Blizzard is giving players the Scruffyhorn Fel Snooter capybara pet if they spend $75 in the gear store, and we hate it

Blizzard lists some interesting deals for their gear on occasion. Mostly discounts, which is usually nice, because throwing down $30 for a logo tee is not something I do. And we’ve been looking forward to the fel capybaras since they were datamined. But it’s time to talk (again), because their newest offer — a code for a “free” World of Warcraft battle pet, as long as you spend at least $75 USD on specific pieces of merch in the Gear Store — is something else.

First, and probably the wildest part — this “deal” puts the Scruffyhorn Fel Snooter’s equivalent cost at more than the coming expansion. And Blizzard’s items in the shop are not cheap, so we are not talking about getting a ton of merch for your purchase. T-shirts retail for $30-45 and hoodies are $60-80. Yet there’s no way to purchase this pet from Blizzard without buying a physical item from their shop — kind of a pain if you’re not looking to purchase anything between now and the end of the promotion on September 22.

But you can’t buy just any merch you want in order to get the Fel Snooter. Only World of Warcraft gear is eligible, but not every piece of WoW gear is qualified! Even worse, these items are not filtered out if you click the “Shop Now” button on the promotion’s banner. Pre-order and print-to-order items for purchase do not count towards your total, so you have to check at the bottom of every potential purchase; hope you weren’t targeting that Xal’atath tee.

And as a last rude gesture on top of the sundae, Blizzard doesn’t do free shipping, and the additional cost of international shipping is absolutely brutal. As a test, three of us on the BW staff (one in the US, one in Canada, and one in Australia) each added the Warcraft Samwise Sketch Orc Pullover Hoodie ($80 USD) to our carts from the main store. The results are kind of painful:

• United States — +$10 shipping, $90 total USD (our “in-region” baseline)
• Canada — +$25 shipping, $105 total USD / ~$145 total CAD
• Australia — +$28 shipping, $108 total USD / ~$163 total AUD

All this, when the Scruffyhorn Fel Snooter isn’t even actually Fel-themed! It should realistically be called the Cinder Snooter (h/t to writer Christian). Maybe the ‘Fel’ part of the capybara is the horns?

Now, I love cute battle pets. I slap that “buy” button when they toss a pet on the shop for their annual charity fundraisers. But those precious digital friends cost ten dollars.

So this is may be the first time ever that I say “thanks, but no thanks.” Instead, let’s go after the variation available for the Highmountain Legion Remix achievement. Bonus? That one actually is Fel green.