The Minimizer's WoW Page
In the massively multi-player online game World of Warcraft, it's possible to arrange to get shrunk, in one way or another. Well, of course, I took my cute female character and arranged for this to happen! Of course I dressed her up in something slinky, too. Would you expect anything else...?
(Want to know how to shrink in WoW? Click here for instructions! Note: It's not as easy as you might think. Not if you want to get really tiny!)
Anyway, here are some videos and screencaps! More to come!
All videos are AVI format. You can watch them using the latest RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. Please make sure those programs are updated before emailing me asking how to view the movies!
Some of the movies have audio, and some don't. When they required a lot of editing, the sound often got chopped up or garbled, so I didn't use it. Some shrinking effects don't include a sound effect anyway, so there was no point.
Short Films (less than 1 minute)
Simple Shrink Shots, Nothing Special...
Magic Fern: A huge fern gets even huger.
Troll Spell: Don't mess with those troll witch doctors!
Glowing Rock: Will the emanations from this rock have any effect? Let's find out...
Potion Vendor: Get your magic potions here! Watch what this one does!!!
New Outlook: The salesman said it would give me a new outlook on things...I wonder what he meant by that?
Strange Plant: What an unusual plant! And the dew on it looks so tasty...I'll just try some...
In the Workshop: I wonder what this does...?
Grog: No shrinking potions in the grog, please!
Shrink Spell: You shrank me!! (To do this one I had to shrink myself and then use a growth potion so I looked normal size. Then someone cast a random spell on me and I cancelled the growth effect, appearing to shrink on command!)
Mounted Mini: When I'm small, my mount gets summoned at my scale, as you can see in this video.
Interesting Stuff: Why NOT to sample things you find on shelves.
Pirate: I dress up in a pirate outfit and get small! Arrrr!!
The Insult: Why one should not throw insults around!
Multisize: Multiple size changes! Already small, I make someone else my size, but then get even smaller than they are!
My Favorite: What kind of soup is it? My favorite!!
Tall Spell: This spell should make me taller...shouldn't it?
Stone of Reversal: Ah, the kind of pranks you can play in a school of magic...
Wrong Antidote: Sometimes the antidote just makes things worse.
Reduction Potion: The perils of using alchemy for weight loss...
Mystic Book: Don't believe everything you read in old mystic books!
Back to the Drawing Board: Keep on trying...you'll get it right...eventually...
Interactions With Live Players (all dialogue/emotes by others are unrehearsed and spontaneous)
Smaller Than You! If you thought you were small, just look at me! (I saw somebody else using the standard shrink-inducing elixir on their character, so I used some of mine, and then another method to shrink myself even further, just to show off! So you can see people of three different heights in this movie!)
Stay Away From Cheese...especially on wooden contraptions! (I love the dialogue by the night elf at the end of this movie! See also the screenshot below commemmorating this event.)
Laughing Mage: Laugh it up, let's see if you like being small if it happens to you!
Little Surprise: Watch the reaction of this player as I shrink right in front of him...
Smaller than a Dwarf: A dwarf player reacts as I tell him he's not the shortest game in town.
U R Very Small: Yes, you noticed!
Can I Have Some? Someone else wants to try the experience!
World's Smallest Pally: At your service!
OMG: The usual reaction upon attaining tiny size (OMG = "Oh my God!").
How Cute: Another typical reaction.
Midget: I shrink...and someone tells me the hard, honest truth.
Perfect Height: I'm dancing with a guy, and suddenly shrink...this is his reaction!
Now That's Small: A viewer reacts as I get super-tiny for the first time! (This video was made after I finally got my engineer to be able to use Noggenfogger Elixir.)
The Grab: I beg for mercy only to get grabbed! (Well, not completely, but then, there are only so many animations you can do in the game. It sure looks like I'm about to get picked up, though!)
My Size Now: I bring another player down to my size!
Double Shrinking (It's hard to pull this off in front of someone, but these are some movies where I got the random shrinking effect to work)
Doubleshrink: How to go from normal size to calf-high in two easy drinks!
Hot Chicks: I get super small in front of a couple of hot ladies!
Supertiny: Look at me, I'm super tiny!
Little Date: You want me to get small? Okay...I'll do it...just for you...../blush
Perfect: In this one somebody actually asked me to shrink for them!
Gnomish Shrink Ray Film #1, Film #2, Film #3, Film #4, Film #5, Film #6, Film #7: There is an item called a "gnomish shrink ray" in the game...it can only be used on other players when dueling, but when you combine it with someone who's already half-sized....well, take a look and see how small I can get! Too bad the effect only lasts about 15 seconds. (Click here for a complete explanation of how this works.)
Now Even Smaller: This lady is as happy as I am to see me small again.
Oops, Wrong Direction! I manage to misfire my own shrink ray...
Dance Party: I manage to shrink myself at a rave.
Free Gift: I meet a stranger, who gives me free mushrooms to try...guess I should've asked her name before I ate one!
Shrink Me! A cute girl asks me to shrink her down. Naturally, I oblige!
Doublecheer: I could never have timed this any better in a million years--two of us have the identical reaction to my sudden size change!
Damn I'm Tiny: From full size to underfoot in just a few seconds!
Shrinking Flower: A violet, maybe?
Giantess Stuff (I don't go for GTS normally, but I have made a couple of vidoes for those of you who do...)
Much Bigger: She's already twice as tall as me. Can she get any bigger...? Of course she can!
Small to Huge: In this one, I grow from half size to almost double normal size! (How? I started out with a shrinking potion on me already, because I was trying to make a double shrink video. I fired my shrink ray, but it backfired and made me grow! So I drank a giant growth potion, and then cancelled the shrink potion. Viola - I'm a giantess!)
Longer Films (Over One Minute)
Hot Springs: Time for a bath in the magic hot springs! But don't drink the water...
Alchemy Shop: Size changing in the alchemy shop. Includes a brief growth sequence.
Magic Pool: Sampling the waters of the magic pool brings its own side effects.
Wonderland Mode: Intereaction with others as I wander about in Wonderland Mode!
Montage: This single file contains a bunch of different clips of my characters shrinking in various ways. No long delays between shots, no extended dialogue...just some sexy ladies getting smaller over and over! If you're going to download just one file on this page, this is the one to try!
Size Quest (Long Movie Series)
This series of movies follows our heroine as she manages to get shrunk down to 2 feet high...then wanders about the World of Warcraft trying to find ways back to normal size.
Chapter 1 - Well of Refreshment: Walking through the park on a hot day, she decides to take a drink from the local well...only to find it has a strange side effect!
Chapter 2 - Visit to a Headshrinker: Our heroine decides if she wants to be normal sized again, she needs to visit tribal headshrinkers...at least they may know a way to reverse what's happened to her.
Chapter 3 - Enchanted Geyser: Will the enchanted waters from the mystical geyser do the trick this time?
Chapter 4 - Magic Mushrooms: The blue mushrooms seem to provide an answer for our heroine's plight...or do they?
Chapter 5 - Giant Crystals: (Conclusion) The crystals in this area make things grow. Is this the end of our miniature adventuress's quest at last?
Screen Captures - Small (2 feet high)
 I need doll clothes now |
 No more armor for me |
 So near and yet so far |
 They used to fit... |
 Can I get some help? |
 So rude! |
 High chair |
 One big horse |
 Mini-me |
Screen Captures - Tiny (12 or less inches high)
 Don't ask |
 Pieces of cheese |
 Don't step on me! |
How to Get Shrunk
NOTE: Some of the material presented below is now obsolete. After complaints by PVP fanatics, the ability to stack shrinking effects was mostly taken out of the game during or around patch 1.7. Obsolete material is noted as such in the description text, but has been left here for archival purposes, or in the unlikely event Blizzard reverses the shrinking nerf.
Okay, so, how do you get shrunk in the game? It's not as simple as having somebody cast a spell on you or drinking a "shrink me" potion. Too bad. But then, if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it all the time and...well.......hmm....okay, come to think of it, that would be just fine, wouldn't it??
Anyway...here's how to get small, if you're interested in the process. This list includes all known ways...there may be more. If anyone knows any others, send me an email.
Method #1: Noggenfogger Elixir
This stuff is available from Marin Noggenfogger, an NPC goblin in Gadgetzan (in the Tanaris desert) after you do a quest series for him. The elixir is fairly cheap to buy, but it's soulbound upon purchase, and requires level 35 to use....but you can't get the quest series until level 44, and you'll need help to finish it if you try it that early.
NFE, as we'll call it from here on out, has a random effect that can be either (a) turning you into a walking skeleton for 10 minutes, (b) giving you 15 seconds of feather falling, or (c) shrinking you to about 40% of normal size for 10 minutes. There is a 2-minute cooldown on use, so sometimes you have to stand around for a while until you get the desired result. (This cooldown was removed from the game for a while, but has since been reinstated as of patch 2.0.) I find that shrinking has about a 25% chance of occuring on any given quaff. The feather falling bit is least likely, with the annoying skeleton showing up at least 60% of the time.
Click on the pic to the right to see a sample of one of my characters (in the center, obviously) after having used NFE. This gives you a good idea of the difference in scale between my female human avatar and two others at normal size. Incidentally, there is no way to choose your height when you create your character. All human ladies are about the same height (around 5 feet tall, give or take a few inches).
Method #2: Getting the Shrink Curse
There is a "shrink curse" you can have cast on you by a few mobs (creatures) in the world, some of which are pictured in the videos above (see "Visit to a Headhunter" and "Troll Spell"). These are not player spells, sadly. The curse lasts 2 minutes, long enough to either kill the mob or run away, and then have a minute or so to play around at your new size. Using this method knocks your size down to about 60% of normal and stacks with NFE, but unfortuantely leaves a red swirly thing over your head that interferes with videos and screenshots. Most of my screenshots that involve the curse have been selected during the brief interim between the swirly effect (or else I've edited it out).
The curse alone appears to shrink you to about 60% of your normal size. When combined with NFE, you can zip down to about 25% of normal. Assuming our female human character is 5 feet tall (60 inches), this puts her new size at around 15 inches. In other words, she makes a very attractive little doll! See the pic for a scale comparison.
UPDATE: As of patch 1.7, Noggenfogger Elixir no longer stacks with the shrinking curse. If you apply NFE first and then get the curse, you have the swirly lights but don't get any smaller. If you have the curse then drink NFE, you shrink a small amount down to regular Noggenfogger size.
Method #2A: Deviate Fish: In the Wailing Caverns, you can catch Deviate Fish, which are ingredients for a potion called Elixir of Giant Growth (this grows you by about 30%). Deviate Fish can also be eaten individually, have no level limit, and give a random effect (about 5 possibilities, one of which is the shrink curse described above). This is the method used to double shrink in most of my videos...sometimes I have to try many, many times in a row before the curse will activate, but I edit these other attempts out of the film. Note that since the Deviate Fish method applies the shrinking curse, it won't stack with having the curse spell cast on you, although it does stack with NFE.
UPDATE: Again, this no longer stacks with Noggenfogger.
Elixir of Giant Growth also has its uses. If you drink NFE and then Giant Growth, you appear to be about normal size. Not quite...but close enough to fool most people. Then you can simply dismiss the growth effect, which normally lasts only 2 minutes anyway, by right clicking on the potion's icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Anyone who didn't see you take the first two potions will think you just shrank for no reason. Other applications are should also come to mind, if you think about it.
Method #3: Gnomish Shrink Ray
This is a trinket that can be created by engineers, but can only be used by engineers of very high skill. It has a 5-minute cooldown, and shrinks the target to about 40% of normal size for 15 seconds. To have it used on yourself, you need to duel an engineer and let them blast you with it. Unfortunately, the trinket has a tendency to malfunction, which can sometimes shrink or grow the wielder, or just do nothing. Thus, its use in video-making is extremely limited, unless you have a very patient engineer friend. If you yourself are an engineer, you can fire it at random things, hoping to be shrunk by accident, which appears to happen about 10-20% of the time. However, since there is a 5 minute cooldown between tries, this can make video capture efforts very frustrating.
The pic shown above and to the right was taken after a failed shrink ray attempt by my engineer character. Since the device can only be used in combat (i.e. outside of town) and only fails rarely, I don't have any pics with size comparisons next to other people, but you can still see how small my character is compared to the native flora. One interesting note: If the shrink ray fails, it doesn't shrink you as much as it would if it fired on you directly. The effect seems to be about 60%, about the same as a shrink curse.
The pic shown directly to the right is how a character looks after using Noggenfogger Elixir and then being hit by a shrink ray. I figure my character's size to be about 6 or 7 inches high. This is about as small as it is possible to become in this game. What's more, this is as close as I can zoom in using my own monitor. Any closer and the avatar fades out. If you want to get a close-up shot of yourself at really tiny size, you have to get someone else to take the screenshot for you...which, obviously, can be difficult to explain. You can expect that no one else in the game will be as intrigued by this as you are...
Anyway, it's worth pointing out that the effects of the shrink ray do not appear to stack with the shrink curse...if you use NFE and the shrink ray, you get to exactly the same size as if you have NFE, shrink curse, and shrink ray. Too bad...otherwise you could be about 2-3 inches high.
UPDATE: Again, no more stacking shrink effects, as of patch 1.7. Using the shrink ray on someone with Noggenfogger applies the shrink ray's combat penalty but does not change their size.
Method #4: Gnomish World Enlarger
This is a new item added to the game in a patch sometime around the end of April 2005. The World Enlarger can only be used on yourself, and you have to be a very high level engineer specializing in gnomish engineering. Originally I thought this meant you had to be a gnome, but you don't. You can be of any race or class, as long as you pick the gnomish engineering specialty. You can do this at an engineering skill of 200, but you can't get to 260 (where you need to be to make the World Enlarger item) unless you're an artisan engineer. And you can't get that until level 35. Still, you will have this item long before you get to Noggenfogger Elixir...and trust me, the wait before you can combine the two effects is very frustrating!
Anyway, the World Enlarger does what it says...it enlarges the entire world. In other words, you shrink! There is no animation (with NFE or deviate fish, you appear to eat or drink, while the shrink ray fires a yellow beam of energy). Instead, you simply dwindle, apparently for no reason. You can really startle people with this sometimes, especially if they're admiring your outfit (and since I dress my ladies up in the sexiest possible attire, that happens a lot). The size alteration appears to be identical to the shrink ray. Here is a pic of one of my characters after having used NFE and the World Enlarger back to back. I love how tiny I am...you can barely see me! This appears to be the smallest possible size you can achieve in the game.
UPDATE: Sigh. Once again, no more stacking. If you try to use the World Enlarger while Noggenfogger is up, you get the message "A more powerful spell is already active" if NFE has 5+ minutes remaining. If it has less than 5 minutes, the World Enlarger buff replaces Noggenfogger with no change in size. Damn you Blizzard for taking this fun thing out of the game!
NEW! Method #5: Super AOE Shrink Curse
In Zul'Gurub you can find troll witch doctors that can cast AOE (area-of-effect) mass "Shrink" spells that reduce you and some of your allies to about 25-33% normal size - it's hard to say exactly. The spell is close range and seems to affect only those in front of the witch doctor. It's also instant cast so you won't be sure it's going off until it happens. Unfortunately, most mages/druids immediately decurse it off you so you can't take advantage of being so small for very long, and asking them to leave you small is likely to get you some curious inquiries.
Click here for a short video (Windows Media format) of a group shrink involving my typically scantily clad character.
The AOE curse was, after the shrink-stacking nerf, the smallest you could get in the game...at least until the next item on our list...
NEW! Method #6: Shriveling Gaze
In Blade's Edge Mountains (in the Burning Crusade expansion) there is a tribe of aarakoa (bird-men) called the Grishna that have a Harbinger mob type that casts mostly lightning spells. However, every now and then they throw an instant cast called "Shriveling Gaze." When it lands, it immediately stacks 20 partial Shrink debuffs on you that quickly fade one at a time. The initial application rapidly shrinks you to super-tiny size whereupon over the course of the next few seconds you grow slowly back to normal. There's no time to really do anything except admire the fact that for a brief moment you were very, very small. However, you do appear to be about as little as you used to be able to get before the shrink stacking nerf. See the screenshot for an idea of how tiny you can get compared to some books and other stuff.
I also have made some videos of the actual process (all are Windows Media format):
Video One: Quick overview of how fast the shrink actually is. In this video the Grishna Harbinger is in front of me out of view.
Video Two: Another view of the shrink from another angle (actually the same one that produced the above screenshot).
Video Three: The shrink effect in slow motion.
Video Four: The full length of the shrink effect and how long it takes to grow back to normal. Note that the electrical discharge about halfway through comes from the Grishna Harbinger shooting its last lightning bolt at me before I kill it.
NEW! Other Known Methods in the Burning Crusade Expansion
(1) In Mechanar there are engineers who fire Super Shrink Rays that affect your entire party. I have been told that if they hit only one person, that person is affected like the Shriveling Gaze (above) except you stay super-tiny for about 20 seconds. I have not been able to confirm this. (I wouldn't mind being able to make a Super Shrink Ray as an engineer but there doesn't seem to be an actual design for players.)
(2) The teleporter to Toshley's Station (Alliance) can produce a Transporter Malfunction effect that can do any of a variety of things, including make you larger (about 25%) or smaller (about 40%). The Transporter Malfunction lasts a full hour and persists through death. You can stack a growth effect (see below) but if you use any shrinking effect, it overrides and cancels the Transporter Malfunction. So, this is not all that useful, unless you just want to have a full hour of shortness.
Giantess Fans, Take Note
If you're interested in growing instead of shrinking, you can buy either Elixir of Giant Growth (available at low levels either for purchase or by making it, using Deviate Fish and alchemy skill) or go get some Winterfall Firewater (by hunting Winterfall Furbolgs in Winterspring, level 50+). Elixir of Giant Growth makes you about 30% larger, lasts 2 minutes and adds a small amount of Strength, while Winterfall Firewater makes you about 40% larger, lasts 20 minutes and adds a large amount of Attack Power.
I originally reported in this space that both effects stack, but they do not. If you are using the Giant Growth one and apply Firewater, your growth is barely perceptible (maybe 10%)...only you will notice it. I personally think neither one really make you impressively big, although if you grow and stand next to a shrunken character, they look all the smaller!
There are some other growth effects in the game that do stack with either of the potions. During the Halloween events, you can acquire a buff from Hallow's Eve Candy that makes you "larger and orangier." Also, if you get a Transporter Malfunction as described above, this also stacks. Horde characters can get a growth buff from a witch doctor in the troll starting area after doing a couple of low-level quests. All of these stack with the potions; whether they stack with each other is unknown (if they do, you could become quite large indeed).
Technical Details: Size Comparisons
Here are some pics that show actual size comparisons with the various effects described above. Click on a pic to see the larger image.
This is a pic involving just Noggenfogger Elxir. (Amazingly, I found somebody else in the game with the same sexy outfit as mine!) As you can see, my character is about 2 feet tall compared to her giant twin's 5 feet, a size difference of 40%. |
This screenshot involves NFE and a deviate fish. The NFE makes me 40% of normal and the shrink curse about 60%, a total of about one-fourth (actually 24%) of normal size. My height, as expected, is about 15 inches. |
Now, in this pic, my engineer character has just failed on a shrink ray, and then applied the World Enlarger effect. The failed shrink ray doesn't make me nearly as small as a real shrink ray would have, if someone else fired it at me. So my size is about the same as NFE + curse example to the left. |
Now we're getting somewhere! This pic was taken after I used NFE and then someone shrank me with the ray gun. Compared to this giantess, I'm clearly no more than 6 or 7 inches high! |
Now my engineer gets into the act, using NFE and the World Enlarger. Again, about 6 or 7 inches tall, at most. It's too bad the curse doesn't stack with this, or I'd be half again that size... |
Other combinations are possible but basically produce one of these three sizes, or very close to them. The curse or failed shrink ray by themselves leave you a bit larger than NFE does, but not terribly much. I haven't tried a curse and failed shrink ray attempt, but theoretically you'd be a little bit larger than pics #2 and #3 above. I do know that if you use NFE, curse, and a shrink ray (or World Enlarger) the curse's effect is ignored. You still get the swirly lights, but you don't get any smaller. I suspect, although I don't know for sure, if you get shot by a shrink ray while using NFE and the World Enlarger that the ray and enlarger effects won't stack. I'll have to find another engineer to try this on me and I'll post the results here. If they DID combine...why, you'd be about 2 inches tall! Would that be cool or what? |
UPDATE: Sadly, the combinations shown above are pretty much kaput as of patch 1.7. Stupid Blizzard.
So What Good Is Being Shrunk, Anyway?
Other than the sheer coolness factor, being shrunk in the game has no real effect on play. You move the same speed (your little legs just run all the faster, which is actually quite funny to watch). You can be hard to spot, which can be nice, especially in PVP. I've been told that rogues using the NFE and World Enlarger combination can sneak into enemy towns easily, because even if a player picks up on the stealth, they will have a tough time spotting something so tiny. However, being tiny doesn't fool any computer-controlled guards or monsters.
Noggenfogger Elixir applies no combat penalties to your character, and neither does the World Enlarger, but the latter immediately stops working if you engage in combat (NFE doesn't, although its effects end if you die). If someone uses a shrink ray on you, your Attack Power is decreased by 250. If your own shrink ray fails, you suffer an Attack Power penalty, but it doesn't say how much. If you get a shrink curse, your Strength and Stamina are reduced accordingly, but the amount varies depending on how the curse was applied (higher level casters have a greater effect).
Although certain creatures have a Shrink spell that applies the curse, this spell isn't available to players. Also, there is a Giant Growth potion, but no corresponding Size Reduction elixir, other than Noggenfogger's. Personally, I'd like to see a Size Reduction one that gives you a bonus to your Agility. They can already use the same effect as NFE, just don't let the two of them stack. Of course, if this were available, people would run around shrunk all the time...but again, that's not all that terribly bad.
Also, being super-tiny doesn't seem to allow you to pass through very small passageways. Being half-sized sometimes allows you to get through a gap, but if you can't get through it at that size, getting even smaller won't help you. The game is apparently set up to handle only three possible sizes of people (small, medium and large) and doesn't go any farther than that.