Had a pretty good string of wins in the early morning today. I was facing several variations of Valk/DAH/Whatever and the team I put together was winning almost every time. The players seemed skilled as well, so I believe that this team is very solid. In fact, this team did well against just about everything except Idol teams, but if his hit rate ever gets fixed, this team would do well against them as well. I even somehow beat a triple SS crow team with it. The most common team I hit during this time were:
[pet]Unborn Valk'yr[/pet] / [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet] / [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet]
I know that it was at least two different players because one team had named pets and I would queue into the same team with just generic names from time-to-time. The team that I ran was:
[pet]Emperor Crab[/pet] / [pet]Fossilized Hatchling[/pet] / [pet]Cogblade Raptor[/pet]
The Crab was P/P running with [ability]Surge[/ability], [ability]Heal[/ability] and [ability]Shell Shield[/ability],the Hatchling was running with [ability]Bonestorm[/ability] (wanted to use [ability]Bone Prison[/ability] to trap the Imp, but just doesn't work well because of NG), and the Raptor is S/S (equal speed of the Adder, thus negating a round of blind if you go first) running with [ability]Batter[/ability] and [ability]Overtune[/ability]. The only thing that made wins trying at times was the Imp, as he is difficult to deal with. Due to [ability]Surge[/ability] going first, and the Cogblade's speed (especially if you [ability]Overtune[/ability] and are faster), this means that [ability]Blinding Poison[/ability] actually only lasts for one round, which takes a lot of the sting out of this pet. The Cogblade eats up the Adder, the Hatchling whittles away at the Imp with Bonestorm, and is useful as a dmg-soak, and the Crab can almost take the Valk and the Adder by himself. I also ran into a [pet]Unborn Valk'yr[/pet] / [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet] / [pet]Murkalot[/pet] team a few times and absolutely destroyed it.
Has anyone else tried this combo yet, or ran the abilities different with it?
My FotM Counter
Re: My FotM Counter
Glad to hear you found a good counter. I just can't stand all these same teams you see over and over again. It makes Pet battles superboring and hopefully if more people uses good counters against them, we may see some more interesting new combo's.
Re: My FotM Counter
I personally believe PP Emperor Crab is probably THE strongest pet in the game right now - given all of the things it can counter, it's just phenomenal.
Re: My FotM Counter
I tend to agree with you Hoots. It is simply very good against so many popular pets right now that it is pretty much a mainstay on all of my teams. Just some examples of what the crab does well against:Hootstwo wrote:I personally believe PP Emperor Crab is probably THE strongest pet in the game right now - given all of the things it can counter, it's just phenomenal.
Valk - It has gotten to the point that I almost look forward to the Valk spam as the crab counters him so well and it is always satisfying taking down this broken pet.
Death Adder Hatchling - Running with Surge, Blinding Poison only lasts one round and Shell Shield can stop a lot of the Adder's dmg, or mitigate it greatly.
Direhorns - Once again, with Surge, you are not going to take a stun from pretty much any Hit First+Chance to Stun if going first type of pet. Due to big dmg though, the Direhorn will likely take you with them, or close to it if SS wasn't up.
Lil' Rag - 4 hits with Surge and Raggy is done. Three hits if you get a crit, and Sons of The Flame becomes free rounds with SS+Heal.
Jademist Dancer - 3-4 hits with Surge and the Dancer is done. Also good for Clonedancer teams with SS up in the back row. Due to the crits from the Dancer though, he will likely take you with him, or still be alive with a little bit of health left.
Clockwork Gnome - You can pretty much shut this guy down completely. One of the funniest things that I repeatedly see in pet battles is a Gnome user that has watched SS completely negate his Turret for three rounds and sees that the crab is still at high health, then drops a second Turret anyway....
Rabbits/Critters in general - Shell Shield makes Flurry a joke, and Surge keeps it to two hits max. Also because of Surge, Dodge only really lasts one round. Pretty much any pet that relies on a multi-hit attack/DoT as it's main dmg is in trouble here.
Last-player-on-the-other-team is Undead scenario - If I see that the other player is likely saving his Undead pet for the last pet because of the racial improving the odds for him, I generally try to make sure my crab is facing it to almost ensure the win.
Thunderstorm teams - This weather actually benfits the crab as it adds a little dmg to his attacks, while SS negates the extra incoming dmg completely.
Now to be fair, there are some popular pets the crab doesn't do so hot against:
Anubisath Idol - In theory, if you run with Snap, you should be able to take down an Idol one-on-one, even with the big dmg from Sandstorm. You have two shield mitigations (Shell Shield and Sandstorm) reducing his dmg quite a bit, and a heal thrown in for good measure. While I have read posts saying that a full-health Emperor Crab can go toe-to-toe with a full-health Idol and win, but I have never been able to do it. This is mostly due to Demolish being as powerful (and broken) as it is. I have been close, but have never done it. Maybe if I ran with Whirlpool, but I almost never do.
Fiendish Imp - While SS stops the dmg from Immolate, the Imp can whittle you down with Burn pretty effectively. You may be able to take him down one-on-one though, but probably only if you had SS up when he switched in. Another instance where Snap would likely be better but I find Surge too powerful against pets like the ones listed in the strong counter category above not to use it as a general rule.
Crow/Bird/Moth teams, and some Dragons with flyer-type attacks - No need for explanations here
Some large-raw-dmg type pets - Stuff like Xu-Fu using Prowl can really put the hurt on the crab.
Re: My FotM Counter
Vengeful - since it has Powerball. VROOOOOOOOOOOOM~!
Re: My FotM Counter
Genome, you just explained why I love my anubisath idol and fiendish imp combo The emperor crab is a tough baby to beat particularly if you lack the right team or at least one strong pet against it and all wins and losses have come down to the wire or should I say the last hit, but I have had pretty equal win / loss ratio. I'm very interested in trying your combo and see what happens.
Re: My FotM Counter
Interestingly, depending on how lucky the moth gets on it's sleeps against you, usually a PP Crab can take down a moth too, in fact, I'll normally bring the crab out when I see the moth. The crow on the other hand.... >.<