May 2013   « Archives | Current News »

It's that time of year again... quite possibly the best pet collecting in-game holiday in WoW — Children's Week!

From April 29^th through May 6^th, several Orphan Matrons throughout the world offer you quests to care for an orphan. As thanks for your kind deed, you'll be offered a chance to pick one out of a few different pets at the end of each quest chain.

Curious where to pick up the quests and how to complete them? You'll find maps and step-by-step walk-throughs in our definitive guide:

WarcraftPets' Guide to Children's Week

You can complete these quests once per character, making it possible to collect a different pet on each one. Add as many or as few to your collection all in one week! Plus, nearly all of these pets are tradable. So you can find some great deals on them in the auction house.

Children's Week Pets In Battle
Most of the pets rewarded during Children's Week are from the Critter family. Magic, Humanoid and Aquatic are also options, although less abundant.

If you're looking for an effective counter against Critters, try out the Curious Wolvar Pup! As a Humanoid, it takes less damage from Critter attacks. On top of that, it has a few attacks that are strong against Critters, such as Bite and Maul.

Another interesting pick is Scooter the Snail. Elemental attacks are weak against this pet, and its ability Dive is strong against Elemental types. Who knew a little snail could pack such a punch?

Before you head off into battle with your new friends, you may want to use a Battle-Stone to upgrade them. Each Children's Week pet starts off as [uncommon] quality. This doesn't stop them from being awesome and adorable companions, though!

Tiny Carp Pets Tradable in Patch 5.3
The patch notes for the 5.3 PTR were updated recently to include a change to the Tiny Carp companions. [source]

Tiny Blue Carp, Tiny Green Carp, Tiny Red Carp, and Tiny White Carp are now tradable, and can be caught more than once.

This is great news for players who are unable to fish up the carp pets themselves. So anglers and collectors be sure to save any extra Tiny Carps you may have fished up. Who knows how much they will be worth in 5.3!

Unborn Val'kyr Spawning Clarification
It's still a mystery what triggers the spawning of the Unborn Val'kyr (coming in Patch 5.3), but one thing is for certain - players will not be able to force these haunted angels to spawn, as confirmed by Mumper on Twitter. [source]

"Players have no effect other than capturing or killing what they find."

Looks like we'll have to continue brainstorming what type of server conditions are required to spawn this elusive wild pet. If you happen to spot one, be sure to take note of environmental details. Hopefully by comparing notes, we'll figure out the mystery behind the Unborn Val'kyr!

Patch 5.3 is here, bringing updates to Pet Battles as well as new pets to collect!


Here are the highlights of Patch 5.3. For a full list of all the changes, check out the official 5.3 patch notes.

20 New Pets to Collect!

• 10 new pets that drop from three Burning Crusade raids - Tempest Keep, Karazhan, and Serpentshrine Cavern. Upon collecting all of them, you'll receive a pet reward!
• There's a new pet with a unique interaction, but it's not available yet and it's unknown when it will be released.
• 3 new pets from bosses in the Throne of Thunder raid, one of which only comes from the LFR version of the instance, while another can only drop from Normal or Heroic mode.
• Lend your aid to the Darkspear Rebellion to gain access to the quartermaster who sells a baby hydra!
• 2 new drops from creatures on the Isle of Giants and Isle of Thunder.
• Enjoy pet PVP? There's a new reward for winning 250 battles with a team of max level pets. Let's rumble!

View All New Pets

In addition to all of the pets mentioned above, a new elusive wild pet can be found in the farthest continent of Azeroth. Be on the look out for the Unborn Val'kyr!

This undead companion can spawn in any zone in Northrend, and in a recent interview with Game Diplomat, Mumper confirmed that player actions (other than capturing or killing the Unborn Val'kyr) have no affect on this pet's spawn. [source]

The Unborn Val'kyr may defeat many a foe, but it also has the ability to give life, not just take it. When summoned outside of a battle and brought near a deceased non-battling critter, this dark angel will breathe life back into the dead!

New Features and Changes

• Family-specific Battle-Stones are now BoA!
• The Pet Journal will save your pet ability selections for each pet, even when you switch pets in and out of your current team.
• The world map shows the locations of Pet Tamers with a green paw marker.
• There's a new achievement for completing all Tamer dailies in one day. This achievement rewards a BoA Battle-Stone, Marked Flawless Battle-Stone.
• There are new Pet PVP achievements and rewards.
• New Pet PVP weekly that rewards Valor Points and the new Brawler's Pet Supplies.
• Your statistic window pane now tracks wins from queued Pet PVP matches.
• You can spectate wild pet battles and pet battle duels. Matches against Tamer NPCs are not visible.
• The Beasts of Fable daily has been split up into three parts, all of which can be completed daily. Each quest rewards Fabled Pandaren Pet Supplies.
• The Beasts of Fable reward bags have a chance to drop a Pet Treat. Talk about an incentive for your pets (and you) to earn those levels!
• You now have a chance to loot family-specific flawless Battle-Stones from the Pandaren Spirit daily bags.
• Pandaria Pet Battle quests also reward Lesser Charms of Good Fortune and Valor Points.
• Experience is now rewarded for all Pet Battle quests.
• Not having much luck finding a Battle-Stone from the daily bags or wild battles? A new feature to slowly increase your chances to find a Battle-Stone has been implemented.
• Pets have an increased chance to hit higher level opponents, and many attacks have had their damage increased at the cost of accuracy.
• Many pet abilities have been updated and changed.
• The Tiny Carp companions can now be caged and traded. Happy fishing!

Whether you enjoy Pet PVP, PVE or both, this patch is loaded with goodies for everyone. Time to get collecting and battling!

Enjoy our monthly web comic created for WoW pet collectors! We feature a new World of Petcraft strip every month.


About the Artist
Meaghan McLaughlin is an aspiring artist and the author of "Nerds Illustrated." She's currently available to create custom WoW artwork.

It's been a little over a week since 5.3 was released. We'd like to remind you about a couple of known issues that will hopefully be resolved in the near future.


Longest Day Achievement
Many players are reporting that they are not receiving the reward for completing the achievement The Longest Day. Additionally, the achievement may not be behaving as intended, and it may not correctly log completed dailies.

Developers are working on a fix, but in the meantime players that have fulfilled the necessary requirements for the achievement can submit a ticket and request the reward. [source]

Opening Too Many Bags
At the start of Patch 5.3, opening one too many Tamer bags resulted in a three day account suspension. This was a (possibly unintended) side effect of a hotfix to curb an unrelated exploit also involving opening loot containers.

Since then, Mumper has stated on Twitter in regards to this issue,

"We are proactively reviewing any account that received suspensions for opening multiple loot bags and will overturn as unnecessary."

Players have petitioned their suspensions and most have been reviewed and the suspension overturned. In a few cases the game time was refunded to eligible players.

Although Blizzard has taken step to ensure players are not wrongly punished, opening many Tamer bags may still trigger a temporary account ban, so it is advisable to open any loot bags as you receive them rather than accumulating and opening many at once.