What breed?? WoD Edition *updated 6.2*

[Lolfixheal]

Hi

Been searching wowhead, this site, google for any information on breeds on the new WoD pets and I cant find zip. So its time to write up a post and ask other peoples opinions. Sometimes its easy to see what breeds are good, which ones are bad. But I got a few cases down below I'd like some feedback on. Please write what breed you think is best and why.

Ore Eater

Frostfur Rat

Golden Dawnfeather
Brilliant Bloodfeather

Thicket Skitterer
Icespine Hatchling
Mossbite Skitterer

Parched Lizard

Flat-tooth Calf
Mudback Calf
Albino River Calf

Forest Sproutling

Nightshade Sproutling

Sun Sproutling

Firewing

Quite a handful of pets. More will probably come. I'm just tired sitting and waiting on no info or discussion happening on the breed front. So here it goes. Many of the pets in WoD have either 2,4 or 10 breed options. PP and SS represented well in the latter two. But weird, new, interesting moveset and abilties make the choice hard.

[Vipers]

Ore Eater = SS
This pet seems a little bit stuck with its own abilities. Using Acid Touch + Body Slam forces you into Shell Armor, which in and on itself isn't as great as it looks. The rest of his spells are either redundant or impractical. There isn't much to say, other than PP will be almost always at least one round behind the SS.

Frostfur Rat = SS
You won't find competition to rabbits very easily, especially when they are disguised as pseudo-sweepers with terrible synergy. Sneak Attack forces you into Call Darkness (keep in mind that blindness reduces his accuracy as well) Call Darkness forces you into Crouch, hurting both effects. Critters cannot pull PP without any sort of speed buff or something to hit very hard, especially when there's a 10% accuracy debuff in play. He is 'situational' at best.

Golden Dawnfeather = PP
He wants to be Singing Sunflower but he doesn't know how health percentages work for flying pets. Quills will often be a disappointment, especially with the amount of shell shields floating out there, making peck almost mandatory. Truth is, he won't live long enough to make good use of Reckless Strike, weather you like this reality or not, which leaves you with Peck, Love potion and Hawk Eye... Hey! Did you know that Axebeak Hatchling has Rain Dance and Lift-Off? Just throwing that out here for no reason.

Brilliant Bloodfeather = PP
Slow is a great word to describe this one, slow as in speed and in tempo. Chances are you are going to be playing catch up every time you send in one of those guys into a fight and, unless you can pull a couple of crits pretty quickly, you will not live long enough to see it happening. He can make use of quills with a SS breed, but keep in mind that reducing the number of steps you walk does not make the road any shorter, SS hits are way lower and you can't count on Hawk Eye to help you out on that. Drain blood will merely delay the inevitable.

Thicket Skitterer, Mossbite Skitterer, and Icespine Hatchling = Any
Here's an example of something designed to be used against players on wild encounters only. Gnaw with a top speed of 289 is formidable to kill your lvl 15 leveling pet on the first slot, and that's about it. Body Slam with reduced self damage would be OK if it was not sharing the same slot with Ravage, which is probably the only reason this pet could ever be considered viable. Puncture Wound and Takedown without self-synergy closes the case on this awful, awful, awful example of a purposely bad designed pet.

Parched Lizard = Any
The problem with him is that he has everything and nothing at the same time. He has SS, one of the best breeds in the game, Conflagrate, one of the best elemental spells in the game, Ravage, one of the best spells for grinding, and Claw, an OK filler, and none of these things make him a complete and useful pet. Theoretically, the idea behind him is to create a beast that can counter mechanicals, but we all know you need more than just damage bonus to effectively counter another type.

Flat-tooth Calf, Mudback Calf, & Albino River Calf = HP
This rises a debate much bigger than just bite vs water jet, the debate between HH and HP. To sum up, I tend to keep in mind that power creates bigger shields, and since he can't heal himself his shield is pretty much the only defense he has. That's the only argument I would ever use in defense of HP over HH here. Stoneskin + Headbutt + Filler is boring, his breeds are boring, and everything else about this pet seems to be missplaced. 289 speed is too low for the combo Clobber+Takedown to be viable in pvp.

Forest Sproutling = SS
Refuge + Sons of the Root will make some people roll their eyes during the fight, especially if you have an Unborn Val'kyr or a Crawling Claw to back him off. The great thing about him is that he can make use of Leech Seed, which is a surprisingly difficult spell to combine with anything, but it goes great with Sons of the Root. Slower breeds aren't as effective though.

Nightshade Sproutling = SS
Blinding Poison + Call Darkness could make this guy pretty annoying when paired with his elemental advantage on Darkness, either Lash or Poison Lash have similar usefulness and neither should be blindly (pun not intended) dismissed. Although, this formidable pet suffers the same problem as Flayer Youngling, he's useless if not in his prime breed and with 8 breeds available, be ready to spend some money if you want to get the best out of him.

Sun Sproutling = PP
He is bad against the only thing he counters. His spells are all over the place, and nothing make sense combined with anything. You will have to create an entire team around this guy in order to make him useful, and Blossoming Ancient already excels at the things Sun Sproutling tries to do very poorly. If you ever have the balls to create an entire team to support this pet, then PP is the best way to go, and not even by far. You shouldn't expect much from him.

Firewing = PB
Very unremarkable to say the least. His too obvious combos (Scorched Earth + Murder + Deep Burn / Sunlight + Healing Flame + Alpha Strike) hurt his actions more than help, the fact that he doesn't counter aquatic pets properly makes me uncomfortable and Scorched Earth simply doesn't do enough to justify the damage he takes. Other than that he could be useful in PvE in some very specific situations. Definitely not a pet you should sweat on to get the best of his breeds, and chances are he will be forgotten faster than Phoenix Hatchling was.

[Awq]

I don't think one breed is best.
The strength of breeds depends on the situation. Questions that you should ask are: Which speed has my opponent (PvE)? Which team do you plan to use it on (PvP)? Which move-set do I plan to use?

Waterfly P/B & H/S
P/B Waterfly has the highest power with decent base speed. H/S is the fastest. I slightly prefer P/B, since it always has been fast enough for me. I assume that H/S is the better long term investment. It is likely that the additional speed will shine at some point.

Frostfur Rat P/P, S/S & B/B.
All three work really well for me.
A P/P Frostfur Rat might be the first offensive critter that I actually like. It does a lot of damage, while still having some defenses! It's simply a great pet.
S/S Frostfur Rat does not do the same punch as P/P, it however has stronger defenses and a lot of speed.
I actually quite like the B/B Frostfur Rat. I would not recommend it as your first Frostfur Rat, but it is definitely versatile. It can still pack a punch like the P/P. I like 292 speed. It is faster than a lot of pets, while still maintaining some of its offenses.

Golden Dawnfeather P/P, S/S
It really depends on the move-set. I would choose P/P if I went with Peck and/or Reckless Strike. I would choose S/S if I went with Quills and/or Sunlight.
You can read some discussion here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12079&p=97014#p97014

Sun Sproutling P/P
I would say that P/P is the strongest. The healing scales really well with power, and it will create higher survivability in the long run.

Nightshade Sproutling S/S or P/P
This is a tough one. This pet has multiple move-sets that can work.
S/S works really well with Blinding Poison. P/P provides high burst and/or strong healing.

Icespine Hatchling H/B
I only tried this breed though. I am not a fan of this pet. I do find the additional health helpful, it was the only thing that it had going for it. It did win quite some 1vs1's.

[Lolfixheal]

Hi

Sorry for late response, holidays and stuff.

Good info both of you, I really like to read how you think how to use the pets in situations. Thanks. Viper, I think you switched Sun/Nigthshade Sproutling descriptions around

Regardles the pets being good or bad, Id always like to have my arsenal of pets at best possible potential breed for whenever an encounter is tossed into the game. Basicly removing the need to go back, reaquire pet in new breed, stone it, lvl it - you get my point.

In some cases wheres the multiple pets with same moveset, I do stray of course and try to have a pet with different breed so 3-4-5 pets arent 100% identical. An example is the Calfs. Right now I got two in HP and 1 in HH - just in case theres a scenario where you want that moveset but more health to survive that 1 more hit.

The Skitters are meh ye, I think I'll get myself a HB, PB, SB. Then thats covered.

Regarding the Frostfur rat, the Sneak ability says "extra damage", any idea how much extra, if its flat % of base or that works???. Kindda hard to see how much dmg is actually applied. I tend to use wowhead battle pet info sheet, level 25 rare, then go through breeds say PP vs SS to see the damage difference in %.

On the three sproutlings it seems we agree on the following:
Sun is PP
Forest SS
Nigthshade PP/SS

[Awq]

Forest SS

I don't 100% agree with Forest SS. But then again, I havent actually leveled/used this pet.
It makes sense. Its move-set scales really well with speed. It has a move (Sons of the Root) that gains an additional turn if the pet is faster, even though it has a 8 round cool down. Refuge becomes less predictable when you are faster than your opponent, which helps with mind games.

I would say my fav breed depends on the pvp team, more than anything else.
I am not a fan of 325 speed. I am planning to level H/S first (or H/H).

I would recommend others to level the S/S breed.

Regarding the Frostfur rat, the Sneak ability says "extra damage", any idea how much extra, if its flat % of base or that works???. Kindda hard to see how much dmg is actually applied. I tend to use wowhead battle pet info sheet, level 25 rare, then go through breeds say PP vs SS to see the damage difference in %.

PP does 426 damage (321 AP). 289 baseline.
SS does 344 damage (256 AP). 234 baseline.
HB does 361 damage (269 AP). 245 baseline.

In some cases wheres the multiple pets with same moveset, I do stray of course and try to have a pet with different breed so 3-4-5 pets arent 100% identical. An example is the Calfs. Right now I got two in HP and 1 in HH - just in case theres a scenario where you want that moveset but more health to survive that 1 more hit.

Awesome. I agree. Diversity > all.

[Iamwhatis]

For me that is over thinking it. Until it beets me I don't pay a lot of attention to it.

[Lolfixheal]

I got three more pets up for discussion. The three engineering pets. Some interesting moves, but interesting movesets? Lets find out.

Mechanical Axebeak
No breeds fast enough to be 'fast' in PvP, so a plain PP and make use of that flying racial half the fight. Decoy being interesting move, should have no problem getting that one off as PP unless mirrormatch. Why the pet is flying when its mechanical is beyond me? :S

Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar
The three pure breeds available. PP affecting the amount on both the heals, SS for decoy. Dont think anyone would go charge except perhaps charge/pig out rotate spam? HH not likely to be used but not bad breed, will last a long time with decoys, heals, mechround. My best bet would be SS missile/rebuild/decoy. WoD has introduced 3 more pets with decoy, the Axebeak which is a flyver, Frostboar SS 325 and Sky-Bo SS 325. So depending whether you chose Sky-Bo as PP or SS, SS boar might be the way to go?

Mechanical Scorpid
We all love Black Claw but theres nothing to use it around. The pet lacks simple attacks. The Barbed Stinger is new attack in WoD, not to be confused with the old poison debuff 5 rounds as we know it. No this is baseline attack with 20% chance to dot enemy up for 1 round. Hardly reliable for poison-combo or black claw ticks. WindUp puncture wound would speak for a PP but you gotta fish for that debuff or have another pet provide it. The moves are simply in wrong slots. Have no clue how to play this one.

[Abbotta]

I have to say so far the pets I have used the most from the new batch of pets are the peacocks and the Frostfur rat. I got a rare P/S on the first day of the xpac and I have had some great luck with her in undead battles especially with some high-end elite battles. I use a Crouch, Call Darkness, Sneak Attack combo that has solo'd some of the big pet tamer elites - he is the only critter with Call Darkness (a spell that blinds) and an attack that utilizes that blindness (Sneak Attack). If you keep Crouch on him he'll even survive that Idol of Rot that totally revives back to full HP.

[Awq]

I got three more pets up for discussion. The three engineering pets. Some interesting moves, but interesting movesets? Lets find out.

Mechanical Axebeak P/P
I own both P/P and S/S. S/S was my first choice, since I assumed that this pet was mechanical. At level 20 (after some boosting) I realized that this pet was flying, but I decided to keep it. P/P is by far the best of the two breeds.
This pet relies on an early Decoy. You need to use this avoidance move to your advantage, to dish out much damage (or swap). The Flying racial shines here.
Alpha Strike does as much damage (when first) on S/S as Peck on P/P. When you can (reliably) choose Alpha Strike on P/P, it becomes a lot better than S/S.

Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar H/H
I picked H/H here. I use Charge/Rebuild/Decoy. I like the H/H breed for pets that always go first.
I mainly use this pet in PvP though. To me this is a counter pet, its goal is to counter pets that my team is weak against.
It is good against pets with avoidance, pets that rely on speed or pets that are weak against avoidance.
Note. This is my personal preference. It suits my playstyle. It is not what I would recommend

Mechanical Scorpid S/S
I love S/S, despite being 325 speed. I am a fan of all breeds though >< I like my P/P and S/B breeds.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12292&p=98537

Yea, I am a fan of the Frostfur rat! I strongly recommend Teroclaw Hatchling and Waterfly as well.

[Vipers]

Viper, I think you switched Sun/Nigthshade Sproutling descriptions around

Thanks for pointing that out.

About the other three, here's what I think:

Mechanical Axebeak = Any
The P/P one is an eye candy, and just like any other candy, it is tasty but will give you diabetes.
If Peck doesn't crit, you will probably ask yourself: "Why the f*ck didn't I brought Chi-Chi instead?". He will make you swallow everything you said about Adrenaline Rush on the second slot from Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling being weird. The worst part is that Decoy doesn't do enough to justify its use over Lift-Off.

Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar = P/P
Pig Out, Decoy, and Missile is just what you would expect from an all around mechanical pet, pair that with the, arguably, "best breed" in the game and you have yourself an ideal pet. Why did I pick PP over SS, you ask? Because SS Charge is useless, and SS Headbutt only gives you an edge over Decoy 25% of the time. The only reason to use SS would be for a faster Decoy, which is understandable I guess, but virtually nothing else benefits from higher speeds. Charge won't even be used most of the time to justify defending it, I know, but it's always a plus.

Mechanical Scorpid = S/S
This one is a serious candidate to the award "Pet of the Expansion" IMO. SS probably diminishes more damage than any other pet in the entire game without using any heal, and that alone is something to consider. This is the only pet who can pull Barbed Stinger graciously and who isn't bad with Wind-Up. Speaking of Wind-Up, his is the first decent one I see since the deceased FFF. The only downside you may find, is the exact same thing that makes him so good, he is too slow. It will take at least 15 turns for you to kill something relevant, and anything that heals itself can "counter" him (notice the quotes). You can risk using Black Claw to speed things up a little bit though, including his own death.

[Lolfixheal]

So for the SS Scorpid Im assuming youre going Barbed/Spit/Plating

The axebeak doesnt show SS breed in BreedID addon, but it does indeed exist. Notified simca.

[Awq]

Either Wind-UP/Blinding Poison/Extra Plating or Barbed/Blinding Poison/Extra Plating. I pref Wind-Up, but either works.
One can replace Extra Plating for an offensive move and still do well though. Barbed/Blinding Poison/Claw is quite lethal, especially when you have synergy with other pets on your team.

Edit:

The P/P one is an eye candy, and just like any other candy, it is tasty but will give you diabetes.
If Peck doesn't crit, you will probably ask yourself: "Why the f*ck didn't I brought Chi-Chi instead?". He will make you swallow everything you said about Adrenaline Rush on the second slot from Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling being weird. The worst part is that Decoy doesn't do enough to justify its use over Lift-Off.

10/10 This made me laugh. Everything that you said is so true!
I use mine when I know that my opponent has less than 260 Speed,

[Ardour738]

This is my first post here, but I would suggest that with the way most pet abilities now work (100% hit chance), S/S is a much bigger advantage than it once was. P/P and P pets can be good, but you need the whole team exploiting each other effectively to take advantage of their attack power.

[Lolfixheal]

Hi again, can anyone confirm/deconfirm that SS Forest Sproutling exists? Wowhead, BreedID addon says g2g but TUJ hasnt had a record of any so far

[Melmo]

It does exist, I have an S/S Forest Sproutling in my collection. There are only 12 S/S versions on US auction houses right now, maybe it's just a rarer breed than the others?

[Lolfixheal]

Hi, thanks for the confirmation. I think youre right on the rarity, would explain alot.

[Luciandk]

Any oppinions on the wasps? They share abilities and breeds, except for the Laughing skull rep pet Bone Wasp, which comes with Claw instead of Bite. Claw having variable damage.

Claw should play well with Focus, giving higher crit and hit chance, and thusly more often rolling high damage. With Ravage as the finisher and heal. Thusly Im speculating the P/B breed out of the 4 for this pet. Slightly higher power. The other options being S/B, H/B and B/B

[Awq]

I've used the Wasps in all 4 breeds.
I generally used them for PvP (Bite/Flying Move/Puncture Wounds). I would say that I prefer P/B, S/B is a close second.
There isn't a big difference between the breeds, I believe that this is a case of 'It doesn't matter much'.

While Claw works well with Focus, I chose standard Wasps (in nearly all of my matches). I wasn't planning on using Focus and I prefer predictability whenever it's a viable option.
I would def choose P/B when I use Focus (345 speed is a lot).

[Lolfixheal]

Hi again.

I've taken 3 PBs and 2 SBs. Little of both on the wasps.

6.1 is here now aswell. Lets look at the new pets:

Bone Serpent: SS>HH. Just surpassing 289 benchmark on speed, but as undead you're slow, so HH might win?

Leviathan Hatchling: HP

Sea Calf: PB>HB. Not fast enough, might aswell get tiny extra dmg on surge+feed.

Sister of Temptation: HB>PB. Again this patch gives us 289 speeds on SB so since its humanoid HB over PB, either is fine rly.

Slithershock Elver: SS>PP. SS all the way, several abilties requiring speed. PP good with Pump+stacking attack but both abilities tier2 handicapped.

Stinkrot: PB>HB. Corpse Explosion benefitting slightly of HB but only initial dmg. 289 barely fast enough with todays standards, so PB.

Sunblade Micro Defender: HP>HS. Again not quite fast enough so a common HP pick as mechanical again to help with selfheal and big burst damage abilties.

Young Talbuk: SS>PP. Rend on same tier as Tough-n-Cuddly, meh blizzard really knows how to shuffle movesets like dices in a cup. Better pet choices so rule of thumb SS>PP?.

That was some of the new pets I could find in my journal with several breeds available, addon hopefully updated ^^. Thats my thoughts on the new monsters, whats yours?

[Luciandk]

Bone Serpent
Undead generally wants to be slow to play up their immortality racial. So Id say H/H wins out. You weaken yourself if you are the one to strike first, which means one less turn immortal. Plus the S/S boneserpent has below average hp.
Edit: toyed with it, doesnt seem terribly remarkable. Plus both its slot 1 skills have a cd, meaning you get cd locked if going call darkness and nocturnal strike and thusly having to pass your turn. Not good. Plus darkness makes both slots 1 bad. Reducing the 80% hit bone barrage to 70%, or halving the heal gain from Consume. A loose loose position.

Young Talbuk
I agree its abilities are a mess and clearly speed oriented. I hazard it could make decent use out of Tough and cuddly, followed by stampede, with flurry as a finisher.
Edit: Tried it out. Feels quite solid if you can rely on being the speedier pet. Definitely a thumbs up. Plus with frequent use of tough and cuddly, you can draw out the time you spend below 50% life to benefit more from the beast racial.

Slithershock Elver
Clearly wants to be a bunny. Having dodge and dive for high evasion. With also having a stun on slot 2, it pretty much is forced into a speedy route.
Edit: Havent aquired this one yet.

Edit2: Aquired one. Cant say Im impressed with it. Deep Bite is a poor slot 1 ability. Starts at a low 140 damage, but can scale up to 420. Whereas Arcane Blast on a similar power pet Hyjal Wisp, starts at 210 and peaks at 350. The slithershock does not have the longervity to make good use of a progressive attack unlike the hyjal wisp. Plus it takes far too long to build up Deep Bite to do respectable damage. It should really have had a flurry type move instead.