Ironically, I occasionally explore parts of the game which don’t involve either battle pets or my druid. In fact, sometimes I just want to get out some aggression and punch some dudes in the head. And though that’s kinda what twitter is for, there are places to get my kicks in WoW, too. You just have to know where to go.

The Brawler’s Guild is something I just recently started playing through, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It’s oddly similar to pet battles, in that there’s a puzzle element, but it’s way less, “Death Adder Hatchling I choose you!” and more “THERE IS A CAT EATING MY FACE RUUUUN.”

One (literally) small incentive kept me going (though I ought to be careful slinging around that ‘small’ stuff while playing a gnome). When you hit rank 4 in the Brawler’s Guild, meaning you’ve done the first 12 fights successfully, you can buy a Clock Em battle pet of your own for 20-30 silver (the price varies slightly based on reputation discounts). This is the only way to obtain a Clock’em of your own, so if you want a tiny robot with enormous spiked fists of fury, better get sharpening your daggers and make your way to either the Deeprun Tram or the Brawlgar Arena. Clock’em starts off Rare and you buy up to 3 as soon as you hit rank 4, but they are uncageable and BoP, so if you want one have to fistfight your way to the top of a pile of corpses.

Clock ‘Em is unique in that he has a full complement of humanoid abilities, but is a mechanical battle pet, so he gets extra utility in the guise of the resurrection mechanical family ability. A few other mechanicals have a couple humanoid abilities, but Clock Em is all but entirely humanoid. Overtune is the one exception, and it’s used primarily to buff Clock Em’s speed, not really as a damage move. That speed buff has a lot of excellent synergy with his Kick move, which stuns if Clock Em goes first. However, Kick shares a slot with the utility move Dodge, which is frequently the better choice. Sharing a slot with Overtune is Counterstrike, which makes sense because Counterstrike has the best functionality if your pet is slower than its opponent. Rounding out his moves in the first slot is either the straightforward humanoid attack Jab, or the slightly odd Haymaker, which has a 50/50 chance to either deal damage and stun your opponent, or miss and stun the caster.

One big thing to be aware of using this battle pet, even in PVE, is cooldowns. Aside from Jab and Overtune, every ability in Clock Em’s moveset has a relatively lengthy cooldown. You need to choose carefully and use your abilities in an order so you’re not cooling your heels for a few turns. Clock Em’s Humanoid damage and Mechanical family make him relatively ideal for killing dragonkin that use a good bit of Magic damage. Unfortunately, Trixxy in Winterspring is the highest level tamer using a setup like this. He fights pretty well against most dragonkin though, as long as they’re not using Elemental damage.

Now, who do I have to garrote to get a cup of coffee in this stinking place?

Oh, don’t bother answering. I’ll figure it out. Trial and error.