Tag Archives: magic

Lunar Festival Lantern

The Lunar Festival in WoW is loosely patterned on the celebrations that occur on the Lunar New Year in many Asian countries, with most of the customs portrayed hailing from China. Notable among these for pet battlers is the Lunar Festival Lantern. Over the course of the holiday, you must visit Elders for special tokens. You can then take those tokens and use them to purchase Lunar Festival foods, the high-necked brightly colored gowns and pantsuits, fireworks, and of course, the Lunar Festival Lantern. It’s… oh, what’s that?

Yeah, there’s a slight issue here. The reason I personally have the one and not the other is that, since the advent of account-wide pets, I’ve mostly been playing Horde. Once a character has collected 50 coins, Valadar Starsong in Moonglade sells Horde players the Festival Lantern, and Alliance players the Lunar Lantern. I never really got around to collecting enough coins, involving quite a bit of laborious travel around the continents, on my Alliance character.

If you’re only looking at the movesets, the two are identical. They also share moves with the Enchanted Lantern battle pet which, true to the previous gripe, is crafted by Horde-only enchanters with 525 skill, and all 3 battle pets have identical stats as well. The Alliance enchanting pet, the Magic Lamp, has a vastly different moveset, but identical stats. Luckily, all 4 are also cageable, so if you are diehard FOR THE HORDE, and refuse to even so much as roll an Alliance DK for fast flight and easy Elder NPC visits within a couple hours, you still have some options. Also luckily for the gold makers, like all pets they are account-wide and still command a pretty penny, but especially so if you sell them cross-faction. All 4 also start off as uncommon when attained, making for a really nice payday if you have some flawless Magic upgrade stones kicking around.

These lanterns never really had a heyday as battling pets, but they do have a few tricks. They have a really cool 1-2 punch with the blinding Flash and double-hitting when blinded Light. Sharing Light’s slot is the blocking move Soul Ward. Soul Ward works really well against big single hitters, but falls flat against multi-hit opponents because it only blocks one attack. The alternate in the second slot is Illuminate, which causes the Sunny Day weather effect. The Lanterns don’t have a move which really benefits from the sun, so you may want to pair this pet with something that does.

Both first slot choices are straightforward nukes. Beam is Magic, Burn is Elemental. The former hits slightly less hard and has a slightly higher accuracy as a result. This choice is largely dependent on which pets you’re fighting. If you’re up against any Mechanical, without Burn your lantern is a sitting duck.

In the end, the benefit of this pet is more cosmetic than anything. Like the Elders, it is a peaceful memory of a time gone by.

Legs

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Legs is one of the newest kids on the Childrens’ Week block, so he’s likely the one you’re missing, if you’re missing any. He was added to the Shattrath orphan roundup in 2011.

He’s quite unique, in that he’s a Magic pet with a mix of Magic and Aquatic abilities. The very new Tiny Blue Carp from fishing (mandatory uuuugh) is the only other pet I’ve run across which has a mix of magic and aquatic. The Carp is aquatic though, so it’s vulnerable to the flying pets which would be hurt more by the magic damage.

The aquatic abilities used by Legs are the very strong nuke Pump and the CC ability Whirlpool. He has a similar magic CC ability in Gravity. Surge of Power is a huge magic nuke, but a risky one as you have to ‘recharge’ after using it. Laser and Focused Beams are his bread & butter damage abilities. He doesn’t have avoidance abilities, so he’s pretty much a glass cannon.

Even though he was the last to be added, to me he’s the one that makes me reminisce the most about the Burning Crusade expansion. Sure, Peanut kinda looks like an elekk, and there were those beholder mobs in that one Tempest Keep dungeon. Zangarmarsh was one of the most unique environments Blizzard has designed thus far though, and Legs looks like he was directly lifted out of the swamp.

WTB 4 Fertile Spores PST. Ah, memories.

Legs is obtained by doing the Outland Childrens’ Week quest given by Orphan Matron Mercy in Shattrath City.

Willy

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Children’s Week is coming soon (the start date is 4/29 this year), so as we get closer I’ll be doing posts on the pets you should grab first if you’re starting from zero. Some of these pets have unique movesets that make them valuable for any collector. It’s not that I don’t like Speedy a whole bunch, but for the most part, a turtle’s a turtle.

All the Childrens’ Week pets start at Uncommon quality, so you’ll need a stone to make all of them rares. However, they’re all tradeable too, so you may be able to snap up an improved one from the AH.

Aside from being a clumsy penis metaphor, Willy is the only currently attainable non-combat pet which resembles a classic d&d Beholder, which could make him useful for RPers. Even more unique, one of his idle actions among others zaps other players’ pets into oblivion with an eyebeam. If you’re in the AH or a raid with the gratingly cheerful Singing Sunflower, bring out Willy and see if he can do something about it.

But sometimes, he doesn’t feel like it. Clearly this is my kind of pet.

As mentioned earlier, Willy’s moves make him unique. He’s Magic, so he defends well against Aquatic. Magic attacks are strong against Flying, but he has a varied toolkit, dealing Critter and Undead damage as well. All this make him a fairly strong leveling pet for a newbie, especially if you run along the coasts fighting aquatics.

You get him from the OG Childrens’ Week quest from either Orphan Matron Nightingale in the Cathedral District of Stormwind or Orphan Matron Battlewail in the Drag (lower level, beneath the inscription trainers) in Orgrimmar.