1417 pets
The Lunar Festival celebrations have us glowing with excitement, so we're featuring not one but two pets in this Pet of the Month — it's the Lunar and Festival Lantern.
Collecting the Lunar and Festival Lantern
Each pet costs 50 Coins of Ancestry. Keep in mind that these pets are faction-specific; Alliance can only purchase the Lunar Lantern and Horde the Festival Lantern from the vendor. You can collect and summon both pets, however, regardless of faction.
To earn enough to purchase a lantern, you'll need to talk with some special NPCs, called Elders, located around Azeroth. They can be found in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend and Cataclysm zones. Speaking with an Elder will reward one Coin of Ancestry along with a Lucky Red Envelope.
Tracking down each Elder isn't too complicated (check out Wowhead's Lunar Festival Guide for the location of all Elders), but it will take some time.
You'll need to visit more than one continent to earn 50 coins. Visiting just Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Cataclysm Elders will yield enough Coins of Ancestry to purchase a Lunar or Festival Lantern. If you have a flying mount, traveling around should be a breeze, but still fairly time-consuming. Note that it's not necessary to visit every single Elder on either continent, and it's possible to earn 50 coins without taking a detour into dungeons.
If your character is lower level it's still possible to reach some of the Elders to pay your respects. Wowhead's 50 Easy Elders: Getting the Lunar Festival Pet guide provides information for both Alliance and Horde on how to reach each Elder, with or without a flying mount.
The Lunar and Festival Lantern are both cageable, so if you don't have a lot of time to trek across Azeroth or would just prefer not to, you can also find these two luminous pets on the Auction House.
Both pets are uncommon when added to the Pet Journal, so be sure to have some Battle-Stones ready for them.
Battling with the Lunar and Festival Lantern
The good news about these hot holiday pets is that these two have identical moves, stats and breeds. If you're only collecting to fight, you only need to grab one of these two magical lamps.
The Festival and Lunar Lanterns' first slot features the straightforward magic spell Beam, and the Lanterns' only non-Magic offense, the elemental Burn. Burn averages out to deal slightly more damage than Beam, but Burn has a range of damages so every turn is more of a dice roll.
The second slot brings out the Lanterns' single weather ability, Illuminate, which causes Sunny Day. Neither Lantern has any self-synergy move to use Sunny Day to its advantage, though you could always pull in a partner.
However, speaking of synergy the other ability in the second slot, Flash (pictured above), works wonderfully in concert with the third slot ability, Light. Light deals just under 300 damage with double damage if the opponent is blinded and Flash deals a little damage and blinds the opponent for two rounds. These two moves work well together, but the combo is quite easily dodged in PVP.
The last ability in these pets' movesets is Soul Ward, which has a very short 3 round cooldown and blocks the opponent's next attack. This shield lasts indefinitely, so if your opponent stalls with their offense it just makes things better for you. While they're waiting, all your cooldowns are coming back up. And then, before they know it, they just got torched by a Lantern.
Check out our forum thread discussion on the Lunar and Festival Lantern and submit your own thoughts on these pets.
Battling Discussion on the Lunar and Festival Lantern
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.
One thing to note is that these lanterns work really well when put on an Explode team. They bring the Sunlight Weather while being very durable to large hits (due to the magic racial). So you can lead off with a lantern, cast Illuminate without fear of dying, and then immediately swap into the remainder of your explode team and go to town knowing you have a lantern left surviving after all your explosions.