Patch 7.2 Pet Bonanza: Gon, Lost Spectral Gryphon, Fenryr, and invading other class halls

Wow, what a week it’s been for Hunter pets! We’ve got a new solo challenge to tame Fenryr, two new spirit beasts, and there was also some shenanigans going on with Hunters invading the Shaman and Druid class halls to tame unique pets not available anywhere else.

I guess I’ll start with the first thing that happened early in the week, Fenryr. All of the hype sort of began when I tweeted this out (and posted it on Petopia):

Hunters: Fenryr is tameable! Clear HoV mythic, leave & wait for instance to reset (30-60min?). A new Fenryr is waiting in his cave! pic.twitter.com/dLWrdVfJAD

— Bendak (@BendakWoW) April 11, 2017

I was not the original discoverer of this method, I was just the first to push it out to a large audience. Wowhead tweeted my pic soon after and Hunters began running Halls of Valor like their lives depended on it. It turned out that if you cleared HoV on Mythic, then left the dungeon and waited about 30 minutes for a soft reset, a tameable version of Fenryr would spawn in his cave. I mean, who goes back into a dungeon they’ve already cleared? No wonder it took a couple of weeks for anyone to notice. But it sure did seem like an odd way to hide a pet.

Fenryr

It turns out that this method was not intended and Blizzard hotfixed it about a day and a half later. The intended challenge is to solo Mythic Halls of Valor up to Fenryr. Upon killing him, a tameable version will spawn for you to tame. This only works if you do it by yourself with no one else in your group.

I apologize to anyone who saw that tweet and went and tried to do that (without seeing my follow-up tweet). I know you gotta wait another week now, and I definitely wouldn’t have promoted this idea had I known it was unintended (because I think the challenge is really cool). Edit: If you’re already saved to HoV Mythic for the week and want to attempt this, have someone who isn’t saved invite you to a group before going inside (but make sure they don’t go inside) then leave the group once inside.

I know what you’re thinking: “I missed the easy way, now I’ll never get it!” This is not true. This is a completely doable challenge for any BM Hunter with a reasonable amount of gear. It might take some practice, and healing legendaries do make it easier, but if you’re getting close to 890 ilvl I think you can do it. If you’re not, you will be eventually. Here’s a few tips:

• You can skip all the trash. Simply run past it and feign death. For the long hallway between Hymdall and Fenryr, you can also use an invisibility potion.
• Focus on pet damage mitigation. Use something like a Turtle pet for the Shell Shield. Spec it Tenacity. Use Aspect of the Beast for more damage reduction. Misdirect on cooldown for even more damage reduction. Spam Mend Pet. Your pet can survive these bosses with all that.
• Use healing legendaries if you have them.
• Hymdall: Simple tank and spank, keep your pet alive. All you need to do is avoid the drakes and tornadoes, and you’re home free (I know this is easier said than done).
• Fenryr: Will be tougher without any healing legendaries. Use Aspect of the Turtle to avoid one of the fixates in the second part of the fight. Run from the other fixates (i.e. to the back of the cave, then back outside for the third).

If you can’t do it, come back later after you get some Tomb of Sargeras gear. Even LFR will be dropping some pretty high ilvl gear there. Beyond that, you can also just faceroll it in a future expansion.

Fenryr is a really cool pet. His runes even light up when he runs or attacks. It’s definitely worth the challenge if you ask me. I applaud Blizzard for coming up with new taming challenges like this.

Lost Spectral Gryphon

The Lost Spectral Gryphon was datamined pretty early in the 7.2 PTR, and I’m kind of surprised it took this long for someone to find its source considering where it is: right beside the Stormwind flight master! It was originally found by Rikaku.

Crazy, huh? Though it’s not like it’s just sitting there waiting to be tamed, you have to click a small Spectral Feather that is sitting in the pile of hay on the ground, which spawns the gryphon (picture of feather location). The feather is only visible to level 110 BM Hunters, but once the gryphon is summoned, even lower level Hunters can tame it (though stealing it would be kind of mean). Unfortunately, clicking the feather does not guarantee you the pet if other Hunters are around, it becomes a free-for-all. And yes, the gryphon can be killed.  Despite it being in Stormwind, Horde can tame it if they’re lucky.

As for the spawn time, it hasn’t been nailed down yet. All we’ve gathered is that it’s somewhere in the vicinity of 6-12 hours. If you see reports of very short spawn times, this is likely because of different phases/shards of Stormwind. It’s not like the old days where each server had their one instance of Stormwind and that was it. There are multiple “shards” of Stormwind and you can be shifted around them without even knowing sometimes.

There are two methods to getting this pet. The first is to just do the hardcore camp. Don’t server hop, just sit and wait. It will spawn eventually (though it could take up to 12 hours!). The second method is to server hop. This isn’t so easy anymore since you very rarely get hopped unless the group you’re joining is also in Stormwind. However, sometimes logging out and back in will put you in a different shard/phase.

Server hopping is eventually how I got it. I joined a world boss group and it moved me to another realm where only 1 AFK Hunter was present. It did eventually spawn there (after being given some luck by a fellow Hunter who had just tamed Gon). It wasn’t all luck though as I did spend a lot of time camping before that.

Unlike the gryphons coming with Feathermane taming in a couple of months, the spectral gryphon does not fly. It stays on the ground and stabs the crap out stuff with its beak (seriously this thing looks like it’s having a seizure with Dire Frenzy attack speed).

Gon

Gon is the Horde’s answer to the Lost Spectral Gryphon. It’s one of the most striking spirit beasts yet. Pictures don’t do it complete justice as it also has a subtle animated component to its texture. The other cool thing about Gon is that while he is a Raptor, he is the size of a Devilsaur!

Instead of a feather, you’ll find a Spectral Eggshell inside the Warlock training hut in the Valley of Spirits (picture of egg location). Clicking it spawns Gon top of the pile of skulls, and like the feather the eggshell has a long respawn timer.

I frequently visited Orgrimmar, looking for my opportunity. I’d perch myself above and scout with Eagle Eye. Most of the time it was packed with Horde Hunters, so there was no point in landing and camping that way because I’d just be attacked. So I stalked from above, server hopping when I could (tip: sometimes simply relogging puts you on a different shard).

Yesterday night I decided to have one last look before logging off, so I took the boat to Ratchet and landed in my familiar spot. I used Eagle Eye and spotted 2 Horde Hunters sitting in the hut. Bummer. But then I took a closer look, and there was the egg shell. Why weren’t they clicking it? I didn’t know, but I flew down as fast as I could, clicked the egg, threw on a Cobra Shot (to help keep aggro), popped Aspect of the Turtle, and began my tame. Success! Gon almost died in the process, but he was mine. I disengaged out of the hut, feigned death, and flew away to view my prize.

If you’re easily frustrated, you may want to wait a while before attempting these spirit beasts. Camping and watching it be killed when it finally does spawn is not a fun experience. I witnessed one gryphon being killed before I got mine. There was a group of Horde Hunters flying just outside the flight master area, and they swooped in and blew it up right as it spawned. Not cool. I wish Blizzard had locked the pet to whoever clicked the item. I know such a thing is possible, as that is how Gara works — other Hunters can’t interfere with the Gara you spawn for taming. Maybe Blizzard wants the competition, who knows?

They’re awesome pets though, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I got them in my stable.

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Disclaimer: The next two pets are no longer available. 

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Dreamway Prowler Pup

It turns out that you could get into some class halls without being a member of that class. Well, at least you used to. I’m pretty sure it’s fixed now. It was accomplished using the Recuit-A-Friend summoning system, summoning in a Warlock who could then summon in other people. The Prowler Pup was originally revealed by Wamo at the Petopia forums.

It’s exactly what it looks like, a wolf pet that looks like a giant battle pet puppy. For some strange reason, Blizzard placed tameable versions of these in part of the Druid class hall. They should’ve known we’d get in there to tame it somehow!

Several groups were setup in the group finder to get Hunters inside the Druid hall. Then we all took turns taming the pups (only 1-2 spawned at a time). Most of this was organized in the WoW Secrets discord and Petopia forums. It was a pretty awesome example of the Hunter community coming together, not something I’ve seen on this scale since maybe the hunt for Gara on the WoD beta.

Unfortunately for puppy fans, these were hotfixed fairly quickly and made untameable. Then later on they applied another hotfix that automatically teleports any non-Druids out. The question now is do we get to keep our pups, or will Blizzard change their appearance? I can only recall two instances in the past where Blizzard changed the appearance of tamed pets — one was a worgen and the other was a patch of fire on the ground (yes, really). At one point you could tame baby direhorns and those were not removed, so I guess we’ll wait and see.

Update: Blizzard has transformed all the tamed puppies into regular wolves. RIP Puppies. 🙁

Personally I think the scaled up battle pets are mostly a fun gimmick. I’d like it better as a pet if it was about 50% of its current size. It’s not something I’m going to use as my main pet very often, but I’m glad to have it. If you’re wondering why I never made a post about them, it’s simply because I knew they’d be fixed quickly. By the time I got a post ready, it would’ve been fixed, and then I’d just disappoint people who saw the post and weren’t in time to get into one of the summoning groups. Trust me, I got enough flak for the Fenryr thing.

Emberspit Scorpion

The Emberspit Scorpion was found in a special Shaman-only version of the Firelands, which I take it was linked to one of their quests (but they could also revisit it after completing it). Emberspit Scorpions also exist at the Molten Front, but they do not look like this. Once again, a unique tameable was hidden away in a place Hunters could not get to.

By the time most of the summoning groups had formed for this one, Blizzard had already hotfixed the scorpion and made it untameable, but there was one very big caveat: Scorpions that had already been spawned prior to the hotfix could still be tamed.

So I made it inside the Shaman-only Firelands thanks to some folks at the WoW Secrets discord, but every scorpion available was untameable. There are a lot of scorpions here, so I checked them all. No luck. That’s when others started posting that scorpions were available to tame on their realms. All it took was leaving the original summon group, then getting invited by someone with pre-hotfix scorpions. I was lucky enough to find someone who invited me and I snagged one.

This is a really cool scorpion. It leaves fire trails when it moves and has those cool glowing claws and stinger. For those of you who want it, I hope Blizzard makes this look available somewhere else some day. There’s no reason this skin shouldn’t be tameable.

I like to think there are still some tameable scorpions out there, on some realm no one decided to look, but unfortunately those will disappear once the servers go through their weekly reset in a few days.