I've finally created a Major Payne team, and strategy, that I'm happy with:
Grasslands Cottontail (S/S) and
Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot (S/S). It can be used with a level 1 carry pet or sped up by a few rounds if the carry pet can take one Rampage hit from Grizzle. The strategy is reliably getting me to Bloom in 13-17 rounds and with my fast rabbit still at full health. I've been forfeiting at that point so that I could run multiple trials; over time we'll develop a good average value for how long it then takes to kill Bloom and I'll edit this post.
The basic plan is to use the rabbit to negate the opening Rampage damage, swap in the Rocket Bot during Hibernate to set up Minefield and Sticky Grenade, and then to Batter down Grizzle and Beakmaster. There are different choices for the opening sequence (all start with Dodge) depending on Grizzles opening move and whether the carry pet can take a hit.
Major Payne
~22 rounds?
1:
Grasslands Cottontail (S,S) (2,2,1) (
Flurry,
Dodge,
Burrow)
2: Carry pet
3:
Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot (S,S) (2,2,1) (
Batter,
Minefield,
Sticky Grenade)
vs Grizzle - dirty swap, carry pet will take one hit from Rampage
- Dodge > Flurry > swap to Carry pet > swap to Rocket Bot
- (Grizzle opened with Rampage) Sticky Grenade > Minefield > Batter until Grizzle dies
- (Grizzle opened with Bash) Minefield > Sticky Grenade > Batter until Grizzle dies
vs Grizzle - hard swap, carry pet takes no damage
- Dodge
- if Grizzle did not open with Rampage, then Forfeit and start again
- Flurry > Burrow > swap to Carry Pet > swap Rocket Bot
- Sticky Grenade > Minefield > Batter until Grizzle dies
vs Beakmaster
- Sticky Grenade > Batter until Rocket Bot dies
- select Grasslands Cottontail
- Dodge (only very rarely will this not turn out to be the best move)
- Flurry until Beakmaster dies
vs Bloom
- use Burrow or Dodge whenever Entangling Roots has been cast on you
- Flurry Bloom to death
Additional info and geekery:
For a low level carry pet one can also use a death swap strategy, though I think the hard swap works better for reasons I'll get into. The main difference between openers/situations/swap methods is the number of Rampages the Rocket Bot will be exposed to. Grizzle will always be killed by the damage from one Sticky Grenade and 6 'ticks' from Batter. Two triple hits from Batter, called a 2x3, should happen around 25% of the time and would save one round of time. A 2x3 can also, in some situations, cause the Rocket Bot to take one less Rampage hit. When Grizzle opens with Rampage, he usually, but not always, casts Bash before Hibernate. Note this means that when Hibernate ends he has to Rampage because Bash is still on cooldown.
# of rampage hits
dirty swap, Rampage > - always 2, Bash details don't matter
dirty swap, Bash > Rampage > Hibernate > Bash - 2 if 2x3, otherwise 3
dirty swap, Bash > Rampage > Hibernate > Rampage - always 3
hard swap - always 3
death swap - Rampage > Bash > - 2
death swap - Rampage > Hibernate > Bash > Rampage - 2 if 2x3, otherwise 3
death swap - Rampage > Hibernate > Rampage - 3
It may look like using death swap would be better than hard swap since you would often take one less rampage, but this is not the case. After death swapping in your carry pet, swapping to your rabbit could result in it eating a Wind-up or Shock and Awe. I did ten trials each of dirty swap (rampage), dirty swap (bash), hard swap and death swap; the only time the rabbit took any damage was in death swap trials.