World of Warcraft: Forever Horde Hunter Guide to Owl Taming

I previously posted a guide for Horde player hunters interested taming an owl, one of the coolest pets in the game, IMHO. While playing the World of Warcraft: Forever beta, I wondered if the path to owl taming may have changed with the somewhat modified world. I decided to run it again and find out.

The challenge for Horde players wanting this pet at low level is it can only found in the Night Elf island zone of Teldrassil. Just as with Classic, taming owl is not possible on Forever Hardcore mode, because you need to die twice.

Owls Know They Are Cool

Owls are meat eaters and have 2.0 attack speed, medium health and armor, but rate high on damage and overall badass appearance.

Their active Abilities include Growl, Claw, Cower, and Dive. Growl is an aggro holder. Claw is a direct damage attack. Cower lowers the pet’s threat level. Dive increases the pet’s movement speed for 15 seconds.

Owls apparently gain a new ability in World of Warcraft: Forever. In Vanilla and Classic, they had access to Screech, a melee-power reducing buff. According to current beta information, the owl family learns Mine! The current level 1 description states, “Grabs an enemy’s weapon with its talons, causing 11 damage and disarming them for 4 sec.”

The target for taming is the Strigid Hunter. These grey birds are level 8-9 and recommended because they know Claw 2 when tamed. We will know if this changes when Forever goes live on November 4th.

Go North, Young Hunter

The overwhelming majority of the journey involves road travel which is helpful. I started at the Crossroads and headed north. It is a good idea to stable your current pet and tame a placeholder, to act as aggro fodder and give you the little extra time you need to escape any unpleasant encounters.

Even traveling the road, you can draw attention of nearby higher level mobs. One trouble spot is near the small lake when you first cross into Ashenvale. There is a level 25 Shadethicket Stone Mover who wanders close enough to the road to aggro. This is a good time to have the placeholder pet handy. Once you run clear and rez your pet, if necessary, the rest of the trek through Ashenvale is fairly eventless, until you reach Astranaar.

The road passes through the Alliance stronghold but you can avoid it by going offroad to the left side before the guards and swimming safely past it. Once clear of the town, rejoin the road far enough down not to aggro the other guards and continue on your way. The path will be clear until reaching Darkshore.

The southern end of Darkshore is populated with level 17 Grizzled Thistle Bears and level 18 Moonstalker cats. Some of them wander close to the road so keep an eye on your Track Animals. Darkshore does have some nice cat designs for other potential taming runs.

Things get tricky when approaching Auderdine, our destination. The owl homeland sits beyond the Veiled Sea so we need to hitch a ride on an Alliance ship.

First step is getting to the northern dock. The best way I found is heading west to the sea south of the town. When I tried going past and crossing to the north, I encountered bears, cats, and high level Sentinels.

Play it safe. Get into the water to the south and swim north and under the pier.

There are two guards at the end of the northern pier. During this run, I was detected and fired upon, but they did not leave their post. Be mindful and swim clear of them and dive deep, but not to the bottom. Dying here is part of the play, but best not to get PVP flagged.

After you drown, your ghost spawns at the Auderdine graveyard. Run back through town, down the pier, and wait for the ship at the dock. Don’t worry about the guards. You are not going to Resurrect on the dock.

Run aboard when the ship arrives. I usually head to the top rear to resurrect but had to go below decks this time because my drowned corpse was on the deep side.

There were no other passengers on this trip. Even if there were, I was not PVP flagged so I was safe. Of course, this does not benefit players who selected the PVP world ruleset. They will just have to be extra careful.

I went topside and near the back. This is my preferred launching point for when we near port.

Across the Veiled Sea

The ship docks at Ruttheran Village but jump off and swim ashore before then. Getting past the city of Darnassus is actually the easiest part of the journey.

The pink glow beyond the port is the portal entrance to Darnassus. Heading towards it will aggro a Sentinel and lead to swift death, but this death is part of the plan.

Your ghost appears at the Dolanaar graveyard well beyond the city walls. Accept Resurrection. You can wait for Rez Sickness to pass or move on to the final leg of the journey.

I resurrected and made the mistake of heading a little east, pulling a Dolanaar guard who killing me and flagged me for PVP.

The Home Stretch

Strigid Hunters are located in the northern part of the zone. You can travel on the road, but there are mounted Sentinels so be aware as you make your way.

Strigid Hunters are yellow mobs so you will not be attacked if you want to pass the level 8s to find a level 9 bird. At this point, abandon your placeholder pet and tame your owl.

Once tamed, feed your new pet some meat and run about killing mobs or hearth out and show off your new guided missile.

The Last Word

I was glad the journey to Horde owl taming has not changed in Forever. I will be making it once again when the game goes live.

Hunters have a multitude of pets to tame, and traversing dangerous lands to find them and level their skills is a huge reason for my enjoyment of being a hunter and looking forward to World of Warcraft: Forever.

---

Thank you for dropping by. Please leave a Like or Subscribe for future post notifications.