How to Kill Alani The Stormborn (Reins of the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent)

My last Alani post was written and edited throughout various points during mop beta and ended up being sort of a timeline of discoveries, rather than a straight forward, this is how to Kill Alani and get an awesome mount post. I figured it was about time to condense everything into one clean spot for her - so without further adieu:

Like the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, Aeonaxx, Poseidus and even that pesky mysterious camel figurine before her, Alani the Stormborn is Mist of Pandaria's rare that drops a mount. Unlike her predecessors, the method of killing her and obtaining the mount she drops is far different from anything we've seen until now. 

Alani has a 100% chance to drop the Reins of the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent. She can be found flying high above the Vale of Eternal Blossoms protected by a Nimbus Shroud, which completely protects her from any type of harm.

Rares in previous expansions required us to wait around for hours, days, even weeks on end waiting for them to show up. Many of us would afk with our volume turned up so that if our coveted rare did spawn we'd hear the blazing horn of npcscan and drop whatever we were doing for a chance at downing them. Often times a lucky person questing on an alt would just happen to run into said rare only moments before we could tag them, destroying all hope of obtaining what we had been waiting for for so long. 

Well Alani changes the game entirely, making sure that only those that really truly want her are going to get her. Anyone looking to get their hands on the Reins of the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent are going to have to farm for it plain and simple. The only thing that will break Alani out of her Nimbus Shroud and make her attackable is a Sky Crystal. A Sky Crystal is created when ten Skyshards are fused together.

Skyshards will drop from pretty much any mob in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The drop chance is incredibly low though (roughly anywhere from .01 - .4%). Mobs with lower health pools that respawn quickly make a good target for farming these things. In the screenshot below you can see my friend Reinoverall farming Stonebark Tricksters in Ruins Rise for his very last Skyshard.

Doctor Theolen Krastinov - Krastinov's Bag of Horrors

Using Krastinov's Bag of Horrors

That's right, The Doctor is in! If there's one thing that I just can't get enough of, it's fun transformation items. My bags are always overflowing with those darn things, but I just can't stop collecting them!

Well for those of you who also have a strange addiction to transformation items - Doctor Theolen Krastinov, a rare spawn in Heroic Scholomance, drops an incredibly fun one called Krastinov's Bag of Horrors.

Doctor Theolen Krastinov <The Butcher>

Doctor Theolen Krastinov has approx. 4k hp and can be found in the room right after Rattlegore. The couple of times that I've fought him he's yelled "Time for a little open-heart surgery!" as our group engaged him in combat. He has no special abilities really worth noting. He could almost be mistaken for a trash mob if you weren't paying attention.

New 5.1 Rare Faction Champions in Krasarang Wilds - A Closer Look

As I had mentioned in a previous post, there were a bunch of new rares that were going to be added in patch 5.1. Well the patch is here, and so are they! I've spent a lot of time over the past week camping these rare faction champions, and I figured I'd share some of the information I've learned.

First of all unless you've completed the initial couple of quests (starting with Meet the Scout -> A King Among Men/Meet the Scout -> The Might of the Warchief) at your faction's base camp you will not be able to see these rares. Completing those initial quests and their follow-ups will toss you into a new phase that will change your zone map significantly and allow you to see both the Horde and Alliance base camps: Lion's Landing and Domination Point.

Each base has three rares, for a total of six rare champions in the zone (of course you'll only be able to attack three of them, as your own faction rares will appear friendly to you). There are three different types of rares: the warrior, rogue and healy-type. Each base has one of each type. When you've killed all three champions in your enemies base, you will be awarded the achievement I'm in Your Base, Killing Your Dudes. (Origin: In Ur Base.)

Each rare has one piece of loot unique to them, and the rest are shared. The shared loot that you could possibly get from them (in order of most likely - least likely) is:

- around 10 Domination Point Commitions (Alliance)/Lion's Landing Commitions (Horde)
- Honorable Commendation of Operation: Shieldwall (Alliance)/Honorable Commendation of the Dominance Offensive (Horde)
- Small Bag of Goods (Both Factions)
- and the reason why these guys are so highly camped: Blood-Soaked Invitation (This item will grant you access to your faction's Brawler's Guild.)

These rares also grant +400 reputation with The Black Prince up to Revered.

The Commendations are by far the most common drop. Let's just say I've gotten a LOT of honor over the past few days. I now have each of the trinkets and have seen a couple of them more than once. I have yet to see the Blood-Soaked Invitation, or know of anyone who has received it. If you don't want to spend incredible amounts of gold on the Black Market Auction House though this is the only means of acquiring it at this point.

Spawn timers on these rares are very fast. The longest spawn I've seen was about an hour, but I've also seen them respawn in as little as a half hour.

(For Alliance Players) Horde Champions at Domination Point:
 

Champion of Arms: Kar Warmaker

Abilities:
- Heroic Leap/Heroic Leap He will use this if your over 15 yards away, it will knock out 40% of your health. Don't get to far from him!
- Cracking Blow (pictured left) This is the killer right here. This ability he smashes straight in front if him, and it will cost you 60% of your max health if hit. The best way to avoid this is to run right through him as fast as possible or try to sidestep it.
- Sunder Armor self-explanatory

Loot unique to Kar: Steadfast Footman's Medallion

Lost and Found Achievement: Where to Find Lost Treasures in Pandaria

One of the things I've been having a lot of fun doing in game recently is hunting for the rare lost treasures across Pandaria. These things are more rare than the actual "rares" making them a really fun challenge to try and find. These items are all part of a series of achievements starting with Lost and Found, Finder's Keepers, One Man's Trash... and finally Is Another Man's Treasure. The final achievement grants the title <the Relic Hunter>.

Yaungol Fire Carrier

Most of the items that count toward the achievements are very interesting in that they are bind on account. These are bind on account weapons that can be sent to your level 85-86 alts! There is something for pretty much every class too (except for hunters, they kind of got shafted here). Most of these rare items are looted from containers of the same name as the item itself. A few items that count for the achievement are from chests that can contain several different objects. There are also rare npcs that will give players an item upon interacting with them which will then despawn immediately after. There are also a couple of ultra-rare cooking recipes too!

WARNING: When you find an item, make sure that you will not be interrupted while picking it up. If you move when trying to loot, the loot window can disappear and the item you were trying to loot will disappear along with it.

I've marked locations on the map below to indicate where each item can be found, along with a brief description further detailing the more precise area to find each object. I have also color-coded them by different type of item. For example: all of the items on the map below marked in green are from npcs that can be added right into NPCScan. NPCScan will pick up these rare npcs if they are up, but they have to be added manually.

Tons of New Rares Coming in 5.1, Including New Hunter Pets!

As many are aware, patch 5.1 is going to be bringing a lot of changes. One of the changes that I'm most excited about is the incredible amount of new rares being introduced. Not only do we get to see some new rares in Pandaria - we are also getting over a hundred new tamable rares throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor!

New Hunter Pets:

Qem - Pink "Brain" Bug. (Click any image on this page to enlarge.)

I'm not going to list every single new tamable rare (Petopia has already done that here), but I do want to share some of the ones that I thought were the most noteworthy.

Several of these new rares have skins that were not previously tamable or are brand new looks entirely!

There are three new "brain" bugs that can be found lurking around the hives in Silithus. There is a beautiful new sapphire owl that is tamable at level 25 (pictured left). There are seven new spiked wind serpents with absolutely gorgeous color-schemes ranging from level 27 - 53. There is a beautiful hunched striped green cat (think skarr's model + Winna's Kitten color scheme) that can be found in the Swamp of Sorrows, and another new black and white striped hunched cat in Felwood. The Arcane Wyrms in Coldarra have finally become tamable, and a new red wyrm has been introduced in Silithus. There is even a tamable monkey wearing a hat!

Several other new rares' looks were once only available in raids such as AQ40 and Blackwing Lair. Never could get a friend to help you tame Chromaggus? Don't fret - there is now an alternative that looks exactly the same! Chromehound is a level 49 rare that patrols around the inside of Blackrock Mountain. Several of the more colorful wasp models that were once only found in Zul'Gurub or AQ40 have also made an appearance out in the world.

Many other models that were once available only at higher levels can now be tamed by hunters much lower in level. Nether Rays and Sporebats (previously only tamable in Outland) can now be tamed in the level 40 - 50 range. A new level 48 boar in the Searing Gorge shares the same model as the blue & white felboars on Ogri'la Plateau. There are a couple of beetles that were originally found in Halls of Origination/Uldum that can now be found at level 27 and 39. Even shale spiders, which we previously wouldn't have seen until hitting deepholm can now be found as low as level 29 (of course not tamable until level 69 though because they are exotic).

Krasarang Wilds Rare Champions

Moving out of the Valley of the Four Winds and into Krasarang Wilds, we step away from vanity items and trinkets as the special rare drops - and move into epic pants! That's right, each one of the rares in this zone has a chance to drop their pants! Quite literally too, the pants are named after the respective rare that drops them. These pants are all epic, item level 440 and can be equipped at level 87. They are also all bind on equip, so they can be sold on the auction house or given to an alt. ^-^

The rares in this zone are all level 87, with health pools around 1.8M. They each have a 100% chance to drop an item level 420 rare quality bop helm of a random armor type and a small chance to drop a Small Bag of Goods.

As I have stated in a previous post - they all seem to spawn in around the same time, so if you run across a corpse or someone else fighting one of these rares it wouldn't hurt to check the rest of the spawn points to see if any others are up.

Click map to Enlarge  

Ruun Ghostpaw (Pandaren)

Ruun spawns on the upper level of the Temple of the Red Crane. Those with flying mounts can simply fly right into the terrace he is on. Before engaging him in combat be sure to clear the add (Incarnation of Despair) that patrols down the hall in front of Ruun. This mob patrolling into you and using it's Last Grasp ability while engaged with Ruun has the potential to make things go bad fairly quickly.

Like other Pandaren Ruun's three abilities are Chi Burst, Healing Mists and Spinning Crane Kick. The most important thing to know when taking him (and other Pandaren rares) down is to interrupt Healing Mists, and run away from Spinning Crane Kick. Ranged players should also stand within 15 yards of him to avoid his Chi Burst which deals some pretty massive damage.

Ruun has a small chance to drop Silent Leggings of the Ghostpaw.