WarcraftPets Forum

Thunderbolt is changed on the latest beta build: it's a clone of Avalanche/Carpnado now. It seems like they are moving toward the same general design for AoE abilities, ie they do X amount of damage split among living opponents, instead of X/3 damage to each opponent. Arcane Storm got the same treatment, and the new ability Cleave uses this mechanic too.

These abilities are losing the natural drawbacks of an AoE, ie that they do reduced damage against single targets. Instead, Thunderbolt is now a 600 damage nuke against a lone opponent, in addition to being very strong AoE against 3. This is going to make these new-look AoEs extremely attractive, and I think many of them are already probably too good (Thunderbolt being one of them).

I really like the fact that AoE has become a worthwhile strategy in pet battles. But these new changes are buffing something that, at this point, probably doesn't need buffing. And they're being buffed in a way that makes them require less thought, while improving their raw power.


Another tidbit: the new Razorbeak pets are flyers, and they have Raindance plus Nocturnal Strike, making them a brutal sweeper in a clonedance team.

I played with Dreadful Breath vs Alex and Dah'Da for Wrathion using an Scourged Whelping. It did work really well against them even with out cleansing rain.

Thuderbolt does seem to do a little more damage than one would expect now (40 dmg vs 30dmg for something like shock and awe) but tuned down I think the new mechanic is good.

AoE needs no help in pet PvP .. It dominates in the hands of a competent player with the right breeds in place.

I want to echo comments I've made in the battles forums here before ...Battlepet PvP needs help to get more popular..we need more frequent rewards ..though i do think theres a good balance overall currently in the pet teams that can be competitive

A more powerful AoE set of pets is not needed imo

With all of the new AoE power strikes coming, it would be nice to see some more AoE defensive abilities to balance them out.

Adumbledore wrote:With all of the new AoE power strikes coming, it would be nice to see some more AoE defensive abilities to balance them out.

Murkalot had [ability]Shieldstorm[/ability] as an aoe defensive and it left people in such a frothing rage that it got moved back to the same slot as Righteous Inspiration. They previously had Falling Murloc together with RI, to prevent Murk from inspiring himself with a powerful spell to use.

Adumbledore wrote:With all of the new AoE power strikes coming, it would be nice to see some more AoE defensive abilities to balance them out.

Totally agree. All we really have right now is Sandstorm, which is found on like 3-4 PvP viable pets, and team heals, which are generally awful.

IMO AoE should be a smaller part of PvP pet battles than it is now because it's an annoying mechanic, but if it's going to get expanded there should at least be more defensive options against it.

Luciandk wrote:

Adumbledore wrote:With all of the new AoE power strikes coming, it would be nice to see some more AoE defensive abilities to balance them out.

Murkalot had [ability]Shieldstorm[/ability] as an aoe defensive and it left people in such a frothing rage that it got moved back to the same slot as Righteous Inspiration. They previously had Falling Murloc together with RI, to prevent Murk from inspiring himself with a powerful spell to use.

I never understood why people got so upset about Shieldstorm to begin with. Sure, it's a powerful AoE defensive, but it also has a very long cooldown to compensate. It's not like people are going to be spamming Shieldstorm until the end of time. Plus, one small AoE is all it takes to dispel the shields.

I don't necessarily think that AoE is "overpowered" in any way now, as others have mentioned. It is only really out-of-control with Clonedancer set-ups, and of course the Murk idiocy. I run a few AoE teams as a change of pace, but I don't have any rousing success with any of them as compared to more conventional setups. Some more AoE defensives are fine, but take some of the front-loaded dmg out of them. SS by itself can already neuter whole teams (DoTs and AoE to name a few), but having it do big dmg as well is a bit much imo.

There is far more that needs fixing in pet battles than AoE to help bring balance. To name but three abilities:

Haunt (along with it's Consume Corpse tie-in)
Sand Storm
Blinding poison

Genome wrote:I don't necessarily think that AoE is "overpowered" in any way now, as others have mentioned. It is only really out-of-control with Clonedancer set-ups, and of course the Murk idiocy. I run a few AoE teams as a change of pace, but I don't have any rousing success with any of them as compared to more conventional setups. Some more AoE defensives are fine, but take some of the front-loaded dmg out of them. SS by itself can already neuter whole teams (DoTs and AoE to name a few), but having it do big dmg as well is a bit much imo.

There is far more that needs fixing in pet battles than AoE to help bring balance. To name but three abilities:

Haunt (along with it's Consume Corpse tie-in)
Sand Storm
Blinding poison

Sandstorm seems fine to me. Its needed to be a counter to dotters and multihitters. Plus you cant keept it up forever, due to the 5round cd. But I agree the other 2 needs to be toned down.

Luciandk wrote:Sandstorm seems fine to me. Its needed to be a counter to dotters and multihitters.

I agree that it's nice to be able to counter dotters/multi-hitters, and I have no issue with shields, but Sandstorm acts as a shield for the caster's entire team, effectively negating entire opposing teams, and stopping already applied dmg in the back-row as well. Even that would be bearable, but when applying it the caster is also getting a 400-500 dmg hit in as well, which makes it a bit OP to me. If the dmg were spread out more, like in say Arcane Storm, it wouldn't be as egregious. While the dmg would be about the same or greater overall, it wouldn't be quite as nasty and could even be very strategic. The pets using Sandstorm already do big single-target dmg as is, so I don't think they need their defensive ability to also be a heavy-hitter as well. While Darkness, Thunderstorm, and Mudslide do big upfront dmg, they don't necessarily shut down the other team's offense if they are geared for more of a cumulative dmg strategy. In short, I don't want Sandstorm nerfed into the ground or anything, merely have it's dmg re-directed a bit

Genome wrote: when applying it the caster is also getting a 400-500 dmg hit in as well, which makes it a bit OP to me.

Anubisath Idol's Sandstorm hits for 370 and S/S Qiraji Guardling's hits for 350.

Adumbledore wrote:I never understood why people got so upset about Shieldstorm to begin with. Sure, it's a powerful AoE defensive, but it also has a very long cooldown to compensate. It's not like people are going to be spamming Shieldstorm until the end of time. Plus, one small AoE is all it takes to dispel the shields.

My problem with Shieldstorm is/was that if you didn't have any AoE attack to take it down it was way to powerful, you were pretty much forced to have some AoE to remove it. Otherwise, since the shields never runs out, it's basically a free turn for every pet in the team. I faced some very difficult teams that used that shield well, for example hard hitter pounds away until low health -> switch to murkalot -> shieldstorm -> switch to crawdad(free switch since shielded) -> wish -> switch back to hard hitter(shielded get healed from wish).

Maleric wrote:Anubisath Idol's Sandstorm hits for 370 and S/S Qiraji Guardling's hits for 350.

I stand corrected. I used my Idol and tested it against 10 opponents just for kicks (tiny sample size, I know but I don't like using him). I guess my memory inflated numbers a bit. None of the hits were crits, and no buffs/debuffs were applied to the Idol or the target. Here are the results:

1. vs. Humanoid = 381
2. vs. Mech = 382
3. vs. Aqua = 553
4. vs. Undead = 378
5. vs. Flyer = 355
6. vs. Mech = 378
7. vs. Flyer = 358
8. vs. Magic = 364
9. vs. Aqua = 577
10. vs. Humanoid = 358

While not as bad as 400-500 (though pretty close), I still believe that this is a pretty strong hit for something that applies the best team defense in the game. Thanks for the info Maleric! I'll read the tooltip first next time. Another weird thing is that I won 9 out of 10 of the matches (including two valk teams with the Idol eating Haunt) that I ran him with, and just stuck him with two of my dragons randomly (Infinite Whelpling and Spawn of Ony). He is such a powerful pet, and his toolset allows the user use him very aggressively.

Vek wrote:

Adumbledore wrote:I never understood why people got so upset about Shieldstorm to begin with. Sure, it's a powerful AoE defensive, but it also has a very long cooldown to compensate. It's not like people are going to be spamming Shieldstorm until the end of time. Plus, one small AoE is all it takes to dispel the shields.

My problem with Shieldstorm is/was that if you didn't have any AoE attack to take it down it was way to powerful, you were pretty much forced to have some AoE to remove it. Otherwise, since the shields never runs out, it's basically a free turn for every pet in the team. I faced some very difficult teams that used that shield well, for example hard hitter pounds away until low health -> switch to murkalot -> shieldstorm -> switch to crawdad(free switch since shielded) -> wish -> switch back to hard hitter(shielded get healed from wish).

Oh I totally agree that it's a pain in the rear, I just think that Shieldstorm is just like any other ability. It's an AoE defensive, so use an AoE offensive to dispel it. It may force people to use certain pets or abilities to combat the ability, but I don't see how it's any different than having to use certain abilities to combat other defensives (ie: not using DoTs against pets with something like Sandstorm).

Perhaps it's an inherent flaw in defensive abilities or counters in general, I don't know, I just think that Shieldstorm should have been treated just like any other ability. You have it and there are counters for it.

Hrm. If i understood the talk about Hit chances in Wod right. Hit debuffs will actually lower the chance of getting a high hit on attacks with variable damage. So Sandstorm thusly nerfs the damage output of Crush even further when active, beside the chance to miss.

The problem with Shield storm is that it is only attached to one pet... One incredibly powerful pet... That not everyone has access to. If it were a wild pet ability, or drop pet, or achieve pet, I don't even mind pet store pets, but giving such a Uniquely powerful move set to a pet that is only available to such a small group, while the rest of us have to pay $100+ to get it is a little ridiculous.

Luciandk wrote:Hrm. If i understood the talk about Hit chances in Wod right. Hit debuffs will actually lower the chance of getting a high hit on attacks with variable damage. So Sandstorm thusly nerfs the damage output of Crush even further when active, beside the chance to miss.

Nope. Initial testing shows that a hit debuff just gives them a chance to miss just like any other ability. It's only hit buffs that increase you chance for a high hit.

Kpb321 wrote:

Luciandk wrote:Hrm. If i understood the talk about Hit chances in Wod right. Hit debuffs will actually lower the chance of getting a high hit on attacks with variable damage. So Sandstorm thusly nerfs the damage output of Crush even further when active, beside the chance to miss.

Nope. Initial testing shows that a hit debuff just gives them a chance to miss just like any other ability. It's only hit buffs that increase you chance for a high hit.

I'm still working on testing this properly . My current raid schedule is weekend heavy so I should be able to get a lot more trials in...especially now that my auto-challenge and forfeit macros work!!

Adumbledore wrote:Oh I totally agree that it's a pain in the rear, I just think that Shieldstorm is just like any other ability. It's an AoE defensive, so use an AoE offensive to dispel it. It may force people to use certain pets or abilities to combat the ability, but I don't see how it's any different than having to use certain abilities to combat other defensives (ie: not using DoTs against pets with something like Sandstorm).

The problem is that Shieldstorm is low risk/high reward. In the worst case, if the opponent has an AoE, then you trade turns 1-for-1. If they don't, then it's 3 turns for 1, which is hideously strong.

Sandstorm is the same: in the worst case, it's still a good button to push -- a 25 base dmg nuke plus a shield that is advantageous even when facing single-target attacks (due to high health/humanoid passive). The expected value of the shield is 25 base dmg blocked, assuming single target attacks (5 base dmg * 5 turns). Against Flurry/Quills, the expected value is 62.5; against AoE, it's 75; against DoTs, it's 25*(DoT duration). It counters these abilities way too hard, and *most* of them are not at all overpowered.

The problem with having overpowered abilities and overpowered counter-abilities is that a) you only get 9 abilities in your team, so you can't pack counters for everything without sacrificing your actual strategy, and b) the merely normal abilities can't compete, so the metagame focuses on a tiny number of overpowered pets/abilities and counter-pets/abilities. We saw this with force-swap/direhorn in 5.3, and Haunt/DAH/AoE vs Emperor Crab/Sandstorm in 5.4.

So personally I don't think Sandstorm is a good design choice, but currently that's the design for countering AoE.

Thus far, there is nothing in the WoD changes to suggest that anything will change for the better. Haunt and Blinding Poison are untouched -- in fact, there is a new pet with Haunt ( http://wod.wowhead.com/npc=83817 ). AoEs are proliferating and getting stronger, and there's new and better pets with Raindance. Meanwhile there's no new Sandstorm pets, and nothing to improve on Emperor Crab (whereas there are multiple new Darkness/NocStrike pets that will make Emp Crab very sad).

So basically, we are getting boosts to the current strong strategies; no improvements to their counters; and no significant new abilities that might shake things up and provide new strategies to compete with the old ones.

Skavenged wrote:The problem with Shield storm is that it is only attached to one pet... One incredibly powerful pet... That not everyone has access to. If it were a wild pet ability, or drop pet, or achieve pet, I don't even mind pet store pets, but giving such a Uniquely powerful move set to a pet that is only available to such a small group, while the rest of us have to pay $100+ to get it is a little ridiculous.

That's my issue with it. Let's face it, the reality is, the "average" player isn't going to have access to this pet. I know it's on my list of "I'll simply never have this". To me, that's what makes it unfair.