I originally intended to include this in my PHD/Beastcleave2.0 thread but decided this would be better as a standalone guide for others planning on taming these pets.
Before you get started:
Download this addon.
_NPCScan will search for Elite/Rare Mobs or Pets without you having to spam a macro or be on the lookout for them.
If you are an engineer build a Wormhole Generator: Northrend. It beats the hell out of waiting for boats or finding a mage port. Also it takes you right to a Spirit Beast spawn in Sholazar Basin.
Petopia: Spirit Beasts
These are the Spirit Beasts. You can click on an image of which ever one you desire and it will tell you a little bit more about the pet and have a link to a wowhead image showing spawn Locations.
Twilight Highlands
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Overview of Path in Northrend
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Spawn Location of the Spirit Beasts you will find in order, if you follow the path I took.
Twilight Highlands - Spectral Wolf
Karoma - NPC - World of Warcraft.
Sholazar Basin - Spirit Leopard
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Storm Peaks - Lightning Saber Worg
Skoll - NPC - World of Warcraft
Zul'Drak - Spectral Saber
Gondria - NPC - World of Warcraft
Grizzly Hills - Spectral Bear
Arcturis - NPC - World of Warcraft
Abyysal Depths (Abandoned Reef) - Spectral Crab
Ghostcrawler - NPC - World of Warcraft
About my Route
Engineer
This is the fastest route possible. I would take the City Portal to Twilight Highlands and fly the original route in my picture above, except I would fly back to the town after my first loop and go back to Stormwind. Once back take the portal to Vash'jir and ride your seahorse to the Abandoned Reef. It doesn't take long to get there and searching for Ghostcrawler is easy (Spectral Crab). After you've determined he isn't there fire up your Wormhole and select Sholazar Basin, this is where you begin the loop in Northrend.
Non-Engineer
Head to Vash'jir first, and search for Ghostcrawler. Port back to your main city and take the portal to Twilight Highlands. Do the route as I suggested earlier and fly to Menethil Harbor. If you're horde just land on the boat out of reach of the guards. Once you land in Northrend run the route in reverse beginning at the Spirit Bear and ending in Sholazar Basin.
The Master Trick and how not to waste 4 hours of your life like I did
_NPCScan is a great addon, yet it's major flaw is Caching the creatures you plan to look for before you've even found them. It will spot Spirit Beasts in citys and cross them out on it's checklist. To avoid this create a simple Batch file that will clear your creature cache, and if you don't know what a batch file is don't worry, just follow my instructions and you'll be fine.
1. Open up Notepad.
2. Copy this
Code:
@del "C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\Cache\WDB\enUS\creaturecache.wdb"
@del "C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\Cache\WDB\enUS\npccache.wdb"
@start C:\"Program Files (x86)"\"World of Warcraft"\LAUNCHER.EXE
If you've installed in a different directory/location just replace the yellow text.
ex. Find your WoW folder. Right Click Launcher --> Properties and look at Location:
3. After making sure steps 1 and 2 are correct flick File --> save as and name it whatever you like. Spirit Beasts.bat for example. Save as Type: should be set to ALL FILES.
The most important part here is adding .bat to your save name
4. Once you've done all of these steps you can run your program.
Double Clicking the program should delete your creaturecache.wdb and npcache.wdb THEN run the WoW launcher. So if you see the WoW Launcher your good to go! If not you've probably got the wrong paths set and need the replace the highlighted yellow code in step 2.
Final Tip
These pets are on a long spawn timer, luckily not many people pass through Northrend to kill them. So doing 1 swoop of the entire path should be enough to catch a pet. The best time to run the route is early in the morning. After searching for 4+ Hours during the day (with my addon not working) I found 1 spirit beast and it was pure luck. The next morning I assured my addon was working and did 1 tour and found 4 of the 6 spirit beasts bringing my total to 5.
Good luck and good hunting!