dinosaurs | BattlePetRoundup.com

I thought all my walkthroughs on the Timeless Isle were complete. I kicked back with a well-earned chocolate chip cookie and waited for the patch. I was excited to get my mini Xuen, run around in the Shrine of Seven Stars for a while showing it off, and make a small fortune on new glyphs. Then, I see this jerk.

Look at that smug little face. I’m guessing that the trigger to seeing his daily is something along the lines of defeating Aki, but I’m really not sure. I’d heard occasional discussion about him during PTR, but never saw that he had anything for me, so I kind of ignored him. I’m kicking myself over this now, trust.

Tommy Newcomer only has one pet. So we should totally take pity on him, right?

WRONG.

Lil Oondasta is the pet equivalent of, well, boss Oondasta. With a very strong AOE and a force swap, she is a brutal fight. Luckily, she’s only one mob, and you can heal and re-try as many times as you need to get her down. For 500 Timeless Coins and 20g. Ugh.

Here’s the team I ended up using:

Oondasta has 3 abilities, and her 2 most deadly are Magic: Frill Blast (force swap) and Spiritfire Beam (the AoE). She backs that up with Crush, which is a big hit in itself. Because of the humanoid nature of Crush, trying to use my Golden Hatchling in concert with the Clockwork Gnome was met with a hearty ‘lol u mad’ from Oondasta.

The reason I like the Zeppelin and the Mechanical Dragonling should be fairly obvious. Decoy is an amazing ability this fight, and I want to abuse it as much as possible. I definitely screwed up a bit on the Dragonling’s moveset though… Frill Blast will always swap in the Zeppelin for me, because of the higher health, so unless I manually swap for a Fly By, I’m not going to use it to buff others, and the Dragonling doesn’t really have other moves to buff itself. Though there’s not a ton of damage we have to do, the breath ability will probably make for a cleaner fight.

The reason I go with the Tonk is that, because of the force swap if I use Ion Cannon off the bat, Oondasta will then immediately swap him to the back row for the recharge turn and the vast majority of the cooldown I have before I can cast it again. If I return to the front row on my pre-res turn, I can also get in a Shock and Awe for a hopeful-maybe stun. Oondasta is slower than all my pets and only has single hits, so once she kills my mechanicals the first time, they’re guaranteed at least one extra hit. As long as they don’t die in the back row, anyway.

I really liked using two Decoys. I don’t think that both are entirely necessary, especially given the relatively paltry firepower on the Dragonling. Explode as a mechanic is a really excellent tool for single fights, so I would definitely recommend using at least one of these pets.

The Tonk is a little more debatable. You can definitely try subbing in either the Menagerie Custodian or the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, both of which use Ion Cannon. They’re a bit less sturdy, but it’s still an option. If you go with the Yeti, you may want to opt for Thunderstorm instead, and pair it with a Clockwork Gnome’s turret. In general, as long as you have a good amount of mechanical offense and aren’t caught off-guard by the force swap, you’re going to be in good shape.

A final note: I don’t like writing strategies with pets which are prohibitively expensive or difficult to get without at least offering a solid alternative (eg, Emerald Proto-Drake can be substituted for the Emerald Whelpling in most settings). With that in mind, the Son of Animus, specifically Interrupting Jolt, really shines this fight in place of the Tonk. I want to stress that this investment isn’t necessary, but I can generally keep that last pet alive entirely (well, minus an AoE or two) if I use Animus here.

The Isle of Giants is now live, which means there are 5 new pets out there just waiting for a good home. So, I got suited up for a new adventure.

The shoulders are to help me blend in with my surroundings. This is some big game hunting we’re about to do, and we really need the camouflage. You’ll see. I mounted up, fired up some tunes, and headed for parts unknown.

Well, slightly unknown. To get to the Isle of Giants the first time, go to Zouchin Village in Kun-Lai and start flying north. You’ll start to get fatigued, don’t panic. Because you aren’t allowed to use your flying mount on the Isle, once you cross over into its waters, you will be dismounted, but that’s cool, just turn into a whale if you can and keep swimming. Oh, YOU can’t turn into a whale? Well, keep swimming anyway. You’ll make it. Probably.

Once you get there, make sure to pick up your faction’s flight path on either side of the beach that greets you as you swim up: Alliance in the West, Horde in the East. Aw, they’re slant-wise named after one of my favorite dinosaur video games of all time, Bubble Bobble. I wonder why. Hmm.

Oh man wait, there are dinosaurs here! In fact, therAAAAAIIIEEEEEEE!

Besides exploring and getting smashed to bits by enormous dinosaurs, there are 2 things for pet collectors to do. You can kill dinomancers for the adorable pets they drop. There are 4 tiny baby raptors wearing helmets. They will soulbind to you as items, but you can cage them and sell on the AH if you get too many of one type while waiting for the one you don’t have yet to drop. As of now they’re ranging ~300g, but that should drop shortly, as hunters also need to kill the dinomancers for the very rare book that allows them to tame the direhorns on the island.

For me as a moonkin, the dinomancers can be tricky. They have an ability which heals them to full, but they only cast it when they’re above 50% health. It’s a relatively short cast, and if I screw up my interrupt with a minute-long cooldown (seriously, a minute? siiiigh) I basically have to wait that minute. However, once they go down below 50% health, they stop casting. Why?

Let’s just say it’s kind of difficult to cast a heal when you’re a triceratops.

So, why even kill these guys, if it’s difficult and you can buy those silly raptors off the AH anyway? Well, look up 2 screenshots. See that bone? Yes, I said bone. Stop giggling. That bone is currency. You go here, in this cave on the map, to do so.

You can trade in 1 bone for like 2g, 10 for a mote of harmony, or 999 for a spectral porcupette. Once you get all your baby raptors though, I’d consider switching over to killing direhorns, as they drop far more bones per kill and also have a chance to drop an egg. The eggs haven’t been fully datamined yet, but from the anecdotal commentary on wowhead, it seems like they’ll contain mounts and other goodies.

There are many other goodies and places to see on the island. I recommend seeing the boat (with a full group and a tank), as well as just general exploration. Unfortunately there aren’t any pet battles to do on the island, but the ambiance is jus–