Elkagorasa the Casual

Now on the Blizzard store! I think for the $5 (more) donation to Make-A-Wish (heck they helped BatKid) , I'll probably just get the combo of both this mount and the new pet .

Blizzard announced last Friday (19th) a new pet coming in a 'future' expansion. This awesome little robot will be an engineering pattern so start collecting your mats engineers. I see futures in the robot market. Question, is he going to be child-sized, like the argent crusade helper or smaller like the Lil Smoky ? Personally, I am hoping more child like. (Note: Blogger doesn't like <3 in the title, so it may caused some odd cross posts.)

I don't know what I was expecting. Surprisingly I am having a lot of fun with it. When Cata came out, I had high hopes for Archaeology  but it turned BORING really quick. I think it came down to only being able to search for 3 times per zone, then having to fly across the continent to try again. Pet battles are not like that. I can level all three of my pets in an area. Pick the right zone, there are critters everywhere. (see wowhead link below for maps). Fight, fight, fight until you start maxing level, then move on to another zone. (sort of like questing). Yesterday, I went through and trained to become a pet battler. ( trainer is up by the Orgrimmar flight path). Pick a pet and a go start fights with other pets (that big yellow paw above their head) in and around Orgrimmar (usually dung beetles and spiny lizards). You start with one slot for one pet. Your pet has one skill. After your first fight, the pet will ding level 2 and pickup a second skill. After abo...

Last night I picked up a strange little pet, Creepy Crate . This guy hides in his crate peeks out, then snacks on nearby critters. He was rewarded after a quick little, 6 step quest chain; mostly completed in and around Orgrimmar. Culminating in a zep ride to Undercity to kill a level 84 npc. Goblin boat, not Vashjir Missing Heirlooms  - Go to the Inn near the entrance, there's an undead in there complaining about his missing heirlooms. (Wasn't there someone in UC complaining about this?) If you haven't been to Vash'jir, but have the quest in your logs, you may only see the Vash'jir boat. I had to drop the quest with my alts to see the goblin ship. Fencing the Goods   - Go to the AH, one of the goblins will chat with you. Shopping Around    - Go see Droffer and Son's in the Drag. Taking Precautions  - All items available in town. From around the Tauren AH, I found all 5 Blood Nettle, Crystial Vials sold by Isashi  (opposite the AH), Arcane Pow...

I have long wanted to go to Blizzcon , but due to family commitments, this Warlock has never attended, and in all honesty, probably never will. My wife would literally kill me if I "abandoned" her to play   games  out of town on a school night. Work conference? Totally acceptable. Warcraft? Um, no. So, why would I even consider it? Blizzcon is the big reveal. This is when our game grows, or the company throws out new concepts to an eager crowd. I can imagine that Blizzcon will define the next major patch (4.3) coming out. Since this expansion is about the elements, I am guessing a water raid encounter to be coming soon. (Back to Vash'jir we go) The chance to see this new environment and bring that to you sounds exciting!  How about the in-game rewards? Oh sure! When I first saw the bear mount appear in Shattrath, minutes after Blizzcon started, I was jealous. That was before the Virtual Ticket was available (IIRC). Spotting the flaming murloc while runni...

. Last night, our raid group had 12 people who wanted to go. Being one of the best geared DPS in the group, I gracefully dropped so that my guildies could get some upgrades. Of course, first boss down, and they announce they got Valor points for taking down Magmaw. (Yeah! There back!) My #1 priority last night was to complete the " CLUCK !" quest. This hidden in-game quest has been available to the Horde since patch 3.1, but hey, I was busy. Prior to this patch, a horde player could only get this pet if you knew an alliance player to do the hard work, and you were there to loot it. As of 3.1, you could now buy the special feed from William Saldean (undead) in Brill. This comment sums up the Horde process. Go to Brill (Yeah, Brill, not Westfall) Buy Special Chicken Feed from William Saldean Target a Chicken from Brill Spam this macro until it turns green: /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken Get the quest Turn in in the...

Saturday night, after picking up Wither's, I started the quest chain to pickup Mr Grubbs. This non-combat pet is maggot grub dropping from mobs in Eastern Plaguelands while under  Fiona 's Luck Charm buff. I started this adventure around 10PM and found Mr Grubbs around 2AM. Considering, I've heard of drop rates ranging from 5 minutes, to 5 days, 4 hours isn't that bad. Based on the comments for Mr. Grubbs, I learned that the more quests you do, the 'luckier' you are. This meant to me, the drop is basically a reward for doing the quest chains in EPL. At level 85, the slowest portion of this running between the dead bodies and looting. (again, where's my loot monkey ?). Fly to Lights Hope Chapel and pick up the breadcrumb quest from Lord Maxwell . He has you fly all the way back out to the Bullwark and find the worgen Gypsy Fiona . She is the leader of  a traveling caravan. As you complete the quests in each area, you board her caravan and ride to the...

The Armory was the topic two Blue posts on Friday. First off, it appears that we now have a wowhead or WarcraftPets type view into our pets and mounts . Still pursuing a particular pet? Mad for a magnificent mount? Just mouse over the object of your desire in the Companions & Mounts page and you’ll see information that should help make your next hunt a success. You can filter the results to make it easier to find pets and mounts from a particular source, or sort them by rarity to help you plan future collecting expeditions. ( source ) One thing I really like about this feature is the advanced search functionality. I set my query to show all pets still available via quests. This brought up 2 pets that I had not known about; Withers and a raptor pet. For the Alliance, Withers is a quest reward in Darkshore. For the Horde, just go buy it for 30 silver from Apothecary Furrows . The raptor is from a short quest chain that starts in Stranglethorn, but ends in heroic ZG....

So, you like pets and you see everyone with those great balloon pets, but haven't asked where to get one? This pet is a reward from a strange little gathering quest, seems like a good candidate for Children's week, but hits closer to the State fair. Ok, go find Jaga . He's standing right out side the Drag, near the little pond. He's a young orc boy. Jaga has a low-level quest for you. He's lost his balloons and they flew away (in town). Go get all 5 for him. The balloons are easy enough to find. Look in corners of the Drag. I found all between him and the cooking trainer. The furthest out was by the mailbox out by the stairs at the far end. Once you hand over all 5 balloons, he lifts off and thanks you for allowing him to see the world. I followed him up to the top of the zeppelin tower, then he disappeared. I wonder if we'll see Jaga again out on the country side? Maybe trying to build himself a zep of his own?

With the start of Children's week, comes the start of a series of Take your Orphan to work quests. Those quests that have you drag an orphan around to 5 different points of interest, usually on highly different parts of the map. Happily, with the completion of each quest chain, you are able to pickup a new pet for each one (now even Dalaran). Blizzard has also blessed us with 2 new pets ( Scooter and Legs ) for the Orgrimmar and Shatrath versions. With these last three pets (Scooter, Egbert for the achievement, and Wolvar pup), it pushed Elk to the 100 pet limit. Here's some screenies of these last 5 pets. Note, the wolvar pup comes in your mail after you finish the quests. Not picked up when you turn in the last quest.   Winterspring Cub Panther Scooter Egbert Curious Wolvar Pup A quick note about doing these Children's week quests. Set your Hearth to Shattrath and/or Dalaran when you start. This should save quite a bit of flying around to get y...

I was reading on sites like Cold's Gold , about a new companion pet introduced in patch 4.1. This site is for sale from a vendor in Everlook for 50g. So, I sent my death knight alt (yeah got one of those too) since he has the flight paths everywhere and hasn't left Orgrimmar since talking to Thrall. With his 120g, I picked up 2 of these wonderful cats . Shipped one off to both Elk and my Disc priest, Eride. Checking AH, she posted hers for a measly Buyout price of 94g. It sold for the BID price of 75g. Nothing like the 400-7000g that people were bragging about. Ah well, maybe make tips selling  transporting them for guildies.

Nah, I am not referring to the Imp vs Succubus debate; let them fight that out on EJ or the forums. I am referring to the non-combat pets. The other night, I ran the holiday boss and was lucky enough to pickup a Toxic Wasteling . I had not read up on this little guy, but he's absolutely cool with regards to the Critter Killer guild achievement. Summon the wasteling, and you get a blob of green goo following you around. As you encounter critters, this guy will pounce on them and eat them. As he does, he grows from small (think frog) to about the size of a regular mob. Large << Small After I saw this happening to the chickens in the center of town, I spent the next hour trying out different critters and trying to judge range.  This pet is indiscriminate.  He will eat rats, cats, beetles, snakes, moths and mechanical chickens.  This pet is short-sited. He will only eat critters that are roughly within 10 yards. This pet will leap on critters when you run by...

With the holiday quickly approaching and many people looking to purchase gifts for their loved ones, I thought I'd throw out a handy dandy gift guide. I find that many of my relatives don't quite understand my hobby. It's not like watercolor painting or maybe scrap booking, where someone can easily get me a gift card for the local art supply shop and feel like I'd absolutely love them for it. Our hobby, involves a technical barrier that prevents idle purchase. Now my hints below will be primary for players inside the World of Warcraft, but much will apply to other gaming. Gift Ideas:   Authenticator - In this world of key-loggers and hackers attempting to make money from gamers. This provides your gamer security, via a token that generates a random 6 digit key. This key is unique to their account and will need to be entered everytime they logon to the game. This $6 investment pays back in the form of not missing game play. (and it grants a free pet ). Time - Time...

Edit: My newest pet! I pointed out during the beta, the singing sunflower pet. You load him her up and she sings a little melody (sort of like the Troll Senjin fetish); voiced by Laura Sigihara from the theme song/commercial . view of old dal crater Brazie the Botanist To get this pet, you need to beat 4 different waves of zombies (i.e. scourge) then the boss. Each new series of beasties, brings a new plant. Phase 1 Collect sunshine pellets (+5 sunshine) by right clicking on them. Plant sun spitters (20 sunshine - dps) Phase 2 Plant sunflowers (10 sunshine - generates more solar power) and collect sunshine pellets Plant sun spitters Pickup icey plants (20 sunshine - slow) Phase 3 Phase 2, but now you get 'rocknut' (15 sunshine mini tank). Will aggro zombies around it and they'll attack it down. You can put these behind zombies and they'll turn around to attack it.  You pickup a strangle vine (30 sunshine). It will attack a single zombie u...

Doing the funky chicken, with my boomchicken I love my pets. I love pets that I can interact with. Stinker chases the girls. Pandera does something, but haven't figured out. /Dance with your Moonkin pet and he'll funky chicken right with ya'. Boomkin style.  Plus $5 goes to a good cause.. Woot!

You may have heard about the " Plants vs Zombie 's" mini game inside of Cataclysm. I haven't checked it out, but here are the basics. You follow short quest chain, starting with Brazie the Botantist ending with the zombie attack in Lawn of the Dead . As a reward, you get this cute little sunflower pet. So, you know what to expect, TotalBiscuit made this little video. I do believe the model has been changed to the above, not the old lasher plant model.

Two new pets in flight is this months background. Checking the Blizzard store, they've posted two new purchasable pets. The pets are miniature versions of the faction taxis. Bonus or fault is they include a plush animal (in addition to the in-game pet). This increased the price from $10/each to $25/each. This is going to be a bit price prohibitive for me. Definitely not going to get both pets, like I had before. Gryphon   Wind Rider If you are not about to put down RL money on an in-game pet, go get your blue clockwork bot for sale from Jeppeto in Dalaran toy shop for about 40g.

The first time I fought Deconstructor in Ulduar, I was surprised by the whiny little kid voice coming off this boss. It throws a tantrum, it stomps around, it even sits and pouts. Now in 3.3.3 (probably a purchasable pet like lil'kt), we'll see a lil'xt . I just wish these pets would (like the Calico cat + Stinker), they'd interact when put close together.