Adventures in Pet Collecting

Gameplay Pet Battles
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I was just wondering, do you guys have any funny stories about trying to collect a pet? Doesn’t necessarily have to be about trying to capture a pet, but anything you’ve gone through in trying to acquire a pet.

I have one memorable story that’s kind of funny and I’m kind of proud of, because I figured it out.

I was in Frostfire Ridge on Draenor, trying to engage with a Twilight Wasp. But I kept getting the error message that there wasn’t enough space to pet battle it. I tried engaging it from different angles, but still no go.

So, I gave up and decided to kill a nearby rare instead, because I needed more Garrison Resources.

At this point, I was still getting used to my keybindings. And I sometimes have trouble casting the right spell. I’ve been known to tap a key that I thought was an attack key, but instead I double blink right past the mob I was attacking.

My keybinding for Arcane Shield happens to be right below my keybinding for Counterspell, which Mages use to interrupt an opponent’s spell casting. It does no damage, and it can only short term debilitate someone who happens to be casting a spell at the moment the Counterspell hits. On anyone else, it does absolutely nothing.

So, upon seeing the rare, I tapped Arcane Shield. Or so I thought.

As it happens, I hit Counterspell by mistake and I was still targeting the Twilight Wasp.

And the Twilight Wasp suddenly came at me and started attacking. Which, of course, was doing absolutely no damage.

And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was being attacked by a wild caught pet, because I hit it with Counterspell. “Oh, I’m so very sorry,” I said sarcastically. “Like you were in the middle of casting a spell.”

But at least it was now out in the open. Unfortunately, because the thing was aggroed, I couldn’t engage in a pet battle with it. So, I polymorphed it into a sheep. Unfortunately, I was still “in combat,” despite the fact that it couldn’t attack. (Not that it was doing any good attacking me even before I turned it into a sheep.)

So, I ran from it, and eventually I left combat mode.

Then I came back, and it was still a sheep. Polymorph seems to last for a bit.

So, I went to see if I could engage it. And I could finally. Though I was wondering if it will still look like a sheep in the pet combat instance. That would be funny. But no, it looked like a Twilight Wasp in pet battle mode.

Might be an interesting pet ability. We could have a pet Mage and it could use Polymorph, turning the opponent pet into a sheep that can’t be swapped and can only wander around. This would allow the pet mage to just hit pass for a few rounds. It could be used to buy time for cooldowns.

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There are fights where you can get hexed (frogged) no aimless wandering around though.

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There was a time when you could capture the pet while polymorphed, and it would stay polymorphed.

I still have 6 or 7 pets that have a different appearamce - I have a Valk that looks like a Rabbit, for example.

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OMG! That’s awesome! I would love to have something like that! I would use it in PvP just to know what kind of reaction it’s getting. You should name it “Rabbit,” so when it starts casting Curse of Doom or something, they’ll be thinking like, WTF?

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Necro post, but I was trying to farm the Sprite Darter Hatchling, and I decided to go in a circle around the northern lake in Feralas to do so since it was empty of people.

I farmed for like 7 hours straight and in that time I got no less than 6 Emerald Whelpings, over 10 BoE world drops, and a crap ton of leather.

I took the L and sold everything on the AH and I made more than enough to just buy a Sprite Darter Egg off the AH XD

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I’m glad you got it, at least.

During my brief hiatus (because I’m very much against most pets being tradeable; you want a pet, you should play the game to get the pet), I started thinking about ways that RNG could be modified to make it a bit more fair.

Because RNG happens to be the best argument against making pets non-tradeable. What’s someone supposed to do when RNG is just being unkind?

I was thinking, what if RNG had a hard cap? Like say you want a Seabourn Spore (an essential pet in a number of strats on Xu-Fu), but the pet bosses in Tanaan Jungle just aren’t coughing up?

And I was thinking, what if RNG had a hard cap, meaning that after a certain number of tries, the pet (or any other RNG item) drops automatically? For instance, Seaborn Spore only drops from the pet bosses in Tanaan. But what if the AI kept track of the number of attempts?

Suppose Seaborn Spore has a 1% chance to drop and someone’s been doing Tanaan Jungle for weeks and weeks but still can’t get that friggin spore? What if there was some code that made the pet drop automatically after 100 tries without success?

Or what if the drop rate got cumulatively better after a certain number of attempts were made?

For instance, what if (after defeating all 15 of the pet bosses in Tanaan Jungle), that the chance for Seaborn Spore to drop increased from 1% to 2%. Then after the next 15, it increased to 3%, etc.?

I realize that RNG is an essential aspect to every game, and drops are no exception. But there should come a point when RNG can just no longer keep frustrating you.

After 25 tries for Syd the Squid, I think a player is entitled to it. (I got very lucky and got Syd the Squid my first time. But what about those who just keep getting screwed over?)

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I would agree on the changes to RNG very much. I currently have close to, or over, 100 attempts on the Everliving Spore; doesn’t sound like a lot but when you factor in you can only try for it once a week per account…

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Actually, 100 attempts does sound like a lot. Especially since you can only do the dungeon once/week.

The first time I did it, I got no pets. The second time I did it, I got both the Cavern Moccasin and the Young Venomfang.

I guess the Everliving Spore is much more rare.

For the most part, RNG has been kind to me. I’ve been doing the Tanaan Jungle circuit and within the last 24 hours, I’ve gotten two Periwinkle Calves and a Seaborne Spore. According to Xu-Fu, that Spore is used in over 100 strats. I use Xu-Fu’s search engine whenever I get a new pet. Tells me if what I have is useful or just crap.

I was just throwing out ideas. I feel that RNG can be cruel, but it should never keep someone from a drop indefinitely.