A new Spirit Beast has been found on the 3.1 Public Test Realms.
His name is Gondria: he is a Spirit Beast in family, he is Exotic and uses the Ferocity tree, he is a rare elite, he knows Spirit Strike, he looks a bit like a cat — and he doesn’t look anything like Loque’nahak.
And no, I didn’t find him. :> BRK posted about Gondria early this morning (and gave me a head’s up around the same time), but I was deep asleep. It looks like Gondria was found by Wowhead user flatty and first reported there. You can check out all the info yourself on the Wowhead forum thread — including a map of the only spawn point we know so far.
(My thanks also to all the readers who e-mailed me to make certain I’d heard about this new find!)
Yay another magic cat… bleh. At least the ghostly slimes and hydras were sort of interesting in their glitchy way, but this is just Blizzard reminding us once again that kittehs are teh specialz, yo. i.e. w/e – how about revisiting the spirit wolf now?
@99 Rikaku:
I think cats and very possibly also spirit beasts fit less rigidly into the new pet skills system than other pets, i.e. where other pets got 1 skill, cats got 2 since devs didn’t think prowl was cool enough by itself, i.e. even though they rolled out a fairly comprehensive new formula for pets, they obviously are willing to make exceptions for the pets they especially like.
So, with that in mind I don’t think it’s beyond the pale that you could start seeing new “spirit beasts” in the form of bats or etc that have an arcane blast plus a smack or bite, lack prowl (although I think a case could be made for any sort of spirit beast having prowl due to their semi-corporeal nature) and instead have some other inherited skill like charge, swipe or etc.
We’ll see. So far though the few indicators we do have seem to suggest they just stick with cats…
Er actually… Prowl really isn’t that special- unlike most other pet buffs it can’t be cast if in combat, it only buffs one attack, and for the most part it is useless and I don’t use it on any of my cats. I do see lowbies with it on… it’s usually what explains the ‘why are they without a p-’ shoooooooo goes a cat after them. Oh I go.
That and people DID COMPLAIN ABOUT PROWL. So this is NOT Favoritism. Sheesh.
Scott:
“So, with that in mind I don’t think it’s beyond the pale that you could start seeing new “spirit beasts” in the form of bats or etc that have an arcane blast plus a smack or bite, lack prowl (although I think a case could be made for any sort of spirit beast having prowl due to their semi-corporeal nature) and instead have some other inherited skill like charge, swipe or etc.”
Keep in mind this is the same lazy blizzard who just swapped on old cat model and made it transparent and slapped on a Spirit Beast tag. I seriously doubt they’d take more time out just for changing a pet family (Spirit Beasts) to have 2-3 different Family-based Skills (Prowl, Smack, Bite, Claw) just because 1 Spirit Beast is cat-like and another one (for example) Bat-like.
Sure it’s possible. I’m not saying it can’t happen. But I will say based on Blizzard’s track history thus far of pets, and especially the Spirit Beast’s history, I severely doubt it will ever happen. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks this, Palladiamors points out plenty more than I do (and much more eloquently XD).
Consider all the changes that WOULD have to be in place for Blizzard to make this change:
1) Family Skill Change. Prowl and Claw (from the Spirit Beast family) are not skills that many other families have.
1a) So Blizzard would have to make a Spirit Beast family have seperate family skills based on what the animal is. (i.e. SB Bat gets Screech & Spirit Strike, and Bite; Loque’nahak comes with Prowl & Spirit Strike & Claw; etc. etc.)
OR
1b) All Spirit Beasts use the same skill. Prowl and Spirit Strike & Claw. Bats and Spore bats wouldn’t seem very… Batty to me.
2) Talent Spec changes.
2a)Obviously the Spirit Beast is ferocity. If we make SB Bats (again, example) we’d either have to make it Ferocity (even though Bats are Cunning).
3. Obviously more work on Hunter Pets would be time consuming.
Add that all up and add in teh factor that Blizzard is not the most effecient group out there regarding Hunter pets (It took them 4 years to give us more stable slots, revamp the pet system, and give ALL pet families some sort of family skill.)and you’re basically looking at the 0.01% chance that Blizzard will actually add more non-feline looking beasts to the Spirit Beast family.
Now, I’m not saying I wouldn’t *love* a Spirit Wolf (that had the sexiness factor of a new model that didn’t look like a ghost wolf with a slapped on “Spirit Beast” label AKA the Gondria of Wolves), but I am saying I don’t expect it to happen.
As a long time BM hunter (trying SV not) I cant say I am happy about the choice of model. Love it or hate it Loq was special, not just by class and trouble you had to go through to find it, but because of its looks.
different (better looking IMHO) body, with the glowing eyes and spots, even if you saw it from a mile you knew what it was. This new model … while many will say that the spectral tiger was popular and cool, to me it just seems as a cheap solution. Same old cat only transperant. If they wanted to be lazy about it – fine – but then at least make a new spirit beast a variation of Loq (different color of fur and glow).
Because of prowl, and to a lesser extent spirit strike being derived from rake, I expect all spirit beasts will end up being cats, even though a case could be made for phantom wolves coming out of the shadow. And the whole “spirit” thing is to set them apart as trophys from other pets. So whenever you see “spirit beast” think “trophy cat”.
Not that the loque model is really that appealing to everyone. To me I can’t help thinking that its only one letter away from “sequined leotard”. And for better trophies, instead of making a new pet family, or populating spirit beasts, they could just add more unique skins/effects (examples: Icehorn could be tamed and keep his icy glow, trow a rare elite on a tamable drakkari raptor mount that would have to be tamed while both are alive, add a raven that doesn’t incongrously have ears)
Looking at everything presented I’m afraid I’m probably going to have to agree with everyone stating there won’t be non-cat Spirit Beasts.
Guess that means old Rune will never see the light of day again, as a renamed ‘Spirit Bat’ or otherwise.
/end QQ
I’m also disappointed with the laziness on Blizzard’s part, just changing the transperancy of a wintersaber cat. They could have used Loque’s model, but made a fun and interesting recolor of his skin. Perhaps a “dark” version since Loque is white and pale blue, a new version could have had maybe blacks with either red glows, or a venemous looking green. But, oh well. I guess its better than not adding one it all, it will spread the pressure some for spawncampers.
As for Spirit “not-cats”, well, as others stated, only ferocity pets would truly make sense in the role. I could imagine IF they choose to make a non-cat, it would most likely be a wolf. I say this because wolves seem to be Blizzard’s 2nd favorite pet after the cat (new WOTLK model, GC calling wolves “such an iconic wow creature”). Some wolves DO prowl in the “wild” of Hinterlands. And claw is reasonable, they have clows as well as teeth. Still, it’s unlikely to happen.
Speaking of lazy- Blizz made a minor boo-boo on the Loque model, too.
*disclaimer* if you’re in love with your loque by looks alone, and a flaw will irritate you endlessly, stop reading, and dont be mad at me.
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Loque is actually toothless on his left side of his lower jaw. There’s just no teeth on that half. This is most noticable as he yawns. Blizz needs to give the poor boy some dentures in a patch.
You know, so many people for a long time have been wanting another spirit beast added to the family, and when they finally get one they are disappointed… WHAT THE HECK?!?!?! For a while, Spirit beasts were the only thing that people on these forums were talking about, and wanting a second one was one of the main things they wanted. now there is a second one, and people are disappointed… I actually like this models looks better then Loque’s. sure it’s just another cat model, but isn’t that what Loque is, too?
Also, nobody has been responding to my other posts… is it because I disrespect the ALMIGHTY AND POWERFUL *cough cough* Loque, or just because people don’t care to read it?
Rottingham:
Loque doesn’t use another cat model. His movements are like a cat’s, that’s it. *Model-wise* Loque is not the same as any other “cat” in the game. If you took the skin from loque and put it on say, a Durotar Tiger, the tiger model would still not look like Loque. Loque’s shoulders are wider, his tail is a bit different, as are his paws… there’s numerous things that make Loque’s model different then a cat’s model. So no, Loque is not another cat model =p
i dont get whats so wrong with cat models… i love cats tho so that might be it
I am 99% certain there will never be a spirit beast that doesn’t look at least nominally like a cat. Why?
The are cats. Cat diet, cat skills, cat talent tree. They are cats with a special attack, plain and simple.
And yeah… if you don’t want it, don’t tame it! If nothing else, maybe having half the people circling Zul’drak will mean I’m not competing for Krush with eight other hunters at 4am in the freaking morning. That’d be nice.
Rikaku:
I understand that Loque is not a normal cat model, however if a lower level looked at him, they would not say “WOW! A spirit beast!” they would say “Well thats an awesome cat!” Basically, He is a cat. A different model, but a cat nevertheless. When I first heard spirit beast, I thought that it would be some sort of creature with fog around it. I NEVER had in mind a cat with a glowing blue face. Don’t get me wrong, If it were under the cat family then I wouldn’t complain about his looks at all. I think that Loque’s looks are beutiful, however they don’t put wolves apart from worgs or skinny spiders apart from the tarantula-like spiders. They don’t even move apart tigers, lynxes, panthers, and all those other types of cats apart from one another. If Blizz had made a newly-modeled bear with a blue face, sure it would look awesome for a bear, just not a whole new family apart from bears. anyways Rikaku, Thank you for responding to my post :)
Gimlion:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with cats or cat models, just not for a whole new class of pet. It would be like saying “Ghost Beast” pet family and the creatures model is similar to a bird. personally I think the bird would be awesome, but not enough to separate it from the Birds of prey or Carrion Birds.
Nachtwulf:
That is exaclty what I am saying :) At least I know somebody’s got my back on this.
I think the model of those flying serpents around the Nexus would make for a great spirit beast. Serpentine types are best for a spiritual vibe.
Does anyone know if the silithid wasps are tameable now?
well caserno, if they did become tameable they would first off have to be move out of the Dragonkin npc family, secondly, well i think cats FTW so i could care less.
Well, I’d love to know if there are any old world creatures that have had their classes/tameable flags changed.
Course, with the 40s wasps, there’d have to be 1 or 2 lower ranks of sting put in the game I assume. I dunno if dataminers have foudn such stuff, and I don’t the drive space (or patience) to get the PTR client.
—–
For all the crying bout the lazy model, I don’t run with cats, but I will say I thought this one was impressive as I was expecting it just to be a strait up opacity altered cat like the ghostsaber. If I were to tame a cat, this would be it, as I think Loqur looks like a silly, mobile, fanged, blacklight. But it being a cat, I could care less… Just be thankful it wasn’t a level 81 instance mob…
(seriously, just change the Spirit Beast diet to moonshine, and any manor of spirit creature would work with prowl/lasers, icon be damned. I mean plenty of Birds of Prey are hawks, but use the owl icon, granted they’re all birds, but you get the idea. The icon is nebulous enough to be any creature with ears…)
‘seriously, just change the Spirit Beast diet to moonshine,’
Does this mean I could carry booze for me and my pet!?
BTW ‘Meat’ and ‘Fish’ isn’t just the diet of cats. Carrion birds had/have that diet too and they could learn claw…..
But unfortunately Blizzard is not as original as we would all hope so thus Spirit Beast will probably really mean Spirit Cat.
Absolutely!
I’m sure pouring a stout in the ground for your ghostly buddy could make them very happy, and wouldn’t be too far fetched. I mean, we’re talking about a spirit that controls ion cannons FROM THE MOON willing to fight by your side.
(Or regular drinks if we need tobe PG-13 about it…’cuz I’m sure people would get into a hissyfit about that too…)
Just tamed this cat a little south of the altar of Quet’lun, 10 PM server on the PvP PTR – was wandering placidly among all the hostile bears and leopards doing whatever spirit beasts do. (I think there may be a pattern, all the reported spawns I know of have the frost leopards and iceclaw bears around them)
Much like Loque’nahak – he’ll leap right on yer face and use a move called frozen bite – a little frost DoT and about a 50% debuff to movement. Doesn’t hit terribly hard (600 or so on a normal hit, crit me for 1400) and is susceptible to both fear and trap.
Gave up my Drakuru raptor “twilight” for this amazing animal – likely it will inherit my raptor’s name.
Lots of interesting posts here.
Bottom line?
I WILL HAVE BOTH IN MT STABLES!!!
Someday…./sigh
Kitairra
I am glad you understand me Rikaku. Thanks, to be honest i expected a rude reply from every single user here that i fail.
I like cats, but there are many types of cats that can be tamed.. I’m really hoping that a new beast wil be a spirit beast, like the wolves,(hoping the spirit wolves they will come back as spirit beasts) & i bet even a warp stalker would make a nice one.
Hehe I never thought about a Warp stalker being a Spirit Beast [if Spirit Beasts really aren't 'Spirit Cats']
Heh, Warp + SS, screw prowl. WARPSPEED MOONFIRE.
I believe that the spirit beast pet classification will prolly remain a dump location for when people tame storyline related creatures. Because of this I doubt it will see much individual attention as far as variety in tameable models and ability variety.
On the other hand it would be nice to see many of the Beast spirits get added to this category due to their nature.
If they do intend to keep this pet family alive and worth going for, original models befitting of the unique creatures that they are would be almost a necessity. However that depends on if their storyline dev team ever bothers to interact with the implementaion teams…
Last night I tamed Gondria at about 6:43pm normal PTR server time at the location just southwest of the Altar of Mam’toth. I’ll just point to the story and more screen shots
Link didn’t post properly, so here it is again: http://dblbbl.com/content/taming-gondria-ptr
Too bad the 2nd Spirit Beast wasn’t an all white/albino-looking “cat”. Too bad it doesn’t have unique, original colorations on it either. That sucks. At least Loque’nahak’s original. And I like Loque’nahak’s non-transparency thing too.
These are all interesting and lengthy posts… Here’s what I’m thinking.
I’m thinking… we are Hunters. We can tame our own pets in the game. We can pick almost any of the beasts to tame! OMG. That’s something every warlock with it’s pre-named voidwalker can be jealous of. I am grateful for even that.
Second, I hate the model. Hate it. So I won’t tame it. Yay!
Third, Spirit Raptor FTW! The light coming out of the jaws and eyes, and pure white coloring… Something a raptor fan such as myself can only dream of. It won’t happen, but also…
Couldn’t they change “Prowl” to “Fade” or something? That way it’s more spirit-like and more models can enter the family.
I think Blizz is doing great for even trying! We’re a hard to please crowd these days. ^_^
Oh, one more thing! I think this beast should be in Crystalsong Forest. Not Zul’drak! There’s nothing trollish about it, and it’s purple coloring AND the whole night-elf ruin theme there would match this pet ENTIRELY. And, there is hardly any traffic at all in Crystalsong Forest, perhaps a rare spawn Spirit Beast there could help to even out population in Northrend. ;)
Tashi’s idea of changing “Prowl” to “Fade” sounds like it would be a great idea – if that was changed, it might open a couple more options for other SB models.
For the diet case, Birds of Prey, Carrion birds, and Crocolisks have the same diet. A few other families, in my opinion, could have the same diet as well.
Wolves and some bats are known to eat fish. Hyenas pretty much eat anything. Raptors might be able to pull off the diet, too. Other families could do it as well… fish is technically meat – our pets are just being picky. >.>
Or Blizz could just change the SB diet. Cats are great, but variety is even better! :D
At least there’s an alternative to the overcamped crap we got to deal with in scholazar now… but still.
Another rare!!! ugh..
Had to see this for myself. Nice another Spirit Beast is out there —but wait–why the heck did they not allow the Spirit Wolves in Black Temple to become tamable(again). Once apon a time they were then Blizz made them untamable.
Loque wins the beauty and originality contest hands down over this winterspring re-make cat. (I guess the development team is on strike or something or we are not paying Blizzard enough monthly coin to come up with new models) The only thing I will do on sight is shoot it and loot it.
While I think the new SB looks like it might have a few genetic inbreeding features I am glad to see blizz might be trying to be more accommodating. I will not personally be taming this cat due to the fact I am still wanting the Loque. This all being said I am a little disappointed in this community. Assuming most people use their Wow names posting here I see very few posts relating what has been posted here on the ptr forums. If you all feel so strongly about this post it somewhere that it might actually help.
Sorry for the horrible abuse of the English language. Just finished a 48 hr work rotation and am barely awake
As so many others have said, this is rather a big let down in the general sense. I DO however like the purple aura feel to this cat however I just don’t enjoy the fact that it’s just a normal Riding Saber with the ghostly appearance to it. I have Loque’nahak on my hunter and I LOVE HIM!
This cat is just a normal tiger turned into something. I like Loque because well the kickass roaring he does and he just looks so unique and different from anything else in game. Hopefully the next spirit beast won’t be a let down in the general sense.
i personally love the skin… love my ghost saber and Rakshiri and i want a spirit beast, so it combines all 3 together into pure awesomeness IMHO.
Awww, this would have been the perfect rarespawn for Crystalsong Forest, not Zul’Drak. :/
I agree as well that this guy would have been better placed in Crystalsong rather than Zul’drak. You know, I’m almost wondering why they didn’t put Loque’nahak IN Zul’drak himself since that’s where his mate Harkoa is. Then again, Blizzard is weird in a sense.
I do like this model, but I’m preferring that Blizzard would have spent a bit more time considering the looks of the pet. A tiger is a tiger even if it is ghostly, but then again this guy does look rather amusing after I look at him for a bit longer. Just those eyes are now too blaring for me. Not saying I won’t TAME him if I do find him, though he’ll probably stay stabled up in my stables at that point.
frankly idc which of the 2 spirit beasts i get, just want one… lol
I hope that this is the model and stats that the beast becomes live with since I love tigers and I got all the named tiger modes in WOW so far and would love to get this guy if he/she is a tiger. And after that the fun part will to come up with a name that means the same as Sacred and/or Holy since the mode looks like a FrostSaber and since I a Night Elf Hunter the FrostSabers are Sacred animals to the Night Elves I use the names, Sacred = Shy’ Rotam and Holy = Rak’ Shiri, so know I need on more for this uber cat.
Can it be tamed by the ice trap?
To Shrek:
No, only by tame beast :)
I think Shrek means can it be trapped by Ice Trap. Yes it can.
But like Volcan said, only tame beast can tame a beast XD
Gondria should’ve been in Crystalsong, you’re so right. I also think Blizzard purposely made fun of us Hunters there. The ghost hunters there have Ghost Wolves for pets, I bet thats a subliminal jab to patch 2.3.2
Also Gondria got some new vocals, but personally I find them not as awesome as Loque’s. But still an awesome addition to the SB tree.
well i like the new spirit beast… not as much as Loq tho… but as far as i know, he has WAY less spawn points, so it should be easier to find, i hope *crosses fingers*
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Wow, look at all the QQing about it “being another rare”. ON NO IT’S RARE!
Okay, let’s make it SUPER COMMON instead, would you still want it?
Spirit Beasts are for accomplished hunters only, if you don’t have the patience to hunt this, go tame a Bangalash or something.
Why doesn’t blizz make Ghost Saber and Grimtotem Sprirt Guide tameable as well as sprirt beasts
Though it isn’t a new model, you’ve have to admit that it looks extremely cool.
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