Celestial Tournament RNG

[Warbeauty]

What upset me the most about the Celestial Tournament was not the no healing of pets. It wasn't even that the Celestial Pets themselves not only get 50% dmg reduction, but also get the Magic Pets special.

It was the RNG.

Pet battles hit/crit chances are insanely random. And overall, it wasn't really TO bad an issue (in PvE, in PvP it was like being slowly corroded away by RNG acid) I thought because fights didn't last long enough to do terrible damage. But not being able to heal your pets has taken it's toll with all the RNG factored in. You could have the absolute most perfect teams for each fight every time. But if they crit and you miss, just once, it can throw the entire tournament, causing you to have to restart unless you just have such a sheer number of pets you can make new teams all over again.

Is anyone else extremely frustrate with all the randomness? I mean it's even gone the complete opposite way for me too. I had my pet crit AND get a 25% stun off so Sully swapped his pet on me and threw my whole strat. I ended up winning because I had bigger guns in the end. I find more and more, that when the RNG strikes and you miss or crit or they miss or crit (completely inconsistently) I rely on arm wrestling techniques as I call them. I have to straight power muscle my opponent down and pray RNG gives me a crit or them a miss again. And don't even get me started on the nerve wracking that Batter does. It can hit 2-3 times...so if it hits 3 times you killed the pet, if you hit 2 times he's got 50 health left and kills you. You just lost the tournament on the last pet.....congratulations you get to do it all over again....seriously?

RNG was the reason it took me several hours of practice to hopefully get the right combination of pets and luck to down the Tamers and Celestials.

[Kpb321]

Yeah RNG can be annoying sometimes and yeah it's especially annoying in the Celestial Tournament where it could cost you a fair amount of time but you'll have to learn to live with it as blizzard specifically said they didn't want things to so predictable when they tweaked skills.

The better teams will be able to handle the random misses better as they will have more "margin" but could still have problems with random. I also think that over time we will find good teams that work without having to rely on specific pets which are limited in availability such as the pop team with the pandaren water spirit. This will make it easier to swap in a different Bird with flock/ooze/what ever that you lost in the fight when things went wrong. You'll also learn where you are low on types of pets and can work on leveling up more alternatives so something going wrong doesn't mean starting over. I leveled a few extra mechanical pets ahead of time after seeing that there were 2 beasts in the celestials.

You can also try to cancel the fight as soon as you know something has gone wrong and if you haven't lost a pet yet you can heal them up using a group heal ideally against an opponent that doesn't attack on their first round but even if you don't have that option you can still heal if you are willing to eat some damage on your water strider or what ever your healing pet is.

[Domie]

I dont think it was that bad, the rng is a big part of pet battling on any level, so its going to be a part of the tournament aswell.
RNG have always been a big part of this rpg style of battle, we should just be happy we dont have random number of opponents aswell :lol:

It is true that one bad miss/crit can screw you over, but you have to embrace it when it goes your way, and ignore it when it doesnt, instead of ignoring it when it goes your way, and get upset when it doesnt :)

[Whiplash]

There is no penalty for fleeing a fight, so you can go into a fight that does no damage in the first one or two rounds and cast self or group pet heals.

RNG is also why you will need a ton of pets with overlapping capabilities, just in case. I got both the bad and good last week; I lost fights I should have won, and then my Clockwork Gnome pulled off a near-solo win against an elite when I had nothing left but a pile of dead pets. The key is to never give up - a great weakness of human nature is to give up too soon when things start to go bad.

And regarding stun, it is standard for NPCs to swap out a stunned pet, so plan for it.

[Saite]

Yes, I agree, the RNG can be infuriating in this Tournament, when a freak sequence of events can throw the whole thing and you have to start again!

I realised pretty quickly that the only way to counter it is to have 2 strong teams ready for every fight in the Tournament. If you can prepare 2 teams for each Battle then you should be able to avoid the worst of the RNG. It made me go out and level a few more pets for this week. If you build up some reserve teams that are as strong as your first team you should be fine.

Good luck!

[Ridgebj]

as some people have already pointed out I think the best option is to use pets with move sets that are common to a bunch of different pets

for xen-fu and zao i'm using combinations of canines and spiders rather than mechs which tend to have unique movesets so you hurt if you rely on them (unless you have multiples)

i have a total of 10 lvl 25 canines in my stable including doubles all with the same moveset "bite/howl/dazzling dance"

I have many more lvl 25 spiders with the moveset "brittle webbing/spiderling swarm"

I use high risk/reward breeds first usually p/p breeds as if the rng gods favour you they take down both xen-fu and zao in 4 to 6 rounds but one crit will ruin your day

for chi chi i have a number of oozelings and slimes that can be subbed in if the first attempt goes badly and there are some nice synergies with a lot of the other magic pets with heavy flying dmg abilities.

yu'la can be soloed with a gregarious grell but any combination of fast humanoid pets with dragon heavy moves makes this easy - never had to try twice here.

[Bretonas]

I got that frustrated with the RNG yesterday that I eventually stopped the tournament (had much more than 20 attempts) and decided to give it a few days and level a couple more pets up.

For someone like me who has a good few pets but no duplicates at all (never saw any reason to have the same pet twice) this is very annoying. I got 2 of the first 3 tamer down several times yesterday just to fail on the 3rd one. So I restarted and did that one first. Of course I failed again on the 3rd one (different one). When I eventually got to the 4 celestials it got worse. As I said I don't have duplicates, so if my strategy relies on a certain pet and that fails it's over. My Pandaren Water Spirit for example didn't even get off 2 abilites cause it got a nice 1k+ crit from Xu-Fu and simply died. Looked up different strategies to find out how to deal with him now just find out that I a) don't have that pet level'd to 25 or b) it's already dead.

Don't get me wrong, I like the tournament idea, but defeating 7 opponents with this random madness at times which can cost you everything after already defeating 4-5 is very frustrating.

But I won't give up. Defeating all the Pandaren Daily Guys is still no problem. So 2-3 extra pets at lvl 25 per day should help out eventually.

One thing is for sure. Whoever defeats this tournament with 30 random lvl 25 pets he / she has level'd deserves some special reward.

[Mehetabel]

I got that frustrated with the RNG yesterday that I eventually stopped the tournament (had much more than 20 attempts) and decided to give it a few days and level a couple more pets up.

For someone like me who has a good few pets but no duplicates at all (never saw any reason to have the same pet twice) this is very annoying. I got 2 of the first 3 tamer down several times yesterday just to fail on the 3rd one. So I restarted and did that one first. Of course I failed again on the 3rd one (different one). When I eventually got to the 4 celestials it got worse. As I said I don't have duplicates, so if my strategy relies on a certain pet and that fails it's over. My Pandaren Water Spirit for example didn't even get off 2 abilites cause it got a nice 1k+ crit from Xu-Fu and simply died. Looked up different strategies to find out how to deal with him now just find out that I a) don't have that pet level'd to 25 or b) it's already dead.

This is exactly how I feel. I had over 200 pets at level 25 but it turned out that I was missing LOADS of the "suggested" tournament pets so I leveled up a few more. And still got my butt kicked, repeatedly. I've now resigned myself to collecting duplicates (something I really didn't want to do) and leveling up even more suggested pets.

I think the big issue for me is that I dislike pet battles. I don't enjoy the tamer dailies, I dislike pet PvP and I loathe this tournament. I'm much more into having a 100% rare collection that is completely leveled. Unfortunately, leveling and collecting both require pet battles so I'm gritting my teeth and getting on with it. Not enjoying it though.

[Kpb321]

I'd think that 200 lvl 25 pets would be plenty to get through the tourney. I've got about 250 and had no problems with it even the first week where I didn't really look at any strats before hand. The initial random trainers haven't been too hard just requiring a good counter or double counter pet where possible but most seem to have plenty of options available. Zhu might be the most problematic with most undead attacks being limited to undead pets but there options available and you could always go the other way and look for pets that are going to take less dmg from their attacks and/or be able to dodge/avoid their worst attacks.

Now if we are starting to look at carry teams for the trainers I expect that to be a different story. Those will probably be pretty specific on the pets they need.

[Beana]

I thought I was alone with this RNG thing to be honest. Everyone saying how "easy" the tournament was. Glad to hear I'm not the only one struggling! Took me all 7 days last week to get it. This week I suspect the same thing. Even with 100 25 pets and I've probably read 1000 strategies I seem to fluke my way through it. Xen fu and Yula are never going to be "fun" to battle, it's normally 10 minutes of praying they don't crit me! This week I haven't gone through it yet... I'm dreading it, but I love collecting pets!

[Mantrhax]

RNG is the blizzard answer for poor A.I. design.

[Warbeauty]

I thought I was alone with this RNG thing to be honest. Everyone saying how "easy" the tournament was. Glad to hear I'm not the only one struggling! Took me all 7 days last week to get it. This week I suspect the same thing. Even with 100 25 pets and I've probably read 1000 strategies I seem to fluke my way through it. Xen fu and Yula are never going to be "fun" to battle, it's normally 10 minutes of praying they don't crit me! This week I haven't gone through it yet... I'm dreading it, but I love collecting pets!

That was my intention with starting this thread. To let others know they aren't alone in the hours of cursing and swearing and keyboard smashing. It KILLS me to hear people still claiming it was "easy" and that RNG was easily overcome and to just have the right pets...blah blah blah....

For the record, I beat the Tourny the morning after Patch. So obviously I am not still having trouble. But I know PLENTY who couldn't get it week one for RNG reasons just about.

[Bretonas]

I believe the guides and teams I read about of how to "beat" this tournament atm are mainly just experiences, but generally not guaranteed wins. Yes, I did finish the tournament in week 1, but I lost dozens pets, tried several strategies, started all over etc (incl. keyboard smashing ) but I have yet to find 7 teams that will overcome this event without any problems.

When I read how "easy" it is for some I can only think of 2 things. Either I'm very unlucky or they are very lucky cause I've yet to beat it the 2nd week and atm I can't even get past the first 3 guys. I thought I use the same team I did last week, but it doesn't seem to work at all for me. Bringing a carry pet? I have no idea how some ppl manage to do that. I don't always have to use my 3rd pet, but that's down to luck, not because 1 of my pets can "easily solo" 2 or 3 of the opponents pets.

To let others know they aren't alone in the hours of cursing and swearing and keyboard smashing.

I feel your pain and to others out there who feel the same, you are not alone.

[Benagade]

Yes!

I have found the RNG EXTEREMLY annoying, but for some reasons I keep going back for more! But in all fairness RNG has worked out in my favour several times.

[Beana]

Bretonas I'm in the same boat you're in this week. The first 3 bosses are kicking my ass and the "suggested" way to beat them would be using up most of my half decent pets I use on the celestials. Back to the frustrating drawing board.

[Pugnatwo]

I hate pet battle RNG just as much as the next person, but I've started to build teams to win that do NOT rely on RNG, and would overkill just incase.

Example:

For the 4 Celestials;

Chi-ji

Corefire imp--> Immolation then Wild Magic
Switch to Any Snail (I use a Rapana Whelk)
Acidic Goo-->4x Oozing touch.
Done this 5 times now and this is nearly RNG proof. Keep either a second snail or a Mana Surge Pet in the third Slot just in case. If the Whelk dies, Set up Immo and Magic, switch over to mana surge pet and they will be dead by the end of the surge.

Xu-fu

Sunreaver Micro Sentry----> Call Lightning
Switch to Clockwork Gnome----> Build Turret
Switch to Cogblade Raptor--->Expose wounds and screech and, if not dead, batter
Switch to Clockwork Gnone---> Built Turret
By that time, he will be dead by the end of the next turn, and all 100% hit chance moves

Zao (aka Boss Ox!)

Pandaren Water Spirit---> Geyser then whirlpool. Being faster than the ox, he literally could have 1 health and he wouldn't die, and it would work out better if he DID die here.
Chrominius---->Howl, Bite, Surge. I recommend bite because he will 100% use wish after the G&W go off, so you can bite him during the stunned turn, then Surge when he casts wish.

Yu'la
Grell Strat works wonders. Not everyone has a Grell, including myself. This is my strat:
Feral Vermling----> Backflip--->Crush--->Crush---->Pass--->Backflip---->Crush. He dies at this point
Lil'Bad Wolf---->Howl--->Claw and use dodge when he flies up for liftoff.
Kun-lai Runt= Frost shock will do about 3 damage, and then you can Deep--->Takedown for about 4-500 damage and you will kill him.

[Beana]

I usually use my cogblade raptor on the zao but ill try a water spirit because that xen fight seems more reliable then mine.

[Celestya22]

What drives me batty is when my pets with 85-100% hit chance, with a 10% hit buff, still miss 3 turns in a row. It's ludicrous!

[Abashera]

After discussing the tournament with a friend who's a fellow collector/pet battler. . .

We're both currently working on getting doubles of all our heavy hitters. I have two of all my the ones I can capture wild, and I'm working on the pets that are drops, rep grinds, or rewards, and I'm keeping my eye on the auction house for good deals. I almost have a full secondary team. Add to the doubles, pets with similar abilities, and I can make three to four same or similar teams before running out of options.

Personally, I won't be going into the tournament again until I have my secondary team collected and leveled. I'd rather avoid the hair-pulling of RNG. At least I don't want to get to the very last fight, lose, and have to start over. So… I'm collecting and leveling a little more.

[Celestya22]

You're not alone. I'm planning on doing the same with at least the darkmoon tonk/zep and perhaps another zandalari raptor with black claw. I have 160 level 25 pets so I've been able to squeak through within a few attempts the last couple weeks, but it is so frustrating spending an hour or so only to have to go back and do it all again!