WoW Rare Spawns

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Salyis' Warband & Galleon - MoP World Boss

(Updates toward bottom of post.)

Chief Sayis' Warband, Blizzard did a wonderful job on this model!

After maintenance this morning I logged into the beta to do a few quests in the Valley of Four Winds before going to work. The moment I logged in I noticed people in general chat looking for more to help down a rare world boss. Naturally I was curious and offered to join in.

It turns out this boss is actually an entire war party called Salyis' Warband. The party is made up of several saurok (reptilian humanoids) who man two huge cannons on top of a kodo-like beast called a mushan named Galleon. The party is led by Chief Salyis (seen standing on Galleon's head).

I'm not sure yet if the War-band spawns in any other locations, but when our group attempted downing them we found them on the Rumbling Terrace shooting cannonballs over the river. I put a red dot on the map below to show where we found them.

Darkshore Rare Spawns

Darkshore, a shadowy forest bordered by both mountains and sea, on the north western part of Kalimdor, is home to nine rares. These rares range from level 12 - 19, and for the most part are lower in level toward the northern end of the zone, and get higher in level as you move south.

Shadowclaw and Strider Clutchmother are two notables in this zone as they can both be tamed by hunters. Shadowclaw is also a unique hunter pet and looks exactly like the alliance Striped Nightsaber mount, making him a nice find for lowbie hunters. He is stealthed, so he can literally sneak right up on you while looking for him if your around his level. Strider Clutchmother travels with two smaller tallstriders which will attack when she is attacked or if you try to tame her.

Click Map to Enlarge

All of these rare are on incredibly fast re-spawn timers, somewhere in the 10-15 minute range sounds about right. I actually leveled one of my ironman toons from level 12 to 24 on three rares in the zone without questing at all. As you can see from the screenshot below, I repeatedly killed Strider Clutchmother (20 times), Shadowclaw (49 times) and Lord Sinslayer (38 times). You can also see in the screenshot that Lord Sinslayer had last been seen only 9 minutes before I started attacking him in the shot. (I believe I was actually working on another blog entry while this toon waited shadowmelded for the re-spawns.) ;)

Alani The Stormborn - the New Aeonaxx/TLPD of Pandaria?

(Updates toward bottom of post.)

The new Aeonaxx/TLDP of Pandaria?

Flying high above the Vale of Eternal Blossoms glides a gorgeous majestic dragon named Alani, The Stormborn. (Perhaps a reference to Daenerys Targaryen, mother of Dragons, aka. Daenerys Stormborn from GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series?)

Alani is a level 92 silver dragon leading me to believe that we may just be seeing a glimpse of the next Time-Lost Proto-Drake/Aeonaxx. At least that's what I'm hoping for because WOW would this make an amazing looking mount!

Look at that Gorgeous Face!

Alani has 1264k hp. I watched her fly around the zone for about 15-20 minutes with my eagle eye and she patrolled all the way from the most eastern side to the west, making it a very large patrol area. She was generally flying fairly high in the air, but did occasionally dip down low enough to the ground that she probably would have been within range to hit with a ranged spell.

First Blogiversary! ~ Contest & Giveaway

It's officially been a year today since I started this blog with my first post about using NPCScan to find silver dragons, and what an amazing year it has been! I've since posted 165 posts (probably about 85-90% of them specifically relating to rares, and I have had a blast doing so.

This blog was created specifically with the intention of helping others find rares in game, and I think I've done a decent job sticking to that theme. I've written the occasional post related to in-game holidays, mounts, and of course the WoW Ironman Challenge (which I've been quite obsessed with recently), but ultimately I try to and would like to continue trying to keep it mostly "rare" themed.

I've had a lot of fun hunting these rares down, taking screen-shots, writing about them -- and I think above all, I have really been enjoying the feedback from the community.

I've also had a lot of fun playing around with the blog itself. I'm still totally a blog noob, but I really enjoy messing around with the colors and gadgets, trying to figure out what looks best, while still making sense and not being a total eye-sore. My biggest goal recently was to make navigation a little easier, which I have sort-of succeeded at, but I'm still not done with it. My goal for the next year is to continue trying to make navigation easier, while of course adding new content.

Stats:

Stats are fun. Plain and simple. Because they are so fun here are a couple of stats from my blog from the past year:

WoW Ironman Challenge Complete!

Ironstevo has done it! He has gone where no other undead have gone before. He has finally completed the WoW Ironman Challenge! It was a long, perilous and incredibly nerve-wracking journey. Now that it's over Ironstevo is going to get himself a cold one, put up his rotting feet and relax.

For anyone unaware the WoW Ironman Challenge is to level from 1-85 using the rules below.

Only White or Grey gear. No Heirlooms of any kind.
No transfer of gear, items, or money from any other character (yours or others).
No gear enhancements, including gems, enchanting, and reforging. Class abilities are allowed (eg. Rogue poisons, Shaman imbues).
No specialization, talent points, or glyphs. No pet talent points.
No professions or secondary skills, except for First Aid.
No potions, flasks, or elixirs except for required quest items.
No food buffs or other external buffs (including buffs from items and other players).
No groups or assistance from other characters, even if not grouped.
No dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, or arenas.
No guilds, except for level 1 guilds created specifically for the Ironman Challenge.
No Refer-A-Friend.
No addons which assist in combat and/or leveling (eg. leveling guides, Ovale).
THE BIG ONE: No deaths. Character death for any reason disqualifies the character
The following are allowed:

All class abilities, racials, and personal buffs.
All mounts, bags, and non-combat pets.
All quests, including holiday events and dailies (unless prohibited by some other rule, eg. Fishing and Cooking dailies).

More info on the challenge can be found on this thread on the World of Warcraft forums: The Official Ironman Challenge Thread. There is also a leader-board that automatically tracks progress at wowironman.com. This morning after Ironstevo hit 85 it looked like this:

Teldrassil Rare Spawns

Teldrassil, or "Crown of the Earth" (Darnassian translation), is an island (and a great tree) off of the Northeastern coast of Kalimdor. It is also the starting area for Night Elves. If I had to choose, I'd say that this is my favorite starting area in the game. There is just something so magical about it. The massive towering trees, the night elf dwellings built in and among them, the gorgeous colors, and then there's the music...it just brings it all together.

Teldrassil is also home to seven rare spawns. Three of which are furbolgs. There are no rares in the immediate area where new toons start in Shadowglen, but as soon as you head south you are likely to encounter Uruson, a furbolg who patrols around Starbreeze Village.

Most of them don't patrol much other than Fury Shelda. She patrols a larger area and flies very fast. Her patrol area can also be quite dangerous because of the numerous harpies in the area. I advise clearing an area along her patrol route before engaging her.

Duskstalker, the white spotted cat, doesn't patrol but instead has four separate spawn points south of Lake Al'Ameth. He is also a unique hunter pet since cataclysm and makes a nice low level pet for lowbie hunters. He also matches the Spotted Frostsaber mount perfectly. More info on Duskstalker in this post.

All of these rares have very short spawn timers. As short as even 10 - 30 minutes I don't think would be far fetched at all.