Battle with that pet

Discuss pet battles, strategy and theorycrafting.
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Vek
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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 7th, 2014, 7:08 am

I had no clue what to do with the Darkmoon Eye. Had tried it out a couple of times when I first got it, but it felt underwhelming. So I took a cue from Jeremy Feasel, just for the hell of it. Same abilities Jeremy uses, Darkmoon Eye(1,1,1), Darkmoon Tonk(1,1,1) and Darkmoon Monkey(1,2,1). This meant I had to skip Minefield on the tonk and use Lock-On which is a very special kind of two turn move since you can lock-on to several of the opposing pets, have never really used that one before.

The results were pretty sad, even though I won my first game. Darkmoon eye did get to show it’s power versus fliers with some Laser shots on a Moth, but other than that the eye is too slow and does not really have enough firepower. Darkmoon Curse was pretty nice, but I feel that the 4 round cooldown is a bit too much since it only lasts for 2 turns. After losing a bunch of games I decided to change abilities from what Jeremy uses.

Focused Beam(for more damage) and Interrupting Gaze(which should go well with Eyeblast). The Tonk got the things I am more familiar with, Minefield and Ion Cannon.

Things went much better and the eye felt slightly more useful, being able to interrupt multi turn abilities, and cancel out the undead racial turn. Even got to face a triple DAH, and though “Yay, gonna get to try out Laser while blinded”, but then remembered I had switched to Focused Beam. Still managed to win it, Tonk with minefield and Ion Cannon smacked two of them while the Monkey outplayed the last one with a stun. I got a better feel for Eyeblast, that 25% speed reduction was very nice against both the Adders and against a Darkmoon Rabbit in the game after. Then also got one up on double DAH with a Nether Ray companion, this time the Eye really did get some work done.

Still the stars where the Tonk and Monkey, but the Eye still felt like the weakest of the three. If you are facing birds it will show some magic, and with Laser it is immune to blind. I got a good feeling for Eyeblast with speed reduction, especially against the adders that rely on their speed, and against rabbits(but those are not that common in my battle group). Interrupting Gaze, while not being a stun, works well with Eyeblast, and even if it only is an interrupt it can really be useful. Laser does not hit very hard when not hitting fliers, then you need Darkmoon Curse, and still you can’t reapply it when it runs out which kind of sucks.

Edit: This team just beat an old nemesis of mine, Creepy Crate/Darkmoon Tonk/Moth. Monkey kept crate damage to a minimum while surviving. He beat my tonk just by winning the roll-off on the last missile. Had to sacrifice the Monkey to the minefield. But the Eye quite easily took out the last 300 health of the tonk and the whole Moth. Eyeblast and Interrupting Gaze was awesome!

Helbrecht welcome to the thread. Your first task is to bring glory to Bad Robot, Rascal-Bot.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Helbrecht » March 7th, 2014, 8:35 pm

I wasn't sure where to begin with Rascal-Bot, so I started with Phaser, Lens Flare and Armageddon. What followed was pretty painful, though it wasn't all RB's fault a lot of it is me making bad mistakes, and a lot is just facing really nasty teams.

PB Rascal Bot, Snarly, SS Crow: I thought maybe the blind would come in handy.
1: Fiendish Imp, Unborn Val'kyr, Darkmoon Zeppelin: Lost, I just couldn't handle the good pets.
2: Fiendish Imp, Unborn Val'kyr, Magical Crawdad: Lost, again I just couldn't deal with a team that strong.

Changed it up: Rascal Bot, Snarly, Sen'jin Fetish to deal with the Valk infestation.
3: Valk, Death Adder Hatchling, Singing Sunflower: Won, but RB was a millstone around my neck. Snarly and the Fetish totally carried the day.

Switched up RB's moveset and my team: Now using RB (Plot Twist, Amber Prison, Reboot), Chi-Chi, Sen'jin Fetish
4: Valk, DAH, Sunflower: Lost, without Snarly I just had no way to counter the Sunflower.

Using RB, Imperial Eagle Chick, Jademist Dancer
5: Valk, Sprite Darter Hatchling, Arctic Fox Kit: Lost after playing pretty badly. It was an Unholy Ascension Valk, which took me by surprise. The Eagle was just way too squishy, so I'll change him out.

Using RB, Blighthawk, Jademist Dancer
6: Nexus Whelpling, Fel Flame, Spawn of Onyxia: Lost, my Dancer got 2-shot by the Whelpling and I ran. I should have started with RB and stunned, so bad play and frustration are taking their toll.
7: Zeppeling, Mech Dragonling, Jade Ooze: Lost, but RB actually did pretty well this game. Plot Twist is great against decoys, and RB finished off the Zeppelin and half of the Dragonling by himself. Then the Jade Ooze came in and absolutely DESTROYED me. Just slaughtered my whole team easily. That thing is nasty, I'll have to get a PP version and level it up.
8: Nexus Whelpling, Fel Flame, Spawn of Onyxia: Won, I learned from my previous mistake and started with RB but he started Fel Flame. Swapped to Blighthawk and did the clonedance thing, with the JD just owning the Whelpling and Fel Flame, and the RB finished off the Spawn. Some sweet revenge!

Using RB (Plot Twist, Amber Prison, Armageddon), Pet Bombling, Mech Dragonling
9: Celestial Dragon, Sprite Darter Hatchling, Nexus Whelpling: Won, I got good use out of Minefield and the two self-destructs, which paired nicely with MPD's Thunderbolt.

And with those two wins in a row I think I'll call it good. I'll keep RB in mind for Plot Twist in the future, as a handy way of taking out annoying decoys/bubbles/walls without locking myself into a 3-round move. Too bad it doesn't apply shattered defenses!

Vek, can you find a use for Lil' Smoky?

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 9th, 2014, 3:39 am

Lil’ Smoky just feels like Toxic Wasteling all over again. It comes in one breed and other pets with same abilities comes in more and what I feel better breeds. It has very good health(1628), and 273 power is not that bad. And even if 260 speed is average it won’t get any bonus from Batter with that speed. I guess though since Smoky does not have any defensive moves it has to rely on it’s greater health. To me Blue Clockwork Rocket Robot with 289 power and 289 speed, or even the 325 speed breed, just feels more useful.

Also comparing it to other Minefield users, it does have the same stats as the common Darkmoon Tonk, but the Tonk wins out with one turn use Ion Cannon, compared to two turn use Launch Rocket since it’s a liability to use with only 260 speed. And worst of all, comparing it to the Warbot there is no contest really. Warbot has 325 power, same speed, but has Extra Plating for much superior defence.

So with 260 speed I need to do Missile instead of Batter. Minefield usually feels more useful than Toxic Smoke, not that many beasts in rotation. And Sticky Grenade, while still annoying with the delay, it can usually not be avoided which can be useful against certain annoying pets.

I had some ups and downs, but often I just felt like I would have liked my 289 speed Blue Clockwork Rocket Robot or the Warbot instead. Also was a bit unfortunate to run into Lil’ Ragnaros with Magma Wave a lot this day, and it seemed like almost all team had at least one elemental with them.

Lil’ Smoky is definitely not a crappy pet and can do some good damage if well played, but to me I would probably chose another similar pet instead.

Helbrecht Fungal Abomination needs to test it's legs. Is it an abomination to you or your enemies?

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Harpua » March 9th, 2014, 12:50 pm

Sorry to take so long. Between work and the DMF, pet battling had to be put on the back burner. Plus this assignment was frustrating.

The [pet]Summit Kid[/pet] is a beast with several strong attacks against undead. Intriguing. Maybe we can catch a few Valks off guard.

Good things first. It's a good looking pet. Kind of like a shaggy dog with horns. No annoying animations. I like the way it runs after me when I'm plowing the farm. Solid pet to have out when you're scanning the AH.

Slot 1 abilities - [ability]Hoof[/ability] vs [ability]Chew[/ability]. Chew is probably a better choice since it's 100% hit chance and slightly higher hit points. But it's a 2 round ability, so you have to be careful. It may hit from the back row, but it doesn't hit when you are dead. I went with Hoof most of the time.

Slot 2 is [ability]Comeback[/ability] vs [ability]Soothe[/ability]. Kind of hard to get an attack like Soothe past an experienced PVPer. You might be able to use it as a passive swap out. But I think Comeback is the better choice here. One note on Comeback. It gives you an extra attack if your health is lower than your opponent's. It looked to me like this is calculated after the first attack. So if the initial attack brings your opponent below you, you don't get the additional attack.

Slot 3 is [ability]Headbutt[/ability] vs [ability]Stampede[/ability]. Stampede is another ability you probably won't get by an experienced PVPer. Plus it's a 3 round attack and you'll probably be dead by the time it's over. Headbutt is great when it procs. But that never seems to happen when you really need it.

I'm not going to give a detailed rundown of all the battles. I managed to get the weekly done with this pet on the team, so we at least had 10 wins. But we probably lost 2 for every one that we won.

The main problem is the pet is too squishy. With 1400 health and no defensive moves, you don't last long. The #1 Undead pet I tend to face is the [pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet]. You can probably get in 2 hoof attacks before she haunts you. If you are lucky, you may take 1000 points off her. But after that, you are a dead goat walking. I thought about bringing in an aquatic to soak up the haunt. But if you are going to do that, might as well bring a frog instead.

There were a few highlights. Because I have the S/S breed, it did get the drop on a few pets. The best one was against a team with 2 death adders. At the end of the fight, it was the kid vs the 2 adders. All 3 pets were low on health, but he was faster than both of them. Probably 3 of the 10 wins came down to that. Just being faster than the opponent. It's also the only time the beast racial shines. That means those were desperation wins.

But most of the time, he was long dead by the time the fight was over. Haunted, burned or blown up. The ultimate insult is when the [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet] doesn't even bother to gate you. That's when you know it's a weak pet. Cool for the novelty. Might catch someone by surprise. Looks good even when dead. But a pretty solid 2.5 stars for this pet.

Vek,with Winter approaching it's end, how about bringing the [pet]Anodized Robo Cub[/pet] out of hibernation?

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Celya » March 9th, 2014, 1:24 pm

Nefigah wrote:Celya, I was talking to your pets, and your [pet]Scorpid[/pet] feels a bit neglected. (If he was lying to me, let me know.)
Yep, my [pet]Scorpid[/pet] never gets to come out and play. Partly because he is a lousy B/B breed, with 260 power and 260 speed, when he could be a P/S breed with 289 power and 289 speed for only 81 less health points. I toyed with the idea of leveling a better breed one, but I have no beast stones at the moment and no patience to farm a rare, so I just ran with this one.

I took [ability]Snap[/ability], since I figured with 260 speed [ability]Triple Snap[/ability] is a bit riskier. The recent buff to [ability]Crouch[/ability] made it a no-brainer to me to use it instead of [ability]Screech[/ability], and I took the 6 round DoT [ability]Sting[/ability] instead of the 3 round ability [ability]Rampage[/ability].

My first team was the Cogblade Raptor for [ability]Exposed Wounds[/ability], to increase the power of the DoT, and Emperor Crab since I had no good idea for teammates. Lost against Lil' Ragnaros/Jademist Dancer/DAH, but the Scorpid surprised me by doing well against Rags - put up the DoT since you're faster, then Crouch when he goes underground. Lost my second fight as well, against a Darkmoon Tonk/Sen'Jin Fetish/Idol. Here the Scorpid proved its mettle against the Idol, Sting didn't tick for much with Sandstorm up but Snap hit every time.

Switched it up to pair the Scorpid with my [pet]Treasure Goblin[/pet] (still trying to find a way to make that pet work). The plan was just to use [ability]Wild Magic[/ability] to increase the damage from Sting, same as with the Raptor, really. My S/S [pet]Bonkers[/pet] told me he wants to come out to play, so I added him as well.

My first matchup was a really good one - Hopling/Celestial Dragon/Onyxian Whelpling. I won, thanks to Bonkers eating the dragons. But the Scorpid proved himself fairly tanky again. Second matchup was a Scourged Whelpling/Lil' XT/ Fossilized Hatchling. My Scorpid took down the Fossil, but its aoe proved quite deadly against my backlined humanoids and the battle was a loss.

Tried something new - [pet]Skywisp Moth[/pet] for [ability]Call Lightning[/ability] and [pet]Chi-Chi, Hatchling of Chi-Ji[/pet] for anti-mech [ability]Fire Quills[/ability]. Faced Mojo/Onyxian Whelpling/Phoenix Hatchling and won. Faced Darkmoon Tonk/Fire Beetle/Tolai Hare Pup, and lost - this last fight I got outplayed a bit, I believe.

Did the random matchup thing and went with a [pet]Fjord Worg Pup[/pet] and a [pet]Infinite Whelpling[/pet] - lost twice, but both were very close fights.

All in all, the little Scorpid surprised me. The 6 round DoT killed 2 pets on the backline tonight, he took out several annoying pets one on one (Lil Rags, Idol, Fossilized Hatchling) and in general he lives for so much longer than you'd expect. I lost a lot tonight, but I didn't get the feeling that it was because the Scorpid was dragging me down - it was more a case of my teams not really having much in terms of synergy. It might be worth it to try and get my hands on the P/S breed after all!
Helbrecht wrote:Feel free to call out just about any rare pet I have, I'll level it if need be.
This. Since I'm fairly new to pet battles - started a couple of weeks after SoO dropped - I might be running out of interesting max level pets. Assign me any rare pet and I'll level if necessary (just stay away from the non-rare pets, lol).
Harpua wrote:But most of the time, he was long dead by the time the fight was over. Haunted, burned or blown up. The ultimate insult is when the Fiendish Imp doesn't even bother to gate you. That's when you know it's a weak pet. Cool for the novelty. Might catch someone by surprise. Looks good even when dead. But a pretty solid 2.5 stars for this pet.
Sorry you didn't enjoy the [pet]Summit Kid[/pet], Harpua. Maybe your [pet]Harpy Youngling[/pet] will perform better?

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Nefigah » March 9th, 2014, 5:43 pm

Mr. Chilly himself did fine. I saw lots of teams with Lil Rag and Valks, naturally, and he did excellently against both of those. Highlight was when Slippery Ice + Ice Lance made an all-mech team flee after just a couple rounds.

However, at the moment I'm incredibly frustrated, and am thus going to take a break from pvp for awhile until I cool down. I'm just too irritated at Magical Crawdad. It's a bullshit pet, and I'm tired of facing it, and I don't care enough about the metagame to specifically construct a team that can deal with it. I had two power-breed Flying damagers on my team. Lift-Off crit for well over 1k damage, more than once (though unfortunately not consecutively), and I still couldn't outdamage tranq + wish. Even if I could've, it would've taken forever and not been fun.

Anyhoo, thanks for the great thread, guys. Maybe my head'll clear, and if so I'll return.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 10th, 2014, 3:33 am

So Anodized Robo Cub, infamous from my very unsuccessful three different bear team(Anodized, Infected and an actual beast family bear). This mech has a huge health pool, 1887. This of course comes at a cost in the other stats. Medium 260 power and a horribly crab/turtle slow speed of 227, at least dragons won’t get bonus on their Tail Sweep. Now that I have actually taken time to check it out a bit more it does have another breed as well H/P, and this seems like a better breed. Though only 1709 health it does carry a bit more oomph with 289 power(perhaps breeding a P/P could be fun).

I don’t really remember what my three bear team did, but I was very new to PvP so probably it did nothing right. Lets see whats in store. Bite, 280 damage just isn’t cutting it in this environment. I’ll try my luck with newly fixed Demolish. Second slot, Repair vs Rebuild. I don’t really like Repair, standing still for so long and with 227 speed you are bound to get hit a lot of times before the heal presumably go off. Rebuild on the other hand is newly buffed, interesting lets try that. Last slot, supercharge and 50% hit rate of demolish? No way. Maul it is.

Ok so I got Maul, to boost that I need a bleed. And I got Rebuild which heals other Mechanicals in the team. One plus one equals three? Enter Pierre, mechanical with a bleed. I took High Fiber to nullify Haunt/CoD/Minefield. Since I had actually run Pierre a bit last week and found Heat Up pretty good damage I’d rather have some kind of defence so Stench it is. Now I needed a third wheel to this disaster vehicle. Going all mech I would be dreading any elemental, hello smart pet search. Input Family = Mechanical, Strong vs Elemental, and out came Lifelike Toad, I can live with that. Also a pet I had run a bit waaaay back, never ended very good. Took my usual frog kit(Tongue Lash, Healing Wave, Frog Kiss), perhaps I would have been better served with Water Jet Instead of Tongue Lash but I could always change that later.

First up was Kun-Lai Runt, Anubisath Idol and Xu-Fu. Through some luck and hopefully pretty decent play I won. Best part were Pierre that Steched the Kun-Lai into missing first a Frost Shock and then also missed Deep Freeze on my newly switched in Robo Cub, a Maul and Demolish later the Runt was gone. It paid off to go with Stench instead of Heat Up. Strangely enough I only had Demolish that was strong against Xu-Fu, and my opponent really wanted to use Xu-Fu against the Frog. Let me just say that Frog kiss adds up nicely and thanks Xu-Fu for the bonus healing from Moonlight(things would have been different if it had been a Prowl/Feed Xu-Fu).

Next fight, Netherwhelp, Baneling and Lil’ Ragnaros(!). This would be a true test. Well Netherwhelp did dodge and then stun my pierre into 5 health and it dodge my Maul when I switched. Then I had a bit of luck, two demolish later things were looking better. In came raggy, I had to switch to Lifelike Frog right into a Flamethrower. Then by an incredible stroke of luck Frog Kiss stunned, which meant Raggy could not Conflagrate since Flamethrower ran out. Thanks to that frog kiss procc the Lifelike Frog soloed Raggy with ease. Baneling was taken out by a Chop and a Maul.

Fight three. Unborn Val’kyr, Ghostly Skull and Creepy Crate. The fight dragged on a bit, but you could clearly see where things were going. Pierre was star number one, Chop to get bleed, then High Fiber to remove CoD/Haunt/Agony, love it. Then the Cub, which was annoyingly slower than the Valk so missed a Maul due to the Valk haunting, but Rebuild was very useful, got to use it three times during the game, healed the Cub for a lot and prolonged Pierres life with the back line heal. In retrospect I should perhaps have started with the Lifelike Frog with it’s strong Tongue Lash but in the end all three mechs were left standing(failsafe and heal is also a nice combination).

Sunreaver Micro-sentry, Clockwork Gnome, Zandalari Anklerender. Closest fight so far. This lightning team did cause some trouble and I couldn’t really counter the weather or the turrets. Had to sacrifice the Cub to the Anklerender, but I did get in one demolish which sadly left the raptor with 42 health. Still in the end my Frog was left standing without having to use the failsafe or the heal.

Triple Blighthawk, strangely without Consume Corpse, but I guess this opponent really liked the big hit from Ghostly Bite. One Cyclone was up but I removed that with High Fiber. Now I got to try out Maul quite a bit, and it does not really come close to the damage that Curious Wolvar Pup or P/P Darkshore Cub can do with it, still solid attack. The Lifelike Frog really put the hurt to the final Blighthawk and on top of that my frog was not very scared of the Lift-Off.

Ok, so 5-0. I don’t think I will push my luck further, leaving on a high can be good sometimes. Was fun to try out, but had there been more elementals I probably would have been screwed. The Cub did ok, huge health makes it last quite a while, and I liked the buffed Rebuild.

Edit: Silliness continues, team went to 8-0. Even won hands down against Sunflower, Celestial Dragon(with Flamethrower) and Cinder Kitten, Stench was superb. Still it feels like a bit of a luck dependant team with stuff like Demolish/Stench/Frog Kiss. Finally numbers stopped rolling my way and when a Celestial Dragon survived with 4 health my fate was sealed in fight 9.

Edit 2: Argh, I can't stop it! 5 more wins(13-1 total). Triple Crocs, sorry guys guess you didn't know Demolish never misses(no I didn't spam it, but weaved it in three times during the fight after Rebuild and Maul and switches). And a good show against Sunreaver/Moth/Harbinger of the Flame that crit my poor cub for over 1000, and did a lot of team damage with magma wave(lucky i had stench to mitigate it some). Even faced another Anodized, so cute to see them dance around each other missing all their demolishes.

Nefigah, hope you don't let your frustrations ruin your fun, probably good to take a break and get back when you got the itch.

Celya level up you Dandelion Frolicker and show us how it dances.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Celya » March 11th, 2014, 11:47 am

I've been in two minds about my [pet]Dandelion Frolicker[/pet], perhaps someone here has better insight than I do. It's a S/S breed, which means 325 speed if you take [ability]Kick[/ability] instead of [ability]Dazzling Dance[/ability]. Your kick will interrupt a lot of pets, but there's quite a few popular ones that are a bit faster (I'm looking at you, S/S [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet]). And if you take the Dance, then surely the P/S breed would be better, with 289 power instead of 260?

In any case, kind of a moot point for me since the S/S is the one that dropped for me, and what very little money I have to spend on pets goes toward raid-drop pets, not farmable ones. ;)

Ability-wise, the first slot is a choice between 95% hit-chance anti-undead move [ability]Scratch[/ability], and 100% hit-chance anti-critter move [ability]Bite[/ability]. Since the only critter I see with any sort of frequency is a variation on the high-speed hare theme, I went with Scratch. Second slot is your choice of damage mitigation: [ability]Frolick[/ability] increases chance to dodge by 50% for two rounds, and [ability]Barkskin[/ability] functions like a shield. I don't like too much RNG, so I went with the shield. Last slot was as already discussed above - I picked [ability]Kick[/ability]. Maybe, if I get a P/S Frolicker, I'll try out some Dance teams.

For my first team I just added two pets I like: [pet]Pterrordax Hatchling[/pet] and P/P [pet]Emperor Crab[/pet]. First opponent was 3 moths - I really had no chance whatsoever. Demoralising start, but my next opponent had 2 dragonkin (Nether Faerie/Celestial) and a Scourged Whelpling. I started with my Frolicker, thinking with one anti-dragon and one anti-undead move I should be okay against whatever my opponent picks - and proceeded to slowly but surely kill two and a half pets before it died. Kick is really useful to stop a dragon from using its racial, or to prevent it from healing itself/changing the weather.

Feeling more positive about the Frolicker, I decided to go with a Kick theme - [pet]Hopling[/pet] and [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet]. Risky to have 3 humanoids, but on the other hand, some variety in the attacks they have. First team had a Giant Bone Spider/Spawn of Gnathus/Mr Grubbs. I did really well on the first two pets, even kicking the Spider's immortal round. Out came Mr Grubbs and slaughtered my entire troop with his [ability]Consume[/ability]. Next opponent had a Netherspace Abyssal/Darkmoon Tonk/Celestial Dragon. I was unable to avoid the minefields, but Kick helped ensure that he only dropped two. Close fight - I won.

Since I noticed that I had a severe anti-beast weakness, I decided to drop my Flayer for a Mech of some kind - and chose my [pet]Robo-Chick[/pet] since I haven't really pvp'd with it. In hindsight - not the best choice. Ran into the same team twice: Azure Whelpling/Zandalari Footslasher/Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot. Won the first time, thanks to Barkskin completely blocking [ability]Hunting Party[/ability]. On the second round my opponent was wise enough to not use it, and it was a close loss.

All in all I was favourably impressed with the Frolicker. It felt sturdy for a 1400 health pet without a heal, and the utility from Kick was able to help me a lot in some of the fights. I particularly wanted a chance to face an Unborn Valkyr with it, since it has the interrupt, anti-undead move and a shield to reduce the DoT - but being humanoid would also be weak to undead damage. Strangely, not one Valkyr in the queue tonight! I might post again if I've tried it some more, but for now I'm going to level my Dread Hatchling first - and wanted to post in this thread before I forget!

Vek, try out your [pet]Black Lamb[/pet] for us. There's a joke in there somewhere about the black sheep of the family, but I suck at puns so am not going to make it.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 12th, 2014, 4:51 pm

Black Lamb comes in six pretty similar breeds, no great differences. But with no real hard defensive moves(at this point I wouldn’t count Bleat or Soothe as good defensive moves) I had to try and be fast and strong instead. So I flew to Elwyn Forest and picked up a P/S breed, luckily it was a rare, at level 25 it had 289 speed and power.

The moves are very similar to the recently posted Summit Kid, but the Lamb is a critter instead of a beast. The only difference is the Lamb has Bleat instead of Headbutt. Bleat a smallish team heal. This just makes me think that the Lamb could be a nice counter to Creepy Crate, practically countering the Bonestorm damage. Would not be as good against the Fossilized Hatchling since that pet often uses Claw which kills critters very quickly.

A while ago I ran with Gu’chi Swarmling and got pretty good use of Chew + Stampede combination and I would probably go the same route with the Lamb for best effect. But I needed to try out Soothe and Bleat. I started with Chew, Soothe and Stampede. This does seem like an obvious combination but surprisingly many people does not use any avoidance at all.

I found this combination quite nice, and was really excellent against the Decoy pets I faced. Chew, they Decoy. Stampede destroys decoy, hits the opponent once to debuff it and Chew will take a nice 700 health chunk out of it. Being a critter it is also very useful to swap into a Ice Tomb(less damage, no stun) or just throw up against most Elementals.

Soothe. Im actually have no clue how to make good use of this. In one fight I cast Soothe, next turn Chew while opponent sleeps at the end, then a “free” Stampede. The problem is that your opponent can’t take any damage on the turn you cast Soothe, not on the turn after and while it will sleep for two turns after that, the Sleep will also be removed by any damage. I just don’t get it. Perhaps could be useful with Bleat heal and a switch, but you trade that for getting hit two turns with no retaliation.

After half a dozen battles I switched from Soothe to Comeback. I also find this ability lacking and often not very useful. I got my wins with Chew/Stampede and were happy with that. Bleat will have to wait. The Black Lamb is an ok pet, but has some seriously questionable abilities, so it's definitely not a star player. It was very useful against Decoy pets.

Celya, I'll give you an "easy" one then. Dread Hatchling. ;)

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Tuatha » March 15th, 2014, 12:49 am

Awq wrote:Play with your Spectral Porcupette!
I can see why you like this guy. He's not really my style, mind you, but certainly comes with a set of tools to use!

I started with spirit spikes and illusionary barrier, but that's so passive I dumped it nearly immediately for a powerball/spectral strike/spectral spine set up, and teamed him up with a Rotten Little Helper (ice lance, booby trap, blizzard) and, taking a step back from the Emperor Crab, a s/s Mongoose (gnaw, survival, dive). This teams doesn't suck.

I'm still not sold on the Mongoose as the answer to the valk and/or DAH meta out there right now, but he certainly gave me food for thought. I maintain the Emperor Crab would have consistently performed better, but the Mongoose does have points for variety's sake. The RLH was mainly there for booby trap, and the smack down on mechanicals, since I've been seeing double and triple mech teams (along with double/triple undead, fliers, and humanoids, but I picked mechs as my poison since the porc is weak against them).

This team probably won 50% or so, out of 30+ battles. I wasn't keeping track, but that feels about right (at one point I split a handful with a valk/ruby droplet/lil' bling team, which looked so fun I had to try it out for a while). The good thing is that the spectral porc was the funnest part of this team. Unfortunately, I think spectral spine really only has a 25% chance to blind, not the 50% listed. Fortunately, if spectral spine blinded my opponent, I was virtually guaranteed a win. So that was fun :twisted: Also, powerball really builds up fast. I out sped everything pretty quick. Very fun.

I highly recommend checking this guy out, just make sure you cover mechanicals, and try to have some healing and/or avoidance teamed with him.

Vek, I'd like to see your Perky Pug perk up a bit. Throw the dog a bone and let him fight--just don't change your name to Vick.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 15th, 2014, 2:57 pm

Cute little Purky Pug a pet hard to avoid unless you really shy away from random dungeons. Also don’t forget you can buy costumes for it on Timless Isle. Slightly below average health with 1319, quite powerful at 322 power, and still slightly above average speed 273.

With 322 power Bite will actually hit for 342 making it more useful than usual. Though for once with only 1319 starting health it might be worth it with Comeback. One thing that works against Comeback is of course the heal options in the second slot. Another strange thing is that Perk Up and Buried Treasure both are on a 3 turn cooldown, but Perk Up heals for more and adds bonus health to maximum health. I just don’t get what kind of choice is that? Ok, if I go with Sunlight then 25% Buried Treasure might out preform Perk Up, I dunno. Last slot is a no brainer for me, avoidance with a shot at a strong hit with Burrow versus under performing Trample, Burrow it is.

I brought along a P/P Ravager Hatchling, S/S Quiraji Guardling. First fight i faced a team I ran into a couple of days ago, Alemental, Valkyr and DAH. Alemental can be very irritating with the -25% to hit, and topping that of with a DAH. Well after the Alemental was gone sadly my best defence, the slow from the ravager, had too little health left so the DAH did it’s magic. Gonna be one of those evenings? Change Ravager for Mongoose Pup. Got the same team. After the Mongoose Pup ate the DAH and was begging for seconds against the Alemental my opponent fled the field. Bah.

Next up was a Fel Flame, Clockwork Gnome and Mr Bigglesworth. I don’t know but it seems like the amount of people in my battle group that does Pet Battle PvP is getting smaller, only run into old “friends”. Well this guy really wants to use Ice Tomb and I know the Fel Flame wants to Conflagrate. Too bad for him my team had some perfect counters. Sandstorm pretty much nullified the turrets, the two dots from the Fel Flame(hardly needed it since they do so little damage on the Perky Pug). Both the Pup and Pug had avoidance to get out of the way of the Ice Tomb, but for the Pug I didn’t even care to do that(Ice Tomb can’t stun the critter and does so little damage against them as well). Solid win, all three pets got to shine.

Battle three, another old enemy. Pandaren Water Spirit, Ghostly Skull and I think it was Onyxia Whelpling. I know this guy usually wants to use his whelping against any critters I bring. I started with the Perky Pug anyway since this it it’s story. Water spirit in, Comeback vs Geyser. Water Jet vs Comeback(it actually hit twice this time, yay). Healing Wave vs Comeback. Water Jet vs Burrow to avoid Geyser. Now I had about 500 health and was looking forward to a couple of turns of double hits from Comeback, or perhaps just Perk Up. But he fled. Sigh, no fun.

Finally some new blood. Next fled at sight, my Guardling would counter his banana rain and his celestial dragon, go figure. Next, Bombling, Sunreaver, Custodian, interesting…got a draw in the end. Could probably have won if paid a little more attention, or not missed that crush when bombing did armageddon(or the stun in the turn before, own fault due to sandstorm), starting to get silly with all people leaving. Got a rematch next fight, won solid with Perky Pug last pet standing.

Fast forward 5 games. Total this evening, 9 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses. Most fun was against two Tiny Snowman(no magic hat apparently) and a Kun-Lai runt, all damage was weak against Perky Pug and they couldn’t stun(deep freeze hits for about 200, lol).

All in all perky pug is a very useful critter, not many people use beasts it seems now that direhorns are “hard” to use(except that one guy in my battle group that runs two, grr). The heal is very nice and heals for a lot, but I think I’d rather have crouch instead. Comeback, this skill is pure crap. The bonus hit almost never applies, and does not go well with the heal or with itself even since after bonus damage has been applied one turn you often are on a level playing field but you now have a sub-par attack that is tuned to you having lower health. This skill is pure crap. Had one fight where I had one up against a Darkmoon Zep, but I just could not finish it since Comeback is so weak.

It’s a very cute pet and can do some work, but there are more useful and similar critters out there. Does anyone know if the costumes show during pvp battles?

Tuatha, time for another "tiny", Tiny Bog Beast.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Celya » March 16th, 2014, 6:11 pm

Vek wrote: Celya, I'll give you an "easy" one then. Dread Hatchling. ;)
Ah, and it was an easy one since by the time I read this post I had already played a bunch of fights with this pet. Unfortunately didn't make notes, but remember enough general impressions to give a review, I think 8-) The [pet]Dread Hatchling[/pet] got some negative commentary when it was first announced (and maybe still, I don't know, not been on the official forums lately). Sure, one moveset is very similar to a [pet]Crow[/pet], with [ability]Peck[/ability], [ability]Call Darkness[/ability] and [ability]Nocturnal Strike[/ability]. If you want to use him this way, with 337 power he should hit very hard for a flyer indeed.

I didn't really go for that moveset, though. I already have a Crow, and I felt that while powerful that would not be something new to try. The second option I considered was the Stitched Pup/Unborn Val'kyr style team, where the Hatchling would use [ability]Consume Corpse[/ability] instead of Call Darkness and (hopefully) get multiple heals off in one fight. I didn't try that either, since... I just ... couldn't... play... with a Valkyr... I just couldnt! When every other team you fight (if not more) has one pet, it really puts you off using that pet regardless of how strong it is.

So I went with option nr 3: [ability]Anzu's Blessing[/ability] in the 3rd slot, buffing my [ability]Shadow Talon[/ability] and making sure I don't miss under Ca[ability]ll Darkness[/ability]. The Blessing is a team buff, and I thought it should be really interesting to play around with that.

First team was a Darkness team, with my regular [pet]Crow[/pet] and [pet]Scourged Whelpling[/pet]. This team won 3-0, despite me forgetting that the heal from [ability]Plagued Blood[/ability] would be reduced under Darkness. I did face some odd pet combinations, though. Next game I lost to a Valk team (don't remember his teammates) despite Haunt missing twice under Darkness. I then dropped the crow and grabbed my [pet]Emperor Crab[/pet] and won two more games.

Tried the Hatchling/Whelpling with a [pet]Spineclaw Crab[/pet] for variety, and got matched with my first weather-changing opponent (Lightning). Decided not to use Darkness, and instead used the Whelpling's [ability]Tail Sweep[/ability] and Plagued Blood to good effect - that was a lot of damage under lightning!

Fine, Darkness teams work (d'oh). Decided to try a variation of the Clonedancer concept, to see if Anzu's Blessing (a team buff) buffs Cyclone in the same way the Jademist's [ability]Rain Dance[/ability] does. Got matched with some opponents who were smarter than me and to be honest it didn't look to me like it was working in the same way. That's probably a good thing, since 4 turns would probably be way too overpowered.

All in all, the Hatchling turned out to be fun to play. He feels rather squishy, though, 1420 HP with no defensive moves, and once he loses the flyer racial he is really just a sitting duck (crow?). And apart from the Darkness teams, I've really had mixed success with him in pvp.

Vek, I believe you've battled with a lot of critter and beast type pets the last couple of times, so I really looked at your pets for something in a different family (one of these days we're gonna run out of options!). Take [pet]Lumpy[/pet] out for a spin!

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 17th, 2014, 5:51 am

A change of pace, nice. Lumpy is the fastes of the three "rock" elementals with the same ability setup. All three are very powerful against mechanicals, of course, with the double bonus of strong attacks and taking weak damage. I wanted to try something I usually don't run with, rather newly buffed Quake. These elementals can make you cooldown locked if you are not careful about chosing your abilities and how you use them. I went with Stone Shot, Rupture and Quake.

Quake on the other hand is a mechanical attack and as such is strong against beasts instead. This was quite useful when running into double DAH, and was also quite fun almost destroying Xu-Fu in backline(well it did destroy Xu-Fu when it switched in). I also found it useful when running into a Darkmoon Zeppeline with it's Decoy. After about 10 fights I switch to the to me more familiar Rock Barrage, and this really destroys mechanicals, decoys and so on. Aquatics are very rare, didn't even run into any Jademist Dancers today, so there were never any worry about facing strong attacks.

All in all I got slightly above 60% wins, it was a quite horrible morning with lots of 3 DAH, Val'kyrs with Birds or critter eating Fossilized Hatchlings(Voodoo Figurine earned it's keep today I must say, also had fun with Vengeful Porcupette against the DAH's). But still went ok. Lumpy truly destroyed the mechs I did face, Zeppeline and Blackfuse Bombling. Didn't have much luck with stuns from Rapture, but it still hurts alot so it's not a wasted move. Lumpy is a solid elemental and I think I prefer the 273 speed to the much slower Pebbles and Grinder, but both these have higher much larger health pools. I have faced Pebbles on occasion and in a good players hand it can be truly annoying to try and kill that 1969(!) health.

Celya lets see if your Wild Crimson Hatchling is good for anything.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Celya » March 17th, 2014, 2:59 pm

I had one of those nights where I either got matched against the same person for every fight, or different people on my meta decided to just run tonight with the "strong pets". That's kind of a double-edged sword when you're trying out new and fun combinations: sometimes you get eaten alive, sometimes you find surprisingly fun counters to fotm teams.

The [pet]Wild Crimson Hatchling[/pet] is a S/S breed only, which means [ability]Tail Sweep[/ability] as an option for the first slot really confuses me - how often are you going to get that extra hit with 325 speed? I went with [ability]Breath[/ability] instead, together with [ability]Healing Flame[/ability] and [ability]Lift-Off[/ability].

For my first team I paired him with the [pet]Baby Ape[/pet] and [pet]Dandelion Frolicker[/pet] - no real synergy, just because I like those pets. Faced a Mech Pandaren Dragonling/Water Spirit/Sinister Squash and won. Faced a Valk/DAH/Crow twice, and lost - both really close though, both came down to a one vs one and a "if he missed the last blow I would've won" type situation.

Dropped the Ape for my newly-leveled [pet]Darkmoon Tonk[/pet], faced a XuFu/Idol/Raven team and lost. Decided I like my [pet]Warbot[/pet] better, and dropped the Tonk again. Faced the Valk/DAH/Crow team twice again (same guy, since pets had same names) and won twice in a row. Forgot the Dragonkin takes extra damage from [ability]Call Darkness[/ability], but since my opponent missed a lot under his own weather effect things evened out in my favour.

Fun fact, referring to my previous post about the [pet]Dandelion Frolicker[/pet]: if your opponent goes with the typical Valk opener (CoD then Haunt), the Frolicker is a nice counter: since you're faster, [ability]Kick[/ability] always interupts, [ability]Scratch[/ability] does extra damage against undead, and [ability]Barkskin[/ability] reduces the damage from [ability]Haunt[/ability]. If, however, your opponent has recently made that mistake against your Frolicker, and in the second match decides to spam either of his first slot abilities, the Frolicker goes down very very quickly!

Played a couple more variations on the same theme, won some, lost some, pretty much 50-50 (above average for me :D ). The damage mitigation from Lift-Off came in really useful on several occasions, as did the heal. I then switched abilities to try a [ability]Scorched Earth[/ability] team: added my [pet]Pandaren Fire Spirit[/pet] and my [pet]Fel Flame[/pet].

Of course my first opponent had a moth who sleeped me, and a critter who was taking reduced damage from my elemental attacks. I won, but it was really close. Second opponent had a Fox/Moth/Mountain Panda team, and I was either outplayed or out-RNGd but I lost really close again.

Dropped the Fel Flame for a [pet]Jademist Dancer[/pet], won one, lost one, decided I didn't like two elementals in one team. Went back to the Baby Ape and added [pet]Bonkers[/pet]. First matchup was a Fossilized Hatchling/Creepy Crate/Lil Xt team, I took out the Hatchling and the mech really easy but ended up being chomped by the Crate (maybe I should level my own one of these days!).

Faced a Crawdad/Rabbit/Mech Panda twice. The Ape was really the star of the show - clobbering the Crawdad and bringing down the decoys with his bananas. Lost once, close again, and won the next time when I played a bit better. In this team the Hatchling didn't feel like it was bringing much - [ability]Deep Breath[/ability] got avoided and he died before getting a heal off in both fights.

Ultimately I don't think the [pet]Wild Crimson Hatchling[/pet] is a bad pet for pvp, but neither is he very great. Magic pets aren't common in pvp, so you can't count on extra damage from his basic attack. He is fast enough to use [ability]Lift-Off[/ability] and [ability]Healing Flame[/ability] effectively against a lot of pets, but once you've done that he feels a bit lacklustre to me. I had a lot of close losses tonight, and it's hard not to feel that a stronger hit might have given me a win in several cases instead.

Vek, I have my eye on a [pet]Ji-Kun Hatchling[/pet] in the ah. I want him for the collection, of course, but is he worth trying out for pvp?

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Harpua » March 19th, 2014, 6:08 am

So my last assignment was [pet]Harpy Youngling[/pet]. This was the first one of those pets that I collected. By that I mean that it took a very long time for a rare to drop. I used to shuttle back and forth between the Dry Hills and other parts of the Barrens looking for [pet]Cheetah Cub[/pet] at the same time. I finally gave up on both. Ended up getting the Cub in the Southern Barrens (at level 10) and the Harpy finally dropped weeks later when I was doing the Battlefield Barrens stuff.

It was also one of those pets in the sense that I was really disappointed when I finally leveled it, I was looking for a dragon killer and this isn't it.

So the Harpy Youngling is a Humanoid with strong Flying attacks. Mine happens to be the H/B version. Interestingly, it is also a male, which seems kind of weird.

First slot is either [ability]Quills[/ability] or [ability]Slicing Wind[/ability]. I chose SW because it's not really fast enough to get the extra attack from Quills. Kind of a wash either way.

Second slot is [ability]Flyby[/ability] versus [ability]Counterstrike[/ability]. Since Counterstrike is the only true Humanoid attack you get, might as well take that. Besides, Flyby doesn't look that impressive. The problem here is that CS gives an extra attack if you hit last and it's strong against dragonkin. But the chance you'll be slower than a dragon is very small.

Third attack is [ability]Squawk[/ability] vs [ability]Lift-Off[/ability]. Squawk gives meager damage and the debuff isn't enough to persuade me to use it. I like Lift-Off because it gives you a chance to avoid an attack. That 80% hit chance feels more like an 80% miss chance sometimes.

I don't remember the first team I put together, but the first battle was a walkover. Just happened to have the perfect counters against that team. We then proceeded to lose 5 or 6 straight so I had to rethink things.

I tried the Harpy with [pet]Lil' K.T.[/pet] and [pet]Lil' X.T.[/pet]. Had mediocre results.

Switched to the [pet]Blighthawk[/pet] and [pet]Jubling[/pet]. Did better, but still wasn't feeling any synergy.

Finally knuckled down and started seriously battling with it. I ran into a string of blizzard teams, so I pulled out the [pet]Crow[/pet] and [pet]Ghostly Skull[/pet]. That team did really well as the darkness team outplayed the blizzard. Still I was reacting to what other players do.

Ultimately, I realized why pets like these don't get used that often. It's not that they aren't useful. It's just that you have a lot of better choices. Humanoids are strong against Dragonkin, but the Harpy's only Humanoid attack is gimped because you are rarely slower than a dragon. Being strong against Aquatics is nice, but I'm probably better off taking a Crow or a Moth. And if I'm fighting Dragons, it's not a good choice at all. It's also in that nether area where it's not fast enough or powerful enough to be really useful. It's just kind of a mediocre pet. Which makes me really wonder why I spent so much time trying to catch it.

Celya, how about resurrecting the [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet]

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Awq » March 19th, 2014, 8:17 am

Harpua, I hope that you are not afraid of bugs. Because I want you to battle with that Effervescent Glowfly!

I was given the Spirit of Competition. It was level 1. The pet did not appeal to me whatsoever. I leveled it to 24 and took it for some pvp matches.

The first comp that I wanted to try was: Val'Kyr (1-2-1), Qiraji Guardling (1-2-2), Spirit of Competition (1-1-1)

Jungle Grub, Rapana Whelk, Silkbead snail.
Win. I assumed an easy win, so I took many risks to speed it up. I was hoping that he would play a slow snail. So I opened with the Val'Kyr. He played the Grub. I put on an Haunt and tried to kill the Grub with my Spirit of Competition. I got pressured quite badly and was forced to use lift off early.
He had saved burrow. while this put me behind I could just slowly go though cool down to win this match, because the Grub was low enough to kill on my Qiraji. Spirit of Competition was faster than the snail with Dive. Once I realized that a snail had Headbutt I could just CoD+Haunt it. I played this badly, but I still won.

Creep Crate, Lil Tarecgosa, Fossilized Hatchling
Loss. I managed to take out the Creepy Crate while it did not do much harm to my team. I had to take many risks. LIl Tarecgosa screwed over my strategy. Crush missed. Arcane Winds made me unable to stun. I assumed that it had breath. I was planning to eat an dragon empowered nuke on my Val'Kyr but it crit for 1150. Else it would have been a much closer match! I played this very badly, because I panicked and could not see an easy win. I should have tried to lock Lil Tarecgosa out of the battle with my Qiraji.

Val'Kyr, Kun-Lai Runt, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
Win. Opened with Qiraji. He opened with Mechanical Pandaren. I tanked him until he had 1 decoy up and was half HP. I put in the Val'Kyr to kill it once Sandstorm would not ruin my Haunt. 3vs2. I could just finish it. Ideally I should have sacrificed my Spirit of Comp, but I used it to bring the Val'Kyr low. Relatively easy win.

Creepy Crate, Lil Tarecgosa, Fossilized Hatchling
Win. Revenge. I should not have won. I managed to kill the crate. Killed Tarecgosa while it was unable to do anything. Spirit of Competition was useful here against both the Crate and the Fossilized Hatchling.

Val'Lyr, Chrominius, Spawn of Onyxia
Win. Very tough match-up. Spawn of Onyxia had higher speed and was a superior version of my Spirit of Competition. It is almost a copy, but better suited for these type of teams. I brought in Qiraji Guardling against his Val'Kyr. Stun+Sandstorm. I knew that if I could get an half HP Valk and a Qiraji Guardling versus the 2 dragons that I would win. 2 of my 3 pets were weak against undead. 2 of my 3 pets were strong against dragons. So I went full out on Val'Kyr to get it as low as possible with a way early Lift-Off to prevent Haunt.I did not feel like saving it for CoD, because Spawn of Onyxia > Spirit of Competition. I got CoD+Haunt+Howl on my dragon, but this gave me the win.

This last match was a reality check. Spawn of Onyxia would have been a far superior choice for my team. 4-1 is not bad, but it was time to rebuild my team. While the team would give me decent wins, other pets would be superior. Spirit of Comp was being carried.

So I tried completely random comps. I assumed that Spirit of Comp is best as a stand-alone pet. It does not have any amazing synergy with other pets, for so far as I could tell. I could have built teams that cover each other weaknesses and have a variety of abilities. I however preferred pure random comps.

*Eye of the Legion, Skunky Alemental, Spirit of Competition
L Magical Crawdad, Val'Kyr, Death Adder Hatchling
W Anodised Robo Cub, Eternal Strider, Harbinger of Flame
L Infinite Whelpling (sleeps)
W Crawling Claw, Darkmoon Monkey, Lil Ragnaros
W Bonkers, Voodoo Figurine, Death Adder Hatchling
*Savory Beetle, Gregarious Grell, Spirit of Competition
W Emerald Proto Drake, Scourged Whelp, Lil Ragnaros
L Corefire Imp x3
L Magical Crawdad, Val'Kyr, Death Adder Hatchling
*Savory beetle, Molten hatchling, Spirit of Competition
L Crawling Claw, Darkmoon Monkey, Lil Ragnaros
L Fossilized Hatchling x2, Creepy Crate
L Murkalot, Alterac Brew, Val'Kyr
*Yu'La, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, Spirit of Competition
L Bonkers, Fiendish Imp, Death Adder Hatchling
L Chuck, Qiraji Guardling, Scourched Earthling
D Chuck, Qiraji Guardling, Scourched Earthling
L Anubisath idol x3
L Val'Kyr, Death Adder Hatchling, Swamp Croaker
W Moth x3
*Vengeful Porcupette, Darkmoon Tonk, Spirit of Competition
W Death Adder Hatchling x2, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
L Fiendish Imp x3
W Fiendish Imp x3
L Fiendish Imp, Val'Kyr, Stitched Pup
*Tito, jademist Dancer, Spirit of Competition
W Wild Gold Hatchling, Lil' Bling, Clockwork Gnome
L Murkalot, Tundra Penguin, Ruby Droplet
W Lunar Lantern, Voidcaller, Sapphire Cub
W Wild Gold Hatchling, Lil' Bling, Clockwork Gnome
W Val'Kyr, Kun-Lai Runt, Spawn of G'natus
W Val'Kyr, Kun-Lai Runt, Spawn of G'natus
*Emperor Crab, Yu'La, Spirit of Competition
L Val'Kyr, Kun-Lai Runt, Spawn of G'natus
*Emperor Crab, Spectral Porcupette, Spirit of Competition
W Ashwing Moth x3
W Clockwork Gnome, Tiny Goldfish, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
W Lil'Ragnaros, Death Adder Hatchling, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
W Creepy Crate, Darkmoon Tonk, Fox Kit
W Clockwork Gnome, Tiny Goldfish, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
*Curious Wolvar Pup, Fel Flame, Spirit of Competition (1-1-2)
W Creepy Crate, Darkmoon Tonk, Untamed Hatchling
W Clockwork Gnome, Tiny Goldfish, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
L Stunted Direhorn, Scourged Whelping, Harbinger of Flame
W Murkalot, Death Adder Hatchling, Son of Animus
W Murkalot, Death Adder Hatchling, Son of Animus

I wrote down 15 more match-ups, but I could not find the piece of paper. I tried some random teams and my triple dragon team during these lost matches. My triple dragon team performed better than the one recorded, although it still was not decent.

Spirit of Competition was the weak link in most teams that I played. It is really slow. Its move set has little synergy with other pets (I could not find any great combos at least). I often used Spirit of Competition as a sacrificial pet, although it was situationally useful. It has few defenses and can be easily be killed by most pets. It does have the dragon racial, which can be dangerous. Spirit of Competition worked best as a sacrificial pet or as a stand-alone pet.

Spirit of Competition works well when you give it a 50% damage reduction through Celestial Blessing. It can carry its weight against anything with this damage reduction. The Dragon racial had more up-time. The heal became more effective.
I used a themed 'dragon team'. Most humanoids will have an easy time against x3 dragons. I sadly encountered humanoids in most of fights. It's not strong, but I liked it when it actually worked.

Spirit of Competition did well against magic pets and pets with flying attacks, as expected. I I really noticed the effectiveness of the heal when the dragon took lower damage. Lift Off is useful against moths that do not save Cocoon Strike. It did reasonable well against magic pets.

I have tried (1-1-2) as well. in combination with a Fel Flame . Spirit of Competition did decent without Lift-Off. The elemental attack creates diversity, Undeads do not counter it as much. I prefer Lift-Off as a move. There has not been much synergy between this pet & Fel Flame.

Spirit of Competition performed best in combination with 2 good stand alone pets. Celestial Defense was my preferred play style. I can not recommend Spirit of Competition.

Please assign me any BoE pet (under 20k) or wild pet.

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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 19th, 2014, 4:32 pm

Ji-Kun Hatchling. Blizzard really made this in the image of the boss with Winds, Goo and Caw. The two breeds that is available are very similar, I got the B/B one so I lose 13 power(which I would rather have) for miniscule boosts in health and speed(perhaps the odd 292 speed will come in handy after losing flying racial and facing 289 speed pets... maybe). Ji-Kun Hatchling has no abilities that benefit from speed so that is one thing less to consider.

First slot. Slicing Wind, 1-3 hits at 140 damage, vs Peck 1 hit at 280. The only reason for me to take Slicing Wind would be to gamble or to pair it up with a damage per hit boost(like lightning or black claw, perhaps not such a bad idea). I would probably just get the one hit and do half damage instead, also slicing wind is worse off against shell type abilites. Playing it safe I picked Peck. Wild Winds vs Acidic Goo is a bit interesting choice. But I would start out with Acidic Goo to get a different damage type and it would also boost my weak Peck. Lastly I would definetly go with Flock anyday but I needed to try Caw. Just looking at the ability it seems like the worst ability since unbuffec Hawk Eye. 50% bonus to Crit chance for 2(!) rounds, with a 4 round cooldown.. wow... that is just...crap. Just for comparison, recently buffed Adrenal Glands is 50% bonus to crit chance for 5 rounds with no cooldown, and Hawk Eye is now 75% bonus to crit chance for 3 rounds also no cooldown. Ji-Kun must be mighty powerful for Caw to be so restricted, lol. Best I can hope for is that when I cast Caw the ability will say something different from what the ability actually says.

So the plan is to Acidic Goo then Caw and finish off with two turns of Peck. Lets see where that lands. My guess is that I will change abilities after a couple of battles. First couple of fights were up against Dread Hatchling, Crow, Raven, must have been some serious thought going into that one. Well first fight was over before it even started. Turn one, Dread Hatchling Call Darkness, my Voodoo Figurine miss Flamebreath. Turn two, Nocturnal Strike crit for over 1000. So that is one dead Voodoo Figurine in two turns. How are you supposed to work with that? Thats not even "strong" attacks, what a waste. Anyway I took him down two times after. Ji-Kun did quite well. After I had already done slight aoe to the backline pets Ji-Kun could in one game Peck down one Crow and in the next game it Pecked down the Dread Hatchling. This was just by being faster than these birds.

After a couple of more games Ji-Kun really started having trouble pulling it's own weight. Caw is pure crap. Peck really needs Acidic Goo to make a dent, else it hits for below 300, so sad. I tried switching abilites to Flock and Wild Winds, not much of an improvement. Flock was as useful as a Stampede, so if your opponent leaves it's debuffed pet in you can do some damage, but I faced a Bandicoon and it had Spiked Skin so it ate up poor Ji-Kun Hatchling(oh the shame).

My advice would be to leave the poor bird in it's nest, unless you run into some weak aquatics.

Awq, go eat something with an old favourite of mine Scalded Basilisk Hatchling.

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Duroxas
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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Duroxas » March 23rd, 2014, 8:18 pm

Woo, it took a while to get this done, but I've used the Emerald Turtle I've been given!

I decided to go through the effort of waiting untill I got another aquatic battle stone so I could pick up an H/H version of the turtle because holy hot damn, that's a lot of health. Once I did, I decided to give it a try on a moonlight team! Take advantage of that sneaky magic damage

Nexus -Nether Faerie Dragon (H/P) Arcane Blast, Evanescence, Moonfire
Fell From Tree - Infected Squirrel (P/B) Stampede, Creeping Fungus, Consume
Healthy Turtle - Emerald Turtle(H/H) Emerald Bite, Shell Shield, Headbutt

I don't know if my timing to actually start the battles could have been any better, what with the influx of dread ravens and darkness teams loaded with ravens. The Infected Squirrel has definitely been the star of the show more than a few times, leaving Mr Turtle to kick back a lot, but he's WONDERFUL when it comes to soaking up Val'kyr.

I'm sorry the post isn't as in-depth as it ought to be, but I'm in a hurry :(

Just a little bit ago, I ate a crow with my turtle's emerald bite. That's the 3rd one so far >;3

Vek, show us how to use a Ruby Sapling!

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Celya
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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Celya » March 24th, 2014, 9:23 am

I'm way overdue on reporting about the [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet], but, truth is, I had just been enjoying it so much I didn't get around to posting! :D I leveled him to 25 back when I was powerleveling pets to start doing the tourney with, and just never got around to using him much - until now.

Mine is a H/H breed with a whopping 1887 health, 292 power and 195 speed; the H/S comes with 1709 health, also 292 power and 224 speed. Since 224 is still pretty low, I think the H/H is probably the best breed to go with anyway.

I started off using [ability]Snap[/ability], [ability]Whirlpool[/ability] and [ability]Shell Shield[/ability]. Teamed him up with [pet]Chi-Chi, Hatchling of Chi-Ji[/pet] and [ability]Baby Ape[/ability]. This team went 3-0, and the Crab totally blew my mind with its awesome tankiness TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND WITH ITS AWESOME TANKINESS.

Thought about using rain-buffed Surge and teamed him with an [pet]Eternal Strider[/pet] for [ability]Cleansing Rain[/ability] and a [pet]Hopling[/pet] (when I have trouble picking third pets for a team, I just use random pets I like). This team went 1-2, but the Crab was still pretty awesome. Surge hits for a bit more under the rain, but once you lose the weather effect it hits pretty meh again. I didn't really face any pets that benefit from being faster, so that might be part of why it didn't work well for me in these fights. I also really missed having Whirlpool.

I tried using Snap, Surge and Shell Shield next, teaming him with my [pet]Dandelion Frolicker[/pet] and [pet]Pandaren Earth Spirit[/pet]. This team was pretty fun for some inexplicable reason - won 2, lost 1. I still really missed Whirlpool.

Decided to drop Snap for [ability]Amplify Magic[/ability], and went with Surge for a spammable attack. Paired him with his first teammates again, Chi-Chi and the Ape. Won 3 battles in a row - but this is misleading, since twice my opponent forfeited at the start of the match. In the third battle the amplified Surge hit for around 340-350, which really isn't bad.

Went back to using Snap and Whirlpool, and decided to try out [ability]Rot[/ability] in the third slot. This was a hard choice, since the shield is part of what makes the crab such a lovely meatshield. But in the spirit of the thread I wanted to try out alternatives, so I closed my eyes and just did it. Paired him with an [pet]Infected Squirrel[/pet] using Stampede/Creeping Fungus/Consume, and a [pet]Carrion Rat[/pet] with Scratch/Flurry/Stampede.

This team won 1, lost 1 and drew 1 match. Rot can be a fun mechanic to use, and none of my opponents ever switched out a pet who was changed, so I was able to do a LOT of damage with all my anti-undead moves. This last team felt like it lacked a bit of punch, but that was more likely to be due to the teammates than to the Crab.

All in all, seriously solid pvp pet. Do try it out if you haven't yet!

Duroxas, show me the magic of the [pet]Sea Pony[/pet]!

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Vek
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Re: Battle with that pet

Post by Vek » March 25th, 2014, 5:31 pm

Ruby Sapling kind of calls for sunshine to shine, not my favourite weather. Lets try Sunfur Panda and Chi-Chi.

Of course I run into Blossoming Ancient, Ruby Droplet and a Valk. Good thing my panda eats valkyrs. Lovely stalemate with the Ancient and the Sapling. But still after the Valk was gone and Chi-Chi started to put the hurt on the Ancient my opponent fled.

Lost against a Inspired Blackfuse.

Ruby Droplet was pretty useful against a double snowman, runt team. He wanted to have blizzard up, I countered a bit with Sunlight. But best part was the Droplet not being chilled by the blizzard and he didn’t have any way other way to chill it.

Got a few more fights done. Ruby droplet did ok, but of course it’s strengths is in Sunlight + Photosynthesis with Ironbark shield. And it is, as all elementals, nice to use against mechanicals. Still feels a bit like a poor mans Blossoming Ancient, since the Ancient brings it’s own sunlight. If you skip Sunlight you can do Entangling Roots instead, does a bit more damage but not really worth it. And Thorns are of course mostly useful against multi hit attacks.

I might use it someday, but not really the play style I prefer.

Celya here is your new assignment. Unleash your Terrible Turnip, just don’t try and capture your opponent.

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