For weeks I spent almost every weekday morning flying around Storm Peaks. I picked that time because that’s when there’s the least amount of people online. However, it looked like every hunter and their mother were also looking for Skoll. Then…I got lucky.

I started muttering “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod” over and over again as I landed close to him. For a minute Niqo dashed back and forth, looking for the best place to start the tame. I was so nervous that I forgot to lay down a freezing trap before starting the tame. And then suddenly…he was mine, in all his blue lightning goodness. I named him Selamiut, despite the fact that I already named Loque that. It just seemed appropriate somehow.

Selamiut [SEE-lah-me-oot] is an Inuktitut word (used by the Inuit) meaning “The Sky Dwellers,” and refers to the manifestation of departed souls, experienced amid the stunning beauty of the Aurora Borealis.

It’s a good day to be a hunter.

Niqora

Has reached level 65. At level 64, she tamed a Warp Hunter who she named Grakoth. I just took a screenshot of them in Elwynn Forest (because it’s funny to bug the Alliance). Unfortunately it’s night now so the lighting is horrible.

Here’s a better picture taken from the character chooser screen.

I am loving the Warp ability. Only a 15 second cooldown and it instantly takes Grakoth to the mob…it’s really great for grinding or farming. He’s already up to Loyalty 5 because I’ve quested with him all through level 64. Luckily he likes his fish so it gave me an excuse to work on Niqora’s fishing skill, which is now over 300. And I think he’s just the cutest thing when he tilts his head up and sniffs at the air. It reminds me so much of a dog’s behaviour. Grakoth won’t replace Blacky but he is definitely going to be staying around.

Brighit

Brighit is level 24 as of today. A while ago, she moved to the Moon Guard server to join Wolfrider’s Alliance warlock. He also created a baby NE druid and she’s been waiting for him to catch up so they can level together.

Khaja

Quite a while ago, Khaja tamed a Ravager Specimen from Azuremyst Isle. You might remember that Khaja has gone through quite a few pets so I was hesistant to mention the ravager in case I got rid of him. But I think (don’t quote me on this)…I think this companion might be sticking around the little troll. I’ve named him Xiuhcoatl, which is an Aztec name meaning “weapon of destruction”. Quite an appropriate name for a ravager, wouldn’t you say? Definitely a tongue twister…I’m not even sure how to pronounce it so his nickname is going to be Xi.

Machalor

Yay! Machalor is level 40 and now my second character to get her mount. Of course, this happens just shortly before the announcement that we might be getting mounts at level 30…*grumble grumble*. Oh well, it will make it easier for my other 7 hunters.

After running around all of Azeroth during the Midsummer Festival, she got the 350 flowers she needed to trade them in for a Spirit of Summer, which can be seen next to her in the screenie below. It was quite an adventure that involved a fair bit of dying and dashing through areas that she really shouldn’t have been in. I did try to capture the flame in an Alliance city (Exodar in particular) but it was just too much work so I decided to stick with the little towns instead.

Fhionn

Not much has happened with Fhionn, except that I was bored one day and went around killing the Blood Elf Bandit again until he dropped his wonderful mask. I may or may not be moving her to Moon Guard (she and Brighit are a bit of a team, it doesn’t seem right to separate them like this).

Tkasha

What is it with my troll characters and constantly switching between pets? Tkasha was going to have a crab as her pet…but then I had to go to Petopia and browse through all the pets. I kept going back to the golden maned lion one, which is very strange because that model had never appealed to me before. So I tamed one and named him Rajesh, which is East Indian for “king of kings”. Then…I saw Humar. Of course I had seen and heard much about him before and I had never really paid much attention to him. But at that moment, I realized that Tkasha had to tame him. If you were to look at it RP-wise, Khaja began to notice that Rajesh’s coat was growing darker with each passing season, until his 23rd season where his fur was as black as night. I’d say that taming Humar was difficult but that part wasn’t. It was waiting for him to spawn. After spending about 2 days logging in and having no luck at him spawning, I woke myself up at about 5 am to tame him and sure enough, there he was. I was even going to have a little fun and make a movie out of the taming but alas, in my sleepiness I somehow managed to shut off FRAPs right before I tamed him. *sigh*

I do think that he is just gorgeous and I’m pretty sure he will be at Tkasha’s side for a long time (again, don’t quote me >.>)

Here’s some pictures of Rajesh when his coat was still golden. In these screenies, he’s with Tkasha in the old Lordaeron throne room above Undercity.

There is more to this story than “I had a sudden altitis attack.” It is true that I had been thinking about another hunter who had a crab as a pet (Yes, I’m copying Mania but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery). It all started with a visit to a certain troll.

Khaja had taken a liking to Wolfrider so I figured it would be nice to pay him a visit. I created a little Khaja look-alike on his server and sure enough, he was online. I’d tell you the details of the conversation but we ended up talking for 5 hours so we covered a lot of topics. Considering we started chatting at midnight, I was a little tired when I finally passed out in bed with the sun coming up outside. But honestly, it was worth it because I really enjoyed talking with him. He subtly asked me if I was going to stick around. I knew I wouldn’t keep the new Khaja because it would just be too strange for me to have 2 characters with the same name. In my eyes, my characters’ names are a crucial part of their personality. But the very next day, I created Tkasha and began leveling her. Wolfrider even joined me for a little while and helped me with some quests. He did make some blood elf newbies angry by wiping out all the harpies south of Orgrimmar. Oops! Meh, they respawn fast anyways.

Later on, he was doing his dailies while Tkasha completed her taming quests. As she was visiting the hunter trainer in Orgrimmar, I casually noticed a level 14 troll wearing a bright yellow cloak. Then Tkasha flew to Undercity to get some cooking recipes and on her way back I noticed the same troll again. Hmm, interesting, he must just be going the same way as me. Once back in Durotar, she headed east of the zeppelin tower to tame Dlish and once that was done, started killing some mobs to see how well the crab works and as just something to do while I’m chatting with Wolfrider. Then…that same troll appears again. I don’t say anything but I purposely move further down the coast, killing mobs. He doesn’t say a word and kills his own mobs but he works his way after me. Okay, this is getting a little weird. He starts talking to me a little, just general observances like how a glitched scorpion is stuck inside a rock. I don’t mind it really but he just keeps following me everywhere. Finally I just mention how weird it is to Wolfrider and he comes riding out to save his little troll lady …Now I have two trolls following me around. After about 15 more minutes of this, the other troll finally wonders off. I guess he got the point. BTW, I ended up staying up til 5 am that night too *facepalm*

Tkasha will be sticking around now, especially since I have Wolfrider for the wonderful conversation and to finance me (I’m rich! I’m rich!). And because I can, here’s some screenshots I took of him when he wasn’t looking. He be one fine lookin’ troll

Tkasha’s own character page is on the way!

So…remember that cold that I was talking about oh…30 days ago? I’m still dealing with the after-affects. It sure was a doozy, making me miss a day and a half of school, not to mention I couldn’t sleep properly for a week. I was tired and grumpy and coughing and generally not a fun person to be around. I think Mr. Paladin and my brother annoyed with me coughing up my lungs 24/7. Heck, I didn’t even like myself then. It got to the point where taking 2 Advil Cold & Sinus and Buckley’s just wasn’t cutting it. If I was working or going to school, I was trying to sleep.

Luckily it went away on its own after a while. Surprisingly, I’m still coughing every once in a while but it’s nothing more than a mild annoyance. What is unlucky however is that when the cold was at its worst, I had a huge project coming due. So…I had to spend 3 days staying 4-5 hours after school trying to get it done on time. Since I already spend 7 hours in school…that adds up to 11-12 hours spent sitting in the classroom for 3 days. My prof gave me an extension and I just barely got it in on time but I was soooooo relieved to have it done.

However, all of this meant that I barely touched WoW for 2 weeks. Xion and Bursthoof were worried that I had fallen off the face of the earth. This did lead me to discover that…I didn’t really need WoW. Sure, it would have been nice to play it but I wasn’t freaking out over it.

This doesn’t mean that I’m going to quit, oh no. It just made it obvious that I’m not addicted to the game. I can go without it for a while and not go insane. In fact, WoW has kind of gone on the side burner as I was really aching for some good roleplaying so I pulled out Neverwinter Nights 2 again. Now, WoW has the advantage of being more open-ended and more hack-and-slash. You have complete control over your character and what they do. In NWN, the fighting is more automatic. Your character automatically performs certain abilities and starts attacking a nearby hostile once they’ve finished off the original target. Throw your character into the middle of a battle and you don’t have to do anything for a couple minutes if you don’t want to. There’s also a more linear, in-depth story progression. You follow the story line from beginning to end and when you kill someone, they stay dead. The roleplaying is also unparalleled IMO. I just love being able to immerse myself in the story lines. It really fires up my imagination and makes me dream up my own stories. WoW just doesn’t have that impact. All in all, these two games serve two different sets of my entertainment needs. If I was locked in a room with a computer that had only these two games installed, I could live happily ever after.

NWN’s aside, only Khaja has been receiving any attention in WoW. On a whim, I decided to tame a ravager specimen for her. I’ve been to Azuremyst so many times now that I don’t even need to consult my own directions any more. Once I arrived there, I thought it would be prudent to first tame an enraged ravager to get Gore 3. Keep in mind that at this point, Khaja is level 28 and the enraged ravagers are levels 16-17. Those green buggers are bloody hard to tame! Slumber Sand or Magic Dust are almost required to tame one of those. My first attempt I simply used Tame Beast from a reasonable distance away. Then the swipe attack knocked me down and I was going to attempt to try it again but I didn’t have enough mana and hit points were getting scarce. Silly me forgot about rez sickness. >.< I ran away, waited for it wear off, then tried again. I get knocked down yet again and when I try a second time to Tame Beast, another swipe makes me hit the dirt. I must have tried 5 more times with varying tactics before I succeeded. What finally worked was: going into Aspect of the Monkey, setting down a frost trap at max ranged distance from the little bugger, letting off a Concussive Shot and then immediately beginning Tame Beast. After the trap wore off, he still tried to swipe at me but I was lucky enough to dodge him and complete the tame. After all of that, learning Gore 3 from him and grabbing a ravager specimen was a piece of cake. Why did I not just stick with the enraged ravager? Because the ravager specimens match Khaja’s hair better >.>

From level 10, Khaja was able to level the ravager up to 21 by killing stormhides in the Barrens (skinning FTW) and later lots of harpies and miscellaneous enemies in Stonetalon. It only took me maybe two or three hours, with detours and chatting with people on MSN at the same time. Not too bad, and he’s already begun stealing aggro away from Khaja and holding his own.

I’ve had this nasty cold for the past week that has left me coughing mostly and generally feeling tired. Last night was the worst so far, where I couldn’t stay asleep even for an hour at a time before waking up in a coughing fit. Finally at 4 am, I stumbled out of bed, downed a bottle of Buckley’s Nighttime, and actually managed to pass out until 7 am when I had to get up for school. That stuff sure does work. Too bad I’m always hesitant to take it because it tastes so bad it makes my eyes water. And silly me has not slowed down on my late nights with Xion. His little BE paladin on Hydraxis is now level 31. Khaja joined him in leveling for a while and that’s how she went from level 25 to 27 in one night. Mostly I’ve been running him through quests on Nicora. I think I’ll pull out Machalor and Snickers to level along with him. That poor orc-hyena duo has been neglected ever since Machalor tamed Snickers in the Scarlet Monastery.

Nicora, by the way, has reached level 53 and has almost completed all the quests in Tanaris and Feralas and still needs to do ALL the quests in the Hinterlands. I grabbed a bunch of those last night when I realized that Blacky still didn’t have Dash 3. Off Nicora went to tame a Vilebranch Raiding Wolf, grabbing a level 50 turtle as her trash pet. Despite the turtle having the latest rank of Bite, he was woefully slow at killing all the Vilebranch trolls in the ruins area. I got impatient and just mounted up and dashed through all the mobs, not really caring if I aggroed them. I finally found the Raiding Wolves, abandoned the turtle in preparation to tame and then…got attacked by a patrolling troll. It’s been a while since I’ve had to attack an enemy without a pet, especially on Nicora, but I remembered my old strategy. It includes Wing clipping and running away until I’m in shotting range, firing off a quick Concussive Shot, then unloading all the shots I can before they’re in melee range again. Lather, rinse, repeat. My health was down a little more than I’m used to but the point was I was alive…the troll was not. I then proceeded to tame the Wolf which was simple enough with a Freezing Trap. And oh how I love the damage wolves do! This little guy had the same rank of Bite that the turtle had (and Dash 3 but that doesn’t count damage-wise) and he was just tearing through those trolls like they were newspaper.

After I learned Dash 3, I taught it to Blacky and called it a night, only to end up coughing up a lung while trying to sleep of course. When both Xion and my Mr. Paladin are urging me to get more sleep, maybe I should start listening to them.

On that note, I’d like to say farewell to Someone, who will be sorely missed but I wish good luck to nonetheless.

This leads me to welcome two more to my blog roll, both of whom have tried linking to me under the radar but I discovered them nonetheless:

Altitis – The Sandbox of yet another unfocused World of Warcraft player, with a slight paladin slant.

Kinless’ Chronicles – Another altaholic who has been blogging since December 2005! That’s a really long time ago.

/wave to you both

Pretty much the only character update I can give is that Khaja has reached level 25 and has tamed Washte Pawne. I forgot to take a pic of the two of them and I’m at school right now so it will have to wait until I get home. Edit: Finally got the pic up. He still needs a name but I’m starting to like him. Lightning Breath is taking some getting used to because it actually pulls the mob closer to you than it would if your pet didn’t have it.

For the most part, I’ve been playing my new character who I have yet to reveal. I really should do that soon, considering she’s level 23 already. Yes, I know, yet another one but hey, I’m an altaholic. I need to feed my addiction.

Now let’s say you have your pet-to-be already picked out and you’re rarin’ to go. Oh, you actually don’t know what you want? Go to Petopia, now. Really, I mean it, go.

Anyways, so now you’ve chosen your pet. Basically you need to know three things to tame it: where it is, where you are, and how to get from where you are to where it is.

The first one’s pretty easy. On Petopia, Mania’s linked all the pet to Thottbot so you can see where they are found. Or if you wish, you could use WoWHead as well.

The second one’s easy as well. I should hope that you know where your character is but if you don’t, just press ‘M’ in-game to pop up the map and you’ll see the name of area that you’re in.

Now…the tricky part. You have to travel between where you are and where the pet is. Sometimes you don’t even have to leave the zone you’re in. Other times you have to travel across the world and into dangerous and unknown territories.

What I recommend is to get Cartographer. It’s a mod that does a whole bunch of things with the map but one feature in particular we need here: “foglight”. What Cartographer does is show the areas that you haven’t actually explored yet. The journey is a lot easier when you can see where roads and towns (or lack of them) are located. There are apparently other mods that do the same thing but I’ve never felt the urge to change from Cartographer and it’s the one that a lot of people swear by. I sure do.

A little tip when using Cartographer to figure out where you’re going: if you didn’t already know, you can right-click on your in-game map to zoom out and from there you can see a larger area. Same works with Cartographer. All you have to do is zoom out far enough to be able to zoom in (left click) to the zone you want to go to. I also use this to map the route I’ll be taking.

Now let’s say you know the coordinates from Thottbot or WoWHead but you have no idea how to use them. There are many ways to utilize them but the simplist way would be to get Suki’s MiniMap Coords. It’s a tiny, tiny mod that displays your current coordinates on your minimap. That’s all. But now you have a reference as to where you are and where your pet will be and you can close that distance. And remember that those coordinates are for that zone only, not for the entire world of Azeroth.

Don’t want to download any mods? Well, MapWoW.com is at your disposal. It’s definitely not as helpful as the mods would be but if you’re able to wrap your brain around it and navigate while trying to run, it certainly is possible to use.

Oh, you have to run through an area you can’t possibly survive, like a town of the opposite faction or a zone that’s way too high level for you? All you have to do is die and stay dead. What you want to do is called ghost travelling or ghost walking or all sorts of other names. Basically you die and don’t resurrect. You then run as a ghost all the way to where you want to be (you can even travel on boats and zeppelins that you couldn’t before). Once you reach your intended zone, you have to find a graveyard that you can resurrect at. But before you do, log off and log back in again. This is crucial. Otherwise you’ll end up back to the zone you started in and will have to do it all over again. So once you’ve done that, you can talk to the spirit healer and ask to be alive again. You will appear in your body right in front of her. And then you can jaunt off after your pet, preferably after the resurrection sickness wears off.

Another thing I recommend doing is to read the comments on Thottbot or WoWHead for the pet, because sometimes they have tips or strategies for taming that particular beast.

If you’re taming a particularly difficult animal, see if you can get some Magic Dust if you’re Alliance or Slumber Sand if you’re Horde. They work miracles, I tell ya, and have saved my butt numerous times. Or of course use a frost trap if you have it.

Even if you don’t have any of these tricks, pulling the mob in with Concussive Shot will give you precious more seconds to complete the tame. (Thanks inaxdaze!)

Oh, one more thing…it might be a good idea to be Tracking Beasts when you go searching. Hey, it’s just an idea.

I was having a hard time picking out a good pet for Khaja so I decided to try taming a fleeting plainstrider, which know Cower 1. For a soloer like me, Cower is basically useless so I deactivated it and then took it off my pet’s bar all together before I even killed anything. So imagine my surprise when I get a message saying that Khaja’s learned Cower 1! This certainly answers a few questions:

• How many times the pet uses the ability doesn’t affect the learning process
• What level the mob is probably doesn’t matter either (it’s not “practicing” it on a harder mob)
• The distance you are away from your pet when it’s attacking doesn’t matter (I thought of this after my initial posts)
• Whether you’re attacking the  mob or not probably doesn’t matter either (if you can learn an ability without your pet using it, why does it matter what you’re doing?)

With some general obversations, I’ve basically come to the conclusion that it’s just random. I’ve learned a higher level skill the first swipe my pet took at a mob, and other times it’s taken at least 10 minutes to learn a low level skill. I’ve tried meleeing the mob, thinking that the closer I am to my pet while attacking, the sooner I’ll learn the skill. That didn’t seem to affect the results. Neither did pet happiness.

So I’m going to go with Someone’s theory and just say that it’s completely random. It seems to fit the best.

Mania reports that there’s a new ghost wolf in Dustwallow that is tamable. Problem is, it’s summoned by some NPC and only lasts a few seconds regardless of if it takes damage or not.

That’s not so great for most of us but apparently with a certain set of engineering goggles and possibly some other stuff, a troll was actually able to tame it.

I am so going to try everything to tame one of these tonight!

Why did I create yet another hunter (making this lucky #7)? Well, I had several reasons for this. Troll was the only race left that I had not created a hunter for and I wanted to see how their racial abilities worked; there were still pets that I wanted to tame and try out; and I just had the hankering to create another one.

One thing I love about the trolls is their accent. I’m not even sure what it is (I’m guessing something like Jamaican) but it’s awesome. When I created Khaja, I wanted her name to reflect that. I tried out the WoW Name Generator tool and although it came up with some really great names, none of them really fit for what I wanted. Then I remember that the WoW machinama Redshift had a female troll character in it. And so I basically ripped off the name: Khaja. But it’s so short and sweet.

Khaja had original started off with a black-and-red scorpid. Scorpids look really cool when someone else has one or when they’re wondering around in the wild but after I tame them…I don’t know, they seem to lack personality.

So then she got Blit the deviate coiler hatchling from WC. I’m not exactly sure why I called him that. I was trying to find what the word “lightning” is in Afrikaans and somehow I ended up with Blit. /shrug

Anyways, she’s already level 15, which I attribute to the improved leveling process. At this rate (that is if I keep playing her exclusively), she’ll probably be level 20 by the weekend. But only time will tell.