A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Discuss pet battles, strategy and theorycrafting.
User avatar
Paladance
Posts:1010
Joined:July 18th, 2015
Pet Score:12412
Realm:Burning Legion-eu
Contact:
A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Paladance » July 19th, 2017, 12:04 am

A year has passed since the Legion prepatch, what, among other things, means a year after the [url=https://www.warcraftpets.com/news/patch-7-0-3-live-new-pets-models-pet-tuning-and-more/]changes made to several aspects of pet battling[/url].
Have you become used to them? Or do you still miss "good ol' times"? Perhaps it's a combination? I have a bit different sense of time and issues as I started in spring of 2014. I'm especially curious how it looks for those that battle from the very MoP launch or beta; of course, you're all welcome. :)

([url=http://web.archive.org/web/20160801042122/https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20742124400]Link to the start of US discussion as of August the 1st[/url] -- as a beta forum it was deleted)

What I didn't like:
  • A 1-round cooldown to [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability], [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability] or [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability]: As it has been said several times in the respective threads, here or in the Blizzard forums, that cooldown gets too much in the way to benefit from these abilities anymore. The questioned stun has been always just a bonus to me, not the main purpose of these spells -- and not only the investment effect, but also the way they had been placed into movesets suggest that back in MoP or WoD they were intended as repeatable spells. And at least to me, any PvP concerns seem to be not so different from those of players missing three times in a row during two specific weather conditions.
    See also Mirecroak. As annoying as it could be, it was far from unbearable, and being an aquatic creature is hard enough. ;)
  • A single-hit [ability]Howl[/ability]: It seems to have affected something else than it should have, as it now has barely any purpose when placed next to standard abilities (unless a crit chance/beast racial is concerned), let alone any case of DoT. Even a Legion WQ (Hungry Icefang), that should show having acknowledged that, was somehow affected by this. Or maybe did someone want to make a point on beta and it leaked out into live? :lol:
    On the other hand, I suspect that this change didn't really touch what it was supposed to. (And no, IMO it isn't just stacking cooldowns and debuffs.) It is told that nature abhors a vacuum, and that is a good example -- see how the [ability]Stampede[/ability]/[ability]Hunting Party[/ability] family attacks with occasional +n boosts have taken its place, with a minor inconvenience of rooting the performer in action. The falcosaurs look like a booby prize now and that isn't an insult. :)
What I'm indifferent or indecisive to:
  • General number tweaking: Maybe it's just my PvP ignorance, but I didn't really notice a nerf to most of AoE attacks. That perhaps should be a plus as otherwise it would be weakening them too much? :) The most distinctive modifications to me are those of [ability]Thunderbolt[/ability] (obviously), [ability]BONESTORM[/ability] (only in comparison to the health taken) and unbuffed [ability]Dreadful Breath[/ability], but considering the last ability appearing in newer PvE encounters, perhaps there must always be… *rumble* a weakling.
  • [pet]Pandaren Water Spirit[/pet]'s abilities: Hm. Overall this was a reasonable step granted the purpose. Sometimes I feel that combination of [ability]Geyser[/ability] and [ability]Dive[/ability] is still very powerful, but the last one requires the pet staying here, so it counts as a limitation. I miss a bit coupling stunning and rooting together (that was a separate thing from the H-bomb used against singles), not suggesting that they should be tied to big hits.
  • The nature of [ability]Eyeblast[/ability]: Basically it's a change from [ability]Screech[/ability] to [ability]Hiss[/ability], magic damage granted. I have similar feelings towards constant speed debuffs as the dev notes to the chained stuns, so I liked it, but I can agree that affected pets such as [pet]Mini Mindslayer[/pet] have it hard similarly to the first issue.
  • [ability]Shell Armor[/ability] duration: I was afraid that it's too much, but given the scarcety of pets affected, I don't really know. Of course it was about gorens, especially about fast gorens and especially in PvP -- and that has done its purpose. The not another slamming! hurts eyes for those used to, but given the usual damage output of pets, I think that if they wanted to go back to something like this again, an [ability]Extra Plating[/ability]/[ability]Crouch[/ability] (when humanoid racial is included) would suffice for the main trick without affecting the DoT and haunters that much. :)
  • The undead racial: It's okay but it I wish it had been implemented with a change to some other racials. Of course it's easier to observe one at a time.
What I did like:
  • [pet]Graves[/pet]' breed and abilities: Yep.
  • A comeback of [ability]Comeback[/ability]: Can't recall whether the output was really changed and if this was during the prepatch and not later :oops:, but the health check between attacker and receiver was finally set to the initial moment. Before that, the comparison used to happen after the first strike, which was everything from confusing to ineffective. Alas, the [ability]Early Advantage[/ability] is still not affected and has additional quirks. :P
Cheers!
Image

I have compiled community knowledge & data about pet battle abilities!
https://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19507

User avatar
Minivivi
MVP
Posts:83
Joined:January 26th, 2015
Pet Score:12541
Realm:Medivh-us
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Minivivi » July 19th, 2017, 12:47 am

First, please let me compliment you on a very interesting, thought provoking post.
Second, I began playing WOW almost four years ago at the very end of the long, long drought between MOP and WOD. The peeps in my guild who were still playing were reduced to totally completing every quest in the game for the lofty title of Loremaster of the World or whatever it is! LOL
I joined in time to get the Pet Collecting Bug and off I went to the wonderful world of Draenor with a garrison that included a dreamy Pet Menagerie. I could collect and level all day long. Send followers off on missions for gold. Doing daily quests. Did not have to raid. Life was good. Added new characters with garrisons and began pet collecting and leveling in earnest. My World of Warcraft Bubble was complete. It was safe, always interesting, and just, well, fun.

This time around, I have had to make some hard choices. Do I leave my comfort zone and level different toons JUST for new pets? Would Blizzard actually CARE that pet people were massively unhappy? Clearly, they are not. Have I spent weeks with toons for the sole reason of leveling them for their pet rewards? Yes. Shaman, Druid, Demon Hunter, Death Knight, Rogue, Monk. Have I enjoyed the grind? A big, loud, ugly NO. I am working on my third of the four PVP pets and when I finally get the little monster of a pet, I doubt I ever, ever play my rogue again. I love her and all the other toons I created during Draenor because it was my choice. I wasn't forced. This is not fun. Simply.Not.Fun.

I adore pet collecting too much to quit but many of the changes this expansion are just plain idiotic. The nerfing of pets and toons is stupid in my opinion also but it seems to be the way Blizzard does things. Either we play their way or not at all.

Having rambled on, I should tell you that I take AlL my characters back to their garrisons to spend the night with their pets every single night. Yeah. Go figure. <g>

User avatar
Paladance
Posts:1010
Joined:July 18th, 2015
Pet Score:12412
Realm:Burning Legion-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Paladance » July 19th, 2017, 2:17 am

phone writing;
So nice of you!
I was focused on technical details but you're right that our efforts consist of other aspects aswell :)

Not enough time right now; sorry!
Image

I have compiled community knowledge & data about pet battle abilities!
https://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19507

User avatar
Morazor
Posts:60
Joined:April 19th, 2016
Pet Score:8852
Realm:Nemesis-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Morazor » July 19th, 2017, 3:07 am

I have to confess that I didn't play much with pets in Legion. I did almost all the old content in WoD and in Legion there are just a few addition that are not very challenging IMO.

That being said, the only thing that for me looks really screwed is the Howl change. As Paladance said, it made Howl pointless and there was no nerf to other similar or stronger abilities (Stampede, Hunting Party, Flock, etc.). I lol'd too the first time I did Hungry Icefang :D
The Howl change looks really sloppy and lazy to me. IMO, it would be better to tune boss pets: instead of capping how much damage they can take on a single hit, they may cap the damage they can take in a single turn.
Last edited by Morazor on July 19th, 2017, 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Wootzy
Top Rater
Posts:141
Joined:May 18th, 2016
Pet Score:5165
Realm:Silvermoon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Wootzy » July 19th, 2017, 7:08 am

^^ What he said :D

User avatar
Drlambda
Posts:64
Joined:May 8th, 2016
Pet Score:5543
Realm:Arthas-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Drlambda » July 19th, 2017, 10:27 am

Biscuit wrote:Frog Kiss, Gears, Sleeging Gas nerf: YES!
Howl nerf: YES!
AOE nerf: YES!
Pandaren Water Spirit nerf: YES!
Eyeblast change: meh
Shell Armor nerf: YES!
Undead nerf: YES!
Graves nerf: HELL YES!
Comeback change: again...meh

All-in-all, I was a huge fan of the changes they made in Legion.

Next on the list...
-Tweak Traps
-Give Bone Serpents the Graves treatment
-Nerf backline healing
-Bring back a working clone ability
-Fix Bend Time
I agree on all of that and would add the following to the wishlist:
1. Make the speedy multihitters all work like Flurry, or bring Flurry in line.
2. Remove the bug that many multihitters aren't affected by hit-chance increases and decreases after the first one. Obvious candidates are all Barrages and Falcosaur Swarm.
3. Make all priority moves give the same speed buff rather than having a different priority between them, per example Surge being faster than Love Potion.
4. Lower the speed of the S/S Wicked Soul to 325.
CloseToZero - Watch me lose on youtube with bad pets! :D

User avatar
Drudatz
Top Rater
Posts:387
Joined:June 13th, 2011
Pet Score:10205
Realm:Kul Tiras-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Drudatz » July 19th, 2017, 2:58 pm

Paladance wrote:What I didn't like:
  • A 1-round cooldown to [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability], [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability] or [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability]: As it has been said several times in the respective threads, here or in the Blizzard forums, that cooldown gets too much in the way to benefit from these abilities anymore. The questioned stun has been always just a bonus to me
Pardon my german but I dont belive you! The reason one took these abilities was the horror/beauty of the chain-stun :lol:

Its just me but I dont see anymore nervs needed especially not the
>Give Bone Serpents the Graves treatment
because there are tons of pets who beats them easily.

Back in the days of Mop people complained about FFF 1.0 and these days we have two pets alike (which no one is complaining about) so the problem with bone serpents is none existing because for the (little) damage they do (after 2 rounds) they have one round without a move.
Last edited by Drudatz on July 19th, 2017, 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Gráinne
Posts:948
Joined:July 7th, 2015
Pet Score:13284
Realm:Magtheridon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Gráinne » July 19th, 2017, 3:04 pm

That's a really well written post, Paladance. And timely as well.

I'm going to more-or-less agree with you and more-or-less disagree with most others.

Borrowing Biscuit's scorecard:

Frog Kiss, Sleeping Gas nerf: NO!
Screeching Gears nerf: somewhere between no and meh.
Howl nerf: NO!
AOE nerf: YES!
Pandaren Water Spirit nerf: yes
Eyeblast change: meh
Shell Armor nerf: Ummm, ok, but intensity or CD would have been better than duration.
Undead nerf: YES!
Graves nerf: HELL YES!
Comeback change: again...meh

Next on the list...
- Tweak Traps: Tweak a little, maybe?, but I'm not sure how.
- Give Bone Serpents the Graves treatment. And more. Graves is still viable; give them the Weeb treatment!
- Nerf backline healing. Yes, but carefully! Treat the Teroclaw separately, and a lot of the problem goes away.
- Bring back a working clone ability. Yes, please! That was really interesting.
- Is Bend Time broken? Maybe I misunderstand, but I think it's OK?

- I'm wondering whether a breed change for the Teroclaw would do the trick?


and from Drlambda
Drlambda wrote:3. Make all priority moves give the same speed buff rather than having a different priority between them, per example Surge being faster than Love Potion.

I thought all priority moves followed the same formula, depending on the speed of the pet?
Drlambda wrote:4. Lower the speed of the S/S Wicked Soul to 325.
I'm not feeling that one. Why?

Some comments on all that.

Howlbomb:

Howlbomb needed to be nuked. I only ever used it for Beasts of Fable myself, but when the nerf was proposed, I checked Xu-Fu, and it seemed to be everywhere. So, a bit sadly, I had to agree that the PWS had to lose its signature combo.

However, the Howl nerf on top of that took away Howl-Flurry-Flurry, which effectively removed Howl as a viable option from that slot. It didn't exactly break foxes, but it certainly made them less interesting.

And all of that was for what? Just switching from one cheesy strat to another? I think the problem lay deeper, and this removed a couple of interesting mechanics without addressing the underlying issue.

25% Stuns:

I never had a problem with these either in PvE or PvP. They were fine by me, and AFAIK, didn't need any nerf. When the announcement was made, it took me by surprise.

But some people thought they did, so let's look at what nerf, if one was to be applied.

I make a distinction between the ramp-up moves and Gears. Putting a CD on ramp-up moves is cruel and unusual, and makes them un-viable. If a nerf was warranted, which I don't believe, a reduction in chance of stun would have been less inappropriate.

Undead & AoE

This was spot-on, and brilliantly calculated! It left Undead strong, and AoE viable but a bit weak, and broke the deadly dull monopoly that lasted through Warlords

User avatar
Drudatz
Top Rater
Posts:387
Joined:June 13th, 2011
Pet Score:10205
Realm:Kul Tiras-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Drudatz » July 19th, 2017, 3:09 pm

Gráinne wrote:- Is Bend Time broken? Maybe I misunderstand, but I think it's OK?
Not as far as I can see?
Gráinne wrote:I never had a problem with these either in PvE or PvP. They were fine by me, and AFAIK, didn't need any nerf. When the announcement was made, it took me by surprise.
then you clearly haven't used/encountered them in pvp - the chains stun where bloody annoying

User avatar
Gráinne
Posts:948
Joined:July 7th, 2015
Pet Score:13284
Realm:Magtheridon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Gráinne » July 19th, 2017, 3:25 pm

Drudatz wrote:
Gráinne wrote:- Is Bend Time broken? Maybe I misunderstand, but I think it's OK?
Not as far as I can see?
What I believe is this:

1. Bend Time does not happen if the drake is dead.
2. Some people think it should work even if the drake is dead, and are asking for a change.
3. I think it's OK that it works like Wish mechanic.

Have I missed something?
Drudatz wrote:
Gráinne wrote:I never had a problem with these either in PvE or PvP. They were fine by me, and AFAIK, didn't need any nerf. When the announcement was made, it took me by surprise.
then you clearly haven't used/encountered them in pvp - the chains stun where bloody annoying
I did. I'm sure I didn't play as much as you, but I definitely saw them. But a 1-in-16 chance for a double stun was rare enough that I didn't consider it a problem, and if you did consider it a problem, surely bringing the double-stun chance down to 1-in-25 or 1-in-36 would have been better than wrecking the ramp-up move?

User avatar
Vakeetah
Top Rater
Posts:167
Joined:October 11th, 2015
Pet Score:9677
Realm:Dragonblight-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Vakeetah » July 19th, 2017, 6:53 pm

Gráinne wrote:
Drudatz wrote:
Gráinne wrote:I never had a problem with these either in PvE or PvP. They were fine by me, and AFAIK, didn't need any nerf. When the announcement was made, it took me by surprise.
then you clearly haven't used/encountered them in pvp - the chains stun where bloody annoying
I did. I'm sure I didn't play as much as you, but I definitely saw them. But a 1-in-16 chance for a double stun was rare enough that I didn't consider it a problem, and if you did consider it a problem, surely bringing the double-stun chance down to 1-in-25 or 1-in-36 would have been better than wrecking the ramp-up move?
For starters, I'll agree that chain-CC -even if RNG based and with an abysmal chance to happen- was definitely annoying and had to be addressed. Even if you don't PvP a lot (which is still more than I do...) there were also examples in PvE, such as the infamous Mirecroak in Tanaan.

That said, just slapping a cooldown on these moves (which also have a ramp-up) was the laziest and sloppiest solution possible. Mostly, because it doesn't really solve the problem (as chain-stuns can still happen, even if not from the same ability, like [ability]Geyser[/ability] into [ability]Clobber[/ability]) and brutally obliterates the pets that have those moves by greatly delaying their ramp-up and/or getting them totally CD-locked.

The problem with Chain-stuns is that they didn't trigger Resilience (and still don't!) so the fairest and most logical fix would've been working on Resilience itself. For example? By making it pop on CC-application rather than expiration, and simply making it prevent further CC effects (as the current immunity mechanic would remove them instantly, I believe)

Voilà, chain-stuns gone for good (now, and forever!) and ramp-ups can now be spammed and deal decent damage.

And same with the other changes. They went for lazy solutions (sometimes, as lazy as simply removing things!) rather than a well-thought, well-tested, and well-balanced one.

At least with [pet]Weebomination[/pet] (which we all hated back in the day) they ended up going down the damage reduction on [ability]Cleave[/ability] rather than the CD-lock. One can only hope that one day they'll reconsider the unfair treatment they gave to [ability]Sleeping Gas[/ability], [ability]Frog Kiss[/ability], and [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability].
Image
- Thanks to Paladance for the sig!

User avatar
Gráinne
Posts:948
Joined:July 7th, 2015
Pet Score:13284
Realm:Magtheridon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Gráinne » July 19th, 2017, 9:06 pm

Biscuit wrote:Example 1:
-Haunt into your opponent
-bring in your Bronze whelp
-when your Haunt has 1 tick left, use Bend Time
-now swap your haunt pet back into battle
-theoretically, your Haunt should be ready to go again
-Nope!
-there is now a 1-round cooldown
Not working as intended.
I just did exactly that. When I swapped my Haunt pet back in, Bend Time kicked in, and the Haunt was correctly ready to go again. So in my test, it worked correctly.
Biscuit wrote:Example 2:
-had 2 pets alive; Bronze Whelp & Scalded Basilisk
-stun my opponent with Crystal Prison (5 round CD)
-Thrash once and then Feigned Death (8 round CD)
-activated Bend Time with the Whelp
-swap my Basilisk back in to reset CDs
-Nope!
-ALL of my abilities now have a 1-round cooldown - even Thrash which normally has no CD whatsoever
-you are now ability-locked and your opponent gets a free move
Not working as intended.
Again, I just did exactly that. When I swapped my SBH back in, its CDs were correctly reset, and both Crystal Prison and FD were ready to go again. So in my test, it worked correctly.

These two tests, of course, don't establish that Bend Time always works correctly, but I saw no error. Both tests were performed in a wild battle, against a Moonshell Crab.

Edit: OK, so I found the Rosqo video, just at this point:
https://youtu.be/XgQYggmzlak?t=550
and that clearly is a bug, but it happens when the whelp is dead. Does it ever happen when the whelp is alive? I've just done a few more tests, and haven't managed to see anything wrong.

User avatar
Spinning
Top Rater
Posts:35
Joined:December 11th, 2016
Pet Score:5763
Realm:Deathguard-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Spinning » July 19th, 2017, 11:51 pm

Gráinne wrote:I thought all priority moves followed the same formula, depending on the speed of the pet?
Not really:
Surge, deflection, ethereal, when elleks fly and smoke bomb get +16250 speed modifier to the current speed of the pet
Charge, trihorne charge, love potion, restoration, etc. get + 1625

Edit: this numbers are correct only on level 25s, on lower levels the modifier is different.

User avatar
Drlambda
Posts:64
Joined:May 8th, 2016
Pet Score:5543
Realm:Arthas-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Drlambda » July 20th, 2017, 1:33 am

Drudatz wrote:Its just me but I dont see anymore nervs needed especially not the
>Give Bone Serpents the Graves treatment
because there are tons of pets who beats them easily.

Back in the days of Mop people complained about FFF 1.0 and these days we have two pets alike (which no one is complaining about) so the problem with bone serpents is none existing because for the (little) damage they do (after 2 rounds) they have one round without a move.
Pardon MY german, but i can't see how you can say that when you are actively playing PVP. They completely slaughter about, lets say 80% of all available pets. They have 3 strong attacks that deal more damage than a basic attack in 3 different families, one of which is strong against the natural counters to Undeads, which means you can just 2-shot them, while also easily breaking mitigation (either with Bone Barrage vs Decoy or hilariously strong attacks vs shields) and healing. Because of the amount of damage they deal, having them movement-locked on the fifth active turn is a non-issue, because at that point you already dealt enough damage to kill at least 1,5 pets, and if he's not triggering your racial at the same time where he is movement locked, the number instantly becomes a lot higher.

Of course there are ways to beat them, there are even pets that dominate Bone Serpent, but it's not about the fact that it is unbeatable, but what it does to the metagame - and that is push a huge amount of pets or teams out of there, some of which would be great if it wasn't for Bone Serpent.

I always compare Pet Battles with my decade-long experience with competitive trading card games. There always were answers available for every card that was changed or banned, but the answer had to be so specific that every deck (or team for pet battle) that didn't have the answer was automatically invalidated, so the disturbing element was changed or removed to widen the options in the metagame.

The only positive aspect of having Bone Serpent right now is that it keeps Sunny Day in check, which with the current form of backline healing and Ancient in particular is a problematic ability in it's own right.
Gráinne wrote:- Tweak Traps: Tweak a little, maybe?, but I'm not sure how.
Make them trigger after the attack and just stun for a turn, or make them dodgable. The problematic part seems to be that you can't play around them at all. The trap user spends a turn, and then will get a priority two-turn stun and a hit for like ~150% of a base attack. That effect is too strong for what you put in, especially considering nothing except for a blind on the trap-user will help against the deployment. Both of these changes give you either a mitigation or a way to prepare. It's the combination of being one of the highest RNG-based abilities in the game and being gamebreaking.
Gráinne wrote:- Nerf backline healing. Yes, but carefully! Treat the Teroclaw separately, and a lot of the problem goes away.
I agree that it should be done carefully, but i don't think Teroclaw is the only problem here. Backline healing is really strong for a lot of pets right now, from dot-based humanoids like Fiendish Imp and Ore Eater, to other users of Nature's Ward (P/P Gleamhoof Fawn pe) to all of the Sunny Day / Photosynthesis users. Yes, i think that it would be good to switch Nature's Ward on Teroclaw to something that heals your current frontline pet. That would keep him very strong, but not the monster that he currently is. But i also think that the other ways of healing from the backline need to be looked at.
Gráinne wrote:- Is Bend Time broken? Maybe I misunderstand, but I think it's OK?
As said before, Bend Time is technically broken. The results you will get are pretty much random. Either you will have no CDs as expected, or your CD abilities will have their CD reset to 1, or all abilities will have their CD reset to 1, which makes you a sitting duck for a full turn.
Gráinne wrote:
Drlambda wrote:3. Make all priority moves give the same speed buff rather than having a different priority between them, per example Surge being faster than Love Potion.

I thought all priority moves followed the same formula, depending on the speed of the pet?
Drlambda wrote:4. Lower the speed of the S/S Wicked Soul to 325.
I'm not feeling that one. Why?
Priority move: They sadly and interestingly don't. Most add ~15000 speed to your pet at the beginning of your turn, but some only add ~3000, and i think there is at least one that only adds like 1500. I hope i can link it, you can see it in one of Rosqo's latest videos here: https://youtu.be/bOA2rfbzp1E?t=3m31s - Surge goes first even though the Bloodfeather is faster than the Ghostshell Crab.
About the Wicked Soul: I am, like most other people i talked to, a big fan of Wicked Soul. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a silly, silly pet. The other Haunt users are kept in check by their speed, but Wicked Soul outspeeds regular S/S pets, and i think it would be still very strong, but fairer if other "normal" S/S pets were at least the same speed, so that your options wouldn't be just like "I have an Aquatic pet, a dodging Bird, or i can decide which of my pets basically starts with 700 less hp without any drawback for my opponent."
CloseToZero - Watch me lose on youtube with bad pets! :D

User avatar
Rosqo
Posts:276
Joined:April 26th, 2017
Pet Score:9646
Realm:Silvermoon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Rosqo » July 20th, 2017, 1:10 pm

A lot of really good discussion here. i will give my two cents.

I'm going to steal Brawlers format too, thanks mate :D

Frog Kiss, Gears, Sleeging Gas nerf: yes for the chain stun, no for the ramp up. Resilience should have been changed.
Howl nerf: Yes. Although in the current meta it now isn't a very good move with haunt, bone barrage, immolation etc eating its charge. If it was just direct damage it that proc'd it that would be a different story.
AOE nerf: Yes, wish they had considered the effect on backline healing with this though.
Pandaren Water Spirit nerf: Yes
Eyeblast change: Don't care
Shell Armor nerf: Yes, these pets are still good
Undead nerf: Yes, its still the strongest racial
Graves nerf: Yes
Comeback change: Don't care


Next on the list...
-Tweak Traps: agree the priority stun essentially stuns for two rounds. With the addition of the magma rageling its too common for blizz to ignore. Without a critter on your team whats a viable counter?
-Give Bone Serpents the Graves treatment: The Bone Serpent needs to change as it currently fills two criteria very well. It is a very hard hitting undead pet & it provides high utility with its decoy/bubble/refuge breaking bone barrage and it has a weather changing effect. It cant have both as its too strong.
-Nerf backline healing: as i mentioned above this was never adjusted to reflect the change to aoe damage and is overtuned for the games current state.
-Bring back a working clone ability: this would be cool but blizz are lazy
-Fix Bend Time - as mentioned above and in my linked video it doesn't appear to be working correctly at present. Its just not reliable enough to consider viable.
Tweak Blinding powder on the Sneaky Marmot: just change this to blinding poison
Priority moves all same baseline speed increase: this would also be a nice change for better consistency

User avatar
Gráinne
Posts:948
Joined:July 7th, 2015
Pet Score:13284
Realm:Magtheridon-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Gráinne » July 21st, 2017, 12:21 am

What a lot of subjects we've got! We need moar threads! :)

Thank you, Spinning and Drlambda, for clueing me in on the strange priority speed difference. I don't see a pattern to it. It kind of sounds like somebody just dropped a zero somewhere when coding, and I agree should probably be regularised.

I wonder whether Blizzard added a significant trap as an incentive to use more critters? I don't see the trap as doing 150% of a basic attack? Snap Trap does exactly 100% of the basic attack on the Curious Wolvar Pup, and Magma Trap close to 100% on the two pets that have it, though that doesn't compare as cleanly. Basically, a trap forces you to swap. If traps are nerfed to trigger after a move, perhaps their damage should be buffed significantly to compensate? otherwise they become useless. Making them dodgeable would help, though.

I think we all, except Drudatz, agree that Bone Serpents need to be taken down a peg or seven. Or ten. They are too much, too easy to use.

The only thing I'm really convinced about with backline healing is that Sunlight + Backline Healing is too much. I like the Teroclaw as a pet. I like the Imp as a pet, and I really like the Ore Eater. While the Teroclaw could stand to lose a sliver (and I'm starting to think H/S for it), I don't want to see any of these given the kicking I want for the Bone Serpent.

Now that I think of it, in the relatively few times I've ventured out in Legion, nearly every battle has started with some kind of Haunt decision. Which means that every team has to have a Haunt provision. Should this be so? Regardless of the Soul's speed, it has problems against other Haunters. It has to worry about the Kid's Ethereal and its Hoof, and if it Haunts a Valk or a Kid, the Valk just counter-Haunts the next pet. It's obviously meant to bug Imps, which is fine, but when every team has its own ghost, the effect is a bit lost.

User avatar
Spinning
Top Rater
Posts:35
Joined:December 11th, 2016
Pet Score:5763
Realm:Deathguard-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Spinning » July 21st, 2017, 2:43 am

Gráinne wrote:Thank you, Spinning and Drlambda, for clueing me in on the strange priority speed difference. I don't see a pattern to it. It kind of sounds like somebody just dropped a zero somewhere when coding, and I agree should probably be regularised.
It's my pleasure! =)
Gráinne wrote:If traps are nerfed to trigger after a move, perhaps their damage should be buffed significantly to compensate? otherwise they become useless. Making them dodgeable would help, though.
The best nerf to traps would be to make them NOT detonate when you use consume magic or cleanse them.

My thoughts of the Legion nerfs:

Frog Kiss, Sleeping Gas nerf: :|
Screeching Gears nerf: :|
Howl nerf: :|
AOE nerf: :D
Pandaren Water Spirit nerf: :|
Eyeblast change: :|
Shell Armor nerf: :D
Undead nerf: :D :D
Graves nerf: :D :D :D
Comeback change: :|

I personally would love Celestial Blessing NOT TO MISS in the darkness, bone serpent nerfed to oblivion, photosynthesis nerfed by 50%, haunt nerfed by 20%, and maybe, another nerf to undead racial

User avatar
Drudatz
Top Rater
Posts:387
Joined:June 13th, 2011
Pet Score:10205
Realm:Kul Tiras-eu
Contact:

Re: A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

Post by Drudatz » July 21st, 2017, 7:03 am

Gráinne wrote:1. Bend Time does not happen if the drake is dead.
No clue as I only encountered ONE player yet using him to clear his uborn valkyrs cds :D
Gráinne wrote:
Drudatz wrote:
Gráinne wrote:I never had a problem with these (chain stuns) either in ... PvP. They were fine by me...
then you clearly haven't used/encountered them in pvp - they where bloody annoying
I did. I'm sure I didn't play as much as you, but I definitely saw them. But a 1-in-16 chance for a double stun was rare enough that I didn't consider it a problem, and if you did consider it a problem, surely bringing the double-stun chance down to 1-in-25 or 1-in-36 would have been better than wrecking the ramp-up move?
No the way it is NOW is better cause it ELIMINATES the chain stuns and thats what the nerv was for. A chain stun shouldn't have been in the game at all from the start. (In my opinion at least)
Drlambda wrote:Pardon MY german, but i can't see how you can say that when you are actively playing PVP. They completely slaughter about, lets say 80% of all available pets.
So and what about the Iron Starlette? why is the BS a problem for you but not the IS or say a Nexus Drake?
Drlambda wrote:The only positive aspect of having Bone Serpent right now is that it keeps Sunny Day in check, which with the current form of backline healing and Ancient in particular is a problematic ability in it's own right.
I dunno what you play but a BS Team doesnt do much against a sunlight team. Especially with the hit chance of NS in Darkness being only 40% in darkness.
Gráinne wrote:- Is Bend Time broken? Maybe I misunderstand, but I think it's OK?
The effect not working when the drake is dead sounds more like expected (ie like Apocalypse not hitting when the caster is dead)
Drlambda wrote:4. Lower the speed of the S/S Wicked Soul to 325.
I dont see a reason for that either.

Post Reply