WarcraftPets Forum

So I'm basically coming back as an effectively new player (Vanilla => Legion), and started mucking around with the pet battles and have really enjoyed them.

The team members so far:
[pet]Murkidan[/pet] | [ability]Shadow Slash[/ability] [ability]Fel Immolate[/ability] [ability]Nether Gate[/ability]
[pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet] | [ability]Crush[/ability] [ability]Sandstorm[/ability] [ability]Deflection[/ability]

The opener I've been using is with [pet]Murkidan[/pet] being:
[ability]Fel Immolate[/ability] => [ability]Nether Gate[/ability] => [ability]Fel Immolate[/ability]

If it works as expected, that will DoT up two of the opponents pets, with one pet in the background burning. Normal mode is switch to [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet] then start beating things down. [pet]Murkidan[/pet] also works well as a fall back character with [ability]Shadow Slash[/ability] that he's solid on his own.

I'm still learning about the pets, and trying to figure out what the third pet should be, so I've probably already caught the pet but haven't gotten it leveled yet. [pet]Chrominius[/pet] is one that I've been working with, but I'm not feeling all that great about [pet]Chrominius[/pet] because it feels like he's not bringing enough to party (if that makes sense).

Welcome back, and welcome to pet battles!

My immediate reaction is to ask "a team for what?"

Key concept: you do not aim to have A team. You aim to have have a large roster from which you select a team of the right pets for different situations.

Murkidan and the Idol are both very powerful pets, but they are both Humanoid, and so vulnerable to Undead attacks. That's a concern. They're also quite slow, and so in PvP likely to be Dodged, blocked, interrupted or stunned. You have a lot of raw power and decent tankiness, but you have weaknesses too.

While your idea of swapping out a pet to burn on the back line is solid, what happens when your opponent brings in a Starlette and destroys you with a WindUp, of a Valk to Curse and Haunt you? If you're going to go with those two pets for PvP purposes, I'd throw in a Teroclaw Hatchling for the avoidance.

Gráinne wrote:Welcome back, and welcome to pet battles!

My immediate reaction is to ask "a team for what?"

That's a good point, for me, this is more PvP focused. I do see your point about the PvE matches, though.

Gráinne wrote:Key concept: you do not aim to have A team. You aim to have have a large roster from which you select a team of the right pets for different situations.

Are there a few others you'd recommend focusing on?

Gráinne wrote:While your idea of swapping out a pet to burn on the back line is solid, what happens when your opponent brings in a Starlette and destroys you with a WindUp, of a Valk to Curse and Haunt you?

Can you go into what those move sequences are, and how I would ideally counter them?

There are probably a couple of hundred common manoeuvres used, and countered, in PvP. Explaining one or two of them wouldn't help you much.

Discodoggy is our best-known PvP pet battler, so instead I'll direct you to his site, where you can see some teams in action, with commentary: http://pvppetbattles.com/daily-battle/

As for PvP pets, you want at least

Teroclaw Hatchling
Fiendish Imp S/S breed
some Rabbit with 357 speed
Bone Serpent (I would say H/H breed, but any will do)

Disco hasn't got around to making a new Tier list for the recent patch yet. Things are still settling down. Fragment of Anger and Graves have taken pretty serious nerfs, so they don't belong on the top shelf any more. But it's still a pretty good scorecard for PvP pets.
http://pvppetbattles.com/2014/12/22/top-high-tier-list/

Hi,

I do not PvP at all ... bad eyesight and old age are not a good combination, and sometimes, I'm slow coming around on these things ... like looking for Rats for a stupid Leatherworking thing ... I'm dead before I even find a rat! But in Pet Battles, might be another story, however, I am not sure I am ready for that yet. I can see one issue already ... do I use Power, or do I use Speed? Or do I use Health?

But, for example, the team I most use for helping level my pets includes a bomb, at the end ... so I can finish the fight in one shot. Good side of that, is that it can finish quickly ... bad side of that? Many times the Pet does not have the defensive ability to hold things a wee bit longer. The two I have been using in the end is the Eldritch and the Erudite Manafiends, but I have no idea how their abilities stack on PvP. And on occasion, a Moth or two will just stun and take out the Manafiends very quickly, but it does not happen enough to stop me.

On that list ... ohhh my goodness. No Skunks. Can't stink up the opponent without one!

So after going through everything (and trying to not get info overloaded), maybe it's time for a team rethink, so how well would this team work?

[pet]Murkidan[/pet]
S/S [pet]Rabbit[/pet]
[pet]Teroclaw Hatchling[/pet]

@Uduwudu: As long as you can figure out what your next move is in 30 seconds, you can PvP in pet battles.

OK, so now you have a spread of families and you're heavy on avoidance.

Remember that because of the Humanoid racial, your [pet]Murkidan[/pet] is getting heals from those [ability]Fel Immolate[/ability]s. That means you can retire him to the back line to heal up a bit after ha has placed his DoTs. This is a standard mechanic for the [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet], but because the Imp typically uses [ability]Immolation[/ability], he gets 9 rounds of heals instead of 4. With 4 rounds, I'm not sure it will be worth a swap out. However, you can swap out because you have two of the best dodgers in the game to play Wascally Wabbit with the opponent.

I tend to agree on Shadow Slash over Eye Beam because I see more Humanoids than Dragonkin around, and because locking yourself into three rounds in PvP is a dangerous tactic.

There's only one way to find out how good a team is, though. Have fun!

Uduwudu, just hop into the queue with any old team, and lose a few. See what people are doing. Get used to the mechanics of pet PvP. Watch the timer. Don't forget to select your first pet. People starting PvP always forget that, unlike PvE, your top pet doesn't automatically start the fight. Half the battle is guessing what the opponent is going to start with, and choosing the pet you want facing that one.

Gráinne wrote:Remember that because of the Humanoid racial, your [pet]Murkidan[/pet] is getting heals from those [ability]Fel Immolate[/ability]s. That means you can retire him to the back line to heal up a bit after ha has placed his DoTs. This is a standard mechanic for the [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet], but because the Imp typically uses [ability]Immolation[/ability], he gets 9 rounds of heals instead of 4. With 4 rounds, I'm not sure it will be worth a swap out. However, you can swap out because you have two of the best dodgers in the game to play Wascally Wabbit with the opponent.

Would it be better to have the entire team focused on DoTs? I could always pair Murkidan with the Imp with a third pet that's a monster to help the team.

Gráinne wrote:There's only one way to find out how good a team is, though. Have fun!

This is also helping me figured out the theory behind the team (if that makes sense).

That and I'm theorycrafting with pets I don't yet have >.>

I would HEAVILY avoid a team entirely reliant on dots. A sandstorm, shell shield ( and the stronger versions such as trihorn shield and shell armor), or even speedy pets that punish the multiple swap outs ( such as teroclaw hatchling with healing and alpha strike) due to simply damaging you more than humanoid bonuses regain and the non-humanoids just lose nearly half their HP before even hitting the field.

If you use dots, something that works well is a tanky character or a healing pet. You let the enemy tick down while you soak the damage and deal normal damage back to them. Blossoming ancient would be an example of this, where it can ironbark and photosynthesis, and sunlight to benefit from healing and damage reduction. In addition sunlight makes your pets heal more! A similar pet would be the singing sunflower, which uses solar beam or lash ( go fo solar beam usually if you have the heal set up) instead of ironbark.

A few typical teams of pets you will see include Val'kyr and stalling, Darkness combo's ( either triple ravens / crows or the bone serpent mixture), AoE teams with mech pandaren, graves, and a variety of filler pets, the ocassional pve team with chominius and anubisath idol, and a variety of healing teams using sunlight, photosynthesis as a mainstay ( note, emerald proto whelp in a sunlight with emerald presence and emerald dream can heal a stupid amount while reducing dot damage)

Fringe teams do occur, and usually they are by players testing a new team type or trying to start up pet battling and not really sure what pets to use. In general, you want pets that have good breeds and stat distributions for their role ( B/B on a rabbit is bad compared to S/S for example). When you use dodge pets, being faster = more moves dodged. Healing = more rounds to work with chipping the enemy down for a sweeper pet to clean up. AoE follows a similar principle on sweeping. If you get all your enemy pets to less than a few hundred hp and you have a fast pet, you've likely won. Darkness combo's rely on bursty potential of Call Darkness and Nocturnal strike, along with either bone barrage for bone serpents ( hits pretty hard if 3 or more connect, and leaves a 4 round dot) or alpha strike for the S/S raven / crows to simply damage inbetween.

Often times the best way to increase your win ratio isn't to run pets that are good, but pets that are good against what you fight a lot. This loops back to having a good roster. Magic damage and affinity is great against the crows because it deals extra damage and can't be hit for more than 35% at a time - enough to let you steal their flight speed bonus and sometimes nullify the extra damage from alpha strike. Critters such as rabbits are great against the bone serpent variant - they can dodge the nukes while dealing strong critter damage. Darkness pets and aquatic pets often do well against healing teams that use elementals.

Keeping the S/S rabbit in mind, you counter a good number of undead one-ofs, while also having a strong resource for bone serpent match ups. Murkidan is decent against humanoids, but his hp pool leaves much to be desired against one turn kill combo's or burst pets like the crows. Teroclaw hatchling helps take out the risk of one turn kill moves by providing a dodge and healing, as well as doing well against aquatics (as long as you don't use elemental ward too soon). Teroclaw and the S/s rabbit do have limitations - both use lighter, multihit damage moves as their sources of damage. This means that damage reduction moves are extra useful against them. Your 3rd pet choice matters, and in this case murkidan needs to be able to kill whatever that enemy pet is. Unforunately, some match ups this team just wont win. Direhorn Runts and similar pets will shield the multihit damage, take less damage from fel immolate, and the shadow slash simply doesn't burn as quickly as the direhorn will annihilate the Murkidan. Nether gate isn't strong in this instance due to the speed of murkidan being pretty standard to low end compared to the fiendish imp which can have 333 ( i think. could be like 331 or something close) and metamorph is not that great due to the low hp pool of murkidan making it unikely for him to survive 6 rounds to fully benefit. And swapping out with a metamorph'd fel immolate hardly counts.

I would suggest experimenting with a few popular pets or pets you think may counter common enemies, while also having good synergy with your team. Some suggestions I can make would be: weather effects to change enemy sunlight or darkness or sandstorms into a more favorable effect, a strong undead because the racial they have is simply that good, and perhaps a magic aquatic or elemental type to help hedge your chances against certain combos.

Al, you're suffering from A Syndrome, and as a Survivor of that Syndrome, I'm here to help. Most new battlers pass through it. You are looking for the right answer. There isn't one.

Get into the queue!



Yes, you are absolutely right that understanding the theory is critical to success in the long run. But you have as much of that as you can absorb for now. It's not chess, with hundreds of thousands of lines already mapped out. Get some practical experience.

My DoT & Dodge team is

Valk: Curse, Haunt
S/S Fiendish Imp: Immolate, maybe Burn, Nether Gate when Imp has taken about 500 damage.
Teroclaw: Dodge, Alpha Strike, Heal, and so on.

and that will work very well against a lot of teams. Not so well against others. Sandstorm nerfs the DoTs. Darkness nerfs my heals. An experienced battler will know exactly what I want to do, and try to juke my Imp. A Crab will laugh at my Valk. A Clonedance or AoE will keep hitting my backline while I'm relatively slowly whittling them down. So those are the chances I take when I run that.

Or I could run an opposite kind of team:
Bone Serpent
Nexus Whelpling
Iron Starlette
all raw power, no avoidance.

Both teams will do fine in the queue. It just depends how well I play, what my opposition is, how well my opponent plays.

Losing, and analysing the match afterwards to see why, is the best way to understand how your theory worked - or didn't.

Gráinne wrote:OK, so now you have a spread of families and you're heavy on avoidance.
...
Uduwudu, just hop into the queue with any old team, and lose a few. See what people are doing. Get used to the mechanics of pet PvP. Watch the timer. Don't forget to select your first pet. People starting PvP always forget that, unlike PvE, your top pet doesn't automatically start the fight. Half the battle is guessing what the opponent is going to start with, and choosing the pet you want facing that one.

You bet I am ... hehehehe!!!

I'll get there, but there are a couple more pets that I am looking to play with. What I am hoping is that my ability to have played so many pets at level 22, 23, and 24 to level them, will give me a better idea of what to do and how. Already, for example, I have been working on doing this with my neighbor, and he's probably going to take a pasting, since he's particular to Dragonkin only ... and I'm particular on making sure their bombs do not take any more than half.

The tough ones, are things like the Ruby Sapling and those Pets that dot, and heal with it, when it hits, and usually that's a lot. For this, the snakes are usually very efficient specially when they do over 100 points of damage after the turn from the DoT.

I'm really thinking that we need a set of posts on these healing pets ... they are very tough to learn, and even tougher to level. And I'm almost positive that they are a really difficult fight ... I remember the first time I did one of the Fawn's and then the Gleamhoof's in Val'sharah. That is a nice lesson in how to use them, and now ... boom, they are done and over with before anything ... and go ahead ... bring your Anubisath with you ... my Gleamhoof's will eat you up like peanuts! Now I have to make sure I can take down the Teroclaw little bugger ... I need to fight him a few times to figure out what I can use the best, but I know that a good DoT is very tough to overcome and probably capable of evening out his heals?

I've actually been playing around with [pet]Murkidan[/pet], [pet]Blossoming Ancient[/pet], and the rare S/S [pet]Rabbit[/pet] to some success.

I'm starting to see that [ability]Fel Immolate[/ability] v [ability]Immolation[/ability] is the big decision on [pet]Murkidan[/pet], as [ability]Nether Gate[/ability] gives you too much ability to screw up the opponent despite how much of a DPS increase [ability]Murkmorphosis[/ability] is.

I've also had two games where it's been the undying [pet]Blossoming Ancient[/pet] vs something else while we flail at each other for ~200 turns or so because [ability]Ironbark[/ability] + [ability]Photosynthesis[/ability] + [ability]Sunlight[/ability] = very, very durable pet that can counter most lower DPS pets.

Congratulations!

"I'm starting to see that Fel Immolate v Immolation is the big decision on Murkidan" is what I'm talkin' about when I say that the theorising makes a lot more sense once you start beating your head against the queue. These things only come into focus when you're actually in a battle making decisions.

Those 200-round battles are why so many people hate to see [pet]Blossoming Ancient[/pet]. You will develop a roster that give you more choice later, though!

I'm starting to wonder if the way [ability]Immolation[/ability] works (where it's dealing damage from the back line) is a bug, as that's part of what makes the 2x[pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet] + [pet]Singing Sunflower[/pet] teams very difficult to deal with.

That's where I'm contemplating another team with [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet] for [ability]Sandstorm[/ability] Darude and maybe a S/S [pet]Mongoose Pup[/pet] and something else to counter them ([pet]Chrominius[/pet]?)

Downside is that the pets may be at 25, they aren't all rare, and getting the Garrison up to speed to fix that is taking time (I got lucky and got a level 3 Stronghold with my autolevel to 100 with Legion).