Where the Wild Things Are: Bombyx

Patch 5.1 brings the 10th rare Pandarian beast, the purple silkworm Bombyx, and with him, an entirely new set of tracking challenges and a new silkworm burrow animation (tiny burrowing feets, at last!).

As a bonus, he even has his own vocalizations, which are deeper than your average silkworm's.

Transcription:

Hey everyone! Kalliope coming to you from the depths of the Krasarang Wilds with the charming but eccentric silkworm Bombyx.

Bombyx is level 90 and uses the last of the silkworm colors, a deep, rich purple. As an exotic pet, taming him requires speccing as beast mastery.

His two tamed abilites are the same as other worm pets. The first, acid spit, causes his target to take 4% more physical damage. The other, burrow attack, does a channeled area of effect for eight seconds. As of patch 5.1, silkworms have a new animation for burrow attack, which shows just how these unlikely tunnelers are able to dig with their tiny feet.

Bombyx takes the rules established by the first nine Pandarian rare beasts and kicks them up to the next level. Though you still need to know the basics, almost every tracking method covered in my earlier video doesn't apply to this guy - he's in a class of his own.

His pathing is extremely erratic. Bombyx twists and turns as he walks, often doubling and tripling back over the same ground, sometimes with small differences. He makes sharp turns without leaving any tracks or indication that he's done so. Worst of all, Bombyx will randomly stop walking and sit still for varying amounts of time, making flaring him more difficult than any other rare to date.

Bombyx's tracks are also misleading, since they aren't footprints. His "tracks" are actually heavily-chewed silkweed, a smaller version of the regular silkweed plant. On top of not showing which way he's going, the tiny silkweed tracks are difficult to see on the jungle floor - even with ground clutter turned down - especially between the actual silkweed herbs. The tiny flowers can appear alone or in varying size clumps, depending on how Bombyx decides to move at any given time. They can also be found underwater or in rare cases, on the surface of it.

On top of everything else, Bombyx spends the majority of his time passing through aggressive mobs. The good news is that they're only level 86, which reduces them to mere annoyances.

Thankfully, Bombyx restricts himself to a relatively compact area between Dawnchaser Retreat and the Temple of the Red Crane. But with his unpredictable movements, it's difficult to pin him down more closely than that.

Bombyx's spawn timer appears to be around one to two hours, like all other Pandarian rares - though as always, this could change in the future.

For the most current information on Bombyx and other hunter pets, be sure to visit Petopia and the Petopia forums.

From the jungle of Krasarang, this is Kalliope, showing you where the wild things are.