Changes comming to Pet Racials (Updated 23th April)

[Luciandk]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8569111236#15

We're going to be buffing some pet passives in a future patch, and elementals are on the list. We feel that the elemental passive is currently too confusing in that it is somewhat ambiguous with regard to direct effects of weather, but not effects that are not directly related to weather.

For example, if your opponent has a pet that gains an additional attack in a Blizzard, they will still get the additional attack against your elemental pet. This can feel bad in some cases and we want pet passives to always feel good and useful. We also feel that weather is one of the more fun and synergistic elements of Pet Battles, so at this point in time, we’re thinking of redesigning the elemental pet passive along the lines of a ~50% reduction in damage for the turn one is swapped in. Our goal being that we’d rather have a passive in place that increases the strategic depth of elemental pets, and is clear in its intention and functionality.

Keep in mind, we’re still evaluating the numbers and everything is subject to change, but we’d sincerely appreciate any constructive feedback you may have!



Bravo I say! The current Elemental racial is way, way too confusing and dramatically impeding them on several setups.

[Maizing]

So... does this change mean that elementals will no longer be immune to, say, the damage from Lightning Storm, but will benefit from the extra health from Sunshine?

[Luciandk]

From the sound of it, they are going to scrap the currently unintuitive Elemental racial and replace it with something else. Which could be the above mentioned 50% less damage when swapped into a battle.

[Warlock]

I don't like the proposed change. Agree with their reasoning for changing it, but 50% off the first attack seems like a fairly boring racial. I don't know....

[Luciandk]

New info, some major improvements for critters!
From the same thread as above:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... ?page=2#36

Indeed, as well as Critters and Magic! Here's what we're thinking and working on at the moment, and again, please share your thoughts and feedback:

Aquatic: Harmful DoTs reduced by 50% (up from 25%)
Aquatic-types currently reduce the effect of harmful damage over time abilities by 25%. Because few creatures have more than one DOT, this ends up being a less than steller damage reduction over the course of the battle. We feel increasing the effect to 50% should help aquatic pets benefit more from their passive.Critters: Immune to CC completely
Critters currently reduce the duration of crowd control effects by one round, which makes fast critters significantly more powerful. We'd like critters of all speeds to benefit equally from their passive, so we're considering making them immune to crowd control effects completely. This would include stuns, roots, and other incapacitating effects.Magic: Cannot be dealt more than 35% of total health in one move (down from 40%)
Magic-type creatures currently cannot take more than 40% of their maximum health as damage when struck. When balance changes were made to reduce the damage of some very heavy-hitting abilities, this passive was indirectly nerfed. We're thinking if we buff the effect to 35% of maximum health, that should compensate for previous adjustments.
Again, everything is subject to further adjustments, but our ultimate goal is to bring all passives up to the power level of some of the current favorites, such as Undead.

[Tatra]

so instead of a semi cool pet trait they are going to nuke the crap outta elementals making them oh ya useless for there pet family ability. good going blizzard screwing with the game again because people qq so much about it on the battle.net forums sigh.

[Luciandk]

So many elementals have sunlight and sandstorm. When you use them, you get the feeling of debuffing yourself and buffing the enemy. Not very intuitive.

[Formerruling]

so instead of a semi cool pet trait they are going to nuke the crap outta elementals making them oh ya useless for there pet family ability. good going blizzard screwing with the game again because people qq so much about it on the battle.net forums sigh.

-50% damage on the swap in turn is very powerful, and doesn't screw you over more than it helps you. : \

[Tatra]

not really at least with not being effected by weather you could do some fun things now all its going to be is swap pet. honestly makes this family worthless to even play anymore

[Luciandk]

Tatra, I dont think you are seeing the posibilities. See an enemy pet winding up a burrow? Swap in an elemental to reduce it to a normal hit in strenght.

[Kagalii]

Tatra, I dont think you are seeing the posibilities. See an enemy pet winding up a burrow? Swap in an elemental to reduce it to a normal hit in strenght.

Yeah, looks like you could come up with some save-the-day strats with this, making elementals great soakers for hard-hitting pets with like burrow/fly up/wind up etc.

[Formerruling]

not really at least with not being effected by weather you could do some fun things now all its going to be is swap pet. honestly makes this family worthless to even play anymore

Honestly its the opposite for many people - it makes elementals actually playable. I guess it depends on how you were using them.

[Poofah]

Critters currently reduce the duration of crowd control effects by one round, which makes fast critters significantly more powerful. We'd like critters of all speeds to benefit equally from their passive...

...

Again, everything is subject to further adjustments, but our ultimate goal is to bring all passives up to the power level of some of the current favorites, such as Undead.

I think this is a little bit odd. It's definitely true that critters benefit more from their passive depending on their speed, but the same can be said for Undead. Slow UD effectively get 2 free attacks after they die, while fast UD get 1, which is why the passive is so strong especially for slow UD. And they even called out the UD passive as being the type they'd like other passives to aspire to, so I can't imagine they're unaware of how it works. So I wonder why they want one passive to benefit from speed, but not the other?

Also, regarding Elementals: 50% damage reduction upon swapping is indeed a terrible passive, but they only threw that out as an idea, and I'm sure it will get iterated on and replaced/improved.

[Tatra]

Tatra, I dont think you are seeing the posibilities. See an enemy pet winding up a burrow? Swap in an elemental to reduce it to a normal hit in strenght.

honestly if i am worried about burrow or a whole bunch of other attacks i can use other abilities on pets that i battle with. switching pets losing a turn is not really a good thing as well as this racial is not a good thing.

[Exel]

Glad to see yet again they take pet battle very seriously, elemental racial was very situational and limited, aquatic racial change is very appropriate.

[Luciandk]

As I see it, having a survival racial allows you more leeway in planning your abilities and not having to sacrifice an ability slot in your team.

[Kayfabe]

I'm all for the new Elemental. This'll make Lil' Ragnaros a little better off for me than he is now.