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BM PvP Guide – Part Two: Pets

December 29, 2009 By Garwulf 14 Comments

Chimaera for Beast Mastery PvP

In part two of my Beast Mastery PvP guide, I’m going to discuss BM PvP pets and ways to spec them. Here we go…

Beast Mastery PvP Pets

Part of the benefit to investing 51 points into the Beast Mastery tree is the ability to tame exotic pets. Although currently they’re so-so for PvE, the PvP benefits of an exotic pet are fantastic in my opinion.

First off, Beast Mastery grants us access to arguably the most overpowered pet of them all, the Chimaera.

Chimaera

Chimaeras are great for a variety of reasons. First off, they have what I consider to be the best all-around special of any pet. This is of course, Froststorm Breath.

Froststorm Breath

30 yard range.
applies a 50% movement speed decrease for 5 seconds.
is on a 7 second cooldown (with 3/3 Longevity), which can conceivably allow for over 70% uptime on the movement speed debuff.
cannot be dispelled.
does non-armor mitigated nature damage.

Froststorm Breath owns. Period. It is a great spell for both offensive and defensive purposes. It not only makes kiting melee easier, but it’s also a great tool to slow down casters, making it harder for them to LoS you.

Next, Chimaeras are part of the Cunning family of pets. Cunning pets have a variety of tools available to them that are very useful for PvP. [Read more…]

Oozeworm

July 30, 2009 By Garwulf 7 Comments

Time to add another notch to the ol’ belt of rare spawn taming conquests. 😉

As I ‘d mentioned last week, I planned on grabbing Grubthor again since my 5th stable slot wasn’t being occupied by a Worgen any longer. Well, after 5-6 patrols of Silithus and still no sign of him, I figured I’d fly over to Dustwallow and see if this guy was around. According to the official World of Warcraft Atlas, Oozeworm is one of the rarest pets in the game with a respawn timer of up to two days.

Knowing how rare he was, I didn’t really expect to find him. There were also half a dozen players questing in the area as well, which made the likelihood of finding him even less. I flew into Mudsprocket then rode past two of his spawn areas with no sight of him, until I came to the third one by the Dragonkin camp – that’s when NPCScan did it’s thing.

He’s fairly easy to miss because although he’s the only worm in the area, he doesn’t really stand out. He’s not a vibrant color, nor is he big like the worms in Silithus or Maraudon.

While it wasn’t nearly as exciting as taming say… Loque’nahak or King Krush, it was still pretty cool. It’s always fun for me to tame a pet I haven’t ever tamed before.

So what does the rare worm in Dustwallow have to do with Grubthor, the rare worm in Silithus? They’re the only two worms in the game with a golden skin. There is a third worm model like this in the game, but it’s in Ahn’Qiraj and it cannot be tamed.

Most BM Hunters will go for a Jormungar in Northrend because they’re already level 80 and the skin is more sophisticated looking. Not me though… I like the nostalgia of the old world models, plus it’s fun to be the only Hunter on my server running around with a giant yellow inchworm. Of course, unlike one of the more attractive and uncommon pets like my Grimtotem Spirit Guide or King Krush, no one has ever said, “Oh wow… where did you get that worm..?! I gotta have one!” 😐 Still, he’s unique, old school and extremely uncommon, so that’s why I chose this particular model for my worm pet.

Ah… but now I have to level him to 80… Nope! Already did it. It was pretty quick and painless too. Since my favorite pet leveling spot has now become overrun by Hunter, Death Knight and Warlock bots, I’ve had to find new ones. It’s pretty absurd actually. When I first discovered the spot there was one Warlock bot there. A few months later and now there are five regularly farming the area.

After trying out a few different places in the Storm Peaks, I happened upon this one…

This cave is near the Harpies in Bor’s Breath right by one of the places where the Time Lost Proto Drake supposedly spawns. It’s full of Iron Dwarves who go down like chumps and drop Relics of Ulduar like candy. Within two nights of grinding in here, I had Oozeworm up to level 80 and was able to send my level 73 Death Knight 288 relics to give him a head start on the shoulder enchants once he hits 80.

Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy the five level grind from 75 to 80. It’s a nice therapeutic break from everything, plus I usually make a considerable amount of gold in the process. For me it seems like a breeze anyway, having leveled many a pet back in the old days way before the new system of having newly tamed pets only five levels below you.

Did I ever tell you about the time I tamed Humar when I was level 60…

Hey, A New Post!

July 25, 2009 By Garwulf 5 Comments

Sorry it’s been nearly seven days since I’d last posted. I’ve had a busy week to say the least. Whenever I did have a little free time I chose to do some playing instead. I thought about discussing this and that, but blogging is hard work. So, without further ado…

First off and most importantly… 😉 Worgens were officially removed from our stables last Tuesday. I discovered this just after maintenance when I pulled Hank out of the kennel to abandon him. I was like, “what’s this nappy ass grey wolf doing here..?!” Then I realized after a second… ah it’s Garwal. I wasn’t phased by it because like I said, I was planning to abandon him to go on a taming mission anyway.

After sending Garwal back to Howling Fjord I headed over to Thousand Needles to tame me a Silithid. Not just any Silithid, but Silithid Ravager. I’d been entertaining the idea of trying out a Silithid for arena, so of course I had to go out and find one of the more unique ones in the game.

Silithid Ravager spawns in and around the dig site in the southern part of Thousand Needles, just a short ride from Gadgetzan. When I first got there I saw no sign of him anywhere. A few hours later I logged back on and patrolled the area again, but still no luck. I brought up WoWHead to verify the spawn locations, and also noted a comment about him lurking around a teal colored rock. As soon as I brought up the game screen again I saw the teal rock in the distance along with this crazily hyper insect bouncing around beside it. I hovered my mouse over it and ding..! RareFinder sounded its little alarm and told me that was the bug I was looking for.

To make a long story short, not long after taming him I decided to abandon him and go after a worm once again. Here’s why…

Silithids are annoying as hell. I’m not sure if they all do this, but Silithid Ravager retains his restless behavior even after taming. I dunno… some players may like the animation, but it made me crazy after awhile.

Secondly, even though I hadn’t leveled him to 80, I just couldn’t see the Silithid beating out the Chimera for a starting job in the arena. While Venom Web Spray is a very nice situational skill for PvP, I think Froststorm Breath wins out. I had mistakenly thought that Venom Web Spray had a 30 yard range, the same as Froststorm Breath, but it is in fact only 20 yards. That was the thing that immediately turned me off about the Silithid, apart from the crazy dancing animation.

I’m sure there are some BM Hunters who swear by using a Silithid in arena, but I’m going to stick with my Chimera. A 50% slow for 5 seconds on a 7 second cooldown that is not dispellable is just too good. Combine that with 2K nature damage crits as well as a 30 yard range, and you have yourself a PvP monster. In my opinion, keeping an opponent slowed for 70% of the match is better than a 4 second root on a 28 second cooldown. Not to mention that Venom Web Spray can be dispelled where as Froststorm Breath cannot.

I still think Silithids could be a very viable pet in arena, but I would highly recommend taking Venom Web Spray off of autocast. The root could probably make or break a game, so it definitely needs to be used wisely. The 28 second cooldown is too long to be wasted. If you were able to get someone to blow their trinket on Intimidation, then immediately follow with the Silithid’s root, then you might be able to sway a match pretty quickly. I also suppose Silithids would be decent pets for dueling if that’s your thing.

Any Silithid lovers out there..? What’s been your experience with them?

So anyway, that was my brief experience with Silithids. Although he didn’t really get a fair shake, I just couldn’t see myself spending the time leveling him to 80 to properly test him. If we ever get more stable slots I may revisit the Silithid, but for now I’m sticking with my Chimera as top choice for a BM Cunning pet.

Of course, after I abandoned the Silithid I had to fill that vacant slot with something, so it was back to Silithus to try and find Grubthor again. I made the tough decision to abandon my worm so I could join in on the Worgen fun a few weeks back. I had a feeling that the thrill of being a Worgen owner was going to be short lived novelty, but it was worth it.

Grubthor wasn’t up, so I just headed over to Storm Peaks and tamed a Snowdrift Jormungar who was already 80. I’ll probably still go after Grubthor at some point since I’m weird like that, but at least now I’m able to PvP with my worm right away. My 2v2 partner and I had an absolutely dreadful run in arena yesterday, so I’m thinking of switching things up a bit and rolling with the worm tonight. Sometimes Acid Spit, Charge, and having a pet that can take a little more of a beating is what’s needed. It’s possible I may have had a little too much of my “Game Fuel” last night, but we were getting some crazy counter combos left and right.

Lots more to talk about, including the Hunter Q&A, so stay tuned for more…

More on the Worm

June 7, 2009 By Garwulf 12 Comments

The Worm Post, continued…

Alright, so what’s with the worm you ask..? Acid Spit, that’s what. After peaking at 1846 in 2v2 and getting knocked around by Death Knights and Rets in the 1800-1850 range, I decided to do a little research to see if there was perhaps a pet that might help out there. Enter the worm.

The worm’s Acid Spit ranged attack not only does about the same damage as a Chimaera’s Froststorm Breath, but it also reduces its target’s armor by up to 20%. That’s a pretty huge advantage when it comes to trying to focus down plate wearers. Combine that with high health, Blood of the Rhino, Charge and Roar of Sacrifice, and you have an unstoppable debuff machine.

I have had great success with the worm in BGs and found it to be quite useful in arena as well. I’ve only had the chance to do skirmishes with it so far, as my 2v2 partner decided to hop the express train to 1850 by teaming up with a notorious Gladiator Rogue from our server. He’s claiming that he did it so he could get his 2H and then help he and I to reach 2050. We shall see… 😕

This game does funny stuff to people, and causes some to get so obsessed with shiny pixels and game code, that they forsake their friends for this stupid crap and go play with trade channel spammers. Oh well…

At any rate, hopefully he’ll return to the team and we’ll continue our ascent to 2050 in Season 6. If not, then I’ll just have to find someone else. Either way, I foresee my worm as being the arena pet of choice. He’s nearly impossible to take down, not to mention I can actually use Roar of Sacrifice without fear that he’ll get nuked afterward.

I’m using an usual macro right now, which has actually come out aces for me. I was often forgetting to use Roar of Sacrifice, and since it’s available every 21 seconds, it’s an ability I should try to use as much as possible. Whether it be in arena or BGs, I’m almost always one of the first to get targeted. Everyone wants to kill the Hunter… why is that..? Because we do crazy damage if left alone, but we’re pretty squishy and easy to take down when piled on. So anyway, I put RoS into my Disengage macro.

My though behind this was anytime I Disengage, which is a lot, I am usually trying to escape damage. Chances are if I Disengage, then I am probably targeted and will more than likely be getting beat on. Secondly, RoS and Disengage have similar cooldowns, so whenever I Disengage RoS will be up as well. So far it’s worked like a charm. The worm is ridiculously hard to take down, and with the introduction of pet resilience in a future patch, I don’t see any problem with keeping him up. Therefore, casting RoS whenever it’s up hasn’t been a problem, and definitely won’t be one when pets gain some resilience.

Here’s my uber-survivability, OH S**T! macro I’ve been using:

#showtooltip Disengage
/cast Wing Clip
/cast Disengage
/cast Roar of Sacrifice

The full on pros may scoff at a macro such as this, but for a weekend warrior like myself, it does the trick. Give it a shot if you like and let me know how it works for you.

What’s nice about the worm, is you get the added survivability of the Tenacity family along with the Charge interrupt, but you don’t have to sacrifice much DPS by using it. The 20% armor reduction from Acid Spit makes up for a lot of the lost pet DPS that you miss out on by not using a Cunning or Ferocity pet.

I still like using the Chimaera in some battlegrounds, especially Warsong Gulch, but I’ll be rolling with my worm most the time when I PvP from here on out. All I know is, I had been struggling to get Wrecking Ball for a few months, but the first BG I was in after getting my worm I went 34-2. A few battles later… Wrecking Ball.

I think it has to do with using a pet that people don’t want to waste time trying to kill, being able to utilize RoS as much as possible, and having a good ability in Acid Spit to use vs plate.

I give the worm my highest praise as a PvP companion for BM Hunters. If you like to BG or arena, try one out. You might like it.

GRUBTHOR ! ! !

June 7, 2009 By Garwulf 1 Comment

I’ve been pretty busy the past week with work related tasks, so I haven’t had much time to post. I’ve not played much this past week either, but I did manage to add yet another rare spawn to my list of been there, done that.

Although I had been casually looking for Aotona for the past few weeks, that was not it. Nor was it Gondria. One Spirit Beast is enough for me. I like Loque’nahak’s skin better anyway, but that’s just me.

The rare spawn I Hunted down was none other than…

GRUBTHOR ! ! !

Wha… Who..? What the heck is a Grubthor..?!

Grubthor is a rare spawn worm that resides in Silithus.

Anyone who’s followed this blog for awhile knows that I’m a freak when it comes to the rares. Taming a common pet is just no fun for me. So, after trying out a worm to see if it was going to be FTW for PvP, I realized it most definitely was.

Once I decided that a worm was going to be a permanent addition to my stable, the next step was to find out where the rare ones were hiding, preferably one(s) with rare skin. Since I’d never been interested in taming a worm before, I had no clue what skins were available, or if rare worms were even in-game.

The next step was to do what I always do when researching pets and their rareness factor. I headed over to Petopia of course. Much to my delight, there happens to be not one, but two rare spawn worms in the game. Both of which have the same skin, and along with Spawn of Fankriss, are the only gold worms in the game. However, Spawn of Fankriss is supposedly untamable, therefore making the other two rare worms the only ones possessing this unique skin.

I can’t verify whether or not Spawn of Fankriss can be tamed. Wowhead’s claiming it can be tamed, but Petopia is saying no. If any Hunters have bothered trying to tame this pet, please let me know.

Sure, my previous Disembodied Jormungar was already level 80 and pretty cool looking in his own right, but that’s not good enough. For me, a pet that I intend on keeping around has to have some special significance attached to it. First and foremost, it has to be a rare spawn. Secondly, I also prefer that it’s the only pet in-game with a particular skin.

Hunters are the only class which have the ability to further distinguish themsleves from other characters by choosing which pet(s) to use. I like to take full advantage of that. While some Hunters view a pet as just another piece of gear, and prefer to avoid the hassle of camping a rare or leveling a unique pet, I see it as a must. Any pet that gets added to my stable requires me to go on a mission to obtain, and almost always requires me to spend time leveling them.

I actually enjoy the pet leveling process. Not only does it make getting them to my level so much more rewarding, but it also forces me to farm mats and gold, something I don’t do all that often. Like I said, a lot of Hunters won’t bother with a unique pet because usually you’ll have to grind out the last five levels, but I’m happy for that fact. It’s a primary reason while I’ll be the only Hunter in Dalaran sporting a giant maggot by my side. 😉

Ok, so back to the worm topic… The only two rare worms in game are Oozeworm in Dustwallow Marsh, and Grubthor in Silithus. Now apparently Oozeworm is one of the rarer rares in the game, spawning only once every day or two. Since I hopped a ship to Menethil to get to Kalimdor anyway, I scouted Dustwallow first to see if he was around. No dice, so on to Silithus.

Since Kalimdor, especially Silithus, is pretty void of players for the most part, it was no surprise that Grubthor was up roaming around. I just rode up and claimed him as my giant beetle grub buddy. He’s level 78 and rising. I should have him to 80 by tonight.

I was able to grind out one level at my previously mentioned favorite pet leveling place, but the area is a zoo now. Last time I was there I was competing with one Demo Warlock bot. It wasn’t really much competition, as I was pretty much stealing all of its kills, plus it made the leveling more fun. This go around however, there were 2 Lock bots and an Unholy DK bot. With 3 bots, plus the occasional live player that would wander in, it was getting too ridiculous so I moved on to a new area.

Taking the advice of one of my posters here, I spent the next two levels grinding it out in the cave northwest of Brunnhildar Villlage, and just south of where the Time-Lost Proto Drake spawns. The cave is full of Water Elementals which drop nice goodies, not to mention I didn’t encounter one other player the entire time. I’ll be heading back there tonight.

This post is getting much longer than I’d intended for it to be, so I’m going to chop it in half. Stick around for part two, which will go into more detail about the worm and its advantages in PvP.