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Patch 5.4 has brought some changes to the Pandaren Tamers, Spirit Tamers, and Elite pets in Pandaria. I'll document what I've found below. This assumes that you are already familiar with how they all behaved in patches 5.2 and 5.3, so I'm omitting overall details.

VERY IMPORTANT!
The 5.2 version of the Elite pet nuke team (x-2-2 Unborn Val'kyr, x-2-2 Pandaren Water Spirit, and x-1-2 Chrominius) is greatly diminished in power since the Unborn Val'kyr's Haunt no longer triggers the auto-resurrection of Undead pets. This effectively destroys the timing of the team, since Haunt immediately sends your next pet in rather than giving you an extra turn to squeeze in Curse of Doom, whereas if you use Curse of Doom you will need an extra turn to switch the Pandaren Water Spirit in.

My thoughts: Water Spirit/Chrominius remains a potent combo by itself. Consider leading off with them and using a solid pet as an anchor. You'll still loathe No-No anyways.

Aki the Chosen is now located in Mistfall Village, having fled the devastation of the Vale. Also note that Lightning Storm only lasts five rounds now.

My thoughts: Lightning Storm change is bad for teams that rely on multi-target attacks (i.e., Scourged Whelping with D&D and Plagued Blood in tandem with Clockwork Gnome's turrets).

The Thundering Spirit has had a small but significant change: Sludgy, the second pet, is now Magic-type instead of Critter-type.

My thoughts: Overall a slight buff to the Thundering Spirit, since powerful beasts used to be able to reave Sludgy effectively. However, the general strategy for approaching the Thundering Spirit remains the same (use a Rabbit with 300+ speed, Dodge, and Burrow).

The Whispering Spirit has also had a slight change: Dusty is now considered a Flying type rather than a Critter type.

My thoughts: Dragonkin now destroy Dusty much more efficiently; this coupled with the Dragonkin-type buff results in an overall nerf to the Whispering Spirit.

Farmer Nishi has had an adjustment. Her leading pet, Siren, no longer spams Photosynthesis for five rounds after using Sunlight. Instead, Siren will now use Sunlight on turn 1, Photosynthesis on turn 2, and then proceed to blast your pets with Solar Beam.

My thoughts: Nishi used to be a reliable way to easily level a low-level pet as a Crab could solo her entire team. Well, the AI adjustment is a gigantic buff and she'll doubtlessly be getting the last laugh for quite a while. I suggest using a Dancing Water Skimmer or Eternal Strider to neutralize Sunlight weather with Cleansing Rain, as Aquatics are powerful against two of her pets. You can still level pets by fighting Nishi and swapping in a crab to wreck Toothbreaker and the Brood of Mothallus.

The Flowing Pandaren Spirit used to have an Aquatic, a Critter, and an Elemental. Tiptoe, formerly a Critter and second in the spirit's lineup, is now Aquatic-type and thus strong against the ever-popular ooze-type Magic pets that used to be so effective against him.

My thoughts: Simultaneously a buff and a nerf. With two aquatics, the Flowing Spirit is highly susceptible to flying predators or the Jade Owl, a Magic-type with flying-class attacks. However, DoTs now do half damage to aquatics. Overall your lead pet will have to take on more of the responsibility for defeating the Flowing spirit's first two pets, while your leveling pet is as always stuck in the back row eating all-pet attacks.

(No changes to the Burning Pandaren Spirit, fortunately, meaning its whole team is still easily soloable with a Whelk.)

I haven't had a chance to examine any of the non-Pandaria trainers, but these are just the changes I noticed with regards to the daily battles in Pandaria. Hope this helps people out there.

Interesting news for sure, thanks for sharing.

Spicule wrote:Patch 5.4 has brought some changes to the Pandaren Tamers, Spirit Tamers, and Elite pets in Pandaria. I'll document what I've found below. This assumes that you are already familiar with how they all behaved in patches 5.2 and 5.3, so I'm omitting overall details.

VERY IMPORTANT!
The 5.2 version of the Elite pet nuke team (x-2-2 Unborn Val'kyr, x-2-2 Pandaren Water Spirit, and x-1-2 Chrominius) is greatly diminished in power since the Unborn Val'kyr's Haunt no longer triggers the auto-resurrection of Undead pets. This effectively destroys the timing of the team, since Haunt immediately sends your next pet in rather than giving you an extra turn to squeeze in Curse of Doom, whereas if you use Curse of Doom you will need an extra turn to switch the Pandaren Water Spirit in.

My thoughts: Water Spirit/Chrominius remains a potent combo by itself. Consider leading off with them and using a solid pet as an anchor. You'll still loathe No-No anyways.

You should still be able to pull it off. Just wait for No-No to kill off your valk normally and Curse of Doom on your rez turn then proceed as normal. Should still easily blow him up.

Aki the Chosen is now located in Mistfall Village, having fled the devastation of the Vale. Also note that Lightning Storm only lasts five rounds now.

My thoughts: Lightning Storm change is bad for teams that rely on multi-target attacks (i.e., Scourged Whelping with D&D and Plagued Blood in tandem with Clockwork Gnome's turrets).

Probably means my raptor/Gnome combo won't work anymore as I'm not sure the gnomes turrets will be able to finish off the last pet with lightning storm expiring on it.

The Thundering Spirit has had a small but significant change: Sludgy, the second pet, is now Magic-type instead of Critter-type.

My thoughts: Overall a slight buff to the Thundering Spirit, since powerful beasts used to be able to reave Sludgy effectively. However, the general strategy for approaching the Thundering Spirit remains the same (use a Rabbit with 300+ speed, Dodge, and Burrow).

Sounds like a Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling should work well against him with a rabbit in place of a Sunreaver Micro-Sentry. Two of sludgys attacks will still be weak against it and it will have a power attack against it.

The Whispering Spirit has also had a slight change: Dusty is now considered a Flying type rather than a Critter type.

My thoughts: Dragonkin now destroy Dusty much more efficiently; this coupled with the Dragonkin-type buff results in an overall nerf to the Whispering Spirit.

Should make the double Chrominius team work even better.

Farmer Nishi has had an adjustment. Her leading pet, Siren, no longer spams Photosynthesis for five rounds after using Sunlight. Instead, Siren will now use Sunlight on turn 1, Photosynthesis on turn 2, and then proceed to blast your pets with Solar Beam.

My thoughts: Nishi used to be a reliable way to easily level a low-level pet as a Crab could solo her entire team. Well, the AI adjustment is a gigantic buff and she'll doubtlessly be getting the last laugh for quite a while. I suggest using a Dancing Water Skimmer or Eternal Strider to neutralize Sunlight weather with Cleansing Rain, as Aquatics are powerful against two of her pets. You can still level pets by fighting Nishi and swapping in a crab to wreck Toothbreaker and the Brood of Mothallus.

I could have sworn that he actually used the other attack against me the first time I did the fight but sure didn't afterwords. Still shouldn't be hard to carry a pet,

The Flowing Pandaren Spirit used to have an Aquatic, a Critter, and an Elemental. Tiptoe, formerly a Critter and second in the spirit's lineup, is now Aquatic-type and thus strong against the ever-popular ooze-type Magic pets that used to be so effective against him.

My thoughts: Simultaneously a buff and a nerf. With two aquatics, the Flowing Spirit is highly susceptible to flying predators or the Jade Owl, a Magic-type with flying-class attacks. However, DoTs now do half damage to aquatics. Overall your lead pet will have to take on more of the responsibility for defeating the Flowing spirit's first two pets, while your leveling pet is as always stuck in the back row eating all-pet attacks.

Might really hurt my vamp batling as his flying attack isn't spamable.

(No changes to the Burning Pandaren Spirit, fortunately, meaning its whole team is still easily soloable with a Whelk.)

I haven't had a chance to examine any of the non-Pandaria trainers, but these are just the changes I noticed with regards to the daily battles in Pandaria. Hope this helps people out there.

Farmer Nish is still easy to use a very low level pet on. Just switch it in when the second pet (turnip) goes underground. An eternal strider kills the first pet in 4-5 rounds anyway... wasn´t that much of a change. I have a fast cog-mech in the last slot, I did notice he needed an extra turn, but nothing major.. before, he usually only needed 1 round.

The guy by the Klaxxis got changed, but it favored the way I did that fight with sandstorm only lasting 5 rounds.

The others I didn´t even notice got changed!

Spicule wrote: The Flowing Pandaren Spirit used to have an Aquatic, a Critter, and an Elemental. Tiptoe, formerly a Critter and second in the spirit's lineup, is now Aquatic-type and thus strong against the ever-popular ooze-type Magic pets that used to be so effective against him.

My thoughts: Simultaneously a buff and a nerf. With two aquatics, the Flowing Spirit is highly susceptible to flying predators or the Jade Owl, a Magic-type with flying-class attacks. However, DoTs now do half damage to aquatics. Overall your lead pet will have to take on more of the responsibility for defeating the Flowing spirit's first two pets, while your leveling pet is as always stuck in the back row eating all-pet attacks.

Hmm, I was using a Yellow Moth to kill the fish, swap in Carry pet, then swap in a fast spider with Brittle Web then Swarm (Tiptoe dies) then Brittle Web the Water Spirit and let their Wave and Geysers cause some hari-kari (works best if your Moth is still around). Will have to see if Swarm can still kill Tiptoe fast enough (as the Spider will always die, but it is better if it lasts to the spouts double wammy).

Spicule wrote:The Thundering Spirit has had a small but significant change: Sludgy, the second pet, is now Magic-type instead of Critter-type.

My thoughts: Overall a slight buff to the Thundering Spirit, since powerful beasts used to be able to reave Sludgy effectively. However, the general strategy for approaching the Thundering Spirit remains the same (use a Rabbit with 300+ speed, Dodge, and Burrow).

Doesnt really feel like a buff, just did it with my cogblade raptor, and he got to take half of darnaks health before i had to bring out the rabbit, speeding up one of the slow points of the fights quite a bit. and im sure there is a better choice than the raptor for it, he is just my go to mech.

Spicule wrote:The 5.2 version of the Elite pet nuke team (x-2-2 Unborn Val'kyr, x-2-2 Pandaren Water Spirit, and x-1-2 Chrominius) is greatly diminished in power since the Unborn Val'kyr's Haunt no longer triggers the auto-resurrection of Undead pets.

I haven't had any problem keeping this line up. Chrom's 3rd attack will finish them off. Well, I should say, what keeps me up has nothing to do with the pet group. It's more if a pet gets one-shot or not, and that happened before the patch. I'll attack with the Val for as long as I can get away with it before applying the 5 move attack and then will sacrifice her if the legendary beast doesn't have a heal. Otherwise, I sacrifice her and do normal attack, save I had Chrom's 3rd attack at the end.

I find the Sluggy change to be the worst but I hate the Thundering Spirit in general so... *shrug*

I found that the biggest change to trainers was that the dragon racial now kicks in at 50% instead of 25%. This made both Aki and the fire spirit more annoying, as their dragon pets were generally able to kill their opponents one round faster. While it didn't make them all that much harder once you adapted to it, it did break my previous strategies against them.

FWIW, my usual strategies worked well enough that I didn't notice much of a change, other than doing a WTH at sludgy still being alive and one of my slimes dying earlier than expected in the water spirit fight. Totally missed the fact that the families changed for some of the guys.

I'll be updating my strat post later today or tomorrow.

One thing I did notice, which I thought was huge, was that Aki's dragon no longer triggers the racial when it's low on health rather than the opponent. So inadvertent bug fix on the part of Blizz there.

try dark whelp for farmer nishi, its amazing.
start with darkness, then fly up, tail swipe till dead, it can solo all 3 pets

for aki im using direhorn runt with charge, stampede and shield.
start with shield, then stampede and charge after, critter should be dead now.
use stampede on dragon and charge after, should be dead now also.
you can charge one more time and then it dies.

I found Double Chrom to be a pain now that Bite is weak to Dusty and Arcane Explosion is much too slow to kill him before he wittles you down. I swapped to a P/P Nether Faerie Dragon, and he was able to 2-shot Dusty using Moonfire->Arcane Blast (the Dragon racial kicks in after Moonfire). Then I used Life Exchange on Whispertail and was able to drop him as well before dying to the Air Spirit. That's when you can bring in Chrom and clean it up.

I haven't had any problem with the Unborn Valk team. I just Curse first now, then Unholy Ascen. Yes the curse timing is off now, but I haven't had any issues with it at all.

Not recommending the below strategy (right now) because the current 5.4 bug around reduction to hit chance makes it not worth the irritation (IMHO):

Whispering Pandaren Spirit - Location: Jade Forest (28, 36)
Team 1: 24 rounds

• 1: [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet] [-] (1,1,1)
  2: Carry pet
  3: [pet]Chrominius[/pet] [-] (1,1,2)

vs Dusty

• - Deflection > Sandstorm > Crush, recast Deflection and Sandstorm when available, Crush otherwise

vs Whispertail

• - Crush > Deflection > chain cast Crush until your Anubisath Idol dies (might kill Whispertail)
  - Switch to Carry pet > switch to Chrominius-> Bite until Whispertail dies

vs Pandaren Air Spirit

• - Howl > Bite > Surge of Power

Note: If Anubisath Idol kills Whispertail then just switch to Carry pet > switch to Chrominius

This team still works solidly against the Whispering Spirit, even with the moth getting stupid lucky 4 hits + 2 crits with Moth Balls. I have lost with this team, when the Anubisath Idol has missed 6 times, but that's another ridiculous set of odds, so I still use this team.

I switched it up for the air spirit actually.

The Emerald Whelpling kills the moth and dragonling quite handily, but it's a bit slow. Then I swap in the leveling pet for credit, then Chrominus for the quick destroy on the elemental.

Regarding Shu, I have been using a Red Cricket/mechanical for it since way back when I started leveling off of tamers. Its not too slow due to the cricket's power, and the Sandstorm change is only an improvement. You get a free turn, and you don't have the Sandstorm reduction for a few turns while finishing him off and starting on the hedgehog. Sounds like I might do it a *little* differently, as I don't use Cocoon Strike on CD -- I wait till it is needed for a Rupture or Sandstorm. Get in more attacks, so it ends faster. If I don't miss (which you are less likely to now that Sandstorm is not always up), he dies on the 2nd round of the 2nd Quake.

Tiggindy wrote:I switched it up for the air spirit actually.

The Emerald Whelpling kills the moth and dragonling quite handily, but it's a bit slow. Then I swap in the leveling pet for credit, then Chrominus for the quick destroy on the elemental.

I've always used the EPW for the Air Spirit. Feels the most reliable. So the change to the Air Spirit is actually a plus for that strat.

I found that the biggest change to trainers was that the dragon racial now kicks in at 50% instead of 25%. This made both Aki and the fire spirit more annoying, as their dragon pets were generally able to kill their opponents one round faster.

I actually was worried about that, but I really didn't notice a difference from it, especially on the fire spirit. Overall since I use dragons on some other tamers, its an overall buff for me.