Where the Wild Things Are: Glimmer

As promised, today we take a closer look at Glimmer, the surprisingly sneaky red water strider. Our next stop will be the Valley of the Four Winds.

Transcription:

Hey everyone! Kalliope here to inform you that the carrier has arrived. While the alliance are busy giving the horde the business, let's take advantage of their collectively diverted attention to observe Glimmer wandering about the Jade Forest.

He's a level 85 water strider, which makes him an exotic pet. Be sure you're specced as beast mastery before trying to tame him.

Once tamed, he'll have two unique abilities. The first, still water, provides a 10% spellpower and 5% crit raid buff. The second, surface trot, grants a 10 minute waterwalking buff to both him and his hunter.

Glimmer uses one of the two new Pandarian water strider skins and is the only one to have a glowing red tail.

Glimmer's path cuts through the south-central part of the zone, just missing the rare tiger Savage's trail to the north. There are several safe areas without aggressive mobs along his path, which helps make taming him at level safer.

Unlike other Pandarian water striders, Glimmer does not spend much time near the water and when he does approach a body of water, he swims across rather than skimming along the surface.

Even so, Glimmer must store some water somewhere, since he leaves flooded tracks when he walks. These tiny tracks can be very difficult to see, especially on cluttered ground, so be prepared to squint often. Glimmer also has a bad habit of phasing out near the Temple of the Jade Serpent and Serpent's Heart, which makes hunting for him in that area difficult, though not impossible if you hug the rocks near the wall southwest of the temple.

Like the other Pandarian rare beasts, his approximate spawn timer appears to be around two to eight hours.

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

From the Arboretum in the Jade Forest, this is Kalliope showing you where the wild things are.

For posterity, the reference to the carrier arriving and the alliance giving the horde the business is a joke from the MoP beta. The NPCs from an alliance quest were broadcasting their voice chats across the Jade Forest and the three neighboring zones. Since most players on the beta were doing that quest chain, the voice chats were heard quite often by both factions. Needless to say, it got a bit tiresome.

Where the Wild Things Are: An Overview of the MoP Rare Beasts

As we count down the days to Pandaria, I'll be taking you through a video tour of the nine rares who will be released with the expansion, starting with this overview.

Transcription:

Hey everyone, this is Kalliope from the Petopia forums, here to give you a quick look at the nine rare spawn beasts who will be awaiting hunters in Pandaria on September 25th.

Back in patch 4.2, hunters were treated to 10 challenge tames. Each beast required hunters to figure out its taming mechanics and successfully execute them. Trial and error could often prove fatal.

The first wave of rare Pandarian beasts may not be anywhere near as deadly, but they're just as cunning. They still test hunters' skills, but rather than requiring swift reflexes, their focus is on tracking.

All nine rares have the same basic mechanics. They wander around stealthed, leaving tracks on the ground that only hunters can see. Once a hunter finds the end of the trail, a well-placed flare will bring out the beast. You can then either tame the beast or mark it with Hunter's Mark. Marking gives you the option of taming the beast in a safer area or allowing you to follow it around for a while.

It may sound simple by comparison to the original challenge tames, but these wily creatures are quite good at avoiding capture. Half-buried or missing tracks can throw even the most seasoned hunter off the trail. Some of the beasts cross bodies of water to lose the hunters following them, while others completely change directions after dropping a track. A couple of them even phase out in parts of their zone if the hunter hasn't completed certain quests yet. And if none of those tactics work, there's always the old standby of walking through a whole bunch of aggressive mobs.

Those aren't the only big differences between the new rares and their predecessors. The most noticeable change is that only hunters can see the tracks or flare the beasts into visibility. That means that your only competition while hunting is other hunters.

The new rares are also marked with elite gold dragons rather than silver to further discourage others from attacking them even when they're visible.

I'll be introducing each of the new rare beasts individually in subsequent videos and have already created a guide with helpful tips and tricks to tracking them down. And for even more in-depth information on the rares of Pandaria, be sure to visit Petopia and its forums.

From the Valley of the Four Winds, this is Kalliope, inviting you to stick around and see where the wild things are.