Grunter Post-Cataclysm

…makes me sad. I saw this thread over at the Petopia forums and I grew kind of bummed over what’s (possibly) become of Grunter in Cataclysm. He’s gone all evil-like.

Although he’s gone largely un-talked-about here on the site, he is one of my favorite old school pets.

Perhaps the reason he’s been overlooked is because he’s one of the premier stabled pets I have for my Dwarf hunter. Yes… at one point in time, I was a conflicted hunter who saw Dwarvenism as the proper path – that and engineering.

I actually shelved Garwulf for a time back in vanilla, while I pursued a more righteous path filled with gunpowder, ale and… boars. You see, at one point, boars were one of the ultimate PvP pets. Back in the day, they were the only pet that possessed the Charge ability.

Garwulf was a BM Hunter to the core, and well… BM kinda sucked back then. So… rather than re-roll an inferior class, I elected to build the hunter supreme – a dwarven engineer. My goal was to take my knowledge of the hunter class to the next level. That, and have some useful explosives at my disposal as well.

Anyway, one of the primary pieces to my winning hunter component was a certain rare black boar. This boar was of course, Grunter.

Those of you who’ve followed my zaniness over the years are well aware of my obsession over pets, as well as my compulsion for taming the rares. I’ve been this way since the first day I found out there were rare pets. Common pets just won’t do… if there’s a rare version – he/she’s mine. That’s just pretty much how it is.

Alright… so back to Grunter…

Grunter is a rare black boar who resides in the Blasted Lands. Being a rare pet hunter, I’d consider Grunter to be on the bloody rare list. Regardless of toon, I’ve seen this guy maybe 4 times in my near-five-year-wow-tenure. In other words, he’s pretty friggin hard to come across.

Back in Vanilla, I camped this guy for a few weeks, much as I did Loque’nahak in WotLK. After days upon days with no sight of him, I logged on one day to find a Ret Pally just starting combat with him. I was at first hopeful because at least the player was the same faction and could hear my pleas, but eventually I was saddened… for you see this guy was a dick. He disregarded my pleas of stopping combat in order to tame this rare beast, but rather continued to pulverize him due to the allure of a shitty green he might drop.

And so the story goes… I have encountered many like him since those early days. WoW is rife with dicks, but of well… we’ll save that for another time.

At any rate, eventually one day I happened upon the mighty Grunter and claimed him as my own. I felt complete at that moment. Although there were black boars available at the starting levels, meh… only I had Grunter..!

Alright, so I’ve rambled a bit… My point is, I’m deeply rooted in tradition. I’m saddened by the fact that Grunter’s gone all evil-like, and I hope at least the old-world Grunter retains his purity.

This new Grunter with spiky thorns shooting out of him just doesn’t look so happy. If I log in post-Cata and find the Linda Blair version Grunter in my stable, I’m gonna be upset. I’m all about tradition.

Tagged as: cataclysm, grunter