What am I allowed to play?

[Fransone]

Hey there,

Today I started doing pvp battles for the first time. Since I am completely new to the pvp side of things I researched some pet battles and came across threads here detailing a team using bone spider, fiendish imp and a direhorn. I heard people say that we are not 'allowed' to play triple direhorns or they go afk, so didnt make a team like that.

However people keep on going afk on the team that I copied from here. So please enlighten me regarding what teams am I allowed to play without being considered cheap/cheating?

[Ligre]

Those AFK'ers just can't accept that they have to wait 9 more days for nerfs, lol. That's about it. They're trying to bully you into picking teams that they can stomach facing and more likely trying to goad you into losses. JUST SAY NO!

This forum is here to help viewers get an inside track on how best to carry out their goals. You feel more than free to put together that Bone Spider/Imp/Direhorn team and roll over people for all they're worth! If those idiots choose to AFK, then that's their choice...their pets won't be doing anything and after a few minutes, you'll be sitting pretty, 1 win closer to your Stunted Direhorn.

It took me a bit, but I came to grips with the fact that "it is what it is" and there's nothing I can do about it except keep playing, keep grinding and try to muscle out some victories against anything I come up against. I still got 70 wins to go as of this post, but I should be able to accomplish that by the time the patch rolls around.

TLDR - You are ALLOWED to play whatever you want...and nobody is ALLOWED to tell you different! It's your money, it's your account/game, and it's your pets...you do what you like.

[Syrrie]

I haven't pvp'd much since I got my 250 wins, but the few times I came across an AFK'er I played out the game just to say 'screw you' to the person. I'm not giving you a win when you're employing an annoying an immature tactic to try and get me to give up. Though one of the ones I had go afk on me was with the Flayer Youngling/Crawling Claw/Scalded Basilisk Hatchling team I've come to love. After two or three turns of them not being able to hit me because of the various 'cheesy' moves my team has they just afk'd. I didn't understand it, really, because they had a decent team and it could have been a close game.

[Poofah]

people keep on going afk on the team that I copied from here. So please enlighten me regarding what teams am I allowed to play without being considered cheap/cheating?

AFKing is not some noble form of protest, it's a troll tactic. If somebody sees your team and doesn't want to play, they are the one being unsporting: it is not your responsibility to play a team that your opponent likes or considers 'fair'. I think it's pretty clear Bliz feels the same way, as they are implementing anti-AFK measures in 5.4.

[Luciandk]

And good riddance to afk trollers in 5.4.

[Shikon01]

You can use whatever you want and I have come across the 3 direhorns and darkness teams and it hasn't been pretty lol !! One thing I learned is I don't pet battle on Tuesday or Wednesday nites all the nuts come out and its very difficult to find a team to beat. I find battling during the day more successful on my off days. I do have a direhorn...just one ( bully ) that I try not to use unless I get really pissed off ,,but I have had success w/ my emerald whelping ( powerful oz) shore crab ( crabcakes) any crab will do and sprout ( bean sprout) or darkmoon tank ( Tonka toy ) lol !! I don't have anything set in stone so I have been trying different combos, but a lot is the luck of the draw so to speak. The crow teams have kicked my butt and I wouldn't my leveling a crow team I bought one gilean crow and found another crow at darkmoon but ganking has gotten bad even there. Darkness teams are popular and quite good...and I have an imp but not leveled yet. There is a wide variety of pets you can hunt if you are poor like me, but variety is the spice of life and I'm having good success w/ aqua ( water pets) and want to level more they are definitely necessary against some of the trainers. The afkers are aggravating , but its something we just have to deal w/ until the next patch when changes take place. I haven't had too many issues w/ them I guess they look at my team and think easy kill lol...sometimes they are surprised...hang in there it will get better.

[Livingdeath]

What are you allowed to play? Whatever you want! There is no perfect team that doesn't die. Switching teams, Lightning teams, Triple DH teams, Turret teams, every team can die. Don't feel the need to conform to other people's standards, play what you want to play. People just like to complain. And if you encounter AFKers, just don't give in, take them out.

[Shikon01]

You are allowed to play any pets you have.However if you are doing the weekly quest you must have 3 level 25 pets to get credit toward your 10 wins. You can also randomly join a pet battle w/ any pets they will randomly try to match up close to the level of pets...as a rule I usually have one pet 2-3 levels higher then the other 2 to give me an edge...sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't as most teams I'm pit against does the same thing. You also can have blue and green stones drop randomly as well from these battles too.

[Katzbalger]

There's certain pets that are currently OP and certain pets that are just plain annoying.
You're certainly 'allowed' to play anything you wish, however Direhorns, 333 speed Fiendish Imps may cause people to go afk because they feel you're abusing overtuned pets. Anubis Idols, Magical Crawdads and sometimes other high survivability pets can be annoying because people want their wins fast, most of us don't want to sit around for 10m fighting some stall team, these are the teams I myself will go afk on. I'm not giving someone who's dragging things out forever a free win by leaving and I'm not sitting there plodding through the battle forever, so I'll go make a coffee, sit back with a book and check if it's ended after 5-10m.

There's also poor losers who will afk just because you're beating them, whether you're using an OP or annoying team or not, these often correlate to the ones actually using the teams people complain about. I often find direhorn teams afk'ing when I'm playing one of my lightning storm setups, which I do quite often currently.

To my eyes, using something that is clearly more powerful than intended, which nobody can argue direhorns and fiendish imps currently are since they're being nerfed in 5.4, is a form of abuse. Nobody much cares about it since pet battles have no form of ranking, but I purposefully play teams designed to counter them and refuse to use my own direhorns or imp, just as in 5.1 I refused to pvp as BM on my hunter until they fixed the stampede bugs. In the end, it comes down to your own personal integrity and what you feel is right to do.

[Iamwhatis]

Anubis Idols, Magical Crawdads and sometimes other high survivability pets can be annoying because people want their wins fast, most of us don't want to sit around for 10m fighting some stall team, these are the teams I myself will go afk on. I'm not giving someone who's dragging things out forever a free win by leaving and I'm not sitting there plodding through the battle forever, so I'll go make a coffee, sit back with a book and check if it's ended after 5-10m.

I often find direhorn teams afk'ing when I'm playing one of my lightning storm setups, which I do quite often currently.

To my eyes, using something that is clearly more powerful than intended, which nobody can argue direhorns and fiendish imps currently are since they're being nerfed in 5.4, is a form of abuse. Nobody much cares about it since pet battles have no form of ranking, but I purposefully play teams designed to counter them and refuse to use my own direhorns or imp, just as in 5.1 I refused to pvp as BM on my hunter until they fixed the stampede bugs. In the end, it comes down to your own personal integrity and what you feel is right to do.

Lightning is being nerfed too. I say play by the rules. The ones the game has, not the ones you pick. In my opinion: AFK is abuse. Playing by the rules is not abuse.

There are at least 7 totally different teams (Darkness, Lightning, Kunli Runt, Moth, Direhorn, Sweeper, and top secret) I run with an 80% win record. There are another 7 (Fire, Apocalypse, Dragon, Speed, infested bear cub, crawdad) with a 66% win record. Everyone should play teams that win. The challenge for me is finding lots of such teams. And my Idol, Idol, Beetle team may annoy you but against people who play against me, not AFK abusers, that team is 66%+. I make my moves pretty fast sorry if the game takes awhile and you don't like it. Chess played right takes a while to. I like playing all the teams and feel that AFKers somehow want to punish people for playing teams based on there preconceived notions of why those people play those teams. My Apocalypse team is a good team play against it or quit after the first minute. The lightning team usually beats it but I don't go AFK I play it out.

[Domie]

There's certain pets that are currently OP and certain pets that are just plain annoying.
You're certainly 'allowed' to play anything you wish, however Direhorns, 333 speed Fiendish Imps may cause people to go afk because they feel you're abusing overtuned pets. Anubis Idols, Magical Crawdads and sometimes other high survivability pets can be annoying because people want their wins fast, most of us don't want to sit around for 10m fighting some stall team, these are the teams I myself will go afk on. I'm not giving someone who's dragging things out forever a free win by leaving and I'm not sitting there plodding through the battle forever, so I'll go make a coffee, sit back with a book and check if it's ended after 5-10m.

There's also poor losers who will afk just because you're beating them, whether you're using an OP or annoying team or not, these often correlate to the ones actually using the teams people complain about. I often find direhorn teams afk'ing when I'm playing one of my lightning storm setups, which I do quite often currently.

To my eyes, using something that is clearly more powerful than intended, which nobody can argue direhorns and fiendish imps currently are since they're being nerfed in 5.4, is a form of abuse. Nobody much cares about it since pet battles have no form of ranking, but I purposefully play teams designed to counter them and refuse to use my own direhorns or imp, just as in 5.1 I refused to pvp as BM on my hunter until they fixed the stampede bugs. In the end, it comes down to your own personal integrity and what you feel is right to do.

Its feels pretty ironic that you are talking about integrity, if you are the one clearly abusing that you can just afk a battle instead of conceding it. If you dont want to play vs a stallish team, just leave the battle and be over with it.

[Katzbalger]

Lightning is being nerfed too. I say play by the rules. The ones the game has, not the ones you pick. In my opinion: AFK is abuse. Playing by the rules is not abuse.

AFKing isn't against any rules either. So feel free to play your stall team and I'll feel free to afk. There are no rules against spending your time running around killing lowbies, no rules against camping rare pet spawns and killing them, no rules against pulling oondasta onto groups as they form, does that make those right to do? WOW is a very open plan and freeform game, it's not like say football where you can have a ref and linesmen and rules for every possible interaction, at some point people have to think about their own actions and decide whether they should or should not do something.
I choose to play by my own standards of what I feel is decent behaviour, which in this case consists of not using the pets I know to be OP, not using the setups I feel are annoying. I'm not a religious person, but I find the term 'old testament' is an apt description of my views on behaviour, screw turning the other cheek, an eye for an eye, you play a stall team, I'll stall by going afk.

Lightning is being nerfed yes, which I'm happy with, it brings it in line with other weather affects and sandstorm is being nerfed equally. Besides, it's not one of my favourite teams, I'm only using Lightning comps currently because of the huge amounts of direhorns, though they will still be strong unless they nerf them further than patch notes list they'll be more balanced, especially with the nerf not mentioned in notes that 'interrupt' effects such as Horn Attack (also kick, backflip, ect) will proc Resilient, meaning for 2 rounds after Horn Attack has stunned you, you're immune to it. Added to the cds on charge and primal cry meaning you will often have only horn attack off cd on the 2nd round after using it, it effectively gives you 4 rounds without a chance of being stunned by it after eating one.

Its feels pretty ironic that you are talking about integrity, if you are the one clearly abusing that you can just afk a battle instead of conceding it. If you dont want to play vs a stallish team, just leave the battle and be over with it.

Which is rewarding what I consider poor behaviour by giving them a fast free win. Why would I possibly want to do that?

[Azrile]

There's certain pets that are currently OP and certain pets that are just plain annoying.
You're certainly 'allowed' to play anything you wish, however Direhorns, 333 speed Fiendish Imps may cause people to go afk because they feel you're abusing overtuned pets. Anubis Idols, Magical Crawdads and sometimes other high survivability pets can be annoying because people want their wins fast, most of us don't want to sit around for 10m fighting some stall team, these are the teams I myself will go afk on. I'm not giving someone who's dragging things out forever a free win by leaving and I'm not sitting there plodding through the battle forever, so I'll go make a coffee, sit back with a book and check if it's ended after 5-10m.

There's also poor losers who will afk just because you're beating them, whether you're using an OP or annoying team or not, these often correlate to the ones actually using the teams people complain about. I often find direhorn teams afk'ing when I'm playing one of my lightning storm setups, which I do quite often currently.

To my eyes, using something that is clearly more powerful than intended, which nobody can argue direhorns and fiendish imps currently are since they're being nerfed in 5.4, is a form of abuse. Nobody much cares about it since pet battles have no form of ranking, but I purposefully play teams designed to counter them and refuse to use my own direhorns or imp, just as in 5.1 I refused to pvp as BM on my hunter until they fixed the stampede bugs. In the end, it comes down to your own personal integrity and what you feel is right to do.

I get a kick out of people who talk about certain things being OP. Last time I checked, about 50 different pets are being significantly nerfed in 5.4 I just find it ironic that you point out two (imp and direhorns) as OP.. what about sandstorm, lightning storm etc etc.. and the 20 other switch pets.

In actuality, the fiendish imp is not being nerfed at all. The absolute smartest way to play it is to use the switch, then fire-shield and then put it on the back row for 9 rounds. Adding 1 round to a 5 round cooldown is insiginificant. Bone spiders are getting a much bigger nerf.. damage, hit chance and a longer cd. Direhorns are also not getting much of a nerf.. something like a 10% damage nerf and a 1 round cooldown to the lesser annoying ability they have ( the 50% stun is what you want to use). I personally think the nerf to sandstorm CD is the biggest nerf of all, possibly the Bone spider also. The nerf to my 333 fiendish imp will change absolutely nothing about how I played him, and very little change to the direhorn the way I used it.

[Iamwhatis]

but I find the term 'old testament' is an apt description of my views on behaviour, screw turning the other cheek, an eye for an eye,

You clearly don't understand the old testament.

[Katzbalger]

I get a kick out of people who talk about certain things being OP. Last time I checked, about 50 different pets are being significantly nerfed in 5.4 I just find it ironic that you point out two (imp and direhorns) as OP.. what about sandstorm, lightning storm etc etc.. and the 20 other switch pets.

In actuality, the fiendish imp is not being nerfed at all. The absolute smartest way to play it is to use the switch, then fire-shield and then put it on the back row for 9 rounds. Adding 1 round to a 5 round cooldown is insiginificant. Bone spiders are getting a much bigger nerf.. damage, hit chance and a longer cd. Direhorns are also not getting much of a nerf.. something like a 10% damage nerf and a 1 round cooldown to the lesser annoying ability they have ( the 50% stun is what you want to use). I personally think the nerf to sandstorm CD is the biggest nerf of all, possibly the Bone spider also. The nerf to my 333 fiendish imp will change absolutely nothing about how I played him, and very little change to the direhorn the way I used it.

Critters, Aquatics, Dragons and Magic racials are being buffed, sandstorm is annoying yes and if you look further into my post you'll notice I mentioned Anubis idols, the main users of it and with their moveset and stats, the ones that benefit most from it. Lightning storm is a more risky proposition to use since it also affects at least one of your own pets (until 5.4, no elemental has call lightning) and I don't actually find any other switch pets than the fiendish imp to be op. Even with the fiendish imp, what actually makes it op imo is not it's switch, but the combination of the switch, it's high damage and the 333 speed. Adding 1 round to it's cd isn't all, it's also had it's damage reduced by 33%. As I already mentioned in my post after the one you quoted, there's another nerf to direhorns (and other pets) not listed in the official patch notes, that the Horn Attack stun will now proc Resilient.

but I find the term 'old testament' is an apt description of my views on behaviour, screw turning the other cheek, an eye for an eye,

You clearly don't understand the old testament.

Perhaps not, as I said I'm not religious, as I remember from school though it was much less of the forgiveness crap and more fire and brimstone and punishment. Don't want to have a religious debate though, it's really not one of my favourite fantasy books, I'll happily discuss Malazan Book of the Fallen or Wheel of Time series instead if you want.