WoD pet news speculation and datamined

[GilroyKilroy]

For Carrotus I used

[pet]Pandaren Water Spirit[/pet]
[ability]Geyser[/ability] then [ability]Whirlpool[/ability]

switch to

[pet]Chrominius[/pet]
[ability]Howl[/ability]

switch to

[pet]Dancing Water Skimmer[/pet]
[ability]Pump[/ability] till dead

[Dakender]

Well, all of the toons were wiped from Beta so I'm starting out anew. Grovestrider Hatchling has been removed and replaced with Teroclaw Hatchling. Same abilities but different name.

One good thing about the wipe, if you had got any of the new pets in the previous builds they are still in your pet journal

Really? It wiped all of my WoD pets.

Now I need to level up and try to get the other pets. I've got a macro that does coordinates so I'm going to try to log spots with coords.

I have to take back what I said earlier, after the last build I still had all the new pets, but for some reason, I logged on today and they are all gone, so looks like yes, it was a complete wipe for most the new pets if you had got them on the beta in previous version...

ALSO, DON"T really need to level up your toon, just join the LEVEL 100 PVE server, that is where the guild is, you will already be lvl 100 and just go out and get the pets again, and some new ones.

[Quintessence]

We'll be getting a new (and better) trap in WoD.

"Draenic Trap is granted from tier 2 of the pet menagerie." - [url=https://twitter.com/TheCrafticus/status/493464455749963776]LeCraft[/url]

([url=http://wod.wowhead.com/petability=1368]Draenic Trap[/url])

[Dakender]

Day 3 at my garrison menagerie: Grubbles, Scrags and Stings (all legendary).

I must have missed a few days Mine went straight to day 3 pets you have here. Will see what tomorrow brings. Wondering if maybe diff days has diff set of pets maybe? 3 Zandalari's worked for me here

[Quintessence]

Day 4 (post-wipe) at my garrison menagerie: Rockbiter, Stonechewer and Acidtooth(all legendary)



No team-wide buff.

These pets are much smarter than previous teams. They don't override their existing buffs by recasting the same ability, and they deal decent damage.

Rockbiter thinks he's an elemental and makes sure he has [ability]Nature's Ward[/ability] up almost all the time. Stonechewer keeps up [url=http://wod.wowhead.com/petability=1380]Shell Armor[/url] which is a really nice damage shield. And Acidtooth keeps up [ability]Spiny Carapace[/ability]. All three pets are pretty annoying to battle against in my opinion.

I did manage to defeat them, but I had to go through a bunch of different pets to settle on a team that actually stood a chance.

In the end I went with an [pet]Eternal Strider[/pet] (P/S 1,1,2), [pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet] (P/S 2,2,2) and [pet]Willy [/pet](1, 1, 2)

The strider absolutely crushed Rockbiter, who used his abilities fairly predictably. The kneebiter got in a few nice hits with Black Claw + Hunting Party before Stonechewer put his OP shield up. Stonechewer ended up killing himself on my pet though. And I defeated Acidtooth with Black Claw + Rot. I suppose any undead attack would have sufficed with Black Claw up, but I thought he would require more hits and was prepared to go with Tongue Lash if need be.

I'm really REALLY hoping someone comes up with a more solid strategy to go against today's team, because by the end of trying out different ideas I was pretty fed up with these silly goren. (You're not an elemental! You're humanoid, get it right! ;P)

Some notes: Attempting to change the family type of the first pet (Rockbiter) makes the battle go all weird. He retains his Nature's Ward buff, but also gains the Rot buff. He doesn't turn into an undead (OR elemental) like you'd expect though. Instead he reverts back to humanoid. I've inquired on Twitter if this is a bug, or if perhaps it's intended that having both family changing abilities cancels each other out, leaving the pet with no effect at all.

[Quintessence]

Day 6 (day 5 was the same as a previously mentioned battle): Kromli and Gromli (their models are still WIP)



No team-wide buff despite there being only two opponents. Their humanoid passive (self-heal) was enough IMO.

I'll try to keep this as short as possible since I'm sure my long-winded recounts of these daily challenges is getting annoying.

It's a decent challenge. Both pets hit hard and their humanoid passive heals them for a notable amount. Kind of predictable since both use their hardest hitting abilities as you would expect them to.

• Kromli - Always uses [ability]Rupture[/ability] first and then [ability]Dreadful Breath[/ability]. Only uses Dreadful Breath that one time. Seems to use Rupture as soon as it's off CD.

• Gromli - Always uses [ability]Stoneskin[/ability] first and then [ability]Haymaker[/ability]. Uses Haymaker as soon as it's off CD, unless Stoneskin falls off at which point he reapplies it before using Haymaker.

Consistently defeated these two using [pet]Ruby Droplet[/pet] (H/S 2,2,2) and [pet]Blighthawk[/pet] (P/S 1,1,1). Ruby Droplet is really tanky and worked well against Kromli, and even had enough health to take on a little bit of Gromli.

Even though it's better to be slow as undead, having both pets faster helped to avoid the large hits. Plus I wanted a second pet that used undead attacks, had an avoidance move of some sort (to avoid Haymaker as much as possible), and a self heal (because Gromli still hits hard with his basic attack). Blighthawk was the only one that satisfied all my conditions; that meant I needed my first pet to die in order to use the heal.

Maybe a H/H 1,?,2 Restless Shadeling could work too, but I didn't have one to test it out. Since Haymaker is predictable, you just need to time Phase Shift.

[Poofah]

I'll try to keep this as short as possible since I'm sure my long-winded recounts of these daily challenges is getting annoying.

Not at all -- I am enjoying the recounts of these fights and I don't know anywhere else to get them. I can see the pets' abilities on wowhead but the AI makes all the difference in how hard it is.

I'm genuinely impressed with how much effort they're putting into the garrison fights. They could have just let them use abilities randomly -- instead it seems like they're making reasonably tough scripted fights that require some strategy to beat. When breeding got scrapped I was really worried that pet battles would fall by the wayside in WoD but this is very reassuring.

[Dakender]

Maybe a H/H 1,?,2 Restless Shadeling could work too, but I didn't have one to test it out. Since Haymaker is predictable, you just need to time Phase Shift.

It worked for me. Ruby did the job on the first one, and had enough like you said to do some dmg to the second one. After Ruby died, brought in Restless Shadeling H/S 1,1,2 and battle was over with him still having 1404/1627 health. Didn't have an H/H, but I did like that little extra speed, I did get to go first.

[Kpb321]

I like the Lofty Libram for the fight. Doom, Shadow Shock, amp magic, Shadow shock x2 puts down a lot of damage.

Mr Wiggles actually works pretty well for the first guy too. Rupture is weak against him and can't stun him but Kromli is faster so I opened with Buried Treasure which basically puts you back at full health. Then hit uncanny luck. The +50% to hit and +25% to crit is really good. The hit past 100% increases your chance of getting a high hit on diseased bite so you always hit on the high end and have a good chance to crit. Just pounding away with Diseased Bite while the uncanny luck is up seemed to work best. I tried a couple times but didn't have any bandages so that slowed the retries down.

One quick note on Kromli is that his Comeback is actual hps not % so you are better off trying to wait on using Blood Drain on the Ruby droplet when he's low so he has less rounds with the additional hit after you do your big heal.

I tried a lantern against Gromli and it was pretty effective and kinda fun since it should always make haymaker miss he ends up stunning himself and Flash has the same CD so it's really easy to time. A lantern almost finished Kromli and soloed Gromli after my ruby droplet just failed to finish Kromli.

[Quintessence]

Day 7: Blingtron 4999b, Protectron 022481, Protectron 011803



Team-wide aura this time: Roboflauge

Being an all mech team, you'd think that an all elemental team would be great. And you'd be right, but only partially. The entire team has a bit of an identity crisis and thinks they're critters, so elemental attacks aren't very effective against them.

You'll still want to find some elementals to use IMO. All three have attacks that are weak against elementals. If you can find three pets that are elemental and do beast damage, you'll be set.

The fight is not as big of a challenge when compared to a couple of the previous ones.

Some things to note:

• Blingtron uses [ability]Armageddon[/ability] when he has roughly 25% hp (367 or less) left.
  
  Both Protectrons are pretty much the same, but with different names. Their move set is the same and they have the same AI (as far as I can tell). Both use [ability]Reflective Shield[/ability] first, but do not immediately refresh it when the buff falls off. They seem to use [ability]Ion Cannon[/ability] when they have roughly 25% hp or less left or if their mech racial (Failsafe) is triggered.

The three pets that I used that consistently won (I didn't really take note of breed, but I'll include them anyway):
[pet]Electrified Razortooth[/pet] (1,2,1), [pet]Skunky Alemental[/pet] (H/S 2,2,1), [pet]Core Hound Pup[/pet] (2,1,2)

I'm fairly certain you could beat the mech team with three Electrified Razortooths or something similar. The Core Hound Pup is NOT necessary at all and I threw it in there for fun, and having Howl was just a nice perk.

[Kpb321]

A Shale Hatchling (2/1/2) would probably do pretty well in the fight and the sapphire Cub was the other one that immediately sprang to mind for me.

[Saipan]

Hey folks-

Went up against Blingtron 4999b and his Protection buddies and was able to down them using:

Lil' Bad Wolf

Sunreaver Micro-Sentry

Lil' Bad Wolf

Sorry didn't keep track of my rotations but the key was using my avoidance abilities during their big crit hits. This held true especially for the last phase when timing of the dodge had to sync with the big hit, which allowed me to finish them off during the recovery phase. I will post the exact sequence the next time I fight them.

What really helped is I found a post that basically said treat them like critters to get the high damage you would need against them, thats why I went with the Lil" Bad Wolf, plus the dodge, pounce and claw.

Good Luck

[Quintessence]

Day 8 was the same team previously covered.
Day 9: Mr. Terrible, Carroteye, Sloppus



Mr. Terrible is kind of an interesting pet to battle against. [ability]Weakening Blow[/ability] is its main attack, so your pet will never really die taking direct hits from it. However, [ability]Spiked Skin[/ability] does become an issue if you only have one HP left heh.

Notes on Mr. Terrible:

• It uses [ability]Love Potion [/ability]when it has roughly 50% HP or less left.
• If it gets your pet down to on HP on Round 2, on Round 3 there's a high probability it will use Spiked Skin.

Notes on Carroteye:

• Normally uses [ability]Ironbark[/ability] first and follows up with a few more.
• It will use [ability]Aged Yolk [/ability]somewhat randomly (that I saw), even if there are no debuffs present. This removes its Ironbark buff, so it can be beneficial if your pet goes second since Carroteye might cleanse itself of the reduced damage shield first.

Notes on Sloppus:

• Uses [ability]Stench[/ability] first, then [ability]Chew [/ability]and [ability]Absorb[/ability]. It continues the Chew and Absorb rotation a few times, until it randomly tosses out Stench again.

Taking the above into consideration, my team consisted of a pet with [ability]Pump[/ability], a snail, and either the Emerald Proto-Whelp or Nexus Whelpling. Exact team that I used: [pet]Eternal Strider[/pet] (P/S 1,1,2), [pet]Shimmershell Snail[/pet] (H/P 1,2,1), [pet]Emerald Proto-Whelp[/pet] (P/P 1,1,1) or [pet]Nexus Whelpling[/pet] (P/P 2,1,1).

Ideally, if you can get Mr. Terrible's HP down to 50% or less on Round 2, he won't use Spiked Skin on the next round. This makes it possible to execute Pump twice, killing him on Round 4. If he uses Spiked Skin before you can get the second Pump off, you'll have to wait until it falls off before unleashing it because there's a high probability that he'll survive but you won't.

I let Carroteye claim my strider and then swapped in my snail. I think any snail could work; it's probably one of the ideal pets for this encounter.

I found Carroteye's AI odd because it would cleanse itself of debuffs, even though there were none present. Doing this also removed Ironbark which seemed...like a bad idea? Especially since my snail went second. You can imagine how great it feels to see that buff disappear just as your pet comes up from [ability]Dive[/ability]. BAM!

All in all, I don't know about Carroteye's moveset. Just seemed odd.

Last but not least, once Carroteye was down I immediately swapped to my dragon. I tried out both the Emerald Proto-Whelp and the Nexus Whelpling. Both did fine. The proto-whelp had more survivability with its avoidance and heal, but Stench was annoying because the misses were real. Nexus Whelpling has the potential to drop down to low HP towards the end of the fight, but its hits are guaranteed to hit since it can remove the accuracy debuff.

The Sloppus fight was just your standard battle, I guess. Nothing really to note other than avoid Chew if you can and Stench is annoying.

[Mykro9]

Awesome strats Q!

Any idea how many different teams there are total?

[Quintessence]

Any idea how many different teams there are total?

Currently there's a [url=http://wod.wowhead.com/petspecies?filter=cr=3:9;crs=2:1;crv=60001:0#petspecies]total of 44 "boss pets"[/url] listed for WoD, but keep in mind 3 of those will be from the new Darkmoon Faire battle and another 3 is from the garrison Menagerie quest. That still leaves 38 pets. We've seen 21 different pets in 8 different teams so far, so 17 pets are left to be distributed between teams consisting of 1-3 pets each.

My guess is that there will be more than 15 different challenges from the menagerie.

[Quintessence]

Day 10: The Beakinator



Despite this fight being a single pet battle, The Beakinator does not have the [url=http://wod.wowhead.com/petability=1089]Boss[/url] passive.

Notes:

• Uses [ability]Windup[/ability] first round, [ability]Heartbroken [/ability]second, and will randomly pick to unleash Windup or use [ability]Alpha Strike[/ability] on the third round.
• Seems to ALWAYS use Heartbroken after Windup.

The fight is straight forward. The [pet]Shimmering Wyrmling[/pet] or [pet]Mana Wyrmling[/pet] can [url=https://twitter.com/gloriaboboria/status/495975288275103745]solo the entire battle[/url] (both using the moveset 1,1,2). But really, any team of pets that's not aquatic or beast that has magic attacks will work. Just avoid hitting The Beakinator while he has the Heartbroken buff up, and avoid Windup if you can.

Simple. A little too simple and it's not much of a challenge compared to the other days.

Edit: Apparently a lot of pets can solo this one. I don't expect this encounter will go live without The Beakinator getting the Boss passive.

[Quintessence]

Day 11: Queen Floret and King Floret



No team-wide buff, but they don't really need one IMO.

I was pretty excited to see this team since [url=http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10835#p87105]Poofah mentioned[/url] to keep an eye on how hard [ability]Righteous Inspiration[/ability] + [url=http://wod.wowhead.com/petability=1343]Fist of the Forest[/url] hits. Let's just say, OUCH.

As far as I could tell, both pets used their abilities fairly randomly. The only constant that occurred was that they both used Fist of the Forest as their first move as soon as they stepped onto the battlefield. This meant that whenever Queen Floret used RI, FotF was incoming from King Floret immediately after. This combo does over 1k damage against unshielded pets, owww.

The first FotF executed by Queen Floret (has speed of 281) can be easily avoided with a pet that's faster and has an avoidance or block move. This first big hit isn't buffed with RI, so you shouldn't die right off the bat if your pet can't avoid it.

The second FotF WILL be buffed with RI, and since Queen Floret uses RI somewhat randomly, it may be hard to time a block/avoidance. Plus King will have 100% speed increase for that round he was swapped in (puts him at 544 speed). That makes it a bit more difficult to set up a block/avoidance against him.

I found that the majority of the time, Queen would use her RI on round 2, so using a faster pet with [ability]Bubble[/ability] helped immensely. My pet used Bubble round 1, Queen swapped out round 2. King stepped in, was faster, and FotF was incoming but my pet still had 1 charge of Bubble. Whew!

Note: There were some battles where Queen did not use RI on the second Round, and I had a hell of a time trying to predict when it would come up. Being unable to predict and plan for an RI + FotF didn't make or break my team, but it was annoying and usually one shot whichever pet I had out on the field.

Other than that initial RI + FotF, there isn't much to watch out for. They mainly use their main attacks, and throw in an unbuffed FotF at random. I never saw King use RI to swap again before death, but that just might have been good RNG for me.

The MVPs for this fight will probably be pets that have Bubble (it's such a good ability in almost all situations) and aquatic attacks against Queen and King. I'd say faster pets (prior to RI) may also have an advantage. Pets using [ability]Deflect[/ability] will also come in handy, although I don't think there are any current pets that use both Deflect and aquatic attacks unfortunately.

Team I used: Ruby Droplet (H/S 1,2,2), Spawn of G'nathus (1,1,1), and Swamp Croaker (B/B 1,1,2)

With good RNG, my Ruby Droplet was able to solo King and deal a decent amount of damage to Queen once she swapped back in. Once my droplet died, G'nathus was able to cleanly finish up the fight. In situations where bad RNG occurred (couldn't predict when Queen used RI and couldn't avoid King's buffed FotF, or my pets just took extra large hits/crits), having the third pet still allowed me to win.

This fight is kind of daunting at first. RI + FotF one shot one of my pets initially. Once you figure out how to avoid that initial combo, it gets significantly easier. It's not an impossible fight or nearly as complicated as it seems, and it feels rather good to dodge an attack that would otherwise one shot you heh. Was fun

[Flohsakk]

Worked really well, but I don't think the Ruby Droplet is a very common pet so I was looking for something else. I was successful with different teams of common pets but had a lot of problems to repeat the kills without wiping multiple times because of the very random use of Righteous Inspiration. While testing I stumbled upon the Rot ability and so I ended up with something probably unexpected:

Slot 1: [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet] ( [ability]Amplify Magic[/ability] | [ability]Whirlpool[/ability] | [ability]Rot[/ability] )
Slot 2: [pet]Summit Kid[/pet] ( [ability]Chew[/ability] | [ability]Comeback[/ability] | [ability]Stampede[/ability] )
Slot 3: [pet]Bucktooth Flapper[/pet] ( [ability]Tail Swap[/ability] | [ability]Survival[/ability] | [ability]Chew[/ability] )

Strategy:

The Spirit Crab starts with Whirlpool, then passes and boosts the damage with Amplify Magic in round 3 (maybe it's already dead then). If the crab is still alive until Whirlpool is off cooldown then use it a second time but keep in mind: Your undead extra round is for Rot! Bring in your Summit Kid and start with Chew and then Stampede. Usually the first opponent will die now and in best case the second is debuffed with Shattered Defenses. Don't use Stampede again! If your Summit Kid is still alive spam Comeback (boosted by your low HP) until it dies. The Bucktooth Flapper now finishes the opponent by spamming Tail Swap but be aware of the Fist cooldown and use Survival one round before it's off cooldown.

[Poofah]

I never saw King use RI to swap again before death, but that just might have been good RNG for me.

That's nice of him. I wonder if their RIs share a cooldown somehow, or he's programmed not to use it until later? That would be a good solution if so.

Worked really well, but I don't think the Ruby Droplet is a very common pet so I was looking for something else.

True, but the good news is there are several more pets with Bubble in WoD: 4 so far, and they all look like they'll be really good for this fight.

http://wod.wowhead.com/petability=934

So far it seems like there's enough diverse/creative strats that it won't be a problem.

[Bexak]

Sorry if this post is out of place in this thread, but I haven't seen it answered anywhere else, so thought I'd ask it here

Is there any information about whether the battlepet level cap will be increased from 25 in WoD?

I'm wondering whether to bother leveling the rest of my pets now, or to wait for WoD and level them while progressing towards 'Draenic Pet Battler (New) Win 1000 pet battles in Draenor' coupled with the new 20% safari hat.

Many thanks.