PTR 2.3.0: Elite No More
As part of the leveling changes in Patch 2.3, a number of elite creatures outside of dungeons are becoming non-elite. I want to make sure that Petopia has updated information on the elites that are changing, so I’ve been checking out all the elite beasts I can find outside of dungeons.
Here’s a brief list of the creatures I’ve found so far who are no longer elite:
- Ol’ Sooty (20, Loch Modan)
- Besseleth (21, Stonetalon Mountains)
- Elder Saltwater Crocolisk (38, Stranglethorn Vale)
- Bhag’thera (40, Stranglethorn Vale)
- Drywallow Daggermaw (40-41, Dustwallow Marsh)
- Tethis (43, Stranglethorn Vale)
- Vilebranch Raiding Wolf (50-51, The Hinterlands)
- Ursius (56, Winterspring)
- Sian-Rotam (60 Spawned, Winterspring)
- Shy-Rotam (60 Spawned, Winterspring)
Oddly (given the status of Bhag’thera and Tethis), King Bangalash remains elite. And it doesn’t look like any Outlands elites have been touched — Gutripper, Deathskitter, and the Bladespire Ravager are all still elite. Note, however, that at this point I’ve only looked at the beasts than can be tamed — I’ll have to pick up untameables later.
And unfortunately, I am having some trouble running down all of the creatures on the PTR. If you’ve seen any of the following, I’d love to know whether or not they are still elite. Leave a comment or drop me an e-mail. Thanks!
- Takk the Leaper (19 Rare Elite, The Barrens)
- Enraged Stanley (24 Spawned Elite, Hillsbrad Foothills)
- Arikara (28 Spawned Elite, Thousand Needles)
Table of Contents for Series: Patch 2.3
- PTR 2.3.0 Information Here!
- WoW Forums: Egad! Drysc in the Hunter Forum!
- Details on Leveling Improvements
- Patch 2.3 News: STV Flight Point
- PTR 2.3: Later Tonight!
- PTR 2.3.0: Mini-Map Improvements
- PTR 2.3.0: Bear Mount … Pet?
- PTR 2.3.0: New Pets
- PTR 2.3.0: Other Cool Things
- PTR 2.3.0: Pet Circling
- PTR 2.3.0: Reported Issues
- PTR 2.3.0: No More Dead Zone!
- PTR 2.3.0: New Obsidian Raptor
- PTR 2.3.0: No Melee Range Change, Says Hortus
- PTR 2.3.0: PTR Updated – No More Sexy Bear
- PTR 2.3.0: The Dead Zone Saga Continues
- PTR 2.3.0: Pet Leveling
- PTR 2.3.0: Elite No More
- Petopia Updated for Patch 2.3 (then AFK)
- Rotams for Alliance
- Patch 2.3: Catching Up
- Petopia: More Patch 2.3 Updates
- Patch 2.3: Known Issues
- Petopia: Dustwallow Marsh Pets Updated
31 Comments
Was only able to check a few – Takk was not there.
all these were still Elite and tamable (according to beast info):
The Rake
Death Flayer
Humar
Dishu
Snort
that’s all I had time for.
Silver elites are sometimes not actually elite though, they just have the label, signifying better loot.
thats a good point Franks – that’s likely why all of those that I checked were still unchanged. duh. more checking later today …
Oh, I did notice something that is new to me (and not pet related). The ship between Menethil and Auberdine is now crewed, and called the Bravery. They have NPC guards as well as two of the crew are general and trade vedors. Haven’t checked all the boats.
I don’t know why they felt it was necessary to change those creatures to non-elite. I remember having a lot of fun figuring out how to kill some of those–and learning a lot about how to play my class in the process.
It’s not like most of those creatures are really that hard to kill. My second time leveling a hunter, I was able to kill the saltwater crocolisk while is was still 4 levels above me. I’m sure the lesser classes could at least kill it at level.
I like having elites in locations where you can solo them without needing to have a group.
Hi Mania…
Enraged Stanley has not been an elite for a while now… Just killed him on live (11/11, before the patch), and he was not elite. I was on my druid, so I could not check if he could be tamed…
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=2275
K’
What about those elite beasts (don’t remember the names!) in Un’Goro?
I think that, dropping elite status was a dumb move. Hogger was my first real test when playing a char: on every single char, with AH greens, I’d go through Hogger at 12 (yes, I know he’s 11, but you learn some nice class stuff at 12 too and I found it made a difference for soloing Hogger). I could do that on every char/class I tried. If not at first, then a 2nd/3rd try would get me there.
For me, much more annoying than elites, are elites or even non-elites that are WAY above the other mob levels! Like having elite dynos in Un’Goro that are 54 or so when the lowest level mobs are non-elites 48. If you even enter Un’Goro at 46 or so, you can usually be fine, except when a red/skull elite jumps on you with no warning! Pretty much any class can deal with elites their own level but being stalked by elites 8+ levels mid fight is just not a good experience.
Heck, even in Badlands there’s a rare bird that is like 10 levels higher than the other mobs nearby! Even not being elite, if it’s there, it’s almost certain death to the player with most his attacks being resisted/whatever due to level difference! THAT (wondering mobs of a much higher level than the ones in that zone) is what they should have focused on!
addendum – Taak is still a silver elite and tamable in 2.3
Azzere the Skyblade remains a silver elite and tamable.
Owantaka the stormsnout is not elite. Thought this one was at one point.
Thunderstomp is silver elite and not tamable (never was).
Sarltooth ()29, Raptor Wetlands) is not elite but I can’t recall if he ever was or not.
Spot, in Theremore is still tameable by Horde.
Takk, the rake, etc. are rare spawns. Not elites. Forgive me if I’m completely wrong but I just solo killed the rake for the sake of killing him on my lvl 8 warrior. If he was elite, I doubt that’d have been possible ya know? A shame blizzard has now confused the whole silver dragon with sometimes being elite and sometimes not. I believe there are even elites in instances with the silver dragon icon instead of it being gold (and then they arent considered rare since they’re always there). Its all very odd to me. I think I get it figured out and all silver dragon icons are just rare spawns…and then one of ‘em hits me once and I’m dead (meaning elite). Darn you blizzard!!!
The way you can tell whether a creature is an elite rare spawn is by mousing over it. If it’s just rare, it won’t have “Elite” tacked on its information.
Gotcha. I tend to just click the mob (showing its icon at the top of my screen). I dont think up top it says elite (though it might). I tend to ignore the mouse over that you’ve stated Ket Shi. Thanks for the info though!
In SFK there is a rare spawn still considered an elite. If I moused over him would it say NAME OF MOB Level 28 RARE ELITE? Or something to that extent?
No, the only thing signifying rare status is the silver dragon around the portrait (read: it doesn’t say rare in the mouseover.) but it will say elite whether it’s a rare elit or not.
If I recall correctly, there’s two silver dragon icons in the game, one for the Rare mobs, and one for the Rare Elite mobs. If I’m not mistaken, the Rare Elite silver dragon is the same graphic as the Elite dragon (there’s wings on it), but silver instead, while the normal Rare silver dragon has no wings.
Well, I never looked at the alite/not really aelite gold/silver dragon fluff that well before. guess I will take a look. wandered by and Shadowclaw near the auberdine GY is a silver something or another still, Ghost Saber isn’t – but I don’t think Ghost ever was.
I will have to gake a better look at the insignias now. :)
Someone – those are some nice critters in Un’Goro … to bad we can’t tame em. :)
Hogger will remain elite according to the blues, so not all outdoor elites will change.
just most of them.
Just tamed Shy-Rotam (still elite lvl 60), and very surprised that attack-speed showed up as 2.0. I have seen screen dumps indicating 1.5 and think it’s common knowledge about this creature. Is this a result of Patch 2.3??
my favourite mob they have nerfed is oakenscowl in the ne starter area that was a fun challenge to me as he was in a cave with 3 friends , not a pet type beast i know but he was as hard as hell to beat unless you knew what you were doing or had friends to help , i used to enjoy trying different characters at different levels and specs to see what class beat him easily , now he is just another level 9 mob in a cave
i did not notice if they had nerfed those wandering elites that hunters cannot tame like that dam dragon in swamp of sorrows , my guild friend a 70 priest only just about took him out when he decided to jump on her and at 67 my hunter still has problems with all the other mobs joining in , now if those dam wandering elites and the dam fel reaver in outland was fixed i would be happy
Arikara of 1k Needles is no longer an Elite.
And is tameable.
Sauermaul – all pets now attack at the same speed, 2.00, unless it’s been modified by pet talents, Beast Mastery talents, or certain buffs like Bloodlust. It’s been normalized like this since pre-Burning Crusade. Many pets once had faster or slower swing speeds but it’s been all 2.00 for a long while.
On another thought, aren’t enemies outside of instances no longer supposed to be elite? Patch notes say: “Elite mobs outside of pre-Burning Crusade dungeons have been changed to non-elite.” So that would alter a few tameables, such as the serpent outside Sunken Temple and the multitude of beasts outside Wailing Caverns.
I’m really bummed about how they’ve decided to make changes like this to the game to make leveling go faster. For a casual player like me, it means they took out the fun part, (leveling the character), so that the hardcore players can power level new raiding characters faster. Since I can’t go on raids, all it means is I get to enjoy each character for less time because once I hit a level cap, there’s nothing to do. As for making certain creatures non-elite, well, all I have to say is I’m going to really miss how much of a challenge Besseleth used to be for me to solo.
-Sox
just checked – the enranged panther in Thousand Needles (the Hypercapacitor Gizmo quest) is still a gold (untamable) elite
@Soxrobin
You have to be kidding right? It’s absolutely false to say this change is the fault of the raiding crowd. The more “hardcore” raiders don’t care about the levelling of a toon, it’s incredibly easy and widely regarded as a joke to level a character from 1-70 if you want to skip the enjoyment factor and go for L70 asap.
This change was 100% down to Casuals that cried on the feedback forums because they only had enough attention span to play 30mins a day and expected to get a couple levels per day in such a time-period. They complained that they were getting “burnt out” when playing anything longer than this, but still “want to get to 70 as soon as possible” so they can feel great about themselves once they reach 70 and then try to be a part of the raiding crowd. Every step of the way Raiders have argued against stuff that makes this game easier, be it increases in heroic badge drops leading to new purchasable gear of Tier 5 equivalent or making levelling a toon easier. It doesn’t matter what the change, -anything- that makes the game easier goes against the mentality of WHY a raider plays this game. They love the challenge and find a great sense of achievement in their actions when they had a hard time doing them, be it downing a new boss or levelling their farming-alt to 70.
I’m neither a Raider nor a Casual, I find my enjoyment outside of raiding in this game but I still play a good amount of time to work for my rewards, and I am too frustrated with the “dumbing down” changes in 2.3, but don’t blame the one group for this that definitely doesn’t deserve it.
Hey, I don’t think this is the place to be talking about leveling changes.
In other news, I’ve heard all the creatures on Jaguero Island in STV have been greatly reduced in level, and King Mukla has gone non-elite. Not like you can tame Mukla anyways, but it’s one more thing to update.
Thanks for the answers, everyone! I’ll get the site updated as soon as I get home and can get at my scripts again. Also, I’ll swing by Jaguero Island and see what happened there. Ket Shi, I took the patch notes to mean things strictly outside the dunegon area (subzone), not necessarily things outside the instance portal but inside the subzone. But I’ll swing by WC and Sunken Temple and check it out as well.
Incidentally, looks like I was wrong about what counts as ‘outside of dungeons’ – the Murk Spitters and Murk Slitherers outside the instance portal to the Sunken Temple are no longer elite.
Deadmire in Dustwallow is now level 41
in an effort to be helpful me and a guildie ran our horde to darnassuss last night.we wanted to confirm wether the “frostsaber companion” level 50 pvpflagged white tigers were tameable or not.you can use beast lore on them dispite their tolltip not saying theyre beasts but they are not infact tameable by horde.they were grey level.
its also still possable to use the boats even with the guards since you can ride them in ghost form.
been trying to find the murderious blisterpaw hyena to see what it has but i havent had any luck…we took screen caps to but i havent gone through them yet…
Mania’s Arcania: It’s all about the (WoW hunter) pets! - November 17th, 2007 @ 10:12 pm UTC
[...] player’s quest. But now Alliance can do it for themselves! In addition, both Shy and Sian are no longer elite (although they do both still have a wicked fear ability). Share [...]
In case you are still looking, Takk the Leaper has been moved. But he is still in game. Instead of being just East of the sludge fen, he is now on that little cliff overlook just south of the tree he’d commonly hand out at. Spotted him last night at 8:34 PM. Seemed to be just a rare and no longer elite.
I stumbled across the recently de-elited mobs outside Wailing Caverns on my Alliance side hunter last night. I’m delighted that getting a dark grey raptor is going to be much easier.
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