The Grand Character Plan: Trolls and Orcs
Today I thought I’d continue the thread I started a week or two ago with Taurens and talk about what pets I plan to level up with members of the Troll and Orc races. (As I mentioned in response to a comment on the overall summary of my plan, my main goal is to spread my characters out among the newbie areas so I don’t have to repeat too much content — and that’s why Trolls and Orcs get treated together here.)
Cat: Here’s another instance in my Grand Plan when I chose to cheat. My main is a level 70 Orc and has spent the vast majority of her time leveling with a cat companion, so I paired Orc with Cat and called it done. *grin* I keep two cats right now: Cloud, my grey-dappled Twilight Runner from Stonetalon Peak has been with me since level 23; I picked up Banshee, the obligatory Ghost Saber, when I was level 60. (I still haven’t finished leveling Banshee yet.)
If I were starting fresh today with cats, I would be seriously inclined to pick up the trio of lions: The Rake at level 10, Echeyakee at level 16, and Humar the Pridelord at level 23. I am fond of the lion model with Horde characters in general, in part because then I don’t feel like I am wasting the opportunity to have a matching pet and mount. Of course, if I did that I couldn’t tame a Durotar Tiger or a Frostsaber Cub, two of my other personal favorites. Hmm … maybe I need a whole new Plan just for cats ….
Wolf: Speaking of matching your pet to your mount, I also plan to use an Orc character with the wolf family for just this reason. (In addition, the Orc I’ve made has a distinctly alpha pack leader attitude. I just wish she could run with all of her wolf pets out at once in true pack fashion.) Since I like to start with pets from far away, she has already tamed Timber, the white worg from Dun Morogh, as well as a black Worg from Silverpine Forest. When she gets high enough, she’ll pick up Old Cliff Jumper, an oddly-named dark grey worg in The Hinterlands and one of only two wolves with a unique appearance. (The other one is Ironjaw.)
As you can see, I like the worg model, but I know a number of people who prefer the coyote model of wolf. If I wanted to go that way I’d swap in a Starving Winter Wolf for Timber and, a good bit later, the famous black wolf Snarler for the Worg. Hmm … come to think of it, maybe I should make a second wolf character as well …
Raptor: My final hunter from the homeland of Durotar is a lovely green-haired Troll maiden. Again, I chose a Troll for the raptor family primarily to match the troll mount, but also in part because of personality: my Troll is an indolent lass who prefers lying on a beach drinking things with umbrellas in them. You might not think of raptors as lazy, but the truth is that they’ll take a nice warm rock over hard work any day. (Notice how long they take running into battle? You know they could go faster than that if they wanted to.)
At any rate, my eventual plans for this character involve a green Mottled Scytheclaw from the Wetlands and a green Felsworn Daggermaw (much later) from the Blade’s Edge Mountains. There is only one other raptor that shares the Scytheclaw’s skin, and the Felsworn Daggermaw has a unique appearance — and both match my character’s hair pretty well. Until she is high enough level to tame the Scytheclaw, she’ll be hunting with a lovely blue Deviate Slayer from the Wailing Caverns. Although to be honest, she’ll actually be sitting in storage for a bit — although cats and wolves are pretty well filled out skill-wise, I am waiting for raptors to get more interesting skills (and hopefully Dash!).
22 Comments
Interesting, I’ve for the most of my Hunters been a Orc, back then i had a Black wolf from Silverpine, Now however i have a Blood Elf hunter and am liking them with cats as i did with Night Elves, its a shame really because i also like Dragonhawks.. but they just seem less worked on, maybe later they will get more interesting.
Dragonhawks have two problems: first, that they are only available under level 8 and over level 67; and secondly, that both examples under level 8 have caster stats. The first is merely inconvenient, but the first and second together make this a hard family to love until level 67. It sounds like the new Zul’Aman dungeon might have some most dragonhawks, but those will likely be right around level 70, so I don’t think they’ll do us much good.
One very rare pet is actually the red lynx, i have never seen the red lynx around as a pet, only the plagued brown one
Problem with the Red Lynx is that the only examples are level 8 or lower. So even if you do tame one, its going to take a bit of grinding to get it up to the same level as your hunter.
I’m experimenting with a Dragonhawk on an alt ATM. The good gnus is that its fire breath allows it to burninate its way through lower-level foes very quickly. The bad gnus is that Its insenely fragile. I suspect that when thr hunterh its 20, I’ll get a differnt pet, as by then the stat differnces will be crippling.
I see a few red lynxes around, and actually have one myself. I love taming level 1 pets, so I went and got one of the cubs from the starting area as soon as my Blood Elf finished her tame pet quests. I prefer the flashier color to the dull brown of the Ghostlands lynxes, personally. Didn’t take me too long to get little Wendell caught up to my level… I think he was caught up by about level 15, and I didn’t do any intentional grinding, just quests.
It won’t take long to get a red lynx up if you get one close to when you become able to tame as a new hunter, of course. That’s not the issue. The issue is folks like me, who had a level 60 Hunter by the time the expansion came out; then it’s a bit harder to catch them up. This is a problem for me as I’ve had a wish to use a golden-colored Wind Serpent lately, as the Outlands model just doesn’t sit well with me (it looks… sort of like someone broke its neck and lower jaw, then squished the top part of its skull downwards a bit into the new space.) Unfortunately, gold Wind Serpents that don’t have Caster stats exist in one place only: the Wailing Caverns. And my many attempts to get a pet from that low (such as a black raptor) up to 70 just never end well, I lose patience with it and go back to my old Blackwind Warp Stalker.
Dragon hawk are nice - but firebreath is an aoe+2sec DOT - it s quite demanding tu use it in Raid ! (break easily sheep, ice trap, seduce).
Latey I took a scorpid (lvl 69 + scorpion bit lvl 4) it s just amazing.
I don’t know if you mentioned this in an earlier post or not, but are you going to compare the different pet families with how they work with different talent builds at all? For example, a dps pet with low armor/low health can become a sturdy offtank with BM talents, as opposed to having a tendency to being quite flimsy if you are full MM. And how certain builds compliment certan abilities - focus regeneration talents are a must if you go with pets with focus dumping abilities, etc.
I can completely understand if that would over complicate this already huge project. But I was just wondering if you planned on giving your hunters different builds, or giving them all the same build for consistency.
That’s a good question, Whosit. For this project I’m sticking to my normal ‘mostly-BM’ build for consistency across the families. I’d love to see a project done with different builds across different types of pets — you probably wouldn’t need to hit all 23 families, just the high and low points of each stat plus some in the middle.
But to be honest, I’m not sure I’m the hunter to do that. I’ve never really gotten into the talent builds thing (I know the acronyms for them! That’s something, right?) and my recent flirtation with Survival to level a pet up was … not so much fun for me. Hmm … but maybe if I need some downtime from this project I can try respecing my main and learning a bit about the other talent builds.
On the other hand, if you have data and expereinces you want to share in these veins, please do! We’d love to hear it. :>
Oh, I’m the kind of weirdo that just might do a talent vs. pet experiment… if it weren’t for the fact that my husband would get annoyed I would probably do it! ;)
Still, your project sounds awesome. I can’t wait to see the results!
I honestly never found myself too fond of my cat pets, though I intend to snag a Frostsaber cub at some point today. My Hunter leveled up with, and still has, a Ghostpaw Alpha wolf from Azshara. I would not classify the sleeker wolf model as the “coyote” model. Worgs and wolves are quite different, and Blizzard just happened to make a couple of coyotes out of the wolf models. A shame, really, since coyotes are pretty different in terms of size and build.
I’m actually rather disappointed with the running gait of worgs, which is the main reason I have avoided taming any as much as I can. I also dislike the fact they run with their mouths hanging open, a point I sorely dislike in my mount, as well, but can do nothing about.
Ahem, my mistake. The Ghostpaw Alpha from Ashenvale. :P
Cinderwolf: In my head I call the two wolf models coyotes and collies. *grin* But since most people seem to use ‘worgs’ for the collie model I’ve taken to using that in public. I know a lot of people call the sleeker model ‘wolves’, but I like to be able to distinguish between the wolf family and the wolf model, so I’ve stuck with ‘coyote’ there. It’s not completely accurate and many people disagree with me, but everyone seems to understand what I mean. (And yes, coyotes are rather different in size and build, but so are worgs in most fantasy universes.)
Hmm. Maybe I should switch over to the skin terminology, which is ‘wolf’ and ‘dire wolf’. No, that still doesn’t let me distinguish between the model and the family. *sigh*
Greetings, the name of my post is the name of my character. A dwarf hunter, male. I’ve leveled him exclusively with owls, my main one being the..Only pet with faction, I forget the name, it’s been so long. Anyway, I love the idea of a head-strong dwarf with an owl that tells him (Well, you know what I mean, I’ve always assumed that hunters had some way of even mildly getting the gist of what they’re trying to say) that rushing blindly into a crowd of defias wielding a mining pick while drunk is a bad idea. But he does it anyway.
Hello, Siusaidhna! I bet you mean Olm the Wise, white owl of Felwood, yes? I can just imagine an owl unsuccessfully trying to talk some logic into his dwarf master. That’s great!
Yeah, that’s the one. I’m currently Marksman spec, but for a long while I was BM. I just wanted a bit of a change of pace. I might do an off-set of what your doing, actually. I have a bit more of a commitment (No offense) And a long period of nothing to do during the summer. I might do something similar to my current set, only in reverse, a Draenai hunter who’s very cautious and his pet who likes to do things before thinking about them. What pet family do you think would fit that best? I’m thinking a Wolf, but I’m not too fond of them.
No offense taken — I am notoriously easy to distract. Hmm .. a pet that rushes in. Perhaps a boar? Or maybe a hotheaded raptor or crocolisk — I always get a mental image of those guys tugging at their leash. (For reference, I used to take my six foot long monitor lizard on walks around the yard on a leash. You think dogs pull a lot … Once he nearly dragged me up a tree.)
I like the crocolisk idea. Infact, I’ve only ever seen one crocolisk tamed by a hunter (Atleast a crocolisk he took to outlands) on my high population, alliance dominated server. Thanks a bunch, sorry if it seems i’ve taken your idea but I just got keyed for kara on Siusaidhna, and not many guilds want a hunter in all greens, so I want a bit of a break before I start the gear grind.
Cool! Let me know how it goes. :>
I’ll add a little mini-story as a comment to each of your Kaet updates, that sound good?
Sure, that sounds neat. :>
mania im gonna work on a blood elf with a lynx a red lynx. after i finish the taming quests ill go to the blood elf starting place and get a springpaw cub then go to tauren land to work on rep.
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