We’re going to kick off our pet-oriented tour in the home lands of the night elves … largely because that’s where I happened to have a beta character logged out.

Before you start the tour, make sure you read the disclaimers and caveats in Cataclysm Safari: Intro.

Teldrassil

Nothing changed.

No, that’s not true: Lady Sathrah‘s level changed from 12 to 10.

And oh yeah, I hear that a lot of the quests have been changed to be a lot more fun. But the existing pets are all in the same places — even Duskstalker the rare cat. So … there’s not much to talk about here.

Darkshore

Darkshore is a lot more interesting. The landscape changed enormously, what with Auberdine destroyed, a big lake in the middle of the zone, and a twister of monumental proportions whirling away to the south.

But luckily for us pet lovers, not everything has changed. The Ghost Saber still haunts the Ruins of Mathystra at the northern end of the zone — although the Ruins are a lot less isolated than they once were.

Moonstalkers, Moonstalker Sires and Moonstalker Matriarchs (with their Runts in tow), are if anything more common than they once were in the southern part of the zone. They’ve had a few small level adjustments but nothing serious. The only real difference is that you can no longer find Moonstalker Runts without a Matriarch, and since Matriarchs “control” their Runts, there are no tameable Runts.

Some crabs have gone missing — namely Tide Crawlers (blue), Pygmy Tide Crawlers (blue), Young Reef Crawlers (white), Reef Crawlers (white) and Raging Reef Crawlers (white). But the Encrusted Tide Crawlers (blue) are still in residence and Darkshore has picked up Corrupted Tide Crawlers (red) and a Hermit Tide Crawler (blue).

And as always, Darkshore has bears. Lots of bears. Most of the old bears have been traded out for (very similar) new bears … and many of the new bears cannot be tamed (yet). But as I said in the tour intro, I wouldn’t worry about that too much yet at this point.

The Den Mother and her cubs are gone but in her place there are now many Corrupted Thistle Bear Matriarchs with (uncorrupted) Thistle Bear Cubs. The most interesting of the new bears is the Consumed Thistle Bear, who has a dark brown diseased look. Unfortunately the rest of the new bears appear to be plain old brown. (Some variation would be nice here, Blizzard!)

And finally we come to tallstriders … which are gone. Except for Fleetfoot, a named brown tallstrider. Fleetfoot essentially replaces Foreststriders, Foreststrider Fledglings, and Giant Foreststriders, who were also all brown.

Now I haven’t mentioned Darkshore’s two rare beasts yet: Shadowclaw and the Strider Clutchmother. Neither one has been seen in the beta yet.

I’m not surprised about Shadowclaw — I’ve never had any luck finding the stealthy little so-and-so. and even if he is gone, he shares a look with Moonstalker Matriarchs.

But I am a little concerned about the Strider Clutchmother. She was generally pretty reliable for a rare so the fact that she hasn’t been seen seems to indicate that she’s been removed. On the plus side, it looks like her appearance will no longer be unique – some turquoise tallstriders have been sighted in the Swamp of Sorrows — but still … the Clutchmother is special. But as always, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Since none of the appearances in Darkshore were unique — except the Clutchmother, and it looks like she won’t be unique in Cataclysm — none of the pet changes here are catastrophic. In fact I suspect most hunters won’t even notice.

That’s today’s tour! Join us next time as we explore Ashenvale and Stonetalon Mountains!