by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Exploring Draenor delves into the hidden places of the world that will one day become Outland. From the volcanic landscape of Frostfire to the gloomy dells of Shadowmoon, these articles are your guide to events that are off the beaten path.

Hunters are something of a special snowflake for the Warcraft developers. Not only are they the only physical ranged DPS class, able to perform their full rotation on the move, they also have a unique class feature in their pets. While other classes have pets – both temporary and permanent – none has the bond between them that Hunters do. These are wild animals, tamed and trained to become a faithful companion.

There have been other pet-based challenges for Hunters before, most noticeably the Spirit Beasts like Loque’nahak and Arcturis, as well as the 10 rare pets from the Firelands patch (4.2). Gara is in a similar vein, but has a whole lot of back story that makes this both a challenge and a lesson in lore.

To begin, you will need to be a Hunter (duh) in Beast Mastery spec. Make your way to Shadowmoon Valley’s Burial Fields. At the southern tip, you will find a Spirit Beast named Gara. However, she is friendly – no taming for you just yet. First, you need to help her out.

Beast Mastery Hunters will have an extra dialogue option, to scratch Gara behind the ears. You can do this now or later – first, you need to get a treat for the lonely animal (although how a dead wolf eats them I’ve no idea. Maybe she just likes the smell?). Head to the northern tip of the Burial Fields and find a ‘rare’ spawn (she reappears every few minutes) called Mother Om’ra (also the source of the caster trinket, Legacy of Om’ra – hey, you get two Exploring Draenor columns for the price of one!). Kill her and loot the Shadowberry that she drops, then return to Gara.

This time, the wolf perks up, but doesn’t give you any further directions. What, you thought that she’d tell you where to go? She doesn’t even have vocal cords. This step stymied a lot of Hunters in the beta, but some clever datamining revealed the next part of the challenge. To progress further you will need to construct a Spirit Effigy.

The Spirit Effigy

This part involves travelling all across Draenor. Alliance players, I recommend heading back to your garrison and using your Mage Tower (if present) to teleport to Frostfire; alternatively, take the Mole Machine to Gorgrond and fly from there. Horde players, of course, can simply Hearthstone to their own garrison.

Approximate locations of the mobs that drop the items needed to construct a Spirit Effigy

Mount up and ride all the way to the Icescar Boneyard, at the north-western edge of Frostfire. Here, begin killing Necrophytes until they drop a piece of Torn Cloth. Next, ride all the way to the south east (I know, I know…but it still doesn’t make me miss flying), to Grom’gar. Inside the bones, kill Thunderlord Giantslayers (they have a longer respawn than other mobs in the area) and loot an Ancient Bone.

Next up, Gorgrond. In the centre of the zone is the Gronn Canyon (you might remember this area from last week), which is inhabited by Drywind Bonepickers. These guys drop the next item you need: the Crude Effigy.

Wowhead user Draewind has excellent advice on how to find the next two items: the the Wooden Bowl from Gorebound Legionnaires in Talador and Small Fruit from Warsong Marauders in Nagrand, replicated here:

Fly to Retribution Point, Talador and leave Beldos heading directly west to Gul’rok (south entrance). I ran up the rocks to the left of the entrance avoiding all the Gorebound Demonguards, going straight to the tower up on the ridge. Camouflage past the tower guards and up on the rocks to the left of the path was the Gorebound Legionnaire with company, and another was pathing and guarding the path. Just be careful of the patrolling Felwrought Annihilator , and remember that after your fight with the Might of Ango’rosh buff, the Ango’rosh Crusher will not Camouflage and are aggresive. Your retreat will be eventful unless you wait for them to despawn.

Hunters only need to kill one for the  Wooden Bowl to drop.
How to tame Gara the Spirit Beast

I would suggest heading north around Gul’rok . Just north of the Gul’rok north entrance is a path that you can take west into Nagrand. As you enter Nagrand you should run into two Warsong Marauders patrolling the path. If they have been killed recently then you will eventually come to two Warsong Marauders acting as sentries on the path. The Warsong Marauder drops the  Small Fruit.

Finally, from Nagrand fly to Talon Watch in the Spires of Arak. Here, you need to kill a Sethekk Prophet and loot Elder Incense – watch out for the slow but hard-hitting ghosts that the Prophets spawn when they die.

The Lord of Glass

At last! Construct your effigy and return to Gara in Shadowmoon Valley. With the finished item in your bag, a grave will appear in front of the wolf; use the effigy here to reveal the ghost of Mother Om’ra (yep, the same one you killed to get Gara the berries). She’s very chatty, and reveals her part in Gara’s past:

Mother Om’ra says: My soul…feels at peace…thank you.

Mother Om’ra says: Gara was my wolf, back before we forsook shamanism for the…dark magics. She wouldn’t even look at me, not after I was tainted by the void.

Mother Om’ra says: The Lord of Glass, a void god who calls himself Xan, had taken my soul captive in the void realm. Fragments of it were…torn away…for use by the Shadowmoon here in the burial grounds.

Mother Om’ra says: But she wouldn’t leave my side, Gara. Not until the proper effigy was burned, that my soul may find peace. 

Mother Om’ra says: Thank you for releasing us both.

How touching. Then, of course, Xan appears and spoils it all by taking Gara’s soul as repayment for Om’ra’s. What a bastard.

It’s up to you to save Gara, and earn her literally-undying loyalty. Travel to the Pillars of Fate in Shadowmoon; any level 100 who has done the Apexis daily in this area will have the flight path, but if not you can reach this area through the Howling Crag in the Spires of Arak.

At the Pillars, kill Shadowmoon Voidtwisters for a Void Lantern. The item is unique, but you can use it to apply a one-hour buff to yourself before looting another. Once you have the Lanter, head back to the main part of Shadowmoon to get the Shadowmoon Voidblade.

Just north of the gates of Karabor is the Great Tree Valuundira.

With credit to user Lupen202 on Petopia (this is the original thread where the quest chain was discovered, so everyone is a bit…excitable), you need to look for a small hole in the trunk of the tree and retrieve the dagger – which you can only see with the Void Lantern buff, explaining why the nearby Anchorite is so confused about why the tree is dying.

Clicking the dagger will phase you fully into the void realm, and you will find yourself surrounded by Elder Void Lords and Elder Voidcallers. These are level 100 elite mobs, and you’ll need to kill a fair few before Xan will spawn. I recommend focusing on the Voidcallers, which have much less health than than Void Lords: around 200k as opposed to over 1 million.

You do have some help in the void realm: Gara herself is there to assist you, and will deal damage as you attack. She acts as a guardian; that is, she’ll attack anything that you attack or that attacks you, as long as she’s close enough.

Eventually, Xan will appear. You’ll get thrown around a fair bit during this fight; the Lord of Glass will attack you with abilities like Grip of the Void, Singularity and Twist Reality. He also has a stun (Negate) and a direct damage spell (Void Bolt). Just keep healing your pet and stay in range, and you will eventually take the big bad down.

Xan isn’t finished yet, though. Unleashing a final attack (which you ‘instinctively’ avoid with Deterrence), he grabs Gara and begins to pull her back into the void. You must quickly dismiss your pet and tame her, which she won’t fight against. If you’re successful, congratulations! Gara the Spirit Beast is yours.

As I don’t have a level 100 Hunter (although Gara can be tamed as low as level 90), many thanks go to my fellow BlizzPro writer Alexandra for her notes and pictures, as well as Bendak of Eyes of the Beast for his wonderful write-up of the discovery of the Gara challenge in the Warlords beta.

It should be noted that if you ever lose or abandon Gara (you monster), you can always click the Voidblade again and hunt down a Lost Netherwolf, located to the east of the Great Tree in the Hills of Valuun.