Top Ten Favorite Battle Pets: Part Two

Maruka's back to introduce you to the rest of my favorite battle pets. Two posts in one week. I'm on a roll. ;)

I have all of these spiders in their different colored skins, but the purple is my favorite. The Amethyst Shale Hatchling wasn't hard to find, at all. These spiders are all over Deepholm. Lots and lots.

The Pandaren Monk. This is one of the few pets I've spent actual money on. I think I've only bought this one and one other. I really love his animations though. He is so funny.

The Emerald Whelpling. This is one of the few pets I've gotten as a drop. As I rarely run dungeons anymore and I never run raids, I don't have the opportunity to get battle pets as drops very often. I fight with this pet in almost every battle nowadays. He's a level 25 so I use him to battle pets in Pandaria. His heals and Moonfire are very helpful to my main group.

This is one of my first rare level Pandaren pets, the Bandicoon Kit. I like this one for no other reason than that it's cute.

This is the pet that I mentioned in part one that isn't a rare level. I could only find the Harpy Youngling as poor, common, or uncommon qualities. She doesn't spawn that often and is pretty hard to find. It took me several hours just to find an uncommon quality pet so I took her and I might use a stone to upgrade her to rare. I really like this skin and I worked hard to find her. I think she looks fantastic.








There you have it, my ten favorite battle pets. Well, as of today anyway. I collect new pets every day that I play so I'll need to update this post sometime in the future. I wanted to include a link to my profile on Warcraftpets.com for anyone interested in viewing my (mostly) complete collection. I need to update there as well, lol. Anyway, Maruka's Menagerie on Warcraft Pets.

I hope you enjoyed viewing my favorites. I hope you'll share your battle pet posts in the comments and/or a link to your menagerie on Warcraft Pets.

Top Ten Favorite Battle Pets: Part One

I get easily distracted by doing pet battles. It takes me way longer than it should to complete one quest just because I can't resist stopping to battle a pet that I don't already have or one that I have but isn't rare. This is one of my most favorite new features of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. I think Blizzard was brilliant when they introduced this into the game.

I thought I'd compile a list of my top ten favorite battle pets that I already have. I limited myself to only rares (with one exception) because I had such a hard time picking favorites. They are not listed in any order because I just couldn't do that. I might hurt feelings. ;)

Modeling with my battle pets is Maruka, my level 90 Orc Hunter.

Say hello to the Giraffe Calf. Ok. I know I said that I couldn't pick favorites, but the Giraffe Calf is probably my favorite and for two reasons. One being that I have collected giraffes since I was ten years old. I think they are one of the most majestic and unique animals in nature. Secondly, it took me freaking forever to find one and catch it. Days. I trekked around the Barrens for days.

 Next up is the Sporeling Sprout. He wasn't all that hard to find, but I love this skin. He's fun and one of the three pets I fight with the most.

This is the Darkshore Cub. I like him simply because he's cute.

The Tiny Harvester. I love this skin. I think this is a very fun pet. He was super easy to get. There are Tiny Harvesters all over the farms in Westfall.

So, how fun is it to fight with a book, lol?? I love this pet. It is pretty unique. Also, I'm an avid reader, so I had to have a Lofty Libram. This was kind of hard to get as a rare. I had to camp around Dalaran Crater and compete with several other players just to get a battle. Then I had to repeat the process until I could get a rare. It wasn't as hard as the Giraffe Calf, but a challenge nonetheless.








And this concludes part one. I didn't want to overload with too many screenshots. As always, you can click on the pictures to view a larger version with more detail. If you've written a post with your favorite pets, please leave a comment so that I can go and read it. I really enjoy seeing other player's favorites.

More From Northrend

Continuing on what seems to be a never ending odyssey of mining ore, I was once again flying around Northrend yesterday. This time, I was in Sholozar Basin enjoying the sites and mining the hell out of some saronite.

The Sundered Shard

Hardknuckle Clearing

River's Heart

Seabreach Flow

As Seen in Remote Parts of Northrend

Ok. I'm not really sure how remote these places are, but they are pretty awesome-looking nonetheless.

I took some screenshots yesterday while I was trying to mine some ore around Northrend. My goal was 120 but I ended up with 64 because I got distracted with flying around and clearing the map. I got two exploration cheeves yesterday. I might get some more today seeing as how I still need more ore. ::sigh::  Anyway...

The Horror Gate

Cathedral of Darkness

Narvir's Cradle

Terrace of the Makers

A Quiet Day of Reflection

A Calm Day of Fishing in the Jade Forest

Not really. That's just what a lot of people say when they've spent the day fishing. I, however, dwell on how boring it is...In real life and within a game.

Have you ever fished on the game Animal Crossing? If you run past the shadow of a fish in the water, you scare it away, lol. It's kind of tedious. Animal Crossing is a favorite game in our house. Both of my kids like to play it and I've been known to play from time to time. My kids like for me to do the fishing in the game so that we can put the fish in the museum. They say that I'm the best at it but in reality, I just have more patience than they do.

Today, I spent the day with Maruka fishing in Pandaria. I leveled her from 380-something to 425. I'm just trying to level her cooking up without spending a ton of gold in the auction house on mats. I'm trying to be smart about it. ;) I really hate fishing though. The one thing that has made it more bearable is that Maruka has a water strider with the Surface Trot buff and I LOVE it. I mount up (I'm still an 88 and can't fly yet) and ride up and down the rivers looking for pools of fish. Being able to walk on water makes the process go by much faster.

FYI, if you're looking for Jade Lungfish, you should start out at the top of the river at Grookin Hill and then ride the river all the way down to Pearlfin Village. Just be aware that Grookin Hill is a Horde town and Pearlfin Village is an Alliance town. I got tagged by an Alliance guard at Pearlfin Village and had to run for my life, lol. Anyway, this route netted (har har) me quite a bit of fish in a short amount of time.

Mists of Pandaria: First Impressions

I have very few negative things to say about the latest WoW expansion. I'm not one of those "race to 90" type of player, but I have been playing since the day of the release and I've been having a fantastic time.

I know that I'm in the minority when I say that questing is my favorite part of the game. I enjoy exploring the world, picking up quests, getting new gear, and just generally immersing myself in the game's world. I seriously cannot relate to the player who complains that it's taking too long to get to 90. I was, however, immensely pleased when I dinged 86 just last night. ;) That should give you some idea where I'm at in Pandaria. Okay, okay. I will admit that I'm chomping at the bit to get the new cloud serpent mount. All good things...

Pet Battles

Prior to the release, I was really looking forward to this new aspect of the game. It gives the player an alternate course of action instead of the constant raiding, PuGs, and leveling. The reality of this feature totally lived up to my expectations. The cheesy Final Fantasy-esque music. The silly turn-based attacks. The cutesy pets whose sole purpose in life is to kick ass. I love it. It's fun. It's distracting. It's addicting. I feel bad choosing to level certain companions over others. This has led to me trying to level several at one time which means that my highest level pet is only 11, lol. Questing in Pandaria and seeing the potential, capture-able pets makes me drool. I can't wait until I get a pet high enough so that I can start acquiring the new pets.

The Scenery

Come on. How can you not appreciate this??

If you don't like the scenery in Pandaria, I can only assume that you're color blind. It's visually striking and totally pleasing to the eye. If I hear one more person gripe about the graphics in WoW, I may have to turn stalker and pound on that person a bit. Maybe the graphics are not top shelf, but I still don't see what the complaining is all about.

Pandas. Squishy, Loveable, Ninja, Pandas!

This is another popular topic about which people like to complain. Do people know much about real, in the wild, pandas? Sure, they look cute, but I would like to see you come between a cub and it's mother. Polar bears, black bears, and grizzlies are cute too. Did you hear about that hiker that was taking video of a grizzly? All they found of him was the video. Anyway, my panda monk is only a level 14 so I can't speak on an "expert" level, but I'm having great fun playing her. She's pretty and she's pretty vicious.

My One Complaint

I think having cross-realm areas is a fantastic idea. I really like seeing other players when I'm out and about questing. However...It would have been nice if that had been turned off for the first few weeks after the expansion release. Over population is now the issue instead of dead areas. I was questing with my lowbie panda in the Northern Barrens and there weren't enough quilboars and sacks of rice to be found for all the dozens of pandas trying to do the same quests. It was just a bit frustrating. After a while, I gave up and went for some pet battles instead.

To Conclude

I've run into a few glitches here and there. I've run across totally asshole-y players stealing all the quest kills and gathers. What's new? After playing beta, I can see a big difference in the number of things that needed to be fixed versus the more polished final release. I am a realist. I expected hangups. So what? I think MoP is a complete breath of fresh air when compared to the somewhat more intense expansions of WotLK and Cataclysm. I still have no regrets signing up for the annual pass. I'll more than likely renew or, at the very least, keep my subscription current. I'm still having fun with the game, reading other's blog posts and tweets, and being part of the community that is WoW. I'm definitely not ready to throw in the towel.

Screenshot Wednesday

Even the skeptics have to admit that the scenery in MoP is fabulous.

Screenshot Wednesday: Duly Impressed

As seen on the Quel'dorei server about two months ago. First and only time I've ever seen it.