Tip for handling Minefield

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Vek
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Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Vek » January 7th, 2014, 11:46 am

Mines can be a quite powerful tool, and a very annoying one to try and play around. Here are some tips.

Death Adder Hatchling. If you time the Blinding Poison right the Mines will actually miss the ground when they are first cast. Usually an opponent with Mines will cast the Mines first turn and then either switch or try to beat you to the ground - Darkmoon Tonk for example. Other pets with mines like Clockwork Rocket Bots will often first cast Sticky Grenade and then cast Mines. But if your opponent is wise to your Death Adder it will try and wait for the Blinding Poision, so then you might have to postpone the Blind for a turn or two, which of course turns into a chicken race of who blinks first. :P

Another easy way is to have an elemental in back line. I often just switch them in immediately after mines are down. Elementals takes less damage from mines. Is especially useful with the Jademist Dancer that can heal up almost all mine damage taken. Only downside is that Jademist Dancers attacks are not especially strong vs mechs, though they usually hit hard enough as it is.

Decoy. If you got a pet with this ability you can bring them in first vs the mine-layer. Cast Decoy and you will get 2 stacks. Then you can safely switch pets to remove the mines which will hit the Decoy instead.

There are a couple of pets that has Celestial Blessing, your next pet to switch in takes 50% less damage for 3 turns. I have not actually tested this one out to see if you gain the effect before the damage from the mines.

I guess Murkalot shield will work just fine, but I don't have Murkalot to try it.

Or if you have a nice heal to use after switching in. Like Cauterize, which heals an amount plus half of the damage from the minefield.

If all else fails I try to save a low hp pet in the back line to be ready to switch in and take the hit.

One thing I have noticed is that if I myself use a broom/bone-spider/imp you usually can switch out the minefield pet and at least my opponents almost never switch them back(for quite some time at least). Talk about soft-counter...

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Wixey
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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Wixey » January 7th, 2014, 1:45 pm

Didn't test it, but I assume spells like Magma wave, Clean up,... will get rid of the mines too.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Ligre » January 7th, 2014, 1:59 pm

Wixey wrote:Didn't test it, but I assume spells like Magma wave, Clean up,... will get rid of the mines too.
That is correct.
I have not actually tested this one out to see if you gain the effect before the damage from the mines.
When 5.4 first came out, I tried this with Yu'la, and it didn't work. Recently, however, I've tried this and it has worked...so maybe it was changed/fixed. I may need to try this again, and see if speed has anything to do with it (speed of the pet w/Celestial Blessing vs. speed of the Minefield pet).

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Vek
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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Vek » January 7th, 2014, 2:21 pm

Wow. Totally forgot about the waves. Guess I stopped useing them when they blew up traps instead of clearing them. Thanks for the reminder.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Poofah » January 7th, 2014, 2:28 pm

Vek wrote:If you time the Blinding Poison right the Mines will actually miss the ground when they are first cast.
Minefield checks for hit rating when it's put on the ground, and again when it blows up. So if the mines are already out, and you apply Blinding Poison to the Minefield caster, then you can safely swap and the explosion will miss.
Totally forgot about the waves. Guess I stopped useing them when they blew up traps instead of clearing them. Thanks for the reminder.
They do clear the trap, the problem is that removal of the trap debuff is also what triggers the trap. Tidal/Magma Wave works as the tooltip says against a lot of battlefield objects (turrets, sons of the flame/root, minefield, etc.), but Magma Trap/Snap Trap have this odd behavior with wave that makes the wave seem buggy. But it's really the trap that's buggy.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Ligre » January 8th, 2014, 1:35 am

They do clear the trap, the problem is that removal of the trap debuff is also what triggers the trap. Tidal/Magma Wave works as the tooltip says against a lot of battlefield objects (turrets, sons of the flame/root, minefield, etc.), but Magma Trap/Snap Trap have this odd behavior with wave that makes the wave seem buggy. But it's really the trap that's buggy.
Yah, I've always disliked the way Traps work in relates to things that should just simply GET RID of them. Waves, Sear Magic, High Fiber...what's the point of them if they can't wipe the Trap away without it blowing up? Blizzard has already guaranteed that it will blow up if it completes its duration of 9 rounds on the field of play. I guess, ultimately, the best counter for the Traps would be Arcane Storm and/or Critters...since the inability to stun is what sets the Traps apart from anything else and makes them super attractive.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by 3wd » January 8th, 2014, 4:59 pm

The most efficient way to handle the minefield (actually close to a bug) is by using an undead pet.

If you will call an undead pet into the front row and got hit by the mine and IF that hit will kill that undead pet, the following bug will happen :

- So on that round when you call in your undead pet to clear the mine, your pet got killed by the mine (make sure its NOT killed by the hit of your opponent's pet did on that round but by the mine), in the same round, you can not do anything, and your will have the undead racial happened to your pet, and res from death for one extra round.

- in normal case, you will still able to use your undead pet to attack in the next round, but in this case, you will actually have 2 rounds to attack after your undead racial.

So, in such scenario, if you have an undead pet and your opponent will use mine, save the undead pet with little HP to clear the mine and you still can enjoy 2 rounds of attack.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Abashera » January 9th, 2014, 5:06 pm

This is a useful tip.

Although it's true that you can clean up obstacles with a broom, or magma wave, and similar abilities, you don't always have one of those pets on your team for PVP. Unless you plan on taking one of those pets with you in EVERY SINGLE TEAM, it's good to have alternative strategies to fall back on.

Personally I always eat mines with my Emerald Proto-Whelp because he can heal back to full or close to full (depending on what I'm fighting and who's behind the team). And if you happen to have "Breath" selected, you can clean up any mechanicals. On my favorite team I have two Emeralds, one with Breath for mechanicals, magicals, etcetera, and Bite for flying pets. I don't want to disclose my 3rd pet, as someone may refer me to the "Need a Sudden Death Mechanic thread". :P

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Eekabu » January 10th, 2014, 5:22 am

Poofah wrote: Minefield checks for hit rating when it's put on the ground, and again when it blows up. So if the mines are already out, and you apply Blinding Poison to the Minefield caster, then you can safely swap and the explosion will miss.
Oh, how I love using Blinding Poison after Minefield has been cast and my opponent, hoping he can quickly bash my Death Adder Hatchling down, waits for another round only to be blinded. Quick swap to my other pet and *boom* Minefield misses :D

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Goldenarms » January 10th, 2014, 11:41 am

Im hesitant to share my epic knowledge, but here it goes. Whenever I see someone with a pet that drops mines, I always get my shield up with Murkalot first. After that you can feel free to switch in a pet and let the shield eat the mine, or you can wait it out and let their mine sit there and collect dust.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Huntingforfun » January 10th, 2014, 11:51 am

Goldenarms wrote:Im hesitant to share my epic knowledge, but here it goes. Whenever I see someone with a pet that drops mines, I always get my shield up with Murkalot first. After that you can feel free to switch in a pet and let the shield eat the mine, or you can wait it out and let their mine sit there and collect dust.
Not everyone has a murkalot or uses it.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Abashera » January 10th, 2014, 2:34 pm

Putting up a barrier... Yeah I forgot about that tactic. In fact just the other day I used an ice barrier to counter a mine field with Mr. Bigglesworth. Put up ice barrier, change pets, good to go!

THE STALL METHOD

Another tactic is to stall... and out heal the life/durration of the minefield.

With an Emerald Proto-Whep for instance, you just cycle through Emerald Presence, Emerald Dream, and your #1 ability, always making sure to keep your health up, and never doing more than one or two hits before another presence or dream.

If you time it right you can stay alive and do damage until the mines are gone. And if you can kill the mine layer, even better—especially considering none of the minefield mechanical have healing abilities (though Warbot's Extra Plating may make a kill difficult). If they switch out to an Anubisath or Flayer however, you're screwed. :p ...Unless you have another healer that can eat the mines.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Goldenarms » January 11th, 2014, 10:39 am

Huntingforfun wrote:
Goldenarms wrote:Im hesitant to share my epic knowledge, but here it goes. Whenever I see someone with a pet that drops mines, I always get my shield up with Murkalot first. After that you can feel free to switch in a pet and let the shield eat the mine, or you can wait it out and let their mine sit there and collect dust.
Not everyone has a murkalot or uses it.
Forgive me for my suggestion then.

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Re: Tip for handling Minefield

Post by Nunya1955 » January 15th, 2014, 1:29 pm

Goldenarms wrote:
Huntingforfun wrote:
Goldenarms wrote:Im hesitant to share my epic knowledge, but here it goes. Whenever I see someone with a pet that drops mines, I always get my shield up with Murkalot first. After that you can feel free to switch in a pet and let the shield eat the mine, or you can wait it out and let their mine sit there and collect dust.
Not everyone has a murkalot or uses it.
Forgive me for my suggestion then.
Yes, how dare you suggest a strategy that not everyone can employ? >_<

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