Grommloc worth it?

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Tekulve2012
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Grommloc worth it?

Post by Tekulve2012 » October 12th, 2014, 6:25 pm

I would not be doing anything else with a virtual ticket but getting the pet if I bother at all. The pet has less than 1300 health .. I see it has heals and its humanoid with 317 power ....

I wonder if I'd regret not acquiring this pet later on? I have gotten Murkalot and the tcg pets, a couple of CEs and store pets so I'm not shy to use cash ..but I wonder if this pet will be of much use other than a collector item...I have held off getting pets like the Baneling and Treasure Goblin and havent regretted it so far . Thoughts anyone?

PS ..I posted this in the battles forum since I'm more interested in the potential battle value of this pet and less interested in the vanity / collector value

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Klaital
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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Klaital » October 12th, 2014, 7:33 pm

I would like to point out that the stats shown for grommloc in wowhead assume a b/b breed, because the actual breed of the pet is unknown until blizzcon actually starts and it is released, so the stats you see for it now are most likely not the correct ones, as I would assume it to be either h/p or p/p breed. And personally I think it has fairly good moveset, I will probably be using it with smash, mighty charge, and giant's blood, which gives you pretty high constant damage, along with a combined heal + damage buff, and of course also the humanoid racial heal on top of that.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Poofah » October 13th, 2014, 1:48 pm

Giant's Blood is excellent; sadly Mighty Charge is very bad, especially if you compare to something like Tornado Punch. If he's PP, then his damage output will still be impressive, but he'll be a 260 speed pet with 1200 health, ie extremely susceptible to CC/avoidance and AoE.

PP would be 366 power, so

Giant's Blood -- 425 heal
Slice -- 386 (483 with Giant's Blood up)
Mighty Charge -- 620 (772 with Giant's Blood up)

so after spending a turn on Giant's Blood, you can do 1740 dmg in 3 turns.

just for comparison, Lil' Rag can do 1766 in 3 turns with Flamethrower/Conflag/Smash.

P/S might actually be more interesting, because then you could reasonably run Clobber/Giant's Blood with 289 speed/330 power.

Either way, he's not on the level of Murk or other top top pets.

The ticket will be available for a week or 2 after Blizzcon starts, so you can wait until you see the breed and peoples' initial impressions.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Poofah » October 13th, 2014, 2:12 pm

Tekulve2012 wrote: I've seen your posts on another site suggesting that the Grommloc is now 'lame'

Do you think its a pet that could be of interest in pet pvp in WoD at all?
Figured I'd answer in this thread --

Grommloc is lame *compared to his earlier versions*. He initially could take Dominance+Whirlwind, which would have been a 2 turn combo for 1274 AoE dmg, assuming PP breed. Then they changed it to Giant's Blood+Whirlwind (still good), then they changed it to Giant's Blood+Mighty Charge, and Mighty Charge is not very good at all. So he went from being potentially a unique and foundational component of an insanely high-damage/high-risk AoE team, to being a slow single-target damage spammer. The damage is still impressive but it's very comparable to current slow/high-dmg pets such as Lil Rag, Lil Deathwing, Blackfuse Bombling (Flamejet/Explode), Xu-Fu, Nexus Whelpling, and ofc we are getting Iron Starlette next week.

The Whirlwind version wasn't a good idea balance-wise, but it would have been unique and seen a lot of play. The current version is too far in the 'safe' direction.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Klaital » October 13th, 2014, 3:53 pm

Poofah wrote:
Tekulve2012 wrote: I've seen your posts on another site suggesting that the Grommloc is now 'lame'

Do you think its a pet that could be of interest in pet pvp in WoD at all?
Figured I'd answer in this thread --

Grommloc is lame *compared to his earlier versions*. He initially could take Dominance+Whirlwind, which would have been a 2 turn combo for 1274 AoE dmg, assuming PP breed. Then they changed it to Giant's Blood+Whirlwind (still good), then they changed it to Giant's Blood+Mighty Charge, and Mighty Charge is not very good at all. So he went from being potentially a unique and foundational component of an insanely high-damage/high-risk AoE team, to being a slow single-target damage spammer. The damage is still impressive but it's very comparable to current slow/high-dmg pets such as Lil Rag, Lil Deathwing, Blackfuse Bombling (Flamejet/Explode), Xu-Fu, Nexus Whelpling, and ofc we are getting Iron Starlette next week.

The Whirlwind version wasn't a good idea balance-wise, but it would have been unique and seen a lot of play. The current version is too far in the 'safe' direction.
What I would have liked if they would have kept it otherwise same as now, but just switched clobber for Whirlwind, and Throwdown for Heroic Leap (the ability murkimus has, basically humanoid school lift-off). That way he would have been more versatile, and also extremely thematic for Grommash pet, as heroic leap is pretty much what he used in the WoD cinematic to take out Mannoroth, and Bladestorm was his signature ability in WC3, which is what whirlwind would have simulated nicely.

But as it is, I will still get him and like him because he will be my first ever murloc pet! :)

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Poofah » October 13th, 2014, 4:53 pm

Yes, they could have done a lot better with it. He's clearly a rush job -- Mighty Charge is easily the blandest non-spammable ability in the game. I think they were initially willing to be adventurous with the Dominance/Whirlwind moveset, then realized that they didn't have time to test/balance it properly. Also I think they vastly overestimate how good Takedown is -- even tamer pets are smart enough to swap out when stunned.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Tekulve2012 » October 13th, 2014, 5:28 pm

Much obliged for the response Poofah

I like to count on you and Luciandk and others to do the math that hurts my brain ... I pay attention though and certainly battle test my way to semi enlightenment

I'll wait on the breed reveal and see about buying then...too bad it got nerfed before appearing!

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Klaital » October 13th, 2014, 5:46 pm

Poofah wrote:Yes, they could have done a lot better with it. He's clearly a rush job -- Mighty Charge is easily the blandest non-spammable ability in the game. I think they were initially willing to be adventurous with the Dominance/Whirlwind moveset, then realized that they didn't have time to test/balance it properly. Also I think they vastly overestimate how good Takedown is -- even tamer pets are smart enough to swap out when stunned.
Mighty Charge is pretty much on par with things like gift of winter veil and greench's gift and other similar high damage cd moves, I don't really have anything against that. Although wouldn't have minded it having something like always goes first in it too as charge moves usually do that, and I don't think there is any high damage cd ability with always goes first in the game yet (unless you count direhorn charge but thats only 1 round cd). But yeah I have never been fan of takedown, its just so lackluster when the opponent isn't stunned, and if I want to do the stun + takedown I can already do that with kun-lai runt anyway.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Poofah » October 13th, 2014, 7:20 pm

Klaital wrote:Mighty Charge is pretty much on par with things like gift of winter veil and greench's gift and other similar high damage cd moves,
Gift is 40 base dmg, Mighty Charge is 32. It's very poor for a 4 round cd, and it doesn't compare favorably to some 3 round cds either (Whirlwind (33), Bonestorm (45, 10 to self), Moth Dust (30 + chance of stun), Primal Cry (30 plus speed debuff)). 4 round cd is stuff like Conflagrate (30 base + 10 extra if burning), Deep Freeze (30 + chance of stun), Tornado Punch (30 + chance of stun), Flame Jet (30 + 50% chance for 20 more) etc. For a 4 rd cd, we should expect 40 base dmg, or a combination of dmg/utility that's worth 40 base dmg.

'Goes first' would be a fun addition and would justify the cd better. They've adjusted Blizzcon pets after release before, so it's not impossible, but I doubt they'd do it except when a nerf is needed.

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Re: Grommloc worth it?

Post by Luciandk » October 14th, 2014, 4:07 am

My guess is that they got cold feet with the initial moveset and wanting to avoid a backlash like Murkalot caused. Thusly preemptively nerfing him.

But yeah, Grommloc is shaping up for be a niche pet that might sometimes be played, but otherwise not terribly relevant in pvp. Murkalot was a gamechanger, and even with multiple nerfs he remains strong.

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