Every week The OverAchiever gives advice, walkthroughs and guides on completing your latest Achievement obsession. This week we look at how to track down 75 critters with a minimum of pain.

At some point in your pet collecting career, it's best just to give up and admit you're obsessed. When Lil' Game Hunter went live with 3.0.8, I started looking at my options to get to 75 pets. Most people shouldn't have too much difficulty reaching 50 (Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart), but 75 is a little unnerving. I don't have any of the Collector's Edition, Trading Card Game, or fan event pets, and I also play Horde. That leaves me without access to the Sprite Darter Hatchling, and on a lot of realms also makes it harder and more expensive to get the White Kitten, on top of being more expensive to get the lion's share of the faction-specific pets (which, naturellement, are Alliance). What's up with the Horde and pet hate? Sheesh.

So that was somewhat worrying, and I approach this achievement with one question in mind: is it possible to do this without having dropped money on CE, TCG, or event pets?

Fortunately the answer to that is yes. Make no mistake; you'll have to spend a lot more time (and get a little luckier) than you would be if you already had some pets from these sources, and if you're a relatively new player, this achievement may not be possible without recourse to TCG and CE pets.

Before we get started, a quick plug for WarcraftPets.com, which is a fantastic site guaranteed to help you a lot in figuring out where you can go for your next pet. The creator, Breanni, has also been honored with an NPC in Dalaran. You'll find the ingame Breanni running the Pet Supply store on the north end of town.

I'm going to start with the easiest pets to acquire and then work my way up. Again, this guide assumes the worst case scenario -- that you do not have access to Collector's Edition, TCG, or special outside event pets, that you are not an Engineer (or are an Engineer without the schematic for the Gnomish/Goblin pet), and that you play Horde. I'll also start off assuming that you're a fairly new player without access to holiday pets, but the achievement is usually impossible without access to CE, TCG, or event pets if you are.

First, let's begin with the obvious: you'll need all of the pets sold by vendors of both factions:

ALLIANCE:
1. Blue moth (Exodar)
2. Yellow moth (Exodar)
3. White moth (Exodar)
4. Bombay cat (outside Stormwind)
5. Cornish Rex cat ( outside Stormwind)
6. Orange Tabby cat (outside Stormwind)
7. Silver Tabby cat (outside Stormwind)
8. Great Horned Owl (Darnassus)
9. Hawk Owl (Darnassus)
10. Snowshoe Rabbit (outside Ironforge)
11. White Kitten (Stormwind)

HORDE:
12. Black Kingsnake (Orgrimmar)
13. Brown Snake (Orgrimmar)
14. Crimson Snake (Orgrimmar, or sold by Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm)
15. Brown Prairie Dog (Thunder Bluff)
16. Cockroach (Undercity, or sold by Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm)
17. Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling (outside Silvermoon)
18. Red Dragonhawk Hatchling (outside Silvermoon)
19. Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling (outside Sivermoon)

All set? And then get the pets sold by --

NEUTRAL VENDORS:

20. Ancona Chicken (Thousand Needles)
21. Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling (Netherstorm)
22. Brown Rabbit Crate (Netherstorm)
23. Siamese Cat (Netherstorm, or a drop off Cookie in Deadmines)
24. Mana Wyrmling (Netherstorm)
25. Red moth (Netherstorm)
26. Cockatiel parrot (Booty Bay)
27. Senegal parrot (Booty Bay)
28. Ghostly Skull (Dalaran)
29. Tree Frog (Darkmoon Faire)
30. Wood Frog (Darkmoon Faire)

Keep an eye on the AH (or spam trade looking) for player-made BoE pets:

BUYABLE PETS

31. Mechanical Squirrel
32. Lifelike Mechanical Toad
33. Tranquil Mechanical Yeti

Up to this point, you've probably had a fairly easy time getting these if there's a decent pet market on your server, or if you've enlisted a friend to help you transfer Alliance/Horde pets over the neutral AH. From here out, things will start to require a little more effort:

QUESTED PETS

34. Jubling (Darkmoon Faire)
35. Smolderweb Hatchling (Burning Steppes/LBRS)
36. Worg Pup (Burning Steppes/LBRS)
37. Mechanical Chicken (Feralas/Hinterlands/Tanaris)
38. Miniwing (Terokkar Forest)
39. Chicken (Horde will need to get an Alliance friend to help them out here, or level an Alliance toon to around level 10-11 to pick up this quest and safely get feed from Saldean's Farm in Westfall. The chicken egg spawned by it can be looted by anyone. As a special note, this seems to work on any chicken in the game -- I got mine from the chickens in Lower City when a friend brought his Alliance toon there).

OK, folks; the gravy train ends here. Most players at 80 will have at least some rep with the following factions. Depending on how much rep you actually have, it may be less time-consuming to get to exalted with the Skyguard, Sporereggar, and Kalu'ak than it will be to start looking for dropped pets:

REPUTATION PETS

40. Nether Ray fry (exalted Skyguard)
41. Tiny Sporebat (exalted Sporereggar)
42. Pengu (exalted Kal'uak)

Pets dropped by the Mysterious Eggs that you can buy at Revered with the Oracles are an odd mixture of Reputation/Buyable, since any pet looted from them is BoE. If you're Revered with the Oracles, keep buying eggs. If not, or if you're just having wretched luck, check the AH for:

ORACLE PETS

43. Cobra Hatchling
44. Tickbird Hatchling
45. White Tickbird Hatchling
46. Proto-Drake Whelp

Now, if you're a player who's been around for a while and have some holiday pets, by this point you've probably hit 50 pets and the achievement Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart. If not, let's start looking for dropped BoE pets:

DROPPED PETS

47. Green Wing Macaw (Deadmines, easy to get at 1 in 50)
48. Emerald Whelpling (Swamp of Sorrows, 1 in 1,000)
49. Dark Whelpling (Badlands/Dustwallow Marsh, 1 in 1,000)
50. Azure Whelpling (Azshara, 1 in 1,000)
51. Crimson Whelpling (Wetlands, 1 in 1,000)
52. Disgusting Oozeling (various oozes around the world, 1 in 2,000 drop overall)
53. Black Tabby Cat (1 in 7 drop from Dalaran Spellscribe, who can only be killed by Horde. Check the AH if you're Alliance).
54. Firefly (Zangarmarsh, 1 in 1,500)
55. Phoenix Hatchling (Magisters' Terrace, 1 in 16 drop off Kael'thas)
56. Mojo (Zul'Aman, 1 in 50 drop from unhexed Forest Frogs)
57. Hyacinth Macaw (Stranglethorn Vale, 1 in 5,000 drop from pirates)

If you have any holiday pets you almost certainly have the 50-pet achievement by now, so --

58. Stinker (reward for Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart)

And you'll want to start working on the spawned books around Dalaran for Higher Learning. Warcraft Pets has an excellent guide on that here, because you'll be needing --

59. Kirin Tor Familiar (accessible after completing Higher Learning)

Outside of Engineering, the best possible profession for pets is Fishing -- and you'll probably need a Fishing pet or two, especially if you're not packing a lot of holiday pets. Be forewarned that most of these are as heavily dependent on luck and time commitment as the regular dropped pets:

FISHING

60. Muckbreath (1 in 80 reward from Crocolisks in the City)
61. Chuck (1 in 80 reward from Crocolisks in the City)
62. Snarly (1 in 80 reward from Crocolisks in the City)
63. Toothy (1 in 80 reward from Crocolisks in the City)
64. Magical Crawdad (Terokkar)
65. Giant Sewer Rat (Dalaran)


Unfortunately, that's as far as you'll get if you're Horde, a non-Engineer, don't have a Collector's Edition/TCG/event pet, and are also a new player. If you're not, and you've been playing for a bit, you'll probably have some holiday pets stabled:

HOLIDAY

66. Mr. Wiggles (Children's Week, Azeroth)
67. Speedy (Children's Week, Azeroth)
68. Whiskers (Children's Week, Azeroth)
69. Willy (Children's Week, Outland)
70. Egbert (Children's Week, Outland)
71. Peanut (Children's Week, Outland)
72. Father Winter's Helper (Winter's Veil)
73. Tiny Snowman (Winter's Veil)
74. Winter Reindeer (Winter's Veil)
75. Winter's Little Helper (Winter's Veil)
76. Scorchling (Midsummer Fire Festival)
77. Peddlefeet (Love is in the Air)
78. Sinister Squashling (Hallow's End)
79. Spirit of Summer (Midsummer Fire Festival)
80. Wolpertinger (Brewfest)

In all likelihood, if you've been playing for a while then you'll have some of the holiday pets but not all of them, as many are dependent on your luck with drops. Not lucky? Hopefully you were around for at least some of the following:

INGAME EVENTS

81. Spirit of Competition (Olympics 2008)
82. Clockwork Rocket Bot (Winter's Veil 2007)
83. Vampiric Batling (Scourge Invasion 2008)
84. Baby Blizzard Bear (WoW 4th anniversary November 2008)

If you're worst-case scenario here and are Horde and a non-Engineer, this is where you stop. If not:

ARE YOU ALLIANCE?

85. Sprite Darter Hatchling (Feralas quest)

ARE YOU AN ENGINEER?

86. Lil' Smoky (Gnomish Engineering), or:
87. Pet Bombling (Goblin Engineering)

That's where every player tops out without a Collector's Edition, TCG, or BlizzCon, etc. pet. If you do have any of these, the achievement is going to be a bit simpler, and you can afford to knock out having to get some of the more difficult or frustrating pets on your way to 75.

The Ulduar patch is also set to introduce 21 new noncombat pets, although I assume you won't be able to obtain the portion of them dedicated to the opposite faction (i.e. no Mulgore Hatchling for you if you're a Draenei). 3.1 should make Lil' Game Hunter substantially easier (or jsut possible) for everyone without having to depend on the luck that partially enables the current achievement, so even if you can't make 75 pets right now, stay tuned.

Tags: achievements, alliance, breanni, breannis-pet-supplies, engineering, fishing, holiday, holidays, horde, ingame-events, lil-game-hunter, little-fawn, mysterious-egg, noblegarden, noncombat-pet, noncombat-pets, oracles, patch-3.1, shop-smart-shop-pet-smart, warcraft-pets, wow-patch-3.1

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