Hello readers! My name is Mousie, and I’m a dual specced Beast Master who PVEs. I theorycraft and plan my strategies ahead of time and usually top the charts. I hope to teach you Beast Masters out there how to maximize your DPS in a smart way, and maybe convince those of you who are skeptical of beast mastery that the spec isn’t so bad as everyone says.
I also have a not-so-secret addiction: rare pets. At the moment, I have all four spirit beasts and Aotona. Some may call me crazy, but what Beast Master hasn’t gone out of their way to tame a rare or uncommon spawn? Or, better yet, what hunter hasn’t? Pets are what separates hunters from all other classes (even warlocks – have you ever looked twice at a warlock’s demon?), and I couldn’t imagine myself playing without one by my side.
I’ll be providing in-depth information on both exotic and non-exotic rares. Where to get them, when to get them, how to get them, and my own personal experience taming them.
I hope to be of some type of help here, and hopefully add a new perspective to one of my favorite hunter blog sites. If ya have any questions at all, feel free to e-mail me or message me in-game (Mousie on Arygos).
Good luck and happy hunting. 😀
What I did last week…
Well, with the introduction of patch 3.3, just one thing had occupied me for days. No, it wasn’t the cross-realm random dungeon finder, the three new five-mans, or even the new ICC raid. In fact, I wasn’t even in Icecrown for the first day after 3.3 landed.
You must look southeast to Grizzly Hills to find where I sat for hours on end. Just north of Amberpine Lodge one would find a lonely tauren sitting patiently for, you guessed it, Arcturis, the new spirit beast.
I had researched the name, looked up videos, done whatever I could to help me prepare for that Tuesday. Monday night, I camped Mousie down in Grizzly Hills and logged off early for the night, making sure to get plenty of rest so I could stay awake for the big day. After school and the long, slow dive home in a blizzard, I found the realms still down (of course) and had no way to get online for the next 30 minutes (in which time I made myself a nice hot cup of cocoa). As the realms slowly started to come back online, I hopped on Mousie to play the long-awaited waiting game for this new bear.
There were a few things that I took for granted when I sat in wait for Arcturis:
- He would be on a 6-8 hour spawn timer, like the other spirit beasts.
- There would be more than one spawn point now that 3.3 was live.
- Do not solely rely on _NPCScan. It may or may not go off (Never did with Gondria, and I’m not taking any chances) so make sure to check your screen every so often.
- With one known spawn spot, you’ll have to compete with other hunters, so stay sharp.You’re gonna have to wait a helluva long time for this darn bear.
So, for seven hours I sat on the “R” in “Amberpine.” Waiting patiently. Doing homework, writing essays, theorycrafting potential DPS with the new gear. Nothing. By that time it was 2 o’clock and my eyelids were as heavy as titansteel bars. With a heavy heart, I logged off for the night. The next day, I logged on with renewed vigor, a jug of coffee at my side, ready to wait through the night to at least see Arcturis, if not tame him. Again, six hours passed with no avail, then eight, then ten, and finally, at the eleventh hour, as I was playing Topple on my iPod, my screen flashed red, a booming noise filled the room; _NPCScan had gone off. I had out-waited the other hunters and was the only player in sight. My heart fluttering as it does when I find a rare, I pulled off a successful tame and teleported to Dalaran with my new pet.
So, in conclusion, if you are still short a spirit bear, I have some information for you:
Arcturis
- Spawn point: He spawns EXACTLY at 31,55. He only has one spawn point, so expect some competition
- Spawn timer: 10-12 hours. I’ve confirmed this when talking to the other hunters that had tamed Arcturis after I had.
Tips and Tricks:
Have you seen someone with Arcturis? Ask them what time they tamed him at. Part of searching for these beasts is knowing when they’ll be there. I tamed mine at 4:30 AM, the fourth Arcturis of our server. If I hadn’t gotten the tame, I would have logged on 10 hours later, just in time for him to spawn again
Since he spawns only twice a day in one spot, take the time of least resistance. Least hunter resistance that is. Go in the early morning or late at night when there’s less server traffic, so you’re more likely to tame him if he spawns.
Keep Track Humanoids up to check for your competition and strategically place yourself so that you’ll be closest to Arcturis when he spawns.
Get NPCScan! It’s such a big help and a must-have for anyone who’s taming a rare.
Thanks for all the help with Arcturius ive been farming him for quite some time now haven’t given up hope yet tho still waiting in the same spot u grabbed him (diff server of course.) Again ty for all the help and happy hunting to any other hunter out there! 😀
I managed to tame Arcturis about 06:30 today, but unfortunately i had to swap to SV for a raid and i now have a called stabled pet bug of 18 hours, so i can’t get him out to show anyone untill tomorrow:(
Pilon: Blade’s Edge
read up and you will find what to do about the bug
Woo! Hello, Mousie. When Garwulf invited applications for submissions, I mourn’d my dearth of time to do any writing these days, but I’m really glad a BM PvE Raider made the cut!
I really look forward to your articles on BM raiding, as it’s my favorite thing to do – there’s nothing quite like out-DPSing the MM and SV hunters (who are sometimes in better gear) with my big green dino. And, of course, it’s always nice to hear epic tales of spawn camping. I nearly went frothing crazy by the time I finally found and tamed King Krush, so it’s always neat to hear the stories of other l33t searches 😉
Grats on the invisible marshmallow bear!
Qonaan @ Zul’jin
3rd day of trying to get Arcturis. Logged in again at 4pm yesterday (17th December) and decided to wait it out, however long it was going to take. And boy it tested me! By 5am this morning (18th December) there was still no sign and I was so tired, fortunately my son got up so I begged him to sit for me while I got some sleep. He was about to give up after another 7 hours!! when NPCScan suddenly went off and he said Arcturis spawned about a foot away from him! So finally at 12 midday after a 19 hour camp I got him 😀 No clue what the spawn rate is for this bear – when he feels like appearing, I guess hehe
Good luck to all x
hi mousie good to hear somebody is doing nice dps in BM spec.
my main is a shammy but love the hunter because of the BM spec good for solo but cant get good dps in raids even got kicked out of one.
just wondering what your dps rotation is. and what your dps self buffed is on a practice target. and are you using arcturius for raids or other normal pet.
i got arcturius not sure if i was 1 one server some alliance just killed it in front of me the 1 time it spawned but i love the pet its worth the camping time for sure .
btw your dps spec looks good i testing it now,
thx for making my hunter happy again.
I’ll be going over all of that in more detail in later posts, but real quick, here’s my shot rotation: Kill Shot- Serpant Sting- Arcane Shot- Multi Shot (use before AS when fighting more than one mob)- Steady Shot (until AS or MS are off CD, or if I need to refresh SS). When testing my DPS out on the dummies last night, I found out that I was doing 3.9k with nothing other than Dragonhawk, Spirit Bond and Kindred Spirits as buffs.
As for pets that I raid with, I ALWAYS raid with my spirit beasts (unless we’re on Faction Champs, at which point, I bring out Ducky for her disarming move). Ducky’s my only “normal” pet, and I only use her for PVP, and I don’t have any more stable slots for a wolf, devilsaur, or whatever pet I’m supposed to be using.
I’m not one for cross faction competition when it comes to hunting rares. Even though my mains are alliance, if I have tamed something and see a Horde in the area, I always log onto one of my Horde alts and let them know where/when I got the tame. If I am about to log off on my Alliance hunter and there is a Horde nearby I always /point and /cast frost trap at the area I know the beast will spawn if I am about to log off.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which faction we chose, it’s all about the thrill of the hunt, if I can help a fellow hunter find their rare spawn, then so be it.
Uchikoma, you’re a model for courteousness and decency. The realms could use more players like you IMO.
Cheers. 😀
If you are gonna be hunting down rares any time soon watch out for the call stabled pet bug. I jumped into a raid with my guild last night and couldn’t switch out my pet because call stabled pet was on a 20 day cool down… =( I can just imagine how nasty it’d feel to come across Arcturis, only to not be able to put away Loque…
to fix teh call stable bet you need to do a arena game un ranked ofc sadly i havent heard any news on when it will be fixed and everyone still says the new LFG system is good : / yeah its so good it blows your CDs ><
Yep, Koroo is right, ya need to do an ARENA SKIRMISH :O
…I always get my butt kicked >_>
Although, my and my tree friend did win against a priest whose partner had abandoned her… I felt horrible beating her up, but at least Call Stabled Pet worked for all of… 20 minutes..
My Call Stabled Pet goes on 25day cooldown when:
I switch specs in a dungeon.
Participate in a BG.
Look at the button on my action bar in a funny way.
It’s really touchy, and this bug really sucks… I’m surprised they didn’t hotfix it last Tuesday, but I guess 5 more days isn’t THAT long… :c
@ Mousie thats a nice stable.
I never saw Aotona up once while hunting Krush, saw loque 2 times tamed on second.
I just finished my Spirit Beast stable yesterday. After 2 days of steady camping i finnally got Arcturis.
Now if we can get the Exotic pet stat buff that blizzard has been talking about for past few months.
id like to see a stable redesign, either more spots or some sort of affinity for spirit beasts (make spirit beasts unique as in 1 skoll, 1 gondria) in stable and the more spirit beasts you have in stable the stronger your spirit strikes are. Maybe 10% dmg increase for spirit strike for each spirit beast in stable.
@Tuskx
Yeah, Aotona was the hardest of my pets to find. It took me a month of searching before I actually found her. In our server, the Wildgrowth Mangal is full of gold farmers weeding and killing and skinning whatever they see, and it was hard to find her when they’re running all over with their invisibility potions (or invisibility hax) slaying everything in sight.
Your stable slot idea is a good one, but I think it’s unlikely… :c There would be a mad rush of people looking to tame the beasts (which, I think, Blizz doesn’t want). However, along with having our 51 point talent letting us tame exotics and get 4 extra talent points I think that it should grant us ‘x’ number of stable slots for exotic pets only (so ya aren’t hurting if you’re dual-specced). I mean, for a spec who loves their pets to pieces, we get less stable space per pet.
/sigh
Yea the BM talent should unlock 4 extra stable slots that are only avaliable to BM specs and can only contain Exotics.
I disagree about the mad rush, Blizzard loves spirit beast, atleast making them because they are a huge timesink that makes people play the game.
If they didnt want people to farm them they wouldnt put out a new spirit beast after every major patch in Wotlk. Its been a mad rush to tame the new spirit beast after each new patch esp on PVP servers. I cant use my surv spec anymore i have long abandoned my wolf for a spirit beast and atm i have no plan on abandoning a SB or Krush to get one.
yeah nice i think your the first person to actually say ‘dont rely on NPCscan’ on my realm im known for just being a BM hunter even though i raid MM :s i have 13…18..even 20+ hunters asking me where i got my pets even allies re roll to talk to me :O and ofc i know im horde and shouldnt help but i dont give that much information out cas ofc we want them to stay rare :3 though i have one question whats the dps you pull in raids as BM? im trying to bribe my guild to let me raid as BM in hc’s im doing 4k avarage and yes i use one of my 4 spirit beasts though i use gondira more for pvp then pve i normally do 10 mans raids as my computer is slowly dying in 25 mans D: amd gz on arcie 😀 theres only 2 on my realm atm i was 1st and this pvp hunter i know was 2nd since then we have been killing him 😀
@Koroo
As a BM, on a good day and in a good dungeon (I hate Onyxia), on one target I’ll do 5k in 5mans, 6k in 10 mans, and almost 7k in 25mans (I’m having the same problem in 25mans as you are, I get about 5fps for the whole raid. Although, I think it’s just our crappy internet connection).
But again, it really depends on what buffs my pet and I have (if people even bother to buff my poor babies), if the fights are pet-freindly (Although, those fights are becoming more uncommon. Thank you 90% AoE damage reduction!), and if I’m at the top of my game that day.
ah ok i looked up your gear etc can i ask which is your main dps pve specc?
thank you in advance 🙂
My 51/15/5 is my DPS spec. I’m always tweaking at it, so it’s really never the same.. I’m planning on writing about successful BM PVE specs sometime in the near future, I’ll keep ya updated 😉
ive also notice you stack AP over agi? when 1 Agility = 1 Attack Power though 14 Ranged Attack Power = 1 DPS
Top the charts as BM you say?? Hmmm… I’m interested to see where this goes =) And Uchikoma, I feel your pain. It would be sooo nice to have the opportunity to actually use our spirit beasts rather than have them collect dust in our stable while we raid with our horribly boring and generic wolves. Personally, I’m still most fond of the first spirit beast… that skin is so unique.
I have made literally dozens of hunter mates from camping spirit bears (and King Krush) it’s quite heartwarming when you/another hunter manage to tame your target.
I agree, half the fun of being a hunter is your choice of pets, it’s just a shame that we are at 3.3 and wolves are still the top slot for pets. I would love to see other beasts given the chance, but as it stands pretty everyone I know has the same generic white/black worg from Northrend. The only time you see a spirit beast/silithid/cat/etc is when someone is showing off or waiting for a PvP slot.
@Uchikoma
I don’t know what it is about me, but I get really competitive when camping rares, and look at every other hunter as a threat. >_> After the tame though, I’ll give out the information I’ve gathered while searching for them, and usually, after, we get along quite well. 😀
I know what you mean about the worg thing… I always get really sad when I see a plain ol’ wolf (named, unlovingly, Wolf) in a raid or group… Where’s the pet love these days?
And BTW i found something quite weird at Arcturis’s spawn point : http://yfrog.com/jnwowscrnshot121609202102j
I checked a little bit the trees all around and didn’t any other mask like this.
@Dirtyhippy
Not only does Arcturis have a super cool skin, he’s the only pet that can prowl at full speed (for now). I’d try to tame him while he still has this unique ability. 🙂
And about the mask on the tree; there is a Drakkari troll encampment east of Amberpine that may be nailing masks on trees all over Grizzly Hils….
Thx for the tips, i’ve already added a few hunters @ my friend list since 3.3^^ But I’m still waiting 😉
I’m not that much fond of exotics (even though i tamed Gondria) but I just love Arcturis skin and would look so great at the side of the most handsome race of WoW (dwarves of course !)
Dirtyhippy