Monday (4 Mar) - The Spirit Tamers

Monday (4 Mar) - The Spirit Tamers

On Sunday I decided to give the Spirit Tamers a chance to embarrass Fist's Team. The quest is picked up on the balcony at the Shrine of Two Moons in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Quite a mouthful for one quest.

The quest offers four legendary Pandaren Spirits, all four of which must be defeated to complete the quest. The reward for beating all four is that one of those legendary spirits can be selected and added to the team.

The closest target is quite near the Shrine of Two Moons, so the team started there. The opponent was the Thundering Pandaren Spirit.

The team made four attempts with varying pets and were roundly routed and destroyed each time. The best attempt took two of the Spirit pets down, but the reality is that we didn't come close to winning any of the battles. Most frustrating was the pet Pandaren Earth Spirit. It usually took two pets to bring it down, and the one pet left could never defeat the two remaining.

I tried the recommended Critter pet (with a preference for snails), and chose the Shimmershell Snail for it's high health and solid power. The problem with this pet, apparently, is that it's too slow. The Earth Spirit starts out with an immobilization move, drops ooze, and then throws several really big, hard hitting rocks. With the snail locked and battered, it was pretty much over by then. I also tried it with the Perky Pug, but the game doggy wasn't faster than the Earth Spirit, either, and the results were pretty much the same. I guess I'm going to have to level a rabbit, rat, or roach of some kind to battle this thing.

The second pet is the Critter, Sludgy. I tried the Mechanical Fluxfire Feline first, but the cat died way too fast. Then I spent a couple of attempts using the traditional Beast with the Alpine Foxling. He was never at his best, though, since he had to face the Earth Spirit, which always survived the first battle. I may try my Cat next time, who is even faster than the Foxling, though not quite as powerful and with much less health. Cat had been napping and didn't want to be disturbed on the first battles.

The third pet is the Beast, Darnak. I used the Flying pet Sandy Petrel, who actually did pretty well, but the petrel spent most of the rounds battling the Earth Spirit or Sludgy instead of his intended target.

Several other pets were thrown in there, as well, but nothing really worked. I even leveled up a cockroach because it was a faster pet than what I was using, but the ugly little bug never got a chance to show what it could do.

I also have two new level 25s, a Cinder Kitten and Lil' Ragnaros. As much as I like them, neither one was really appropriate for the Spirit pet battles, as I would learn that elemental pets really aren't very good against the spirit tamers.

In fact, it turned out that none of my favorite pets were needed against the Spirit Tamers. Later in the day, Fist's team, using sage advice from Sin for each opponent, ran the table on all four of the Spirit Tamers and their legendary battle pets: Thundering, Whispering, Burning, and Flowing Spirit Tamers. That was cool.

As a possible bonus, the bugged quests are still bugged for me. I have two identical spirit tamer quests and both gave Fist's team credit for all four tamers in both quests. I had to cut things short, though, before I could turn in the quests, so I don't yet know if the team will get rewarded twice, or just once when I turn in the quests.

Just as an aside, for each pet battle I read up on the strategies in the Wowhead forums, and frankly, none of them worked anywhere near as well as the strategies Sin suggested. I really think Sin should post his strategies on Wowhead since they work so well!

I finally got a chance to turn in the quests. I made one small boo boo. I blindly followed the directional arrow back to the quest giver - unfortunately, the quest arrow took me to the Alliance quest giver, not the horde quest giver. Fist landed and was immediately set upon by two ugly alliance elites. Fist swears she would have killed them both, but she was already half dead before she realized her error. Ok, and if you believe that ... anyway, Fist died. It took some effort to find a place to rez that wouldn't get her killed again, but she managed. When she got to the right quest giver, the pair of completed quests was down to just the one. So no, I wasn't able to collect twice. Once was fine, though. Fist now has a Pandaren Fire Spirit pet in her stable. Only level 1, though, so it will take a bit before the spirit gets to be useful at level 25.

Finally (is this my second or third "finally?"), I heard that there was a special Tamer at the Darkmoon Faire, which had set up their tents this week. Fist pulled together a team with Lil'Deathwing, Lil'Ragnaros, and Fluxfire Feline. With no coaching from Sin, the team downed the Darkmoon Tamer on their first try.

And speaking of pets, we are starting work today (Monday) on extending our enclosed patio. We "hope" to be able to use it ourselves, but the reality is that it's mostly for the cats. The problem children will get a new playroom, and we get our house back. The work is going to disrupt the cats that sleep on the patio, and I had to figure out new arrangements. One unexpected glitch is that I thought our mama cat, Kiki, and her daughter, Dash, would get along with each other. Dash was happy for the company, but I found out last night that Kiki has completely disowned Dash and can't stand to be in the same room with her. Now I know where Dash gets her mammoth Yowl voice, as Kiki used it and her back claws as well to make her point with me. Sigh. When she's alone she's just the sweetest cat, too.

Patch 5.2 hits the servers on Tuesday. There are many changes to pet battles, and some of my favorites are going to be nerfed. Fist's team will get through that, I'm sure.

Oh, and I guess I have to report that Fist and Sin went at it again Monday night. It was a blast, despite the fact that Sin's team prevailed, winning six of nine matches, with one tie. The final two pets, both with one point of health left, simultaneously killed each other somehow. We graciously called the tie. Or maybe we just yelled, pointed fingers, and called each other cheaters. I forget. :P