Cat Vs Spirit Beast

Daragh was kind enough to send us this a few weeks ago. It's a bit outdated but we LOVE to publish our readers mail. Hey, better late than never heh?

So here's something that is going to put a downer on all us spirit beast hunters. I always feel proud strolling the streets of Dalaran or Stormwind with my spirit beast and have people stop and stare at it but alas this remains pure vanity...

I noticed something the other night that scared me a little. I was in Icecrown doing the argent crusade daily with the spirit beast and as always I kept a close eye on my recount DPS; now I always use the same shot rotation. I decided to go back and come out again with my level 79 cat and do the same thing. So here I am with a lvl 79 cat and after resetting recount, I notice I am doing more DPS with the cat than with the 80 spirit beast...

Can this be true I ask myself ? so I decide to level up the cat to 80 and once that was done, I headed back to Darnassus and the heroic training dummy. I set the cat and spirit beast up with the exact same talents and I took to the dummy using only hunter's mark and aspect of the dragonhawk with auto shot and no other shots...

Now irrespective of my gear, I took down some figures. During a period of 3mins each, with the cat I recorded a DPS of 840 (simple autoshot) and then with the spirit beast I recorded a DPS of 732. Now this is due to the fact that spirit strike does not benefit from our hit rating seeing as how it's a spell based attack and hot physical.

So in short I decided to stable Loque until patch 3.1 is released and the bugs on spell hit are fixed. Normally the patch promises the spirit beast being on equal par to a devilsaur so lets hope they stick to their word.

However prior to patch 3.1, no sincere BM hunter can afford to take a spirit beast on a raid or an instance, knowing full well that they can get more DPS from a simple cat and probably insane DPS from a Devilsaur...

We agree. But may not just been a matter of vanity. For us is the thrill of getting what we think it's the most amazing, beautifull, mystic pet in the game.

Spirit beast FTW!

The New Spirit Beast

We have seen it before but our friend Chaaron was kind enough to send us her own pic of it.

Hello My Friend!

Have you seen Gondria the new Sabertooth Spirit Beast? He is currently prowling on the PTR server and I hope he goes live so I can add him to my stable!

It's all a matter of taste, but we'll stick with old good Loque'nahak. We think it's waaaaaaaaaay cooler.

Thanks for the pic and the heads up, Chaaron.

Daragh's Hunt

We LOVE Loque'nahak hunting stories. How can we NOT love them? Other fellow hunters pursue the ultimate challenge of finding and taming this amazing pet and they honor us with their tales. Here is Daragh's story:

A hunter born under the boughs of Aldrassil searches for his companion amongst the rarest of beasts in Azeroth. After learning the ways of the hunter and how to keep an animal faithful to you, I ventured into the Darkshores in search of the ghostsabers, the spirits of the great cats that were lost due to the great sundering. Lore has it that the spirit is spawned from figurines and in the ruins of a night elf city, I found Maya, my ghostsaber that would guide me through my travels from Azeroth to the outlands and back to the forsaken lands of Northrend... On my travels I picked up Humar the pridelord and Rakshiri the white tiger in Winterspring but Maya stayed by my side as my main companion until...

The legends of Loque'NaHak were whispered to every battleworn hunter in the northrend... Ofcourse the legends mentioned of very rare appearances and a certain level required to try and tame the spirit beast. So begins the tale of the hunt for Loque'NaHak.

With Maya stabled, this hunter set out to find the spirit beast which proved to be the most evasive pet in the history of warcraft. 2 months of endless hunting, camping, circling and not a sighting, nor a whisper... two months of leaving the basin and returning on a daily basis and nothing...

Until one late evening a fellow hunter mentioned the downing of a trophy kill, the almighty King Krush and seeing as how rumour has it that the King, Loque and a estranged bird never show up together but in succession, every beastial instinct in me felt the arrival of Loque in the basin...

I needed to be prepared, so 12 hours later I came back to the basin with an eagle to hunt the spirit beast that evaded me for 2 months. I decided that this hunt had to be different from the others, this hunt had to be done from the skies and movement was the key, never stopping, simply circling in a well planned manner with one goal in mind. Loque'NaHak...

So high above the tree canopies of the basin flew the hunter on his green proto drake avidly scanning every piece of grass and rock... when all of a sudden besides Bittertide lake and under the boughs of the lush green trees lurked the spirit beast, white as winter snows and with a muzzle that glowed with a blue of the spirit world...

Gracefully landing on his feet, the hunter sent his eagle to taunt the beast and keep him busy, while he cunningly laid a trap under his feet. Then with a sudden command he dismissed his eagle and the beast finding no target in front of it turned it's rage towards it's new target. With eyes glowing a fierce blue, it cut through the air faster than a hunter's arrow to be caught in midflight by a block of ice. Yes it was far too late... The might Loque'NaHak had been rused into a trap. Where the hunter now forced his dominion over it and where the hunter proved his hardend training over the years would come to be invaluable...

During the endless tame, all the time spent hunting and all the time spent reading similar lore was coming to fruition. During those endless seconds the beast stared at the hunter and even as it's spirit fought against the will of the hunter, a pact was being formed between them, to serve each other to the best of their capacities and to find a common strength in their weeknesses... during those endless seconds where both master and beast were fragile and exposed to the dangers of the north, strength and friendship was born.

The Hunter and Loque'NaHak walked away from the lake in silence, each pondering about the adventures and dangers that lay ahead...

To my fellow hunters, the hunt never ends until the beast is aquired, such is the way of the hunter...

May your patience be your virtue and find hope in your frustrations because in the end you will prevail

Daragh

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Daragh, and congratulations for your well succeeded hunt. Walk with the Earth Mother. And good huntering!

Yet Another Loque'nahak Story

Chaaron was kind enough to send us another story of Loque'nahak.

I have another Loque story and this one seems to repeat itself in similar forms.

I was in Sholazar Basin the other day to do some leather farming. I went to the area where the Hardknuckles are located and landed on my drake but did not dismiss my mount.

I immediately received a whisper saying "I just skinned him". I reply "Skinned who?". "The rare you're obviously looking for"

At this point I dismissed my mount and here comes my Beast, faithfully trotting up to my side. I sent him to attack the hardknuckle closest to my tormentor and received more whispers - "oh, I see you have him. I was j/k. How's his dps? Is he really worth it?

Another random whisper - "Is that the Spirit Beast?". Followed by "Where did you get that pet?"

Sometimes I politely respond with as much information as I know and will help polite hunters find the Beast. Other times, fellow Horde are just plain rude to me for no reason!

One Orc accused me of being a liar and said "I've never seen that cat in the area, funny you claim to have tamed it there." My response - "He's not a cat, he's a Beast, go google Loque,nahak on the internet."

I love playing with my Beast, his dps is fine for the Heroics I run and my guild is happy. As long as we are having fun, that is really all we care about.

Anything like this happen to you?

Fortunately, we haven't any rude comments about we stating we have Loque. We do get a lot of whispers but, funny enough, most of them are when we are in Orgrimmar. When in Dalaran the whisper count drops to zero.

This is SO Right

"What is so right?", you may ask. Well, a female, Blood Elf, hunter with Loque'nahak as her pet is. And she reads our blog too!

Chaaron sent us her story on the hunt for Loque. Here it is:

I've spent every day since the first week of December standing in the same spot in SB. I saw Loque dead once, skinned him and received the cloak. Nice trophy but I'd rather have the pet!

I've spent up to 6 hours at a time in the same spot over the past several weeks. I log out every night in SB, in the same spot.

Jan 29 was my lucky day! I was running some errands around town and swung by Baja Fresh for some lunch. Got home, unwrapped my burrito, took a big bite and logged in to the game.

I logged in to Aerie Peak at 4:58 pm. I noticed my mini map first and a yellow dot where there isn't normally a yellow dot. I knew it was Loque. I didn't see him though! I hit my macro and sure enough, Loque was targeted! I actually tossed the burrito I was holding onto the table, scattering black beans and tried to stay calm. Loque was walking underneath me as I stood on a small hill (71,72).

I was so excited I forgot what to do! Oh yeah.... abandon pet, abandon pet! I hit Loque with an ice trap and a gorilla started beating on me. I abandoned my tiger as Loque broke free of his ice trap. He too started hitting me but I had a tame on him. I watched my health drop as my tame wound down. Oh dear, was it all about to go horribly wrong?

And then a Death Knight came down from the skies. Was he going to kill my treasure? Then an Ally hunter swooped down, the same Ally hunter whom had been harassing me for days with his antics but it was all over. Loque was mine ! First thing I did was send him after that Hardknuckle! Next I spammed my guild with an all caps "LOQUE IS MINE"!

I fed the Beast, posed for pictures and then renamed him, "Loki". I thought I had a solid plan, knew exactly what steps to take when I finally spotted the Beast - let me tell you I didn't remember not one step of my plan! It happened so fast and my heart was pounding so hard!

I renamed him soon after, I felt he deserved a strong name with meaning. He is now named "Matthiessen" in honor of Peter Matthiessen, the author who spent two months tracking the elusive Snow Leopard in the Himalayas.

My advice for hunters still hoping - it WILL happen to you also, pick one spawn point and stay there. This was the third time Loque was sighted at this spot at around 5:00 pm. Be patient and you shall be rewarded!

I am a believer in karma so now whenever I attempt to obtain a rare item (such as the reins of the ravenlord mount) I go to Baja Fresh for lunch! It hasn't worked again but no harm in trying!

Thanks for all of the stories you've shared.

Thank you too for your story, Chaaron.

You have a story too? Email us at nadva.hunter at gmail dot com with a nice screenshot and we'll post it here!

Satanja Haz0rs Da Spirit Beast

Satanja just sent us this screenshot of her and lovely Loque. Congrats are in order! E-mail us your story for our readers to check out!

The Hunt for Loque'nahak

I know I have written a very small description of my hunt for Loque'nahak and I believe other hunters trying to tame should have as much information as possible from those getting him. So here it goes:

Once we hit 76, we ran to the Sholazar Basin. We had read that it would be much more easier if you hit 77 and get Cold Weather Flying but we thought we should give it a try anyway.

We knew the 3 confirmed spawn locations, made our "/tar Loque" macro, and we ran up North for the first position. We ran across the Basin for about thirty minutes and gave up. Trying to out-run mobs and getting stunned now and then just didn't cut it. It was no way to try and get us the new amazing pet.

So we started questing in the area. Who knows? Maybe we got lucky and spotted it. No dice, though. We soon hit 77 and it was time for us to get back on the air (how we missed it!). So we hearthed to Dalaran (yes we know there's a NPC that teaches you Cold Weather Flying in Sholazar Basin - we didn't realized it before), learned the skill and flew back to Sholazar, where we restarted our "round-the Basin" flight pattern. We circled it for over an hour before we got tired - it was a long hunting session - and went to bed.

The day after (actually the next evening) we went back to our huntering and did another hour of flying around. We found a list with 6-7 possible spawn points and flew over them over and over until we got really tired of it and decided to do a few more quests and maybe more circling around flight later on. One of the quests we did was near The Lifeblood Pillar and was to be delivered at Nesingwary Base Camp. Instead of taking the short route (a straight line) we thought "heh, why not go on a circle and see if we get lucky". So we flew a semi-circle on the south part of the zone, passing through The Skyreach Pillar all the way to the West and from there we would go to the Base Camp.

We spammed our macro over the areas where we found yellow dots on my minimap and that we knew were possible spawn points for Loque'nahak. On the area Soutwest of the Base Camp, POW! We targeted someting! OMG we couldn't believe it! Our heart started pounding, we felt the rush of adrenaline which made our mouths taste like metal. We immediatly spotted him and looked around to see if there was anyone else nearby that could steal him from us.

We landed as fast as we could and then dismounted. And mounted again!!! OH NO! Our mount/dismount macro has a bug we didn't bother to fix yet which causes us to mount on my land mount as soon as we dismount! "This can't be happening!", we thought. We calmed down, hit the mount/dismount macro again and moved a couple of steps to prevent the remount, abandoned our wasp, laid the freezing trap and started the tame. On that moment we realized he was going to be ours!

As soon as the taming ended, we mounted and went up the hills on the West side of the Basin. We were hysterical. Our hands were shaking and we immediately started spamming our guild chat. A couple of hunters there started to plot a way to steal it from us but we think he loves us the most!

We realize a lot of people out there have been tracking him for days, even weeks. We can say we very, very lucky for spotting him, on a lucky fly-by, on the second day of our hunt for Loque'nahak.

Our New Companion: Loque'nahak

Oh yeah, baybeeee. Laser-kitty is ours. TEH pet is now OUR pet. Loque'nahak is our new companion.

I spent a few hours circling around Sholazar Basin with the sole purpose of grabbing him. Tired of going 'round and 'round we decided to do a few quests and get some more XP. All of the sudden we had this urge to do just one circuit before delivering out quests.

I spammed my "/tar Loque" macro a couple of times in the area Southwest of the Base Camp and BANG! We hit something. My heart wanted to jump out of my chest. My hands started shaking a bit and we eye-balled it, landed, got rid of our Wasp (we need to get another of those nasty buggers, though - WE LOVE THEM), laid a trap and started the tame. A few seconds later Loque'nahak was ours!

You wouldn't believe the rush...

HE. IS. A. BEAUTY. GO GET HIM!!!