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.

A guide to tracking

Since there have been requests on the forum for a guide on tracking and flare placement, I've come up with a video guide that may help you to find your dream pet. Hope it helps!

Transcription:

Hey everyone, this is Kalliope from the Petopia forums, here to give you a few tips on how to track and flare the rare beasts of Pandaria.

First, you need to find the tracks of the beast that you're looking for. In this case, I'm looking for Stompy the goat's heavy tracks.

As of right now on the beta, you have to follow the tracks in reverse, as though the beast is walking backwards. This may or may not change before live, so you'll want to do your homework to make sure that you're following the tracks the right way.

It's really easy to lose the trail when the beast leaves a track, then turns, especially when it's a sharp turn. Unless you can already see him, you'll have no idea where he went, so be aware of the surrounding area, not just the direction the last track is facing. You'll know you're at the end of the trail either when the tracks stop or, more reliably, when you see new tracks spawn before your eyes.

So now you're ready to flare out the beast, which can be tricky if you flare in the wrong place and he gets away from you. So how do you guess where to flare? If a track has just spawned, you'll want to flare fairly close to it. This is the ideal situation, since you aren't going to miss him to a stealth turn.

If a track has been down for a few seconds before you can flare, then you'll have to make an educated guess. Take the terrain into consideration before committing your flare. I tend to aim between the path ahead and one of the sides, as well as a fair distance away from the last track. Usually, this will catch the beast, giving you the chance to mark him.

However, if the beast isn't there, but you know you're really close, you can pop Readiness and fire off another flare. Remember that the beast will have moved slightly between the firing of the two flares and adjust your placement accordingly.

Don't worry if your first few flares miss. Just keep an eye on the surrounding area and try again when your cooldown's up. Even if you lose the trail completely, you can make educated guesses on where he might have gone, based on the distance between the tracks you've already found.

Just keep trying and you'll eventually end up with a successful flare and a brand new pet by your side. Good luck!

Best-laid plans and wild things

When I started poking around on the beta, I figured I'd have time to wander around with my pets and share our adventures.  Instead, life took a left turn and real life interfered.  Things finally quieted down and then....the rare tameables came into play.  I've been on the forefront of the discoveries and tracking, but have been posting on Petopia rather than here, since it's been a team effort.

The fruits of our labor: http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=18527

 I am so pleased with how that post turned out, and it continues to get better as it gets more refined.  And it was even featured on WoW Insider in Frostheim's Scattered Shots!  I've contributed to efforts that have been featured there before, but never as the compiling writer.  (Speaking of which, if you found your way here from there, hi and welcome to the insanity!)

On a personal level, I am afraid that I will be taming more of these rares on live than I'd like to.  I sort of backed into bonding with them; at first glance, the only ones I connected with were Stompy (the first I'd found <3) and Bristlespine (giant porcupine, c'mon).

I'm unsure if Pan would work as Stompy; I think I like Stompy better as himself.  Bristlespine is another matter.  I connected with his personality immediately.  With the revamp of Jade Forest, Calydonian's original spawn no longer exists, so I've been trying to figure out where he moved to.  Bristlespine would have worked...if he was red....which he is not.  But while following Bristle across Kun Lai, I noticed him pass through a herd of yaks and one red porcupine.  And I knew instantly that my path lies that way: Calydonian will be reborn as Bristlespine, then transfer into his red body, Hector-style.  It's a relief to know that he of all pets will be okay; he's the reason I'm still here.

As I got to know Patrannache, I realized that he is ridiculously difficult to track down, definitely one of the most difficult to spot.  So of course I'll have to do that trek on live for Eurydice.  Orpheus will settle for nothing less than a mate who's every bit as hard to track down as he is.  I am both looking forward to and dreading this hunt.

The one who truly has me confused is green Portent.  As if Hippomenes hasn't been through enough turmoil on the beta!  But the attachment green Portent has to me is ridiculous.  For the past couple of days, he's spawned green while I've been around/predicted it at least half a dozen times - no exaggeration.  Shades of Sambas - he appears to be stalking me, so of course I thought of Leo immediately.  I really like white organic quilen Hippomenes....and yet, I am very seriously considering that change.  Most likely, I won't decide until I see Portent for the first time when I'm 90 on live.  We shall see what destiny holds!

Madexx always knows.

I had called out Perseus this morning to take him for a walk in a dungeon.  No sooner had I summoned him than I felt the overwhelming urge to go to Uldum.  I hadn't discovered Madexx in the wild for weeks, so there was no logical reason to believe he'd be up.

But he was.

Blue.

And at that moment, I knew that Andromeda was going to be transitioning to her fen strider form through Madexx.  Had he been any other color, this would not have been the case.  It's hard to explain the feelings, unfortunately.  I had thought about putting Drommie in my active stable before queuing for the instance, but didn't.  So I flew back to the stable master in Uldum to get her, then let her do her thing.  Needless to say, Drommie ended up doing the instance with me instead.  I'll have to take Perseus for a walk later.

This wasn't even rare sense.  It was a distinct "you are doing this, so get moving already" sense.

Perseus is definitely turning out to be a very bossy pet.

As for Andromeda, she appears to be thrilled to be on the ground with her mate.  The constant flying of a dragonhawk must have gotten to her.  I got the distinct impression that suddenly having fen strider legs on the beta messed with her perception, so she really wanted to ease into things better on live.

It's all so silly and unpredictable.  I've seen blue Madexx in person before and felt nothing.  But this time was different.  Go figure.

I need to stop....really, I do.

Yep, another one followed me home.  Again.

Basically, I think too much.  After saying that Kalliope wouldn't have a turtle going into MoP, I started thinking about turtles.  Again.  I adore the WoW turtles and I'd tamed every color but one on various hunters, and that color was planned for completing a set of four (yes, that set of four turtles).  No offense to Terrorpene, but like Loque, I have trouble seeing him as anything other than himself, and the rest of my turtles are clearly defined.

The thing is, I need a dedicated tank.  Ursa's going to be DPSing - a lot - in MoP.  So I figured I might as well try taming Ironback, the turtle I'd set aside for the set of four, since the odds of my ever leveling that hunter to finish the set are incredibly low.  I had no clue for a name, though, and that was the kicker.

I figured it out the moment I detoured to visit Old Cliff Jumper.  I still see OCJ as Hector's heart, regardless of his now having Deathmaw's appearance.  He is OCJ.  And that was when it clicked.  Achilles, Hector's rival, would come from across the zone from him.  And he was grey(ish), which drew a connection to Achilles's quilen form.  I'd felt bad Achilles lost the quilen battle, but he was always doomed to lose once Hippomenes entered the ring.

So now I had a concept.  But would it work?  Achilles had a very specific vibe on the beta, and turtles are nothing like quilen.  I flew over to the east coast of the Hinterlands to find out.

Ironback was up, which wasn't terribly surprising, though I realized how rarely I'd seen him in the wild before.  I had no preconceptions of him prior to taming, which was a relief to me as I hit tame.

 
It works!  Achilles still throws his head back to howl, even though he's a turtle now, which makes him the only howling turtle I've ever had....as well as incredibly weird.  I always liked how strong and rocklike Achilles was - and he still is.  Looks like he's going to stay after all!  I should have known.

Suddenly, everything became clear

So Jason was apparently sending me a message when he kept "flashing" me with his white skin vs. his natural yellow.  But I didn't understand that until I summoned Atalanta for the first time since taming Jason.

I don't write about Atalanta often, even though she goes back with me almost as far as Ursa does.  She's a very quiet cat.  It's funny; she doesn't seem to be bothered that she doesn't run with me in raids very often anymore, despite her being my first go-to dps pet.  It's like we got old together; neither of us is interested in hardcore raiding anymore, though we like the occasional workout.  She doesn't mind Leo's bossiness and understands that he has to go with me sometimes because of his official Lucky Lion status.  She was the one who volunteered to leave my stable the night before our stables expanded just so Hippomenes could come home without causing me grief in terms of competition from other hunters.

Atalanta's quite an enigma.  I'm figuring a lot of this out even as I write it here now.  But what I figured out a couple of days ago was that Atalanta wanted to be a ghost saber again.  I'm not sure now if she insisted on trying a regular snow leopard skin or if I pushed her (in hindsight, I'm thinking it was the latter, which I regret).  I just hadn't felt things were right with her after I retamed her after the patch.  It only took six statues and she was the first cat to spawn.  That had never happened before.  I thought she was just eager to come home...and she was.  But things were just...off.  It was like Beignet - unless Beignet was stalking the hell out of Kallimon, it wasn't really her.  If Atalanta wasn't being elusive and hiding from me, then something was wrong.  I....I can't explain how they had both come home with me, but weren't themselves....it doesn't seem like both things are possible.  But that's how it goes with pets.  Just like it makes no sense that solid snow leopards in pictures can still be her....but they are.  She just knows how to make herself easier to "photograph."

All of this because Atalanta the snow leopard's butt was too glowy in comparison to Jason's white version.  Well, that and Jason and I took an impromptu land walk from Uldum to Darkshore for no apparent reason the night before....another big indicator that I needed to be there.

Atalanta and I set off for the ruins and found absolutely nothing for the first dozen statues or so.  So I let her loose to go find her own statue.  Sort of a hunter's version of hide and seek.  The very next statue I found was near where I'd released her.  I was shocked it had been so easy!  But then the cat inside was level 20.  It wasn't her.  But the timing....what if it was?  Then the night elf guards stepped in and took the decision out of my hands, killing the poor innocent cat.  I realized that Atalanta wasn't so foolish as to spawn near dangerous NPCs, not at any level.  I kept looking.

Two more level 20 cats spawned, both fairly soon after the first.  Neither of those was killed, as I feigned them off.  I'd never run into three 20s before finding her before, nor had I had to pick up more than 19 statues before.  I was getting anxious, especially as I was having a lot of trouble locating statues from time to time.

Then I saw it.  Statue 23.  It was facing a bush.  And somehow, I knew.  I knew that this was her.  And yet, I still didn't screen capture that statue as a precaution.  No matter; I digress.  I clicked the statue and there indeed stood my beautiful Atalanta in her level 19 glory.  She didn't attack me, something which had never happened before with any of the cats - ever.  I tamed her and she was back.  Really and truly back.

Welcome home, Atalanta.

With a name like Jason, how could he not return for a sequel?

Yep, I definitely cursed myself to eat my words when I said that Kalliope's stable was looking more fluid than Kallimon's.  Jason is back.  And how.

Jason's had a bit of a checkered past.  He was with me before in a red hyena skin, though he was mostly my planned hydra.  I was never really sold on the idea of Jason being a hydra anyway, as evidenced by the previous stint in red.

The problems weren't really his, though.  They were mine.  Kalliope couldn't have a purple hyena, but that's my favorite color hyena.  Orange, the second favorite, was too jarring when summoned; I kept expecting to see the purple.  I have a soft spot for hyenas, which made the whole thing worse.

It's a good thing MoP has hyenas set up to be one of the families with the windfury buff.  Knowing this, I took the excuse to look at hyenas again in the name of "filling out stable buffs," which of course was clearly untrue, since I'm completely ignoring other buffs.  Sigh.  Whatever self-deception works, right?  I knew I wanted Jason back, but I didn't know what color to make him.  I figured I'd try orange again, since orange was Linus last time (and Orpheus's brother or not, I just had no bond with him).  So I ported to Uldum to go grab Skarf.  But I decided to check on Madexx first.

You can tell where this is going.

Madexx wasn't up last night (he always knows!), but as I approached the northern spawn point (my favorite), I got that familiar pang as I flew over a yellow hyena.  The this-is-your-pet-go-tame-it pang.  I landed and immediately hit tame.  Then I quickly smashed dismiss, since Leo was still with me.  Whoops.  Then I hit tame again without missing a beat.  The bond was instant.  I completely blame Leo for this; thanks to him, I'm now used to a warm golden pet by my side.  Honorable mention goes to GrilledCheez (Sandwiches's), the first yellow hyena I'd tamed.

So, Jason is home, thank goodness.  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as all that.  He's a color changer.  I never tame color changers because they drive me batty.  If I want a pet in a particular color, then I tame that color.  None of this funny business with swapping.  Jason, however, isn't a fan of this philosophy.  He opts to appear in white more often than not, apparently just to needle me (he's appeared as yellow in clutch, serious business moments during which I didn't have time to chastise him for showing up as the wrong color).  Not only that, but he's showing up on the login screen as orange.  This is driving me crazy.  One of the reasons Perseus changed bodies was because he appeared as a green warp stalker on the login screen instead of blue.  The worst of it is....I can't change him.  I flew out to the Barrens to find a yellow hyena who didn't change colors and even settled down above one, knowing full well that I couldn't do it.  I checked on how those hyenas were color-changing on the beta.  Without character copies activated, I can't confirm that he'll stabilize as yellow, but I did confirm that even if he doesn't, I'll be able to retame the real him.  Still, I'm amused greatly by Jason's color changing antics, even though they drive me crazy.  At least he has personality!