04-03-2005, 11:22 AM
Since the hunter party is aiming for bears as pets, I thought it would be cool to get mangeclaw as mine. Now mangeclaw is a lvl 11 white bear over in the Loch Modan/Iron Forge area. So this meant quite the trek for a lvl 11 orc hunter. I asked in guild chat what the best route to take was, but nobody really gave any suggestions. All they did was poke fun and say how long of a trip it would be and that it would involve many deaths. So this made me think that it might be fun to take some shots of the trip and write about it here.
I started out by taming a scorpid (which comes with claw 2), because I knew that I really needed a temporary pet to help me on the trip over to mangeclaw. Guild chat suggested the name fufu for it and so fufu the wonder scorpid was born. I also killed some boars with fufu which served several purposes. It got me some meat so that I could keep fufu happy, gave me time to allow fufu to gain some training points so she (yes, fufu is a she) could learn growl 2, and taught me claw 2. So after all the preperations were done, we headed over to take the zepellin to UnderCity.
From there we then headed south. I was a little worried about making my way from Silverpine to Hillsbrad. There are alot of dalaran mages and such running around between those two areas. Surprising enough, I had no trouble here. The hunter's tracking ability did help alot both here and through the rest of the journey.
Before I knew it, I was in Hillsbrad. This is where I encountered my first problem. I was following the road and noticed on my map that there was an animal on each side of it up ahead. To the north was a bear and to the south a spider. I waited a little while to let them walk apart some then made a run for it between them. I thought they were far enough apart that I could make it through without aggroing them. Unfortunately that was not the case. I ended up aggroing both of them which was just too much for me to survive. If I was doing it again I would either wait longer, attempt to go around, or (and this is the most likely option) send my pet to attack the spider and run by it while it was distracted. This death bothers me a little just because it was one that I could have avoided.
So I found myself in the graveyard at Tauren Mill. Figured I might as well rez at the spirit. Being so young, the rez sickness only lasted 44 seconds so it was no real bother to me. I soon was on my way south and then off towards Arathi. On the way I did aggro a spider, but telling my pet to attack it while I ran on let me survive that encounter. Fufu died during that fight, but she was brought back not long after. I believe I ended up using this technically once or twice more while travelling through Arathi. None of it was really tough though. Near Thandol Spann a lvl 60 troll came by to tell me that this was a 30+ area. I told him that I knew and that I was on my way to tame mangeclaw. The thought of asking him to escort me did occur to me, but I didn't really consider it too heavily. What would be the fun in doing things that way?
So my journey continued on to the south. I picked up a young wetlands croc aggro sometime during the trip, but otherwise it was pretty uneventful. Earlier in guild chat somebody had said that the Dun Algaz dwarves would mess me up. It was quickly approaching time to find out about this. I ran up the tunnel and then on up to the next one. This is where I discovered something I hadn't expected. The orcs in Dun Algaz are hostile to the horde too. I had gone into things expecting them to be friendly and so not cause a problem. Them being hostile made things much tougher. So as I came out of the second tunnel, I hugged the left wall so that I wouldn't attract attention from the orc camp to the right. Unfortunately I didn't spot an orc scout up a hill on the left with me. Having him attacking me gave me no real time to decide on what to do. I told fufu to attack him then dashed off toward the next tunnel. This is where I encountered a dwarven patrol who quickly dispatched me.
You can see the dwarf who killed me in that shot and also the orc up the hill. I basically was trapped between the two with nowhere to go. I don't really feel too bad about this death though, because it is a tough area to get through. My gut tells me that it is possible to do. I think that if one stayed on the road they probably wouldn't aggro any of the orcs which would leave you just having to deal with the dwarf (and the one at the end of the tunnel since I'm assuming he would attack as well). I see two basic options for getting past the dwarves. The first would be to let the patrol get as close to the wetlands as it will and then have fufu attack and run past during the fight. With any luck the patrol would break off its chase before I reached the dwarf at the end of the tunnel. Its a bit risky though because I don't really know if it would break off or not. The other option would be to keep my distance and let him walk back down the tunnel. I think he continues on a ways past it. So I could then have fufu attack the dwarf at the end of the tunnel while I run off to the left. I would have to watch out for various other mobs, but the ones in Loch Modan are roughly the same level as me and so aren't that tough to avoid. I think this option probably would have worked, but it does rely on the fact that the patrol does actually go a bit past the end of the tunnel which I haven't verfied.
Since rezzing at the graveyard worked so well in Hillsbrad, I figured I would do the same thing here. I was a little worried about how close I was to the Alliance town, but figured it would be alright. So I rezed and looked around while my health went back up to full and the sickness wore off. I then noticed a patrol coming towards me on the road. I didn't get away before he aggroed me and thought for sure I was going to die again. Somehow I managed to run far enough away that he broke off his chase. I was now off the road and had to watch for beasts again, but at least I could actually win a fight with those. So I found a nice quiet spot and rezzed fufu again. We then headed back north to the next tunnel.
There was no way for me to get into this tunnel without aggroing the dwarf at the start of it. So I did what was now becoming standard practice. I sent fufu the wonder scorpid in to engage him while I ran up the tunnel. The dwarf broke off pursuit a little before I reached the end of it which tells me that if you timed it right you could probably get the patrol earlier to break off before aggroing the other dwarf. One thing that had me a little worried though was that attacking that dwarf made me PvP enabled. So any Alliance I ran into would be a threat. I also hadn't brought fufu back yet and so I could have been in a bit of a bind if any Alliance were around. Luckily there weren't any at that point and so I could go off to the side and bring fufu back. I then started making my way over to where mangeclaw is, picking up one more dwarven aggro in the process. As I was coming up on mangeclaw's area I noticed a human dot ahead on my map and so gave it a quick glance and then ducked off to the side. There was a lvl 10 mage up killing mangeclaw. Now I figured that as a lvl 11 hunter, I could probably take the mage. Fufu was still dead from the last aggro though and I was worried that I would draw too much attention to myself if the mage saw me and I had to kill him. So I ran off to the side and hid up the hill for abit. While there I rezzed fufu once more. Once the area was nice and clear I went down and got my first good look at mangeclaw himself. I then abandoned fufu (noo! not fufu!) so that I could tame mangeclaw.
I figured it would be a pretty simple taming process. We were equal level, but I wasn't too worried. So I went in and gave it a shot. The taming process got about half done when mangelcaw decided to knock me down, which stopped the process. So I then turned and ran, not wanting to fight him with me at half health by this point and also not wanting to wait for him to respawn. One good thing though was that my PvP tag wore off after that fight and so at least I didn't have to worry about Alliance players bothering me too much. It took two more tries before I managed to have a fight where he didn't knock me down. Eventually the taming succeeded though and now I am the proud owner of a white bear pet.
Overall the journey wasn't really all that tough despite all the comments other Lurkers made at the start. I think it would be possible to do it without dieing at all, but its hard to tell for sure.
So now there is only one question remaining: what to name him? Any suggestions? : )
I started out by taming a scorpid (which comes with claw 2), because I knew that I really needed a temporary pet to help me on the trip over to mangeclaw. Guild chat suggested the name fufu for it and so fufu the wonder scorpid was born. I also killed some boars with fufu which served several purposes. It got me some meat so that I could keep fufu happy, gave me time to allow fufu to gain some training points so she (yes, fufu is a she) could learn growl 2, and taught me claw 2. So after all the preperations were done, we headed over to take the zepellin to UnderCity.
From there we then headed south. I was a little worried about making my way from Silverpine to Hillsbrad. There are alot of dalaran mages and such running around between those two areas. Surprising enough, I had no trouble here. The hunter's tracking ability did help alot both here and through the rest of the journey.
Before I knew it, I was in Hillsbrad. This is where I encountered my first problem. I was following the road and noticed on my map that there was an animal on each side of it up ahead. To the north was a bear and to the south a spider. I waited a little while to let them walk apart some then made a run for it between them. I thought they were far enough apart that I could make it through without aggroing them. Unfortunately that was not the case. I ended up aggroing both of them which was just too much for me to survive. If I was doing it again I would either wait longer, attempt to go around, or (and this is the most likely option) send my pet to attack the spider and run by it while it was distracted. This death bothers me a little just because it was one that I could have avoided.
So I found myself in the graveyard at Tauren Mill. Figured I might as well rez at the spirit. Being so young, the rez sickness only lasted 44 seconds so it was no real bother to me. I soon was on my way south and then off towards Arathi. On the way I did aggro a spider, but telling my pet to attack it while I ran on let me survive that encounter. Fufu died during that fight, but she was brought back not long after. I believe I ended up using this technically once or twice more while travelling through Arathi. None of it was really tough though. Near Thandol Spann a lvl 60 troll came by to tell me that this was a 30+ area. I told him that I knew and that I was on my way to tame mangeclaw. The thought of asking him to escort me did occur to me, but I didn't really consider it too heavily. What would be the fun in doing things that way?
So my journey continued on to the south. I picked up a young wetlands croc aggro sometime during the trip, but otherwise it was pretty uneventful. Earlier in guild chat somebody had said that the Dun Algaz dwarves would mess me up. It was quickly approaching time to find out about this. I ran up the tunnel and then on up to the next one. This is where I discovered something I hadn't expected. The orcs in Dun Algaz are hostile to the horde too. I had gone into things expecting them to be friendly and so not cause a problem. Them being hostile made things much tougher. So as I came out of the second tunnel, I hugged the left wall so that I wouldn't attract attention from the orc camp to the right. Unfortunately I didn't spot an orc scout up a hill on the left with me. Having him attacking me gave me no real time to decide on what to do. I told fufu to attack him then dashed off toward the next tunnel. This is where I encountered a dwarven patrol who quickly dispatched me.
You can see the dwarf who killed me in that shot and also the orc up the hill. I basically was trapped between the two with nowhere to go. I don't really feel too bad about this death though, because it is a tough area to get through. My gut tells me that it is possible to do. I think that if one stayed on the road they probably wouldn't aggro any of the orcs which would leave you just having to deal with the dwarf (and the one at the end of the tunnel since I'm assuming he would attack as well). I see two basic options for getting past the dwarves. The first would be to let the patrol get as close to the wetlands as it will and then have fufu attack and run past during the fight. With any luck the patrol would break off its chase before I reached the dwarf at the end of the tunnel. Its a bit risky though because I don't really know if it would break off or not. The other option would be to keep my distance and let him walk back down the tunnel. I think he continues on a ways past it. So I could then have fufu attack the dwarf at the end of the tunnel while I run off to the left. I would have to watch out for various other mobs, but the ones in Loch Modan are roughly the same level as me and so aren't that tough to avoid. I think this option probably would have worked, but it does rely on the fact that the patrol does actually go a bit past the end of the tunnel which I haven't verfied.
Since rezzing at the graveyard worked so well in Hillsbrad, I figured I would do the same thing here. I was a little worried about how close I was to the Alliance town, but figured it would be alright. So I rezed and looked around while my health went back up to full and the sickness wore off. I then noticed a patrol coming towards me on the road. I didn't get away before he aggroed me and thought for sure I was going to die again. Somehow I managed to run far enough away that he broke off his chase. I was now off the road and had to watch for beasts again, but at least I could actually win a fight with those. So I found a nice quiet spot and rezzed fufu again. We then headed back north to the next tunnel.
There was no way for me to get into this tunnel without aggroing the dwarf at the start of it. So I did what was now becoming standard practice. I sent fufu the wonder scorpid in to engage him while I ran up the tunnel. The dwarf broke off pursuit a little before I reached the end of it which tells me that if you timed it right you could probably get the patrol earlier to break off before aggroing the other dwarf. One thing that had me a little worried though was that attacking that dwarf made me PvP enabled. So any Alliance I ran into would be a threat. I also hadn't brought fufu back yet and so I could have been in a bit of a bind if any Alliance were around. Luckily there weren't any at that point and so I could go off to the side and bring fufu back. I then started making my way over to where mangeclaw is, picking up one more dwarven aggro in the process. As I was coming up on mangeclaw's area I noticed a human dot ahead on my map and so gave it a quick glance and then ducked off to the side. There was a lvl 10 mage up killing mangeclaw. Now I figured that as a lvl 11 hunter, I could probably take the mage. Fufu was still dead from the last aggro though and I was worried that I would draw too much attention to myself if the mage saw me and I had to kill him. So I ran off to the side and hid up the hill for abit. While there I rezzed fufu once more. Once the area was nice and clear I went down and got my first good look at mangeclaw himself. I then abandoned fufu (noo! not fufu!) so that I could tame mangeclaw.
I figured it would be a pretty simple taming process. We were equal level, but I wasn't too worried. So I went in and gave it a shot. The taming process got about half done when mangelcaw decided to knock me down, which stopped the process. So I then turned and ran, not wanting to fight him with me at half health by this point and also not wanting to wait for him to respawn. One good thing though was that my PvP tag wore off after that fight and so at least I didn't have to worry about Alliance players bothering me too much. It took two more tries before I managed to have a fight where he didn't knock me down. Eventually the taming succeeded though and now I am the proud owner of a white bear pet.
Overall the journey wasn't really all that tough despite all the comments other Lurkers made at the start. I think it would be possible to do it without dieing at all, but its hard to tell for sure.
So now there is only one question remaining: what to name him? Any suggestions? : )