"Ghost wolf" is usually a term you associate with shamans, but now it might just become the keyword for the newest, rarest, most difficult to tame, and most visually unique hunter pet in the game. As the Mistress of Pets Mania's Arcania reports, some of the new Dustwallow Marsh content in Patch 2.3 involves some Grimtotem shamans who summon tamable ghost wolves. For most hunters, however, these ghost wolves will be impossible to tame, because a few seconds after they appear, they just die, regardless of how much damage they take. The only way to tame them involves using various items or abilities which can shorten the casting time of your "Tame Beast" spell down to a fraction of its original 20 seconds. Here's a list of what you might find useful, listed in approximate order of how important they are to your success:- [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] -- This metagem can cut the time it takes to cast Tame Beast in half, and you can't tame this beast without it. You have to repeatedly cast various aspects until its special proc goes off.
- Heroism or Bloodlust -- The same ability with different names for Alliance and Horde shamans; having a friend in your party use this will further reduce your taming time by 30%. If your latency is good, this should make your taming just barely fast enough to succeed.
- Mind Control -- Bring a priest friend along too, and he or she willl be able to take control of one of the Grimtotem NPCs to summon the ghost wolf whenever you're ready.
- A handy macro -- To save time in getting your casting going, just type "/target grimtotem spirit guide;" on the first line of a macro, and "/cast tame beast" on the second. Then drag it to your action bar so you can hit it repeatedly just as you ask your priest friend to summon the wolf. [Thanks Grunde!]
- [Drums of Battle] -- It's also very helpful to either be a Leatherworker, or have one in your party who will use this for you just before you start your taming, in order to shave a few more moments off your taming time.
- Be a troll -- Trolls get a Berserking ability, which might just be the final little bit you need in order to cut down the taming time enough to snatch this ghostly wolf pet. A lot of non-trolls have succeeded in taming this pet, too, of course; but if you happen to be a troll, feel free to use this ability to make it a bit easier.
After all that, you need a macro or something to immediately target the wolf and start taming the very moment it appears. Then, you can pray for a few seconds and hope everything works. It may be very hard, but it has been done before -- though one person on Mania's site said that her new ghost pet died a second after she tamed it, possibly as a residual effect of its otherwise very limited lifespan. So if you want to try it, be patient, and
[Update]: I've edited this post to include some of the other helpful information from commenters and other sources that came out after we originally published it. Be sure to check out our other resources on the Ghost Wolf pet, including a video showing the taming in action, a story about how Matthew Rossi helped his wife get one, and proof that the Grimtotem Sririt Guide will remain tamable in the future.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-21-2007 @ 2:45PM
Todd said...
Wow, rare indeed.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 2:52PM
Dotixi said...
this has got to be a bug. no other mobs have hunter tamable pets/minions.
unless i am wrong but i have never seen any.
Reply
12-14-2007 @ 6:07AM
Wombat Colborn said...
I tamed one of these on Khaz Modan server. Took three (3) tries but we followed the available methods, ending up doing this:
*Hunter stands in front of group facing Grimtotem Summoner
*Priest MCs Grimtotem Summoner
*Hunter with Mystical Skyfire gem in place cycles through 4 low-level aspects in (nature, cheetah, etc)
*Mystical Skyfire gem PROC's (Hunter casting time cut 50%)
*Group should ALL notice effect of PROC on appearance of Hunter, and react-
*Priest IMMEDIATELY cues controlled mob to summon Wolves
*Hunter spams Macro ( /target Grimtotem Spirit Guide, /cast Tame Beast)
*Shammy casts Heroic
*LW triggers Drums of Battle
***********************************************
The things that I would add that I didn't see in other guides are how to force the gem to proc and to have the Hunter stand in FRONT of the group so that even using voice chat is unnecessary. It is faster to just have the group watch for the gem's effect on the Hunter. Using lower-level aspects can be critical because it can take a long time to get the gem to fire off, and if you are OOM.....well you are SOL :P
Hope this helps! It is an awesome pet and I couldn't have done it without reading other hints :)
11-21-2007 @ 2:56PM
Basic said...
Oh I'll dream about it... yes I will.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 3:00PM
Matt said...
get them while you can, before blizz fixes the bug!! lol...
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11-21-2007 @ 3:00PM
sylectris said...
you can tame the houndmaster's hounds in SM ARM
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11-21-2007 @ 3:06PM
Basic said...
Ok I see the problem - since tame has a 20 second cast time there is NO WAY POSSIBLE to shrink that down to the 7.5s you'll need without the diamond proc.
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11-21-2007 @ 3:12PM
B Lee said...
Can you do the trick that used to work for Ghost Saber? Trap it and then tame it? Otherwise, yikes! It sure is a rarity!
Regarding the comment about it dying shortly after being tamed, the Ghost Saber did that too for some hunters, as if its despawn timer finished and the pet "despawned". But you could just revive it.
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11-21-2007 @ 3:16PM
Coherent said...
What if you freeze it with a freeze trap that lasts longer than 20 seconds? Can it despawn while it's actually frozen?
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11-28-2007 @ 9:25AM
Hermes said...
yes.. freezing traps can last till 26 secs if you are survival...
11-21-2007 @ 3:23PM
Spenda said...
It would be neat to have one, but the comment about leveling it from 30-70 is kind of irrelevant.
This pet would be just for show. No real hunter would use a wolf in combat.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 3:30PM
Kiyokko said...
This is really neat.
But I can see Blizz saying this as a bug and removing them from the tamable list. If they wanted us to have these wolves, they would have let us tame the ones from SFK.
Cause remember, any beast-type animal that looks even remotely cool cannot be tamed by a hunter. T_T I want my spiky demon-model boar dangit.
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11-21-2007 @ 3:31PM
Flippie said...
@8 thats what I was thinking. Not sure but I am going to try it, after work.... I will post to let everyone know if it does or not. Because I know other things that I have traped in the pass stay around until the trap goes away.
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11-21-2007 @ 3:32PM
Chuddy said...
Oh god. please delete that spam comment. wtf. Who would go to lengths to create an account check your email to get the pswd only to post here
Who buys this stuff anyways?
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 4:07PM
Ghen said...
@10
This is the final straw wowinsider (and in conjunction weblogs) please filter comments with website links to require mod approval or something. Ads are only going to get worse, this is the 3rd one I've seen in as many days across the blogosphere.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 4:51PM
Theadrick said...
@9
I have two pets. One of them is a wolf which I use for raids and instance runs. Believe me, everyone appreciates the little +attk bonus the wolf gives. I am a real hunter...
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 4:57PM
Coherent said...
I'm sure wowinsider gets hundreds of spam comments every day. Every now and then a few get through. I'm sure it will be deleted in a while, so keep your shirt on.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 4:58PM
Chris Anthony said...
Hunters on the official forums are reporting that the wolves are immune to traps, scare beast, etc.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 5:59PM
sylectris said...
@17
i am sure that 2.2.3 will take those advantages away since it seems like blizzard did everything except mark these guys as "untamable" if they leave them in i bet they nerf em at some point. then again, it may be such a non-issue due to the low number of people who have them, that they just leave it.
having a pet who doesn't get caught by fear or traps would be great though...
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11-21-2007 @ 6:37PM
Stig said...
Anybody tried stunning them with a rogue? A friend and I think that with 3 or 4 rogues macro'd to cheap shot /stopattack, doing their cheap shots in succession, then vanishing and doing them again, you could keep the thing around long enough to tame at whatever level regardless of spell haste. Would it work?
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