Thursday, August 7, 2014

Adventures in Taming

With the announcement yesterday that the molten core 40 man raid is coming back for a limited time only for max level characters to celebrate the 10th anniversary and a core hound mount will be given to everyone that finishes it I was reminded of my experiences with core hounds.

You see, as a hunter I often like to play the game of matching my mount, pet and battle pet to run around with a family.  When I reached exalted with the anglers and got myself the water strider mount I immediately caught myself a water strider and called out a water strider battle pet so I could have the water strider family.  Don't you give me that strange look, if you are a hunter you have done the exact same thing at one point or another even if you do not want to admit it.

Once I heard about the core hound mount I knew I would have some fun running around with my core hound mount, core hound pet and core hound battle pet.  Then the memory came to mind, the memory of how I managed to tame my core hound, a level 60 boss while at level 80, and it was still a challenge.

My core hound is, or should I say was, the absolute best pet in the game to have.  Even if you hate the stomp stomp stomp sound, which I do, beast from blackrock spire was indeed a beast.  There was a reason for that, a reason why beast was the best pet in the game and it lasted a long time, a very very long extremely over powered time and it had reasons it was the best pet in the game.

When you tamed beast he was a skull mob because he was a boss but unlike any other bosses you might have tamed he managed to keep his skull marker.  If someone were to click on beast they would not see a level, they would see a skull.  If that were not imposing enough there was a lot more to it.  Pets had talent points back in the day, just like we used to, and beast being the beast that he was had an additional talent point because he was a boss and not a level 80.  So he had more talent points than any other pet in the game.

But wait, there is more.  If having an extra talent point is not enough for you to agree that beast was the best pet in the game and if being a skull when you looked at him was not enough to agree that beast was the best pet in the game there was something else that came along with being a skull pet besides that extra talent point.

As a skull mobs people needed additional hit rating to hit it.  Just like you would a boss in a raid.  He was considered a level 83 mob and PvPers back in wrath did not gem and enchant for 83 mobs because they were attacking level 80 ones, as in players.  Beast was the only pet in the game that was considered as a level 83.  More came along with that distinction than just being harder to hit too.

Beast's armor was beastly.  If your normal pet had armor to the point of stopping 60% of damage beast had boss type armor and stopped 90% of damage.  Making him harder to hit and when you did hit him you would hit him for less.  Now can we all agree that beast was beastly, that in his heyday beast was the most bad ass pet the game has ever seen.

I used to love soloing with beast because of his increased armor, his boss level, and his extra talent point.  He could take more damage, do more damage, and survive better than even a turtle could for that time he held the position of being a pet god.

Getting him however was no easy task for me.  Even if I was level 80 at the time, even if he was just some low level dungeon boss in a dungeon I could easily solo, even if I were to kill him it would have only taken me a few seconds.

He had a knock back, he had a DoT, he had an interrupt, all of which poised to be a problem while trying to tame him.  The extremely long cast time for tame beast was not exactly user friendly here.  I would either get interrupted or find myself knocked back and if that did not happen the DoT would kill him.

On a few, interesting, attempts to tame beast he managed to knock me back into a position where I was actually up in the air and in a wall.  I got knocked back into places I did not even know existed in beasts lair.  I was DoTed to death, interrupted multiple times, knocked around like a ping pong ball.  All in all I was a battered and bruised hunter and beast was having none of this "you will be mine" bull crap I was trying to sell him.

He beat me like a red headed step child.  I tried my best to do what I could to shorten my tame beast time.  I even used flasks and potions that would speed up its cast time.  I would come close, oh so close, so close I could taste it close.  Every so often I would get lucky enough that he decided to attack instead of knocking me back and I would get to that point where I could see it happening, I could see me about to finish it, but I would die to the DoT he put on me.

I figured maybe some stamina gear would work and looked into getting some and gemming for extra stamina but instead I decided to enlist the assistance of a friendly guild priest and he came with me when I tried it again.  I told him to just heal me and sooner or later if I get lucky he will not knock me back and instead let me finish the cast so I can get him.  I explained how close I was multiple times, but I died the split second before he was about to be tamed, but with his heals I should be able to finish it.

We tried multiple times to do it but it was just not happening.  He would get healing aggro and as any hunter can tell you, you can not tame a pet that is not aggroed on you or at the very least I could not tame beast if he was not aggroed on me.  The second I lost his interest it was wipe time because even with fade the only way for me to get aggro back was to attack and as I mentioned with me at 80 and him at 60 it was quite possible, and did happen a few times, that I would kill him.

We adjusted some things like me putting on a green weapon I got while clearing up to him, the priest waiting until the last moment before throwing any heals on me being I did not need much healing, and me pulling with a serpent sting, which was enough to get his attention and to outpace a tiny bit of healing aggro while being safe enough that I knew it would not kill him.  On our third attempt with this changes I manged to nab him.

Sure I could have done it solo if I had just went and picked up some stamina gear, but having a friend help is always a better option then wasting gold on stamina gear.

I've done a lot of tames over the years, spirit beasts, molten front spiders, challenge tames, you name it.  But no tame ever gave me the trouble I had with beast.  He remains, to this date, the hardest tame I ever completed and at the time, for what he was and what he could do and being a pet god, it was well worth a few deaths, some potion using and getting the help of another to get it done.  In truth I probably could have done it easier, there probably was a better way, but this was the first tame I ever had that presented any challenge and to me, it was sure fun. I did it my way, figured it out on my own, and there is something satisfying about that.

I have not used beast since they took away his skull designation (they killed beast, you bastards) and the extra skill point, of course, being skill points are no longer used, but I still have beast and more importantly I still have the memory of my first big tame.

So when the MC 40 man comes out and hunters all over the game start running around with their core hound family most will be excited about their new mount but I will be excited about my old pet.  It will be nice to have beast make a special guest appearance outside of my stable even with that annoying stomp stomp stomp.

What are some of your fun taming adventures?

14 comments:

  1. hi,
    I got him too, but it was at lvl 70, not 60. : ( (I didn't know about him at 60). A small group of us went down to grab him and it was a cluster fuck. Took me a day and I went thru those speed potions to speed me up to tame him (sorry can't remember the correct name right now). Also had to re-specc to speed me up and we had a druid or was it a priest/paly(?) along too to make thing faster. oh well, sorry GE, I just can't remember, but I got him. Being a bad ass boss it was fun to bring him out. :). So, these 40 mans are they expert (like the Orc King) or just regular LFR type?

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    1. Seems like you needed a whole 5 man to get him. It was a challenge for sure and one you needed a little help for. I used everything I could to speed the cast up as well like you did and it still wasn't enough. It was a fun tame however.

      The 40 man will be easier than normal LFR if I had to guess. It is a limited time thing they want everyone to be able to participate in so they will make it so everyone can.

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    2. also, will all toons be able to ride the corehound mount or just the one who got him?

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    3. All mounts are account bound now and only a very very few are tied to one character, this will not be one of those, so everyone will be able to use it.

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  2. I haven't had any super difficult (legitimate) tames except for Loque, and that one wasn't technically difficult, just lots of camping. Flew around Sholozar for 6 weeks before I finally found him. I would even log in before work and go home during my lunch break to do off hours sweeps. The adrenaline rush when I finally spotted him is the second closest to a heart attack I've ever felt. The first being when I walked in front of a speaker at a rave club a few years ago and it broke the rhythm of my heart beat for 20 minutes.

    The only disappointment with my Loque tame was how MUCH he shrank afterwards. Went from this huge awesome beast, to a tiny little cat. Sidenote: have our pets been increasing in size everytime we gain a level from 90 to 95? With only 5 levels I haven't noticed a difference. Hoping that WoD's 10 levels gives pet size a big boost, and my Loque is finally larger than my character again.

    As far as non-legitimate tames go. I tamed the worgen-wolf pet back in wrath and used him for a few weeks before he was hotfixed out of the game. I don't remember the specifics exactly, but there was a wolf that would turn into a worgen while you fought him. Because he started off as a beast you could start the tame. If you tamed him normally, he would turn back into a wolf at the end of the cast, but if another player stunned him just before your tame finished, he would remain in worgen mode and retain that appearance thereafter. I thought it was pretty cool. Took me and my friend dozens of attempts before we got the timing right. I think I was one of the few hunters running around in Dal with a full size worgen tagging along.

    There were also a slime-ooze and crocolisk-hydra pets tamable at the same time, but I didn't get either of those. The slime was removed same as the worgen, but every now and then I would see a hunter that still had their hyrda, so that one was left in.

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    1. Waiting forever for something in itself is the difficulty. I never got him. The only time I ever saw him I had to kill him for the achievement. That was the only time I ever even saw it was up after all of wrath looking for him and leveling over a dozen hunters through there.

      I don't think the pets get larger, if they do it is such a small increase in proportion to your character (with all that huge armor) so it is not as noticeable.

      I missed the worgen wolf. I kept saying, I have to go get that, and never did and then they removed it. :(

      I wish I had the slime. I had not known about that one until it was too late.

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    2. Old times. I have all of the hard to find pets from RotLK, but none of the others from any of the recent add-ons. . Just really havent felt like getting them. And Loque was just plain luck on 8 of my hunters to be there at the right time. That is all. The hardest one for me was actually Skoll. Too many people killing him. (I only have him on 3 hunters).

      Just told a friend about the 40 man raid for the mount. He is excited. He is pretty good making money - I have seen his bank toon - over 2,000,000 gold. thats all he does is AH. Told him, heck, i will take your toons and level them up for some of that, lol. But I did take his advice and made 10,000 a few weeks ago by selling a few items. That put me over (finally) 200,000g. Not much for as a long as I have been playing but I am happy.
      Hagus too-night, me laddi'!!!

      -roo

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    3. Ahh damn that Worg pet. Had him for a single glourious weekend and ran around with eyes of the beast, weirding people out. I will admit I threw a proppy hissy fit when they removed him from the game. I understand why...but I *really* wanted to keep that.

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    4. @Roo

      I do not think I have ever seen Skoll, ever, not even once. The only spirit beast I have on any of my characters is the cat from zul drak. I have that one on a few. Otherwise I have never seen most of them.

      Congrats on the gold making. Keep up the good work. Gold making can be fun on its own and 200K probably puts you in the top 5% of the game, or maybe even top 2% of the game. Some time back I asked in guild and there were only 2 people, not counting me, that even had over 100K. So gold, while easy to make, it not something many people have a lot of.

      @Diana

      That is freaking awesome. Sounds like it would be funny to see.

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  3. Wait Roo,

    Are you telling me you have Loque on Eight different hunters, and Skoll on 3? That is ridiculous! You must have had Crazy luck, or spent an entire expansion doing sweeps of his spawn points.

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    1. Could you imagine how much he could get if you could sell hunter pets the way you sell battle pets. I would throw him 50K easy for one of them. lol

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    2. yes, Trout, 8 hunters has him. But I know, just pure luck. And I found him for my grand daughter, my sister, and a few friends. It was all luck. Could be my sleep pattern too. :-)

      I should have mention, I checked last night when I got home and I also have most of the Cata rares too EXCEPT Skarr, Ankha, Magria and ban'thalos. These were introduced later in the release and I never went back to capture them. Nor have I tried for the porkypines in Panda (I have all the others, just not those). The hardest for me was Terrorpene at lvl 82 (after Chromaggus of course at lvl 70).

      I am not an expert at any of these tames. Just very very lucky.

      I remember a scene that played out when Cata first came out and Ashtail was the rare fox in Loch Modan. It's on a timer of 60 minutes (I think). Well this one person was lvl 20, camped there and me. I told them to go for it as they were there before me. All of a sudden the lvl 20 hunter was taming and a lvl 60 hunter dropped down out of the sky and killed it then told the lvl 20 what are you going to do about and then took off. Those are the asshats I don't care for.

      -roo

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    3. I hate when people do that. It seems some people actively have fun ruining someone elses day like that. I've never had a pet killed from under me, but even the thought of it makes me fume.

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