tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34230074956995654052024-03-05T03:05:27.974-08:00press '5' to captureRatshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-35631741195785488182013-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:002013-10-10T10:58:12.749-07:00Who Is Getting the Love, Patch 5.4 EditionBeen about six months since I <a href="http://press5tocapture.blogspot.com/2013/04/whos-getting-loving-now.html">did an inventory</a> on my level 25 pets, broken down by family. At the time I noted that I'd picked up a bunch of critters and aquatics, taking advantage of the easy pickings in the Valley, but I needed more magics. So how am I doing now?<br />
<br />
critter - 45 (+19)<br />
beast - 43 (+19)<br />
aquatic - 34 (+15)<br />
elemental - 25 (+9)<br />
flying - 22 (+10)<br />
humanoid - 17 (+7)<br />
mechanical - 17 (+9) <br />
undead - 15 (+6)<br />
dragonkin - 15 (+6)<br />
magic - 11 (+7)<br />
<br />
Still dominated by critters, beasts, and aquatics. I really hope in the next expansion Blizzard does a better job of creating variety among the high-level wild pets. Among the other families, mechanicals made a strong move, fueled by my desire to have more options in the Celestial Tournament, where two of the four opponents in the final round are beasts. Magics are still in the back, but at least they didn't fall further behind this time.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-9638773430030288972013-08-22T13:25:00.002-07:002013-08-22T13:25:56.953-07:00the night is dark and full of terrors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
lately, for my weekly 10 pvp wins, i've been running this team. it's built around the combination of call darkness, which blinds all pets (except elementals), and nocturnal strike, which never misses if the target is blinded. while i don't keep a full win-loss record, this team clearly does better than any other i've tried lately - i'd estimate i win about 70-80% of the time with it, which ain't bad.<br />
<br />
assuming my opponent cooperates, my preferred strategy is to use the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62854">whelpling</a> to grind down my opponent's pets with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=657">plagued blood</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=122">tail sweep</a>. big health pool and a low speed so tail sweep almost always gets its bonus damage. when he finally does go down, i use the bonus attack from the undead racial to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=256">call darkness</a>. then i send in the birds. speed, speed-based bonus damage, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=517">nocturnal strikes</a>, and more call darkness result in an orgy of damage. usually enough.<br />
<br />
works well against: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=70154">direhorns</a>, the current flavor of the month. their beast damage is weak against flyers. also very effective against teams with a lot of healing.<br />
<br />
works poorly against: elementals, since they aren't affected by darkness. teams using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=589">arcane storm</a> and other magic attacks can be problematic as well.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-56369373517895136642013-08-02T13:44:00.002-07:002013-08-02T13:44:45.946-07:00a farewell to tol baradso, after collecting a crapton of rusty rifles, killing a legion of already-dead ghosts and skeletons, and putting an ice jacket on poor lost <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=47593">problim</a> more times than i can count, danger mouse has done enough tol barad dailies to purchase both a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=48107">rustberg gull</a> and a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=48641">fox kit</a>. along the way she got her <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=522">first</a> <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5376">exalted reputation</a>, and leveled from 85 to almost 88. i'm thinking it's time to give her a break and let her finish leveling with some soothing pandaria scenery.<br />
<br />
mouse being mouse, she gave the fox kit a name that accurately reflects her pleasure at having achieved this milestone.<br />
<br />
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<br />Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-47497788467321393812013-07-30T11:56:00.001-07:002013-07-30T11:58:28.855-07:00leveling a low-level character with pet battlesi'm not exactly sure what the formula is for how much experience a sub-90 character gets for winning a pet battle, but i know it scales with both the character's level, and the level of the pets in the battle. as a result, a level 30 character battling level 9 <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=61141">prairie dogs</a> in the south barrens doesn't get a lot of xp - probably less than she'd get herbing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/object=1624">kingsblood</a>. which brings us to this guy:<br />
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if ratshag the orc was still with us, he'd say something like "this amazingly virile piece of gnomeflesh be noggle the rogue. say hello, you buggers." so, say hello. hard to tell from the picture, but he's about level 35-ish. and yes, he's in the valley of the four winds. what's he doing there? i blame julie.<br />
<br />
it started when she had me log on to her second account and fire up her baby monk. meanwhile, she got on her level 90 mage and opened a portal to pandalaran. once there, she transformed into her sandstone drake and i had the monk hop on. a quick stop at halfhill to pick up the flight path, and then a little hop over to the west, to the "dead zone". there's a nice big swath from farmer nishi over to the swampy plateau behind the area where old hillpaw keeps losing his chickens where there are oodles of critters but no hostile mobs. none. zip. and winning a pet battle against level 23-25 pets when you're only level 30 gets you more than a tenth of a level. in just a couple of weeks of occasional playtime she managed to get her monk from 30 to 60. so i asked her to transport my little rogue over as well. and he's picked up ten levels so far.<br />
<br />
every now and then i'll stray a little to close to the edge of the dead zone, and a wolf or a vermling will have himself a nogglesnack. and sometimes a high level character will do a double-take and ask "you lost, little fella?" but mostly it's just a quiet and relaxing way to level yet another alt.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-25418310953164191572013-07-19T13:02:00.000-07:002013-07-19T13:02:18.662-07:00in which llanion returns to provide me with delicious blog fodderdon't know exactly what this will be yet, other than it's patch 5.4's move to provide a new challenge for pet battlers, and get new rewards. one of the details that's leaked out is that you need thirty level 25 pets to participate. now, like most things in wow, whether a particular benchmark is hard or easy is completely subjective and i try to not to worry about such things. but some folks commenting on the <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/07/19/patch-5-4-ptr-celestial-tournament-details/">wow insider</a> article got their knickers in a twist over the gating. and i mentioned as such in the <a href="http://mibbit.com/?channel=%23BlogAzeroth&server=irc.mibbit.net">blog azeroth chatroom</a> this morning, leading to this conversation:<br />
<br />
llanion: Now, I haven't played in two years, so maybe I'm mis-interpreting something radically..<br />
llanion: How many people who aren't hardcore Pet Battle enthusiasts are going to want to enter a PET BATTLE TOURNAMENT?<br />
stoppableforce: ^<br />
ratshag: people who want the four new pets you can buy with your winnings<br />
llanion: I think part of my brain is trying to dribble out my ears and my workday isn't even half over yet<br />
<br />
then i happened to mention the arguments over whether or not a chance to miss should exist in pet battles. whoa nellie:<br />
<br />
llanion: ...please tell me they're not theorycrafting the Pokemon minigame.<br />
ratshag: some refuse to believe that it would convert pet battles into tic-tac-toe with pretty graphics<br />
llanion: Look, Ratters, my desk is part of an entire double row of six, and flipping it would be really, really difficult.<br />
ratshag: lol<br />
llanion: So, you know, lie to my face if necessary; I need to hear that they're not actually theorycrafting the Pokemon minigame.<br />
ratshag: no, we would never do that<br />
llanion: Oh, good.<br />
llanion: I was worried for a moment there.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-14408007483030843162013-07-03T08:03:00.000-07:002013-07-03T08:03:26.459-07:00shove up, gamon, ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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...and take for kor'kron friends with you. galertruby's got level 1 pets that need some xp before heading out to pandaria for leveling, and you buggers are in his way.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-56384399096305434972013-06-25T10:49:00.000-07:002013-06-25T10:49:43.443-07:00qiraji guardlings for everybody!in case you missed the news, last night blizzard hotfixed a major boost to the spawn rate for <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62526">qiraji guardlings</a>. from what i was seeing the on the forums, the tidal surge of players hunting them had already started to ebb as more and more people got theirs and left the zone, and the hotfix finished it. this morning i logged on to the alt i had parked in silithus, and there was a guardling fluttering right in front of her. after capturing it, i cruised around the area and saw four more, completely unmolested.<br />
<br />
so what prompted this abrupt change from blizzard? was it the wailing and threatening to quit the game on the forums? was it the swarms of death knights being created on the handful of servers that have no crz? was it the griefers killing guardlings before someone could capture them? or was it the massive gold rush into silithus in general? whatever it was, doing it as a hotfix instead of waiting for weekly maintenance suggests things were not going as planned. given that all these factors were things i as a player fully expected to see, i have to wonder once again what game it is the folks at blizzard play. it may be called "world of warcraft" but it doesn't appear to be the game we are playing.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-75948157249491675692013-06-21T09:02:00.001-07:002013-06-21T09:02:43.511-07:00if you don't have a minfernal yet ...... now is probably the perfect time to go snag one. all the pet farmers are in silithus camping for their guardling.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-37098536995404955822013-06-20T08:56:00.001-07:002013-06-20T08:56:15.058-07:00gotta name 'em allgot my second <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=71014">lil' bad wolf</a> the other day (i gave the first one to julie) and now it is time to bid farewell to karazhan. over the years i have farmed it for loot, for badgers of justice, for attumen's pony, for transmog gear, and now for pets. nothing left to go back for now, at least until blizzard puts something new in there. seems only appropriate to name the little fella after kara's biggest fan.<br />
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<br />
okay, yeah, i realize it would've been better if it'd been a rabbit. nothing's perfect. there was a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=28581">spiffy bit of hunter loot</a> that dropped along with the pet, though...Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-52899806834005682152013-06-20T08:39:00.003-07:002013-06-20T08:39:52.998-07:00...and now it is summerpeople are reporting seeing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62526">qiraji guardling</a> spawns in silithus, so it is now finally possible to capture them, completing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6590">world safari</a> and getting your zookeeper title. me, though, i'm gonna wait a week or so for the crowds to die down. they'll still be just as fresh.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-1683724335809114182013-06-11T11:37:00.000-07:002013-06-11T11:37:22.616-07:00raiding with leashes ii progressfarming the burning crusade raids for the pets has been a big honkin' time sink for me since patch 5.3 went live a few weeks ago. i've been running karazhan with a dozen different toons each week, and tempest keep and serpentshrine cavern with several. along he way i have discovered a few things. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=19516">loot reaver</a> is immune to leaching poison, which resulted in my poor level 85 rogue getting smooshed rather brutally. on the other hand, a level 90 protection warrior's second wind talent regenerates health fast enough that i was able to go afk for several minutes right in the middle of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=21212">lady vashj</a>'s phase 2 with no trouble.<br />
<br />
so, how am I doing on finding the new pets?<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="10"><tbody>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">boss</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">pet for julie</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">pet for me</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">big bad wolf</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x*</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">curator</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">terestian stranglehoof</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">prince malchezaar</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">al'ar</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">void reaver</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">high astronomer solarian</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">hydross the unstable</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">morogrim tidewalker</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">x</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#cccccc" width="180">lady vashj</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#dddddd" width="180">-</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
* = i just went and bought one off the auction house for julie<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=17521">big bad wolf</a> has been my nemesis in karazhan. he shows up plenty of times in the opera event, he just has yet to drop the pet for me. bastard. good news is, since he's fairly early in he tower, i'm not spending a lot of time there anymore. if it was prince i still needed pets from, and i was still having to run chess many times each week, i'd be a sad ratters.<br />
<br />
as for the rest? they'll drop eventually. and then <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=71023">tito</a> will be mine! but i do wish ssc was easier to get to, particularly when things go south and you have to run from one of those graveyards halfway across the zone....Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-317880192768304732013-06-03T13:56:00.003-07:002013-06-03T13:56:38.774-07:00the very rare turtlepede<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs774yrEnV7xrMPPeb89ea6ByPqiZSol8vGwUyzGn8OmeUJTtrqslipGawXOlopeNFMd8panz8nnbnKo6OQzsZZuR00OSAJg9AILl98AQLmgIOM7V0bhxJpJyFgwhLr8Uitp406NEh4Vo/s1600/turtlepede.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs774yrEnV7xrMPPeb89ea6ByPqiZSol8vGwUyzGn8OmeUJTtrqslipGawXOlopeNFMd8panz8nnbnKo6OQzsZZuR00OSAJg9AILl98AQLmgIOM7V0bhxJpJyFgwhLr8Uitp406NEh4Vo/s400/turtlepede.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
was out in the valley of the four winds, doing my daily <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=82447">imperial silk</a> transmute (yes, someday my tailor will make it to 90 and grind to exalted with the augustus gloops so he can learn to make <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=82446">royal satchels</a>. maybe). anywho. saw this rarely-seen-in-the-wild eight-legged turtlepede patrolling around the silken fields.<br />
<br />
oh, those silly mages and their glyphs....Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-87006925464461450372013-05-30T12:58:00.000-07:002013-05-30T12:58:45.990-07:00balancing time vs rewardone complaint frequently aired on the official pet battle forum is that it takes far too long to do all the pet battle dailies. which, well, is true. it does take a long time. which is why i don't do them all.<br />
<br />
here's what i've been doing, most days. i start with the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68465">thundering pandaren spirit</a>, conveniently (if you're horde) located in the hills above the shrine of two moons. if you bring a fast rabbit as your first pet, this fight is fairly easy and you can let a baby go in as your second pet to get the xp. then it's down into the vale of eternal blossoms for <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=66741">aki the chosen</a>. send in a baby pet first, then a crab with shell shield and healz to clear out her first two pets. pretty much any bird can finish off her last one.<br />
<br />
next i cross the mountains into the valley of the four winds. maybe pause for a few minutes to harvest golden lotus on the farm, or motes of spirited away, or whatever i planted yesterday. across the fields to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=66734">farmer nishi</a>, who is easy like a sunday morning. pretty much any strategy works worth her - i go with a water strider to take out her elementals (swapping in a baby pet to take a hit when <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=66716">toothbreaker</a> does his night of the living turnips move), and finish it off with my darkmoon tonk's <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=209">ion cannon of badassity</a>.<br />
<br />
finally, it's knock <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=32868">beasts of fable book ii</a> time. these guys give lousy xp, so i don't bother trying to level baby pets of them. conveniently located in the valley are <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68561">mostly harmless yi</a> (easily downed by team yeti) and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68560">greyhoof</a> (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=204">call lightning</a> and let slip the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=209">ion cannons of war</a>). just across the border in the krasarang wilds is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68566">skit-skit-skittererer xi'a</a> (all darkness and nocturnal strike spam). and then i'm done.<br />
<br />
so how'd i make out? 20 valor points, three big fat lumps of xp for baby pets, four shots at flawless battle-stones, a shot at an earth spirit pet, and a shot at a panda pet. all in under twenty minutes. feels good to me.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-21582378264333810512013-05-23T10:01:00.003-07:002013-05-23T10:56:44.456-07:00and oh yeah, lucky yiforgot to mention yesterday that <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68561">lucky yi</a> is also an elite pet who can heal himself, and is therefore tougher to beat after the patch 5.3 changes. sadly for yi, this just means that he got upgraded from "harmless" to "mostly harmless." it's still a "bring your yetis, and let the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=124">rampages</a> roll" kind of fight.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-57582337696706173792013-05-22T11:30:00.000-07:002013-05-22T11:30:29.069-07:00beasts of fable in 5.3when the "elite" pets were introduced in patch 5.2, they were pretty much a joke. i slapped together three beast-damage pets for killing the elite critters, three mechanical pets for the beasts, and three flyers for the aquatics. almost no thought at all, and the beasts of fable were on farm. yawn. the only hard part was the time required to travel to all ten.<br />
<br />
yesterday, patch 5.3 made some changes. instead of one quest to kill all ten, there are now three quests, each of which gives the same reward as the original. so you can choose how much time to invest versus how much reward. yay on that.<br />
<br />
but the pets themselves were also changed. they have only half as much health, but all incoming damage is cut in half. (their power may also have been increased a bit, but i'm not sure and it's hard to check). for many of the pets this has no net effect - still takes the same amount of damage to kill them. for those that can heal themselves, however, the impact is huge, since the amount of healing was not halved. killing these guys - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68565">nitun</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68564">dos-ryaga</a> - is now a lo harder. not surprisingly, the official pet battle forum erupted with cries of "it's impossible!" and "gg blizz" and "that's it i'm gonna cancel my account."<br />
<br />
but of course, it isn't impossible, as the second wave of posters on the forum pointed out. you just need to make sure your teams are prepared for what they'll be facing. for dos-ryaga it turned out i was already set - i've always sent in my <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=67443">crow</a> first and opened with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=256">call darkness</a> (followed by <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=517">nocturnal strike</a>), and that messed up his healing enough that i didn't notice the difference. nitun, though, he gave me fits for a while. other than trouble the kun-lai runt, my team wasn't damaging him enough to overcome the healing he got when he killed them. so i ultimately brought in the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=28470">duck of death</a> and my <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62242">brilliant kaliri</a> - both flyers so his beast attacks were weakened. beast damage, speed bonuses, and predatory strike to finish him off. i'm sure there's more ways to skin this raccoon (the post that said the undead racial bonus negates his healing ability has me intrigued) and i'll try at least a few more of them. what's important to remember is, these battles are puzzles. if your first plan doesn' work, take a step back and try something different. enough thinking and patience, and you'll find a solution.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-28077186656364012902013-05-20T10:50:00.000-07:002013-05-20T10:50:01.750-07:00the first pet battle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwZVAfsHcc8rmOuwHXqrMXeMpESaJJmqQKNK-Ut9SSOlzKftaWWK34MX0TOyJ5Zb7I2QpHeY1BqWom8vrTmQNISYtGQeRxP54NPW__tO3Bmj97Fp_8Qlphqvx4WpnNrZGvXZ6E_O0Oxic/s1600/firstpetbattle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwZVAfsHcc8rmOuwHXqrMXeMpESaJJmqQKNK-Ut9SSOlzKftaWWK34MX0TOyJ5Zb7I2QpHeY1BqWom8vrTmQNISYtGQeRxP54NPW__tO3Bmj97Fp_8Qlphqvx4WpnNrZGvXZ6E_O0Oxic/s400/firstpetbattle.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
i'd forgotten all about this until this weekend, when i was leveling my warlock through mount hyjal. near the end of the zone, when you infiltrate the twilight's hammer cult, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=39406">instructor devoran</a> asks you to take his pet corehound out for some <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25294">fresh basilisk meat</a> and a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25494">spiked collar</a>. then he <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25496">sends you out to fight</a> the ogre gromm'ko's champion raptor, butcher. <br />
<br />
i was halfway through the last quest when i realized, "oh my gods, this is pet battling!" and it was, up until the point where the ogre got all pissed that his pet had lost and i had to kill him. these days, we're too sophisticated for such juvenile displays of temper, and just talk smack about how op the other guy's pet is on the official forums.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-69935308133134292262013-05-10T14:46:00.000-07:002013-05-10T14:46:08.211-07:00one does not simply walk into the darkmoon faire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM7l21QT72aYdO-4HsdSKFA99I3Sa0zngoYQHxq1e4vQdB57GsGm8qosEEOi5g113W1l2k020i6_BxOts0BtI3Yxufj4AV8U5SInV4qD689-4JWwcr2sVHLLRdPFyw7HFlmCEZUAHdmM/s1600/darkmooneye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM7l21QT72aYdO-4HsdSKFA99I3Sa0zngoYQHxq1e4vQdB57GsGm8qosEEOi5g113W1l2k020i6_BxOts0BtI3Yxufj4AV8U5SInV4qD689-4JWwcr2sVHLLRdPFyw7HFlmCEZUAHdmM/s1600/darkmooneye.jpg" /></a></div>
"concealed within his fortress, the lord of the darkmoon faire sees all. his gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth, and flesh. You know of what I speak, gandalf: a great eye, lidless, wreathed in flame."<br />
<br />
plus it shoots a frickin' <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=482">laser</a> beam, which never misses. wicked cool. so, thanks, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=67370">jeremy feasel</a>.<br />
<br />
(julie was so happy that i got this this morning that she gave me not one, but <i>two</i> fingers!)Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-73884945568858262582013-05-02T12:20:00.000-07:002013-05-02T12:20:06.340-07:00gotta catch some more of 'em"gotta catch'em all" never really entered my mindset. i mean, i have a lot of pets, but there's still a bunch i don't, and i still sleep fine at night. but they are out there, waiting to at least be cataloged, whether i ultimately get to them or not.<br />
<br />
so, here is the list of pets i don't have yet (omitting trading card game pets, collector's editions i didn' buy, promotions in china, etc) and what I would need to get them. should i choose to do so.<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="10"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc" width="270">mulgore hatchling, ammen vale lashling, dun morogh cub, elwynn lamb, mechanopeep, shimmering wyrmling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">drag my butt back up to the argent tournament and do dailies</td></tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">searing scorchling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">drag my butt back to the molten front, do dailies to buy the reward bag, then get lucky</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">clock'em</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">do more fights at the brawler's club</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">crawling claw</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">keep doing archeology and buying tol'vir fragments from brann bronzebottom. then get lucky</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">jade owl, sapphire cub, mechanical pandaren dragonling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">remember that i've got characters that can craft these, and then craft them</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">aqua strider, azhure whelpling, crimson whelpling, darkmoon rabbit, disgusting oozeling, emerald whelpling, firefly, gundrack hatchling, hyacinth mccaw, ji-kun hatchling, lashtail hatchling, living sandling, lumpy, mojo, razzashi hatchling, snarly, son of animus, tiny shale spider, zandalari anklerender</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">go to the auction house and drop several metric craptons of gold</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">warbot</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">remember that i can just buy this from a vendor now, and go do it</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">tiny flamefly</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">stop forgetting do finish that quest chain in the burning steppes</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">darkmoon eye</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">continue to battle jeremy feasel every day the darkmoon faire is in town. and get extremely lucky</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">fox kit, rustberg gull</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">go back to tol barad, and grind out dailies</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">gold mini jouster</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">do that quest in mount hyjal again, and this time remember that i've already got like seven blue jousters</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">hopling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">do that thing you gotta do in the stormstout brewery. with the magic beer or whatever it was</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">jubling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">do that thing at the darkmoon faire. something to do with dark iron ale or somesuch</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">porcupette</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">keep doing daily npc tamer pet battles, then get lucky</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">qiraji guardling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">summer is coming</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">snow panda</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">keep doing the fabled beasts daily. triple the odds when 5.3 lands!</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">spawn of g'nathus</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">armtwist my friends into helping me kill g'nathus</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">spectral porcupette</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">grind on dinosaurs</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">sumprush rodent</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">keep working on operation: shieldwall dailies</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">tiny red carp, tiny white carp</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">just keep fishing. just keep fishing</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">lil' tarecgosa</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">get my guild rep up in one of the raiding guilds i have an alt in, then go buy it</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">thundering serpent hatchling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">get an alt in a way better guild</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">wild crimson hatchling, wild golden hatchling, wild jade hatchling</td><td bgcolor="#dddddd">get my butt in gear and grind out all the order of the cloud serpent rep, then capture them</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-8608791799129612682013-04-30T11:25:00.000-07:002013-04-30T11:25:16.932-07:00and she's back in the game. for now, anyway.my wife took a sabbatical from wow to focus on school and work these past few months. the semester is winding down now, and this weekend she logged on and started leveling alts through pet battles. after enjoying herself for a few hours, though, a problem arose.<br />
<br />
"why didn't you tell me there are <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=70259">four</a> <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=70257">new</a> <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=70260">untradeable</a> <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=70258">pets</a> that can only be got through fishing?"<br />
<br />
"i dunno. i thought i mentioned them at some point."<br />
<br />
"I gotta have them."<br />
<br />
"you gotta?"<br />
<br />
"i need!!!"<br />
<br />
and she was off.<br />
<br />
of course, fishing is a slow process, even when you aren't trying to catch really rare fish. so she did some research, and ran across the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=85973">ancient pandaren fishing charm</a>, which gives you a buff that gives you a 20% or so chance to get a bonus fish every time you catch one in a fishing pool. to get it, you have to talk to the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=64004">ghostly pandaren fisherman</a>, a friendly npc who spawns once every few hours in the valley of the four winds. (i probably read all this back at the beginning of the expansion, and then promptly forgot it.)<br />
<br />
unlike me, julie does nothing half-assed in this game. she set up her <a href="http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/npcscan">npcscan</a> add-on to detect the fisherman. she parked herself right at his spawn point. then she launched a second wow session, logged on to her second account, selected a character on a different server, and parked that one at the spawn point as well. then she fired up her other laptop and proceeded to do school work. after maybe an hour, the scanner alarm went off, followed immediately by a triumphant "ha-ha!". then she switched to a different character, parked it, and got back to her homework.<br />
<br />
by the end of the day, she'd picked up fishing charms on five different characters, including one of mine (thank you, love :) ). along the way, she had a couple of conversations with other players who said they'd been looking for the fisherman for "weeks", and then flew away. moral of the story: this is a game that rewards patience.<br />
<br />
she hasn't got any carp yet, but i expect she'll get all four before i do (i still need red and white). either that, or school will pick up again in the summer and she'll make me play her account to get them.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-22149819193574784272013-04-22T10:11:00.001-07:002013-04-22T10:11:46.816-07:00hydra doesn't pvp. except when she does.hydrargyrum, of the <a href="http://twistednether.net/">twisted nether blogcast</a> and (when she remembers she still has a blog) <a href="http://almostevil.blogspot.com/">almost evil</a>, is my oldest wow blogging friend. we met back when we were the only two wow bloggers on the now-defunct vox.com blogging / pre-facebook social media platform. long time ago, that was. somewhere along the line one of her alts on my server got lucky and picked up a <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=15705">winter's little helper</a> pet, which she generously gave to me.<br />
<br />
for years it sat in my bank or pet book, only coming out on occasion during the winter veil holiday. when we got the ability to name our pets this expansion, christening it "hydrargyrum" seemed the appropriate thing to do. and at some point, even though it was only an uncommon pet with a really strange spell set, i decided to level it to 25. then i found myself with an extra flawless humanoid battle-stone, so i stoned the little gnome because why hell not?<br />
<br />
and then the other day i ran across a pvp team comp that caught my eye. <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=68846">kun-lai runt</a> (a very popular and effective pet currently). slow <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=62835">tundra penguin</a>. and <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=15705">winter's little helper</a>. didn't have a penguin of that particular breed, so i substituted <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=32595">pengu</a> - same spells, but a little faster and a little weaker. wasn't worried about it, because i still think that, with certain exceptions, having the right breed is greatly overrated. anywho, three pets, all with the ability to "chill" an opponent, and all with an ability that gets a bonus when hitting a chilled opponent. so how'd hydrargyrum, slide, and grievous muppet do?<br />
<br />
they pwned teh face.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGztmMf1lTXYuPwFyElhCrXHiALxJcnwp7Nu71Z8txXu0tisjnw7BYIXO8T7aWQ-6dsqx_wKSS5UYBvxWsWz06pzKzgo4eqrom6B2Z4dolV0Q8qnaQzOaTImNuQXUkBbTP6c4p0pmqms/s1600/hydra01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGztmMf1lTXYuPwFyElhCrXHiALxJcnwp7Nu71Z8txXu0tisjnw7BYIXO8T7aWQ-6dsqx_wKSS5UYBvxWsWz06pzKzgo4eqrom6B2Z4dolV0Q8qnaQzOaTImNuQXUkBbTP6c4p0pmqms/s400/hydra01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2kgUlVE2oBc24YC3suIIdcexK0b4mqrVgCyMqoU5PsT_dckUD4H5Woz6Y600v5A87X_ktEz4ghPKFKCmb2IjNeIGwpC4_Xv8JnFwg9_OJRTduHAmyOIJvcLiiqd7_oGMhmjpC-EfugRE/s1600/hydra02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2kgUlVE2oBc24YC3suIIdcexK0b4mqrVgCyMqoU5PsT_dckUD4H5Woz6Y600v5A87X_ktEz4ghPKFKCmb2IjNeIGwpC4_Xv8JnFwg9_OJRTduHAmyOIJvcLiiqd7_oGMhmjpC-EfugRE/s400/hydra02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
over the course of the weekend they racked up twelve wins against five losses. not too shabby. along the way i picked up the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/achievement=6596">experienced pet brawler</a> achievement. fifty wins isn't a lot, at least when compared to my pve wins, but pvp is still so darn slooooooooow and doesn't offer much in the way of rewards. yet. can only do a few battles before my brain starts pointing out how many opportunities we're losing by not doing other stuff. but still, i have fun while i'm doing it, and i'm looking forward to the pvp achievement grind that will come in 5.3. mostly.<br />
<br />
but remember - hydra doesn't pvp*<br />
<br />
<br />
*old joke. she'll know what i'm referring to ;)Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-1809275588910941122013-04-15T11:35:00.001-07:002013-04-15T11:35:45.665-07:00there will be blood in the water ........ and the sharks will come.<br />
<br />
one of the new achievements in patch 5.3 will be <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/achievement=8300">brutal pet brawler</a>, with the very enticing reward of a <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=69849">stunted direhorn</a> pet. i fully expect that a large number of pet collectors who so far have avoided pvp battling will give it a shot, because, you know, gotta catch'em all. but there are some distinct differences between pvp and pve, and if you aren't prepared in advance you're in for a drubbing. most notably, it's not enough to put any three good pets together and call it a team. if the pets have abilities that (a) build off of their other abilities, and (b) complement the abilities of their teammates, it gives you a very powerful edge. for example, a triple conflag team uses two fire elementals to set the enemy on fire before dropping the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/petability=179">conflagrate</a> bomb (bonus damage against burning targets), but also has a <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=21063">dragonhawk</a> with a flying attack to cover for them should the enemy send in an aquatic pet. i won't say it's impossible to beat a tight team like these with any three old pets, but it'll be damn hard.<br />
<br />
so far, i haven't done a lot of pvp. i like it, especially the fact that it encourages you to use a much wider variety of pets than pve does. but i've got milestones to reach, and both the queue times and the slowness of the fights keep me from doing more than a handful of fights before going back to more time-efficient game elements. but i've done enough that i can spot someone who is just "checking it out" as soon as the fight starts, and I know my odds are very good. (against more solid teams, my track record is roughly 50-50; i can hold my own, but i'm no master). if the patch does bring in a big influx of non-pvp'ers, i'm afraid i'll be doing my part to make it as unpleasant a learning curve for them as possible. after all, i want a baby dinosaur pet too....<br />
<br />
i am kicking around an alternate idea though. if a number of non-pvp'ers (or pvp'ers willing to set aside their solid teams for a while) could meet up on a particular server and all queue up, it might be enough to swamp the queue with amateurs. the result would be short, if not instant, queues and fights that were quick and evenly matched. a couple of hours, and everyone could knock out a good junk of the 250 needed wins. not sure how many people this would take. five, maybe? ten? it'd be interesting to find out, and it would be a good excuse to bring my all-squirrel team out to play.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-63929486792775938552013-04-10T13:15:00.000-07:002013-04-10T13:15:26.016-07:00who's getting the loving now?six weeks or so ago, i <a href="http://press5tocapture.blogspot.com/2013/02/which-families-are-getting-loving.html">tallied up</a> all the level 25 pets from each of the ten families, just to see. now, after after a few weeks of using pet battles to level characters, thanks to the xp introduced in 5.2, i've got a lot more 25s. so i am again curious to see how the families are faring. numbers from the last time are in parentheses, for comparisons.<br />
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critter - 26 (+11)<br />
beast - 24 (+5)<br />
aquatic - 19 (+7)<br />
elemental - 16 (+4)<br />
flying - 12 (+5)<br />
humanoid - 10 (+3)<br />
undead - 9 (+3)<br />
dragonkin - 9 (+4)<br />
mechanical - 8 (+1) <br />
magic - 4 (+0)<br />
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big gains for critters and aquatics, due to all those rares i captured in the valley of the four winds getting leveled. gotta do something about the magic situation. Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-90846219200816508902013-04-09T13:58:00.001-07:002013-04-09T13:58:15.486-07:00some thoughts on the changes to hit and dodgein pet battles, there is a baseline 5% chance that you will miss an attack against an opponent of equal or lower level. there is also a 5% chance that your opponent will dodge your attack. i grew up in a world filled with dice, spinners, rnd() functions, and, when nothing else was available, the last digit of each phone number on a page torn out of an old phone book. as an adult, a big part of my job is managing risk. also, i still play d&d, so there's still lots of dice. as a result, i've been rather baffled by all the people on the wow forums claiming that random outcomes have no business in mini-games like pet battles. there has been a deluge of complaints since day 1, some constructive but many from people with no understanding of confirmational bias, claiming to have been the victims of all sorts of statistically unlikely events (such as missing 15 times in a row). sometimes people report having thrown hellacious temper tantrums, as if this was something to be proud of.<br />
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playing <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/dice/zombiedice/">zombie dice</a> with these people would probably be a miserable experience.<br />
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in patch 5.3, blizzard is going to overhaul the entire system, much to the delight of people who are uncomfortable with probabilities. the baseline chances to miss or dodge will be reduced to 0%. there will still be a chance to miss/dodge higher level opponents, but it will be reduced from 5% each per level to 2%. all tooltips will show the chance of missing (no more "this attack has a moderate chance to miss").<br />
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however.<br />
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a number of basic attacks will now have a small (5-15%) chance to miss, instead of using the baseline. to compensate for the reduced accuracy, the damage for these attacks will be increased 5-15%. these attacks are mainly the no-frills attacks pets typically get at level 1, such as <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=367">chomp</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=499">diseased bite</a>, and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=118">water jet</a>. the thinking is, players will find it more fun if they can opt-in to a baseline chance to miss, rather than have it imposed on them. for the full details, go <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/9425567/Pet_Battle_Accuracy_Changes_in_Patch_53-4_4_2013">here</a>.<br />
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so what does it mean? for starters, it's a blow to healing. healing abilities were never subject to the 5% baseline (how would you dodge your own heal), so they gain nothing while attacks are getting a 10% buff. the other effect that i can see possibly coming from this will be in pvp.<br />
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a lot of pet battle players have shown themselves to be extremely averse to the element of chance. therefore, i expect them to avoid using the attacks with a chance to miss, whenever possible. and this may be something that can be used against them. look at it this way: an attack that does 10% more damage when it hits but misses 10% of the time means that most of the time i'll be doing a little better than my opponent, and some of the time i'll do a lot worse. over the long-term it all averages out, but so what? if i can win a bunch of fights by a small margin, i won't mind getting trounced every now and then. now, there's a lot else going on, and the most effective attacks are generally the more complex ones not getting the chance to miss treatment, so the ultimate impact may be too small to notice. but i will definitely be selecting these attacks when setting up pvp teams, and i'm very curious to see how it will all work out.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-90314400041924425082013-03-29T12:59:00.001-07:002013-03-29T13:01:08.716-07:00more pet names, some with reasonswith over 400 unique pets, more than half of them rares, coming up with names for them is a neverending battle. here's a list of some of my newer ones, in no particular order other than alphabetical.<br />
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<b>bad attitude</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=51600">lil' ragnaros</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._A._Baracus">b.a. baracus</a> would be proud - "too soon! you have awakened me too soon, you crazy fool!"<br />
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<b>buggernaut</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62886">fire-proof roach</a>. because he is one.<br />
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<b>cat in hat</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=53884">feline familiar</a>. seemed like a reasonable name for a cat wearing a hat.<br />
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<b>cute widdle paws</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=61141">prairie dog</a>. because <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=39930">mylune</a> and her heaving, eye-level bosom want it that way.<br />
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<b>deadliest catch</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=65203">emperor crab</a>. wednesday nights on the discovery channel.<br />
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<b>dreamer</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=67022">wanderer's festival hatchling</a>. "one day we'll find it / the rainbow connection / the lover's the dreamers, and me."<br />
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<b>hanged man</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=61375">restless shadeling</a>. if you've read walter jon williams' <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metropolitan-ebook/dp/B007UVNI1K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1364586026&sr=8-5&keywords=metropolitan">metropolitan</a>, then you'll get the most excellent reference. if not, well, that's not my fault now, is it?<br />
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<b>j thaddeus esq</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=61368">huge toad</a>. because of this huge toad:<br />
<center>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/captain_oblivious/261693314/" title="Separated at birth? by Captain Oblivious, on Flickr"><img alt="Separated at birth?" height="320" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/116/261693314_4ebb2443fd_n.jpg" width="223" /></a></center>
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<b>mighty unclean</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=68805">stunted yeti</a>. "i'm dirty, mean, and mighty unclean." yeti needs a bath.<br />
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<b>feisty oscar</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=69649">red panda</a>. just because.<br />
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<b>whole lotta rosie</b> - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62258">silithid hatchling</a>. she's a whole lotta woman.<br />
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meanwhile, i have found that the names of the 50 states are not allowed for pet names, but if you drop the directional prefix the game'll allow it. so "dakota slim" or "carolina crunch" are good to go.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423007495699565405.post-17022451324109585842013-03-21T13:24:00.000-07:002013-03-21T13:24:44.024-07:00some yays and boositem one: the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=62526">quiraji guardlings</a> did not appear in silithus at midnight last night. or at three am pacific time. or after some rolling restarts. it appears very likely at this point that nobody is getting their <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6590">zookeeper title</a> before may 1. not unexpected, but that's still a boo.<br />
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item two: people were reporting when patch 5.2 came out that they stopped getting xp from pet battles once they reached level 89, which seemed like an odd thing for blizzard to do. apparently this was not "working as intended", because last night my shaman dinged 89 and the pet battle xp kept coming in. it wasn't mentioned in any blue posts that i saw, but it appears that this got fixed some time in the last few weeks. so that's a yay.<br />
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item 3: the npc tamers used to alternate what pets they sent into battle first, resulting in the annoying tactic of yielding repeatedly until you got the initial match-up you want. since 5.2 i've noticed that they now always send out their pets in the same order (expect for when they swap pets because you stunned one). so that's a yay.<br />
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item 4: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/petability=649">FAILSTORM</a> is still an amazingly craptacular move. no change in 5.2. so that's a boo.<br />
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item 5: nothing to do with pet battles, but my nelfette warrior picked up something that has been missing from the game for far too long a time: a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=93141">strength-based polearm</a>! promptly re-specced her for arms and then farmed up the glorious looking <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=24044">hellreaver</a> for the transmogalypse. so that's a yay.Ratshaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111084510465688124noreply@blogger.com0