Yesterday I received a fascinating e-mail from Hydrax, a hunter on Hellscream (EU). Hydrax has found a new pet — and a very odd one at that!
Check out the image on the right. See the weirdness?
I’ll let Hydrax tell the story:
While I was getting my reputation up with the Sha’tari Skyguard, I was doing the quest Adversarial Blood, the same quest for Gezzarak.
I summoned Darkscreecher Akkarai. Now he has an ability called Flock Call. This summons some owls called Akkarai Hatchlings that have the dark brown appearance. They looked as if they had a sort of shadowform on them.
Wowhead has a nice screenshot of these birds in their shadowy form. But that’s not the fascinating part …
Now when I saw them I threw Beast Lore on them and they were tamable! So I summoned Akkarai again so I could tame the owl. I killed Akkarai, let his owls live, abandoned my pet, and started taming one.
The Akkarai Hatchlings were all level 70, had very little health (about 350) and did little damage, an easy tame.
The owl did NOT retain his shadowform, but here’s the catch! It wasn’t classified as a Bird of Prey but to my surprise as a CARRION BIRD!!!
And indeed, as you can see in the screenshots above and to the right, the Akkarai Hatchling is convinced that it’s a Carrion Bird and not a Bird of Prey.
His family skill is Demoralizing Screech instead of Snatch and he uses the Ferocity talent tree instead of the Cunning talent tree.
He behaves normally as far as I can tell, he attacks, eats his food, and has all of his animations. There is one thing though. Shortly after I tamed him, I ran to Sethekk halls, to tame a Bird of Prey with the same appearance to compare them. My ”Carrion Owl” was bigger then the other regular owl!
Now it’s possible that this a bug and that it will sooner or later be corrected. On the other hand, it is also possible that this owl is a conceptual counterpart to the Fjord Hawk and his ilk.
Fjord Hawks, after all, bear a striking resemblance to certain ravens and crows, but the former is a Bird of Prey and the latter is a Carrion Bird.
In either case, if you find yourself in the market for a unique Carrion Bird in the near future, you may want to consider an Akkarai Hatchling.
Woah, this is awesome. :o I’m going to have to go check this out myself, even though I’m all set in the bird department with Aotona.
This reminds me of the Spirits that thought they were crocolisks.
I’ve been considering a bird lately, the problem is three of my five are ferocity. Hrm.
It’s amazing what hunters end up finding in regards to pets hehe.
Mania I brought this up way back on the worgen thread lol. it is a good tame for those who want it
Very interesting to see…
Carrion Birds ARE one of the more underrated Ferocity pets, and this one’s a pretty unique toss up for a carrion bird! Even though I still have my good ol’ black vulture from Mulgore (my very first pet I tamed at level 10 still lol), that is a very nice-looking bird!
riojin: Did you? Whoops — I missed that. I read through all the comments that are posted here, but I admit than on the longer threads I sometimes space out a bit. The best way to make sure I know about something is usually to e-mail me.
Well… this may well get fixed in the future, i.e. the original mob being rendered untamable like Gezz… but given that it’s just an owl that’s confused, they almost certainly won’t take it away from anyone.
Yea, but I think a good deal of the players today don’t recal or weren’t around for the other time’s pets have been made unusable or out right removed. So they are a bit….gunshy right now.
Hmm, neat little pet. :D I’d try it out myself, but I just tamed a corehound from MC, filling up my stable slots.
MANIA! You have to Write more! I pop on Arcania Twice a day hoping for new posts!
Well Grats Hydrax, thank you very much for sharing this with everybody. I might I been a bit cautious about telling everyone after what happened to garwal although this is totally different its stil misslabled. Im sure you have done the hunter community a great service finding this unique skin :)
I’ve been wondering about those guys for a while now but hadn’t bothered checking it out–that’s great news! Too bad they don’t keep their shadowform, though…xD
I’m gonna have to get my Troll Hunter another level, I think these are just the pet she’s been looking for. :)
mmmmm as far as I can tell, I don’t believe its a case of confusion…. more likely that some of the older “Owl” programming from pre-WOTLK that still had the old screech that never got moved over. Its a good chance once word of this gets out, they will more or less fix it as they may not be meant to be tamed as they are summoned creatures under an AI controller (like the spirit wolf being summoned and controlled by the shaman). It is very rare that blizzard often lets us keep summoned/npc controlled pets. Here’s hoping they let hunters keep it, lord knows the game has lots of holes blizzard never fixes until it becomes blatant that when it becomes too much of a good thing…. and that they would actually come around and fix it and say it wasn’t supposed to be what we want it to be.
sorry for the pessimism there.
I had a problem, for the past year i’ve been collecting spirit beasts. and i came to the conclusion that i needed to get rid of 3 of them when i took a look in my stable and there were 4 spirit beasts…so, ive taken this as a sign. im going to abandon them and tame this bird…i need a change.
Lets just hope Blizzard, whatever their decision, deal with this new conundrum alot better than they did with the Worgen. Y
Why thank you Arjuna, and yes I hope I have done all of you a great service by discovering this. I’ve always hoped to discover something like this, and well, now my little dream came true!
Aurg stupid back button on the mouse raggle fraggle losing everything I write waarg *chews mouse*
Anyways I believe this is, possibly, and hopefully intended. I mean it does make sense; a carrion bird skin is in the Bird of Prey tree. Yet this owl thinks it’s a carrion bird. Also, this might, possibly, cause Blizzard to realize giving us a choice on what to set our pets as, would make us happy hunters.
As given the fact they blatantly nerfed all pets to 5/5/5 because of cunning, this would easily allow a pet to be any tree, tenacity, ferocity or cunning, because well if all trees and all pets are now 5/5/5, then all trees should be available/open to all pets, seeing as some pets have pvp skills while some have pve skills yet they are all scattered about.
This would also fix pets like Dragonhawks and Windserpents who are cunning, yet lack a ‘pvp side effect skill’, as they could be turned into ferocity pets.
I’m pretty sure this will be hotfixed eventually but in the meantime it’s rather tempting. I don’t PvP much, so I don’t have much use for Cunning pets, despite the fact that most of my favorite pets tend to be Cunning ones. Very interesting indeed!
Double post;
First, the owl seems to pull a ghost saber on you- ‘desummoning’ after a certain amount of time. But this can be fixed by simply resummoning the ‘Owl’. Like the Ghost Saber needs to be rezzed.
Secondly;
‘Its a good chance once word of this gets out, they will more or less fix it as they may not be meant to be tamed as they are summoned creatures under an AI controller (like the spirit wolf being summoned and controlled by the shaman).’
This is not true. There are several beasts that can be tamed AFTER the master is killed, the first that comes to mind is the scarlet hounds from SM. Others, like the Galak pack hounds and etc, while all Hyena’s, would in theory be the same as these owls.
The difference between these owls and other ‘minions’, is usually a pet that is AI controlled has a [Pet/Minion of so and so NPC here] tag under the name. The hatchlings did not, nor did they disappear after the mob dies. Well their corpses did, but they stayed around for 30+ seconds, meaning it might be intended for you to tame them.
This is very cool, although I personally like the abilities they have, and I’m already full on stable slots. Also, I don’t think that this will go nearly as far as the Ghost wolf, or even the Worgen things went… granted, it’s probably a bug, but not many people i know are Owl fanatics, and even fewer of those people wish owls could be ferocity, plus, its not like its a super rare skin or what not… This makes me want to believe it wont be as high profile as, lets say the Worgen, or Crocolisk spirits, or even the Ghost wolf. Then again though, this is all from my perspective of it.
Double: i personally dont* like the abilities they have…
Ah, thanks Ryai, I forgot to mention that he despawns after 30 seconds, and I also wasn’t sure about the pet thing, but now I am. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we are allowed to keep them >.>
I got one, not too hard as an 80 hunter. Just about a half hour to farm the dust and scrolls to summon him. Pretty owl. I was looking for a carrion bird, but liked my old pre-litchking owl. This is a nice compromise i hope they let us keep him.
Hey no problem, with everyone either meh about it or so pet happy, doubt anyone would have taken the time to note the Saber-esque glitch. I only noticed really cause I was starting to talent it and the pet disappeared and I was all wait what what- ooooh.
I think they probably will, I mean going by comparing the pets; both are brown. Both seem ‘misplaced’. The Fjord Hawk/crow was never placed back into the ferocity tree when clearly, it is the same model as the normal storm crow, it’s just brown as that’s the Tauren Drood model.
So if a carrion bird can think it’s a bird of prey, then it should be allowed for an owl to think it’s a carrion bird. And I’m actually having fun with the owl.
Ryai, while you may be right….. there is still a chance that blizzard may pull a fast one on that and hotswap them for regular owls or regular carrion birds…. you know what I mean. We could debate long into the night about them supposedly intending them to be tamed, but I see it as another example of Blizzard devs being sloppy and rushed in some of the game’s programming. No one thought to tame them before so no one knew, its only happenstance that Hydrax did. In any case, wishful thinking aside, mum’s the word on this and hope none of the blizzard dev crackheads notices this freebie unless someone actually asks a GM intentionally if that’s supposedly “tamable” like people did during the Worgen thing.
okay, I tamed it just now… and after I tamed it, and set it’s tree up, it disappieared… I could summon it back.. just thought that was weird all on it’s own…lol
To be honest I don’t see how, without a serious change as this doesn’t seem to be something that would ‘easily be overlooked’, I mean sofar it’s not got any glitches, I’ve not tried it out in pvp, but if it has no problems in pvp it’s not an unintended tame imo, as all past unintended tames never worked correctly, couldn’t be buffed or healed by outside forces, nor could they attack players. While this has been fixed, mostly, they have been made untameable.
But if this isn’t broken in pvp and etc, then who’s to say it wasn’t an intended tame? I mean it might be a summon but it’s clearly not a minion in the sense that it’s controlled. And if it was never meant to be tamed in the first place, it would have been made untameable right? As I mean if they ‘fixed’ Gezz, they probably would have fixed the others too. The other reason why I think this is also intended, is the fact that they AREN’T the mobs you summon; they’re just adds. And there’s no reason an add shouldn’t be tameable, if it’s clearly well, not controlled.
He just yells come my children or whatever and feast on [player's name], as far as I saw, he didn’t control them outside of the summoning.
The other thing is, as it’s been said before, the model of one bird has been placed into another tree. This may be the case for this owl. Infact it could be because Blizzard was to lazy, it could be possibly the BROWN Storm Crows were supposed to be summoned, but instead it was owls. And instead of fixing this, we have carrion bird owls, and bird of prey storm crows.
I dont think they wont do anything with the owls is not a minion its just an add
I mean you can tame the raptors that are mounts in ZD.. the only thing i did not like about the one I tamed there at the time is was it changed colors on me I wanted the puple with the bright blue belly which he was but when i rez’d him he was black and gray
So the only thing i could see happen is it go from carrion back to bird of prey but maybe they wont see it?
People need to kinda relax. This isn’t a major bug or glitch, it’s just a minor one. Most likely what will happen is that it’ll be totally ignored, then fixed as a side effect later on. This isn’t anywhere near worgen material, and while I may not be the biggest Blizzard fan in the world, they aren’t usually that big of jerks about things.
they arnt going to do anything about this now, it doesnt exactly rank high on the “hunter things that need to be killed off to make everyone sad” scale.
Yeah, it’s not like it’s a humanoid model, being in the wrong family isn’t that big of a deal. *nods*
So I realized that to get this on my Troll I’m going to have to get her flying…738g/howevermuch so far, woot? *goes back to farming*
Kate, you could wait untill the patch comes out, then flying gets rep bonuses to make it cheaper. As like Palla said it’s most likely going to be so far down on their radar, the owl should still be around and a carrion bird after the patch comes out.
owwwwww!
I love owls, but having Aotona, kinda negated grabbing one. I do enjoy carrion birds, so I think I’m gonna check this out!
Ryai, I know, but I’m paranoid. xD I totally missed out on Gezzarak cause I thought she’d be around a while longer, and I’m not going to make the same mistake again.
Although I’ve been using one of the red hyenas from SM for leveling with and I’m starting to really like her. So I may not *need* to go after the owl after all. Hmmm…
I tamed the owl a little bit ago. Had trouble the first time, couldn’t get it to tame, but second time, tamed perfectly. If Blizzard doesn’t change it, I would be extremely happy.
I like the size.
Snagged one of these today, in order to replace my lost worgen.
As a note, you don’t actually have to have done any Skyguard quests as long as you have someone with you that’s far enough along to do the summonings. If you’re not careful, though, you may have trouble scraping the birds off the tank without killing them outright. They don’t have much in the way of HP.
Just got him!
Easy easy, quicker than I was expecting. Also great because I was planning to go out here this weekend to try to get that neato Bird-man form trinket…
I tamed one earlier today. Other than the initial hassle of getting the dust then scrolls, it was an easy tame. Well other than the fact I had to farm enough for two summons since I didn’t let him call the flock the first time….
Woah! Very nice! I might have to try and get this one!
The hatchling looks very cool.
lol since the worgen incident ive leveled a crab and sporebat to 80in his place neither would do so i asked a gm to restore Loque’nahak and he did :D
cant lose him again but bigger then the rest glowy eyes species confused owl looks soo good
NEED more stable slots
poor loq i just toss him the second a shiny pet comes along but i miss him 2 much
wow :O
Haha, this is just in time for me, I’ve been making my boy grind the rep with me. Got all my scrolls, just waiting for him to get online. ><
Got mine last night! I ended up needing a little help from my hubby (I r not tank!) but I tamed him on the first summon so all was well. Now to find a name…
Tamed one last night, and I have to say, he’s wonderful. I’ve always wanted a Ferocity type bird, but unfortunately, carrion birds are not something I find attractive. Being able to catch this beauty was grand :D
Anyone able to explain how to summon this for someone who has never done Skettis quests? :S I’m an idiot when it comes to everything skettis ._.
Interesting – I do like the appearance of owls, but never could quite manage to get used to that soft trilling/warbling sound they make in combat… I’m (guessing) that bit remains with this bird? Basic animations/fight sounds/etc normally seem bundled together
Alternate headings for this discussion.
1. Akkarai Hatchling: an Owl that is useful for PVE
2. Akkarai Hatchling: a Carrion Bird that isn’t ugly.
It’s nice to see a Bird of Prey with the talents they always should have had (Screech/Ferocity).
Yes I know
1. If I was a more skilled hunter I could use a Bird of Prey regardless of its talents.
2. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people like the look of the Carrion Bird (the Dire Raven for instance is pretty good looking despite the Night Elf ears).
@Myzou: All begins at the quest where you start with the sha’tari skyguard: next to the flightmaster in shattrah, that’s where the questgiver is. She will tel you to kill some ogres in the hills behind shattrah. Then she will send you to the main camp, at skettis. There you will do some quests, like bombing some eggs, and feeding nether rays. A guy will also ask you to collect shadow dust. After you have collected six shadow dust, you hand it in, and you will recieve a potion that will enable you to see ghost arrakoa. Then you get a quest to go and kill named arrakoa, 3 of them. From one of them, a book will drop, that will begin a quest. For that quest, you need to go back to shattrah, talk with a friendly arrakoa. Then you go back to the outpost at Skettis, to talk to the guy who send you to the friendly arrakoa. Then another quest will pop up, this time from the caged arrakoa. He will tell you to retrieve a package. Retrieve it, and you will get another task to retrieve a book. You need to buy it from another Arrakoa located on the island in the middle of the big lake. You will do this by getting in your arrakoa suit(yes you can dance in it :D), then you can buy it. Now here comes the part you’ve been waiting for, the main summoning of Darkscreecher Akkarai. You will need to collect 10 time-lost scrolls from the ghost Arrakoa that are visible when you drank the potion made with shadow dust. You are to use the scrolls at a skull pile, then you can select which boss you want to summon. Summon Akkarai, try to kill The Darkscreecher, but allow him to use his flock call to summon the hatchlings. try to keep them alive, they are very fragile, so be careful. Well that’s about it. If you’re still confused, check Threat from above at wowhead or something and follow the quests.