Just a brief followup to yesterday’s post about potential successors to the position of Warchief, based on things commenters said here and on Twitter, and also at least one thing that I forgot.

• Several readers pointed out that the position of Warchief going to a non-orc would leave the orcs with an opening to have a racial leader of some sort. That’s an interesting possibility, and one worth thinking over. The position of ‘Warchief’ is an orcish one, dating back to ancient times on Draenor, although the post was unfilled when the orcs were massacring the draenei under the influence of the Burning Legion. A lot of the Horde’s structure, such as it is, is based on originally-orcish culture - but that doesn’t mean the Horde can’t evolve. Worth thinking about, definitely!

• I, for one, am kind of ashamed that I forgot one of my primary candidates: Nazgrim. No title on this one, because he goes up through the ranks a little more each time you see him. He first appears in Grizzly Hills as Sergeant Nazgrim, where he gives you tasks alongside Conqueror Krenna. After the fall of the Lich King, Nazgrim receives a promotion to Legionnaire, and is the leader of the expedition that ends up being shipwrecked and captured in Vashj’ir; he does escape, with your help, and is the questgiver for the Horde inside Throne of the Tides. After all that, in Mists of Pandaria, he’s General Nazgrim, and hangs out in Grommash Hold with Garrosh and the other advisors. He’s one of your primary questgivers in the pre-Pandaria and Jade Forest areas, and shows up again in Kun-Lai Summit. Interestingly, Nazgrim has his own, special voice files in Mists of Pandaria. Seems like Blizzard is definitely setting him up for important things - maybe Warchief is the next step up the ladder for this enterprising orc.

• Ratshag also brought up Nazgrel, who I (and seemingly Blizzard) had forgotten about after his role in Thrallmar. Nazgrel, like Rexxar and many others mentioned in these two posts, is an orcish hero. Nazgrel was an advisor to Thrall, a participant in the Third War, one of the initial founders of Durotar and Orgrimmar. He’s extremely anti-Alliance, unlike many of the folks I named, and believes in victory through war - though he held off out of obedience to Thrall. He’s actually worked with Rexxar on a number of occasions, and as of the Burning Crusade he led the thrust into Hellfire Peninsula, where he’s the primary questgiver in Thrallmar… and there he’s been ever since, hanging out in his wolf hat, waiting for a chance to be story-relevant again.

Here there be spoilers

Source: WoW Insider

In case the title didn’t give it away: this post is about the Warchief, and to talk about the Warchief, I necessarily need to talk freely about Tides of War. There’s also minor spoilers about some in-game quests, but none of them are from Mists of Pandaria, just in case that’s the kind of thing you’re worried about.

Many of you may have noticed that the pet battle trainers - namely Varzok and Audrey Burnhep, along with many of the NPC pet battlers from Mists of Pandaria - are already in the game, but don’t seem to do anything. You’ll also notice that Varzok, Audrey, and the other racial-specific pet battle trainers (there’s one for each major city, sometimes more in the cities that are home to more than one race) offer to teach you pets but don’t actually have anything for you - yet.

It turns out that what they offer is a racial-specific pet! First, you have to train the ability to do pet battles - but you only have to do that once per Battle.net account. Each pet costs 50 silver (modified by faction discount; it cost 47s 50c for newly-made 85 premades on the beta) and is taught to you directly, just like learning a spell from a class trainer or a craft from a profession trainer, only here’s the neat part - three of these are brand new pets. Pet collectors take notice! These pets are cross-faction, so if you can get 50 silver - and really, who can’t get 50 silver? - it’s worth your time to go cross-faction to pick up these pets. (They’re also tradeable, so if you’ve got, say, multiple worgen, you can cage your extra ravens.)

To learn these pets, take 50 silver on a character who is of the appropriate faction and race to the pet trainers - Varzok works for the Horde, with one specific exception, and Audrey works for the Alliance - and learn it from them, at which point it will go directly into your pet journal.

New pets

These are pets that are new to Mists of Pandaria and are available in 5.0.4 from the Pet Battle Trainer after you train to be able to do Pet Battles. Some of them can be learned from other trainers - for instance, the Shore Crawler can also be learned from the goblin Pet Battle Trainer, Matty.

Worgen: Gilnean Raven - And yes, it has a battle ability called Nevermore.

Goblin: Shore Crawler - Fun fact: this sucker is tiny. I guess the goblin only brought their tiniest crabs with them from Kezan.

Pandaren (either faction): Jade Crane Chick - Pandaren of both factions learn the same Jade Crane Chick. It’s a pretty little thing!

Existing pets

These pets actually already exist, but if for some reason you don’t have them and don’t feel like getting them before Mists releases, you can wait until then and buy them for 50 silver. That’s your call!

Humans: Orange Tabby Cat - You can save 10 silver by buying this directly from the crazy cat lady, though.

Draenei: Blue Moth

Night Elves: Great Horned Owl

Gnomes and Dwarves: Snowshoe Rabbit - This is actually cheaper to buy from Yarlyn Amberstill now (20s vs. 50s).

Orcs and Trolls: Black Kingsnake

Blood Elves: Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling - Remember when I said there was an exception? This is it. It used to be that all of these pets were both race and trainer specific - for instance, only Matty would sell the Shore Crawler, and he would only sell it to goblins - but at some recent patch, all of these were made available on the ‘central’ pet trainers (Varzok and Aubrey) - except for the dragonhawk. Blood elves will find that Varzok has nothing for them, but Jarson Everlong in Falconwing Square in Eversong Woods will teach them this pet.

Tauren: Brown Prairie Dog

Forsaken: Undercity Cockroach - This is actually the same cockroach Jeremiah Payson and Dealer Rashaad sell already, it’s just been renamed.

I’m starting to feel like I’m in a bit of a holding pattern until Mists launches, and so are a lot of other people. I’m chomping at the virtual bit to play a monk, and trying to occupy myself until then, but a lot of my short-term goals are actually getting accomplished.

• I wanted to level my hunter to 85, and I did that. (I also wanted to get her a spirit beast. I did that today, too.)
• I wanted to fully prep my future monk, and that’s done.
• I wanted to get 100+ mounts, and the combination of mounts account-wide accomplished that for me.

Of course, there’s still plenty to do…

• I want to finish getting Herald of the Titans (which requires me getting new pants for my priest).
• I kind of want to level my rogue - having an 80 sitting there not being leveled is bothering me, but I’m just not that into roguin’.
• Also want to knock out Glory of the Cataclysm Hero - definitely getting closer on that one.
• If I get desperate, I’ll go grind 200 more marks for the Fox Kit.

… but really, I’m just ready for Pandaria. Are we there yet?

By which, of course, I mean the Glyph of Felguard.

What’s it do? Simple:

• When this glyph is equipped, your felguard will equip a random two-handed axe, two-handed sword, or polearm from your backpack.

Despite the name, this does in fact apply to Wrathguards too - they’ll equip two random weapons from those categories from your backpack.

They don’t actually equip it, of course, because then demonology would be rolling on two-handed axes and swords as DPS upgrades. It simply copies the graphics for the weapon in question. It does, however, only equip it once. If you want your wrathguard to wield two of the same weapon, you have to have two of the same weapon in your backpack.

Note that it specifically excludes two-handed maces. No felguards wielding Sulfuras (either one) or, more tragically, The Shoveler. Sadly, the mace restriction means I can’t have a wrathguard wielding my namesake weapon, but I guess we can’t have everything with a glyph this awesome.

Enchantments on the weapons will not show. You can put anything you want onto the weapons in your backpack - they’re only copying the base model. This also means if you want a glowing weapon, you’ll have to find weapons with an innate glow.

Note that it also specifically says your backpack. None of your other bags will do, just the original unreplaceable 16-slotter. This does mean you can have up to 16 weapons for your felguard/wrathguard to choose from at the same time. Think of it as your personal demonic armory.

Also worth noting: you can equip things that you couldn’t legally transmog into if you could equip them. Example: my warlock can’t equip any of the old level 60 PvP epics because he wasn’t around in vanilla to earn the titles, but I can buy a High Warlord’s Pig Sticker and let my demon wield it (and have done so). You can also put white and grey-quality gear in there and as long as it’s the right item type, they can use it.

A good starting place to find some easy-to-get, good-looking weapons for your minion is Rades’ list of non-raid weapons. It doesn’t include things from the very newest content (revamped Scholomance, RFC and SM), but Wowhead has you covered.

In case you were wondering, here’s my current weapon list:

1. Terokk’s Quill
2. Twinblade of the Phoenix
3. Hoperender
4. Obsidium Executioner
5. Brutal Gladiator’s Greatsword
6. Brunnhildar Harpoon (fact: you can transmog this onto your polearms)
7. Hellscream’s Will
8. The Blade of Harbingers
9. Legionfoe
10. Greataxe of Stonard
11. High Warlord’s Pig Sticker

Inspired by some back and forth between Rades and Catulla on Twitter: Sometimes you want to macro things into a button you hit often, but you don’t want to listen to your character going NOT READY YET NOT READY YET NOT READY YET THAT’S STILL RECHARGING I CAN’T CAST THAT YET NOT READY YET. What do you do? You use something like what I’m going to show you now. This is my macro boilerplate.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

#showtooltip Howling Blast
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Pillar of Frost
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Howling Blast

Here’s a breakdown of what you need to do to use this with your own abilities.

1. Change the first line (#showtooltip Howling Blast) and the last line (/cast Howling Blast) to do whatever it is you want to cast. In this case, Howling Blast. If you wanted this to be a Wrath macro, you’d change line one to #showtooltip Wrath and the last line to /cast Wrath.

2. Anything that you want to cast but which might be on cooldown, you put between /console Sound_EnableSFX 0 and /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); - in my case, I’m using both trinkets (/use 13 and /use 14) as well as Pillar of Frost.

3. That’s it!

Caveat: this WILL turn your sound effects back on every time you use it, on the off chance you’re not playing with sound effects… but if you have sound effects off, why are you using a macro to remove sound effects? Weirdo.

Caveat the second: don’t put anything between /console Sound_EnableSFX 0 and /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); that triggers a GCD or this won’t work. It’ll hit that ability, try to activate it, and stop. This isn’t Rift.

Four years ago, I was just some nobody who played an MMO, had three alts, and wanted to write mostly about his warlock. I had a copy of Wordpress and a can-do (or at least will-do-and-see-what-comes-of-it) attitude. I hadn’t blogged in two years because I had been stuck at a crappy job, but now the writing bug had bitten. I was unguilded and pretty much didn’t have a clue and wanted to write about it, and that’s when I started my blog.

Four years later, although not without some pauses, I’m still writing (blogging again with a vengeance these days, says Fim) and still playing WoW (although with a few more than three characters, and way more than just one game). Blog systems have come and gone (currently: Octopress), server transfers and faction & race changes have come and gone, and yet I keep coming back, and I keep writing about it. I occasionally show up on podcasts, and I talk daily on Twitter with a wide and vibrant community of people who share the same passion for these same pixels that I do.

I’ll keep writing until people stop reading, I guess. Thanks to those of you who still do.

The contest is over and the winners have been selected! You all didn’t make it easy with all these good suggestions, but in the end I settled on two:

• Hydrozoa, submitted by DiscoPriest, for the full-sized fen strider pet, and
• Chopin, submitted by Theodore J. Luckman, for the minipet.

I’ll be getting in touch with each of you shortly with your code and redemption instructions for your very own sand scarabs. Congratulations, and thanks to everyone for participating!

Just for fun, I’ve added the complete list of submitted names after the cut.

The Twisted Nether Blogcast is holding a Patch 5.0.4 roundtable this Sunday at 8 PM PST (11 PM EST)! The guest list thus far is Saz from World of Saz, Cymre from Bubbles of Mischief, Jed from Jed’s Corner of WoW Shenanigans, and yours truly. Should be fun - I haven’t been on a podcast in a while, and I’m definitely excited about 5.0.4 so far. Hopefully I can avoid mispronouncing Lichborne this time.

• When: Sunday, September 2, 8pm PT (11pm ET), or whatever time this time converter says that is for you.
• Where: Either the TNB Live Show page, or their Ustream page (I usually just do the latter).

Just wanted to give you a couple important updates on the “Name a Pet, Win a Pet”. After getting addons sorted last night (didn’t take long!) and making sure my BM spec was still intact, I set out for Zangarmarsh to tame a Fen Strider.

Mission accomplished.

So here’s the important updates.

1. The deadline has been moved up from next Friday to 11:59:59 PM EST this Friday, August 31st. If you’ve got the perfect name in mind but have been delaying leaving a comment… don’t!
2. I figured out what to do with the second name: one name will go to my Fen Strider pet, and the other will be used to rename Legs, the Fen Strider minipet.

Get those entries in!