WoW: Pet Taming The Easy Way

To date my hunter has had 4 pets, a Coyote Packleader, every prairie farm boys dream, a Crocolisk, a really decent tank/DPS hybrid in my opinion, and two gorillas, an Elder Mist and a Silverback who I just picked up last night.

Me and Darcy were questing South of Booty Bay, doing all that humdrum every day stuff like slaughtering pirates and hunting giants when Darcy happened to discover a Silverback he just had to have. I was busy a ways off searching bottles on the beach so it took me a minute to get to him when he started calling for help. Turns out the Silverback has a nifty little talent that makes him a desirable pet and a tough one to tame.

If you don't know how it works to tame a pet I'll fill you in on the basics. Upon reaching level 10 the Hunter trainer will inform you that it's time to get a pet of your own, you then go out in the wilderness and tame 3 different pets that the trainer commands you to; once that is done he turns you loose to get a pet of your own choosing. To tame a pet you find an animal that appeals to you, making sure that it is either the same level as you or lower (and there's little point having a pet lower than yourself) target it, and start waving a stick in the air, exuding waves of what could only be pure love, judging by the hearts that appear in the air around you. A progress bar also pops up and once the bar is empty, taking about 30 seconds, your pet is tamed; that's all there is to it, yup, just stand there and soak up the punishment that your pet-to-be hands out while you're taming it, cause in case I for got to mention it, the pet attacks constantly during the process. And therein lies the rub of today's topic.

It turns out Silverbacks have pushback effect, where they are able to knock you flat on your ass when they attack; the main downside being that when you get up you have to start the taming all over gain, giving them ample time to recharge their ability and push you back again. This is where Darcy's problem came in and we ended up killing 3 of them before we managed to tame one.

How to save yourself the trouble? Pretty easy if you have the Freezing Trap ability. We tested it out on his gorilla and then tried the method out to get me a Silverback of my own, worked flawlessly the first time. I first laid a trap in front of myself and backed up a few steps; I then started the tame process, causing the Silverback to charge; upon hitting my trap the Gorilla was frozen in place, allowing me to continue the tame uninterrupted; at this point Darcy came along and dropped another trap in between me and the still frozen gorilla; at the 20 second mark the trap broke and released the Silverback, who promptly ran into the second trap and was frozen again. About half way through the second trap cycle the tame finished, the trap thawed, and I had a brand new, fully tamed, level 42 Silverback Gorilla to match Darcy's.

So there you have it, save yourself some trouble and use the traps you've got, freeze 'em and tame 'em. I'm looking forward to getting Randolph and Clyde in PvP, Pushback's a bitch unless you're controlling it.