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Feline Familiar — Pet of the Month: October 2014

October 21, 2014
Feline Familiar — Pet of the Month

In this Pet of the Month we discuss the Feline Familiar — best friend to any witch and, of course, pet collectors!

Collecting the Feline Familiar
Feline Familiar
The Feline Familiar can be purchased during the in-game holiday event, Hallow's End. It is Bind on Use and cageable, so it can also pop up on the Auction House during the off season.

If you'd like to collect this little black cat, you'll need to satisfy the vendor's sweet tooth and gather 150 Tricky Treats. These treats can be looted from Candy Buckets located at most inns. Be ready for a long journey though, buckets can be found in nearly all zones in Azeroth as well as Outland.

Horde and Alliance have their own separate Candy Buckets to loot from, however there are also neutral inns that will dispense Tricky Treats to all that drop by. Each bucket drops between 1 and 3 treats. Players can grab a handful of candy only once per bucket, per character. But there's no need to be greedy — there are many inns to visit!

To make your trick-or-treating go smoother and more efficiently, there are addons such as Candy Buckets, plus Wowhead has every bucket location marked in their Hallow's End guide.

In addition to trick-or-treating around Azeroth and beyond, players can earn Tricky Treats by completing Hallow's End quests and dailies. These quests can be picked up from Stormwind or Undercity.

Defeating the holiday dungeon boss, the Headless Horseman, once per day, and saving towns such as Brill and Goldshire from the Horseman's terror will also reward the sticky confection.

Such a large number of Tricky Treats might seem like daunting number to collect, however visiting all Candy Buckets in Pandaria, Outland, Northrend and then completing a few Hallow's End daily quests should yield enough treats to purchase the Feline Familiar.

Battling with the Feline Familiar
In addition to a spooky theme, the Feline Familiar brings a very unique moveset to the Beast family. It is the only Beast with the per-hit ability Stoneskin. There are a few with Spiked Skin, but that tends to be relatively lackluster in comparison.

Also, it is one of a scant few Beasts with Magic abilities. Onyx Bite is a great choice, especially if you're slower than your opponent. The other choice in the first slot is Pounce, which deals additional damage when your Familiar is faster.

Prowl and Onyx Bite
Onyx Bite is a better choice if you plan to use Prowl in the third slot, because of the speed reduction. However, if you're planning on using your Familiar to grind wild battles (a favorite application for me), you're likely going to want to choose Devour instead, to heal up a bit.

The last ability to address is perhaps the most in-step thematically with Hallow's End. There are very few Beast pets with weather effects in general, and the weather effect Darkness is unique to the Familiar among Beast pets. The Familiar doesn't have any self-synergy with Call Darkness, but it can still be helpful in shutting down healing opponents, or just avoiding a combo from your opponent.

Check out our forum thread discussion on the Feline Familiar and submit your own thoughts on this pet.

Battling Discussion on the Feline Familiar

Pet of the Month is co-written by Liopleurodon, an experienced pet battler and long-time WoW player. She maintains her own Pet Battle blog, comprised of pet analyses, team strategies and general thoughts on pets.
Posted by Quintessence
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1-5 of 5
Caega 
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In patch 6.0.3 the broom stick is back. This is the only vendor Hallow's End pet that is uncommon quality when learned.

Oct 28, 2014 at 10:40pm | Edits: 1 | Dath'Remar-us | Pets: 738 Compare collections | Score: 5857
Karlayne 
Rating: +1   [Report]

I am more than a little sad that this lil fella simply "swims" thru the air instead o riding on his little broom like he did last year :(   I finally got the Magic broom to drop and was looking forward to flying around on our matching broomsticks *sniff sniff*

Oct 24, 2014 at 10:42am | Edits: 0 | Hellscream-us | Pets: 822 Compare collections | Score: 4920
Avatarofshadow 
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i'm pretty sure it used to ride a little broom when you flew around.  As of yesterday, though, it just kind of floats awkwardly behind you at a weird angle.  Still one of my favorite pets, but, of course, it's been replaced on my hotbar by whichever one of the two new cats I already unlocked on my main.  I forget which one I have.  I'll have them both by the end of the event, but I'm not farming 3 of each in an attempt to sell them.  Too much other stuff to do right now.

Oct 23, 2014 at 5:37pm | Edits: 0 | Dragonblight-us | Pets: 1229 Compare collections | Score: 8589
Top RaterRefactor 
Rating: +1   [Report]

The feline familiar has been a staple on my power leveling team for quite some time now. It brings great damage output, self heals, and damage mitigation (Stoneskin shuts down most every poision or damage over time abilities you'll encounter in wild battles). It is my go to pet whenever any flyer shows up as a secondary, but is effective against almost anything. I also love that it mounts up on a broom to follow you when flying around! Overall, I consider this a "must-have" pet, love this kitty!

Oct 23, 2014 at 10:07am | Edits: 0 | Zuluhed-us | Pets: 630 Compare collections | Score: 3617
Kat73 
Rating: +1   [Report]

Love this little guy (mine lvl 5) 

Flying to ALL candy buckets ... ALL 5 zones ... will take one day .. but it will get you about 300 candy.

EG.. level 90 Char , visted Pandaria , Outland , Northrend , Eastern Kingdom , Kalimdor and did one lot of dailies of achievement ...got me about 300 which is enough to get one of these little guys and one of the others offered this year 

Oct 22, 2014 at 4:03pm | Edits: 0 | Caelestrasz-us | Pets: 468 Compare collections | Score: 2160
1-5 of 5

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