Meet the Family: Patch 5.2

It's been quite some time since I last updated my official pet roster, so with patch 5.2 coming in, now is definitely the time to check in with the family.

My stable's been overall stable in terms of who's stayed this expansion, though several have made skin swaps, shrunk down to minipet size, or grown up from minipet status since my last update....or some combination thereof. It's complicated.

Arachne rejoined my active ranks prior to MoP, only as Amthea rather than Jadefang. Psyche went from raptor to tallstrider and hasn't looked back. Hippomenes ended up turning his nose up at green Portent after all and remained a white organic quilen upon MoP release. (He still pairs nicely with Atalanta, since they're both off-white.)

Pan (black goat) ended up not working out, leaving room for Amalthea (Stompy) to step in. Unfortunately, my ever-crowded stable meant that she ultimately had to drop down into minipet form as a Summit Kid. Orion made a similar change into my Stunted Shardhorn.

Medusa preyed upon my sentimentality on the 5.1 PTR and managed to completely bond herself with Sparkwing (who happened to be the first unique skinned rare I'd ever discovered fully on my own, which meant the cards were stacked), which meant that I was completely at their combined mercies...especially when Sparkwing spawned right in front of me when it came time to officially meld the pair on live. Such cheaters, both of them. How could I possibly resist those charms?

A series of random events led to Laelaps (Karoma) joining my stable on what I thought was a temporary basis. I should have known better; I'd already gotten attached to her when I tamed a regular wolf that kept wandering into one of Karoma's spawn points and named her for the first time...she asserted her personality even that early. But out of respect for Polaris (Arcturis), I let her go after a few days. This, of course, was a massive mistake and after much hemming, hawing, and repeated denials, I filed my first pet restoration ticket ever to get her back. Laelaps has hardly left my side since. I definitely never saw that one coming. Polaris ended up dropping into Baby Blizzard Bear form.

Jason, who I had decided to stabilize as yellow from his color-changing self, became my second pet restoration ticket not long after I got Laelaps back. Just another example of my pets knowing what's best for them better than I do. Knowing Jason, I should have seen that coming too. He especially likes being part of a stampede, since it means he gets to change colors every five minutes.

Pygmalion, who had changed to a basilisk when Jason stabilized, took a brief hiatus before coming back to me as a Scalded Basilisk Hatchling minipet. Ultimately, this was a good thing, since it reunited him with Galatea, who returned as a Tol'vir Scarab. Other former pets who returned as minipets include Odysseus (Darkmoon Monkey) and Penelope (Darkmoon Hatchling).

Scylla, who charmed me unexpectedly as a teal worm, did so again as a pink silkworm when she flipped off of a tree branch to nibble on my face. I will never know how the other silkworms on that tree branch didn't aggro....whatever happened, it was a very clear sign that not only did she want to change forms, but it had to be rightnowthissecond. She did that just before the silkworm burrow animation was added on the 5.1 PTR - it was glorious.

Somewhere in there, Tantalus took a brief lack-of-space-induced hiatus, but he came back - he always does. Achilles did the same, after making it to live as Ironback. Unfortunately, Ironback had just been killed when I went to retame him, which threw me off badly...until I checked for Terrapis, who came running right up to meet me and ended up suiting Achilles's personality even better than Ironback did. Go figure! Of course, not long after that, the noisy Slateshell Wanderers appeared on the 5.2 PTR and Achilles insisted on changing forms yet again. I have noticed that my stable has overall become bossier, as well as more intent on griefing me. I'm not thrilled by this revelation.

The only truly new pet who's joining the family in patch 5.2 is Tiresias, the blue dire horn...and even he has a storied history. I originally had my heart set on an orange dire horn and indeed went through the majority of the PTR with Tiresias as orange. However, one day I logged in and he was blue! More colors had been added to the table his spawn comes from and he had been grandfathered in with this new color. I thought to myself that this wasn't a big deal; it'd be a Calydonian situation again. But by the time I got back to his spawn on the rock on the Isle of Thunder, Tiresias had completely melded himself with the blue skin. I hadn't even liked the blue skin, before or after the color change! But of course, again, he knew better than I did; this is his true color.

Did I say my stable's been stable? I'm not so sure now.

At any rate, all buffs are and have been covered, which is utterly amazing to me. Even more amazingly, I have strong bonds with almost every pet...thank goodness. I'll probably let Psyche fully turn into my purple tallstrider mount if I ever get the chance to tame Cadmus; I am far too attached to Tantalus.

If I can someday "correct" the colors of my pets-turned-minipets, I would actually be 100% happy....so long as no new shinies win me over. Every time I swear I'm done, something I never knew I wanted calls to me....(not the case with Tiresias; I always wanted a triceratops).

Kallimon's stable actually did undergo some major changes since I last updated his stable chart. the lesson to be learned here is that I shouldn't have massive amounts of stable space available, because if I do, it will be filled.

I recounted the adventures of the lava spider siblings before, and not much has changed with them since. Cayenne's been getting used to combat in her minipet form, so even though she's still a little sweetheart, she isn't shying away from fighting like she used to. Sugarcane's basically established herself as a hermit, which is why I went slightly nuts trying to get to know her better. None of them will budge from my stable because Stampede exists, so I'm resigned to an army of lava spiders. At least it's a pretty army.

In MoP, Chili swapped from a red hellhound into Jadefang. It started out as a swap of convenience, but he clicks far better in this form anyway. Dogs are just too small for trolls. My former Shango Jalapeno jumped into my Tiny Shale Spider to avoid Jambalaya's territorial wrath.

Bait molted, shedding her Jormunger skin for Gnath's. Amusingly, this is the skin color Scylla was originally supposed to be, but it never clicked. She also picked up a new worm brother in Slimey, who is just too adorable for words.

Ravigote gave up his feathers and became a supermodel Venomspine. I can't recall offhand how many forms he's gone through, but this one seems to suit him for a change.

Pacane, who had disappeared from my stable, found new life in Nychus. Somehow, the lone raptor persona suits her far better.

Blasto is still planned to swap to pink whenever Kallimon actually hits 90, which may not be until the next expansion, at the rate I'm going. It's just as well. I have no idea where I'm going to put Chipotle (Degu) when Kallimon does hit 90. MaqueChoux will most likely return to minipet-only form....again.....but we'll cross that bridge when it comes.

Patch 5.0.4 arrives!

The pre-Pandaria patch hit today! You all know what that means - more taming stories! Unlike the pre-Cataclysm patch, this wasn't a massive epic taming spree that spanned three continents. I had three very specific stops.

The journey started three days ago, in Thousand Needles above Ironeye the Invincible's spawn. He was there when I arrived on Saturday night. I had forgotten he was already my desired color on live as well as beta. I was so struck by his beauty that I actually beast lored him to make sure he couldn't be tamed yet (which, of course, he could not). Even then, I started praying that he would be up when I logged in.

He wasn't. Sigh.

    -> 

I then flew down to Uldum to touch base with Jason. Unlike the other pet swaps of the day, he was merely going to stabilize his color to yellow from the exact same tame. Part of me knew that there was a good chance he'd be in white when I arrived.

He was white. Of course he was.

   ->  

So I teleported up to Toshley's Station in Blade's Edge, quickly flying down to Zangarmarsh to the tame I was secretly most looking forward to. Andromeda was finally going to become a sporewalker. When a pet finally comes into their own and everything clicks, it's beautiful. Not all of my pets go through such transitions, but Drommie is among the most graceful who have.

     ->

Of all of today's tames, hers was the only one that was a sure thing even before I arrived. No color changes, no rare spawns to worry about. Plus, Drommie completed the Zangarmarsh trio of species (sporewalker, nether ray, sporebat). I've always loved that zone - it was the first one I truly fell for.

I ran back to Uldum to pick up Jason (who was yellow this time), then flew back to Thousand Needles to wait for Pygmalion. And wait. And wait. Until I finally flew across the zone to check on one of the other rares (who was not up) and then, of course, he spawned.

I am feeling quite good about the state of my stable. Stability in one's stable - and in one's life! - is important.

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!

And suddenly, everything made sense

As much as I liked Jason, I wasn't really feeling the red hyena form after some time had passed.  I had already associated the name with my future (hopeful) hydra, due to a filmic version of Jason and the Argonauts pitting him against a hydra.  I have never liked Heracles as a character, so naming a potential hydra for Kalliope had been a massive undertaking.  Hence the hyena Jason never quite clicking.

I was at a loss for a new hyena, beyond the vague desire to try an orange one again.  I knew if I could figure out the name, everything else would fall into place.

It turned out I was right, because that's exactly what happened.

For some reason, I hadn't known that Calliope had a second son.  The most likely cause?  Linus was given different parents by various myths and I simply hadn't heard any involving Calliope until now.  Tragically, like his brother, he was violently killed.  Unlike his brother, he wasn't torn limb from limb by crazed disciples of Dionysus; he was killed by Heracles while attempting to teach him how to play the lyre.  No wonder I hadn't ever wanted Heracles in my stable.

Linus blended perfectly.  His orange-brown coloration would match Orpheus's similar brown-orange combination.  Instead of going for the slightly brighter orange from Tanaris, like I had for Kallisto all those months ago, I opted for Skarf, the duller orange hyena from Uldum.  (This is of course why I knew brown Madexx was up again, as mentioned in the previous post.  This is all completely Madexx's doing.)

I tossed down a freeze trap, since Sultan Oogah came with him.  Hilariously, Skarf dodged the trap, catching the Sultan in it.  The latter bobbed around amusingly as I tamed his mount out from under him.

Linus feels right.  Finally, I feel at peace with Kalliope's hyena.  Now I just need to make sure that Orpheus doesn't get jealous of him or anything silly like that.

Happy trails, Kallisto; welcome, new blood

A couple of days ago, I realized that Kallisto and I weren't clicking anymore.  We hadn't been since she returned in Cataclysm; I just hadn't seen it because I really like her.  The initial problem, which I realized in early July, was that I twitched every time I saw Kallisto in orange, subconsciously expecting the purple she used to be.  So I figured the problem would be solved once she returned to her natural coloration.

Sadly, I was wrong.

I instead had trouble seeing Kallisto as herself; I kept thinking of Praline.  Part of the problem is that I didn't know what to call her.  She couldn't be Kalli; Kalliope is Kalli.  That was always a roadblock, but one that had been cheated around, simply by just using her full name.  The nail in the coffin was that I finally understood that Kallisto had already been reborn a long time ago as Praline.  I had always kind of been aware of the rebirth, but didn't see that it truly meant there was no going back until now.

So I stabled Kallisto and went hyena scouting.  I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for.  The purple was my favorite skin, and my second favorite choice, the orange hyena outside the Caverns of Time, had been moved.  Somehow, I sensed that tracking down a new orange hyena wasn't going to work; it was that one or nothing.  At Caelan's suggestion, I checked on Slaverjaw, but he wasn't up.  I'm not a fan of the white hyena skin and Sandwiches has GrilledCheez, who is an attractive yellow, so those were out.  I flew aimlessly into Uldum, just to check out a few of my options in the wild.

I tamed a mangy gray hyena on a whim, but was surprised that I didn't like the look of the skin once tamed, at least not with Kalli.  Not knowing what else to do and still having Caelan's suggestion in my head, I flew around to try and find the red hyenas, just so I could see them in person.  I'd never really considered the skin before; too many other hunters had a soft spot for it for me to ever even try getting to know it.  So really, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I finally spotted a red hyena fighting a camel, but it lost the battle before I could dismount and get involved.  I flew around the area a bit longer and discovered one on a ledge.  And suddenly, I understood why I was having so much trouble finding them.

I was phased.

Every time I flew close to my target hyena, he disappeared.  I tried blindly throwing some traps into his patrol path, but none of them triggered.

This was when things got interesting.

I landed on the side of the cliff, on a very tiny ledge.  I could target him from here, but he was out of range.

I tried firing some traps up to him to pull him, but he didn't trigger any of them.  It was difficult to see how far off he was from hitting them, so I flew up (ironically, on Hephaestus the red proto-drake) to get a better idea of what the situation was.  He looked pretty far off from the traps, so I tried dismounting and using my engineering cloak to slowfall down to the ledge.  This actually worked like a charm, except the little hyena decided that now would be a great time to hit my freeze trap.  Not wanting to wait 40 seconds for him to break out and run to me, I summoned Atalanta to go poke him.  Yes, I could have gone pet fishing in the first place, but I hadn't wanted to accidentally kill the little guy.  This was a last resort.

I dismissed Atalanta and retrapped the little scamp, just to be certain that he wasn't going to knock me off the ledge, since I couldn't recall offhand what abilities these hyenas had.

At that point, the tame was easy.

You may have noticed that I took screenshots of this process, even though I hadn't committed to keeping this guy yet.  I had done so on the grounds that this was a lot of effort just to try on the skin.  Of course, once he was at my side, I realized that I'd been in denial.  I had already started to get attached.  The skin turned out to be rather attractive as well, though it really only matches the Firelands tier of gear; after this, he is unlikely to match Kalliope again.  But that's never been a priority for me.  I just like pets that fit by my side, regardless of their color scheme.

The name Jason kept wanting to attach itself to him, though I rejected it.  The yellow hyena would fit better, I reasoned, due to the Golden Fleece.  But then, something clicked.  Jason Voorhees was no stranger to blood.  The double reference did it.  Once he had a name, Jason's personality started falling into place.  He's fiercer than Praline, which is saying something, since she was Kallimon's battleground companion back when she had a snare.

He's a keeper.