The thing about nerfs

[Skavenged]

Simply put, pet nerfs are for lazy people. There is absolutely nothing worse than spending hours, or days, or sometimes even weeks to farm a pet, only to find out that it was time wasted due to a nerf. Best example I can think of is the Fluxfire Feline. Sure, it was OP, but it was a WILD pet. That means that every single person in the game had the ability to get it. So where is the problem? Oh, that's right, some people don't want to farm, and so they cry foul to Blizz. "Dear Blizzard, this guy has put way more time and effort into pets than I have, and its not fair that he beats me. Can you fix it?" Sure enough, Blizz implements a nerf, which means that those of us who DID farm, basically wasted their time, and the very ability we farmed for was taken away.

I've been doing pet battles since the very beginning, and in all that time, I've only seen ONE pet that I actually agreed with the nerf, and that one was Murkalot. Every other pet, regardless how OP (Kovok, Direhorns or Flayer anyone?), was beatable if you put the time and effort into figuring out how.

[3wd]

Simply put, pet nerfs are for lazy people. ....... Every other pet, regardless how OP (Kovok, Direhorns or Flayer anyone?), was beatable if you put the time and effort into figuring out how.

That's very funny.

If you are not a lazy people who actually spent the time to farm those OPed pets, like you said, every other pet is beatable if you put the time and efforts into figuring out how,

then why are you being the one whose crying here but rather than trying to figure out how to beat the other pets?

[Skavenged]

What exactly am I crying about?

[Liopleurodon]

The thing about pets which are widely regarded as 'OP' is that not only are they extremely powerful in PVP, but they're also really, really powerful in PVE. The reason the Murk/Kovok combo got nerfed wasn't because it was devastating in PVP (though, let's be real, it was absolutely devastating in PVP) but because keeping that combo as viable as it was meant that most any 3-pet tamer encounter going forward would be trivial if you had that combo.

I'd argue that it's not a waste of time, just because people still camp out for the Minfernals and those are hardly the creme de la creme for battling. You may not have camped a FFF as vigorously, or tried to min-max, but you still would've scoured the landscape for them in the end.

[Skavenged]

True, I would have still camped to get the FFF, but certainly wouldn't have camped it repeatedly until I got 3 s/s breeds

[Mwebly]

While I agree with the original poster and often feel the same frustration when I finally have collected, captured or bought the OP pet of the moment, I grudgingly agree that the nerfs improve the metagame.

It's true that every OP pet could be beaten, except as noted in the insane toolbox the original Murkalot came with, but some pets were so OP that they could only be beaten by their hard counter. No pet should be so powerful that there is only one response. That degree of strength should be reduced, not to favor the lazy but to improve the game.

Imagine how boring it would be if all the OP pets had never been nerfed. Would we ever construct new pvp teams or just stay with what works with tiny adjustments? I kind of wish there were more frequent resets to pet abilities and skills. I have not even reached 5k pvp wins and the meta is feeling stale to me.

Most of the fun of pet battles is figuring out synergies and interesting novel strategies. I want there to be no OP pets at all, then everyone would have to be strategic and each battle would be won or lost by each move and choice you made with the team you have in front of you right now. I hate seeing right on battle zone-in that I have already lost or already won before the battle begins. I like to win, but I would sacrifice a better win loss record for a more entertaining experience.

[Poofah]

It's nothing to do with the effort required to get the pet -- FFF was just bad for the game, so it had to be nerfed. It could only consistently be beaten by one pet, and it trivialized a lot of the PvE tamers as well.

Should they have recognized that it would be OP before they released it in 5.1? Probably. But once they did release it, what were they supposed to do? Let us play FFF vs Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling for all of 5.1, and then release something even more overpowered in 5.2?

Anyway, I understand your frustration--I made gnomes on 5 different Brazilian servers to get my FFFs. They could absolutely do a better job of balancing pets on PTR instead of nerfing them after we've gone to the trouble of getting them. But realistically, the negative consequences of not nerfing FFF outweighed the blowback from nerfing it.

[Luciandk]

And not to forget Direhorns. They were bad for the game as well, and have been bought down to a more manageable level. Still strong, but not ridiculously so. At least they didnt go nuclear on them like with FFF and made them useless.

Anubisath Idol, its been nerfed so many times now, yet it remains a hideously powerful pet. Popular in pve and pvp.

But always remember, Nerfs are good for the metagame and encourages people to look at other options.

[Hootstwo]

Your example of FFF is a bad one - it was simply broken it was so strong. I camped or a decent amount of time to get my 3 FFF for a team. A team that I could use (and DID use) for pretty much anything. Pandaren Trainers? Wind up a FFF and knock them down. Legendary trainer? Wind up FFF and knock them down. PVP? Wind em up and knock everything down.

Nerfs balance things, you should not have to create EVERY one of your PVP teams around defending against ONE pet. Of course pets have counters - nobody denies it, but when Kovok was at max force, you HAD to be able to beat it.

Look at Anubisath, it's still incredibly powerful, but I don't HAVE to create teams explicitly to handle it, there are other teams I'll face and a decently created team (even without specifically trying to counter it) has a reasonable chance of taking it down.

[Ligre]

The Kovok nerf, or rather over-nerf, did nothing to improve things. All it did was make sure that 95% of Kovok users passed Pheromones over when choosing an ability set for their nasty little orange bug. Way to go, idiot developers.

[Athonx]

as i read the post i begin to realize just how much i have to learn about pet battles, it is nice to know that i dont have to stick to some formulaic cookie cutter team to be competitive.