Devilsaur: The King of Pets

My hunter & her devilsaur "Dragon" at the Barrens-Durotar border.

Devilsaurs are Exotic ferocity pets modelled after the real-life Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Wild devilsaurs are exceptionally large--in fact, some of the rares used to be tied for the largest model in-game.  In order to tame these massive monsters, you must be a Beast Mastery-specced hunter with the level 69 talent "Beast Mastery."

Tracking a wild Devilsaur

Exotic pets are "upgraded" versions of non-exotics, in this case wolves.  Devilsaurs share the wolf's ability to buff your raid with a 5% crit increase.  This buff is only auto-cast in combat, but you can manually use the ability--called Terrifying Roar--if you so desire.  The Devilsaur's Exotic skill is called Monstrous Bite, and is a Mortal Strike effect which reduces healing taken by your target.  This skill has an 8-second cooldown with a 7 second duration by default, but with the Longevity hunter talent, the cooldown is dropped to 5.6 seconds--meaning your enemy will always have an automatically-applied MS effect on them.

 

Getting closer...

PvP    This MS effect can be very useful in PvP, although Devilsaurs are focused on pure damage rather than any defensive utility.  If you are fairly well-geared and don't feel the need for the Roar of Sacrifice ability that Cunning pets can give you, or the heal from a Spirit Beast or roots or snares from other pets, try bringing a Devilsaur along.  It means that you have a large, loud pet which is easily trackable in a fight (so if it gets feared etc. you can easily see where it goes, rather than having to look around for it), and which keeps an MS on your target at all times--removing the need for you to apply Widow's Venom.  Alternatively, you can use Widow's Venom on a different target, effectively keeping two targets Mortal Striked without any extra focus cost from you.  Devilsaurs, as Ferocity pets, also do a very large amount of damage, and have the added bonus of being huge and somewhat intimidating to some players in PvP.  On the downside, a lot of enemy players tend to attack the Devilsaur, as it is an obvious target compared to smaller pets.

There he is: an Ironhide Devilsaur

PvE    Use a Devilsaur to replace a Wolf when the 5% crit buff is needed, if you like.  Be aware, though, that some raiders may find a Devilsaur's size or loud roars intrusive.  If you're facing a dungeon or raid boss which heals itself, you can use the Devilsaur to spare yourself (or other players) the necessity of using Mortal Strikes.  In PvE, as in PvP, the Devilsaur is an easy pet to track through even the most chaotic fight.

Location And Looks    Devilsaurs can be mainly be found in jungle areas.  This means that Un'goro Crater--which is home to myriad "throwback" type beasts, including dinosaurs--is your best bet for most colors.  These colors can include a black-blue, a white/pink-purple ("albino"), and a brown-orange all with varying colors of stripes, eyes and underbellies.  There is also a unique bright green devilsaur named King Krush wandering alone through the Northrend's Sholazar Basin.  If you just want a Devilsaur, and you don't care about the color, you can always find the orange-brown quest mob "Devilsaur Queen" in the south of Un'goro (a bit west of the Slithering Scar), standing on a ledge against the crater wall.   For more, check out Petopia's Devilsaur page here.

King Krush stalking the wilds of Sholazar Basin

Random Facts

* Devilsaurs have very detailed skins considering they are vanilla mobs, possibly because they were originally designed to be so large.  There is a delicate, almost gilded-looking tracing of color--usually golden, but varying by the devilsaur's color--visible between the scales.  Their eyes, which also vary in color, glow in the dark.

Devilsaurs have detailed skins, and yes, they will blend.  In.

* There are no untameable Devilsaurs, so if you find yourself having trouble making one your own, check to make sure it is the same level as you (or lower), and that you've got the level 69 BM talent "Beast Mastery."

* Rare and elite devilsaurs are given the title of King, or Queen, along with a (usually misspelled) name.  Ungoro's royal pair are King Mosh and the Devilsaur Queen; Sholazar has King Krush, and Drak'theron Keep (a Zul'Drak troll dungeon) has King Dred.

King Mosh, king of Un'goro Crater.

* Devilsaurs used to be infamously deadly.  In vanilla WoW through Wrath of the Lich King, players levelling in Un'goro would often be ambushed by the "ninjasaurs," who made quick work of them with knock-ups and fears along with heavy damage.  Different types of devilsaurs had different abilities, too.

* King Mosh was extremely powerful for his level, sometimes killing players up to level 70; he had over fifty thousand HP (compare this to the several thousand hit-point player health pools of vanilla WoW).  King Krush, the rare introduced in WotLK, was an extremely powerful elite who was very difficult--if not impossible--for most players to solo-tame.  He feared frequently, had a large HP pool and did astonishing damage, making a friendly priest (for Fear Ward) or even a "disposable" Core Hound (for Bloodlust and Bestial Wrath, until BW ceased making players immune to fear), along with haste potions & food buffs, almost necessary.  Devilsaurs were "tamed" in Cataclysm, and are now much more mundane--they are still quite large, but most are no longer elite or even particularly dangerous.

My other devilsaur, Valak, is apparently camera-shy.

 

* The old class quests to the Sunken Temple dungeon had a notoriously difficult leg for Druid players, who had to run up and stab a Devilsaur in the leg in order to test a pacifying toxin.  Devilsaurs used to be a higher level than the level ~50 Sunken Temple dungeongoers, meaning that the technique of Hibernating the creatures in order to "stab" them would often result in a spell resist and a dead Druid.

* Some vanilla armor types could only be created with the use of "devilsaur leather," skinned from the Un'goro monsters.

Check out the following vid to see Devilsaurs in motion--skip to ~30 seconds to see the hilarity that is swimming Devilsaurs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IajzzpvoA78