For me, one of the best things in WoW are the pets to collect. As a young Druid getting to Darnassus for the first time, I was enthralled to see a vendor selling pet owls, and just had to have one. Much saving of cash later, I was the proud owner of a lovely little companion
I didn't think much more about the pets for a while, until I went through the Deadmines with some friends, and Cookie dropped a Siamese cat. I was the only one that wanted it, so they gave it to me, and all of a sudden I was the proud owner of an Owl and a Pussycat, it was just a shame the boat we were on wasn't pea-green
Then, three or four Pirates down the boat, one dropped a parrot pet. My friends just laughed, and handed it to me saying 'Another one for the collection!'
Hmmmm, collection... that gives me an idea!
From that point on, a lot of my playing was done with a slant towards picking up the rest of the pets. I bought myself a few of the vendor ones that I particularly liked, but really I wanted to collect the dropped and quested ones. Many, many hours went into this pursuit, and when I finally hit level 55 it was time to go get myself a Worg Pup, one I'd been particularly looking forward to...
All I knew in advance was that Kibler gave the quest, and I had to capture a pup for him, and I'd get one in return... sounded easy enough
Having got high enough to do it, I looked up the quest on various sites, and soon discovered that it took place in Blackrock Spire, a high level instanced dungeon. Not good. However, lots of people said it was possible to Stealth the quest solo, and that sounded worth a try, and lots of fun to boot
Unfortunately, the fact that it was Stealthable was the only thing people agreed on. Different posts said it was in different places, Upper and Lower, by different Nameds, and due to the three-dimensional nature of the zone none of the maps I found were really any help to me.
Thus began several hours of trial and error, but eventually I managed to complete the quest solo using Stealth. I'd hit 56 by then, as I'd taken a break half way to do some stuff with friends, and that made it slightly easier on the subsequent runs though.
As I never managed to find a decent walkthrough, or easy-to-follow map, I thought I'd write my own so anyone daft enough to want to try it too could 8-)
Rather than miss out something important, I'll be assuming that you've never used Stealth before and need to know everything. Sorry if any of it seems condescending. This is written from a Druid's point of view, however I've tried to include Rogue-specific details where I can. I've not tested any of them, I'm going purely on what others have told me, so I apologise in advance if any of them are incorrect.
I should point out here that I'm not in an Uber Raiding Guild, I run a small friendly guild, and so this guide should be usable by everyone, even the little folk like me! There are no pre-requisits in the way of other quests, keys, equipment or talents you need to have before hand, except for the minimum level of 55 in order to get the quests from Kibler
I did this at level 56, with no points in Improved Prowl, so if you're higher level or have Improved Prowl (Master of Deception for Rogues) it'll be even easier
Well, first off, where do you get the quest, and where do you go to do it?
Well, the quest is given by Kibler, a Goblin in a cave in Burning Steppes. You can find out exactly where easy enough looking on Thottbot or Allakhazam's, so I won't cover finding him.
The quest takes place in Blackrock Spire, an instance inside Blackrock Mountain, which straddles the border between Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. Blackrock Spire has two halves, Lower Blackrock Spire (LBRS) which is where you start when you zone in, and Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS), which is accessed from inside LBRS using a quested key. Luckily the quest is in LBRS, so you don't need the key. It is apparently possible to take a shorter, easier route going via UBRS and dropping down, however if you've managed to quest the UBRS key then it's highly unlikely you'll need this guide 8-)
If you die (and you most likely will), you appear at the Graveyard at Thorium Point in Searing Gorge. It's a simple trip to the South West of the zone to get back.
Once inside Blackrock Mountain, there are no mobs until you get close to the instance entrance, so it's safe to move around a bit. There are two instances inside the Mountain, BRS and BRD (Blackrock Depths).
If you travel around the ring in Blackrock Mountain, you will find a meeting stone for Blackrock Spire, and a tunnel leading to it. DO NOT GO IN HERE! It leads past lots of Orcs, and while it's possible, even easy, to Stealth past them, there's no need, as there's a cunning shortcut you can take!
If you go to the northern (and highest) point on the ring inside Blackrock Mountain, there's a chain leading down to the floating island in the middle, and a rock ramp on the west side of it allowing you to climb onto it. Go up onto the chain, and then go left and up the chain, and drop off the end onto a shelf. It's very dark at this point, so you might need to turn your gamma or brightness up. Follow the shelf round to the right and up, and you'll see a balcony ahead of you. There's a gap just before the balcony, so you need to jump the last few feet. Once on the balcony, look into the room and you'll see the instance entrance to BRS. There's also a door to the right, don't go through there as there are Elite Orcs.
This would be a good time to cover the basics of Stealth.
Stealth in WoW is quite different to Invisibility in other games such as EQ, in that it's not 'Stealth up and nothing will see you', but an agro-range reducer. Get close enough to something and it WILL see you and attack. There are also mobs with Detect Stealth, who see you at an even wider radius.
How close you can get to a mob without being seen is determined by how much higher or lower level than you the mob is. For mobs lower than you your agro radius is very small, about the same size you are in fact, so unless you walk right into the mob you're usually ok. However, the higher above you the mob is, the further away it'll spot you from.
As if that wasn't enough, there are actually two agro ranges when Stealthed... the 'I seeeeee youuuuu!' one mentioned above, when the mob just comes along and splats you, and the 'Did you hear something?' one, where you attract the mob's attention, but don't actually agro it yet... yet being the operative word here! 8-)
If you get close enough to trigger the 'Did you hear something?' reaction, the mob will turn to face you (and if it's a roamer, stop walking and stare at you). While this is very scary when it happens, as long as you don't move the mob will eventually shrug it off as the wind or something, and turn back to what it's doing, allowing you to carry on.
Those two agro ranges are VERY important here, and I'll be referring to them a lot.
Zone into BRS, and you're at the bottom of a ramp. This is a safe spot, so once you're in you can Stealth up quite safely.
The entrance ramp to BRS
At this point, take off all your equipment and stash it in your backpack, as you will most likely die several times getting it right, and most likely a couple of times just through bad luck. You have to be *very* patient for this. If you do get spotted, all the gear in the world won't save you, so you might as well save on repair costs 8-)
Head up the ramp, and there's a room with various Orcs around the edges. They won't react to you at all as long as you stay in the centre of the room, however the one at the end will wander from side to side as it gets chunks of the roast pig and goes back to the table to eat it, so you have to be careful of that one. Also, there's a patrol of two that circle the area and cut across the end of this room, again mind them.
First room, with Roamer and Patrol marked.
Across the room there are ramps leading up at either side, and a big ramp down across the centre. You want to head down the ramp, hugging the right-hand wall. There are two doorways in that wall, you want to take the second one. You will get *very* close to an Orc as you go, but it doesn't react, so hug the wall and you'll be fine.
Down the ramp, showing the doorway you want to go through
Once through the doorway, you're in a short passage that leads to quite and open area. Two Orcs patrol into this passage, and they both react, so be very careful here.
Passage, showing Orc patrol
You want to wait 'til the patrol leaves, and then move down the passage and a little to the right. At this point, wait for the patrol to come back, and when they go past you up the passage you just came from, head off down the ramp and through the doorway on your left. This saves you having to hide from the patrol in the tunnel, which is possible but riskier.
Wait point and doorway to passage
Once into the passage, follow it through and you come out in a large chamber. At this point, turn sharp right and move away from the door so the patrol don't spot you when they come back.
This is the view you'll see after turning right in the chamber.
Although you'll get to play with those Ogres later, for now you can safely ignore them, they're actually on the other side of a chasm. You, however, are going into that chasm! It's a handy shortcut that saves a lot of work. Move forward until you're on the wall, and you'll see two rock platforms below you.
Rock platforms
Jump down onto the first, walk to the end, and down onto the second. You then need to head down the second to the left-hand side corner. Looking down, you'll see a lava river, a metal edging, and a stone path. You want to jump off and land on the metal edging.
View over the edge, showing the metal edging.
Ok, so far it's all been easy, now's when it gets tough...
If you turn to look down the corridor, you'll see it is *packed* with Orcs, with only a very small leeway in between. To make this even harder, there is a single-Orc patrol that comes down it, and a Roamer half way down who wanders from side to side and stands in the middle.
View down corridor, showing Roamer
From this point on, you need to have a very steady hand, be very patient, and most importantly of all be in third-person view. Personally I like to play in first-person, however this section is quite simply not possible that way, you have to be able to see all around you.
Timing is important here. The first thing you have to do is wait for the Patrol to come down the corridor towards you. It might stop and stare at you, however as long as you're standing on the metal edging facing down the centre of the hallway you'll be out of attack range, so just be patient and let it wander off again.
Now, once it's gone it's time to set off. If you're lucky, the Roamer shown in the last picture will have wandered onto the right hand side and be easier to pass, however it doesn't stay there long, and is your biggest obstacle for this section.
With the Patrol past you, start off down the centre of the corridor, slowly. Remember what I said earlier on about the 'Did you hear something?' reaction, well you're going to see a lot of it now. Every time a mob looks your way, stop and don't move again until it turns away. You have some time until the Patrol comes back, so you can afford to be careful, however don't over do it 8-)
Moving down the corridor, and an Orc reacting.
Having made it past the first lot, the corridor continues round to the left. Although the Orcs are more spread out here, they still react and you have to still be careful.
Heading round to the left.
You're heading to the far wall, and ultimately towards the group containing the sitting mob you can see top centre of the last picture.
View from the far wall
This part is the bit that requires the most patience, as (at level 56 certainly) you have *barely* enough room to squeeze through these mobs, and most of them react. You need to cross to the left hand half of the passage, and squeeze diagonally through the mobs as show in the next picture. The mob with his back to me in the picture doesn't react, however the other four all do, so you have to take this literally a step at a time. When you're certain that none of the mobs are looking at you, take one step forward and stop, then wait until you're certain you're clear again and take one more step, then stop again. Keep doing this until you get onto the ramp, at which point you're clear of the Orcs.
Path through the Orcs
Congratulations, you are now past all the Orcs... now it's time for Spiders!
View up the ramp, showing the Spiders
To get past these, you need to hug the left-hand wall up to just below a couple of boulders, as show here, and then wait.
Boulders and wait spot
There are three spiders you need to keep your eye on here, the little one to the right of the boulder, the little one behind the boulder, and the big one just past them. Eventually all three of them will wander away from the left hand wall, at which point you head up. You need to watch yourself here, there's an overhang you can see in the previous picture that you can get stuck under.
Once past those three spiders, carry on up into the top left corner. Turn right, and follow the wall past Mother Smolderweb. Keep going all the way to the far side.
Sneaking past Mother Smolderweb
Once into the far corner, you need to sneak back towards Mother Smolderweb, and wait between her and the rock to her left, just before the metal girders. You need to cross those girders, but there's a Roaming spider on them, so you have to time it. He will eventually come down towards Mother Smolderweb, and then walk back up again.
Wait position near Mother Smolderweb, showing Roamer leaving
Once the Roamer heads away, get onto the girder and follow him up a little. He will go up the left prong, and then back and up the right prong. When he's onto the right prong, go straight up to the top.
Roamer heading onto the right prong.
At the far end, you now have the part that requires the most luck. There are lots of spiders blocking a very narrow path, and they move around a lot. Just round the corner on the right are several more. You need to wait until all the spiders are away from the right-hand wall, then cross everything and head past them, hugging the wall all the way. The spiders tend to make little dashes back to the wall now and then, if they do there's nothing you can do except die and start again.
Preparing to dash past the spiders. There are more around the corner out of view.
If, by some miracle, you make it past the spiders, you need to squeeze up between some rocks
Rocks, and gap to squeeze through
And out through the low doorway on the far side
Doorway
You now find yourself on a ramp leading up. Remember those Ogres pictured earlier, well they're all at the top of that ramp. Also, one of them roams down the ramp now and then.
Ramp up to Ogres
You need to wait until he's roamed down and gone back up again, and then head up the ramp. At the top, you need to turn left. You can just squeeze past the Ogres on the edge of the ramp past them, and into the next corridor. There's a scarab half way down this corridor, don't tread on him! 8-)
Corridor, with Scarab
You need to head through the doorway at the far end, however a Patrol wanders to there, so you have to first wait until the patrol arrives, waits for a bit, and then leaves. Once it leaves, head up through the doorway (still avoiding stepping on the Scarab)
Patrol at the far end of the corridor
Once through the doorway, you need to head up the ramp and round to the right. The Patrol goes left, so you're clear of them, however there are Orcs down to the right so go carefully.
View up the ramp, go right at the top
Having gone right, you need to move over and hug the left hand wall.
View down the corridor, showing Orcs
Move to the end of the corridor (being careful to watch the Orcs at the end for reactions, they will if you get too close), and the room on your left contains the Worg Pups that you're after, as well as a big named Worg (Halycon).
View into the room, showing some Worg Pups
If you're a Rogue, all you need to do now is target a pup and click the cage, your Stealth won't break until you've captured it, and a quick Vanish afterwards should save you. If you're a Druid, however, you have rather a trickier problem... you can't click the cage in Cat form, and swapping out of Cat will break your Stealth.
The Cage takes 2.5 seconds to cast, but luckily it doesn't get interrupted by being hit, so your only option is to get yourself a good line of sight, take a deep breath, and de-Cat and click. If you're lucky, the mobs won't kill you until after you've caught one 8-)
As a Rogue, you can now Hearthstone out (or carry on to do the Smolderweb Hatchling quest, see below), however as Druid at this point you're most likely dead, and at the Graveyard in Searing Gorge. There's no point getting a spirit res as you need to go through Blackrock Mountain to get to Kibler for the hand in anyway, so you might as well pop into BRS and res normally on the way through, and then sneak back out past the guard mobs. Once clear of them all, put all your gear back on and it's off to Kibler for the final hand in, which will give you...
Your very own cuuuuuute Worg Pup 8-) 8-)
Dianius, 56 Night Elf Druid, Terenas (Euro)
As an addendum, there is another pet quest from Kibler in LBRS... I'm sure the observant amongst you spotted all the eggs lying about by the Smolderweb Spiders, well collect 15 of those and you can have yourself your very own Smolderweb Hatchling...
Me and my spider
The good new is that each egg can contain more than one, so if you get lucky you only have to open 5 or so to complete the quest...
The bad news is that sometimes the eggs can hatch as you click them, and spill out lots of spiders. Rogues should be able to Vanish from them, for the Druid though it's game over and time to run back from the Graveyard.
More bad news: The spiders that hatch from the eggs stay up, so you have to avoid them next time through. For this reason I actually started collecting from the further eggs and worked back towards the entrance, so I never had to worry about the extras.
Finally for this Guide, I couldn't resist posting a picture of me with all my (current) pets... and yes, I carry them all about with me everywhere 8-)
Me, with all my pets...
And just to preempt all the 'How did you get all the pets out at once' posts... I didn't 8-) I sat a mule at a pretty spot, and got each pet out in turn, positioned it where I wanted it, and then editted all the pictures into one.
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