After waiting several weeks to break into the Molten Front, I’ve found the rare pet hunting to be quite fruitful. I suppose I avoided much of the early competition. 😉
As I’d previously mentioned in my post about Karkin… as I was heading over to tame the metallic crab, Skitterflame popped up as well. Karkin was a bit higher on my list of priorities, so I went after him first.
Afterward, I ventured over to Skitterflame’s spawn location to see if anyone was taming her. There was a Tauren hunter there who didn’t appear to be checked out on the taming strategy. They pulled Skitterflame without using any traps in the process, and were quickly beat down.
Given that my stable was full, I hearthed to SW and dropped off a few of my pets, hoping to rush back and get an opportunity to tame Skitterflame. When I returned a few minutes later, no one was there.
As with all of these new taming challenge pets, acquiring Skitterflame requires a particular approach. The trick with Skitterflame is getting her to ‘cool down’ enough to become tamable. When first encountered, Skitterflame has a buff on her called Superheated, which prevents her from being tamed. To remove the buff, you need to chill her out with a series of traps.
Skitterflame isn’t too terribly difficult to tame, as long as you follow a few simple steps…
My Tips for Solo-Taming Skitterflame
- Kill the two Obsidium Punishers that are nearest to Skitterflame’s spawn location. You need this area to kite Skitterflame, and these guys can be a pain. After you get rid of them, dismiss your pet.
- Place a Freezing Trap near the small slope in front of where she spawns.
- Wait for the cooldown of Freezing Trap to come back, then pull.
- Once Skitterflame lands in your first Freezing Trap, drop a second one a few feet in front of her and start heading left up the path where the Obsidium Punisher guys were.
- You’ll need to slow Skitterflame a few more times with Concussive Shot, then launch an Ice Trap in her path once it’s available.
- As Skitterflame is passing through your Ice Trap, Superheated will fall off and she will then become tamable.
Disengage and Aspect of the Cheetah can help a bit with maintaining range during this encounter, so be sure to utilize them if needed. If Skitterflame gets within melee range during the end of the taming proccess, don’t sweat it… at this point her energy will be so low that she won’t be hitting too hard. Skitterflame als has a buff called Burning Frenzy, which scales damage based upon her current energy level. Once within taming range, her damage is quite low.
If you’re specced into Entrapment, don’t bother with Snake Traps — Skitterflame seems to be unaffected by the snare.
Avoid kiting Skitterflame through any lava, as this will heat her back up — increasing her damage buff and slowing down the taming process. Just kite her in the area I noted above and all will be fine. 😉
Oh, and one last little bit… don’t let her energy level reach zero, or else she will croak. If you happen to trap Skitterflame in a Freezing Trap as she’s reaching zero energy, be sure to break her out of it — don’t wait for the trap to wear off as it might kill her.
Hopefully this guide will help those of you still after this new rare and unique-skinned lava spider. 🙂
Like you, I just recently ventured into the Molten Front because my computer had stopped working right when 4.2 dropped and I couldn’t get it fixed for 6 weeks because of other reasons. I spent the last few weeks just building up my PvP set and now I’m starting to seriously do my dailies. Just yesterday, I found Kirix, and since I didn’t want him, I helped someone else get him. Took her a while but she finally got it in the end. About 15 minutes after I found Kirix, Karkin spawned. Since I didn’t want Karkin either, I let her have it. While I was on my way to Kirix, I spotted Solix, who I personally wanted but thought that I’d get him later. When I went to check after Kirix was tamed, no Solix! Either it was a hunter pet or someone else had already tamed it.
However, Scare Beast can be used “properly”. Right after the second Freezing Trap, you can cast Scare Beast to buy you some time to set up traps.
Very, very important is to break a Freezing Trap once Superheated falls. I fumbled one time and ended up killing Skitterflame.
Grats Gar and good luck to the others!
Grats on the tame!
Just an FYI, you can scare beast and tame him immediately also.
Good tip, but I prefer to tame them as intended. Cheating takes all the fun out of it. 😉
Scare Beast is actually a glitch, similar to Kirix’s floating-rock-approach. I tried this and it works but later on abandoned Skitterflame and tamed him the proper way. It’s much more satisfiying. 🙂