Pet of the Month - Blighthawk

[Liopleurodon]

Be sure to check out this month's [url=https://www.warcraftpets.com/news/blighthawk-pet-of-the-month-august-2017/]feature on the Blighthawk[/url]!

How Do You Use Your Blighthawk?
The [pet]Blighthawk[/pet] is a versatile battler in a family which doesn’t have a ton of those.

Don’t get me wrong, the Undead family is great as a whole. That family ability is one of the best, and they deal tons of damage. The only thing is, that’s about all they do. Sheer, lumbering DPS, maybe a little leech healing, that’s about it. The Blighthawk has abilities to dodge and heal, in addition to that awesome cross-family capability.

Personally, I almost always use the Blighthawk in situations where I need to dodge something with [ability]Lift-Off[/ability]. [ability]Cyclone[/ability] is too subject to RNG for my taste. I also tend to favor [ability]Consume Corpse[/ability] pretty heavily, so the Blighthawk tends to take the anchor leg on my team. [ability]Ghostly Bite[/ability] is a good finisher, but I tend to find myself in situations where I miscalculate my turns and wind up either stunning myself or whiffing it on an opponent’s dodge and then stunning myself. Neither is a super great outcome!

However, one of the most iconic uses for the Blighthawk is on a classic Squirt leveling team. The [url=http://www.wowhead.com/npc=79179/squirt]tamer Squirt[/url] happens to enter the Garrison Menagerie on Draenor every so often. Squirt is special because she gives that juicy high tamer experience to your pets, and is repeatable. She’s also right next door to a stable master for extra fast turnaround.

There are several strategies out there to carry a pet with Squirt, but one of the easiest to grab all the pets for involves using a fast fox with [ability]Dazzling Dance[/ability] and [ability]Howl[/ability], plus the Blighthawk. Start with the fox and use Dance to make sure everyone on the team is super fast while [ability]Biting[/ability] the first pet’s face off. When it’s time for the second pet, your fox Howls, then swaps (or dies) for the Blighthawk, which Ghostly Bites your way toward a one-shot victory. Your carry pet swaps in then to make sure it gets that XP soak, because your Blighthawk is stunned anyway. Then switch back to the Blighthawk and victory! Squirt is by far the fastest way to level up a stable of pets.

For me, the Blighthawk was also a godsend as an Aquatics counter. Given how central [url=http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=9696/family-familiar]Family Familiar[/url] challenges are to battling this expansion, I wore that poor little Undead bird out. There are a few other Undead pets with Flying moves, but not much. [pet]Son of Sethe[/pet] and the [pet]Bone Serpent[/pet] have Lift-Off, and that’s about it. The [pet]Vampiric Batling[/pet] has a couple decent Flying moves, if you were lucky enough to nab one.

The thing is, Blighthawks are so easy and low-fuss to tame you may as well just go tame one instead. P/S is my preferred breed, though given the percentage-based healing Consume Corpse gives a case could definitely be made for H/P too. There really isn’t another comparable pet, but Blighthawks are relatively easy to obtain. It just means a bit of pre-planning before you take on your next Aquatic opponent.

How do you use your Blighthawk? Any particularly juicy Family Familiar tips you’d like to share? Let us know!

[Paladance]

Erm, [ability]Nocturnal Strike[/ability] of Bone Serpent is flying too! But back to the topic.

It's nice to see how someone's approach can differ from most "vocal" solutions. Myself, I've always heard of them in a PvP context rather than the PvE one, because of the undead family and a strong heal -- that make them more favorable [ability]Cyclone[/ability] users than rather vulnerable elementals or birds.

Do you play around with slowing pets? Because I think 273 doesn't look very attractive, a safe threshold for PvE seems to be at least 277, as far as no epic/legendary pets are concerned.

I do like the trick for the menagerie.

I'd like to tell that sometimes these pets disappear from Andorhal as soon as you enter it because they don't occupy all phases of that place. I've had that problem myself, but can't recall which quests were problematic.

[Drlambda]

I'm on board with Paladance for PVP here. [pet]Blighthawk[/pet] has a really interesting moveset for PVP, as pretty much every move except for maybe [ability]Slicing Wind[/ability] has nice synergy with something you want to do in PVP.

For PVE, i think i only use it in one battle, and that is vs Tarr the Terrible, where he cleans up after Boneshard is done with them. In case anyone is really interested:
Boneshard (2,2,2)
Level Pet (Any)
Blighthawk (1,1,1, i use P/S, but others might work)

Open with Boneshard
1. Bonestorm 1
2. Bonestorm 2
3. Bonestorm 3, Boneshard becomes damned
4. Pass, Boneshard gets stunned, then dies
5. Bring in Level pet
6. Bring in Blighthawk
7. Lift-Off
8. wait for Lift-Off
9. Infected Claw, Gladiator Deathy dies, Gladiator Murkalot comes back
10+ Infected Claw until Murkalot dies or switches out, Gladiator Murkimus comes in
11. Lift-Off to dodge Counterstrike
12. Consume Corpse
13. Infected Claw until Murkimus dies
14. If Murkalot was alive, one Infected Claw should do it.