The Rare Obsession

[Usako]

Are there any other pet fanatics that will scourge a zone solely to get that rare battle pet? By scourge I do mean spend hours through days to months hunting down that lucky rare. If so, what zone was your favorite and least favorite to frequent?

I have been doing this to a point I wasn't leaving a zone until everything was at rare. Then I read stones drop frequently from the Panda pet tamer dailies so I've talked myself into capturing at least a common. I've been teeth gritting though for getting a uncommon white Baby Apes. I want it for my pet count but seeing it as a white drives me nutty like a squirrel attack.

But can those commons such as the Children's Week pets work with the stones to turn into rare?

[Catalytic]

Yes, the Children's week pets can be stoned. I've read you can even stone like the guild page and such.

And yes, I *usually* don't leave a zone until I have all rares (I LOVE PetScout for this), with a few exceptions. Badlands, because I've decided rare King Snakes are a myth, Twilight Highlands, because the Fiendlings were in short supply, same for like Lofty Libram, Scourged Whelpling, Minfernal, etc. If I KNOW they don't spawn much, I grab one and go about my day, I don't worry about breed or quality.

[Index]

I did exactly this, but with alts parked on other servers for the more elusive stuff - Minfernal is one pet I will never forget hunting *shudder*

...can't ...sleep ...must find ...rare pet

That was my motto for many weeks, it was borderline obsession*

*Disclaimer: not borderline, full blown obsession haha!

[Maizing]

I've been teeth gritting though for getting a uncommon white Baby Apes. I want it for my pet count but seeing it as a white drives me nutty like a squirrel attack.

White baby ape? Where? I have never seen a white one!

[Usako]

I've been teeth gritting though for getting a uncommon white Baby Apes. I want it for my pet count but seeing it as a white drives me nutty like a squirrel attack.

White baby ape? Where? I have never seen a white one!

Oh I mean uncommon is marked white, not the Baby Ape in a white fur coloring. Sorry! But hey that's a cutie pootie to request. Ever want to see cutie babies for other pet ideas? Go to zooborns site.

[MstrJonathan]

I'm on a quest to upgrade all my pets to rare. I use PetJournal Enhanced which lets me sort the pet list by zone, quality, quantity, etc. I'd show just the pets in the current zone and then collect the first one I found and trade up to better qualities as I searched for a rare. When I got tired or frustrated I'd skip to another activity. Rares like the King Snake I came back to several times and even parked an alt there to make circuits. For pets like Lofty Libram, Scourged Whelpling, Minfernal I parked an alt and grabbed the first one I could find then just stoned them. The other ones I found annoying were Jade Oozeling, Scorpling, Stunted Yeti, Twilight Iguana, Giraffe Calf. Those guys got stoned too. Towards the end of my collecting I used the filters to sort my collection by pet battles and rarity and made a 'shopping list' of those I needed to go back and upgrade. I've managed to collect 504 pets with 82% being rare. The stones have been slowly but surely eating away at the uncommon vendor pets in my list.

[Mystik_sok]

I am going for all rares but I tend to balance between the time required to capture one vs grind pet dailies for stones. Minfernal and baby apes can wait for a stone.

[Mehetabel]

I'm DEFINATELY obsessed with having all rare pets. I now only have one wild pet left to get as rare (Gilded Moth), all others I've spent as long as I had to in order to get rares. I made a couple of exceptions to my "no battle-stones for wild pets" rule and that was Minfernal, Scourged Whelpling, Baby Ape and Giraffe Calf. Every single other pet I farmed (very often with strategically parked alts).

I seem to very unlucky with stones from the pet dailies, despite doing all of them almost every day, so upgrading the rest of my collection is sadly taking a bit longer

I so badly want my whole collection rare!

[Dragonwizard]

To give you an idea of what battle pets only come in Uncommon quality like the Childrens week pets take a look at this post. And yes all the pets in the post can be upgraded to Rare using stones. [url]http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2978&p=23662#p23662[/url]

[Yalina]

I stoned my Scourged Whelpling, Minfernal and Giraffe Calf. For those three, I was grateful to have anything. The Scourged Whelpling was even the right breed. I'll probably stone the Baby Ape if it doesn't rain there soon, although he's the wrong breed.

I'll leave a zone if I don't have the rare simply for a change of pace. After about four hours, I'll be frustrated enough that the idea of looking at another poor quality battle pet makes me want to scream. I'll come back to that zone later. Usually MUCH later. I'm systematically finishing up though. Outland is done. I've got about three or four to go in Northrend. Currently after a rare Fjord rat.

The pet I hunted a rare for what seemed like forever was the Harpy Youngling. I had a character stashed in the Dry Hills on three separate servers (I even made sure they were different battle groups, just in case). I'd check all three of them daily, at random hours. A few times I even checked when my cat woke me up in the middle of the night. (Sleep? Why? There might be a harpy out!) I leveled countless pets from 1-6 going through the harpies. I probably spent three months on that obnoxious Harpy, and the rare I finally found? Wrong breed. I almost cried.

[Opallena]

My first task is usually to get any new wild pets just to add them to my collection; then I'll either go back and camp for a rare (parked many alts by spawns when pandaria launched just for this purpose) or stone them if i dont feel like doing so. All of the non-combat pets CAN be stoned, it just doesn't show in your pet journal or on your collection page (here and in the armory) that they are rare

[Mizix]

I have that obsession too

Camped and grinded for months in order to get every pet of rare quality. At the moment, the only one I'm still missing and farming is the Crow from Darkmoon Island, but I won't waste a Flawless stone on him. That's my rule: never use a Flawless stone to upgrade wild pets untill I'm done with all those that only come in uncommon quality (like world event, vendor pets,...).

I obviously had a dozen alts parked in different zones on different servers. Actually, the pet that gave me the biggest headache - beside the Crow, damn thing! - was the Horny Lizard: the bugger really didn't want to spawn in rare quality

@ Catalytic: rare King Snakes are not a lie! I promise =)

[Usako]

What would be the list of the very rare spawning wild pets? For example, Miniferal and the Giraffe Calf. I'd love to mark that on my list so I know which ones to eventually turn blue.

[Peanutty]

I stoned my Scourged Whelpling, Minfernal and Giraffe Calf. For those three, I was grateful to have anything.

Same, I stoned all three of those because I was grateful that I found one of ANY quality.

The other pet that I would put in the same category would be the Wanderer's Festival Hatchling since 8 spawn a week, period (I got lucky and caught a rare).

Other than that all my wild caught pets were caught as rares. Plus I have every unique skin, rare. *sigh* The more painful ones for me were Coral Adder, Lofty Libram, Anodized Robo Cub, Little Black Ram, and then oddball things like a Yakrat in brown. I battled Yakrats for 2 days before a rare brown one showed up.

Originally I started off with the idea that uncommon was good enough, but then it wasn't. So after I had uncommon or better of everything I went zone by zone, taming rares, and crossed each off as I went.

[Graven]

Oh I mean uncommon is marked white, not the Baby Ape in a white fur coloring.

"Uncommon" pets are green, not white. Did you mean "common" instead?

Poor - grey
Common - white
Uncommon - green
Rare - blue
Epic - purple
Legendary - orange

[Angrycat]

Rare obsessing. YES. DAMN YOU DMF CROWSSSS!!!! *fistshake*

[Maizing]

I am at the point now where I have several stones for certain families (undead, dragonkin, humanoid, etc) that I can't use because I have already upgraded all my pets of that family... so if a new pet comes out that belongs to one of those families, I don't even bother trying for a rare anymore, I just go for the breed I want and stone it.

For example: Come summer, I will not bother trying for a rare Qiraji Guardling as I can just go for the breed I want and use one of my heaps of humanoid stones on it.

Oh, and I stoned my Swamp Croaker because I had gotten the color/breed I wanted on an uncommon... even though I still have one Aquatic pet left that needs to be upgraded.

[Mizix]

What would be the list of the very rare spawning wild pets? For example, Miniferal and the Giraffe Calf. I'd love to mark that on my list so I know which ones to eventually turn blue.

I compiled this list many months ago for my guildmates, so it may miss some newer pets. I've also added pets that are not rare per-se but spawn only under special conditions. Anyway:

• Giraffe Calf (Southern Barrens)
• Spawn of Onyxia (Dustwallow Marsh)
• Minfernal (Felwood)
• Stone Armadillo (Desolace, only at night)
• Qiraj Guardling (Silithus, only during summer)
• Silithid Hatchling (Tanaris, only during sandstorm)
• Snowy Owl (Winterspring, only during winter)
• Scorpling (Blasted Lands)
• Tiny Twister (Arathi Highlands, not sure but rumors say only during rain)
• Baby Ape (Cape of Stranglethorn at the Jaguero Isle, only during rain – you need to be on the isle to see if it’s raining or not, because Jaguero is on a different weather zone than the rest of STV and you can’t see its weather from the coast of STV)
• Restless Shadeling (Deadwind Pass, underground outside Karazhan, spawn only at midnight)
• Jade Oozeling (Hinterlands, not so rare but there aren’t many up at the same time and thanks to the CRZ competition, you still want to tame one asap)
• Infested Bear Cub (Hillsbrad Foothills, they spawn along with the adult Infested Bear on the zone, if no spawn is up, you can kill the adults to force a respawn)
• Flayer Youngling (Terokkar Forest, Razorthorne Rise – not so rare but only a few spawns at time are up)
• Sporeling Sprout (Zangarmarsh, Sporeggar – not so rare but only a few spawns at time are up)
• Scourged Whelpling (Icecrown, Sindragosa’s Fail and Silent Vigil)
• Arctic Fox Kit (Storm Peaks, only when it’s snowing)
• Wanderer’s Festival Hatchling (Krasarang Wilds, only spawn on Sunday at 21 o’clock when the Wanderer Festival begins)

Hope it helps!=)

[Yalina]

• Flayer Youngling (Terokkar Forest, Razorthorne Rise – not so rare but only a few spawns at time are up)
• Tiny Twister (Arathi Highlands, not sure but rumors say only during rain)

Good list overall. A few comments.

In my experience, the Flayer Younglings don't have a "only a set number up at a time" condition. I've gone through there at 5 am and seen plenty of spawns. They may just be a slow to respawn pet. That said, they're available in a number of breeds, so you could be at it for a while if you're after a rare of a specific breed. It could still be in your best interest to stone your flayer youngling if you find the breed you want.

The pets that are weather dependent state so in the pet journal. It doesn't say anything about rain for the Tiny Twister. It's likely just a slow to respawn pet. This guy is another where I found my rare in the freakishly early morning.

[Adashiel]

All of my pets are leveled and rared up, but I still have quite a few with bad breeds. So now I'm going back and trying to replace those. Fortunately I have a quite a few battle stones stored up, so I don't always have to worry about quality. I haven't managed to get any Beast stones lately, though, so replacing those has been a chore.