Monthly Archives: August 2014

Draenor Tamers

A very new addition in this Warlords of Draenor beta build is a set of 6 tamers out in the world. These tamers have battle pets that are quite a bit easier than the very challenging Menagerie fights we’ve seen to this point. They give two-pet carry XP identical to the fights in Pandaria. Most of them are close to flight paths. For now, these tamers are kind of secret. They aren’t listed on the map at all, so it’s up to tamers to seek them out if they’d like to try their luck. These locations will be revealed in a later build, but for now, here are some maps to help you find them.

Frostfire Ridge Tamer: Gargra

Gargra has 3 super adorable frostwolf pup (beast family) battle pets in tow. Her location is the oddest, but if you follow the path around the back side of Grom’gar and hug the rocks on the north side her blue exclamation point should show up. Click here for my level one (or Elekk!) carry strategy for Gargra.

Gorgrond Tamer: Cymre

Cymre Brightblade, named after the illustrious Cymre Jones from Bubbles of Mischief, has an array of archaeology pets. She’s also squatting in a ruin with her archaeology gear and some really fun flavor text. With both an undead and mechanical on her team, dragonkin and elementals are good picks. Click here for my walkthrough of Cymre‘s very difficult fight.

Shadowmoon Valley Tamer: Ashlei

Found by @gloriaboboria

This team made me a little sad. Ashlei is a new tamer with a few really adorable pets, including the completely useless plushie Doodle. All the cute snugglies are on a plateau overlooking the Embari Village, but easily accessible from a cross-faction flight point. As of now it’s a pretty quick & easy fight, as long as you can get past the heartache of making a little girl very disappointed. Oh, that flavor text. Click here for my strategy for Ashlei, including a mutually-assured Elekk Carry.

Spires Of Arak Tamer: Vesharr

Found by @serrinnewow

The easiest to find once you hit the right level, Vesharr is visible on the minimap from the shared-faction flight point in Veil Terokk. He has 2 flying battle pets and a mechanical, appropriately themed for Spires of Arak. Click here for my strategy post for Vesharr, including an Elekk Carry.

Talador Tamer: Taralune

Found by @patf0rd

Taralune is on a platform surrounded by flowers, near Auchindoun. Her team is 3 moths, so as long as you have the battle pets to counter a moth you’re pretty well set. Click here for my strategy post for Taralune, which is a 2-pet Elekk Carry, also suitable for leveling pets.

Nagrand Tamer: Tarr

Found by Quintessence (@perksnpeeves)

Tarr is in a building toward the back of the Ring Of Blood. His pets are a few of the more recent Murky iterations. They actually have pretty decent synergy among them, but a handful of Undead battle pets will still make quick work of them. Click here for my strategy to defeat Tarr The Terrible. This is a 2-pet leveling strategy that also works well for our Awfully Big Adventure.

Crow – Warcraft Pets PotM

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The battle pet I wrote about this month for Warcraft Pets was the Crow. Besides being real excellent ambiance, and a good frill for a lot of classes & races in RP, the Crow is a deadly fighter worth adding to your stable.

Crows are a bit difficult to tame, just because of their limited timeframes and unique spawning pattern. They bring an additional fun minigame to the Darkmoon Faire, already chock a block with games.

I will admit though, that I’m still a bit partial to the Gilnean Raven. My main is a Worgen, so I have that bit going for me. I was also lucky enough to snag the P/S variant. If you weren’t that lucky, that would be an excellent reason to try & tame your own Crow. Check out the full post over at Warcraft Pets and you’ll see what I mean.

Gnawface

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New for 8/24/14: Good News, Everyone! In the latest beta build, Gnawface has been significantly nerfed to be more forgiving. As a result, I changed the screenshot featuring his stats (click here to see Gnawface’s old stats). I also re-tested the teams below and they all still work like a charm. Oddly, I’ve found that now the weird cats team at the bottom seems to be the most straightforward. Who would think, right?

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Gnawface is the first pet I’m going to write about that you must defeat in your garrison in order to open the Menagerie. The Menagerie is available to anyone as soon as your garrison reaches level 3. These battles are a part of the quest Pets vs Pests.

I know that everybody is going to want to open up their Menagerie, because who wants an uncompleted question mark on their record? The thing is, these fights are hard, and though I obviously can’t be sure, from the nature of the other battles I’ve seen it seems that the intent here is to show that the fights to come are no joke. If you can’t get these guys down first go, that is absolutely OK. Don’t be discouraged.

There are many teams you could use to beat Gnawface, and I’m going to highlight a couple, just because, as I said, this is going to be attempted by tamers who are not all that hardcore. Hopefully you can cobble together a team to defeat him.

Team 1: Humanoids A Go-Go.

The Kun-Lai Runt is tamed from Kun-Lai Summit & starts at level 23 or so. Bonkers is from gambling with Timeless Coins in Kukuru’s cave on the Timeless Isle. The Little Bad Wolf is the trickiest. It’s tradeable and obtained from the Big Bad Wolf in Karazhan. Both Little Bad & Bonkers start at level 1. All 3 are Humanoid, which means Gnawface’s critter abilities hit them weakly, and all 3 have a good complement of Beast abilities, meaning they hit Gnawface harder than normal. Lil Bad & Bonkers both have Dodge moves, making them last a very long time against Gnawface. If possible, use those dodges just as Gnawface’s Darkness wears off, because Call Darkness will hit your Humanoid pets for a lot of damage.

This team is the most straightforward for newbie tamers to use. No tricks or gimmicks. Just use your offensive moves, your defensive moves when needed, and this team will clean up.

Team 2: Moar DoTs

The Crunchy Scorpion is tamed in the Dread Wastes. The Obsidian Hatchling is sold for 50g in Dalaran. The Summit Kid is tamed in Kun-Lai Summit. There are some good substitutions for all 3 pets, because we’re really focusing on 1 ability for each. From the Scorpion, Sting is a long DoT which deals Beast damage. There are other scorpions and a couple snakes which fit this bill. From the Hatchling, Expose Wound increases each hit of that DoT by 74, so a DoT that ticked for 100 will now tick for 174. There are a number of other raptors that do this, including the tamed Cogblade Raptor in Blade’s Edge. The Summit Kid uses Stampede, which hits 3 times for 120 total damage on its own but applies Shattered Defenses, which doubles the damage done at the end of the Kid’s turn. Expose Wounds alone makes each tick of Stampede far more powerful, but with Shattered Defenses each tick of Stampede does over 200 damage. Add in that Sting and you’ve got yourself one dead rat.

This strategy is a bit more suited to experienced battlers, though the pets are easier to obtain. You have to swap each pet after it uses its designated ability or else the combos won’t line up properly.

An important point: Because Gnawface is a critter, both immobilize and stun effects will not work here. This means that some popular pets are ineffective. Namely, Spiders cannot web him & then use Spiderling Swarm for double damage.

Team 3: Like, Cats Or Whatever.

IDK, just a whole bunch of cats, or whatever. Pounce generally has better throughput than Claw, as long as your battle pet is faster than Gnawface. This is why I put Claw in the 2nd slot… if your cat is slower than Gnawface, Claw can help give you that edge regardless. You’ll have to experiment with your various cats to see whether you can pull off Prowl and still be quick enough to get it to hit. This team is by far the most susceptible to failure due to various RNG happenings & breed can be a huge consideration, so I’d consider this my last-ditch attempt. But hey, how often can I talk about just like, dozens of cats?

If you’re struggling here or have any questions, feel free to leave a comment to this entry, or ask me about it on Twitter (@Liopleurodonic). It’s a tough fight. If you can’t get it first go, have some boxed wine and come back later. Unless you’re underage, in which case don’t you dare let your parents know that Auntie Lio is the coolest ever.

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Here’s the video walkthrough:

Christoph Von Feasel

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Everybody (yee-eah)
Rock Your Body (yee-ah)
Feasel’s Back, alright!

Oh my god, he’s back again. Warlords of Draenor is adding an additional Feasel, and this one is far more insufferable than his relation directly to the left.

Gross.

Like Jeremy, Christoph Von Feasel is located in the Darkmoon Faire, and will fight you in exchange for one of their Darkmoon-branded tokens. Or, at least, his battle pets will fight yours. Here’s the team I used:

Feasel’s first pet, Syd, is a Magic pet with a lot of Aquatic offense. There isn’t a good Magic pet to defend against Syd’s onslaught with enough firepower to beat Syd, so I opted for the Emerald Proto-Whelp. It combines both heals and an avoid with a decent Dragonkin offense. Syd uses Whirlpool on every cooldown now, so I find both heals and avoid to be rather key. The Spawn of Onyxia or Wild Jade Hatchling moveset dragons are a good pick here too.

As said before, Syd will use Whirlpool on every cooldown, so it’s important to use your avoid and your heal when necessary. He will also cast a full-block on hit bubble, so you just need the longevity to burn him down.

Feasel’s next 2 pets are both beasts, but their abilities make each unique. The reason I went with the Tonk is simple: Lock-On. Because of the Direhorn’s incredibly annoying shield, many normal abilities are fully blocked by it, so you can’t just pick whatever mechanicals willy-nilly. Lock-On is an activated ability which hits extremely hard after being primed, so I use those down turns to begin Lock-On and cast a couple of his other abilities, then blast Mr Pointy’s face off in full when his shield wears. There are a few other pets with this ability, or similar ones. Launch Rocket is fairly similar. I also like having Minefield available to make a big dent in the next pet without a ton of effort on my part, but that’s just gravy.

I’m not sure about other battlers, but Mr. Pointy was by far the source of the most cursing on my part.

Christoph’s 3rd pet, Otto the Cow, has a combination of hard-hitting abilities and Feed, which means you want to blitz him down and quick.

Lil Bling, my favorite battle pet of the expansion apparently, is up to the task. Make It Rain and Inflation go together like peanut butter, chocolate, and dessert wine. He also has Extra Plating for extra longevity, which I typically use so that I’m ‘safe’ through the Inflation turns.

After you beat Feasel The Fireworksier, you get a new Darkmoon pet bag. Mine contained the same old standard battle pet & Darkmoon gunk as that other Feasel’s. The new pet Syd The Squid also has a chance to drop, much like the Darkmoon Eye.