Pet Spotlight: Nexus Whelpling

Got a flyer you want dead? Nexus Whelpling’s the pet for you. Not surprisingly, the Breed 4 (P/P) pictured here is my favorite, but he also comes in Breed 8 (P/S) and Breed 10 (P/B). My standard loadout, pictured here, is Tail Sweep, Mana Surge, and Arcane Storm. Mana Surge is the Magic equivalent of Rampage: a 3-turn ability that does a large amount of damage, and has a 3-round cooldown once it’s finished. The tooltip says it does more damage during Arcane Storm, but apparently due to a bug this is not the case.  However, Arcane Storm remains a useful ability, as it hits all 3 of your enemy’s pets for a small amount of damage.  His spammable attack is Tail Sweep, a Dragonkin attack that does more damage if you go last, which given his slow speed, is going to happen more often than not. In the very rare event that you go first, you could switch it out for Frost Breath, which is a standard Dragonkin attack.

Obtaining one of these guys is fairly easy; they are on a slow-ish spawn timer and can appear in the wild all around Coldarra (a floating island northwest of Borean Tundra in Northrend).  Their spawn is slow enough that it might be a good idea to stone a Breed 4 rather than trying to farm a rare, but that will, of course, depend on how much time you have to kill.  It’s definitely worth getting your hands on one of these guys.

Pet Spotlight: Flayer Youngling

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Flayer Mignon! Get it? Like filet…  Yeah.  Moving on.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the impending Reflection nerf, I felt the need to write about this little guy. In case you hadn’t heard, Reflection is being changed to Deflection; instead of turning the enemy’s attack back on him, you simply avoid it.  This takes an awesome ability and makes it meh. However, the Flayer Youngling will, I believe, remain an indispensable part of my arsenal.

As a Humanoid with Beast attacks, it’s the perfect counter for straight Critters (Critter-type pets with Critter-type attacks), since Humanoids take less damage from Critter attacks, and Beast attacks do more damage to critters.  More than that, though, it has a very powerful move, Rampage, which is effective against all pets except flyers.  Being able to Reflect a powerful attack against the enemy was great, but being able to avoid that same attack will also be useful.  And you can’t discount the Humanoid racial: at the end of every round in which he deals damage, he heals a little bit.

Obtaining one of these suckers is somewhat of a challenge.  I was lucky enough to capture the Breed 4 Rare pictured above, but they’re a scarce spawn like the Emerald Proto-Whelp.  Camp a character on Razorthorn Rise and check in periodically.  They come in all 10 (!) breeds, so getting the exact one you want is a crap shoot.  If you get lucky like I did, great; otherwise, seriously consider stoning him. 

Delveddeep says, ”Kun-Lai Runt provides a similar humanoid with Beast attacks niche and is more common on the ground to find a rare.”

Pet Spotlight: Emerald Proto-Whelp

The Breed 4 (P/P) Emerald Proto-Whelp pictured here is one of the most powerful pets in the game. I prefer to use all its Emerald abilities: Emerald Bite, Emerald Presence, and Emerald Dream; all of which scale up with power.  Emerald Dream is really powerful on its own, but when combined with Emerald Presence, the Emerald Proto-Whelp can normally heal back to full every six turns. Then you can whittle your opponent down with Emerald Bites.  It takes awhile, but this pet can defeat almost any tamer pet in existence, and it decimates Flying pets.  Its only real weakness is against pets with Humanoid attacks. Mechanicals take less damage from its Emerald Bite, but you could just use Breath against them instead.

To obtain one of these guys, prepare for a long wait in northern Sholazar Basin, in Northrend.  They spawn in the area known as The Savage Thicket, a burned-out section of woods where larger proto drakes also reside.  They are on a very long respawn timer, so I highly recommend camping one of your 80+ characters there and checking in periodically.  If you’re lucky enough to get a rare, great; otherwise, I’d just go ahead and stone him rather than try to farm one.  They come in breeds 4 (P/P), 8 (P/S), and 10 (P/B).  Obviously I prefer breed 4, but either of the other two should work fine, despite having 10% less power.

Pet Spotlight: Snarly

Rip, Surge, and Blood In The Water: three abilities that spell certain doom for Elementals.  The Crocolisk pets are excellent Elemental killers, and Snarly is the best of the four.  Blood in the Water does huge Aquatic damage, and with Rip applied, it will never miss.  Well, it says it will never miss, but it still does sometimes, and enemy pets can still dodge it.  But it almost never misses.

The Crocolisk pets, or Crocopets, are obtained by doing Old Man Barlowe’s daily quest, “Crocolisks in the City.”  Barlowe can be found fishing in a lake northeast of Shattrath City, and he offers a random fishing daily each day.  Unless you’re going for achievements, Crocolisks in the City is the only one worth doing.  You must be level 70 and have a fishing skill of at least 1 to accept and complete the quest.  The reward is a bag which has about a 50% chance of containing a crocolisk pet.

Alternatively, they can be caged and traded, so you may be able to find one on the auction house. Either way, they make excellent elemental killers, and strong general-purpose pets.

Pet Spotlight: Spirit Crab

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You gotta feel bad for these guys.  I mean, everybody eats crabs, but do you really consider how they might feel about the situation? Well apparently they got good and pissed off; so much so that they came back from the dead to put a hurtin’ on some murlocs.

Spirit Crab quickly became one of my favorite pets when I noticed that it was an Undead with a fairly powerful Aquatic attack in the form of Whirlpool.  Its ridiculously slow speed is no bother; since it’s Undead, it still gets to attack on the round it’s killed.  And the round afterward, as well.  This makes Spirit Crab especially useful against fast enemy pets.  As you’ll see in my strategy guides, Spirit Crab makes several appearances; he’s on my Favorites list for a reason. 

Getting your own Spirit Crab means you’ll have to make a trip to the Ghostlands, just south of Silvermoon City.  Horde players can just port to Silvermoon and ride south, but Alliance players will have to go a different route.  I recommend porting to Shattrath and taking the portal to Isle of Quel’Danas; then take the flight path down to Zul’Aman, and ride west to the coast.  Note that you still can’t fly in Ghostlands.  These little guys are plentiful on the coast, but since they are level 3-ish, it will probably take you a while to scare up a blue.  It took me a little less than an hour, but it was well worth it.  There are two breeds: Breed 6 (H/H, pictured above) and Breed 9 (H/S).  The previously mentioned slowness of this pet makes Breed 6 superior.

Pet Spotlight: Lil’ Ragnaros

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The Firelord. In miniature.  Lil’ Ragnaros has the highest attack power of any pet you can get. He also costs $10.  If you have some leftover coin, you might want to pick this guy up, because he is fun to play with.  Like all elementals, he is amazing against Mechanical pets; even more so because he has the deadly combination of Flamethrower and Conflagrate.  I have yet to see a PVE use for Magma Wave; even against the upcoming Elite ability Beaver Dam it won’t be terribly useful, since No-No’s aquatic damage would douse Raggy’s flames.  

Pet Spotlight: Nexus Whelpling

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Amazingly effective against flyers, the Nexus Whelpling is one of the most impressive pets I’ve seen yet.  With the devastating combo of Arcane Storm / Mana Surge, this guy is capable of downing any flyer in 3 rounds; then he goes into the next pet with the Dragon bonus active and 1 more round of Mana Surge to go.  I use him against almost all tamers that have a flying pet.

Nexus Whelplings hang out all over Coldarra, and while they’re not super-rare like Minfernal, their spawns are fairly limited.  The breed 4 pictured here has a very high attack power of 341 at level 25.  You could try to farm for a rare breed 4, but given how few Dragonkin are actually worth stoning, it would probably just be better to use a battle-stone on any breed 4 you get. 

Pet Spotlight: Cinder Kitten

You may have heard that at the end of 2012, 100% of every $10 adoption fee from Cinder Kittens purchased from the Blizzard Pet Store would be given to the American Red Cross to help with Superstorm Sandy relief efforts.  Well, Blizzard recently donated $2.3 million dollars to the Red Cross from said adoption fees.  This is the third such charity pet, after the Pandaren Monk which raised $1.1 million in support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Cenarion Hatchling, which raised $1.9 million in support of the Red Cross’s Japanese Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief effort.  I think it’s awesome that so many people showed their support for these causes, and it’s doubly awesome that Blizzard has donated 100% of the proceeds from the Cinder Kitten and Cenarion Hatchling, instead of the 50% they donated from the Pandaren Monk.  I’m looking forward to the next charity pet; it’s a great way for the gaming community to help out those in need.

As a vanity pet, Cinder Kitten is awesome.  It’s got a sick fiery glow and elemental armor; and who wouldn’t love that cute widdle face?  As a battle pet, though, it leaves something to be desired.  I leveled mine up to 25 despite its uninspiring ability set and mediocre stats, and its performance at level 25 doesn’t surprise me.  I really wanted to like it as a battle pet, but it just doesn’t have any hard-hitting abilities, and as an elemental with weak elemental and beast attacks and no avoidance, there aren’t any pets it’s particularly strong against.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad I purchased it, but I wouldn’t recommend that anyone else buy it now that its adoption fees are no longer going to the Red Cross. 

Pet Spotlight: Yellow Moth

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Yesterday’s Pet Spotlight was the beginner’s flying pet choice; this is the advanced one.  A lowly vendor pet, it starts at green, so you will need a Flawless (Flying) Battle Stone to get it to rare, and you’ll have to take the time to level it from 1 to 25, but it’s definitely worth it in the end.

The Yellow Moth can be purchased from Sixx in the Exodar’s Crystal Hall section. Alliance players can teleport there from Pandaland, but Horde players will want to create a low-level Draenei and grind up a few gold to buy one.  Without any discounts, each one will cost 50 silver, and you will probably need to buy 4 or 5 to get the high-power version, Breed 4. A random breed is chosen when you learn the pet and add it to your Pet Journal. You will know you have the right one by his starting attack power of 13.  Once you have the right one, feed him the Battle Stone and level him to 25 (using the techniques in my guide, perhaps); after that, you can use him as your new flyer workhorse (as long as the enemy pet is below 366 speed, which unfortunately makes him ineffective against Marley). 

His final attack power of 341 is far beyond any other moth or firefly you could get.  Like my reliable firefly, he has Cocoon Strike, and he has the option of Alpha Strike instead of Slicing Winds, which as I mentioned yesterday suffers from the possibility of strings of RNG-related bad luck.  Depending on the encounter, you may wish to take Moth Dust or Moth Balls for your third slot, but in most cases Alpha Strike is much more reliable, as long as your health stays above 50%.  Against pets that use Shell Shield, Moth Balls is not a good choice, but in most cases it is superior to Moth Dust. 

Pet Spotlight: Effervescent Glowfly

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A good flyer is an essential pet in many of my strategies, and I often find myself coming back to the Effervescent Glowfly.  This is an excellent pet for up-and-coming master tamers to acquire. I added it to my roster early on, and it’s served me well.  The best part about these pets is it’s relatively easy to obtain one at level 22 or 23, meaning you don’t have far to go to get them to 25.  They can be caught in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.  Breed 10 is the best, at attack power 305, but the breed 12 pictured here is not too far off of that.  There’s also a breed 3, at 292 attack power, which would also work, and a breed 9 at 276 attack power, which I would avoid.

Mei Li Sparkler from the Krasarang Wilds is identical in all ways except color, name, and location, so it’s an equally good choice.  The one you pick will probably depend on which color scheme you like better, and which one you find a Rare of faster.  Shrine Fly from the Jade Forest is less desirable since it has a slightly lower attack power.

In terms of abilities, I always use this guy’s second-tier abilities: Slicing Winds, Cocoon Strike, and Glowing Toxin.  Glowing Toxin is great against Pandarian tamer pets, since its damage scales up with enemy health, and almost all of them have high health. Cocoon Strike allows you to avoid an attack every 3 rounds while simultaneously doing a little bit of damage, and Slicing Winds is a decent primary attack. It’s unfortunately a little bit RNG-dependent; it’s supposed to hit 1 to 3 times, but there are those battles when it seems like it only swings once every time you use it.  But usually it works out in the end, and it’s definitely better than the alternative, Scratch, against aquatic pets, which is this guy’s primary fodder.  As you’ll see in my guide, this firefly is a staple in a number of my strategies.