Replacement Pets For 5.2 Patch

[Regretz]

Just curious what pet you intend to replace your Anubisath Idol and your Fluxfire Feline with when the patch hits? Im hoping to find a Hard Hitting Combo to carry my baby battlepets with so am looking for ideas

[Stabya]

What current Tamers are you using the Anub-FFF?

It will probably be a situational replacement

[Formerruling]

Honestly Anub stays relatively the same usefulness for me. Reflections largest nerf was when it didnt steal heals anymore, reflecting dmg was only a nice little perk that happened ever now and again.

[Badpathing]

I stopped using Anub's reflect a couple of weeks ago knowing the nerf was soon to come. I have to say, I do not miss it at all. Sandstorm + Stoneskin (or whatever it is called) + human racial makes him ridiculous. I am glad for the reflect nerf because of pvp really; as well as the cc diminishing returns change.

As for FFF, I dunno. I know it hits crazy hard and people use it in their lineup frequently, but I do the spirt/master dailies every day (only pandaria) and FFF is not in a single one of my teams. I use the team mod to set up 2 pet teams, and I drop in a 3rd for leveling. Rarely have any issues.

I think, for me, that the Darkmoon Zepplin and Chrominius are amazing for most of the masters. A moth works wonders as well on a few of them.

Really, I am glad for the nerfs. What little pvp I did do in 5.0/.1 really turned me off when I ran into nothing but cheese teams (3 x Anub, etc).

[Cabadath]

I think, for me, that the Darkmoon Zepplin and Chrominius are amazing for most of the masters. A moth works wonders as well on a few of them.

Interesting information. Could you please elaborate on this? Which tamers and which abilities / which pet goes first etc? Are you dependent on a certain tamer pet starting the battle, or does it work no matter which pet you face first?

I use chrominius as my last pet vs whispering, and darkmoon zeppelin as my last pet vs nishi in case rng kills off my eternal strider. Have tried zep in other pet battles as well but have found other pet team setups to be more comfortable.

I am always interested in new information so that I can optimize my teams, and would really appreciate it if you could give me more info

[Badpathing]

Heh, tbh I really do not want to go through the trouble of a complete writeup, considering there are a couple of already great examples you can find here.

For your example with whispering, I start with Chrominus. I use Bite/Blessing/Ravage. Forcing the moth first, I can usually get close to killing the first two pets with him. just make sure you use blessing whenever it is up, and ravage to finish the moth. If you get lucky, you can get all the way to the elemental with him; happens approximately 50% of the time for me.

[Coilla]

I too rarely use the FFF, mostly for Obalis which is due for a nerf in 5.2 in any case. I also do not think that the Anub Idol is in any way dimished on the PTR. Reflect was cool, but as mentioned, not his only, or even best trick. I switched to the double shield a while ago and have not looked back. Where the Anub Idol is not ideal the P/P Emerald Proto-Whelp fills in nicely with better anti flying power.

On Nishi, I find that my P/P Emperor Crab pretty much can solo her entire team. I only swap him out to give my carry pet XP. The heal makes him pretty much unstoppable for that tamer and the goes first attack sneaks in damage before things like the roots attack of the turnip.

I would also say that anywhere that you can use the Darkmoon Zepplin pet the Mechanical Dragonling can serve as well.

[Cabadath]

Heh, tbh I really do not want to go through the trouble of a complete writeup, considering there are a couple of already great examples you can find here.

For your example with whispering, I start with Chrominus. I use Bite/Blessing/Ravage. Forcing the moth first, I can usually get close to killing the first two pets with him. just make sure you use blessing whenever it is up, and ravage to finish the moth. If you get lucky, you can get all the way to the elemental with him; happens approximately 50% of the time for me.

Hehe I understand. I am doing a last minute polishing to my new 5.2 lineup for all trainers, and vs whispering I use emerald proto whelp breed 4 (2,2,2), and chrominius (1,2,1) with a carry pet. There are faster ways to defeat the trainer, but I wanted to have a team which could beat him with a very high grade of reliability and no matter which pet you start against. But I am always looking for more optimal setups for those trainers around the world.

Thanks for your feedback and gl with your battles

[Badpathing]

I read through your guide and I use a lot of similar pets with the exception of the emerald drake; I tried him, and not sure why, but did not stick with him. I should revisit that.

I think what I like about your approach is that you are striving to build comps that are not affected by starting pet. I think a lot of my comps depend a bit on things going 'well' and I always force the first pet. The trade-off is that I can usually burn through the dailies relatively fast. Knowing the penalty is coming in 5.2, I am sure I will adjust to be more flexible.

I am mostly concerned about the bugs. It is extremely frustrating to watch the trainer pets consistently hit 3 times (on a 'hits 1-3 times' skill), my dives miss much more than they hit (Ony whelp), and occasional oddness like mechs not rezzing. I have even had it happen occasionally where my pet gets stuck in perma-pass mode (after passing on a turn where the pet is cc'ed).

The dailies are taking long enough, the frustration needs to go. I personally think that the pet trainers should have a static rotation and that they should not be powerful due to ridiculous advantages. I know they are 'epic' battles to some degree, but let us not forget they are DAILIES.

Either that, or make it easier to level pets. In that case, I would stop using the trainers as leveling stops and just steam roll them with a stacked team of 3. I dunno about the rest of you, but I feel like the xp from killing random pets is way, way too low. But then, Blizz is probably not counting on the average playing wanting 521 level 25s :/

[Cabadath]

I was informed that the forfeiting penalty of -10 % to hp won't apply to forfeiting trainer battles.
This is a welcome change, but I still want to have teams not dependant on a certain starting pet. Even so, you should be fine using a setup vs a certain pet (the trainers usually starts with a certain pet 80 % of the time it seems, such as Payne starting with Grizzle), and burning through the tamer fast is a great way to go. In my guide I have written down which pets usually start for each tamer (based on my personal experience). My goal is to start the battle, not having to forfeit to force the right pet to start, and still finish it quickly and reliably.

1-3 hit abilities no matter if that pet has higher speed or not are frustrating. Personally I try to avoid using such pets because of RNG frustration, and it sucks to face such pets because sometimes you get hit very hard. A way to counter such hits are using pets with shields, which drastically reduces each hit. In addition, if you use Emerald Proto Whelp, he takes low damage from flying attacks and at the same time reduces the damage further with Emerald Presence.

Blizz has stated that mech ressing not working is going to be fixed in 5.2. The time this happens for me is usually when getting hit by a wind-up.

[Badpathing]

Yes, your responses make sense and mine are similar; still just annoys me for now

Just an fyi, I did yesterday's dailies using your list and I was quite happy with it. I have a couple of pets I need to level, but overall your teams are better than what I was using.

I noticed a typo on
2.3 Whispering Pandaren Spirit
-Very reliable, although a little slow and boring with having to use Emerald Presence and Emerald Dream a lot.
-Dusty, Whispertail, Pandaren Air Spirit (usually starts with Dusty).
1: Emerald Proto Whelp [4] (2,2,2)
2: Carry pet (won’t take any damage. Can use a lvl 1 pet)
3: Chrominius (1,2,1)

You list Chrom as 1,2,1 but then below refer to him as 1,1,2 (howl, surge).

[Stabya]

You should be able to beat whispering Pandaren Spirt with ANY two Dragonkin.

[Badpathing]

You should be able to beat whispering Pandaren Spirt with ANY two Dragonkin.

The point is not 'how', but rather 'how to optimally'. None of the trainers are hard, but his post and this discussion are around the best (in terms of efficiency and ease) way to beat them all using a carry.

[Badpathing]

Also @ Cabadath, for the following:

2.6 Mo’ruk
-Very reliable, but a little slow and boring with refreshing Emerald Presence and using Emerald Dream. Not too slow though, as Lightstalker takes extra dmg from Emerald Bite.
-Woodcarver, Lightstalker, Needleback (usually start with Woodcarver).
1: Emerald Proto Whelp [4] (2,2,2)
2: Carry pet (won’t take any damage. Can use a lvl 1 pet)
3: Gilnean Raven [8] (1,2,1)

-If you have any teams killing Mo’ruk faster than this, and just as reliably, please let me know!

I have been using zeplin and crow (raven). As for reliability, have really not had any issues with this comp other than the bizzare string of misses (crow missing twice with darkness up...wtf). I lead with zep for the beast; missle, then decoy, then missle x 3. The only damage it takes is from the dot. Then work on the flyer and use the nuke when close to death. The majority of the time I can bring my crow in and cast darkness to finish the flyer. I then use Nocturnal strike on the last pet, swap him for carry, swap back and finish. Notice I only used decoy once so the incoming nerf is really irrelevant.

Not sure if this is entirely in the spirit of your strategy, but it is worth looking at. It works quite well for me.

[Talmar]

I agree with Badpathing, I've never used the reflect ability on the Anub Idol as Sandstorm + Stoneskin is awesome.

I do use FFF on a few tamers with Beast pets, most notibly Major Payne. Sometimes I can even take out the bear and the mechapeep with the FFF. Not often, but sometimes if RNG is nice to me.

Pyth on Obalis I use FFF for but really any Mechapet and work for those. FFF just makes them quicker and easier.

I'll go back to my Clockwork Gnome as my default Mechapet. Rocket Chicken is pretty nice as well.

[Cabadath]

Also @ Cabadath, for the following:

2.6 Mo’ruk
-Very reliable, but a little slow and boring with refreshing Emerald Presence and using Emerald Dream. Not too slow though, as Lightstalker takes extra dmg from Emerald Bite.
-Woodcarver, Lightstalker, Needleback (usually start with Woodcarver).
1: Emerald Proto Whelp [4] (2,2,2)
2: Carry pet (won’t take any damage. Can use a lvl 1 pet)
3: Gilnean Raven [8] (1,2,1)

-If you have any teams killing Mo’ruk faster than this, and just as reliably, please let me know!

I have been using zeplin and crow (raven). As for reliability, have really not had any issues with this comp other than the bizzare string of misses (crow missing twice with darkness up...wtf). I lead with zep for the beast; missle, then decoy, then missle x 3. The only damage it takes is from the dot. Then work on the flyer and use the nuke when close to death. The majority of the time I can bring my crow in and cast darkness to finish the flyer. I then use Nocturnal strike on the last pet, swap him for carry, swap back and finish. Notice I only used decoy once so the incoming nerf is really irrelevant.

Not sure if this is entirely in the spirit of your strategy, but it is worth looking at. It works quite well for me.

I tried out zeppelin myself, which works very well vs Woodcarver. Lightstalker can be a pain in the ass though, so I wanted a way to finish him off reliably and quickly. Guess Crow or Gilnean Raven could do the job, but I was a bit sceptical as Lightstalker sometimes dish out a lot of damage which could make it hard defeating Needleback.

In addition, I think I scrapped zeppelin after facing Lightstalker first; it's very hard for Zeppelin to kill Lightstalker reliably and still be able to kill Woodcarver. The Crow / Gilnean Raven could use Darkness + Nocturnal Strike, but that could impact on his ability to kill Needleback reliably because of those abilities being on CD.

Might be that I could have tried a bit harder, but the failed attempts of trying to make this work out fast and reliable ended up with safing with Emerald Proto Whelp (which is a great pet, but so boring and too slow for my taste that I try to avoid using him whenever I can).

[Badpathing]

I tried out zeppelin myself, which works very well vs Woodcarver. Lightstalker ...

Yeah I agree with what you are saying. It is so rare that the Woodcarver does not start out for me though, that I pretty much discount that as an issue. Having said that, I do like your lineups quite a bit.

Can you believe I was not using Jade Ooze? I picked up a P/P Ooze today and leveled him up (had a subpar breed that was doing amazing damage). Flyers get absolutely wrecked...and a lot of other types as well.

Keep up the good work!

PS. I got my last rare wild today, S/S Coral Adder...Go me!

[Cabadath]

Thanks, and congrats back at you

Jade Oozeling is lovely. Acidic goo, corrosion, absorb, absorb = win . Often works well even though you have to apply corrosion one round later because of Dive or something (such as with Zusshi's Mollus).

Another thing about Jade Oozeling: corrosion is blocked by coccoon strike, but acidic goo is not. I guess this is because of acidic goo applying a dot-effect without dealing any damage up front, while corrosion deals damage up front and apply a dot. The coccoon will offset your rotation though, as corrosion will be blocked the next round.

[Ryderly]

It is extremely frustrating to watch the trainer pets consistently hit 3 times (on a 'hits 1-3 times' skill)

I feel your pain, here. There's a good counter to fighting ones that use multi-hit abilities and that's a spiderling with the brittle webbing ability. If you can manage to snag a p/s breed molten hatchling, it works fairly admirably with a leech life, cauterize and brittle webbing line-up. The cauterize allows you to recover from hard-hitting abilities, while the leech life and brittle webbing whittle away at your opponent when they're using light-hitting attacks (swarm, nut barrage, thrash, etc.) for a pretty potent opponent to your multi-strike attackers. Stoneskin, shell shield, spiked skin and other pet self-buffs can also be a potent counter to those types of attackers.

[Badpathing]

It is extremely frustrating to watch the trainer pets consistently hit 3 times (on a 'hits 1-3 times' skill)

I feel your pain, here. There's a good counter to fighting ones that use multi-hit abilities and that's a spiderling with the brittle webbing ability. If you can manage to snag a p/s breed molten hatchling, it works fairly admirably with a leech life, cauterize and brittle webbing line-up. The cauterize allows you to recover from hard-hitting abilities, while the leech life and brittle webbing whittle away at your opponent when they're using light-hitting attacks (swarm, nut barrage, thrash, etc.) for a pretty potent opponent to your multi-strike attackers. Stoneskin, shell shield, spiked skin and other pet self-buffs can also be a potent counter to those types of attackers.

Yes, that is a great counter. Also using sandstorm/emerald shield etc help as well. I am more disgruntled at the 'unfairness' of it I guess.

I just do not like the idea of breaking the rules to make things hard. Yes, they are legendary...but quality affects stats for players, not percentages (chance to hit, etc). Apparently that is not the case for trainers; and here is where I think the rules are broken. I just think it is a lazy design.