Mania’s Arcania

It’s time for another installment of “What pet families will Mania pair with what races as she laboriously levels up an example of each just because she said she would and she doesn’t have anything better to do?” Today we’ll be talking about Night Elves.

Now I have mixed feelings about night elves in general — until the Draenei, they were my favorite hunter race on the Alliance side (although admittedly that’s not hard since there were just the two) and I am reasonably fond of Teldrassil as a starting area. On the other hand, I am not at all fond of General chat in Teldrassil and I quickly tire of the stereotype of the Night Elf hunter.

Scorpid: My first night elf alt was created long ago specifically because I wanted to tame Death Flayer. (At the time, Death Flayer was the only scorpid with a <2.0 attack speed.) I chose a night elf for a scorpid then — and I’d choose a night elf for a scorpid today — because on the surface it seems like an odd match, but underneath everyone knows that night elves are just as cold, heartless, and poisonous as our favorite little stinger. (Okay, maybe everyone is just me — but this does match how I tend to play my night elves.)

Although Death Flayer, with his lovely black and red coloration, is still a good starting choice even though his attack speed has been normalized, it’s even more interesting to take a young night elf hunter all the way into the Valley of Trials to tame once of the beige and aqua scorpids that can be found there and nowhere else. Then around level 20 it’s time to head to the Barrens to tame my favorite scorpid skin: the green scorpids that are found only in the Field of Giants. After that … well, it’s hard to choose. Scorpids are actually quite showy when you see them up close, and I have no idea how to choose between my next two favorites: the silver scorpid Vile Sting (et al) and golden scorpids of Desolace. And for rarity value there’s also the red scorpids: I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those in town, perhaps because most examples can only be found in instances.

Bat: Just after the Burning Crusade launched I managed to get my husband playing WoW again (briefly — he’s mostly an EQII player) by starting a new character with him and promising to duo. He wanted a night elf so to simplify things I made one also, and to help with the duo-ing I choose to tame a bat and learn Screech. In my head, bats are strongly associated with undead in particular and Horde in general, so I like the contrast of using a bat with a night elf.

Unfortunately there are only four bat skins to choose from, but I started by taming Ressan the Needler, a rare white bat. Well, that’s stretching the truth a bit – actually I started by taming a Vampiric Duskbat and wandering around Tirisfal until I could survive taming Ressan. And I am glad I did — the red wings on the Duskbat are actually quite striking. Unfortunately I don’t much like the other two bat appearances at all, so that’s where I stopped with that character. (And in case you are wondering, my husband went back to EQII when we were around level 25 and I haven’t played her since.)

Boar: My final pet choice for a night elf hunter is a boar. Although boars are very effective pets and I often recommend them, I tend to find them a little … generic, I’m afraid. I suppose in that sense they match night elves pretty well, though. *grin* Boars ended up paired with night elves largely because pairing them with a dwarf or any of the Horde felt too stereotypical to me. And anyway, they were the family left over after I had assigned everyone else out.

There are a lot of good boar choices, and most of the skins are only available at low levels so they have some cachet. My favorites are Princess, Bellygrub, and of course the black armored Rotting Agam’ar. I haven’t created this character, nor do I expect I will anytime soon since there are plenty of other hunters ready to describe what a joy it is to fight with a boar companion.