Lightning Paw - New Spirit Beast (Fox)

Lightning Paw

When patch 7.1.5 rolled around a variety of changes were implemented. There were class changes, new legendaries, micro holidays, the return of the brawlers guild, profession updates and more. What some people may not realize though, is that at the same time a new npc and hunter pet snuck into the game.

Level 100+ hunters may have noticed a new npc named 'Watcher Danuser' (named after Senior Game Designer Steve Danuser) appear after the patch in their hunter class hall. If you speak with him, he says:

The Night Watch knows a thing or two about tracking. In Duskwood creatures lurk in every dark nook and cranny.

Sometimes you catch a glimpse of their beedy little eyes, peering at you from the bushes.

<The watcher tries to suppress a shudder.>

Why, just the other day I sensed an unfamiliar creature stalking me in the forest, watching from the shadows.

Watcher Danuser

Well, this unfamiliar creature he refers to is a new rare spirit beast named Lightening Paw. (Lightening Paw was designed and named by Danuser's daughter: source.)

Lightning Paw

This spirit fox is very beautiful; she literally has tiny sparks of electricity constantly shooting through and around her and is semi-transparent. (You can see her animation in the video at the end of this post. Screenshots do NOT do this fox justice.)

This particular spirit beast (although spawning in a low-level zone: Duskwood) is quite unique in that it scales with your level beginning at 17. For example, if you find her on a level 42 hunter, Lightning Paw will appear as level 42 to you.

Where to Find This Beautiful Beast

After she was first discovered, people originally thought she could spawn in any of the bushes with blinking & glowing eyes in them. Now that she's been available to tame for a few weeks, it seems she only has a few set bushes that she can potentially spawn in. From the looks of it, there are currently FIVE bushes where she can spawn.

I've marked these 100% confirmed spawn points on the map below.

Lightning Paw Spawn Points (Click map to Enlarge)

Waypoints & Macros

If you don't already have it, get yourself TomTom. This addon is awesome, and allows you to add waypoints onto your world map AND minimap. Once you've got TomTom all squared away, you can use these waypoints below to pinpoint the bushes where Lightening Paw can spawn.

/way 16.69, 54.44
/way 16, 60
/way 24.31, 39.69
/way 23.58, 76.66
/way 30.23, 41.71

She literally spawns right in a bush at each of the above locations, and she'll be stealthed when she spawns in. (You'll be able to hear the stealth sound if you have your volume turned up.) As you can see from the screenshot on the left below, I have her targeted but you can't actually see her, which brings me to the targeting macro:

/tar Lightning Paw

This macro is essential if you want to tame this beautiful beasty. Simply hit the macro near each potential spawn point and if she's up you'll target her. You do not have to be right in the bush for it to work, but you do have to be close.

Lightning Paw Stealthed in Bush at 16, 60 & Being Tamed

Lightning Paw's npcid is 118244 if you want to manually add her to NPCScan. Be aware, it may not go off without mousing over her/targeting her first when she spawns in, which is why I recommend using the targeting macro above.

Spawn Timer

I'm not 100% sure on Lightning paw's spawn timer. Due to cross real zones, it is a little harder to track as people sitting along side you on another server can literally phase in and out depending on the zone population. There are rumors of her spawning as close together as 2 - 3 hours, but I have a feeling these accounts are from people phasing out into their own realm and then back into a shared one where it spawned again shortly after. Accounts of her spawning in 6 - 7 hours seem to be a little more consistent. Either way, it's not an incredibly short timer and CRZ will be a factor here.

A Little More on Cross Realm Zones & How They'll Affect You

When I first tamed Lightning Paw, I had been camping at the southern most bush and randomly decided to check the other locations. When I came upon the bush at 16, 60, I targeted her after getting close enough. There was nobody around, so I took a few screenshots and then tamed her. After taming, I stood there and took a few more screenshots, because screenshots are flippin' awesome.

I was there for probably 5 minutes when all of the sudden another hunter just appeared practically right on top of me. She congratulated me on my tame, and I told her I just tamed Lightning Paw about 5 minutes earlier. She asked me where, and I told her "Right here at the bush we're standing at." She proceeded to tell me that she'd been camping there for the last three hours and hadn't moved once, and she certainly never saw Lightning Paw spawn in. Now remember, I was the only one around when I tamed Lightning Paw, but this player hadn't left the location.

THIS is a perfect example of how CRZ totally screws with keeping track of timers. I am assuming what happened, is that on my home realm (Elune - US) there were enough people in Duskwood to keep us there on our own server for a while. So, on my home server I ran across Lightening Paw, tamed her, snapped some pics, and then people left the zone - enough to merge those of us left into a different CRZ. I announced the tame in chat, but then realized after the fact that most of these people were in a different phase from me when I tamed her. For them, Lightning Paw could be only a couple hours - or even minutes from spawning, as they are literally on a completely different server.

The accounts of people seeing her showing up in a 2 hour window could very well have been due to people phasing in and out of a CRZ to their home servers to make the tame without even realizing it.

Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot we can do to control when we'll be phased in and out of a CRZ. The best we can hope for is for it to work in our favor at some point like it did for me.

Closing Statement

To all you hunters out there looking for her - please be patient and courteous of other hunters. If someone is camping a bush, find another one. Don't try to steal someone's tame, and for the love of puppies don't kill Lightning Paw out of spite if someone is trying to tame her. If you are lucky enough to tame her, let people in general know, and if you come across her in a location not listed above please spread the word as to where that was.

Video

Here is a quick video from the second time I tamed her on my level 42 hunter. Notice how she scales with my level. After the tame I got the camera all up in her face so you can see how pretty she is. ^-^

Good luck, happy camping and may the spawns be ever in your favor!