Why is Anubisath Idol so Highly Rated?

[Uhogpaladin]

I don't use a wide variety of pets so I was just wondering why this particular pet is rated so high.

[Melfice]

Because he is a beast for a lot of the PvE Pet battles haha. He can even solo some of the Master Tamers too. For PvP, I never use him and he might be a good fit for a stall team maybe. I don't see the Idol that often in PvP battles

[Iibis]

It's disgustingly good in PvE. I don't like the Idol because every spell takes forever to cast, not to mention the amount of misses when Crush had a 95% hit chance, and then Sandstorm on top of that. >_> It's pretty much because Sandstorm negates attacks that are split into smaller attacks, and it protects your other pets as well (or Stoneskin to just protect the Idol). And because it has Deflection on top of that, which syncs very well with big hit attacks in scripted fights.

[Lowbrowdeluxe]

Sandstorm/Deflect and the humanoid racial combined to create a monster that could solo a lot of pve battles and be insanely helpful on others.

[Luciandk]

Anubisath Idol have had a quite long run and a hefty series of nerfs. But I think the variable damage on Crush is finally whats weaning me off on using it, feels like its hitting like a wet noodle at times. Plus it doesnt seem like a must to use on the Draenor trainers, unlike the Pandaria ones.

[Beave]

Idol is a love/hate pet for most PVE battlers. It has a really strong and unique set of skills that make it perfect for carrying levelers against daily trainers, but its fights take a long time, and pre-6.0 it had a really high miss rate on attacks. If you want to level a carry pet against a trainer for 4000+ experience, you’ll very likely want to or have to use Idol. If you’re trying to speed level against regular 3-pet mobs you won’t want to use Idol. He takes far too long. The basic approach to a fight with Idol is to mitigate and dodge damage, use your humanoid racial bonus to heal over time, and chip away at your opponent. That means you have a lot of 20-30+ round fights.

Why is Idol so powerful? A very very large percentage of PVE world pets have movesets with a primary attack that ends up being a lot of little attacks that stack up to 250-400 damage per round. The flavor text will say something like “1-2 attacks for 110 damage, plus an extra attack if the user goes first.” More elite trainer type pets often hit you with a DoT type burn/bleed/poison attack too. Sandstorm and Stoneskin cut ~70 hp off of every one of those attacks including the DoT’s, which can completely negate all damage you take in a given round. Even against the MoP Daily Trainers, most of their critter and flying pets use attacks of those types. With Sandstorm up against many of the trainers you can run a very low level pet in (against some as low as lvl 1) and get them fight experience without taking damage or taking very little.
The other reason Idol is so powerful is he has a dodge skill that always goes first. Being a slow pet you very predictably tell when skills like Burrow and Lift-off are about to hit, and avoid them. So you’re mitigating the little attacks, and avoiding the big ones altogether. The trade-off is that you’re doing an average of 200 damage per round against a 3-pet team with 4500-5000hp.

Finally, Idol is one of the few humanoid pets with a viable moveset. (Bonkers is a good one too.) Since there are a lot of Dragonkin in the MoP daily trainer series who hit really hard, you almost have to put in a pet with a strong Humanoid attack to counter that. The Humanoid racial bonus is significant too. As an H/H Humanoid he will heal just shy of 70hp every round he lands an attack. That’s significant when you combine it with his other skills.
Cast sandstorm or stoneskin, crush, dodge, crush, crush, repeat.

[Blixtiya]

Beave Summed it up perfectly. I personally only use it on blazing pandaren spirit(which idol easily can solo still) butIve heard he can solo Aki the Chosen as well, and would not be surprised if he can do same with Courageous Yon. he should also do well against Hyuna of the Shrine when I think about it.
Basicly hes the nightmare of Pandaria tamers, lets just say that.

[Abashera]

If you haven't done your Menagerie Daily today, try this strat. using an Anubisath.

Anubisath is about equal to Kromli, so if you miss a reflect or sandstorm, he will decimate you. But otherwise Anubisath will always come out ahead.


1. Anubisath Idol (1-1-1)
2. Flayer Youngling (1-2-1)
. . . P/S if you have one, otherwise S/S)
3. (backup lvl 25 Pet)

Vs. Kromli: Deflection > Sandstorm > Crush, Crush, Crush > Deflection > Sandstorm > Repeat till Kromli dies.

(Your first deflect should cause you to miss his opening Rupture, and your second Deflect will again line up with his Rupture. Always Reflect when his Rupture is off CD.)

Vs. Gromli: Crush > Deflection > Sandstorm if it's off CD, otherwise Crush. Anubisath might get one more hit in before he dies, so make it Sandstorm if it's off CD.

Switch to Flayer Youngling

Kick > Blitz > Reflect > Blitz > KICK WHENEVER POSSIBLE, then follow with Blitz and Reflect.

If you fail to Kick whenever it's ready, you will lose - same goes with reflect.


Unfortunately this strat. doesn't allow for a carry pet, because Gromli will probably kill it in one hit, even if it's lvl 24. You might have a chance if your leveling pet has some kind of barrier - you can swap him in after a Kick from your Flayer, hit your barrier, and finish him off with your carry pet.

[Jerebear]

If you want to do a carry pet, Gromli always casts Stoneskin on his first turn. It just has to survive the dreadful breath from the other guy.

[Abashera]

If you want to do a carry pet, Gromli always casts Stoneskin on his first turn. It just has to survive the dreadful breath from the other guy.

Yes this is possible. But then you will eat a big hit from Gromli, making a win rather difficult, and highly subject to RNG misses and crits and such.

I tried to swap in a level 23 carry pet right after Anubisath died, and Gromli one-shotted it.

Big meany!

[Kendrah]

I don't use a wide variety of pets so I was just wondering why this particular pet is rated so high.

Back in 'the day', the Idol and the Emerald Proto-drake could two team all the MoP pet battle dailies quite easily. It made for really fast leveling of your pets.

[Echinacea]

ive soloed aki with an idol

[Jerebear]

If you want to do a carry pet, Gromli always casts Stoneskin on his first turn. It just has to survive the dreadful breath from the other guy.

Yes this is possible. But then you will eat a big hit from Gromli, making a win rather difficult, and highly subject to RNG misses and crits and such.

I tried to swap in a level 23 carry pet right after Anubisath died, and Gromli one-shotted it.

Big meany!

If you choose the carry pet soon as the idol dies and then immediately swap out, the carry pet won't take a hit. The is the most common way of getting a carry pet EXP.