Lynxr the Spirit Bear

The newest Spirit Beast, added in Patch 3.3.

Camping involved standing on a slope in Grizzly Hills with a nice view of the river. A view that got very, very old after 21 hours total. I made a friend, Nsom, another hunter who was camping with just as much dedication. The sad part was knowing that eventually the bear would spawn, but only one of us would get it. Many other hunters occasionally stopped by to camp for a while, but the two of us generally managed to hold the territory.. I figure nobody wanted to compete with those odds, and I don't blame them. Camping is exhausting... for the most part, I try to avoid going AFK or getting too involved with any other project. With that sort of competition, I need to be constantly alert so when the beast spawns, I can be the first one to tag and tame it. I don't want some other hunter ninjaing it away from me. So I patrol the area, and watch constantly, and hope.

We camped for a whole day, 12 hours straight... and then the World Server crashed. We're pretty sure this reset her spawn timer, and we had to start all over. Nsom went to bed around 11, and I passed out around 2 a.m. server time. My boyfriend stayed up all night watching for me, ready to tag the bear and call my cell phone if she spawned. I got out of bed a couple times in the middle of the night to check in. No bear.

And here's how the story goes... 6:30 a.m. server time. I'm in bed. My boyfriend is still camping the spot when Nsom logs back on. My boyfriend says he's reached his limit, he's going to bed, Nsom can have the spot. ... Just then, the bear spawns.

Nsom tames the bear. I roll out of bed and log on just as she finishes taming. I am very happy for her, but also sad, as this means my personal hell must continue. Truly though, I'm glad she got the bear. She wanted it just as bad as I did, and she camped for just as long. I'm happy she got it, and not someone else.

I'm conflicted. I've wasted an entire day of my life hunting this sparkly pixel bear. I missed out on having fun with my friends running the new 5-mans last night, because I was scared that if I left, the bear would spawn and my efforts would be wasted. I'm exhausted, because I've been getting very little sleep, and even when I do sleep, it's not restful... I toss and turn, I wonder if I'm missing the bear, and when I do fall asleep, I dream about taming the damn thing. Seriously, that first night, I had a very vivid nightmare that I was camping with 20+ other hunters, and the bear finally spawned, and was accidentally killed by hunters competing to tag it. Geeze. The whole thing starts to make me feel defeated and ill. I seriously consider giving up.

But now I know when she last spawned, and info from other tamers on the internet suggests she probably has about a 12-hour respawn timer. That means I should check back around 6:30 p.m. server time. That's good, at least I can rest a bit during the day. I go to work/school, come home. Log on, check the spot, nothing... of course, I'm not expecting her for several more hours. Plenty of time for a much-needed nap. I crawl into bed and fall asleep around 2:00 server time. I wake up at 3:00 and log back on. Still not expecting to see the bear for another 3 hours or so.

But THERE SHE IS. RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. I panic. I attack, I tag her. I abandon my current pet, drop a frost trap, chug a Potion of Speed, and start to Tame. She's mine. I'm shaking, my heart is pounding, and of course I'm totally elated. And then relieved. And now... I'm kinda numb. But in the happy sort of way.

She's the second Spirit Bear tamed on Malfurion. I'm so happy that Nsom and I both had our dedication (stubborness? obsession?) rewarded with this beautiful pet. I now have all four Spirit Beasts: Loque'nahak, Gondria, Skoll, and Arcturis. And my fifth stable slot will forever belong to my long-time companion, Roflz the black lion.

I named the bear Lynxr. Because she's totally a druid bear, obviously. Looks like a druid, and she even Moonfires! I like to think it's the ghost of Lynxr come back to haunt me.

Thank you: Nsom, for being good company during our time of mutual waiting and torment. Thul, for coming to help me camp during my brief AFKs and for staying up all night bear watching. My guildies, for listening to me cry and whine and rant in chat, and for their encouragement. Nsom's guildies, for stopping by to provide moral support. The whole experience could have been a lot worse. :)

Lynxr = Sylvyr

It's been too long since I updated!

Lynxr the Tauren druid is no more. Now I have Sylvyr the Night Elf druid on Thorium Brotherhood. I'm finally able to enjoy collecting some pretty ground mounts for her. I'm working on rep with Wintersaber Trainers, and I plan to solo H Sethekk Halls now and then in hopes of snagging a Raven Lord mount.

I'm not doing any serious raiding with her, just having fun hanging out with my friends on Tho Bro, running 5-mans and occasional Old World raids. We did Molten Core a few days ago, and it was fun to finally see Ragnaros!

Patch 3.3 is here, which means I got a Core Hound Pup, the new Albino Snake and Calico Cat, and I'm working toward my Perky Pug. I hate pugs.. the group, not the dog.. but so far the new dungeon finder is making the process relatively painless.

When the full moon rises...

Werewolves, Sunwell, Art

Quite the day for Jagwyr! I transferred her to an RP server (Wyrmrest Accord) because I've always thought of her as an RP character in my brain, so I decided to give it a try.

Today, Jagwyr tamed a werewolf (worgen). His name is Jacob. Chances are good that Blizz will nerf him back to a regular worg, but in the mean time, isn't he awesomesauce? (Details about how Hunters are currently capable of taming this creature are available at http://maniasarcania.com/)

Also, today Jagwyr cleared Sunwell Plateau! I went with a very friendly and fun group of people that reguarly does Old World/BC raids to pick up pretty, shiny RP gear. So there's Jag and Roflz (now "Raphel" for RP's sake) in front of the new Sunwell, having slain Kil'jaeden.

And finally, Jevand of Moon Guard (http://jevand-moon-guard.deviantart.com/) was offering some free character portraits, and she drew the lovely art of Jag. Thank you, Jevand! <3

First Wish

I have every pet available within the game on US servers (this excludes pets that require $ to acquire, such as TCG/Blizzcon/CE pets).

http://www.warcraftpets.com/account/profile.asp?user=lynxr#col

*giddy* :D

And a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to all my WoW Cave buddies... so many of you have helped me farm for these critters, tolerated all my whining and excited screeching and babbling about them... you are truly the best of friends and I am so grateful. :)

Score

Mr. Pinchy: 514
Lynxr: 0

Lynxr vs. Pinchy

I was prepared to spend the next two weeks farming Ahune for the Scorchling. I remembered from last year that the drop rate was horrible... we killed him a lot and never saw the pet drop. My master plan was to have my friend park her warlock in Slave Pens, and chain-summon everyone I know and all their alts in every day to get as many attempts as possible. If that failed, I would hit Trade/General channels and search for strangers to bribe with lots of gold for their summons.

Well, Thulgasta and I popped into Heroic Slave Pens just to see if we could duo Ahune... first attempt... pet drops! Joy! Sweet boyfriend insisted that I take the pet. <3>

THIS MEANS... dum dum dum...

Mr. Pinchy, IT'S ON. I am coming for you. Resistance is futile.

Save the Bigglesworth!

Last week, after months of searching, I finally spotted this elusive feline in its natural habitat! No, not the Spirit Beast. The Siamese. I was lucky enough to capture this extremely rare specimen on film. The Bigglesworth is an incredibly endangered species, constantly threatened by poachers who hunt it for sport. Never before have I stepped inside Naxxramas and witnessed a living Bigglesworth. It was truly a sight to behold. Please, support your local Bigglesworth Conservation organization. Don't kill kitties.

Too much raid, not enough kitties

Last week was Phasers' final week in Naxx 25. We've officially moved on to Ulduar full time. Luckily, in our very last encounter with Kel'Thuzad, he dropped my T7 helm... and I got it! This makes Phasers my first character to ever complete a full set of tier gear, all 5 pieces.

Naturally, we ran VoA immediately afterward and my T8 gloves dropped. And so I was wearing a complete tier set for all of about 45 minutes. Go figure. :)

Yesterday I scored the fantastic Living Flame trinket off Razorscale. Goodbye, Mark of the War Prisoner! This upgrade earned Phasers the "Epic" achievement.

Ulduar is hard. We've gotten pretty good at killing Loot Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT. Kologarn was a punk. We wiped on him... oh... 10 times? tonight before finally getting him down. And then we danced on his face. Take that, you big fist-smashing eye-beam-lasering poo head...

Red Drake

Today Jagwyr reached Exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord, and finally she has her Red Drake! Hmm, now he just needs a name...

Maly 25 Cleared

Risen from the Ashes cleared Malygos 25 on Saturday. There's Phasers with Alexstraza!

I died during the early moments of Phase 3 when I didn't get my shield up in time and Maly exploded me.

The most amazing ride...

The most wonderful glitch in the history of WoW. I rode my tiger mount through the portal from Dalaran to Org... and when I arrived in Org, Kitteh was there alongside me. I did a double-take, because at first when I saw her transulcent glow, I figured that a different hunter with the same pet had gone through the portal at the same time I did. But no, that's me, on my mount... with my pet running alongside.

We went for a fantastic ride together. I would be in complete heaven if only Blizz made it possible for hunter pets to stay out while mounted. Both my amazing tigers at once... it was beautiful!

Kitteh Kitteh

Ohai now has a beautiful new Spirit Beast friend. Her name is Kitteh. :)

42!

At long last, my quest is complete! Today I made the Warcraftpets.com Top 50 Collections list. I picked up Willy and Egbert, which moved me from 91 pets up to 93 and earned me a spot on the list! #42, baby!

(Note... there are currently over 40,200 player collections on warcraftpets.com. Which gives an idea of the achievement that is being on the Top 50 list. :)

O hai!

3 days ago... Jag dings 76! I head straight for Sholazar. Might as well keep an eye out for Loque'nahak, the fabled and wondrous Spirit Beast, while I'm leveling. But I'm not gonna camp him... nope... I just install an addon to track rare elites, and go about my business. I still can't fly, and checking the spawn points on my ground mount just isn't gonna cut it. Not for a cat that's rumored to spawn every 6-10 hours, shares a timer with other elites in the zone, has 6 different spawn points, and is notoriously camped by hunters. ... Riiiiight ... of course, once I'm out there, I can't help myself. It's like I have some kind of compulsion. I start doing laps around Sholazar on my tiger, hitting the spawn points. I continue to quest.. but anytime I'm anywhere near ("near") a spawn point, I divert to check it. I nearly have a heart attack because the first time I approached I spawn point, my addon fired off like crazy... LOQUE FOUND... but it can't distinguish between the wild animal or a tamed hunter pet, and to my horrible disappointment, this one was tamed. It was still named the default "Spirit Beast," and the hunter was running around the spawn point slaughtering random gorillas, so I figured I had just missed my chance. Later, I notice the pet is level 80, which means it wasn't tamed anytime recently... and this hunter seems to practically LIVE in Sholazar killing gorillas. Oh well. Quest, quest, quest... the sooner I get to 77, the sooner I can start flying between spawn points. That night, I dream about searching for Loque. In my head, I circle around and around and around the basin in my dreams... I camp the spawn points... I search and search, nothing.

2 days ago... Jag dings 77! I can fly! Around and around I go, several times throughout the day, but I'm too busy to spend a ton of time at it. I just check now and again, knowing that probably won't be good enough to actually catch him, but what the heck. Last night, I dream of hunting Loque again, but in this dream, I find and tame him easily. I wake up sad, knowing that it was a dream.

Today... I'm busy most of the day. I stop home for a brief time this afternoon. I don't have long, but what the heck, I log in and fly around the basin once. Then I dawdle near one of the spawn points while I do other things and get ready to leave, glancing at the screen occasionally. ... BAM. What's that white thing down there by the gorillas? OMG, it's a cat. OMG, it's Loque. Heart is racing, panic, dizzy. Execute series of moves I've read about and memorized... shoot to tag, Esc to stop shooting, drop Freeze trap, abandon pet, ... tame? where's the tame button? I put it front and center on my action bar, right next to the trap, ready to go... But I'm panicing so bad that I can't find it. OH, there it is! Tame, tame, tame... Trap breaks before I'm done, Loque gets a few good swings at me, and then he's MINE. <3

I was figuring this would take at least several days/dozens of hours of dedicated camping. Some hunters have been at it for weeks, or longer. Jag just has all the luck with cats! The cats find her.

His name is Ohai.

Phasers to maximum!

Phasers got her Bronze Drake from timed Heroic CoS - his name is Worf. She also earned her Ambassador title! She maxed out mining and leveled up Engineering to get her awesome goggles, as well as Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling, which I farmed up from Gnomer the first day after the patch. Ambassador Phasers has been raiding Naxx and OS 25 on a regular basis with a raid alliance, and is decked out with T7.5 gear.

Lynxr has been clearing Naxx 10 with WoWCave. I've been hitting the Argent Tournament dailies hard with both characters, since there are many new pets to be had!

Mojo

MOJO! I have the world's most awesome friends. Not only did they come to Zul'Aman to help Thul and I bang the gong for entry, but they stuck around and helped us clear the whole place. A bunch of us got the Zul'Aman Achievement.
And I netted 10 Hex Sticks.
The 9th stick brought forth my Mojo. <3

Lil' Game Hunter

Lynxr earned the "Lil' Game Hunter" Achievement today for having 75 vanity pets. The reward is this cute little fawn. I'm calling her Bambi.

Rat!

YEAH! Lynxr just fished up her Giant Sewer Rat from the sewers of Dalaran! And earned the "I Smell A Giant Rat!" Achievement.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I was so excited to find them in Dalaran! I took my new rat to meet them. My new rat's name is Splinter. I'd love to see Baro try and whack this rat with his hammer... not only is he large enough to knock you over and then chew off your face, but he also knows kung fu!

Better than average luck... only took me about 500 casts, although it felt like forever. This is Lynxr's 74th minipet. I'll be hunting for the Mechanical Chicken over the next few days so I can nab that new pet Achievement and the adorable fawn.

Kirin Tor Familiar

I win! "Higher Learning" and the Kirin Tor Familiar are mine. I can stop living my life in 3 min/3 hour blocks of time.

This was a fun achievement to do. Maybe because it appeals to the obsessive part of my personality. I began my quest to become a scholar of the magical arts five days ago. I followed the wonderful guide on warcraftpets.com to learn the book spawn locations and how to time the spawns. I did a mixture of camping and pathing though the city, trying to gather as much info on spawn times as possible, and then camping when I knew the schedules.

The achievement was fun because I made a lot of new friends, chatted with a lot of random people. Misery loves company, right? The spawn points were almost never lonely. I made a few Alliance buddies--a cute Gnome and a less-cute Dwarf--and we exchanged many /dance, /hug, /sigh, /cry, and /comfort over the days. I met several helpful Hordies, with whom I exchanged information about spawn times, altered to books that I saw spawn ("get to Ledgermain Lounge upstairs NOW! BOOK!"), shared tips, and celebrated our victories. All in all, it was a much more interesting way to farm a vanity pet than to spend endless hours fishing or slaughtering mobs.

My goal is to have 75 vanity pets on Lynxr before the new patch hits. There will be a new Achievement with the patch--75 vanity pets wins you an adorable baby deer. I need 4 more pets. They will most likely be the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, Mechanical Chicken, Mechanical Squirrel, and Tickbird Hatchling... unless I get really lucky and manage to fish up that Giant Sewer Rat, or Muckbreath, or Mr. Pinchy. My original plan was to NOT collect any of the mechanical minipets, and a lot of the non-animal-like ones (like the Christmas gnome helpers, the ghostly skull..), but I've had to sacrifice my standards in order to ensure that I'll be getting my little fawn on patch day.

Phoenix

A few of Lynxr's most recent Achievements. She earned "Critter Gitter" (which she prompty followed with "Friend or Fowl?".. mwuaha), as well as "For The Horde!" which earned her a black bear to ride on.

Most importantly, she got the Phoenix Hatchling that she's been after since Magister's Terrace was first released. It was getting a bit depressing, the number of times we've killed Kael and never seen it drop... Once we hit 80, Thulgasta and I began 2-manning MrT on a near-daily basis for several days. We got into a rhythm and were able to clear the place in about 25 mins. Finally, Kael dropped my wonderful flamey baby bird! This is one of my favorite pets, she's just so lovely.

Lynxr Dings 80

Lynxr dinged 80! Thulgasta, my photographer, lagged out right as I engaged the boss... this was a problem because if I killed him, I wouldn't get a ding shot, and if I ran away, he would eat the Troll. So I kited him around the cave for a good 5 minutes while Thul rebooted his computer. Entangling Roots ftw. :)

Lynxr dinged 80 on December 5, 2008.