Tag Archives: quested

Rotten Little Helper

Macabre Marionette

A brand new holiday pet! And this one is super cool and useful as a battler. Be still my beating heart!

Oh. Yeah, that is kind of an insensitive turn of phrase to use here.

The reason it looks like it’s waving in that screenshot is because it also does the Undead headbanging dance. When I was fooling around with it on PTR, any time we stopped moving, it started dancing with its wee little maracas. It also dances through battles when it’s not performing an action. I wasn’t lying when I said it’s cool.

So, what’s the catch? Its quest is only available for two days a year.

The Macabre Marionette is available as a part of the Day Of The Dead festival, loosely based on the Mexican holiday Día de Muertos, but previously it wasn’t a companion pet per se. It was an unlearnable item in your bags which spawned this little dude, like the very old school companion pets. It disappeared once the two-day festival was over. It looks like Blizzard changed their mind for this year, and the Marionette will be trainable as a battle pet at long last.

In order to see the spirits and obtain the Marionette, you have to go to the graveyard of the city where your racial quartermaster is. This is especially confusing for Worgen, whose leader hangs out doing nothing in Stormwind while their ‘home’ tree thinger and quartermaster is in Darnassus. Most other races are relatively straightforward. Trolls, Orcs & Goblins go to Orgrimmar, Gnomes and Dwarves go to Ironforge, etc. The graveyards in Dalaran and Shattrath allow all comers, too.

Before you leave the city for the graveyard, you should grab at least one Simple Flour and one Ice Cold Milk. The quest objective is a Bread Of The Dead, the recipe for which is obtained in the graveyard for 20s. Note that you can only cook the bread over a special blue campfire located directly near the vendor. The other catch is that in order to see the quest NPC at all, you have to use a Marigold. Marigolds are cheap, but have an extremely short duration. You can repeat the quest multiple times on the same account during the holiday, and can do it with any level character, but you cannot do quests in multiple locations (eg, going from the Worgen spirit in Darnassus to the Dalaran spirit).

It’s really not much of a hoop to jump through, but it had best not be for such a tiny window of acquisition. Though, luckily, it is tradeable, so if you repeat the quest a few times on a few characters you may be able to make a quick handful of gold in a month or two.

The pet’s revamp into a battler is very interesting. Note that it starts off Uncommon, so it’ll require a stone. It has a few old abilities–siphon life/death & decay in the second slot is a fairly common Undead MO, and Bone Bite has shown up in the past as well. It has the new Macabre Maraca, a 100% accuracy humanoid nuke, which makes me want to try pitting the Marionette against Yu’la. It has Bone Barrage, an ability similar to the critter Nut Barrage, only undead. Lastly, also very interestingly, it has Dead Man’s Party, which is similar to Flock.

The reason I find this moveset interesting is because, not only will it make it a terror against dragonkin, but it seems like Blizzard has been making pets with a moveset similar to this recently. There have always been Swarm-ers, Flock-ers and Stampede-ers, featuring Critter, Flying and Beast damage respectively, but Lil Bling was just added with a mechanical version of this ability, and now this pet for the undead version. Undead and Mechanical are rather under-represented caught pets, and this brand of move is such a good one for PVE synergy it makes me curious for the future. What new pets are coming, and what new fights are being planned for the next expansion? I’d be willing to bet some imaginary money that we see either some kind of Torrential Downpour ability like this from caught Aquatics next expansion, or maybe a Sonorous Frog Croak akin to Howl.

But, ultimately, Day Of The Dead is about remembrance. For Gilneas!

Or for that weird tree thing, I guess.

Creepy Crate

Wolpertinger

Lashtail Hatchling

8 Replies

With the news that we are likely getting an extra 350 pet slots to make an even thousand this upcoming PTR build, it’s rather obvious that there are a lot (a LOT!) of companions in-game. There are some we grow attached to for one reason or another. My two closest companions are my perky pug Bertha, who is SO getting a pirate hat next patch, and Mr. Wiggles, my former raiding companion. I think a lot of tamers have pets who have seen them through rough fights or are just plain freaking cute, and develop a sense of companionship with their little friend.

There are only a very few though, which you can become attached to as a function of quest design.

Meet Imoinda.

She’s one of several raptor pets which have a similar model, and are largely functionally identical. You can go get a replica of her from Breanni in Dalaran is you have 50g on you, though in a recolored black. Most of the others are attained either by searching for rare mobs or drops, or buying them off the AH. Raptors generally aren’t much special as fighters (standard bite abilities, a few speed modifiers), so these are easily overlooked. But the Lashtail Hatchling is different. Her story starts in the steamy jungles of Stranglethorn Vale.

But that’s just because I’m there. Yowza.

As Alliance, you start off with that same old yarn about Kurzen that’s been there since vanilla. Yeah yeah, jungle remedy. Make sure you do The Fate Of Kurzen at the same time for efficiency’s sake. Unlike those old yarns, this time as you complete the quest, something happens.

This quest is a pop-up auto accept. After you turn it in, you get a quest to feed her. You kill basilisks, she eats, no big. On your way back to the rebel camp, make sure to swing past the Kurzen compound and free a group of adventurers. They make their way to camp to open up a later step.

Right now you won’t have a quest per se, but if you visit this pile of skulls in the Balia’mah ruins, your raptor will find a souvenir. Aw. …ish.

When you return to camp, you hand the skull to the recently freed gnome, Osborn Obnoticus. He’s all, “ooh, look at the size of this skull! This guy must have been huge. And powerful. Let’s screw with voodoo magic and bring him back to life.” And of course, your character thinks this is a fantastic idea, because nothing bad ever happened by trusting a gnome to be skilled with black magic he’s never encountered before.

So it comes as a huge surprise that, after a super adorable fetch quest and a standard kill-guy-loot-body quest, the gnome’s magic works flawlessly. No, really! The thing is, the person whose skull you found and the gnome resurrected is none other than Bloodlord Mandokir, the raptor boss from Zul’Gurub. Whomp whomp.

He tells you that you’d better hand over your new little friend, or the gnome gets it. Even though I’m sure we’d all prefer it if the gnome gets it, your only choice is to hand over your new little friend. Bloodlord Mandokir then runs back to ZG, leaving you emptyhanded and emptyhearted.

But hope is not lost. You get a breadcrumb to the next quest hub, where the eccentric Priestess Thaalia has you collect feathers from other raptors to do some magic. You are able to see your raptor friend. She’s still alive! But Thaalia needs more powerful reagents in order to do something about it.

She sends you on another standard kill quest, and then…

oh BOY and then. You now inhabit the body of your raptor friend, and attempt a daring escape, while avoiding all the trolls. It’s like Metal Gear Solid meets a basket of kittens in a way that doesn’t use kittens as a hastily constructed disguise that shouldn’t fool anyone.

And apparently, it doesn’t.

So, what’s a worgen to do? First, talk to the guy also in the camp about what you’ve seen, then go bust into the level 85 heroic version of Zul’Gurub to crack some skulls and get your raptor back!

The Bloodlord fight is soloable for most classes now, as the Decapitate mechanic isn’t activated with just one player. I found the trash to be much more difficult than the fight. Maybe it was because Bloodlord kept my baby raptor chained up that whipped my worgen into a fury of hair and DPS.

At any rate, we were happily reunited.

And now we go on adventures together. No, really. Whenever there are dead bodies around, friendly or not, Imoinda is sure to bring me a bone to play fetch.

Clever girl.

Spider

6 Replies

I don’t talk a lot about personal stuff on the blog. It’s usually all pet battles all the time over here. But guys. I hate spiders.

No, you guys. like. I HATE spiders. HATE. haaaate.

When I did Maexxna as a healer in Vanilla, I turned my character to the wall so I didn’t have to see her. When I did her in Wrath as a hunter, luckily the rotation had grown so easy I could spam my steady shot macro and close my eyes for most of the fight. I am not even kidding, either about how much I hate spiders or how easy hunters were.

I honestly don’t even know why. I’m cool with bugs and caterpillars. Snakes and lizards, sure. Even scorpions are fine. I’ve always had some kind of garden as far back as I can remember, because my parents were hippies and liked growing their own food, so I know spiders are good for nature and all that jazz. Something about that extra set of legs maybe? The way they move? The webs? I don’t know and I’d prefer not to think it over too hard just now thankyouverymuch.

But there are a couple of reasons for me to explore their creepy little leggy crawly beady eyed oh god this sentence has to be over now. First of all, many of these guys are low-texture, and you know how that tickles my fancy. They were one of the first to be made over, into both a spindly-legged model and a fuzzier tarantula model, and now there are even more varied models to choose from. The low-texture version is also reused for Pandaria with the bizarrely pink Amethyst Spiderling and thus have spanned across expansion packs, so they kinda fill that same role as the frog.

They’re also a fairly decent pet battler across the level gamut, which tends to be rare. They get the Leech Life ability at level 5 to heal themselves, and as a result they’re a hardy choice for grinding. Unlike the Frogs, spiders can have varied movesets. For example, the crystal spider has a stun instead of the DoT poison ability.

My interest in spiders was piqued when I was dueling with Elepheagle one day. He completely wrecked my Black Claw DoT team with his spider. Rather than demand the answer, “WHYYYY” on my knees from an unanswering sky, I asked wowhead instead.

Brittle Webbing typically inhabits the same slot as the regular old web, only gives quite a bit of reflexive damage on each attack. The damage can be countered by Sandstorm (WHAT CAN’T BE COUNTERED BY SANDSTORM argh) or the Shell Shield-type abilities. I haven’t quite fought enough to recommend it whole hog, but I’m trying out a new team, pairing the spider with a pet with Wild Magic and a third, heavy-hitting tank pet (but not a direhorn… the nerf for 5.4 is pretty bad). If you find yourself coming up against DoT teams I definitely recommend trying out a spider.

…you know, as much as I *could* recommend trying out a spider. blerg.

Frog

3 Replies

After 8 years of World of Warcraft, there is a certain amount of nostalgia people have for the game. Now that we’ve returned from Outland, now that we’ve crushed the Lich King, now that we’ve lived through the Cataclysm and Deathwing’s fall, there are very few things which have remained constant through the years and continue on as a touchstone of what the game once was.

For some people, that constant is their character. This is not the case for me. I started off as a priest, then made my way to a badass pvp hunter, turned over a new leaf as a mage, and then rerolled as a druid, with lots of alts peppered in between. Even now Blizzard is making a concerted effort even to change these characters with upgraded models and graphics. It is definitely time for an upgrade to these graphics, but it just adds to the growing feeling of impermanence.

For some people, the constant is their guild. I’m in a guild right now which actually is several iterations removed from my very first guild in vanilla. There were so many stops, schisms and gquits the guild today is barely recognizable as the one I joined in November of 2004. There are very, very few guilds left today with a charter that old.

Even the world we knew has changed with the Cataclysm. Mankrik’s Wife has received a loving, proper burial, and the bridge in Redridge has reached its completion. NPCs have moved, rep grinds have changed, items have been removed. I still have the tea with sugar given to me by poor little Pamela Redpath. Though she remains trapped in the same long, tragic unlife as when I first visited her in early 2005, my tea with sugar has changed to sweet tea. I haven’t lived in the American South for terribly long but dude, those are not even close to the same thing.

But, there is one thing that has remained the same. One thing that binds us all, regardless of faction. One constant through the turmoil that has been our lives, in-game and out.

Low texture frogs.

Low texture frogs accompanied us to the alien landscape of Outland and frozen tundra of Northrend.

Low texture frogs survived the Cataclysm. Even now low texture frogs live in our very cities.

When we landed on Pandaria’s rocky, inhospitable shores, low texture frogs were there to greet us, and low texture frogs entered the Vale of Eternal Summer before we did too.

There are currently 18 pets in-game that use the low texture frog model. Some are hard to get, like Mojo. Some aren’t tradeable or trappable, like the Jubling. The Lifelike Toad is a mechanical. They all share a moveset, so I have to also mention the Horny Toad, which has the same moves but looks like a lizard and isn’t really low texture. The tooltip reflects this too.

Low texture frogs have a unique move called Frog Kiss, which has a chance on hit to turn your victim into a frog, taking them out of action for a turn. It also increases your damage done with each hit, much like Arcane Blast, and can ramp up into a powerful nuke. Frogs also have the option for a good single-turn self heal, or a weak AOE heal with a weather component. Their abilities are rounded out with a DoT that persists through pet swaps and the no-frills aquatic ability Water Jet.

The one variant is that the Lifelike Toad replaces the DoT with the mechanical heal Repair, giving him a whole lot of healing power.

I’ve really enjoyed using them in low-level pvp. The large heal plus Frog Kiss makes them a force to be reckoned with, even up against one of those teams where they try to cheese the level gap to win. They don’t really translate well into higher-level PVP though. I’ve also been using one as a workhorse while I tame new pets and level old ones (I really like AOE heals for that).

But more than that, low texture frogs are a touchstone. Low texture frogs are a reminder of what once was. In this time of faster, smarter, brighter, prettier, low texture frogs remain as Blizzard’s embodiment of the Pandaren mantra, “slow down.” They continue to be–

OH FOR THE LOVE OF—

Scooter

1 Reply

This guy and his snaily brethren are some of the better PVE tanks, depending on the rock, paper, scissors of it all.

Or, rock, paper, scissors, slime as the case may be.

So, what makes snails so appealing? They generally can’t die. Not only do they have a shell shield ability, they also have Dive and the damage with return heals ability Absorb. Scooter is only available in the H/H or 6 breed, which means that his health pool at level 25 with a rare upgrade is a whopping 1960, making him one of the very few pets available with over 1900 health.

The only other snail available with the H/H breed is the Shimmershell Snail. The other breeds or other snails are also amazing tanks for sure… ‘get a snail’ is largely interchangeable in the pet community for ‘get a Rapana Whelk’ after all. But health that high even as a novelty is pretty sick in a tank.

An additional strategy would be to combine his Acidic Goo ability, which has a 25% additional damage taken debuff, with his Dive. It’s also possibly a synergy buff to a glass cannon pet like a Fel Flame. This obviously sacrifices a good amount of the snail’s survivability, though. To round out his abilities there’s the 25% chance to stun beast ability Headbutt and Ooze Touch, a no-frills magic nuke.

I personally am not as in lurve with him as some other tamers are. The Undead absorb move he uses to deal damage plus his Critter type makes him take forever to kill Critters and vulnerable to Beasts. That absorb move also deals minimal damage period, so fights with him take forever regardless. But there are certain fights where snails are integral, like my thrilling strategy for the Burning Spirit Tamer. As long as you’re not fighting beasts he’s a pretty good pick.

Some tamers doodle their name with the snail’s the same way I doodle “Ms. Liopleurodon Crab.” I prefer a tank that can’t be felled by an ill-placed salt shaker in favor of one that goes well with butter, I guess. Different strokes!

You get Scooter The Snail from the original 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. He was added to the original complement of pets in 2011.

Legs

1 Reply

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.

Peanut

1 Reply

Peanut is a cute, unassuming little fellow from Outland. He’ll occasionally stand on his hind legs and let out a little elephant tootle. In function, he’s similar to his Beast type Clefthoof Runt brethren, only just to make things interesting, he’s a critter. Even though he’s just clearly an elephant, the biggest currently living land animal on Earth.

Kay, critter.

Survival is all he has in the way of mitigation, though he does have a stun move. He has a couple buffs moves as well. Combining one of these with the percent damage ability Trample makes him a decent choice against the critter-type Beasts of Fable. A 10% health strike does a proportionally larger amount of damage to their huge health pools (you know, if you don’t want to cheese it like I do with a Nether Faerie Dragon or Cockroach).

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