Pyrachnomania?

   So, the waves of hunters streaming into the Molten Front are beginning to trickle out with their chosen pets.  One of the more common pets we're going to be seeing a lot of, at least for awhile, are the lovely fire spiders.

   While there's plenty of common ones, there are a few that are only available as rares--and only in the super hard-to-tame format.  Placed as a challenge to the skilled, as well as a preventative measure against random killings, these spiders are definitely a prize for the rare-hunters among us.

  We're still learning a few new things about them, too.  Hunters had initially believed, for example, that the only green tameable fire spider was Kirix, a vicious rare elite.  A few enterprising folks, though, found another source for this pet: a strange pack of randomly patrolling, tiny spiders with ~7k hp apiece. 

   These spiders, called Cinderweb Broodlings, spawn in the Widow's Clutch--but don't mix them up with the completely identical spiders that spawn from the dead Hyjal Scout.  The latter, which spawn, mill about and then despawn 30 seconds or so later, are not tameable.  They also have a different NPC ID.  The completely identical spiders which can be tamed spawn randomly and race through the Widow's Clutch to the center before despawning.  Incidentally, if you want to search for the tameable ones yourself, their ID for NPC Scan is 53753.

  Wowhead and Petopia members are still trying to figure out exactly what triggers these spawns--sometimes a day or more goes by without a spawn, and sometimes they seem to swarm.  The current theories revolve around daily quests somehow being related.

   Oh, and one final note: as of today's hotfix, the Firelands & Molten Front tameables will be immune to Distracting Shot and Taunt, preventing hunters from losing their precious, hard-to-get pets mid-tame!  Yey!

Two More Changes

So the Firelands patch is now released, and the great honor farm--or Molten Front dailies, or Firelands raid attempts, depending on what you're into--are now underway.

I want to just touch on two more changes that came in with this patch--something on top of all those new pets we lucky hunters got.

First off, you've probably noticed that the Aggressive pet stance has been removed.  While this makes me somewhat sad--it means my pet can't pull rogues or druids from stealth anymore--it was quite situational and I guess I understand the reasoning.  What is the reasoning?  Well, they wanted to make room for a new stance, called "Assist."  What Assist does is make the pet attack whatever you attack, staying on any target you're focusing on.  Essentially, it removes the need for PvErs to macro /petattack into everything.

Before & After Kibler's Bits.

The second change is a cosmetic one, but it's definitely worth mentioning.  The old Kibler's Bits pet food (you can get the recipe by doing Outland cooking dailies) has been changed.  Instead of increasing your pet's happiness--which was removed as a statistic in 4.1--Kibler's Bits now make your pet a great deal larger for five minutes.  You'll also notice a blue glow drifting from your pet.  This is quite nice to use on, for example, the tiny Demon Dogs for laughs!

Be honest... Would you mess with this?

4.2: Firelands

Image © Blizzard Entertainment.

   So, today marks the release of Patch 4.2.  This patch brings us a new PvP season, a new raid and set of tier gear, and a new daily quest hub with all new rewards.  It also brings us a plethora of new pets!  We're going to be getting very beautiful, eye-catching fire spiders, as well as three new spirit beasts, and a new rare cat and crab.  None of these pet skins have ever been tameable.

   Before I get too much into this, let me go back a bit.  Since the release of World of Warcraft, hunters wanting rare pets have had to compete with everything from griefers to loot-hunters to, more recently, people killing rare tameables for achievements.  Cataclysm brought with it the first "hunter only" mob: Ghostcrawler, a spirit beast located in an out-of-the-way corner of Abyssal Depths.  What made this guy special was his Raid Boss personality.  Not only is he not part of any achievement, but he also has the health pool of a raid boss and he hits like a truck--and hits harder the more people are there. 

One of the ten new pets added in patch 4.2.

   Elsewhere in Cataclysm, the other rare tameables are quite killable--but rather than loot, they drop the "Crystalline Tear of Loyalty," a gray-quality item with flavor text "The desire to serve as a loyal companion, coalesced into a single priceless crystal."  This "priceless" crystal doesn't sell for much, but instead is meant to deter people from killing rare beasts they find wandering Azeroth.  It's still not as effective as Ghostcrawler's strategy of simply being unkillable, though.

   So, with the release of the Firelands and the Molten Front questing area, we have a bunch of new pets released.  However, instead of being basically loot chests waiting to be opened, they've taken a page from the Spirit Crab's book and made themselves nigh-on unkillable.  In order for a hunter to successfully tame one of these new pets, they'll need to look up the strategy and come prepared.  Nobody stumbling across these mobs on accident will come away with any loot!

   First off are the three new Spirit Beasts.  These are accessible from the day of the patch, and consist of a spirit owl and two Gondria-style spirit cats, one white and one blue.  The "trick" to taming the owl is finding a place where one can tag him while he flies past: he has a very high-altitude patrol route.  The cats, on the other hand, have a far nastier trick: their attack power scales with your armor.  That means that if you have even one piece of gear on, these kitties WILL one-shot you.  Instead, you have to get completely nude before you make your tame!

   Once you're deeper into the dailies, you'll find a few more nice pets waiting.  There are five rare spiders with a multitude of trick tames; one requires you to sacrifice and revive a pet (or an easygoing friend) to it nine times before it can be tamed; another must be kited across a certain number of Ice Traps, etc.  These spiders are found throughout the new questing area, and come in fiery green (Kirix), orange (Solix), purple-blue (Deth'tilac), yellow (Anthriss) and red (Skitterflame).  If you want one of the new flame spiders without camping a rare, you can nab a common version of the red or yellow flame spiders in the area instead.

One of the ten new pets added in 4.2.

   Last but not least, we have two tameable rares added to somewhat remote rock outcroppings in the zone.  The first is a "gem crab" named Karkin, who has metallic or stone silver etching on a black base and a red-orange glow over the top.  The second is a new cat, one of the old "stone cats" of Ulduar.  This cat, named Skarr, is a black stone panther with glowing red eyes.  It's the same type of cat you control when doing the Oracles daily in Sholazar Basin--Soo-holu--or you can see the model lounging outside Bouldercrag's Refuge in the Storm Peaks.  Skarr is the first of his kind, however, to be tameable.

Well, there you have it--  Happy hunting, folks!