Miscellaneous Rares and Elites of Pandaria

 

Are you feeling the end of expansion blues? Looking for something different to do when you log in later? Perhaps you should check out some of the lesser known elites and rares around Pandaria. If you like vanity items your in for quite the treat, and with the new toybox feature coming in Warlords of Draenor these won't be taking up any bag space - yippie!!

So anywho, this post has been sizzling in the back of my brain since Mists of Pandaria first went live. Every time I would stumble across an interesting elite that dropped unique loot in the early weeks/months of MoP, I kept telling myself that I had to write up a post on them. Somehow other posts always got priority, but I have to say, I'm glad this one got pushed back because there were several notable elites and rares (even though they don't sport a silver dragon) stealthily added in some of the previous patches.

Most of these elites have very fast spawn timers; as in anywhere from instant to 20 minutes or so. A few of them however are actually rare, and can take several hours between spawns. I have more details below on each of their timers, and if there is nothing written next to a particular elite regarding spawn time then it is on a short timer.

A decently geared level 90 should be able to solo almost everything listed below. I can only speak from a hunter's perspective (I know, cheating class...yadda yadda), but I was able to take down everything (including G'nathus) by myself with an item level of 537.

Click map to Enlarge

The elites listed below are in order by zone level, starting with the lowest (Jade Forest) and moving to the highest (Dread Wastes). As I've stated in the past, mob names are the same color as you'll find them on the map above, and please click on the images to see a larger version. Enjoy!

Neverending Spritewood & Scary Sprites

I'm sure by now that most of this post will probably be old news, but hopefully some of you will find some tips I'll be sharing useful in snagging yourself a Dandelion Frolicker pet sooner rather than later.

Take a look at the screenshot below. This is the tree just east of Old Pi'Jiu with the Nice Sprites frolicking merrily around its base. See those purple crystals in the shot? Those are Neverending Spritewood Crystals. There are four of them - all are pictured in the screenshot below. I am showing you all four in one shot so that you can see exactly where each spawns from one vantage point. They cannot and will not spawn in at the same time. 

 

Spawn Time:

On the ptr, and when patch 5.4 went live, the spawn time on the crystals was about an hour. It has since been stealthily changed to about 15 minutes. Which crystal will spawn in next is completely random.

The Crystal "Daily":

You can only interact with the Neverending Spritewood Crystal once per day, per toon. Once you have completed the event, you can see the crystal when it spawns in again, but you will not be able to interact with it. Those of you with more than one level 90 can farm for this pet on multiple toons. I've been farming it daily on three toons myself.

The Fight:

Vale of Eternal Blossoms Rares - Patch 5.4

It's no secret that the Vale of Eternal Blossoms has become one heck of a mess and quite a bit has changed in patch 5.4. I'm not sure however, if people realize how all of these changes have effected the rares in this zone - and that they've added new rares (sort of).

Rare Champions:

The eight rares required for the Glorious! achievement, Major Nanners, Yorik Sharpeye, etc, have not really been effected. Every one of them (minus Sahn Tidehunter who moved in patch 5.3) are in the exact same locations as they were at the beginning of MoP. The only major difference you'll notice with them, is that their surroundings got uglied up.

"New" Rares in the Vale:

Before the Vale got all funked up, people working on Golden Lotus rep could get credit for killing powerful enemies at the end of a long arduous line of dailies each day. Although there were sixteen of them, only a few were available to kill on any particular day. All of these powerful enemies were (and still are) required for the achievement One Many Army.

All sixteen of these "powerful enemies" still exist within the Vale, but they have changed drastically. First and foremost, they have been made rare! Well, I should say "rare". Like just about everything these days they are on fairly short spawn timers. You no longer have to wait days to see one either, all of them can (and will) show up every day - yay! It is also worth noting that they will all spawn in during a server restart.

Another important little detail is that many (but not all) of them have moved. I marked all sixteen of these fledgling rares with bright pink stars on the map below. Several of them spawn in caves/underground, and I have noted that on the map as well. If you scroll down below the map, I also have screenshots of each of them in their new locations.

What you get from killing them:

Timeless Isle Rares (Timeless Champion)

The Timeless Isle is chock full of rares. There are probably more rares packed onto this little island than anywhere else in the game. It even has all sorts of fun rare events, treasure chests, things to explore, you name it! For the purposes of this post however I will only be covering the elite and non-elite silver dragons.

Achievements:

Thirty-one of these rares are required for the achievement: Timeless Champion. (One of them that I am including in this post is not part of it, but still a silver dragon.) The items that these rares can drop are also a part of the achievement Going To Need A Bigger Bag. They aren't kidding either, we seriously need some new bags with like 50 slots for this place. That, or bottomless bags with no limit.

Loot & Tapping:

As I had mentioned in the Timeless Isle Preview post I did several weeks back, these rares have the same tapping system as the Isle of Thunder rares. You do not need to be grouped with other players to obtain loot when killing these guys. Even faction doesn't matter. As long as you participate by hitting them, you will be able to loot them. Although anyone can tap and loot, actual loot received will vary by person.

Each rare will drop several Timeless Coins. More difficult rares seem to drop more coins. They all have a chance to drop "Timeless" gear such as Timeless Leather Leggings, and also Burden of Eternity (a very nice item that will turn those leather leggings I just linked into an item level 535 item instead of 496.) Each of them also has a small chance to drop different items that the rare Pandarian Champions drop such as Big Bag of Herbs, Battle Horn, etc. Many of these rares have their own unique loot as well. As you scroll down through this post, you can see which items drop from each rare.

Finding Them:

Now as far as finding these rares - you'll probably easily stumble into more than half of them by just running around and exploring the Isle. When one is nearby you will see a small skull marked on your mini-map. I've done my best trying to make a map of where to find them all that wasn't totally funked up and as easy to read as possible. With this many rares that was not an easy task!

So anyway, here is the map below. For a more precise description of where you can find any one of these rares just scroll down through the post for that particular rare. Next to each rare I have written out more specifically where they can be found.

Map of all rares needed for Timeless Champion Achievement (Click to Enlarge)

 

(To see an even larger image of this map you can also right click the image and view it in another tab. From there you should be able to zoom even further.)

I have screenshots of all of these rares below, and because there were just so many of them I decided to group them by location starting off the coast and then moving inland. To the right of many of the rares I have also included screenshots of their special drops. (There were a couple of drops that I was not able to get before running out of time. I will add those pictures to this post when I receive them or when I can bother someone who has those items!)

Preview: Timeless Isle Rares (Patch 5.4 PTR)

(For the full list of rares, with map, drops, etc. be sure to check out this post: 

Timeless Isle Rares (Timeless Champion)

Before the Timeless Isle opened up on the PTR I knew their'd be some rares waiting. Using my eagle eye I could spot three or four of them from a distance, and nothing excites me more in game than new rares! Well now that the Isle is open I've done a lot of exploring and would like to share some of the rares I've come across so far - and there's quite a few!

While running around on the Isle if you pay attention to your mini-map you can see where these rares are. There are elite and non-elite ones, and each type will show up differently on your mini-map. Non-elite rares will show up as a little skull, and elites will show as a skull with little orange triangles around it.

So far looting them seems similar to the Rares on the Isle of Thunder, where anyone who tags them can loot.

As your looking through these screenshots, please remember that these are from the PTR and what you see here may change before going live. As always, you can click on the pictures for a larger, more detailed view.

Doctor Theolen Krastinov - Krastinov's Bag of Horrors

Using Krastinov's Bag of Horrors

That's right, The Doctor is in! If there's one thing that I just can't get enough of, it's fun transformation items. My bags are always overflowing with those darn things, but I just can't stop collecting them!

Well for those of you who also have a strange addiction to transformation items - Doctor Theolen Krastinov, a rare spawn in Heroic Scholomance, drops an incredibly fun one called Krastinov's Bag of Horrors.

Doctor Theolen Krastinov <The Butcher>

Doctor Theolen Krastinov has approx. 4k hp and can be found in the room right after Rattlegore. The couple of times that I've fought him he's yelled "Time for a little open-heart surgery!" as our group engaged him in combat. He has no special abilities really worth noting. He could almost be mistaken for a trash mob if you weren't paying attention.