How To Win the Bronze Racing Enthusiast Pet

It requires Silver in the all the advanced racing tours. This isn’t a guide for the races you have to complete. You can find all that on Wowhead. Here, for instance.

This is how-to method for approaching the races, without murdering everyone in your household out of sheer frustration.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I tried and failed to complete Cliffside Circuit, easily the most difficult race out of all of them. And I’m not going to try to explain how to run each race. There are videos on YouTube for that. I just watched someone complete the Cliffside Circuit on video, and he simultaneously won Bronze, Silver and Gold on his run, meaning that this was his first run and won all three awards on his first run. Don’t you just hate that guy?

But how to approach a difficult race. Just stay calm. When you do your umpteenth impression of a bug on a windshield against one of those purple orbs, just stay calm, let the race return you to the starting point. Don’t click on Skyward Ascent and trying to salvage the race. Unless you’ve performed masterfully at all times previously, it’s extremely unlikely you’re going to salvage a win out of this once those purple orbs have stunned you.

Just take the time to figure out what you did wrong and run the corrections through your head, start again.

Look at each loss as a learning experience. You’re learning a complicated course. The first half of Cliffside Circuit is harder than the second. In the second half, the orbs are pretty much out of the way, and you have a straight, visible line to the next ring.

Do you have to go through it 20 times? I’ll bet I had to do it way more than that. The day before I completed the race to win Silver, I was attempting that dumb race for over two hours, non-stop. I didn’t bother counting, but I know it was more than 20 on that day alone.

But as I was waiting for the summons to return me to the start (Isn’t that convenient? Wasn’t it nice of the Devs to include that? Can you imagine the aggravation we’d be dealing with if we had to fly ourselves back each time?), I happened to notice a pet on my map, a Grasslands Stomper! I hadn’t collected that yet! So, I marked it on my map and flew back to get it, and I got a new pet!

Better still, I found another pet that I hadn’t collected on my way there: an Igneoid. Two new pets for my collection? I’m winning like Charlie Sheen, despite the fact that I failed my last attempt at completing this race.

Then maybe, once in a while, after doing your Wile E. Coyote impression, rocketing face-first into a cliffside, you can go ahead and hit Skyward Ascent and continue on ahead, just for the sake of finding out what to expect once you’ve perfected the part that’s giving you trouble. But not for the purpose of trying to salvage a win. You won’t do it, and it will just frustrate you.

Essentially, view each failure as a learning experience. You’ll get it, eventually. It’s not hopeless. You aren’t among the the most incompetent players in WoW.

I know this, because I’m among the most incompetent players in WoW, and I’ve never seen any of you at our meetings. So, stop telling yourself you can’t. Because you can. And if takes so many dry runs of Cliffside Circuit (or whatever race has you tearing your hair out and causing your real-life household pets to cower in fear at the sight of you) to do it, then go ahead and do it. You’ll get so good at it, you’ll be able to do it blindfolded.

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I assume they did it on an alt after perfecting it on other characters.

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Probably. There are too many obstacles on too many of these races that you couldn’t possibly anticipate them until you’re right on top of them.

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Well said! You described everything I also felt doing Silver Advanced. Great helpful tips.

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I also made sure all my addons were turned off for races so that I had the best possible fps and did my races during offpeak times. I told myself that I was just learning the race so it didn’t matter how many times I had to run it. I’m really glad it’s done :slight_smile: Good luck to everyone and great tips!

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This might sound crazy but I believe the size of your dragon has an impact on whether you can make quick adjustments and squeeze through the tight obstacles on many of the races. I suggest using Cliffside Wylderdrake when you encounter a race that requires quick reaction and manuvrability. For those orbs in that particular race, memorize if you need to go between them, over them, or under them. You never want to go around them because you run the risk of over correcting or missing out on the boost orbs. Then, as you race, say to yourself the order you memorized. This helped me a lot as I was able to anticipate the conditions rather than make a last second decision. I completed Gold Advanced on all the races. It’s always a great day for a race! Good luck!

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I don’t think it’s crazy at all. I did mine on the original, cumbersome drake I was issued when I first started. But since getting my Windborne Velocidrake, I can really see the difference.

I don’t know if really makes a difference with maneuverability, but I know it does make a difference in visibility. Many of the races involve memorizing the race, as you point out, because there are some obstacles that you just will not see until it’s too late to avoid them. With my smaller Velocidrake, I can see more.

And congratulations on the Gold in all races. That really is impressive. It’s not an achievement I personally care about, but hey, we all like different things. I’m sure there are plenty of people who absolutely must have the Gold achievement and think my preoccupation with pet collecting and doing pet battles is silly.

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Grats on the gold advanced!!! I also used the Cliffside Wylderdrake to get my silver advanced. It was much easier to see the race obstacles with it, so I agree with you it might help people to use one of the smaller drakes while racing. I know it helped me :slight_smile:

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