Choosing Your First Pet: Eversong Woods
This article is part of a series for new hunters on choosing your first pet.
Eversong Woods is the homeland of the Blood Elves. It is also easily accessible to orc and troll hunters — just take the zeppelin from Durotar to Undercity, then use the handy teleporter to go to Silvermoon City in Eversong Woods. (Note, however, that in order to enter Eversong Woods you must have purchased the Burning Crusade expansion.) The Ghostlands, which is the second zone for young Blood Elves, also has several creatures in the right level range. Once you are in Eversong Woods, getting to the Ghostlands is relatively easy – just follow the road south!
Suggestions:
| Creature | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Springpaw (levels 8-9) |
Diet: Fish and Meat Known Skills: Claw (Rank 2) Longevity: A popular pet at all levels. |
None! |
| Starving Ghostclaw (levels 9-10) |
Diet: Fish and Meat Longevity: A popular pet at all levels. |
Location: Ghostlands Known Skills: No innate skills. You’ll want to teach this pet Bite and/or Claw as soon as you can. |
| Springpaw Stalker (levels 6-7) |
Diet: Fish and Meat Looks: A beautiful red lynx. You won’t see this look again. Longevity: A popular pet at all levels. |
Level: This creature is a little lower level than most of the suggestions and will need a little leveling. Known Skills: No innate skills. You’ll want to teach this pet Bite and/or Claw as soon as you can. |
| Crazed Dragonhawk (levels 7-8) |
Diet: Fish and Meat (and Fruit) Known Skills: Fire Breath (Rank 1) Looks: A flame red dragonhawk. You won’t see this look again. |
Longevity: Both low-level dragonhawks have “caster” stats, which limits their usefulness at higher levels. |
| Mistbat (levels 9-10) |
Err .. not a lot, actually. Bats can learn Screech, but this one doesn’t know it. | Location: Ghostlands Diet: Fruit and Fungus Known Skills: No innate skills. You’ll want to teach this pet Bite and/or Screech as soon as you can. |
| Spindleweb Spider (levels 9-10) |
Diet: Meat | Location: Ghostlands Known Skills: No innate skills. You’ll want to teach this pet Bite as soon as you can. Longevity: Never gets any special skills, not even Dash. |
Recommendation:
Overall, I recommend the Elder Springpaw for your first pet in Eversong Woods. Cats are a very strong pet in the long term and this lynx has both a useful skill (Claw) and a beautiful appearance right from the get-go.
Having said that, however, I do want to say a word about dragonhawks. The Crazed Dragonhawk is a personal favorite of mine and I wish I could recommend it wholeheartedly. But unfortunately, low level dragonhawks all have what we call “caster” attributes. This may sound useful, but it means that they have different, weaker, base attributes than normal pets for damage, armor, and health. Caster pets are weaker than normal pets by a percentage, which means that at low levels the absolute differences aren’t very large and you won’t be terribly disadvantaged with a caster pet. Add in Fire Breath, and the Crazed Dragonhawk can be an excellent choice for low levels. However, starting around level 20 you may want to consider finding a replacement for your dragonhawk, especially if you start having difficulty with it. (Incidentally, this is the only pet anywhere in this guide that is not a perfectly fine choice for your entire life as a hunter. But it’s also a great low-level pet and deserves to be mentioned for that.)
(Disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is by no means a complete listing of pets from Eversong Woods or the Ghostlands — just the ones that I might suggest for new hunters at level 10. More advanced players who are leveling their umpteenth hunter character will find a number of other very interesting choices here as well.)
Table of Contents for Series: Choosing Your First Pet
- Choosing Your First Pet
- Choosing Your First Pet: Durotar
- Choosing Your First Pet: Teldrassil
- Choosing Your First Pet: Mulgore
- Choosing Your First Pet: Dun Morogh
- Choosing Your First Pet: Eversong Woods
- Choosing Your First Pet: Azuremyst Isle
- Choosing Your First Pet: Tirisfal Glades
- Choosing Your First Pet: Elwynn Forest
17 Comments
Being a fan of cross-faction pets, I got my draenei hunter both a Springpaw Stalker and a Dragonhawk. The dragonhawk did indeed end up being set free (I hate the word Abandon) at around level 25 when she just couldn’t keep up. The cat Sholay, is still with her and currently wreaking havoc among the dragonwhelps in Searing Gorge.
PS. I think you have a bit of lost text below Suggestions: “Longevity: Never gets any special skills, not even Dash.”
Thanks, Jayhawk. That text fell out of the table but I’ve wedged it back in now. :>
it is a shame that to me one of the most beautiful pets in the game for a bloodelf hunter is a caster the dragonhawks are a tease by blizzard and to tell the truth even the high level ones the non casters i am not so sure of as for a while now i have had one and although the firebreath does do some damage i am not so sure its anything like as much as a windserpent can do , but perhaps it does more on multiple targets ?
the cats with the skills trained are cool and well worth using and will last till your end game
the mistbat with training is good but not a good diet for any hunter as i doubt you can find the right food dropping so will be a vendor searcher for the rest of the game
here the cats rule
I used to have good ol Glacius…the white ape from Un’Goro. However, after have him from 52-62, I realized his diet just wasn’t for me. It was difficult to farm for hours on end unless you had 4 slots filled with pet food…maybe more depending what you were wanting to get done. With all the quest items, bullets, etc. I just didn’t want to carry all that stuff! Outlands is not a friendly place to a fruit/fungus eater – not from mobs at least (in my experience). The beasts dropped meat though…thus, the ravager was tamed and now – Hawk is happiest with Owl.
BTW Mania – a quick request! You are Mizz PetPopular I was wondering if you’d give my blog a shoutout for one last determining factor…I’m stuck between two names for Owl! I really do like both names and they are similar. The poll is on my blog ^_^ It’s ok if you dont want to – or if you’re too busy. Definately understandable! thnx at any rate for a great blog to read between printing!
…er meant to add the reasoning for my comment about the ape strictly being diet. A meat eater being much easier to please.
^_^
Actually Caiti, as long as you know where to look fruits not to hard to find. Ironforge and Ogrimmar both have convenient fruit sellers, and Shattrath has the poor, poor fruit seller who is always being yelled at in Lower City, near the southern entrance. Various other cities in Outlands sell fruits as well. My problem was, I always had plenty of meat when I first tamed an ape, and never any fruit, so what followed was a frantic “OH GOD, WHERES THE FRUIT VENDOR?!” rush. Looking back, I wish I’d kept my ape….. but eh, then I wouldn’t have my kitty, and I am rather fond of her.
Now on to what I was going to say. Its worth noting that the Springpaw Stalker look is NOT found in tameable form past level 7. On the reverse side, the elder Springpaws are not found again until level 65, but then they are found right up until seventy (If your willing to do Zul Aman, and even if your not, sixty nine isn’t so bad a level.)
Several observations on my part. Having caster pets hurts, but as people have said, you can get past it. The dragonhawk is a very worthwhile pet, if your just willing to work with it a little. It deals fire damage in three ticks to all enemies in a cone in front of it, which is a lot more useful then it sounds. With the right positioning, a dragonhawk can take groups of enemies with just a little bit of management. My second night elf hunter tamed a dragonhawk at low levels, and it currently tanks Scarlet monastary. That being said that, I don’t think I can recommend a dragonhawk to a non-beast master. The cute little critters do require some attention, and for marksman and survival, thats attention that probably needs to be elsewhere.
Bats have the potential to be more useful as owls. There, I said it. Now let me explain. Bats have the same DPS modifier as owls, but have a better support ability for screech, bite. Owls can learn screech and claw, but you never want to have both on at the same time. Bats, on the other hand, can learn screech and bite. Bite is always a good suppliment to your pets aggro dump, being on a ten second cooldown means it doesn’t eat up your dumps focus, and deal deals pretty good damage when it goes off. Just my two cents.
As a comment to the upcoming(?) part about pet choices for a starting Draenei hunter, I just wanted to mention that Azuremyst Isle has a beast that I would get straight away if it became tamable: The Kurken. What a beautiful two-headed wolf!
link to wowhead info page
But maybe that is an idea for another post, do you know an untamable beast you would really like to tame? Since there are tamable two-headed birds I hope that Blizzard will make The Kurken will become tamable in the future. Can’t we start a petition? :)
Btw, very good blog and the pet site is great. Long time listener, first time caller! :)
/Thoreau of Azjol-Nerub (Eu)
Wow! Great blog! I wish I had taken the time to find something like this when I began playing right when BC went live. I eagerly made a blood elf hunter and what did I tame at level 10? A dragonhawk…. *smacks her forehead* I was pretty upset when I had to release my Firewing at around level 22 because I just kept dying so dang much!
Then I tamed a spider from the Tarren Mill area. Big, green, ugly, tanked decently for me, I loved it! Unfortunately, he later got released, too. I kept getting jealous of all the pets that could dash/charge/dive. Spiders need a little love from Blizzard, if you ask me! My current ones are my ghost paw alpha and a lynx from Netherstorm. They’re good pets, but not near as interesting looking to me as the spider was. Besides, if you manage to scare someone with a spidey in a BG, it’s too funny!
Personally I like the semi-crossfaction thing as well, so I ended up using a Dragonahawk at first (knowing that early on stats aren’t all that affected) and then switched to a Ghost Saber later. I think you should mention that if you are leveling a hunter in the area, Fire Breath is an amazing aggro gen for the level range, and it isn’t bad to tame a Dragonhawk early on if you plan to switch to a different pet family/skin later on, ecspecially since many skins aren’t readily available right at level 10, but are more feasible by the mid-20s when caster pets really start to fall behind. just my 2cents
Great site! I’ve just hit 10 with my Blood Elf Hunter – having been away from WoW for a while and started playing again recently – and was curious about the Dragonhawks. Very tempted to try one out and see, rather than rushing over and taming a Springpaw. That said, those cats look like they’d make a great pet!
I suppose, ultimately, it’s worth testing a few pets out rather than just plumping for something because it’s statistically “best”.
Regarding Bats, they’re actually lots better than Owls once you do that Sporeggar quest that nets you (effectively) infinite fungus.
But up until then, Diet: Meat still makes it more worthwhile than a Bat — there’s nothing more frustrating than having your pet unhappy and no way to feed him while out farming.
Hiya! I just found your site the other day and I have loved reading your aricles. I have 2 hunters, one 43 Tauren and one 49 Blood Elf. I’d like to add about the spiders, which was my Blood Elf hunters first pet: THEY ARE FREAKY! They have these gross squishy sounds when they move. It is horrible. *shivers* I finally went over to Teldrassil and tamed an owl… She is still with me today, but I am thinking of having her… “molt” as you say it. Either black or white. :o)
I was playing a pally and looking at what I thought was an ugly cat (springpaw stalkers) when something snapped in my brain. That happened when I looked at their faces! Now I obsess about them. I got on my RP hunter, lvl 34, and tamed one. Now I spend free time out in 1k needles leveling him from 7 to 34 (35 in a minute)
Great choice, spring for the springpaw before it passes! ^.^
Yup, I fell in love with the springpaw stalker too, beautiful cat. Problem is, I only got up there (I am a dwarf) until level 40 or so, so it’s a reeaaallly hard grind to train him. I’ve got Rouge(not Rogue) up to about 29 so far :)
edit: I the eyes are awesome!
Mania’s Arcania » Name That Pet: Halfdragon’s Ghost Saber - April 29th, 2008 @ 1:41 pm UTC
[...] and hated it. After realising it had caster stats (thanks to the handy Petopia website) I read the Choosing Your First Pet: Eversong Woods guide. I got an Elder Springpaw and have leveled it all the way to 26 or [...]
To those with pets that eat fungus: Undead mobs sometimes drop different types, depending on the level of the mob.
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