Patch 6.2: New World of Warcraft Battle Pets

Patch 6.2 brings the new zone of Tanaan jungle to explore plus a new raid and other new goodies, and the developers have given us an awesomely large group of pets to battle, buy, and find.

There's even a quest to get your own Fel Pup, which is one of the neatest looking pets added to the game recently (because who needs another snake, rate, or beetle, right?).

Here's a quick rundown of the pets you'll want to seek out in patch 6.2 and where to find (or buy) them.

Pets Galore in Your Garrison

The first place to go for pets is your garrison. Your level three garrison menagerie will feature a few new tenants including "Exotic Pets and Accessories" vendor Giada Goldleash and

The pets and pet toys available from Giada are purchasable with pet charms. New pets include:

• Bloodthorn Hatchling (50 pet charms)
• Dusty Sporewing (50 pet charms)
• Glowing Sporebat (50 pet charms)
• Lost Netherpup (200 pet charms)

You can also buy a "Magic Pet Mirror," an "Indestructible Bone," or a "Spirit Wand" as toys for your pets. The Spirit Wand looks pretty awesome since it turns your companion pet into a spectral version. Cool!

Note: If you're alliance, your pet vendor will be named Tiffy Trapspring.

You'll also want to be on the lookout for a garrison mission that will reward you with a Cinder Pup. Additionally, a vendor named Trader Darakk (for Horde) or Trader Araanda (for Alliance) will sell you a pet named Crusher. The pet costs 1000g.

After you build your shipyard, look for a naval mission called "Orphaned Aquatic Animal Rescue," which will reward you with the Left Shark pet, which is a reference to Katy Perry's performance at the Superbowl Halftime Show.

Hopefully, you've fished your way to a level three Fishing Shack (I haven't, boooo!), because you can catch a Felmouth Frenzy Lunker, which is something Nat Pagle will have an interest in - he'll get you access to a Sea Calf and a Land Shark.

New Pets in Tanaan Jungle and Beyond

There are four new regular pets you can find crawling about in Tanaan Jungle for you to catch, and the density of level-100 mobs means it's helpful to go find these pets if you're well-geared or a stealth class (I often use my rogue to stalk my pet prey).

Put these four pets on your list when you visit Tanaan Jungle:

1. Bloodbeak (Flyer)
2. Cerulean Moth (Flyer)
3. Violet Firefly (Flyer)
4. Fen Crab (Aquatic)

Bonus! There's a quest called "A Fel Pup of My Own," which will reward you with the Fel Pup. To get the pup, you'll want to kill a mob named Ceraxas who lives in the Temple of Sha'naar.

Go to the southern area of the zone in the west to find the temple. After you kill Ceraxas, an "Abandoned Fel Pup" will appear with a quest icon above its head.

Additionally, there are several "fel-corrupted" legendary pets around Tanaan Jungle for you to defeat. After defeating any one of these legendary pets, you'll get a goodie bag that has gold, pet charms, and pet bandages.

You can also get a fel-touched battle-training stone, which will give any pet you choose 5 levels instantly. The legendary reward bag also has a chance to include one of these four pets:

• Nightmare Bell
• Periwinkle Calf
• Seaborne Spore
• Zangar Spore

Very cool! Beating all the legendary pets will also reward you with the achievement Tiny Terrors in Tanaan.

Also, after you've completed all your quest lines in Tanaan Jungle, look for the quest "Treasure: Cipher Shard." This quest is only available after you've done all the quests; you'll get ported out of the area where the quest is located if you try to access it early.

Your pet reward will be the Shard of Cyrukh, which is a tribute to the quest chain in the Burning Crusade-era quest chain that eventually led players to kill Cyrukh the Firelord. Do you remember that quest? I do, so many years ago :)

If you're a raider, you can also try for the Corrupted Nest Guardian, which drops from Shadow-Lord Iskar in Hellfire Citidel.

New Darkmoon Faire Pets

I'll cover these pets more in detail when the Darkmoon Faire arrives again, but for now, know that you'll want to get your fishing pole ready to catch a bevy of Darkmoon Daggermaw, which are used as currency at the Faire.

You can purchase leashes for Blorp (a fish) for 50 Darkmoon Daggermaw or the Ghostshell Crab (your own mini Ghostcrawler) for 100 Darkmoon Daggermaw.

You'll also want to play the "Whack a Mole" game at the Darkmoon Faire since there's an achievement called That's Whack, which will reward you with a mini Hogger pet named Hogs.

Have I missed any pets? Let me know, and I'll add them to this list (and where to find them)!

Raiding with Leashes and Farming Black Temple for Pets

So, with the arrival of new pets in instances like Black Temple and The Sunwell, it's necessary to farm these easy legacy instances to get your "Raiding with Leashes III: Drinkin' From the Sunwell" achievement. Well, unless you're flush with gold and want to visit the auction house.

For the achievement, you need the following pets:

• Grotesque
• Abyssius
• Fragment of Suffering
• Sister of Temptation
• Hyjal Wisp
• Chaos Pup
• Leviathan Hatchling
• Fragment of Anger
• Fragment of Desire
• Stinkrot
• Sunblade Micro-Defender
• Wretched Servant

Since the patch dropped and added these pets to the game, I've been farming Black Temple (and other instances) with my rogue to get the pets and to also have a chance at the legendary. It's my opinion that the best class for farming legacy raids is a rogue because of the speed boost.

I took a video of farming Black Temple, and it only took me around 17 minutes total. It'd be around 14 or 15 minutes if I didn't have to wait for so much talky-talk-talk between Akama and Illidan at the end.

Here's the video (I added some soundtrack music just for fun). The breaks you see in the video are because I haven't bought the software and it cuts me off occasionally, which means I have to restart the video mid-run through Black Temple.

(Yes, I know my key bindings are weird. I'm left handed and my key bindings are for my right hand while my left hand uses the mouse.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video! I just made it for fun :)

I've farmed BT and Sunwell quite a few times so far. It's taking forever to get the Fragments. But they are REALLY cool pets! Take a look at the Fragment of Anger I got this week (click on the picture to make it bigger):

Hallow's End New Pets and Toys

With the arrival of patch 6.0 comes several new pets, as well as updates to the achievement system related to the popular world events like Hallow's End, the Lunar Festival, and Winter Veil. In addition to the Sinister Squashling and the Feline Familiar (which I'm sure you already have, right?)  2014 brings two new pets to the Hallow's End event, as well as some toys and a crazy awesome Lich King costume.

Toys and pets cost 150 "Tricky Treats," which you get from visiting candy buckets around Azeroth and the dailies at major cities. You'll find quests for Alliance around Stormwind and Goldshire while Horde quests are located in the above-ground courtyard of Lordaeron and within Brill.

Your new pets are Widget the Departed and the Cursed Birman, which are two ghostly cats. According to flavor text on the Cursed Birman:

"One of this cat's nine lives has returned to haunt the living by yowling loudly when you're trying to sleep."

And, regarding Widget the Departed, the flavor text says:

"Not even death would stop this kitten's insatiable curiosity."

You'll definitely want to participate in some dailies each day during the Hallow's End festival if you're aiming to get both pets, as well as a toy or the Lich King costume. I found that my alts that were at least level 70 with most (or all) of the flight paths on each continent were best for farming up the 150 required treats.

I used my 87 Alliance priest to farm up the 150 treats for the Cursed  Birman and my 72 Horde mage to get the treats necessary for Widget. I'll probably farm up the Little Wickerman toy with my warlock main (another 150 treats), and am farming the "Exquisite Costume Set: "The Lich King" with my rogue alt. You'll need 500 (!) treats to buy your Lich King costume.

Tip: Do you already have the achievements for visiting all the candy buckets across Azeroth? Even though achievements are account-wide, don't worry, you can still track your progress if you have an alt who can visit the candy buckets.

Just click on your achievements for Hallow's End, and you'll see little green check marks for the buckets you've already visited. Makes it a LOT easier finding the buckets you haven't visited since every flight path stop won't always have a bucket... it's rather annoying to land somewhere in the middle of Kalimdor and see a few lonely tents and a couple of NPCs with no candy buckets in sight!

Get Your Molten Corgi on WoW's 10th Anniversary

The ultimate in feisty canines: The Molten Corgi

THE MOLTEN CORGI IS ALMOST HERE!

Alongside all the unique Battle Pets that look like miniature bosses (like the ferociously cool Droplet of YShaarj) there are also legions of similar pets that are barely discernible from one another.

Roaches, snakes, and rabbits seem to cover Azeroth in endless, similar, and boring varieties. However, the pet promised by Blizzard to players celebrating the game's 10th anniversary certainly wouldn't fall into the category of "ordinary" or "commonplace."

Early on in the data-mining for Warlords of Draenor, beta testers found evidence of a "Molten Corgi" in the files for new Battle Pets, and everyone wondered where the pet might drop. Recently, Blizzard revealed how everyone could get this pet. Fortunately, it doesn't require getting an impossible drop or paying a boatload of gold for someone to craft it for you.

In their blog post, Blizzard said:

"Anyone who logs in during the 10-year anniversary event will also be able to claim a feisty, fiery new pet: the Molten Corgi! Just think of the corgi-parade potential when you and your friends summon these wee waddling balls of fire for a walk."

You'll probably have a few days at minimum to log into the game to snag this pet. It's been a few years since Blizzard has given players anything more than a congratulatory message and a Feat of Strength for logging in during the anniversary, so it's nice to see they're giving players something memorable this time around. Based on other years, the anniversary celebration will probably land in November.

Farming Your Unborn Val'kyr: The Best Northrend Route!

Pet farmers know how to camp spawns, but sometimes you it takes a few minutes on a flight path or some wandering around a zone to find a pet. The super-cool Unborn Val'kyr doesn't just spawn in one zone: it spawns all over Northrend, which means that you'll need to do some serious flying to catch a lucky spawn!

If you've got loads of flying alts, you might try parking them in each zone across Northrend, but if you've just got one or two high-level toons, you can still make a full circuit of Northrend in about 30 minutes (maybe less if you just focus on the circuit instead of watching TV at the same time or something).

Getting Ready for Your Circuit:

Conveniently, you can start from Dalaran and Crystalsong Forest, which means all it takes is a quick port to Dalaran (you can use your ring or one of the portals to Dalaran in Pandara's capital cities). I'd suggest that you also have epic flight speed, because flying on a slow mount or actually using flight paths for this circuit will take too long!

Your Val'kyr Northrend Farming Route

When you land in Dalaran, you'll want to fly out toward the east and cover the spawn points in Crystalsong Forest, and then you'll want to cover the zones in this order:

1. Zul'Drak
2. The Storm Peaks
3. Icecrown
4. Sholazar Basin
5. Borean Tundra
6. Dragonblight
7. Grizzly Hills
8. Howling Fjord

Tip: You'll usually want to fly in a counter-clockwise circle around the zone to hit all of the spawn points. Usually, at the end of your time in the zone, you'll be close to the border of the next zone where you need to fly.

Helpful Val'kyr Location Maps:

I was going to create maps of the spawn points for this little creature, but a user at Wowhead already did a terrific job of pegging the maps. Here are the links for each of those helpful maps so you'll know where to fly each time you enter a new zone.

Note that I have these links set up to open in a new window so you'll be able to open up all the windows in a row and click onto each new map as you fly around Northrend.

• Crystalsong Forest
• Zul'Drak
• The Storm Peaks
• Icecrown
• Sholazar Basin
• Borean Tundra
• Dragonblight
• Grizzly Hills
• Howling Fjord

Where I Found My Val'kyr

Interestingly, I completed my entire Val'kyr circuit and was ready to turn in for the night when I got a wild hair to fly back to a nearby spawn point in Howling Fjord. Incredibly, a little Val'kyr was sitting just south of Giant's Run, waiting for me to catch her! I'm not at all surprised that my spawn was at the very end of my route. That's how it always goes, right?

Tips for a Successful Catch

Since the Val'kyr isn't a legendary pet or special pet from a trainer, you shouldn't have trouble catching one with almost any pet lineup. She's an Undead pet, so the best pets to weaken her are critters, and you might want to avoid using Humanoids since Undead pets do more damage to Humanoids.

In my zeal to catch my Val'kyr, I actually had a Flayer Youngling in my lineup and the little Humanoid bugger lasted until the third pet before he expired...

Have you already found your Unborn Val'kyr? How long did it take you to find one?