We’ve all heard the word “huntard.”  But even though everyone jokes about hunters being huntards, no one actually wants to be known as one.

My recent hunter experience, though, left me feeling a bit inadequate.

First off, let me say that my hunter is an alt.  I started raiding with her in cata but only as a backup for my husband’s team.  Towards the end of cata, she had respectable dps and item level, but it isn’t like I’m an experienced hunter vet.

Up until cata, the only difficult pet I had tamed was my white beetle from the former AQ40 raid.  My husband’s paladin took me in there and pulled mobs of beetles, while I ran around trying to tame one while being punted all over the place.  I named that beetle “Trouble,” but he was worth it as far as I was concerned.

During cata though, people constantly mentioned a rare pet that had just come out- Ban’thalos the owl in Mount Hyjal.

Ban’thalos

There were at least three times that I traveled as fast as my dranei legs could take me over to Hyjal to try to attain this bird.  Every time I went was fail though because other hunters would steal it from me by doing things like hitting tame first even though I had trapped it, etc….  I became so enraged at the whole idea of even attempting to tame this pet, that I pretty much said I would never have it.

Fast forward to last week.  I had deleted a profession to train mining, and I was up to obsidium in Hyjal.  I had one free pet slot that I had saved.  It suddenly occured to me…well, I could go get that stupid bird.  (I actually looked for the rare turtle first, but he wasn’t around.)

It’s not that I really wanted the bird by this point.  I even considered killing it if it was there just to spite everyone.  But something in me wanted to say- hey, I tamed Ban’thalos.

Several deaths and at least 20-30 minutes later, I still had not tamed this pet.  I had tried standing at several places on top of the statue/monument thing at Sanctuary of Malorne as well as several ledges behind trees around the statue.  He was always either out of range from standing position or I would die from fall damage if I flew up to shoot at him.

At this point I decided to consult Wowhead.  Good ‘ol Wowhead.com.  I decided to try another method, which involved falling backwards/disengaging into the lake near the owl’s flying area.

Two more deaths.  This time from stupid mistakes like pressing the wrong button.  Maybe I was getting too tired to do this (I had woken up at 4am and was still online blah blah…), but I was determined.

So I took a deep breath and decided to try one more time.

This is the order that has to happen when taming Ban’thalos with this method:
(Be in BM spec)
Position yourself between the pet’s spawn area and the lake in front of Sanctuary
Fly up to his range, which is very high
Hit dismount on flyer (thanks Blizz for adding this step)
shoot Ban’thalos with gun or bow
disengage with back facing the lake, land in the water or you die
get trap down
hit deterrence when he attacks you, especially if he uses ‘Harsh Moonlight’
hit tame beast

Flying up to Ban’thalos

This is what actually happened when I tried to get Ban’thalos:
I was OK until landing in the water…
I tried to jump out of the water, and I got stuck in the wall…had to waste deterrence
I laid my trap and ran around trying to get him to fly into it…he did not
I forgot to hit tame beast…ok ok, I admit that I haven’t tamed a pet in almost a year or more, but that is really embarrassing
I finally hit tame beast with 15% health or less left, was sure I would die

After taming this pain (note health bar)

But SCORE– I tamed Ban’thalos!!!  I named him PITA without a second thought.

So I guess it was a good thing I missed out on this pet all those times in cata.  Since I could barely tame him at 87, I am sure there is no way I would have done it at 85.