the Elekk Plushie (perhaps as is) and award players who can defeat difficult trainer battles with this pet on the active team with an achievement. This was a pretty popular request by players once news of the plushie pet and its inability to be efficient or useful in battles started to spread. I guess developers liked the idea and decided to run with it!

Personally, I have mixed feelings. I'm up for the challenge but I still can't help but feel bad for a helpless stuffed animal/pet. As a child my toys were never the ones that got beat up, they always won the battles damnit. Even against each other, I made sure they all had a fighting chance... unless I didn't particularly like/enjoy the toy. I adore all my in-game pets, so I just feel guilty and somewhat sad knowing that I'm sending a less than optimal battler into a fight.

Anyway, hopefully the achievement will be interesting to complete and not too much of a pain.

Another tidbit LeCraft mentioned on Twitter is a nod to a fellow pet lover, Eleanor Wroblewski (aka: @undeadgoat on Twitter). This ghostly goat is appropriately named Eleanor and will be a "boss" pet that players can battle against. :D

There are quite a few nods to pet collectors/battlers and ideas from the community that are already popping up in WoD, and it's always nice to see more! Wowhead has a huge list of other community references -- just search for the word "pet" and you'll find many other awesome ideas that originated from pet lovers. :)

This Past Week In Pet Stuff

I recently received some bad news about a guildmate passing away, so these past couple of days have been tough. However, some interesting pet tid-bits have popped up that are worth mentioning.

- Someone found an adorable critter in the WoD alpha, a Vent Scuttler. It looks like it uses the same model as Fankriss the Unyielding, a boss in AQ40, just sized down. Hopefully this little guy will be turned into a wild pet that we can capture in Draenor -- I think it qualifies as a pretty SAVAGE looking bug. :P

- The Disgusting Oozeling proves yet again that while its debuff aura might not be desirable, the aesthetic effects are. Try taking out your oozeling while mounted on Reins of the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent, and it will look a lot like Yu'lon. Other mounts look pretty neat too so experiment pairing the oozeling with others.

- For those that have yet to get lucky doing the fishing dailies, El of El's Extreme Anglin' Tweeted that the Strand Crawler will be available in WoD from your garrison.

"WoD: Strand Crawler is a possible reward from the Garrison Fishing Shack daily."

- Changes were made to how players can collect Bloody Coins, making gathering enough currency to purchase the Vengeful Porcupette somewhat easier. The Censer of Eternal Agony was actually nerfed, but the Fire-Watcher's Oath was buffed and is much easier to obtain. We'll see how this affects the supply of porcupettes in the Auction House in the future when the Timeless Isle is all but abandoned.

- Last but not least, a small tribute to my guildmate. Your spirit will forever live on, my druid-tree-bear-kitty friend. You'll be missed dearly.

Accuracy Changes and WTB Killer Stuffed Animal

Another patch was released for the alpha and there were tons of accuracy changes for many pet attacks/abilities and a new pet was added.

Hit More, Miss Less
The accuracy changes come after a recent discussion on Twitter about hit chances versus damage ranges. Based on the feedback LeCraft received (which was overwhelmingly for higher accuracy/less RNG for hit) he Tweeted that the updates were implemented in the latest alpha build.

Wowhead has a full list of all the abilities that were changed, as does MMO-Champion (in a different format). I think nearly ALL abilities listed saw their hit chances go from less than 100% to 100%, which is wonderful considering even a 90% chance to hit will cause frustration due to unfortunate misses.

Because of the increase in accuracy to these abilities, the damage ranges were also altered (lowered) slightly. Judging by all of the responses to LeCraft's initial Tweet, though, I don't think many battlers will mind the damage changes (if exchanged for a better chance to land the hit).

We'll see if all of this sticks after more testing. So far the response to the accuracy changes have been well received. You could say it's a "hit" :P

Now if only something could be done about the "hit chance" of your capture crate when battling wild pets.

New Tailoring Pet
A new pet was added to the Pet Journal, an Elekk Plushie. Since the Pet Journal is still incomplete on the alpha, LeCraft gave us a preview of what it would look like.


Tailors will be able to craft it, but the item is BoP. Currently the pet can be caged, though, so yay for us non-tailors! No recipe has been implemented for it yet.

Initially, this pet sounds pretty adorable, yea? It's a plushie of a baby elekk, how could it not be fluffy and cute? LeCraft mentioned some additional details on this pet that makes the cute-factor a bit sad, though.

"Well, it's a *regular* stuffed animal. Which means it just sits there and stares at you when you summon it." - Tweet

"And when you take it into pet battles... well they are all imaginary abilities. It just takes a beating." - Tweet

After learning this, it seems like it would be a little heartbreaking to send the Elekk Plushie into battle. I wouldn't want any of my pets to go into battle if they didn't stand a fighting chance at all. :( Except maybe if it was a pet rock. I would assume that a pet rock would be really difficult to "kill" (defeat) since it's... a rock and can withstand even the largest of hits. The only attack it would truly be susceptible to is perhaps some sort of crush that smashes it to pieces.

Anyway, it was revealed that because this pet would be the first of its kind (not a real battler, but can still battle), it's still undecided if this pet will actually be implemented.

"Yeah, we were worried people may not think it was funny. It may not make it."

Personally, I'm torn between being excited for a new profession crafted pet and sad that an adorable stuffed animal will get beat up in a pet battle. One person suggested that perhaps the Elekk Plushie should join the ranks of the other no-battling pets, like the squires, balloons, and kites. I wouldn't object to that, but at the same time I wouldn't mind seeing a fierce little stuffy kicking butt in a match. Maybe tailors should join forces with engineers and sew on some rockets/additional weaponry to the plushie pet. :P

Pet Battletaur
Last but not least, as mentioned in LeCraft's Tweet on the latest alpha patch, a new NPC was placed near the pet batttle trainers in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Pet Battletaur is a new vendor that provides players with batttlestones that increase pet level to 25 and raise quality to rare. This is likely only for alpha, and is meant to aid players test new pets/changes. The Mythical Battle-Pet Stone is BoP and not consumed when used. Very convenient for testing!

I doubt that this particular leveling stone will make it onto live servers, but we'll see. Maybe it will be an extremely rare find/drop. There are other versions of leveling battlestones that raise your pet's level by one only, which seems more reasonable for release.

First Wave of WoD Alpha Invites Out!

The Warlords of Draenor public alpha is now open! Yaaay!

Disclaimer: Be wary of phishing attempts on your account, and use discretion when opening any emails. Best way to check if you received an invite to the alpha is to log into Battle.net and check your account management page. On the right hand side (under the giant green "Add a Game Key" button) there's a link for Download Clients. Under World of Warcraft you should see a download link for "Beta Game Installer". Download, run that and your B.net launcher will be updated with an option to install and play the alpha.

Anyway, new stuff! It's not much but it's a nice start. Many of the previously datamined pets were added to the Pet Journal, with one new addition, the Albino Chimaeraling. Previews of the new pets aren't implemented in the journal yet; maybe we'll see them in the next update. Details of where each pet will be from were added, though. Keep in mind that they're still works in progress, and everything's subject to change.

Grovestrider Hatchling - Drop from Draenor

Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar - Engineering crafted

Iron Starlette - Engineering crafted

Mechanical Scorpid - Engineering crafted

Mechanical Toucan - Engineering crafted

Carrotus Maximus - World drop from Valley of the Four Winds (this is likely inaccurate and will probably be updated)

Lil' Leftovers - Cooking crafted

Weebomination - Unknown drop

Albino Chimaeraling - Looted from an egg from Shadowmoon Valley (Draenor)

Royal Peacock - Achievement reward (Draenor Pet Master)

All pets listed above are currently cageable but that will probably change.

Wowhead lists a few other new pets but I suspect that they are either NPCS or they won't be obtainable. Examples include an undead pet named Eleanor and what appears to be a clone of the Treasure Goblin, named Puzzle. Evil Widowling could be a new pet that wasn't included in the Pet Journal this time around but we'll see!

A notable new addition is Hogs which Wowhead currently lists as the in-game gift for WoW's 10th Anniversary. If it is it will probably be a small version of the infamous NPC Hogger. I'm thrilled to see this and I hope it's true! Any pet to help celebrate the upcoming anniversary is very much appreciated. :)

Other than the new pets, there aren't a lot of Pet Battle updates in this alpha build. There's a small UI change when you target a wild pet and then right click its portrait.


It's not a huge change and there aren't any new options in the drop down menu. We'll see if there's more to this change later down the road.

That's it for now - I'm sure I've missed something haha. I'm really excited to be on the alpha and I can't wait to discover and test more pet stuff soon!

Guardian Cub Retired From Blizzard Store Soon

Blizzard just announced that the Guardian Cub will soon be retired from the Blizzard Pet Store.

"In approximately two weeks (no sooner than June 18), the titanically cute Guardian Cub will vanish from the Battle.net Shop and head into hibernation in the Blizzard Archive."

If you have yet to buy one, maybe now is the time. The Guardian Cub isn't going anywhere in-game. If you own one, you own it for good. And there will always be others selling/trading the cub in the future. Prices may go up as time passes, though. Something to consider.

This is the first pet to be directly pulled from the shelves, and I can't help but scratch my head and ask "why?"

The Guardian Cub is unique compared to its Pet Store brethren. Unlike the others, it can be purchased and after a cooldown period (24 hours) the cub can be traded to other players. It was essentially a Blizzard-sanctioned method of buying gold. Pay for the pet with real money then sell the pet in-game for in-game currency.

The implementation of this pet seemed like an experiment of sorts. Let's see what happens when we do this! Initially the response the pet received was polarized. Some thought it was a good idea and might actually help curb the illegal sale of gold from third party sources. Others didn't share that sentiment and only saw it as another cash-cow (cash-cub?) that would disturb the balance of the in-game economy. Eventually I think the community came to accept the Guardian Cub as just another part of pet collecting, regardless of how it was obtained.

None of its history provides me with clues to an answer to "why?" though. I can't seem to come up with any possible ideas as to why Blizzard has decided to retire the Guardian Cub now. Did it cause more headache than it was worth? Was there an overall negative impact on the in-game economy? Did Blizzard simply run out of generated codes and decided it wasn't worth it to continue producing them? Was it not as lucrative as they had hoped/invested in?

I don't expect any real answers, which is fine. Blizzard doesn't have to explain every decision they make. It does leave things open for speculation and wild imaginations though. Maybe the code for the Guardian Cub was slowly taking tangible shape and becoming sentient? :P

But seriously, I'm a bit sad to see this pet leave the store. It's adorable and was unique in that it gave players a legal route of acquiring gold in-game for real life money. If this type of pet really was just an experiment, who knows if we'll see another tradeable pet in the Pet Store any time soon. It was the first of its kind and it could be the last.

An Unexpected Find

Today I went out and captured some new Yellow-Bellied Bullfrogs (secondaries in battle) to test whether or not they would maintain their captured size. Originally i was going to simply edit my previous post to add an update on my findings, but in the process of testing I ran into yet another wild pet that comes in different sizes lol.

Much like the bullfrog, the Golden Civet Kitten can come in two sizes, big and small. They also retain their statures even after captured.



So that's another set of pets added to my collection heh.

As for the Yellow-Bellied Bullfrog, it appears that newly captured secondaries are keeping their sizes. That would be a good thing except now I want to keep both the large and small version plus my size-changer. I guess it's not really a bad thing except that my Pet Journal will quickly fill up if there are more cases similar to the bullfrog one. And my journal will feel a little more cluttered than normal.

Although I don't usually name wild pets (there are just too many!), I felt that these needed names for quick referencing (between the big one and small one). Luckily the bullfrog and civet kitten only come in two sizes, so "senior" and "junior" fit quite well. :)

Why You Little (Large?) Yellow-Bellied...

A user on the WarcraftPets forums pointed out another wild pet that comes in different sizes, the Yellow-Bellied Bullfrog. Unlike the Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling, this pet only comes in two sizes, big and small.

After learning about this I set out to capture a second bullfrog. My original one is the large version, but it didn't take me very long before finding a small one. I quickly nabbed it and then placed both the original and the new bullfrog on the same team to get a better size comparison (like I did with my gryphon hatchlings).

Only then did I notice something odd occurring. The first battle with my froggy team went as planned. Big bullfrog went first, small bullfrog was second. Great, but oh drat, the screenshot wasn't the best. So I tried again. The second battle had me scratching my head since both frogs looked exactly the same size. So I tried again. And again. And again.

To confirm my suspicions I ended up simply summoning out my original "large" bullfrog and placed it next to random frogs.



The images above show only one bullfrog next to the wild one (the green one is mine, red one is wild). Yep, my original is a size-changer.

So far I seem to be the only one with this issue. One possibility, as Peanutty suggests, is that my frog was a secondary pet in battle and captured before the fix was implemented so that pets retain their captured state (color and size).

The dilemma now is do I keep the second Yellow-Bellied Bullfrog that hasn't had any issues with maintaining its small stature, or do I release it since I have kind of have both sizes in my original frog? I'm leaning towards releasing the new one. If they ever fix my size-changer, it's not as though it will be too difficult finding another bullfrog, right? I can easily go out and capture the size that I don't have.

This incident makes me even more curious about the hundreds of other wild pets out there. Are there any other pets in my collection that are size-changers too? What sizes am I missing? If only there was an efficient way to check them all. I guess I'll have to continue relying on the awesome pet collecting community to keep me informed. :)

Get Your Very Own Lovable Leafy Companion

The Blizzard Pet Store is having a small sale and the Blossoming Ancient is 35% off of its original price. For $6.50 you can basically have 4 pets in one! :P

Not only do the pets have their own unique look for each season, they also have a different idle animation too.

- Spring = spreads flowers on the ground around itself
- Summer = beam of sunlight shines down on it
- Autumn = casts falling leaves from its branches
- Winter = creates a small snow flurry around it

For those still seeking the seasonal-exclusive pets the Blossoming Ancient can also be an in-game timekeeper. Unsure what season it is? Summon out your ancient and its leaf color will remind you!

This sale ends June 3, so don't put off adopting this pet for too long. If you get one now, you'll be just in time to appreciate both its spring foliage now and then its summer colors mid-June. :)

WoD Alpha: New Achievements and Pets

UPDATE: Looks like there are two new battlestones for testing - Training Beast Battle-Stone of Testing and Training Battle-Stone of Testing. These stones are epic quality and instead of raising a pet's rarity, it allows a pet to gain one level upon use. Interesting!

MMO-Champion is reporting a new WoD Alpha build. Datamining has revealed a couple of new pets and some new (test) achievements.

New Achievements
The new achievements fall under the "Battle" section and involve unique challenges for battlers. Note that most of these have the prefix "[TEST]" and may still be works in progress. The end result might not be what we see today.

Beast Beat-down - Finish a battle with a Beast ability.

Hydraulics - Win a pet battle with an Aquatic and a Mechanical pet on your team. 5 points.

If One Is Good... - Win a battle with 3 Vengeful Porcupette pets.

Survivalist - Win with three pets alive!

We've Got a Bleeder! - Win a pet battle with Bleeding as the final damage.

The requirement trend for these latest achievements seems to be a special trick or maneuver to earn a win. I could see this becoming a thing, evolving to include more and more difficult feats. Win a battle using only damage over time attacks! Or.. Outlast your opponent with only avoidance and heal moves! Use 3 Viscous Horrors to win a...err... maybe not that one. :P

It's kinda fun to think about the different challenges developers might come up with for us, and ways to complete them. I bet the devs will have just as much fun brainstorming ways to stump and infuriate us. XD

New Pets
The two new pets that were included in the latest alpha patch are the Grovestrider Hatchling (BoP) and Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar (BoU). I'm pretty curious about both pets, since a grovestrider makes me think of a Darkmoon Strider (but maybe more SAVAGE?), and a the boar most definitely sounds like an engineering pet. It would be our first true boar companion, even if it's mechanical.

I'm torn between hoping for a traditional boar model or a new SAVAGE one. Call me crazy, but those little baby swine are kinda cute. Then again, a mechanical anything will likely not be on the cuddly side. Unless you're a gnome. Pretty sure they cuddle their wrenches at night as they sleep. :P

A Tremendously Terrific Trio

I was recently made aware that the Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling comes in three different sizes. They retain their size even after capture, meaning you can have all three in your collection.

This may or may not be a well known trait of this wild pet, but I was completely in the dark. Unless I'm using the same pet as the one that I'm facing, I often don't notice any size differences. Maybe I'm just not that observant. :P

After I found out about this neat little detail, I went out and captured the two sizes that I was missing. To reduce the guess work, I added my existing gryphon pets to my team so I could compare it with any of the wild gryphons I came across.

A great tip that Peanutty mentioned: if you find the Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling as the secondary pet in battle, but it's not the right size that you were looking for, simply forfeit and reengage the battle. Much like different wild pet colors, disengaging and reengaging the match changes the secondary pets' attributes.

Once the new gryphons were secured, they were immediately upgraded to rare and leveled to 25. I normally don't name my wild pets (there are just too many!) but these guys were special. Since I don't know any trio of famous/noteworthy gryphons, I named them after Scrooge McDuck's nephews from DuckTales (Huey, Dewey, and Louie). If Blizzard adds three duck pets in the future, I may have to find different names for them. XD

The best way to compare and view their size differences is by putting them all on one team and engaging in a pet battle.


During the battle you can easily identify the largest of the three, while the middle-sized and smallest one are harder to tell apart.

The BEST way to see the size variation is at the end of the battle, when all three line up in a row.


That moment is fleeting though and I had a hell of a time trying to get a screenshot of their lineup lol.

It's been a while since I had something to collect, so this was a fun mini-adventure. If there are any other wild pets that come in different sizes (and maintain the varying sizes after capture), let me know! There's no question about it, they MUST be added to my pet army. :3