A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was a necklace I wanted called Worgen Claw Necklace. It dropped off of Attumen, the first boss in Karazhan, and I wanted it because I was wearing one from Steamvaults or something.

Now I went to Karazhan a lot. Pretty much every week for several months. I loved that place, I never tired of it, not even long after I was Exalted with the Violet Eye. Still do love it, which I’m sure most of you know. But Worgen Claw Necklace never dropped. Not once.

Pretty soon, I didn’t need it anymore. I had a necklace from Heroic Slave Pens and eventually I had a badge necklace. (Never got the Shattered Sun necklace because I was Scryer and the Scryer version sucked.) Still, it became the principle of the thing. I saw Attumen drop everything else. I even saw the mount once. But never Worgen Claw Necklace.

I got my tree druid to 70 and started doing Kara when I could. You may be thinking, “Ha! It probably dropped when you were on your druid!” But you would be wrong. My druid never saw it either. She’s half way through Revered. I have never seen this thing drop.

And so a dream began to formulate in my head. Several months and an expansion later, Kill Bill-like, I knew what I had to do.

I must solo Attumen.

I must get my necklace.

After several weeks of putting it off because I was attached to all my pets, I finally let my wolf go so I could obtain a tenacity pet. Because I was impatient, I got a worm, because there are some that are level 80 by default.

I got myself a pet-tanky spec, spec’d my pet a pet-tanky spec, and bought a shiny Glyph of Mending. Pretty soon my Mend Pet was healing for 2200 health a tick. Then I got into a raid group and headed off– just my worm and I– to Medivh’s tower.

The trash to Attumen is tricky. Pulls of two or three horses at a time, often with stable hands who heal and do fun things like that. So long as you know how to trap, pull and properly time your Feign Deaths, it’s not difficult, but it is time consuming and there were a couple of close calls.

Finally I was standing in front of Midnight. I braced myself and sent in my pet.

For about ten seconds, all was going well; Mend Pet was keeping Nachi the worm up. Then Attumen came out. Thunderstomp picked up aggro on him and I soon discovered that poor Nachi couldn’t dream of staving off both off with Mend Pet alone; Last Stand gave him a couple extra seconds but inevitably down he went.

I tried again and had a similar experience, and then trash began to respawn. See, let me tell you what the most frustrating thing about solo’ing Attumen is. It’s that it takes about twenty minutes to clear the trash, but thirty minutes to respawn. So you essentially have a ten minute window to make attempts on Attumen before they start respawning mid-boss-fight and coming to pwn you. Yeah, it sucks.

Anyways, feeling a bit miffed, I went and tried a few other solo’y things. I gave Onyxia a shot and managed to get her down to 40% three different times, but each time it wound up being not my pet who died, but me. Between whelps, random fireballs, and crap like that, and being limited to your one token potion, bandages, and Lifeblood, I couldn’t self-heal enough.

Then I went completely nuts and headed off to Molten Core. I quickly discovered that you can sneak past a good deal of the trash, and that which you can’t sneak past you can dispose of fairly easily. As such I made attempts on a few different bosses, and again, each time I was faced with the issue of the boss having some gimmick that would destroy me long before my pet was in any danger. (Why hello, Living Bomb, yes, I hate you too.)

Finally I went off to give Attumen one last shot, having tweaked my pet’s spec a little and having discovered some trick on YouTube where you could supposedly pull Midnight without pulling Attumen. Cleared the trash, made four unsuccessful attempts (maybe they hotfixed this?), and was more than willing to make more attempts but, you guessed it… trash respawns.

So I ended that little experiment and found myself wondering if it’s even possible for a hunter to solo Attumen without exploits or two pieces of T5.

Then I had another crazy thought. Turtles have a special move called Shell Shield. I found myself wondering if maybe, with a very well timed Shell Shield and Last Stand, and a “burn ‘em down quick so they merge” technique… it might be possible.

And so, after bidding farewell to my worm… this is my new turtle (or as my inner pet store geek insists on calling him, tortoise). His name is Bourne which is short for Bourne Again Shell because I am a nerd.

Now I’ve just got to begin the process of leveling him up to 80 from 75.

I’ll be back, Attumen… you can’t sit on that necklace forever!

There they were, high in the hills of Crystalsong Forest. Tawyn and Perezvon. They’d flown there atop the broad, red wings of Spirakistrasz, Perezvon the wolf enjoying the ride as he always did, ears flapping.

Tawyn had grown attached to him since nursing him back to health some time ago, but she had since discovered that they were not the best fit for each other. He was loyal, and he fought as hard as he could, and his howl was inspiring to her. But he lacked the pure unbridled storm that Wash seemed to possess, and the cunning of Eltanin and Tux, and the stealthy movements of Locke. Perezvon was a good friend, a companion– but Tawyn needed a fighter.

They stood there and Perezvon wagged his tail a bit, as if to ask what they were doing out here. That tail, Tawyn thought. She was convinced by now that he was only half-wolf, and half-domestic dog. She was also convinced that he’d had an owner at some point, before her, which is why he had warmed up to her so fast– and it was time to return him to his home.

“Perezvon,” she said, in a gentle voice that none but her pets ever heard, “It’s time for you to go.”

The wolf looked up at her and blinked once or twice. He of course could not understand Common, but Tawyn’s training as a Beast Master had given her enough of a bond with her pets that she was able to get the gist across with little more than the tone of her voice. She looked down at him. “You were hurt, and you needed someone to fix you up. I think you are going to be okay now.” She looked back up at the horizon. “And I don’t know where your home is. But I know you know how to get there.”

Silence. The wind blew a bit, rustling some nearby leaves.

And then he was on her, licking her face, and Tawyn sprouted a lopsided grin and cackled, “Git outta here, boy… go home.”

And he did, running through the snow.

The last thing Tawyn heard was a furious howl.

It’s Tuesday morning, the servers are down and some of you even have extended maintenance. Whether you’re at work or at home, there’s a good chance you’re bored. Never fear, Pike is here! To answer a few huntery questions I’ve been getting relatively frequently in comments/e-mails/Google searches/postcards. Except without the postcards. All I get in the mail are bills. /sob

But don’t take it from me. See for yourself what tragedy lies ahead when the paths of star-crossed lovers meet. And now: On with the show!

How much Attack Power does Agility give you as a hunter?: This is a flat 1:1 ratio. One Agility is one attack power. If you heard differently somewhere, you heard one of two things: either that Agility actually is worth more as Survival (which it is) so in a roundabout way, you do get more AP for it– or somebody who used to play a hunter a long time ago and then probably rerolled shaman/paladin in BC informed you that Agility gives you two attack power. Important: This stopped being the case with Burning Crusade. It’s 1 Agi = 1 AP now. A surprising number of people out there still aren’t aware of this. Don’t worry if you were led astray! Totally not your fault. *nods*

As a Beast Master hunter, should I be focusing on Agi gems or AP gems? Your “Stats for a Hunter” guide says Agi, is that still true?: That particular guide was written during the era of Burning Crusade and as such, while the basics of it are still correct, not all of it entirely is anymore. This is one of those points that has changed. At this time last year Agility was sort of the stat du jour for gems and enchants; AP and crit were still both very good, but “real hunters picked Agi”, so to speak.

These days, with your pet doing a bigger percentage of your damage (probably about 45-50% of your total DPS on a Patchwerk-style fight, as opposed to 30-35% of your total DPS in Burning Crusade) and Kill Command no longer having anything to do with your crits (and Cobra Strikes in general not proc’ing enough to justify stacking tons of crit), Attack Power is worth a lot more to you as a Beast Master than it was before, because it does, in fact, affect your pet’s Attack Power. Combine that with the fact that, for example, there have been no upgrades to Agility-based two-handed weapon enchants but some yummy AP ones, and you can see why AP is coming out the winner for Beast Masters these days.

Now remember, none of this means that agility or crit is bad. We still love them both. Just that AP gems are going to get you a bigger bang for your buck. Oh, and if you are dual-spec’d BM/Survival, I’ll say figure out which one you play more and gem for that. (Agi for Survival, and AP for BM).

So which pet really is the top DPS pet for Beast Masters?: There is some confusion here and I think it comes from the fact that there are some discrepancies on the list between “top DPS pets alone” or “top DPS pets when combined with the hunter”. Here’s the deal:

Devilsaurs are the current top DPS pet for Beast Master hunters.

Fortunately, for those of us who don’t like the large size/wonky hitbox/etc. of the devilsaur, we have some options.

Wolves do not do particularly high amounts of DPS alone, but in conjunction with Furious Howl applying to the hunter they are the second best DPS pet– yes, even for Beast Masters– last I checked the theorycrafting sites. Remember, combined with Longevity, that buff is gonna be up some 66% of the time for us. That’s pretty good.

However, they are only a smidge ahead of Raptors, the third best choice. Raptors on their own do rather more DPS than wolves do, but they lack the buff so the combined hunter-pet DPS theorycrafts out to be a little lower. They are still a top-notch pet especially for Beast Masters: Savage Rend crits a lot which self-buffs the Raptor and I have personally found it makes a big difference. I have both a wolf and a raptor at level 80 and I usually bring the raptor to raids. I find, in my situation, that I tend to perform slightly better with him (aside from the fact that I am more attached to him >.>). So remember, the theorycrafting numbers aren’t always everything, you have to see what works for you.

“But Pike, I love my Spirit Beast/Cat/etc.”! Good! Please keep using the pet you love. Cats and Spirit Beasts are still quite viable, they just aren’t in the current “top three” on paper. But “on paper” is just that, on paper, and in my humble opinion it’s not as important as raiding with a pet you have had since level 10, or took forever to find, or just love dearly.

Well, hopefully all of that cleared up some confusion. As always, this site would not be complete without the comments, so feel free to leave ‘em!

Pet specs have been shaken up a bit with the advent of 3.1, so let’s talk about how you will ideally spec your three types of pets. First up, pet specs for us Beast Masters (I’ll cover you non-extra-talent-points folks in a later post!)

Ferocity:

You will probably want your Ferocity pet’s talent tree to look like this. This scoops up everything you need to ensure your pet is the instrument of your vengeance in your average raid or heroic. Of course, there are adjustments you can make if you are solo’ing or leveling and would rather pick up, say, the stamina or healy-type talents. But honestly, Heart of the Phoenix never once worked for me anyway, so I didn’t really have a problem with ditching it… >.>

Cunning:

Your cunning pet is a very versatile creature who can be used in a variety of situations, and as such I consider his talent tree to be the most flexible in terms of talents that you do/don’t want to take. I have found that this works very well from a solo’ing or questing standpoint. I know Cunning pets are often overlooked these days but honestly, equipped with things like Owl’s Focus, Feeding Frenzy, Wolverine Bite and Roar of Recovery (now with a shorter cooldown), they are not to be underestimated. Try one out and see what you think.

Tenacity:

With Thunderstomp no longer Gorilla-exclusive and some great new tanky-talents, the Tenacity changes were really great. I have found this to be a very good pet-tanking build. You purposefully bypass some of the typical “DPS” talents in favor of making your pet able to take it, if not dish it out. There is some flexibility here if you’re not a big fan of Last Stand and would rather put the Avoidance+Last Stand points somewhere else, although I’ve found it to be quite a lifesaver in multiple tricky situations, myself… I wouldn’t go without it.

Welp, there ya have it. Toss me your questions and comments, and the “non-Beast Master edition” is coming up soon!

Blood.

It mingled with the dirt and the hair and the rough prints left in the crunchy dry snow, and Tawyn crouched over them, bits of leftover slush clinging stubbornly to her fingers as she ran them softly over the ridges made by this… creature.

For that’s what it was, something in the canine family probably, judging by the prints and the smell and the texture of the fur.

The night elf closed her eyes and breathed in the scent one more time before flicking her fingers behind her; one sharp motion that simultaneously shook some of the snow off and also beckoned a brilliantly hued magenta raptor to pad silently up behind her, his glittering eyes scanning the area and his breath coming in puffs in the crisp northern air. Tawyn never lifted her gaze from the tracks and finally she arose and slowly walked along them, followed closely by her raptor, Wash.

A faint rustle of leaves. She paused; the quarry was near. The blood pooled a bit at the base of a nearby bush, and a smell was on the wind– it was still alive. Tawyn bristled and instinctively reached for her rifle, and was comforted by its familiar touch, as behind her Wash stared unblinkingly at the bush, awaiting one command…

…that came in the form of his master loosening ever so slightly and breathing “easy,” the word itself a mere whisper, but enough for the raptor to relax his stance– just a touch– and return to his previous behavior of scanning the surroundings. The thing in the bush was no longer a threat.

Tawyn crouched down next to the bush; The Thing was cornered now and began making nervous growling and spitting noises– it was still willing to put up a fight, wounded as it was. The hunter peered in and saw a wolf of some sort staring back at her: bruised, beaten, bleeding. Its eyes flashing with anger and pain. Tawyn stared back, and the staring contest went on for quite some time before the wolf buckled, shutting its eyes and letting out a quiet whine of anguish. This was followed by a low and near imperceptible rumble. The wolf’s stomach was growling.

With movements that were slow and precise, as not to startle the creature in the bush, Tawyn pulled her backpack from off her shoulders, reached inside, and pulled out a piece of dried venison. She pushed it under the bush, a few feet from the wolf’s nose, and set it there. The wolf recoiled at first in fear, snarling, but Tawyn pulled her hand back quickly and simply waited.

For several long minutes, the wolf feigned disinterest in the meat and didn’t move. His eyes gave himself away, however, and then his nose, and finally he inched forward and chomped the meat down eagerly before returning to his original position. Tawyn pushed another strip of meat into the same place. The wolf only waited about half as long before eating, now, and the hunter noticed that his tail made a few weak thumps against the snowy earth– this was interesting in and of itself, as normal wolves did not wag their tails past their youth. A hybrid animal, perhaps? Or a young wolf? It was hard to say; the creature was slightly smaller than the average wolf but this could have spoken for either theory. Regardless, it was heartening to see the animal improving, if only a little.

One more strip of meat. This time, though, Tawyn held it out with her fingers, not letting go of it.

The wolf didn’t move, but he eyed the meat and Tawyn could tell from his eyes that he was considering it. The elf remained perfectly still, arm outstretched. Finally the wolf tenderly plucked the meat from her hand with his teeth and pulled back again to eat it.

Tawyn smiled thinly. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless, and a step in the right direction.

She next reached into her pack in pursuit of frostweave, and hissed a sharp Darnassian curse under her breath upon finding out she didn’t have any. She would have to go into town…

…she glanced back under the bush at the wolf. He was looking at her with a somewhat expectant expression now.

“I’ll be back,” said Tawyn softly. She stood up and motioned something to Wash, and he picked up on her cue and remained standing guard as she disappeared into the wood.

***

“Whadaya need today, Tawyn?” the pixielike gnome winked. “Here, sit down, let’s chat.” She seated herself by the fireplace and gestured for the night elf to follow.

“Frostweave,” Tawyn replied tersely, and if it was almost anyone else she would have refused to sit, but Trixy had rather grown on her so she pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Frostweave, hmmmm,” replied the gnome as she rummaged through a large sack. “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve got threads, dyes, and ooooh what’s this?” she pulled out some sort of shiny contraption.

“Trixy, I don’t mean to rush you, but we’ve… ah… I’ve got a bit of an emergency situation. D’ya know anyone who would have any, if you don’t?”

The gnome’s eyes glittered as she inspected the shiny thing, but she set it aside and stuck her tongue out in concentration and plunged her arm back into the bag and finally pulled out… some frostweave. “There ya go!”

Tawyn snatched it from her, ripped it in two, and began to nimbly shape the them into bandages. The gnome watched intently. After a minute or two she asked gingerly, “What are they for?”

Before Tawyn could reply, she heard a familiar noise from outside, mingled with the calls of the soldiers of the 7th Legion. She leapt to her feet, dashed to the door of the inn, and pushed it open– to see the wolf limping painfully but determinedly into town, followed by an exasperated Wash who looked like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle this. Some of the soldiers nearby were gaping and pointing their guns at the spectacle, although most of them looked like they weren’t about to waste any bullets on this, what with a greater threat outside the walls of Wintergarde. Besides which, Wash was a familiar sight to most of them by now.

Tawyn stood in the doorway, wondering at the unusualness of it all. Again, she was struck by that brief zap in her mind that there was something distinctly un-wolflike about the creature’s behavior…

The wolf buckled and Tawyn was out in a flash; bandaging his wounds with the Frostweave bandages she had just crafted and quickly mixing up some sort of salve with the myriad flasks and herbs she carried around in her pack and massaging the creature’s legs with it. The wolf stood steadfastly through it all, although it was clear that he was still in pain.

Tawyn heard someone approach from behind them– Zybarus, the stable master. “Zybarus thinks he likes you,” he said in his curious manner of speech, a slightly squeaky voice that for whatever odd reason spoke in nothing but the third person.

Tawyn shrugged and continued working. “People do strange things when they’re in pain. Animals do too.” Of course, she wasn’t telling the whole story. She didn’t tell the part about how she thought there was something unusual about this wolf. How he seemed to be acting like this wasn’t the first time he had extended trust to a person. She didn’t talk about his uncharacteristic tail wag.

No, she didn’t talk about how there was something unusual about this creature that she was determined to pin down. And perhaps it would explain the cause of his injuries as well– Tawyn leaned back and looked at him. A young and strikingly handsome creature possibly just hours before, he was now a wretched sight of blood and scabs and missing patches of fur. It would heal up eventually, but there would be scars, and he would never quite look the same. But his eyes were bright and Tawyn found that she thought the creature was, in his own broken way, still strikingly handsome.

“Your pet now?” Zybarus asked.

“No,” said Tawyn bluntly. Zybarus and Tawyn had a sort of odd love-hate relationship, one that the latter tended to form with others of similarly strong personalities, and this is what caused the stable master to grin and goad her on with “Ohh? But you’ve got a name picked out, dontcha? Zybarus thinks you do!”

Tawyn shot him a brief glower and then busied herself with adjusting the wolf’s new bandages. Finally, she muttered one word under her breath: “Perezvon.”

Well, I went over the stories of Tawyn’s pets, so let’s go over the pets of my first alt hunter… Lunapike:

Alyosha has a bit of a story behind him: once upon a time Tawyn was Marksman-spec’d, because she was new to the game and that’s what everyone told her to do. Pike secretly really wanted to be Beast Mastery, but she was sort of afraid to completely respec and try, at first. So she went and rolled her second hunter, Lunapike, to be a Beast Master. And at level ten she ran Lunapike to the blood elf starting zone and tamed a Little Red Kitty. It was a symbolic choice.

I absolutely adore the red lynx skin and I’m quite attached to Alyosha, who is named after one of the three brothers in The Brothers Karamazov. From a roleplaying standpoint he also has strong ties to Lunapike through their respective backstories– I was actually writing a story about this but never finished. I’ll have to do that sometime >.>

Although Lunapike is not currently max-level anymore, Alyosha is sort of the de-facto instancing pet, although he now alternates with a certain bug who we shall touch on later…

Ivan is the second in my trio of Brothers Karamazov names. I tamed him in Thousand Needles, one of my favorite zones. Oh, and when I summon him, he bamfs in with a poof and a cloud of smoke. No, really. Once I found this out, I had to tame him, so I did. Oh, he’s actually a “she” according to lore, but meh. People turn their Loque’nahaks into girls all the time, so I turned my Arikara into a boy >.> I have this weird thing where all my pets are of the male persuasion for some reason. No idea why.

Now that he is a cunning pet more than a DPS pet, he spends a lot of time in the stable until I pull him out for PvP. Sad, but true.

Dmitri rounds out the Brothers Karamazov. Remember how I said I always wanted to make Tux a rainbow owl but could never bring myself to actually do it? Dmitri is the compromise. He’s not Tux, but he is the rainbow owl. Unfortunately I fear he will fall into the same quandary as Ivan, sitting around without a niche, but we’ll see. It is a PvP server, after all. And owls really are a very good choice for a battlegrounds pet I think– what with Snatch and having those big wings that get in peoples’ faces.

He is a beautiful pet and I bring him out to play during quests sometimes. Roar of Recovery is great for solo stuff.

I fell in love with Serenity almost immediately– this is probably another one of my overall favorite pet “looks” in the game. Now Rilgon likes to point out that everybody names their wasp Serenity, and that’s probably true, but ya know what, I don’t care. And I’ve actually yet to see another Serenity in-game myself, although I know most of the blog comments I get when I talk about him are “Great name, I’m gonna use it myself!” …not on my servers yet, it would appear!

Have I mentioned I love how this pet looks? I love how this pet looks. Lunapike gets all the awesome pets, it seems.

Coulton is the newest member of Lunapike’s pet family. Now originally, I didn’t want to get a gorilla. I was never really a gorilla fan, mostly because they are so large– and I prefer my pets small and unassuming. Able to rip your face off, yes, but also small and unassuming. Gorillas were big and they encouraged AoE spam which I in my stubbornness am not a big fan of. I like to shoot my targets one by one thank-ya-very-much.

But then when I was busy working on grinding Timbermaw rep for my Diplomat title I realized it might actually come in handy. So off I went to Feralas to tame myself a gorilla. I was right– it worked beautifully. And by the time I got my title and then after that when Thunderstomp became a family-wide ability, I was too attached to the big guy to swap him out. So, that’s the story on him: he’s the token tenacity pet and he’s probably here to stay.

The name? Take a guess…

Alright. I have more, really, but I dunno, it would be crazy to keep going…

…right? /cough

I recently had an e-mail from somebody who wanted to hear more stories about my pets… where I got them, how they got their names, when I use them, how they fit in to my character roleplayingwise, etc. Now on the one hand, I was a little worried about fulfilling this request, because I feel like I’ve already talked about most of this at some point. But on the other hand, it was probably a while ago and I’ve gained a lot of new readers since then, and like most hunters I turn into a proud gushing grandma when asked about my pets, especially seeing as I am a self-professed Pokemon hunter who freaks out over pets.

So let’s talk. And if you’ve heard this all already, feel free to skip it. >.>

Tux was the first. The first pet ever. He was level eight and I was level ten and for some reason he didn’t leave me when I didn’t feed him for such a long time– since back then pets ran away when they were unhappy. My adventuring companion throughout most of Vanilla WoW, he has never been my first pet to hit the level cap of the day, but he has always hit it eventually.

Sometimes I get this urge to swap Tux for one of those crazy rainbow owls. Because he’s a special pet and it feels like it would somehow be a weird way of “evolving” him to a form more befitting of him. I could still name him Tux, and it would still “be” Tux. But then I look at the big gray featherhead, the same ball of pixels I’ve had since my first week of World of Warcraft ever, and I can’t do it.

To sate my longing for the rainbow owl though, I tamed one on another character. >.>

Tux spends most of his time in the stable these days, which is sort of sad, but unfortunately he is not a very PvE-viable pet and I haven’t done any serious PvP in a loooong time. He’s pretty dang good at doing dailies and stuff though. *nods* He also tends to be the pet I pick for screenshots and posing, because it’s supposed to be Tawyn & Tux, dang it!

Named for the mascot of the main operating system I game on… heck, the only operating system I played WoW on, period, for the first 69 levels of Tawyn’s existence..

Locke was the rare spawn I tamed at 4am server time. There were two reasons: one, he was teal. My favorite color. ’twas a given. Two, I was reading hunter blogs regularly by now (heck, I was writing one) and I had come to the sad realization that a lot of people disliked hunters who instanced with flying pets because they had big flappy wings that got in the way. I wanted a backup pet to be able to take into instances who wouldn’t annoy anyone, and the kitty was the winner.

Locke was the Big Bad Raiding Pet through most of Burning Crusade until towards the end when he was replaced by… the next pet I shall be talking about. It actually got to the point where most of my guildies saw me as Tawyn & Locke instead of Tawyn & Tux, which I sort of had mixed feelings about. I mean, I loved Locke, but it seemed odd. Locke also became the butt of a solid handful of inside jokes that still exist among my friends’ circle, the best being that he was going to leave me, don a monocle, top hat, and dastardly mustache, and become the new endboss of Heroic Mech. Long story.

These days he has been largely stabled in favor of Wash, although he comes out sometimes for nostalgia’s sake. The last time I brought him to a raid, though, there were five hunters there all told and every single one had a cat and one of them was the exact same skin as Locke. It bugged me enough that halfway through during a break I went and swapped him out for my raptor. >.> Sorry, Locke. It was really confusing though… all those kitties… /twitch. My Locke was the only one going Big Red though. <3

He is named either after John Locke or Locke Cole… take your pick!

Eltanin is the Windserpent who became the Burning Crusade raiding pet after Locke. Lightning Breath for the win! I love this guy– beautiful skin and I just adore windserpents. I went into ZG solo to tame him, the story of which I chronicled in this blog!

Sadly with the advent of 3.0 he no longer was a good raid/instancing pet so while he alternated with my other pets during my leveling, he has been stuck at level 79 for a while. I love to pull him out of the stable sometimes and strut around with him, just because I think he’s gorgeous. I wish I could use him more often.

He was named after the brightest star in the constellation Draco.

Wash has a long story to him. As I’m sure most of you lovely folks have gathered, he’s rather near and dear to my heart, even though I’d released him for some time and didn’t re-tame him until recently. He is my current raiding/instancing pet, partially because I am so attached to him, partially because I simply got tired of having a cat like everyone else (again– sorry Locke!), and partially because his DPS is phenominal– I maintain that he performs better than my cat does in my experience, largely I think because of Savage Rend. When it crits, it increases the damage he deals by 10% for 30 seconds. When you are a Beast Master hunter as I am, this crits a lot, and the cooldown is down to something like 46 seconds, so it’s up– a LOT of the time.

Mostly I just think Wash is adorable. I’ve always liked dinosaurs. Protoceratops are my favorite, but for the lack of them in the game, a raptor will do.

…and, come on, you mean the story behind his name isn’t obvious enough? =P

My fifth stable slot is currently in a state of flux. Usually it’s occupied by a tenacity pet to make up for my lack of one, but over the past several months a bear, a rhino, an eagle, a wolf, a turtle, and now currently a teal worm (named Nachi) have all resided there. Who will get the fifth stable slot permanently? I dunno. A part of me really wants Loque’nahak, not so much because I like the look, so much as it seems to be the ultimate badge of Beast Master hunter pride. (Although, I do like the look, but not to the point that I would get him otherwise, if it wasn’t such a symbol of my favorite spec.) Still, I’ve circled the Basin a bazillion times over the past few months while herbing– yes, following “the route” and keeping a casual eye out– and I’ve never seen hide nor hair, not to mention then I wouldn’t have any room for my token tenacity pet, so… I’m really not sure!

From a roleplaying standpoint, Tawyn considers all her pets to be very important to her, and her closest friends. She only keeps them with stable masters that she trusts (she’s good friends with the dwarven hunters in Stormwind) and the stories I write about her often involve multiple pets all out at once… hey, I can dream, right?

Next up, if enough people are interested… the stories behind the pets of my other hunters!

…don’t give me that look. We’ve already established that I’m a Crazy Pet Lady.

Buff food for us hunters is pretty self-explanitory. We like food that gives us Attack Power or Crit or Agility, or possibly even Hit or Haste, depending on our gear, spec, and circumstance. Don’t forget, though, that our pets can get buff food too:

Currently, as far as I am aware, there are three foods in the game that will buff your pet. These are they:

Sporeling Snacks: An Outlands recipe available from Sporeggar rep, this food will give your pet 20 stamina and 20 spirit for 30 minutes. Requires level 55 to use.

Kibler’s Bits: An Outlands recipe from the Shattrath cooking daily, this food used to give your pet 20 strength and 20 spirit for 30 minutes– now it has been revamped and gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 55 to use.

Spiced Mammoth Treats: A Northrend recipe from the Dalaran cooking daily, this food has the exact same effect as Kibler’s Bits: gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 70 to use.

Now by looking at these three foods, it’s pretty clear that our poor old Sporeling Snacks have been outclassed. It doesn’t last nearly as long as the others and the stats are subpar. Still useful for leveling through Outlands if you happen to snag the recipe and mats, but even then, not really worth reaching for.

The other two, though, are your pets’ new best friends in raids or heroics!

Most cooks find that the Kibler’s Bits are much easier to make due to the easier-to-obtain ingredients. Me, I don’t have the recipe for either so I stalk the AH for both of them. They tend to be pricey when they pop up (though I can occasionally find Kibler’s Bits for quite a steal– I’ve bought a full stack of 20 for 3 gold) but the benefits they provide are pretty nice: a DPS boost and a survivability boost for your pet.

Plus, c’mon, he’s just so happy when you give him a treat!

So don’t forget to bring some with you alongside your hunter buff food: your pet will thank you. Oh, and also remember that the food doesn’t work like normal “pet food”… you don’t use the Feed Pet command to feed him. Rather, you “use” it like you would a food for yourself.

And no, I don’t know why an Outlands recipe and Northrend recipe with a usable-level discrepency are exactly the same either. I sort of suspect this may randomly change in a future patch, but hey, who knows?

In closing, I was a “caster tank” on Four Horsemen today. It was really fun, and I got a shiny new sword. *swings it around and hums contentedly as her pets dash for cover*

Left to right, top to bottom:

Tux, Level 80; Locke, Level 80; Eltanin, Level 79; Wash, Level 80
Alyosha, Level 70; Ivan, Level 70; Serenity, Level 70; Dmitri, Level 70
Kolya, Level 33; Regulus, Level 38; Alnair, Level 39; Chakapas, Level 37
Clifford, Level 18; Fiskars, Level 18; Scraps, Level 14; Niels, Level 16

And yes, there’s more. Though they are sadly attached to hunters who I don’t play as often. (The pets of six different hunters are represented in this quilt.)

…and yes, looking at this picture fills me with warm fuzzies. <3

(Continued from Part One)

The Outland.

There were few that remained here now that most of the action was going on in Northrend. Oh, there were some armies still stationed here, and the younger adventurers cutting their teeth in this gods-forsaken land. But for the most part, there was nothing to be seen…

…except perhaps a bright pink raptor wreaking havoc on the moths in Terokkar Forest. And his subsequent containment by the Cenarion Expedition, who proceeded to bring the now caged creature to their main base of operations in Zangarmarsh.

“What do you make of this… creature?” Warden Hamoot asked Kameel, the Stable Master, as he gestured to the raptor furiously thrashing about behind bars. “He does not appear to be like anything else I have seen in this area…”

Kameel nodded. “He is native to the Wetlands in Azeroth,” he said in his deep voice. “How he got up here, I don’t know, but he does not belong here, and so long as he stays I do not think he will be happy.”

“Happy?” the Warden chuckled and lightly scratched his back with his mace. “When we found him he was terrorizing the creatures of Terokkar, they are the ones who only wish to be happy. But you are right, my friend, we must do what is best for this animal. There is a fear in his eyes, and I believe it may be driving him mad, if it hasn’t already. He should go back to the Wetlands.”

“The quickest way would be to take him to Shattrath and through the portal to the dwarves’ city, Ironforge,” replied Kameel. “From there, it would be a relatively short trip by cart to his native land.”

Warden Hamoot shuffled his hooves. He didn’t like using the portals, they relied too much on arcane magic in his eyes, and he was glad that this time he would have a good excuse to not have to use one. “Obviously you and I shall not be able to make the trip to the dwarves’ city, not with the Alliance and Horde still at odds as they are prone to be. You and I would clearly… raise a few eyebrows, so to speak, if we went. But one of our Night Elf colleagues, perhaps…?”

Kameel voiced his agreement and the two tauren went about deciding who the best representative would be as the raptor once again attacked the bars of his cage, letting out a shriek that sent the nearby sea birds soaring away.

—

“Tell that blasted thing to shut up!” the dwarf banged his gun against the bars of the cage, which only provoked the raptor further as the Night Elf druid escorting it tried to calm both of them down. “Why’d ya bring this thing ‘ere into Menethil Harbor anyway, boy? Couldn’t ya have just left it outside tha town?” the dwarf continued to thunder.

“I– I worry about being alone when I release it, just in case–”

“Bah, we could use less o’ those beasties around ‘ere anyway. I say we end the thing.”

A woman’s voice yelled something out in Dwarvish, and the dwarf yelled back “Dearie, ye can’t take away mah gun. It’s a dwarf’s solemn right to have a gun in one hand and an ale in the other–”

Simultaneously the woman snapped something back; the Cenarion escort said “Please, I’ll handle it,” and the raptor screeched out to the heavens as the curious Night Elf hunter approached. The boat from Northrend had landed and was soon to depart, but no commotion was going to take place without Tawyn’s investigation, whether or not she might miss the boat. A druid and a dwarf were rather feverishly discussing something, she observed, and in a cage was a brilliant magenta raptor…

He glanced at Tawyn. Tawyn blinked.

“…Wash?”

In an instant the raptor’s screeches took on a more pleading tone and Tawyn was at the cage. “Let him out. Let him out!” she roared, and it was somehow a bestial enough threat that the dwarf backed away and the druid fumbled at the lock without question.

The padlock fell away and the small crowd that had gathered tensed. The raptor, now quiet, slowly padded out of the cage, off the wooden cart, and up to Tawyn. The hunter reached down and gently stroked his head without a second thought. “What’s wrong, boy…?”

Still, he was silent. Tawyn stared searchingly into this eyes; there was pain therein. Not physical pain though– he had seen something. Something bad…

She thought about how she’d released him in the Outland. Perhaps, on second thought, not a good idea. So much chaos up there–

“You,” she looked at the druid. “What were you doing with him?”

“We– the Cenarion Expedition– found him far from his home, and he was not happy. We were simply bringing him home, to release him here. That is all. I hope I did not interfere with anything…”

“No,” Tawyn smiled thinly. “Thank you for thinking of what was best for him.” She looked down at the raptor. “You’re home now, and safe. Go on now.”

Wash stood his ground; clearly he wasn’t intending to go anywhere. There was still pain in his eyes, but something else too…

He wanted to help.

Tawyn realized what this meant, and nodded. Then she turned and headed towards the ship to Howling Fjord. Wash followed.

“Where are you going?” asked the druid.

“Northrend,” replied Tawyn.

“And why are you taking… him?”

“Because… we are partners.”

And with that the hunter and her pet got onto the boat, and sailed away into the mists.

(The End!)