Locked and Loaded: Hunters in Tanaan Jungle

Tanaan Jungle is home to 6 new pets for Hunters, including a brand new challenge which culminates in the taming of your very own fel wolf. If you’ve recently leveled a new Hunter, or are just playing catch up on your existing one, we’ll show you the rares to kill and where to spend your Apexis Crystals to get yourself ready for Hellfire Citadel.

What spec should you play?

Honestly, any spec is going to work just fine here. I prefer Marksmanship, paired with a wolf in Tenacity spec, for most of my Tanaan adventuring. The lesser mobs often die in one or two hits — granted I am fairly geared — and <35% Kill Shot sees a lot of use. The Glyph of Misdirection is a requirement for this sort of gameplay as your pet, even with Growl, is never going to hold any aggro without constant misdirects.

Typically what I do is misdirect to my pet, Barrage onto everything in sight, then pick off the mobs one by one while they beat on my pet. This is the Marksmanship style, but Beast Mastery has the advantage of AoE, and holding aggro without constant misdirects. Both styles work, but if you’re looking for the easiest I would go with Beast Mastery. However, if you’re rocking a lot of raid gear, you’ll be shocked at how fast enemies melt with Marksmanship.

One area where I found Beast Mastery invaluable was for farming Saberstalkers reputation in a group. For that we used 1 tank and 4 DPS, and pulled as many of them as possible. Beast Cleave was too good to pass up! Also, the Artillery Strike zone buff is quite helpful for this kind of farming. It only takes an hour or two to get revered this way.

Last but not least, the Fel Sludge buff is your best friend. You get this by standing in the fel pools of Tanaan. As a hunter, your pet should be taking all the hits, so there’s really no reason not to have this buff/debuff up on yourself at all times. I like to keep mine at 9 stacks (since after 10 it kills you!) for a 45% damage increase.

Gearing up

If you have a brand new hunter, the quickest way to gear up is to visit all of the rares and treasures listed below. In the process of killing these you’ll also acquire some baleful gear tokens to help fill in missing slots. Within short order you’ll be ilvl 650 and be able to queue into Hellfire Citadel LFR.

Notable rare mobs:

• Tho’gar Gorefist: Sabatons of Radiating Ire (boots)
• Rogond the Tracker: Rogond’s Tracking Shoulderguards (shoulders)
• Driss Vile: Double-Scoped Long Rifle (gun)
• Rasthe: Fang of Rasthe (trinket)
• Lady Oran: Oran’s Cuffs of Malice (bracers)
• Harbormaster Korak: Korak’s Reinforced Iron Tunic (chest)
• Cindral the Wildfire: Contained Flame (trinket)
• Commander Org’mok: Org’mok’s Riding Chaps (legs)
• Sylissa: Serpentine Gloves (gloves)
• Broodlord Ixkor: Silver Chitin Ring (ring)
• Soulslicer: Glowing Felskull Belt (belt)
• Krell the Serene: Soothing Incense Brazier (trinket)
• Steelsnout: Steelsnout’s Steely Hide (cloak)
• Argosh the Destroyer: Fel Destroyer Crossbow (crossbow)

Notable treasures:

• Scout’s Belonging: Scout’s Spy Cloak (cloak)
• Discarded Helm: Fallen Adventurer’s Helm (helm)

One thing you want to be on the lookout for is a Baleful Armament token, which transforms into a Baleful Rifle. If you can’t get one to drop, you can purchase one for 10k Apexis Crystals. A further 20k Apexis Crystals will let you upgrade it to ilvl 695. This is 10-20 ilvls higher than any weapon you’ll find in LFR and will be your biggest upgrade by far.

After the weapon, I would target your ilvl 695 upgrades at the chest, legs, and helm slots first. These slots have the highest stat budgets so you’ll get the most bang for your Apexis this way.

New Hunter pets

In total, 8 new hunter pets were added in patch 6.2. You’ll find 6 of them in Tanaan Jungle. None of them are rare spawns, though one of them will require some skill to successfully tame. The video below will show you the new pets in action, and here’s how you get them.

Boars

• Diresnout Felboar: This is the updated version of the Fel Boar, originally seen back in Outland’s version of Shadowmoon Valley. This is also the same boar summoned by the T18 4-piece bonus. Only one of them spawns all by his lonesome, close to the entrance of Hellfire Citadel. Take a left at the raid’s portal and jump along the outer perimeter of Hellfire Citadel. You can’t miss him, he’s huge! A matching mount is available from Vol’jin’s Headhunters/Hand of the Prophet, the Deathtusk Felboar.
• Hulking Diretusk: The updated version of the Hell Boar, originally seen in Hellfire Peninsula. These pigs are found in several flavors just north of Vol’mar. A matching mount is available from the Saberstalkers, the Bristling Hellboar.

Wolves

• Iron Warwolf: Definitely one of the coolest looking wolf pets out there. You may recognize it as the same type of wolf that Beastlord Darmac rode. This one couldn’t be simpler. Head over to the Iron Front area and you’ll find them wandering around. They’re not very common, but it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to get one to spawn.
• Felbound Wolf: This wolf looks similar to Gara, only it’s green instead of purple. Also, it’s classified as a regular wolf, meaning no Beast Mastery required. Before you go and try to tame one, hold on — it’s not that simple. Fel wolves are aberrations, not beasts! Fortunately, there’s a special way to temporarily cleanse one of these wolves of their fel corruption, allowing you to tame it. You need to slay Fel Rangari Anaara, found on the southern coast of Tanaan. She holds the Vial of Fel Cleansing which allows you to tame the wolf. Defeating her will require the use of your full hunter toolkit. See below for more information.

Other pets

• Direwing Predator: A previously unused color of the new Draenor bat model, found in the swampy area south of Hellfire Citadel.
• Fathomless Mauler: A previously unused color of crab, a very nice blue/red mixture. Found in the southern coast of Tanaan (just off shore).
• Spiked Rockworm: Yes, it looks like Blizzard still had unused colors of worms kicking around in the game files. This one may be my favorite color. It isn’t found in Tanaan, but in Ashran. It’s in the new underground area added in 6.2.
• Larva Pit Fodder: There’s a good chance you won’t be able to tame this one, unless you haven’t progressed very far on the Garrison campaign. This unique red worm, found in Nagrand, can only be spawned when you are on this one-time Garrison quest.

Tips for defeating Fel Rangari Anaara

If you’re set on getting yourself a Felbound Wolf, here’s how you defeat Anaara and get a Vial of Fel Cleansing.

• Take the Spirit Bond talent so you have a constant source of healing.
• Keep her at range with Concussive Shot, Ice Trap, and Binding Shot (her melee attacks hurt more than her ranged ones).
• She will put your pet to sleep with Soothe Pet. You can break your pet out with both Bestial Wrath and Master’s Call.
• Move when she casts Fel Blossom underneath you. It hurts!
• When she goes into stealth mode, immediately drop a Flare where she was to reveal her. If you don’t do this, she will leave stealth eventually (but she will continue to attack you while stealthed).
• Important: Use Tranquilizing Shot to dispel Blessing of Fallen Kings. This increases her damage significantly, and will result in your pet dying in short order (probably followed by you soon after).
• Most important of all: Use Counter Shot to interrupt Tainted Light. If she gets this cast off, she will heal to full health. Considering she has a whopping 5 million health, this could seriously ruin your day!
• Take your time, focus on the mechanics rather than maxing your DPS.

You can get friends to help you out, but she only drops one vial per kill. Her respawn time is about 5 minutes.

This week’s Q&A

Lone Wolf and Marksmanship are a very strong combo for raiding. The only time it really has any competition with Focusing Shot is once you acquire your 4-piece tier 18 set bonus (instant Aimed Shots). Even then, Lone Wolf has the advantage when it comes to cleaving since it buffs Chimaera Shot damage so much.

There’s only one answer for the quiver question: Soon™. And I do hope it’s a little fancier than the little coin pouch on the T18 belt.