Strongest pets preventing skilled play

[Rosqo]

I don’t really have much time for players who only spam the very best pets in the PvP queue and I’m really starting to wonder does only using things like Teroclaws, Bone Serpents and Twilight Clutch Sister prevent people from actually learning how to play well. The best pets are much easier to play they forgive mistakes and can often just power through with brute force. This means as soon as these players try something that requires much more thought and each decision is important they just give up and assume only the most overpowered pets do well. I guess just rolling with overpowered pets team synergy rarely comes into their thought processes aswell.

What do you guy think?

Using these pets once in a while is OK what I’m referring to but players who exclusively use them.

[Gráinne]

"only using things like Teroclaws, Bone Serpents and Twilight Clutch Sister prevent people from actually learning how to play well."

Ya think?

Does only popping trays into the microwave prevent me from learning the skills to win Gordon Ramsey contests?

Yeah, we need something to force us to mix it up. Family Brawler was a start, but the devs could do much better. I hope they come up with something.

BTW, Leech Aura is still there in the BfA version

http://bfa.wowhead.com/pet-ability=2070/leech-aura-test-ability

Gain the Aura of Rezan, causing your pets to heal for 50 every time they deal damage. This amount is doubled if your pet is below 50% HP.

This ability starts on cooldown.

which couldn't possibly go live like that. 50 is an insane number before scaling. Pehaps this:

http://bfa.wowhead.com/pet-ability=2069/leech-aura-test

Healing for 10 every time you deal damage. Healing doubled if health is below DATA ERROR%.

[Nagini]

Sometimes I wonder about this. If someone is playing triple crow/darkness or something like that, I'd say they're (ab)using a strong pet, playing a strategy that requires little skill. But some of the meta teams aren't strong because three of one of their pets would win matches just as easy, but rather because they can be played together in an interesting way. It took me a little while to learn how to use a teroclaw effectively (and i still fall prey to the 'lets just finish of his pet quickly instead of stalling and healing' these days). I've won games with outmatched non-meta teams versus some "strong" teams simply because the player picked a 'strong' team, but they didn't understand how to bring out the synergy of the team. Not just trying to hit the oppenent till your pet dies, but using clever swaps can make all the difference.

if the meta's were a little weaker, we'd probably see a lot more creativity, so I agree a top tier of strong pets isn't helping. However, there's still very skilled players using unorthodox pets getting wins over the current meta too. If you want a challenge, I guess, now is a good time to be playing?

[Gráinne]

Nagini, yes, this is at least a much better time to be playing than in Warlords, when the black pall of AoE from Graves and the Evul Undead covered everything. Blizzard dealt with that pretty well in the adjustments they made at the start of Warlords, though I'm still a bit sad about Howl and Frog Kiss et. al.

However, there are three current families of strategies that are pretty much pre-programmed. You learn the methods, and after that there is relatively little further thinking to do. In order of decreasing obnoxiousness:

1. Darkness. Keep Darkness up and use Nocturnal Strike as much as possible. This barely requires brain function.

2. Haunt and Stall. I'll quote Discodoggy's classic description from 2015:

The Haunt and stall strategy should be apparent. The plan is to start with the Ghastly Kid and use Haunt right away. If the pet that Haunt was cast on is slower than 305 speed, bring in the (Scalded) Basilisk (Hatchling) to use Crystal Prison, use Thrash once, then Feign Death to bring in the (Fiendish) Imp. The Imp can now force out the pet if necessary, which means that the enemy pet just took over 1000 damage, with the only damage given being whatever was done to the Ghastly Kid on the first round. By this time I’m usually so far ahead that finishing the battle is easy.

Nowadays we have the Wicked Soul and Teroclaw as superior alternatives, but the principle is the same. Haunt and Stall teams do have to consider how to manage cooldowns, maintain health, and keep the rotation going, so do require thought to run.

3. Clonedance. Set up a Cyclone, then swap and buff its hit chance and damage with Rain Dance or similar buff, and let the Cyclone do its thing. Clonedance can be countered hard by blocking or clearing the cyclone, or by swapping out the dancer, or by removing the cyclone, and there is considerable room to vary the team's composition by choice of a third pet. You can aim to make it all-out offensive with something like a Junglebeak or you can throw a stall or tanky pet in as your third with the idea of getting a second full round of Cyclone. And so I don't really think of Clonedance as objectionable in the same way as the others. Still, it is an out-of-the-box strategy, with a bit of DIY.

Bone Serpents are the biggest single-pet problem, because you can run multiples, and because they're too durable. Darkness birds can at least get taken down pretty quickly. Go out with 3BS and just press 1 2 1 3 1 each time, and you will beat most teams. That makes for a dull game, and as Rosqo points out, people never have to learn.