Feline Familiar — Pet of the Month: October 2014

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
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.


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.