Minfernal revisited

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Vek
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Minfernal revisited

Post by Vek » February 16th, 2014, 3:40 am

Poor mistreated little Minfernal. I was happy when I finally got one, and when trying it out also got the experience that it felt pretty mediocre. It was recently named in the "worst ability" thread as one of the worst pets. This got me thinking and wanting to try it again.

Looking it up here on warcraftpets I noticed that it did have several breeds to chose from and my B/B breed was one of the worst of the lot. I think that the main problem with the Minfernal is that because of the problem in catching it you are just happy to get one and not really ready to farm for a better breed. Second problem was that before it was much tougher to get battle-stones to make your pets rare, nowadays it's easier and you can even trade for the marked flawless if you don't have any luck with family specific ones.

Thirdly when Netherspace Abyssal was implemented it felt like what the Minfernal should have been, and it was rare, easier to get hold of, more powerful and came with the very useful Nethergate.

Anyway I decided to try and get a better breed, preferably the P/P one or at least the P/S one. Took an alt to felwood and lo and behold a Minfernal was there. Same breed as I already had, bah. Left the alt there. Logging in with a few hours in-between and the third time there was another one, P/P breed. Caught it, stoned it and levelled it up.

Im finding that it really is a solid pet, though with magical racial. Tried it with Immolation and coupled with Plagued blood and Touch of the Animus, was pretty meh. Perhaps not just my kind of tactic. Switched to Crush, Extra Plating and Meteor Strike. This was much better for me. Crush really hurts, almost hits for 500 and crits up to 780. With Extra Plating it can go toe to toe with many pets. 260 is a bit slow, but really not too bad. Finally Meteor Strike with 325 power also hits for a lot, and you have to option to use it to avoid attacks. I'm not saying it is the most powerful or best pet out there, just that it is not nearly as bad as it's reputation would have it.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Luciandk » February 16th, 2014, 5:19 am

Its a decently solid pet. But yeah, with so many breeds, its excessively difficult to get a good breed.

But Crush, Extra Plating and Meteor Strike gives the P/P Minfernal a good longevity as they Crush and smash the opposition into the ground. Popping Meteror Strike to go off just as Extra Plating expires.
Only hitch is that your 2 main damaging moves are 80% chance to hit.

Alternatively, use a H/H Minfernal. Crush goes from 483 damage to 392, but with your health rising to 1725, Explode becomes a lot stronger. Going from a 100% chance to hit 560 attack, to a 690 one. But high Health is kinda a waste with the magic racial, weakening it.

But personally I find explode unreliable on all but Mechanicals, as you have more of a chance to get it off before you croak thanks to failsafe.

Comparing with the Netherspace Abyssal, I would say that the Minfernal have the edge. NA is slow and not a good user of Nether Gate, which have been severely nerfed in damage and thusly not making good use out of its naturally high power.
And lacking Extra Plating, its natural longevity is far lower, even with magic racial.
Plus suffering from having below the average speed of 260, letting many other P/P pets go first. Which is crucial in a straight up match between Minfernal and Netherspace Abbyssal. Minfy would just open with Meteor Strike, avoiding the expected Nether Gate on turn 1.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Vek » February 16th, 2014, 7:03 am

Yes 80% hit moves is a very valid point, but not much worse than Idol for example. One quite nice thing is that it pretty much two-shots dragons and with Extra Plating their strong attacks does not hurt as much.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Luciandk » February 16th, 2014, 7:40 am

Vek wrote:Yes 80% hit moves is a very valid point, but not much worse than Idol for example. One quite nice thing is that it pretty much two-shots dragons and with Extra Plating their strong attacks does not hurt as much.
I never said it was a bad thing, 80% spam moves are very strong to make up for the low hit. But you do see a lot of people whom cant cope with low hit moves at all and getting into a frothing rage.
But id like to hear your words on my comparision with the NA.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Vek » February 16th, 2014, 9:05 am

I just got the general feeling that NA was much more liked, than Minfernal ever was, when it was implemented. And I myself got much more use out of it than my crappy B/B Minfernal. Also it was actually just until recently I got into how good Extra Plating(or any 50% dmg reduction move) really is(especially for faster pets like the De-Weaponized), what was I thinking before lol.

Now that I got lucky and got a P/P Minfernal the missing Extra Plating from the NA makes it no match at all. Minfernal would win out hands down for me.

The NA does have a very unusual stat distribution level. Two breeds with 252 speed, does any other pet have this strange speed. It's faster than the really slow pets, undead and turtles mostly and Idol ofc, but it is below 260 which does not help at all. Even the P/S has a strange speed in 281, faster than 273/276 but slower than the more common 289. These strange speeds does make Nether Gate a lot less useful than the 333 speed Imp for example.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Luciandk » February 16th, 2014, 10:47 am

Vek wrote:I just got the general feeling that NA was much more liked, than Minfernal ever was, when it was implemented. And I myself got much more use out of it than my crappy B/B Minfernal. Also it was actually just until recently I got into how good Extra Plating(or any 50% dmg reduction move) really is(especially for faster pets like the De-Weaponized), what was I thinking before lol.

Now that I got lucky and got a P/P Minfernal the missing Extra Plating from the NA makes it no match at all. Minfernal would win out hands down for me.

The NA does have a very unusual stat distribution level. Two breeds with 252 speed, does any other pet have this strange speed. It's faster than the really slow pets, undead and turtles mostly and Idol ofc, but it is below 260 which does not help at all. Even the P/S has a strange speed in 281, faster than 273/276 but slower than the more common 289. These strange speeds does make Nether Gate a lot less useful than the 333 speed Imp for example.
I think the main problem with the NA is that it just doesnt have any outstanding choices for slot 2 skills. Immolation really wants you to sit and twiddle thumbs in the backrow, a strong dot if you can open with it. But it doesnt really do anything for the NA when its forced to be the frontliner. Immolation is really a lot better on the Fiendish Imp due to how it meshes with the humanoid racial, to allow you to heal from the backrow.
And explode Ive already talked about in earlier posts, really wanting high hp that doesnt play well with the magic racial.

There is oddball pets out there with some rather whacky stat distributions. Such as Kovok or Jademist Dancer. JD in particular is noteworthy with having a 317 speed S/S variant. Useless. Kovok have way too many base points dumped in speed as well.

Death Adder Hatchling is a pet that makes really good use of its Extra Plating variant skill, due to skyhigh natural speed and thusly being able to pop it before incomming damage lands.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Awq » February 16th, 2014, 8:32 pm

I've tried using a P/P Minfernal in PvP. It was not amazing, but I would not call it a bad pet. It is a good stand alone pet that can do high damage.Its auto attack does 480 damage!

Crush, Extra Plating, Meteor Strike was the best combo. I must admit that I am a horrible Extra Plating user.
I personally found it best when I paired it with a Wolf (can't remember the breed). Dazzling Dance makes the Minfernal a lot stronger! Increased speed in combination with Extra Plating and its power is quite strong!

I've tried Yu'La, Minfernal, X in many variations. I could not get it to work!

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Vek » February 17th, 2014, 2:34 pm

Just had a chrominius Howl and Surge of Power my Minfernal. That was fun.

And in another battle it squished a moth with a 1200+ meteor strike. Im starting to enjoy this little guy.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Luciandk » February 17th, 2014, 2:47 pm

Vek wrote:Just had a chrominius Howl and Surge of Power my Minfernal. That was fun.

And in another battle it squished a moth with a 1200+ meteor strike. Im starting to enjoy this little guy.

Hrm, would be interesting to know in which order things are calculated. Does it check magic racial first, then reducing the remaining damage by half from extra plating. Or is the incomming damage halved, then checked against magic racial?

Edit:
Managed to test it. Extra Plating is clearly calculated BEFORE magic racial.

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Re: Minfernal revisited

Post by Vek » February 17th, 2014, 4:27 pm

Guess it would have been too good if Extra Plating effectively doubled magic racial.

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