Happy Year of the Pig

Keeping it short and sweet this year.

Happy Year of the Pig. Wishing everyone happiness, good health, and prosperity. :)

Gnomeregan Pet Dungeon - Pets Used For Each Encounter

I'm pretty much done collecting the Gnomeregan Pet Dungeon pets, but I wanted to leave this here for future reference in case I decide to go back.


Pets I use for Gnomeregan Pet Dungeon:

1. First encounter - Felclaw Marsuul, Fire Beetle, Crispin
2. Ice elemental encounter - Lead with Shimmershell Snail
3. Poison elemental encounter - Lead with Abyssal Eel
4. Fire elemental encounter - Lead with Rusty Snail
5. Console encounter - Scooter the Snail (Shell Shield), Silkbead Snail (Acidic Goo), Lost Platysaur
6. Rat encounter - Lead with Barrier Hermit (P/S)
7. Cockroach encounter - Lead with Saurolisk Hatchling
8. Undead Rat “boss” - Elusive Skimmer, Infected Squirrel, Whiskers the Rat
9. Mechanical wolf encounter - Lead with Enchanted Cauldron
10. Mechanostrider encounter - Lead with Gooey Sha-ling
11. Mehcanical tiger encounter - Lead with Orphaned Felbat
12. Last boss - Servant of Demidos, Tinytron, Spawn of G’nathus (or any pet with Lightning Shield, Fire Shield, or Heat Up)

For enemy backline pets, follow a general rule of thumb:

• Mechanical with the “turret” attack - use a pet with a ‘thorns-type’ ability (Lightning Shield, Heat Up, etc.), preferably not an Elemental pet
• All other mechanical pets - use any pet with elemental attacks
• Undead - use Aquatics with critter attacks (or Dust Bunny (P/S))
• Critter - use any hard hitting Beast attacks do the trick (Fel Piglet and Thaumaturgical Piglet)

8.1.5 PTR: New Pets From Raiding With Leashes VI, Children's Week, DMF

DMF balloon companions cannot battle and are not cageable.
We're kicking off 2019 with a new PTR cycle. Patch 8.1.5 PTR is up and new Pet Battle content was added.

At least 20 new pets so far:

• Raiding with Leashes VI: Pets of Pandaria (Mogu'shan Vaults, Terrace of Endless Spring, and Heart of Fear)

- 11 dropped pets and 1 meta-achievement reward

• Children's Week updates

- 4 new pets

• Darkmoon Faire additions

- 3 new pets

• Last but not least, 1 pet from "A Quest"

Some of my personal favorites/highlights of the RWL6 set.
Full list of 8.1.5 datamined pets can be found here.

The Pet Journal doesn't list specific bosses for the RWLVI pets yet. It's interesting that there are only 3 MoP raids listed for the achievement too. The last raids, Throne of Thunder and Siege of Ogrimmar are missing from this set of RWL pets. Will these 2 raids get their own RWL treatment? Or will they simply not be included? There are a number of pets that already drop from these raids, but we'll have to wait and see if they'll be grandfathered into RWL or if they'll stay as separate, standalone drops. Whatever Blizzard decides it may set precedence for future similar situations where pets are released as drops from raid bosses ahead of that particular raid's corresponding RWL achievement.

List of existing MoP-raid dropped pets (Throne of Thunder & Siege of Orgimmar):

• Blackfuse Bombling
• Droplet of Y'Shaarj
• Gooey Sha-ling
• Ji-Kun Hatchling
• Kovok
• Living Fluid
• Living Sandling
• Pygmy Direhorn
• Son of Animus
• Viscous Horror

The Brawler's Guild will also be making its return. No new pets from there so far, but the 2 previously released pets (Clock'em and Tylarr Gronnden) will be available again. Same requirements as before.

That's it for now. They only announced the return of the Brawler's Guild and Children's Week updates during last year's BlizzCon preview of 8.1.5, but it's possible more Pet Battle content (even more than RWL6?!) could be added in this upcoming patch. We'll have to wait and see.

Island Expedition Pet Trading

Here is a list of duplicate Island Expedition pets that I have.

Last updated February 18, 2019

Pets I have available to trade:

• Giggling Flame x4
• Playful Frostkin x3
• Mischievous Zephyr x4
• Captain Nibs x3
• Snapper x6
• Sandshell Chitterer x4
• Thistlebrush Bud x5
• Deathsting Scorpid x3
• Thunderscale Whelpling x4
• Laughing Stonekin x3
• Sparkleshell Sandcrawler x2
• Littlehoof x2
• Kindleweb Spiderling x2
• Bloodstone Tunneler x2
• Sunscale Hatchling
• Inky
• Snort
• Kunchong Hatchling
• Muskflank Calfling
• False Knucklebump

Pets that I need:

• Leatherwing Screecher - TY Rohannah!
• Rotting Ghoul - TY @ArchmageV!

Save the Dates - Battle of Dazar'alor Raid Pets

There are 4 new battle pets from the Battle of Dazar'alor raid:

• Child of Pa'ku - drops from Conclave of the Chosen encounter

- January 22 Normal and Heroic
- February 12 LFR wing 2

• Spawn of Krag'wa (Mythic only) - drops from Conclave of the Chosen encounter

- January 29 Mythic

• Thunder Lizard Runt - drops from Conclave of the Chosen encounter

- January 22 Normal and Heroic
- February 12 LFR wing 2

• Enchanted Tiki Mask - recipe drops from King Rastakhan encounter

- January 22 Normal and Heroic
- February 12 LFR wing 2

It's unclear if the non-mythic pets will drop on all difficulties, and if the Enchanted Tiki Mask enchanting recipe will drop on all difficulties. We'll have to wait and see.

You can view the official Blizzard BoD raid preview and schedule here.

End of Year Thoughts

Normally I'd try to go into the New Year hopeful for the upcoming year. Unfortunately, I don't think I can force myself to be positive this time around. Apologies if that's what you've come to expect from me. Upbeat and optimistic - really can't pretend to be that for anyone right now.


2018 was miserable for me personally and IRL (and it still is, even on the eve of 2019), and I have to admit it was pretty discouraging in terms of pet collecting. I'm definitely grateful for all of the new pets implemented; lots of fun and interesting ones to collect. But the negatives outweighed the positives in BFA, so it was difficult, and often impossible, to ignore or overlook the frustrations of collecting.

To be completely frank, it feels as if BFA has killed my desire to pet collect. I think it's a lot of little unfavorable factors in this expansion compounded onto each other that's led to this feeling. Mainly the loss of player agency, the ever-moving goalpost being pushed so far out that you're not even sure where to aim anymore, and the overwhelming sense that it doesn't actually have to be this way... but it is. Because money and the game-ifying of gamers.

I won't speculate how things are run or why certain decisions are made. Let's just say that I don't agree with a lot of the design choices in BFA so far. This is just my two cents, but instead of enticing and keeping many in the game, it's actually pushed many away. Many collectors have simply quit. Some have continued to stick it out. BFA is not an overwhelming success story in regards to satisfying collectors, in my opinion.

It wasn't all bad though. BFA was the second largest influx of battle pets at the release of an expansion, coming in behind only MoP. Some pets had some interesting stories, while others felt engaging enough despite being tedious or annoying to collect.

My desire to create content for my blog has dwindled, unfortunately. Maybe my enthusiasm has waned? Time has been an issue, and a lot of the time I'm basically writing duplicate things for WarcraftPets and my pet collecting blog. So there's also that. I don't blame this on BFA though. My slowdown probably started in Legion, although it wasn't as bad as it is now. If you followed for content, apologies. All I can recommend is to keep up with WarcraftPets for pretty much the same content, with less of a personal touch.

I still have opinions about all things battle pet and Pet Battle related. Less of a desire to share or explain them though. Feels like a lot of it just falls on deaf ears, and much of it are thoughts and opinions that I've held for years.

And I still enjoy my little companion friends, and I have a handful that I especially like to have at my side while adventuring in-game. Regardless, I'm finding it harder and harder to motivate myself to collect. Again, you can only entice people with a carrot on a stick if they can actually see the carrot.

Too much hyperbole and "feelings"? Oh well. Can't say I'm in the right mood or mind to argue or convince anyone of anything. So whatever. Agree to disagree and leave it at that.


(To be fair, I rolled 2 other times for his responses. Both results were just as negative, except they didn't really answer the question properly.)
Goodbye 2018. You sucked. Hard. And I really don't have much, if any, hope for 2019. I genuinely feel that it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

I don't plan on quitting pet collecting any time soon. Just... I don't know. Blah. Perhaps I'm merely projecting my unhappy RL onto my gaming life. Or maybe it's a reflection of each other. I don't know.

All the best to everyone else though. If you have hope and motivation, hang onto that. Keep collecting if you can and if it still brings you pleasure. Something, something... have a safe and happy New Year.

How to Prepare For Patch 8.1 Pet Collecting

Things to do to prep for 8.1 (coming week of December 11):

• lvl a toon with Engineering skill of at least 125 (new crafted pet)
• grind to Exalted on a toon (or all toons?) for Proudmoore Admiralty (A), Order of Embers (A), Talanji's Expedition (H), and Storm's Wake (A) reputations (paragon cache dropped pets)
• save all/any reputation-granting items/quests for the reputations listed above
• save up at least 500 dubloons (2 new known vendor pets + 1 new pet toy)

Things to do to prep for post-8.1 content:

• lvl a toon to 120 + Enchanting skill of at least 125 (new crafted pet, recipe drops off of King Rastakhan encounter (#6) in upcoming Battle of Dazar'alor raid, unsure if from all difficulties)

All of the above can be disregarded if you have lots of gold and/or are planning on trading for some of the new battle pets. Pets related to the above are all cageable.

Did I miss anything? Please let me know!

These are the main things pet collectors can start working on now. I'll update this list if anything else pops up or comes to mind.

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Overview of 8.1 Pet Battle content (available immediately after patch-release):

• Gnomeregan Pet Battle Dungeon (Normal & Challenge mode)
• Family Battler challenges
• New Pet Journal increase, Interdimensional Pet Portal (requires already having upgraded to Pocket Pet Portal)
• New Island Expedition pets
• New Warfront rare elite dropped pets

Breakdown of sources for upcoming new pets:

• 7 vendor pets (all require unique currency, not gold)
• 2 achievement pets
• 2 profession pets (Enchanted Tiki Mask won't be available until Battle of Dazar'alor raid)
• 1 wild pet
• 1 quest reward pets
• 29 dropped pets
  

  - 4 from paragon caches
  - 8 from Darkshore Warfront
  - 10 from Island Expeditions
  - 4 from misc new rare mobs
  - 3 raid drops (unavailable until Battle of Dazar'alor raid)

BlizzCon 2018 Notes For Pet Collectors

Quick notes on things announced, previewed, or hinted at during BlizzCon 2018 WoW 'What's Next' panel, plus my own speculation. Focusing on topics and stuff that pet collectors/battlers will likely be interested in.

December 11 is when we can expect Patch 8.1.5. Notable previously unannounced content for pet collectors in this patch:

• Children's Week updates - Kul Tiras and Zandalar orphans (could this mean new/more battle pets?!)
• Brawler's Guild returns - Unknown if the 2 existing battle pets will still be available to purchase from the Brawler's Guild vendor, and/or if there will be new additions.

NOTE: Much of Patch 8.1 has already been datamined and previewed. Lots more than just the above is coming; this is just stuff that was not yet revealed until today's panel.


After that, next major content patch will be Patch 8.2.5 (Rise of Azshara):

• New continent to discover/explore, Nazjatar - new battle pets (baby naga!)
• Mechagon Megadungeon - 8 bosses, Mythic only, but there was brief mention of new rewards *cough* pets...?
• More Island Expedition maps - Very likely more pet rewards, but it's unknown how we'll obtain them.

And last but not least, where do I submit my official request for this creepy squishie-tentacle-eyeball-boi to be a collectible battle pet? :P


That's it for now. Will update if there's anything else!

New Charity Pet 2018 - Whomper!

I haven't made a blog post in a while - most of the new/news stuff lately goes onto WarcraftPets, so I felt it was a bit redundant to also write a personal blog post about it.

But today is a special day, BlizzCon 2018! And they JUST announced and released a new battle pet! Whomper!


Whomper is this year's charity pet, with 100% of the adoption fee going to Code.org (through December 31, 2018). It's a nonprofit organization that focuses on computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and minority groups.

There is also a separate Whomper plushie that you can buy! Proceeds from this toy will also be donated to the nonprofit organization listed above.

I have to admit, although he's a cutie, I'm a little disappointed. Whomper's idle animations are pretty much the same as the animations for grummles and/or pygmies. So it's not an entirely unique battle pet. Nonetheless, he is adorable (and HUGE - screenshot above is without any pet biscuits) and I will adopt him without any hesitations. :)

We'll have to wait and see how much this pet (and plushie) raise for charity. For a full list of previous charity pets (and toys), here's an updated list from last year.

Island Expedition Pets: A Discussion & Suggestions

Edit: Coincidently, developer Jeremy Feasel Tweeted this tonight, almost right as I finished up this post! Apparently drop rates might have been adjusted, although it's not clear what reward exactly has been increased. Doubloons? Azerite Power? Pets/mounts?

Seeing more drops on your Expeditions?

— Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) August 30, 2018

I still stand by what I've written below, but it's good to see developers acknowledging some adjustments will/could be made to make Island Expeditions a more enjoyable experience. Still, I hope Blizzard takes into consideration what I've discussed.

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There are a total of 28 battle pets (one of which, Inky, is pictured above) that randomly drop at the end of an Island Expedition. Six of these are not cageable. At least one of these that we know of comes in multiple colors (permanently stays a color when adding it to the journal, NOT a color-changer), and players can receive duplicates.

To put it bluntly, many pet collectors attempting to collect these pets are finding it extremely underwhelming and un-fun.

It's currently unclear what factors affect whether or not players have a CHANCE to be rewarded a pet at the end of an Island Expedition. Yes, a chance, not even a guarantee, as players have met certain criteria multiple times (such as win or play on a specific difficulty), yet cannot produce consistent results. This makes it frustrating because it feels as if there is zero progress being made toward the end goal: collect all Island Expedition pets.

It would help collectors feel much more inclined to continue the search for these pets if there were known factors to help guide them.

• Does Island difficulty matter? If so, how?
• Does winning vs losing mean higher chance for a pet?
• Do players need to defeat specific mobs during the scenario?
• Do players have to beat the other team by a certain margin or in a time limit?
• etc.

Any other information would be helpful and appreciated so collectors know they're not doing the "wrong" thing and are on the right path. No one likes to feel like they're wasting their time, and the feeling of realizing you could have been doing X instead of the incorrect Y is devastating.

This combined with how awkward Island Expeditions can sometimes be, especially if in a PuG (it's a miracle if all members actually stick together and work as a team, instead of wandering off to do their own thing), makes these scenarios fairly tedious and not fun. Many collectors view it as a grind for the sake of a grind, with only the tiniest hope of a pet at the end.

Giving collectors some information would absolutely give them a better idea of 'the how and what' rather than giving the generic advice to, "just run more and hope RNG is on your side." Knowing and understanding the factors would make it feel less hopeless and lacking in progress, which would make it a bit more enjoyable.


Some Suggestions
In addition to letting collectors know 'the how and what' as noted above, I wholeheartedly would love to see these Island Expedition pets available for purchase with doubloons some time in the future. We don't have to call it a "catch-up mechanic", but ok, who are we kidding. It would be a catch-up mechanic.

At the moment, I'm finding very little use for doubloons. I only very rarely buy the consumables that slightly boost my performance during an Expedition. There's just nothing really compelling me to do so. So in the end, the currency is starting to stack up and yet I don't have any real meaningful and fun way to spend them.

It would be mercy upon all collectors if the Island Expedition pets could be bought with all of this new currency that we're accumulating. Especially toward the end of the expansion. Most of the time all we get is Azerite Power as a reward for completing an Island Expedition, but when Azerite Power doesn't matter as much anymore and would therefore be a less than mediocre reward, what's a more appropriate reward than to offer up pets to purchase in exchange for all of your hard-earned doubloons?

Collectors would still need to grind these scenarios to collect doubloons; it's still random whether or not players receive any currency at all. There's no suggestion for a "freebie" here.

Offering the option to buy the Island Expedition pets with doubloons would also give collectors a concrete objective. A tangible objective more often than not provides more motivation to grind out activities because players can actively see their progression. It would feel more productive, fun, and a better experience overall.

Another suggestion that I've seen float around is to increase the drop rate of the pets, period. My only problem with this is that it doesn't necessarily address the problem with the piling up of doubloons and nothing fun to use them on.

Not to mention duplicate pets can drop, and some would probably prefer having more control over which pets they receive in order to round-out their collections. Missing the X-colored pet? Ok, well I'll focus on collecting enough currency to buy it off the vendor and try my luck there.

Edit: Another suggestion, "bad luck protection" for Island Expeditions. After X number of runs (could even be a range, such as 10 - 20 runs, so as to keep it RNG-esque) you're more likely to get a pet reward than not. Something like this could work too, although the RNG aspect of it could still prove frustrating.


In Closing
Island Expeditions are a neat concept, and in theory are quite fun. I could see this being taken to the competitive stage. However, many collectors do not care to be the #1 Island Expedition-runner in all of NA or whatever. As the actual achievement suggests, "I'm [only] Here for the Pets". :P

Some additional information would go a long way to helping collectors feel more willing to run these scenarios endlessly. Many are not against a grind, but if progress is invisible it makes it more difficult to continue.

Many collectors would appreciate some consideration toward the Island Expedition pet rewards. Allow us to purchase them with doubloons - this will not take away from participation, as we'll still need to grind Expeditions for an RNG chance at currency. It will provide a specific goal for collectors, tangible progress, while also making use of the already existing currency.

I hope Blizzard takes all of this into consideration and gives it some thought. Some compromise would be appreciated - I want to enjoy this new feature, and hopefully I've outlined how it can be improved. :)