Stompy

I think Stompy looks really cute, so I thought I’d go see if I could find him!

Key Points

• Found in the mountains of Kun-Lai Summit
• You must be level 88 to tame
• He does not aggro, but, like all MoP trackables, he stealths so can not be picked up using NPC scan

Taming Strategy

• I followed this map along his route – which goes almost vertically up and down mountains, but generally follows some kind of discernible trail via Mount Neverest.
• As with most trackable pets for MoP, you’re looking for his ‘heavy tracks’ and then following them in the direction they’re facing. They will disappear after 5minutes from the back of his route as new ones are made at the front, but generally his path is quite logical (makes a change!) so you can meander along the route with him.

• As always, when you reach the end of the trail, fire your flare in front of where you think he is. When he appears, stick a hunters mark on him to stop him going into stealth. This also makes him invisible to other hunters.

I followed him for a while, he moves rather sedately!

• The tame is easy when you’re ready. He also doesn’t aggro, so you don’t need deterrence etc.

He’s got a unique skin, and he’s pretty impressive – he is very tall standing next to you which is quite cool, as most of these pets shrink considerably. I’ve specced him as tank, but he’s got a nice ‘Trample’ ability which decreases spell cast speed by 50% which could be useful for DPS.

Happy Taming!

Bombyx

I have been wanting to go after the Pandaria pets for a long time, but always been hesitant as I realised it was probably a bit of a time sink. However, on this rather lonely Saturday evening with Mr B at work, I figured now was as good a time as any to try, especially as it’s 1am and the server is quiet…

I decided to try for Bombyx, for my first, as I love my giant beige worm (called Weedle), and this is even better with a lovely unique purple colour. I am so pleased I managed to tame him – I had to share it with you all straight away!!!

Key Points

• Unique purple worm found in Kasarang Wilds (map)
• Must be level 90 and in BM spec to tame
• Does not aggro when being tamed!
• Located using a flare and following the tracks used to find other MoP hunter pets
• Can phase in and out of stealth (just like Ghostcrawler)

Taming Strategy

• Make sure you have tame beast, flare and hunters mark free and easily accessible to use
• You’re looking for these plants:

… found between the spawn points found on the map. These are the first indicators of Bombyx’s tracks. When you find one, fire your flare around it (see mine in the picture?)

• The flare will show you patches of leaves (see the dark blotches on the right of the picture?). These are the ‘tracks’ you are following. You can’t tell the direction, but they will appear denser in number the closer you are to the worm. If you’re going the wrong way, they’ll peter out.
• Bombyx travels up and down a path by the river. If you’re like me and have no idea what you’re doing, it took me about 20minutes to figure out where the path was and how to decipher the direction. Don’t panic, just keep firing the flares around the silkweed and you’ll get a good idea which direction he’s heading in.
• Once he shows up immediately put hunters mark on him. This will stop him going back into stealth and disappearing – which would cancel your tame. And you definitely don’t want that to happen.
• When you have hunters mark on him, the rest is easy. He is invisible to other hunters, so you don’t have to worry about being ninja’d and he doesn’t aggro, so just hit tame beast and he’s yours.

Bombyx, mid-tame

Honestly? This was one of the most exciting tames I’ve ever done. I loved using my flare and ‘tracking’ him down the river. This is what being a hunter is all about! I’m really looking forward to going and finding some of the others in Pandaria.

Have you found any of these new pets yet?

Deth’tilac

After yesterday’s exploits I thought I’d go for a quick run around Molton Front and Hyjal to see if any of the rares were up… and Deth’tilac was!!

Deth’tilac, Spider, Molton Front

This was a really hard tame which Mr B did really well at mastering it after a couple of attempts.

Key Points

• Can’t tame under 20% and hits like a truck, so this is a kiting tactic
• Take a friend with a rooting spell, such as a druid or a shaman with an earthbind totem
• Have your pet out for this, it will help a great deal
• The area you have is very small, so make sure you know the area you have to move and don’t fall off the cliff

Taming Strategy

•  Have concussive shot, frost trap, revive pet and arcane shot where you can reach them easily. A spider pet is ideal (it has a web) but any pet is fine
• Deth’tilac will use a move called Deth Strike which will one-shot anything in melée range, but give a 10% damage to the spider. Therefore, you will need to sacrifice your pet in order to damage the boss enough for you to tame. Of course, you could kite it round but that would take a long time.
• Keep up concussive shot, frost trap and wait for him to use the ability on your pet. When he does, your pet will die and you need to get as far away as possible to revive pet before he catches you. Rinse and repeat. If you root it, it will cause the ability to happen, so a friend with this ability (or a spider pet) will make it quicker. We found Feigning Death works as it transfers all aggro onto your pet, thus causing the ability to proc.
• Once at 20%, get as far away as possible using your slows, dismiss pet and tame.

It’s a fantastic looking pet, a must-have I think, so good luck!

Mrs B’s noob guide to Archaeology

The little gems that are secondary professions! They can be quite confusing if you’re new to the game, so I shall attempt to shed some light on them. I’ll start at the very beginning, with Archaeology.

The Basics

• 4 secondary professions: Archaeology, Fishing, Cooking, First Aid
• Learnt from the appropriate trainer in each city: ask a guard then look for the arrow on your mini-map (I didn’t realised it showed you the way – thick or what!)
• Broken down into levels of 75 points (although you can train the next level after 50 points) which you need to go back to the trainer in order to progress. I definitely did not grind for an hour before realising I couldn’t gain more points because I hadn’t trained…
• Accessed by pressing ‘P’, clicking ‘Professions’ (the little tab at the bottom of the pop up page), then pulling both out (shift+click) onto your toolbar.

Archaeology in 3 steps:

1. Survey the area to find artifacts
2. Find then loot artifacts
3. Solve artifacts to create items to vendor or use

Getting started

• You need to be level 20.
• No need for anything but you and your map. Have empty bags as you’ll collect a lot of stuff to vendor.
• This is a LOT easier with the flying skill of any speed – I admire you if you’re attempting this whilst levelling.
• Train at the trainer then open your map – see those tiny little – almost invisible  – spades dotted around the place? Yeah those. Click on it, this will open the area (e.g., Western Plaguelands or Northern Stranglethorn).There are 4 active at any one time on any one continent.

• Now see the red highlighted area on the map? That’s where you have to go. Yes, they’re dotted all over, and yes, it takes forever. Suck it up.

Levelling Up

• So, assuming you’ve found your way to the first dig site, (see my “Noob Guide to Azerothian Worlds for help on this very confusing subject!!) all you need to do now is press the ‘survey’ button which looks like a spade (see picture above). I would keep this out on your main interface – you’ll be using it a lot.
• Once you’ve pressed it, it will work its magic and sprout up an instrument – looks a bit like a telescope with a flashing light on it.
• The telescope points the way of the next fragment of artifact you’re looking for. Red means you’re far away, yellow means you’re not that far away, and green means you’re pretty damn close. Move in the direction, keep hitting the survey button. When you discover it, a fragment will appear. Click it to loot it. You will get upto 7 fragments per loot.

Solving Artifacts

• Open up the archaeology page by clicking the symbol (in pic above). It’ll look like this:

• Blue tab on the right shows your artifacts in progress, the purple one below it shows what you have already solved.
• Each area of the world has different artifacts to discover depending on the races that preside there. As you can see, I have only uncovered some of them and a lot are currently in progress (10/50 Pandaren for example). Depending on which 4 are active and which continent you are in, you have a limited selection at any one time which – as I’m sure you’ve gathered – means it’s a long process to solve each artifact.
• Once you have the required amount of fragments, you go to your archaeology page and click it to solve it. The solved artifacts either vendor for gold or can be used (mounts, pets etc). The rarer it is, the more you need. Joys.
• Each fragment you dig up nets you 1 skill up point, each solved artifact gives 5 and rares give 15. REMEMBER TO TRAIN OR YOU WON’T GET CREDIT. I totally didn’t ever forget…
• Each location only holds a few fragments, so you can’t stay there indefinitely – see, I wasn’t lying when I said flying helps!
•  What you discover and in which order is entirely random. So cross your fingers and toes and hope what you want comes up quickly. I got the Fossilised Raptor and the Clockwork Gnome somewhere between 500 and 600 points and haven’t had anything since. Typical.

Achievements

For an enthusiast like myself, archaeology holds a whole world of undiscovered achievements (I hope you like my pun there). Along with the milestones for 150, 225, 300, 375, 450, 525 and 600 points there are also a whole host of others…

• Finding certain numbers of common artifacts
• Finding certain numbers of rare artifacts (a nice title comes with these too!)
• Storyline achievements – finding artifacts relating to lore.

WoWdigs is a really comprehensive site which goes into much more detail than I have space for, especially on achievements and mounts/pets: http://www.wowdigs.com/achievements.htm

Happy Hunting !!

Mrs B’s hunter pet obsession.

I think it’s safe to assume that most hunters are really into having a good-looking pet. Well, I am definitely one of those hunters.

My hunter is my 3rd (and final!) alt. After levelling to about level 40, Mr B informed me that I could get different types of pets. After level 60, he mentioned Spirit Beasts and rares. Apparently, he left it so late ‘for my own good’… pfft. He was right though, I have died venturing into parts unknown for these damn pets.

However, yesterday, I stumbled across Ban’thalos in Hyjal. I faffed for ages, reading wowhead and getting scared about how difficult he was to tame. In the end, it went for it and it was fine, yay! All I did was mount up over the Statue of Malorne, arcane shot, deterrance, landed on the top of the statue and tamed. Was down to 15k health after the fall though, so don’t try it below 300k hp!

I’m a little bit miffed Blizzard won’t let me name it Ban’thalos (I like to keep my rares in their original name) so he’s Banthalos instead.

My current pet list includes:

• Terropene (tamed by chance)
• Arcturis (3 day camping extravaganza)
• Ghostcrawler (2 day camp… and I loathe swimming!)
• Casper, the Ghost Saber cat from Darkshore (a really nice pet for low levels – all you have to do is click the figurines – it takes about half an hour)
• Weedle the GIANT worm from Pandaria (he’s amazing!)
• Darwin the Gorilla
• Archemides the Owl
• Barney the Raptor (/Dinosaur, but Mr B says it’s a Raptor… blah blah)
• Bach the Core Hound
• Aristo the Cat
• Squirt the Turtle
• Chime the Chimaera (looks really pretty – appeals to my girly-side!)

Weedle:

So, which do you think I’m missing and should go for next? I’ve been considering Gondria…