Battle with that pet

[Vek]

I'm glad so many are enjoying this thread. I'm happy just to try and get some diversity in pet battles.

Hey guys !!! I love reading your battle thread here and I'm learning a lot so my question to you is, if you had to pick your LEAST FAVORITE ( or should I say the pet you would throw on your HATE list to suffer w/ in a battle ) what would it be and why ? If there's 2 go ahead and name it to play it

Shikon01 late reply. I can't really say I have any hate list as such, but I can tell you my two least favourite pets from this thread. Porcupette and Ashleaf Spriteling. I don't think the Porcupette is very valid, not even with Spiked Skin buff. And with the Ashleaf Spriteling I'm thinking it's probably just me and not the pet as such.

On to Toxic Wasteling. The only real problem with Toxic Wasteling is that it only comes in one breed and that breed is pretty bad. Though it is the second most powerful slime, weighing in at 293 power, it is very slow(244 speed). Problem with this is that there are three other slimes, with same ability set, to chose from and two of them has better breed options. Only poor Disgusting Oozeling, also only coming in one breed, is worse off(289 power, 241 speed). If you want power Jade Oozeling is superior with 325, only trade off is about 120 health less(while still being above the 1400 average). Both Jade Oozeling and Oily Slimeling has faster breeds so you don’t have to much around with the 244 crowd.

The Slimes are very nice against birds, and since fliers are generally very fast it’s actually not a problem to have a low 244 speed. Trouble is when facing non-fliers. 244 is the same as Idol and certain popular Undead pets, and Crab family. In my taste this is just too slow, I’d rather have at least 260 speed but thats just me.

The Slimes have the powerful Creeping Ooze and can really put the hurt on pets with Expunge. But I was thinking of going another route. I recruited a S/S Fiendish Imp. Burn/Immolation/Nether Gate. My battle plan was to cast Immolation, then switch to the Wasteling. And with Acidic Goo(dot plus 25% damage) and Corrosion(dot plus 28 damage) boosting the dots and Immolation I think we could see some nice damage. Then Ooze Touch with the added bonuses(25% and +28 damage) would really start to hurt.

Third pet I chose the P/P Minfernal just to have someone not relying on dots with powerful punches, good defence and avoidance move. Yes I’m really liking this one more and more. This actually worked really well. Didn’t lose any matches this morning, but by some fluke I didn’t run into anyone with Sandstorm or shell-type moves(even the emperor crab I faced didn’t go with shell).

The Wasteling is pretty good, it didn’t make a fool out of itself, but if you want slimes I do think there are better options out there.

Edit: I have now faced an Idol with Sandstorm. I had to use my Minfernal to take him out(damn Idol didn't miss a single hit during sandstorm). But I didn't do enough damage, or have my Minfernal left, to handle the Blighthawk with Consume Corpse, so it inded in a draw.

Genome time to bring out your Sunfur Panda.

[Runawayjim]

Runawayjim I’m interested in seeing what you can do with Jadefire Spirit.

I went with Jade Claw/Immolate/Fade. I combined that with a Blue Dragonhawk for a Conflagarate combo. I also had quills and flamethrower. I filled out the rest of the team with my Magical Crawdad with Surge/Shell Shield/Wish as my anti death adder/valk pet as those are all over the place in my battle group.

I ended up going 2-2 with this team with the weak link being the Blue Dragonhawk. The Immolate->Fade->Conflagarate just didn't have enough pop to be all that effective. Probably should have gone with a Fel Flame or something with more health and power for this to work well.

I swapped out the Blue Dragonhawk and brough in my Un'bron Valk, the 244 variety. Immolate->Fade always brought in my Valk so I'd then haunt and bring in my Crawdad for stalling/healing/shelling while my dots burned down whatever pet was up. This was pretty effective and I ended up going 4-1 with this team.

Vek, go try out a spirit crab.

[Vek]

Spirit Crab. I have tried this one out a bit before, but it never really worked out that great for me. Perhaps it was just what teams I faced. This time I wanted to try and get some team synergy with the Spirit Crab so this is what I chose.
H/H Spirit Crab. Snap/Whirlpool/Shell Shield
S/S Jademist Dancer. Steam Vent/Rain Dance/Acid Rain
P/P Azure Crane Chick. Quills/Cleansing Rain/Surge

Both Acid Rain and Cleansing Rain boosts Aquatic attacks by 25%. So Whirlpool, Steam Vent, Acid Rain and Surge all benefit. Got a small AoE attack to remove decoys and a smallish team heal. The two things that got me worried is lack of avoidance moves and the focus on Aquatic attacks being weak against Magic pets, but Magic pets are not that common.

I won five straight games, go figure. The first game went down to the final hit, but the Crane Chick had rain boosted Surge so that was that. Second fight got me worried. I faced H/H Netherspace Abyssal(huge health pool vs my weak attacks) an Anubisath Idol(Sandstorm…) and a Son of Animus. It actually went much better than I expected at first. I started with a Acid Rain, to get some damage on them, and the Abyssal became a meteor. I decided to see what the Spirit Crab could do, since it had Snap which wasn’t weak. It actually killed the Abyssal and got to cast a whirlpool during it’s undead turn. This was quite nice since I could now switch weather from Sandstorm. During the whirlpool turn the Idol used Deflection while I used Rain Dance, which set up two turns of no avoidance buffed Steam Vents. The Idol went down, but took with it the dancer. My Crane Chick easily dispatched the last 100 hp of the Idol before another Sandstorm and then managed to kill the already damaged Son with two turns of Quills and a Surge, 341 power really hurts. The third fight I got a Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling(hate these guys) an Alemental and a Jademist Dancer. Two elementals with all my strong vs elemental attacks, after the Spirit Crab had taken out the Dragonling it still was able to get of two whirlpools and those really hurt elementals that can’t avoid stuff. The last two fights was a bit tougher, but the Spirit Crab did well, was pretty good vs a Moth with its Shell and Whirlpool.

I think I need to try the Spirit Crab in another team as well to get a better feel for it, but it did quite nicely during these fights and this is something I have not experienced with this pet before.

Runawayjim, I was tempted to have you go with Egbert but in homage to the old gigantic Barrens you must have some fun with the Giraffe Calf.

[Runawayjim]

Runawayjim, I was tempted to have you go with Egbert but in homage to the old gigantic Barrens you must have some fun with the Giraffe Calf.

I ran with two teams. The first is my AOE crew of Blighthawk (Infected Claw, Ghostly Bite, Cyclone), Jademist Dancer (Steam Vent, Acid Rain, Rain Dance), and the Giraffe (Hoof, Survival, Bleat). I figured as part of the rotation I could swap to the giraffe for an AOE heal. This worked out ok as I ended up going 4-3-1 with this crew. The lack of avoidance on any enemy team bombs made it tough to dominate. Survival was ok and got a couple extra rounds in the wins. In the losses the giraffe was the reason for them.

I changed up to a Speed Fiendish Imp, Magical Crawdad, and the Giraffe. While I did go 4-1 with this team, it was mostly on the power of my other two pets. This giraffe just seems like a lower tier pet or I haven't figured out a good team synergy with this one.

[Celya]

Oh, that [pet]Arcane Eye[/pet]... First off, magic pet, with only magic abilities, which leaves you hoping for a flyer or two on your opponent's team. Only one breed, so no choosing needed there.

I started off with a [ability]Dazzling Dance [/ability]team, using my trusty [pet]Fjord Worg Pup [/pet]and good all-rounder [pet]Emperor Crab [/pet] as sidekicks. The Eye ran with [ability]Focused Beams[/ability], [ability]Eyeblast[/ability] and [ability]Interrupting Gaze[/ability]. I then promptly lost several games in a row. Some of those were close losses, but in none of them the Eye was able to do anything more than throw a punch or two.

I then switched out abilities to [ability]Psychic Blast[/ability], [ability]Power Drain [/ability]and [ability]Mana Surge[/ability], and tried several variations on an [ability]Arcane Storm [/ability]team, with my [pet]Nexus Whelpling[/pet] providing the weather effect. I also used my trusty [pet]Blighthawk [/pet] with its [ability]Ghostly Bite[/ability], figuring it should be even more awesome to use when you don't stun yourself afterwards.

This team went on to win several fights in a row, mostly due to the Hawk eating the Idols and Runts it got matched with. I kind of got the feeling he was the star of the show, so I replaced him with a [pet]Clock'em[/pet] using [ability]Haymaker[/ability]. I then lost the next few games, but those were partly due to bad match-ups as well as serious mistakes on my side. I then replaced Clock'em with a [pet]Bonkers[/pet], also using [ability]Haymaker[/ability], and this setup won 2 and lost 2.

Ultimately, I don't think the Arcane Eye is a useful pet at all for pvp. I didn't see a single flyer today, so the all-magic abilities toolset didn't contribute much to any fight. I did, however, find out that my whelping likes to play with my hawk, so it wasn't all in vain!

[Celya]

Runawayjim, I've tried using my [pet]Crimson Shale Hatchling[/pet] in pvp battles, but could never make it work. Maybe you can come up with something that works for him?

[Vek]

Since I didn’t get a pet I chose one myself. Gu’chi Swarmling. I don’t think I have ever faced this little critter and I have just disregarded it without much thought. Why do I dismiss pets just by looking at them? I had to remedy that.

Stat wise the Swarmling is not that impressive. It does have a unique combination of moves, like a Lamb/Ram/Maggot. Comparing it to Maggots, using the Maggot-type moves Chomp, Acidic Goo and Consume/or Burrow, I believe that the regular Maggots are better off. Two things why, the true Maggots are Beast race and Beast racial goes really well with Acidic Goo buffed Consume. Secondly the Maggots can get both Consume and Burrow.

This had me thinking of going for the Lamb/Ram moves with Swarm and Chew, and Consume in third slot. Little Black Ram and Summit Kid also have Chew and Stampede(Swarm), but they can go another route with Headbutt. One advantage, in my mind, that Gu’chi Swarmling has over the Ram/Kid is that has the Critter racial which means you can’t interrupt the Swarm. Comparing it to it’s closest critter relatives, the Lambs, I think the Swarmling has one up on them by having Consume as an option in the third slot.

I tried it out in quite a lot of different teams, but never really with any team synergy in mind, mostly just as a kind of stand alone pet. One thing I do have to try out at some point is a pet with immolation and then switch to Swarmling. Anyway it actually worked out quite well. Chew into a Swarm can really hurt, especially undead(smacked a Skull for 1200 plus the Swarm damage). Then a Consume on a debuffed opponent will heal back a nice chunk. One opponent did use Call Lightning, and this pretty much doubles Swarm damage output which was kind of nice.

What did surprise me was that this little pet that I had dismissed out of hand was very able to go toe to toe with almost anyone it went up against. Even pets that avoided the first Chew was left with low enough health to be easy to mock up with the next pet. But I would not count on it going much further than one opposing pet.

Edit: Immolation worked pretty well, it ticked for 140 and crit for 200. The Swarmling(plus Immolation damage) just handled a Kun-Lai Runt(even though both chew and swarm was weak, but critter racial avoided the stun which was nice) and really chewed up a Fossilized Hatchling afterwards.

Celya show us the power of the Rabid Nut Varmint 5000.

[Celya]

[pet]Rabid Nut Varmint 5000[/pet]. Wow. I didn't even realise I had this little guy - I must've leveled him by accident way back in the Dark Ages or something! Never used him before in either PVE or PVP to my recollection.

The Varmint comes in several different breeds; as it happens, mine is a H/P with 1627 health, 273 power, 260 speed. I think the best breed would come down to individual choice: if you want to use [ability]Thrash[/ability], for example, you could benefit from a breed with higher speed, whereas something like [ability]Metal Fist[/ability] would benefit more from extra power.

I didn't have much inspiration for a first team, so I tried a squirrel theme with a [pet]Infected Squirrel[/pet] and a regular [ability]Squirrel[/ability]. The Varmint ran a couple of fights with [ability]Metal Fist[/ability], [ability]Extra Plating[/ability] and [ability]Rabid Strike[/ability], and then switched to [ability]Thrash[/ability] and [ability]Repair[/ability] for variety's sake. I just couldn't make myself switch out [ability]Extra Plating[/ability] though - the damage reduction is just too awesome.

This team did (surprisingly) well! I have tried themed teams in the past, but they usually don't work well. This one had a wide variety of attack types, and therefore adapted very easily to most teams it got matched with. It's kind of a DOT-heavy team, so I was worried about meeting [ability]Sandstorm[/ability] teams - but both the Infected Squirrel and the Varmint did really well against the Idols it ended up facing. Between the damage reduction and the repair (if well-timed, which I can't always do), the Varmint proved himself to be insanely tanky.

I lost 2 games to a Valk/DAH/Spineclaw team, but ironically I was able to take out the Valk and the DAH every time - the [ability]Rip[/ability]/[ability]Blood in the water[/ability] combo from the Spineclaw was the real killer for me there.

I then switched teams to a "I just leveled two other pets to lvl 25 and I want to try them out in PVP" team - my [pet]Baby Ape[/pet] and [pet]Chi-Chi[/pet]. This team went on a crazy streak (for me) of 5 wins in a row. Between the stun from the Ape - yeah, you thought you were gonna cast [ability]Haunt[/ability], didn't you? - and the [ability]Feign Death[/ability] from the Bird automatically bringing out my Varmint to tank, this team had a crazy kind of synergy. I lost once to a [ability]Darkness[/ability] team which was a very RNG dependant fight, and then very badly to a triple [pet]Crow [/pet]team.

Then I tried the Squirrel All-Stars Team again, and won 2 and lost 2, all 4 very close fights. I definitely prefer [ability]Metal Fist[/ability] to [ability]Thrash[/ability], since I hardly ever get the extra hit with my slow breed. [ability]Rabid Strike [/ability]turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword, and [ability]Repair[/ability] was very situationally useful. [ability]Extra Plating[/ability] vs [ability]Extra Plating[/ability] makes for a really long fight!

All in all, I will definitely be trying the Varmint out some more. Also, memo to self, get a better lvl 25 Squirrel!

Vek, let's find out if the [pet]Fledgling Nether Ray [/pet]is worth leveling!

[Vek]

Fledgling Nether Ray, a pet I tried out a bit when I started out pvp pet battling. Get this, 322 power while still having above medium speed with 273, this is even doubled because of the flying racial. And to top it off it has the most diverse move set of all pets, having choice of attacks that are strong against 6 pet families. Sounds like a true champ. Are you sold yet?

Well the problem is a couple of downfalls. First 1302 Health, which is on the low side, with no defensive moves at all, not even a Lift-Off. This means that in two hits(or so) you won’t be very fast anymore and even more of a sitting duck.
Secondly your most excellent choice in abilities.
In first slot Bite is ok, especially against fast rabbits. Arcane Blast might sound like a good choice against other fliers, but with your low health you probably won’t even get to cast it enough times to reach stacking limit.
Second slot. Tail Sweep, seems like a nice counter to regular bird hunters the magic pets. But you get bonus if you are slower… see the problem with being flier. Slicing Wind, this is the regular flier aquatic hunter attack. 1-3 hits is just too random for my tastes, I prefer 1-2 hits with bonus if faster, but Slicing Wind does have merits when facing stuff like Surge or other birds.
I don’t have any complaints about the third slot.

Another thing, if you are after the Nether Ray move set you will find more diversity with the different breeds of the Nether Ray Fry since Fledgling Nether Ray only comes in one breed.

Ok so much text so little fighting. I had no real clue what to use together with this pet so I just took the pets currently in the journal. Minfernal and Blighted Squirrel. Won first fight(vs Turnip, Clockwork Gnome and Blackfuse Bombling), other two pets did most of the damage, Nether Ray easily handled the left overs. Second fight(Tarecgosa, Kun-Lai, Razortooth). After Minfernal put the hurt on the poor dragon and some switches I thought I was going to get the opportunity to do some Shadow Shocks against the Runt but he switched again. The ray did finish up the dragon and then missed the Razortooth and only got one(out of three) hits with Slicing Wind in it’s last turn. Well lucky me squirrel and Minfernal could mop up.

Time for another team. Trying AoE team with the Ray to do what it does best, hurt things fast and not need to take any hits in return. Well I hardly had to use the Ray. But it worked out well those times I had to. One fight it had fun with a 333 speed imp and a lil bad wolf, but hit rate of Shadow Shock sucks. Most trouble is undead, with no avoidance and no strong attacks vs them.
After this I had some truly horrible match ups, and I switched teams around a bit. The Ray didn't really do well in that environment, especially with lots of misses, 85% plus Sandstorm = bad.

If I can give one solid piece of advice about this pet it is to use it as a sweeper(not with Tail Sweep mind you). If you try and duke it out you won’t be alive for long enough to put real hurt on the enemy. Back when I started out I tried to stay put and kill Idols for example with Shadow Shock, it didn’t end well. Good thing is diversity in attacks, some 100% hit, with many different strengths, and it's fast. But I do think there are much nicer fliers out there to use.

Celya for your next assignment go forth and kick some nuts with your Cogblade Raptor.

[Brahmaim]

Crimson Geode......I was actually pretty stoked to be assigned this pet. I had spent ALOT of time trying to find a rare PP, only to have the first one I found kill itself with Stone Rush before I could Cage it. After finally getting one, I immediately leveled it up and promptly forgot about it....so thanks for reminding me!

So for a PvP team, my first thought was that it would be great as a finisher after a Grasslands Cottontail and Valk combo, but then I immediately tossed out that idea, as pretty much anything can go with that combo. I wanted to take advantage of the Geode's Elemental Racial, so I decided to try out a Darkness team. The PS Gilnean Raven was my bird of choice, and I was torn between using the Pandaren Monk or Mini Tyreal as a 3rd, since they both can take advantage of Darkness. I was immediately worried about facing Valks, but eh, gotta be soft to something, right?

First team, Valk, Crawdad, and Direhorn......yuck. So predictably the Valk comes out first and I met it with the Geode...the whole point was to give him some burn anyhow, right? I immediately use Stone Rush and take a LARGE chunk out of the Valk, while getting a CoD in return....was sorta glad at that actually, as I was planning to suicide the Geode anyhow. Next turn I use Crystal Overload and get haunted. In comes the Direhorn. I was lucky and did not get stunned first round by the Direhorn's charge, but I hope he was a little bit stunned after when my Geode's Stone Rush ate over 2/3rds of his health! Next round Direhorn killed the Geode. I brought in the Raven to use Darkness, and set up the Monk, but in the end I lost a close match on some misses, and being on the wrong side of some crits. I probably should have used the Monk on the Direhorn. I didn't think the loss felt like the Geode's fault at all.

Played several more matches with this set up, won 3 out of 6, all close games, but it just felt off. I traded in the Monk, for Tyreal (Darkness + Self Heal = lame), and then for a Rotten Helper to use Booby Trapped Presents for a few rounds, but that really didn't change my luck.

After getting sick of missing attacks, I tried a Yellow Moth and Warbot with the Geode. That team won a few, but something still felt wrong. For giggles, I did run a few rounds with the Geode sweeping up for my Valk and Grasslands Cottontail. Those matches went well, but can't say the Geode defined the group. I also tried a couple rounds of Clonemist Dancer with the Geode as a 3rd, but that didn't work so hot.

All in all, I learned a few things......Crimson Geode is definately a Glass Cannon. He can really dish out the hurt, but he also gets chewed up fast. At one point someone swapped in a Reaver for quake, and the Geode's Stone Rush 1 shot it forcing it to immediately use its res. I feel like the Geode could be a really solid PvP pet in the right setup, but I have not yet figured that setup out. Two other things I learned; taking good notes while pet battling is hard, and I sorta suck at team building.

Oh, and Vek.....how about schooling us in proper use of the Gusting Grimoire.

[Tuatha]

Tuatha can you bring back some glory to Fluxfire Feline?

Oh, Fluxfire Feline, how far you've fallen... Long gone are the days when you could queue up with three s/s FFF's and watch your opponents flee from you. But I had to try. I had pounce on one, claw on the others, and flux and supercharge on them all. Unsurprisingly, I went 0-4. Flux is just such a weak aoe, especially since all my fff's are s/s. Even buffed by supercharge, it takes an extra turn for not enough damage. I typically had one of his pets dead and the other two well below half, but couldn't pull out a win with them. Still, fun to revisit, just for old time's sake.

Building a team to win meant pounce, overtune, and supercharge. I teamed that fff with a p/p fjord worg pup (2,2,2) and a spirit crab, quickly changing that to an emperor crab (2,2,1) when lack of both heals and evasion resulted in a couple quick losses. The fff/worg/emperor crab, however, is a potent combination. It's worth noting that dazzling dance does very little for this team, but what it does it does quite well. Same for overtune. When it's needed, it makes the team flourish, and when it's not, just don't use it. The crab only buffs to 264, and is using surge anyway, so the major benefits are the pup hitting 325 and the fff going to 406, making him faster than any rabbit without even using overtune.

In most cases the Emperor Crab was the star and the worg and fff mere support pets, but against any rabbit, and even some moths the fff shone. Before I knew it, I hit my 10 wins for this week. The major weaknesses of this team are any fliers, weather changers, and mechanicals. But even running into those teams only made it a tough game, not a foregone conclusion.

Speed is king, and when the worg pup would use howl it either disrupted my opponents plan/rotation/synergy or it destroyed the affected pet. Anticipation is essential for this team to really work, though. Howling against a Mukalot who is going to RI anyway is pointless, but against a dragon who just hit to activate its racial is so mean it's fun (this guy left his dragon in to gain 50% and never got the chance--325 speed 3x flurry hits at 340 each took him from 900 to dead before he could attack). And the fff works similarly against a fast rabbit. Knowing the critter would dodge, attack, burrow meant that I could either overtune and hit before its burrow or wait and supercharge the same round it burrowed for a 600+ pounce.

The fff held its own, but I'm thinking about trading in one of my s/s for a p/s for just a little more omph. But with the 1237 health pool making it such a glass cannon, I think the speed breed might be the optimal version.

Brahmaim, that's quite an impressive collection of pets you have there! Let me live vicariously through you and tell me what it's like to take Mini Diablo into pvp

[Vek]

Second book in this thread. Gusting Grimoire has alot in common with Lofty Libram I used a while ago in this thread. Same stats and 3 abilities(Shadow Shock, Amplify Magic and Curse of Doom) is the same. The other three attacks are a bit more diverse on the Grimoire. Fel Immolate(elemental burn attack), Agony(undead dot with no damage information) and, my favourite from the Minfernal, Meteor Strike(essentially a lift-off that is strong vs birds).

I didn't really want to go with Shadow Shock again, since my debacle with the Nether Ray and the annoying string of misses I seem to have ot late. So Fel Immolate it is. A burning attack should go nicely with a Conflagrate pet, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling is a current favourite since it is very nice against Death Adder Hatchlings. the Hatchling might look a bit weak on paper but when the dragon racial kicks in, boy oh boy you are not going to be disappointed. Second slot I chose Agony, mostly to actually try it out. And at last some nice avoidance with Meteor Strike.

Then I logged on to warcraftpets and read the forum and after Tuathas post about the Fluxfire Feline I just got an itch to try that one out. ie I just scrapped the conflagrate for the first fights. Team was Blighted Squirrel, Gusting Grimoire and Fluxfire Feline.

First opponents, Crow(might have been a Gilnean Raven), Son of Animus, Peddlefeet. The Fluxfire almost took out the Crow even with weak attacks, but an annoying miss later and the Feline was dead instead. Gusting Grimoire took a hit but then Meteored the Crow for 800. In came Peddlefeet. I cast agony and Fel immolate, then switched to Blighted Squirrel who then stampeded to double the damage from the dots. Peddlefeet went down. Now I think I messed up, i did get the strong Fel Immolate on the Son of Animus and I got the Stampede going, but I should have taken the time to use crouch. Instead on the very last turn the son of Animus got a heal and survived the strong dot by a just enough. Dammit.

Next fight i faced the following Anubisath Idol(sandstorm blocking dots and humanoid making blighted squirrel attacks weak), Azure Whelpling(strong vs magic, ie my grimoire) and a Pandaren Earth Spirit(strong vs mech, ie my fluxfire). Was that just some fluke or was it my previous opponent who really wanted me dead? It just seemed a bit too much of a coincidence. I did learn a few things from this fight. I started with the Grimoire and he brought the Idol. I cast Agony and got a Sandstorm in my face. The Agony ticked for 4 damage under the sandstorm. I switched to the Feline, got smacked in the face, but now Agony ticked for over 100 nice. He of course switched to the Earth Spirit, but in this fight the Fluxfire Feline won. One good thing is that the Feline does not have a mechanical main attack. Agony ticked a third time through sandstorm, and I guess due to it being undead damage hit pretty nice on the anub in back row. Well I actually managed to dot the Whelpling and killit with the Squirrel and then even manage to take care of the Idol with Agony boosted by Stampede.

Well on to my original plan. Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling. Perhaps I should try Ominous Flame, the curse should go well, and it even has some hard hitting attack against birds. Well now I lost 4 in a row, party to crappy play, party to damn 85% hit move of Ominous Flame, and of course some nice teams and plays by my opponents. I needed a new plan, this team just didn't make the cut this evening.

I tried out a couple of different teams. But unless facing mechanicals or humanoids, and getting the grimoire to face them, the poor book was not much use. Though I did have some fun with Kun-Lai Runt(with Mangle to boost the book) and Tiny Snowman, the book did ok then, but the real success was because of Call Blizzard and Deep Freeze. Had I run into more humanoids this evening I think the Grimoire could have been more successful. Neither of the two books are going to be on my favourite magic pet list, sadly, they got the looks though.

Tuatha speed is king show me the speed of the Cheeta Cub, and pray you face some critters.

[Harpua]

I'll bite, Vek. Just because I'd like to see what you do with [pet]Moon Moon[/pet]

[Vek]

Moon Moon comes in three breeds, I have the P/P breed 325 power, 260 speed. With the buff to crouch I’m inclined to think I should get the S/S breed instead. Moon Moon comes with the standard Wolf moves with two additions in 85% hit Moon Fang(strong vs fliers) and Moon Tears(small aoe heal and damage, causes moonlight). Moon Dance is just a new name on the same ability the other wolves have.

I had to go with Moon Fang, if it hits it hits like a truck. Got Crouch since that damage reduction is really good, and rounded off with Moon Dance, since I have the 260 speed Moon Moon. Not really a fan of lower hit rates I decided to try Nimbus(10% bonus to hit for 9 turns), I chose a Ominous Flame with Spiritfire Bolt, Nimbus and Forboding Curse. To have some advantage of the dance speed increase I also brought along a Death Talon Whelpguard with Shadowflame(85% hit so should benefit from Nimbus), Spiked Skin and Clobber(which should go nicely with the speed buff from dance).

First up was a Mechanical Yeti, Stitched Pup and Searing Scorchling. He started with Scorchling, I did Dance while he switched to Yeti. I switched to Death Talon Whelpguard while the Yeti did Supercharge. Being faster I Clobber the Yeti for the stun and my opponent leaves…

Well I didn’t even play the way I was planning, Nimbus being the first thing to be needed to be cast, so I totally scrapped the whole idea. Since Moon Moon has moonlight it should go well with the other pets from my other Moonlight team. In came S/S Sporeling Sprout and the Infected Squirrel.

This went really well. First opponent brought a Moth as first pet, I had Moon Moon. It started with Cocoon while i did Moon Tears. I didn’t get sleeped and after two regular hits the Moth was dead. Damn Moon Fang hit birds hard, two turns! The Sporeling and Squirrel had no trouble in handling the two remaining pets, a Kun-Lai Runt and a Pandaren Fire Spirit.

Next fight, Idol, Kun-Lai Runt and a Direhorn. Idol vs Moon Moon. I do crouch, he does Sandstorm. I do Moon Tears(moonlight) and he switch to Direhorn. The crouch makes Moon Moon take very little damage, about 150 a hit, while the Direhorn eats two hits of Moon Fang around 900 total. Direhorn gets scared and switches in the Kun-Lai. I still have one turn on Crouch so decide to Moon Fang while the Runt chills me. I switch to Squirrel, to not get 100% stunned, but I still get stunned. I switch to Sporeling. Moonlight boosted Creeping Fungus hurts humanoids really well, I then crouch and Jab the Runt to death. Direhorn trade some blows and is dispatched. I’m still team-slowed which works in the Idols advantage. After Sandstorm I switch in Moon Moon to change weather to Moonlight, switch to Squirrel who does Fungus and can now do Stampede to effectively double the fungus damage. Things are getting close and the Idol kills the Squirrel with a Sandstorm. The undead turn stampede is then blocked by sandstorm, and even though the fungus deals double damage it is somewhat also blocked by the sandstorm. I bring in moon moon. Decisions decisions, crouch, moon fang or moon tears? I change the weather, though this in itself only does 50 damage during sandstorm, and heals very little, the benefit is that for the last tick the fungus does increased damage and is not blocked by the sandstorm. This finishes the Idol with a nice 500 damage tick, due to still having one round left on the debuff from stampede. Sweet.

Then I lost twice to the the Yeti team I first faced. Was having trouble with the Lightning weather switches and mostly the damn stitched pup heal. Then on the third try I got my revenge, played much better that round. Nice to learn how your opponent plays and then outplay them. All in all Moon Moon is a solid wolf. And I had some incredible luck with Moon Fang, didn’t miss much at all.

Harpua bring your Soul of the Aspects to bear and tell us it’s tale.

Ps. After this Moon Moon try out I changed to Blighted Squirrel, Spring Rabbit and Lil'Bling, hoping to run into the Yeti-guy again. Well I did. Spring Rabbit vs Yeti. I Flurry, he Supercharge. I dodge, he miss(of course) Call Lightning, and flees. Queue up again and get him again. Rabbit vs Yeti rematch. I anticipate him and doge, he miss the Metal Fist. I flurry, he Supercharge. I Burrow, he miss(of course) Call Lightning, and flees. Guess some people just want it easy.

[Celya]

First off, the day after the weekly reset is NOT a good time to try out new pets since everyone seems to run a FOTM team - today, it seems like the official Idols-spamming-Demolish-under-Sandstorm day!

Nevertheless, I gave the [pet]Cogblade Raptor[/pet] my best shot. Beloved PVE pet, using [ability]Exposed Wounds[/ability] and [ability]Batter[/ability] to finish off many a Beast of Fable, yet never before tried in PVP. Only comes in 3 breeds: S/S, S/B and B/B - mine is a S/S.

My first team was a Lightning team - I don't usually like those, but it seemed like a good choice for this pet with his multiple hit ability. I teamed him up with my [pet]Skywisp Moth[/pet] for [ability]Slicing Wind[/ability], [ability]Counterspell[/ability] and of course [ability]Call Lightning[/ability], and with my newly-leveled, better-breed [pet]Squirrel[/pet] for the DOTs from [ability]Woodchipper[/ability] and [ability]Nut Barrage[/ability].

First opponent - triple [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet]. My Moth came in handy, using its stun and lightning to devour one and a half death adders before dying. The Squirrel then finished off the rest - I wanted to keep the Raptor for last because I thought it would give me a better advantage to have a mech pet at the end, but it turns out he wasn't even needed at all. Satisfying win, though!

My next opponent had a [pet]Lil' Bling[/pet] as part of his team, so I didn't want to use Lightning, which cramped my style a bit. This was a very close loss. This Idol was the only one I met using [ability]Crush[/ability] instead of [ability]Demolish[/ability] today. He also had a speedy DAH.

I then went over to the dark side for a while and played with some of my own clonedancer and minefield teams. Came back to the Raptor for another themed team - all raptors, using my [pet]Zandalari Anklerender[/pet] for [ability]Black Claw[/ability] and [ability]Hunting Party[/ability] and the [pet]Fossilized Hatchling[/pet] for [ability]Ancient Blessing[/ability] and [ability]Bonestorm[/ability].

This team turned out to be a very "hit hard, die fast" concept - lost once to a Idol/Menagerie Custodian/Ghostly Skull combo, and beat a Idol/Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling/Clockwork Gnome. I didn't feel like the raptor shined much in either fight.

As a last attempt I tried using the Raptor to sweep up after my Blighthawk/Jademist Dancer combo. The first fight was a loss, to a very tanky Idol/Emperor Crab/Emerald Proto-Whelp team. The second team I faced was, ironically, also using clonedance - Imperial Eagle Chick, Jademist Dancer and Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling. I won, but it was a very close fight.

Ultimately the [pet]Cogblade Raptor[/pet] didn't really perform today, speed is nice but it lacks firing power. I might try him again on another night to see if it performs better when there's more people playing for fun and not just trying to squeeze out their ten wins as quickly as possible.

Vek, show us what your [pet]Bat[/pet] can do!

[Harpua]

[pet]Soul of the Aspects[/pet] seems like a tough pet to battle with, You get 2 humanoid attacks, 2 elemental attacks, 1 critter and only 1 dragonkin. Breath is a no brainer. I really like sunlight, but didn't really take advantage of it. Solar Beam is really tempting, but the recharge really kills it. Not sure if it's great to do big damage against a mech when he can pound you with his fail safe while you recharge. Surge of Light would be great if I had a lvl 25 Crow, but I don't

I like to work with themes since I don't have all the synergies worked out. SOTA is a store pet, so I combined it with [pet]Lil KT[/pet]. Third wheel was a [pet]Kun-Lai Runt[/pet]. Opposing team was [pet]Fossilized Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Direhorn Runt [/pet]and [pet]Darkmoon Tonk[/pet]. SOTA faced off against the Hatchling. I took breath, sunlight and Surge of light. He took out the hatchlingbut died to the Runt. Kun Lai Runt won the battle for me.

2nd battle the opponent runs before I can even write down the name of the third pet. I'm feeling good.

Swapped out the Kun LaI Runt for a [pet]Feline Familiar[/pet]. I really like the pet and want to use Call Darkness. Opposing team is a [pet]Crow[/pet], [pet]Gilnean Raven[/pet] and [pet]Brilliant Kaliri[/pet]. FF takes out the Crow, but I don't play it well at all. Lil KT gets taken out by the Raven to end the game. Sunlight isn't really that useful to SOTA. Plus the Crow call darkness for me so I didn;t need the FF.

I take the same team against an [pet]Unborn Valkyr[/pet], [pet]Warbot[/pet] and [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet]. SOTA gets eaten up by a minefield. I need a better plan.

Next battle I use SOTA, Lil KT and Lumpy. Opponent is [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Emerald Proto Whelp[/pet] and [pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet]. SOTA end up against the Proto Whelp and holds it's own. It's basically a stalemate. But I use Sunlight, which backfires. The last two pets are Lil KT and the Gnome. He uses the Sunlight buff to heal and I can never finish him off.

SOTA FF and [pet]Lumpy[/pet] vs Unborn Valk, Warbot and Fiendish Imp (again). This is even worse than the first time. So I'm 2-4 and one win is a walkover. I can't go out like this.

Final team is SOTA, [pet]Terrible Turnip[/pet] and [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet]. Opposing team is Clockwork Gnome, [pet]Emperor Crab[/pet] and [pet]Gooey Sha Ling[/pet]. I put Deflection to good use, but ultimately I end up with the SPirit Crab against the Gnome and I outlast him. So I'm 3-4 with a few lessons learned.

If I can pair him up with a Crow, SOTA might be a good pet to battle with. He's also a good utility pet, since he can cover a lot of roles. But it's hard to build a team around him since he doesn't really shine on his own.

Celya, I'd like to see you run with the [pet]Wanderer's Festival Hatchling[/pet].

[Vek]

Just a couple of days ago, after running into a triple croc team a number of times, I started scouring the smart pet search(excellent feature btw) for pets to try out. One trouble birds have over the crocs are that Slicing Wind is random 1-3 attacks and not speed dependant, and if you go with Alpha Strike for example you can bet that the crocs will use surge and you won’t get the bonus attack. So as I was checking other non speed dependant strong vs aquatic attacks there came up a couple of useful ones. Nocturnal Strike is perhaps the most famous, but that does require darkness. You also have Reckless Strike, also slightly lower hit and with a 1 round cooldown. The most basic attack is of course Peck, with pretty low damage and 100% hit.

I flew around and searched for the exact breeds I wanted and stoned and levelled them. That is one perk of having leveled many pets and been doing trainers/fable for a while, that I got lots of stones in store. Before, when I had no stones, I was happy just to get a pet with no breed consideration and didn’t really hunt for rares unless it was a pet I knew at the time I wanted to use.

Anyway I got a P/P Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling, stoned and levelled up. I can sincerely recommend this one if Aquatics ever get out of hand. It’s Peck hits for 361(!) and over 500 vs Aquatics.

Well we are here to check out the Bat. I already had a S/S Bat but had searched for quite some time for a P/P one and just a couple of days ago I found a poor one. Stoned and levelled and brought to battle. I can say that my experience during that day was not the most successful. I think that in one or maybe two fights it felt like the Bat was worth something, the others it just felt weak. Two points really, first if you want Nocturnal Strike you need to blind your opponent which the bat can’t do by itself. Secondly Leech Life, a heal on a flier, is pretty much worthless. Leech Life needs webs to make it useful, and this is also something the bat can’t do by itself. Trust me that day I tried very hard to make Leech Life work(well now come to think of it I didn’t try sunlight). Spider with web, switch and leech life, it is just too much work for too little benefit. The only time it was remotely useful was against a humanoid. I even tried with Hawk Eye buff, problem is that it does not scale with damage done like Consume for example, the heal is fixed.

But now that I got an assignment to do I perhaps need to try it another way. First on the list is Bite instead of Leech Life. Secondly Screech instead of still pretty useless Hawk Eye, at least on this Bat. And thirdly I’m actually going to try Nocturnal Strike.

First up I went with a pretty evil AoE team. Droplet of Y’Shaarj and Scourged Whelpling, thanks for that Discodoggy(check pvppetbattles.com out if you haven’t). Thinking to use the bat to clean up the left overs, and particularly if the Scourged whelping could finish with a Call Darkness. Won three straight games, but mostly due to the two first pets. Bat was ok, but no avoidance moves makes it risky.

Next pure darkness. Feline Familiar and Dark Whelpling. Met three squirrels, blighted/infected/regular and lost. Was closer the next fight, but still really didn’t have a chance. Yea yea, call me cheap but i got Spring Rabbit and Darkmoon Rabbit in and got my revenge, was still really close(should have run with some shield instead). Finally stopped running into squirrels so got to do some testing on others. Once again I switched teams around a bit, no real synergy, lil bling and blighted squirrel, this team actually won a couple before I disbanded it.

Im not really finding the Bat very useful. Decent flier but I’d rather have the chicken again, and that wouldn’t be my first choice. It could kill critters ok with Bite, but with crouch makes even that damage weak.

Harpua can you make use of the Darkmoon Glowfly?

[Brahmaim]

Mini Diablo....wow, on the one hand I am sorta glad to have a reason to try him out, but on the other, 1156 hps is pretty weak.

My first thought for a team was to go with a Diablo theme, so I paired him with Mini Tyrael and Fetish Shaman. But when I started looking at abilities, I was not seeing much synergy. I liked the Darkness + Surge of Light combo for the 100% stun, but I always worry about using Darkness with a pet that can heal. I also took Burn and Weakness on Diablo. For a 3rd I took an Emperor Crab, as I knew I'd be seeing tons of Valks.

This combo was OK, but was lacking.....had like 2 wins and 6 losses, and the Emp crab was definately doing most of the work. I decided I needed to stack the deck a bit, so I swapped in a DAH (yeah, sorta cheating, I know), and changed Diablo's skill set completely. I had found that Weakness was nifty, but not incredible since I had the Magic Racial to fall back on. Darkness was pointless without Mini Tyrael (was questionable all along really, only got a couple of stuns out of it, and changed a few sandstorms). I had initially took Burn for my "spam" attack, but having Bone Prison made me feel better about Blast of Hatred, and Blast was better coverage for my Crab anyway.

The Diablo + Emp Crab + DAH worked ALOT better, and with his changed up skill set, Diablo was definately pulling his weight. I went something like 8-4 and the losses were close. I doubt he survived more than 1 or 2 matches, but he was always relevant. Bone Prison + CoA were flat out raping the Anub Idols. I would start off with the DAH for Blind + Poison (or Punture depending on matchup) shenanigans, then swap to the Crab against Valks or other DAHs, or Diablo otherwise. Diablo was a great set up pet, loading CoA then spamming Bone Prison. His 276 speed was suprisingly faster than alot of pets. When he died, he usually let the opposing pet Dotted and Rooted, so they were easy picking for either the DAH or Emp Crab's Surge.

All in all, I was quite suprised at how effective Mini Diablo was. In hindsight, I really Derped on his skillset at first, but I was probably oversold on making him play well with Mini Tyrael. He'll never be on a OP pet list or anything, but he definately does not suck. He is really effective setting up the other pets, and he destroys Anubisath Idols. I actually got some enjoyment out of the Magic Racial too, soaking several Supercharged/Prowl empowered hits, eating mines, he even took 2 Solarbeams and a Ion Cannon hit over the course of those games. I definatly won't be scared to try fiddling with teams for him in the future.

Vek, I am interested to see what you would do with the Silithid Hatchling.

[Vek]

Silithid Hatchling. There are three breeds to chose from, H/H, H/P and B/B. I had H/P, so 289 power and 260 speed. Perhaps the B/B would have been a bit more to my liking, with 276/276.

I guess the obvious route would be to do Sandstorm and bring some elementals, now that the fix is in place. But Sandstorm does not really work that well with the Silithids own attacks. Instead I went for a Tanaris theme. Silithid Hatchling, S/S Gold Beetle(have actually been itching to try this out) and P/B Sea Gull(this one mostly eats pandaria trainers so could be nice for it to test it’s wings in PvP). I didn’t want to block my own attacks with Sandstorm, so I went with Swarm, Devour(thinking this could be a nice finisher after Swarm) and Survival.

First I was paired against Raggy, Direhorn and Infinite Whelpling. I did some bad moves trying to get to grips with my completely new team, but the crowning moment was when I was just about to Devour the Infinite Whelpling(after it had been Swarmed) Sleeping Gas procced and I couldn’t do anything but watch my poor Silithid being sleeped to death. In the re-match my opponent had switched the Direhorn for Lil’ XT. This actually was worse since I made even worse decisions. Strike three then, re-match again. This time it went much better, but it came down to the last pets. Gold Beetle finished the Whelpling, I had about 100 hp left. Raggy entered with about 800 hp. Gold Beetle cast Survival and survived Raggys hit with 1 HP, then Apocalypse took care of Raggy. 1-2 record. The star was undoubtedly the Gold Beetle in all three matches. The Silithid Hatchling had trouble being locked into long multi turn moves, and never really had a chance to do much, not even cast a survival.

Now I got a new opponent. Lil’KT, Lost of Lordaeron and a Lofty Libram. This guy had some insane hit rate and actually some very well timed crits as well, else this first fight would have been much closer, and I might even had won. It was down to Lost of Lordaeron and Gold Beetle, but the crit killed the beetle. Had it been a regular hit I would have survived to cast Survival during the undead racial turn. Silithid still had trouble with being locked into long moves.

I needed to change this. I stayed with the Tanaris theme team but switched the Silithids abilities to Scratch, Hiss and Sandstorm. My opponent had changed his Lofty Libram to a Nordrassil Wisp. It wen’t ok, but lost when the back line damage from the Wisp did too much damage to my bird and killed off the Gold Beetle. Re-match again. This was a bit better, the Silithid Hatchling did much better with Scratch against the undead. In the end it was down to the Gold Beetle against the Wisp. Armageddon hit, and the Wisp survived due to magic racial, but the Gold Beetle was faster and could finish the Wisp in the next turn.

Well enough of this Tanaris team. New partners was needed to see if I could get more out of the Silithid. Gold Beetle though, that is a very nice pet. Gold Beetle took weak hits from raggy, critter racial make a joke of the trap and of infinite whelping sleep, it also had pretty nice stats with 276 power and 309 speed. Changed to Grinder and Qiraji Guardling. Got an old nemesis in my battle group, Moth/Tonk/Crate-guy. I usually do have some trouble with him, but this time I got him on the first try(with the help of a well timed rupture stun on the moth), even though he out waited me with his Ion Cannon(dammit). Got him even better on the second try, but then I had changed the Guardling for a Blighted Squirrel and changed back to Swarm instead of Sandstorm.

I feel one problem, at least with the opponents I faced, was that medium(260) speed didn’t suffice. At least medium speed wasn’t a great combination with the multiple turn moves. Things went slightly better when I wasn’t locked into Swarm for thee turns and Devour for two. All in all it feels like a slightly below medium pet. Perhaps I should have found more use if it had been speedier. By the way I kind of liked the Tanaris theme team and is now planning a Northern Barrens theme to see if that can work.

Brahmaim is the Frigid Frostling any good now that winter soon is over.

[Harpua]

For anyone who is lurking but has not joined in the thread, please take the chance. It's good to get out of your comfort zone and you can really learn a lot.

So my first thought on the [pet]Darkmoon Glowfly[/pet] was, this will be easy. At the end of the last Faire, I ran a DMF themed team and did ok. I have a feeling the Fly was not part of the team.

My initial team was the [pet]Darkmoon Glowfly[/pet], [pet]Jubling[/pet] and [pet]Darkmoon Eye[/pet]. Jubling for the numerous Valks I come across. The Eye was supposed to be my "heavy hitter".

It failed. Miserably. The first 3 fights were not close. My notes went "Washout", "Jub puts up a fight" and nothing on the third because it was lopsided too. I swapped out the Eye for a [pet]Restless Shadeling[/pet] because Humanoids were eating me up. On that battle the other guy only needed 2 pets to kill me. Went back to the Eye and got hammered again. I swear I heard laughter on the other end.

So, time to reevaluate.

Jub had earned his spot. I only came up against 1 Valk in those fights, but he was the one pet who performed well. Someone had to counter the [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet], [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet], [pet]Kun-Lai Runt[/pet] types. I looked through my undead pets and took the [pet]Blighthawk[/pet]. It was a good choice.

But what to do about the fly? He had to have a role. Flies are annoying, so let's start with that. If I could use him to put a DOT on someone a couple times, it might work. He would also become the designated soak off. If someone used a howl, he gets swapped in to take the next hit. He's not real durable, so it has to be in and out. He can't stand in for 5 rounds.

I also looked again at his abilities. I had been going with Slicing Wind, Glowing Toxin and Confusing Sting. I ended up the complete opposite.

Scratch hits for 322. SW is 1-3 at 146. So there's a 66% chance it will do less damage. Scratch looks like a better choice.

Glowing Toxin hits 6% of the targets max health for 4 rounds. Sting hits for 87 points for 6 rounds. I wrote down max possible health on the pets I had faced. Highest was a [pet]Magical Crawdad[/pet] with 1887 health. 6% of that is 113. But his shield could mitigate some of that. Most of the other pets were in the 1400-1600 range. That's 84-96 per tick. You could get more damage with GT if you could reapply the DOT when it ran out. But it seemed like Sting was just a better option.

Confusing Sting does 43 damage for 5 rounds with a 10% chance for target to harm themselves. That's a pretty low chance and it doesn't even say what the harm is. Dazzling Dance increases team speed by 25%. I usually don't use abilities like this, but it makes more sense than a 200 point DOT. Plus I started thinking about how much initiative can help.

So the plan is - Jubling if I see a Valk. DM Glowfly otherwise. Sting, Dazzling Dance and swap out.

I win 4 of the next 6 battles. 1 loss comes down to the last round. 1 loss I totally muff the battle, so it's on me not the team. I get up this morning planning on running several more battles just to see if it was a fluke. I didn't run up against the strongest teams, so I want to take another look.

My first match is against [pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet], [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet] and [pet]Death Adder Hatchling[/pet]. This looks like a final exam to me. Jub opens against the Valk and gets her down to 1/2 health before she haunts. Th Imp comes in and switches in the Fly. TYVM. DD, Sting and in comes the BH. 1 hit brings him under 1/2 health and he swaps in the DA Hatchling. In comes the pesky fly with a Sting. Blind doesn't bother me because I hit DD. I bring in Jub to kill the Adder. He brings back in the Valk, but oddly doesn't haunt me again. It doesn't really matter. His Imp has very little heath thanks to the Sting he took earlier. The Valk is no match for the Mighty Jub. 5 out of 7 for this team looks good to me.

I was going to write that using the DM Glowfly was like bringing a knife to a gun fight. But a well placed DOT, a speed advantage and the occasional taking one for the team made me think again. I know this has been a long post about a very minor pet, but it just shows that they are all viable. You just have to figure out how to use them.

I hate to keep giving pets to Vek, but let's see what you do with a [pet]Tiny Blue Carp[/pet]