Deadly Pet Brawler

[Saa]

First of, I'd like to introduce myself, Im Saa. For years I've been Battlemaster Saa but now, it gives me great pleasure to be wearing the tag of Trainer Saa. Thank god it's over tbh.

I have decided to offer for what it's worth, some of my experiences in this arduous journey and whilst I don't proclaim to be a god of pet battling I hope that my humble musing will be of use to some people if they decide to have a crack at the achiev themselves.

Before I continue, I'd like to say a very big thank you to Poofah, who in a thread earlier last week posted a team that he was using as it was this idea I unashamedly poached it and it took me to my 1000th win. Originally I was running a really irritating darkness team:-

Gilnaen Raven p/b with Alpha Strike, Darkness and Nocturnal Strike
Crow p/s with Alpha Strike, Darkness and Nocturnal Strike
Rabbit s/s with Flurry, Dodge and Burrow

I'm sure I don't need to explain how this team works, it's very effective but it's actually pretty dull to play. It did however take me to 250 pvp wins to earn my Stunted Direhorn.

After reading Poofahs thread, I leveled my Stunted Direhorn to 25 and recreated the team with only one exception which I'll come to later. I'll list the pets, the abilities I used and their strengths and weaknesses in my opinion.

Giant Bone Spider p/s with Bone Bite, Siphon Life and Death Grip and I affectionately named him Anansi after the African spider god of trickery. The spider is amazing, plain and simple he'll fit into most teams. Bone Bite is amazing for killing those pesky Anubiseth Idols (oh I how I hate them) and other humanoids including the ever prevalent Kun-Lai Runt. Siphon Life is great for dropping onto pets and then gripping them to the back row, rinse and repeat, now you have two health regens. Death grip is just the key to this team really, it has so many uses and the spider is fast enough to go first most of the time. Dragonkin charging a deep breath?....grip him to the back row. Undead pet on low health?....grip him to the back row so he dies there. Mr Pinchy just cast Wish? use grip.(though this is often risky if your opponent suspects you will do this).

Stunted Direhorn p/p with Tri-Horn Charge, Horn Attack and Primal Cry, amusingly named Thiswillgetnerfs, as it will and is going to be. It is a powerhouse of destruction and can ruin the day of many teams if used properly. Tri-Horn charge always goes first and does incredible damage, often 2 shotting any poor pet unlucky to have the word critter next to it. Many times this move has killed 2 whole pets just by spamming it, though the gods of RNG will not always smile on you as it has an 85% hit rate. I've have FIVE misses in a row with it before >< So always cross your fingers if you need the move to count. Horn Attack is a funny old move. It can either win you games or make you wish you'd just used Tri-Horn. Using it vs undead on their racial extra go is lots of fun if you pull it off as they'll have to skip their dying thrust at you. Primal Cry is another one of those moves that can make your opponent weep if you time it right. It does great damage for an aoe and slows the entire enemy team. If you're lucky enough to catch a Broom pet with it, you can pull off Horn Attack shennanigans against it and kill it without it ever getting a turn.

Fiendish Imp s/s with Burn, Immolation and Nether Gate 'controversially' named Trololol (at least one member of these forums found the name insulting in a previous post, for me it was just a bit of fun.) As I mentioned earlier, this team was Poofah creation in a previous thread and this was the only change I had to his set up, using an s/s imp to his p/s. Plain and simple I prefer the speed, especially as I encountered a LOT of other imps at s/s. Burn is a good stock move and ofc is great against Mechs. Immolation is such a *Trololol* move as it deals damage from the back row as well as front. It's a great opener against moths teams too as they will often open with Coccoon Strike thinking you will N Gate as an opener so the Immolate takes that shield right down turn one. Nether Gate is the other *Death Grip* so has the same uses as the spiders version with two exceptions. It deals strong damage to flyers whereas D Grip is strong vs Humanoids but also it actually deals more damage than Burn though it has a cooldown.

So, these are the pets and how I used them. It would be almost impossible for me to give a strategy run down against every team I faced though I shall attempt to recreate my opening moves at least as everything after that is situational.

Open with Imp and more often than not use grip. Nothing worse for your opponents carefully laid plans thwarted from the outset. Immolation is next, then pull imp to the back rank. Now often that means your going to take some sort of damage on the imp and if it's an undead throwing curse of doom on you, it's not fun. But it's unlikely to kill the imp and his main purpose is back rank Immolation damage and swapping in occasionally to grip something. The only time I'd keep him out after Immolation is if my opponent has left a mech pet in front rank and I'll Burn the life out of it.

I would then usually swap in the spider. He has a few reasons to be 2nd on the field. If your now facing a Runt or an Idol, he can Bone Bite his way thru them. Or another option is to Siphon Life a target, grip, repeat and bone bite the current pet to death, using grip if its off cd as needed. It's tough to continue with further specifics as i said, its pretty circumstantial and this is just to give you the gist.

I always tried to reserve the Direhorn as last pet on the field. The raw damage output he has can easily be a game winner even if your opponent has two pets left on the field.

Teams that hurt me a lot would be:-

Darkness teams ruined my day a lot. You've gotta kill what ever pet that causes Darkness asap. You have two grips tho, its not easy for an opponent to hide the pet. The 10% hit debuff makes Tri-Horn Charge now 75%, Horn Attack 85%, Burn 80% and Nether Gate 80%. These odds suck. The same goes for Sandstorm teams which are actually worse as it applies the same 10% debuff but also negates all damage from Immolation and Siphon Life. So murder the idol the second you see it, and don't them him go to the back rank.....ever.

The other team that made me cringe was Call Lightning teams as they feature the ever popular Clockwork Gnome and his turrets of doom. Never ever step your direhorn up to the plate if this combo has been set up. It's suicide.

Mirror matchups were probably the games I had to intensely focus on as one wrong move by either side and you're toast. In those instances a lot also depended on which Imp gets the Nether Gate as the opener (hence my insistence on s/s).

There's loads more I could say but this wall of text is unwieldy enough as it is. Try out the team, it's a lot of fun, its not as broken as it sounds because RNG will bite you on the ass soooooo much and you will lose games against bizarre pet setups because of it.

I for one will now be coming up with the most efficient counter team for this that I can mwahaha. Also, if you are thinking of trying this team, I'd do it before 5.4 as Tri-Horn attack is getting a nerf and in my humble opinion, it'll make the pet almost unplayable at any kinda of serious level.

Many thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Trainer Saa, human dk, Defias Brotherhood http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/defias-brotherhood/Saa/simple

[Tiggindy]

The obvious counter to a force pet swap is to put a different pet out first, so when they swap you, you end up with the pet you wanted out anyway. If you happen to be faster than they are, then you can get in an attack before they swap you to the pet you wanted out anyway.

[Saa]

The obvious counter to a force pet swap is to put a different pet out first, so when they swap you, you end up with the pet you wanted out anyway. If you happen to be faster than they are, then you can get in an attack before they swap you to the pet you wanted out anyway.

I can see your logic by stating that it's an 'obvious' counter but you're missing 2 points. The spiders grip swaps the lowest heath pet in so sure, I guess you could factor that into a counter, but, the Imps swap is random. I've rued many a day my opener has swapped in a Stunted Direhorn.

[Tiggindy]

I guess it depends on your team. I didn't have synergies or set ups going.

My team was crow, phoenix hatchling and crawling claw.

I'd usually open with the crow, unless it was an all humanoid team or I expected the mechanical out first. If I saw a pet swap team, I started with my phoenix rather than my crow with the expectation that I'd a) be able to DoT my opponent and b) that my crow would be in next to drop darkness and nocturnal strike. If it was an imp and the claw came in next, things tended to work out.

[Poofah]

I've come around and am using a S/S imp most of the time now too, for similar reasons. There are definitely some games where I miss the extra power, but having 333 speed is a huge trump card for all the 325 pets out there. The P/S imp is at his best when I have to deal with an annoying mech, but most of the mechs I'm seeing lately are in minefield teams, and that's a situation where Bone Spider doing Siphon/Grip/Siphon is extremely strong.

Whenever possible, I open with the spider--ie, whenever my opponent's fastest pet is 289 or lower. This is because I feel like the spider has the highest potential to single-handedly ruin the opponent's strategy. For example, against Anubisath, I'm going to Death Grip on turn 1, because this leaves the opponent with only bad choices. Swapping Anubisath back in is crazy, because it'll take 1350+ before getting an action. But leaving the new pet in isn't great either, because Death Grip will be ready again in 3 turns and will pull Anubisath back in to take a total of 900+ before it can get an action. The same tactic is very effective against Kun-Lai Runt too.

Death Grip is probably too good: I think the only thing keeping it in check is the fact that only 3 pets have it, and 2 of them are very slow. Bone Spider is the fastest at 289, which is still beaten by a lot of the pets out there. But on the occasions when the opponent doesn't have a 289+ speed pet, the spider can do very evil things. Death Grip does as much damage as a regular attack, it's 100% accuracy, and the cooldown is only 3 rounds. This means that unlike Nether Gate/Sweep, if you try to combat Death Grip by swapping your pet back in, it will only be 2 more rounds until the Spider can swap it back out. Also, your spider is virtually guaranteed to last 4 rounds, and so will pretty much always get to Death Grip at least twice. If you want an Imp to Nether Gate twice, it probably has to backrow itself at some point. The simple ability to skip the opponent's turn is already incredibly strong with only a 3 round cd; swapping pets is in many cases just gravy. Swapping in the lowest health pet is also subtly much meaner than Nether Gate/Sweep: it gives you the chance to pull out a pet at <300 health and kill it without retaliation.

[Spary]

There is some marginal point you all seem to miss?

The spider is gets eaten by any critter in no time - and if you are forced to switch out its over. Then the time of the Idol comes ...
However: the direhorns are the real winners in this game nowadays - makes nearly no difference what else you have, the direhorn can ruin a whole team (and I guess it will be changed soon, too).

I mostly play Idol/Broom/Stinker if I go for safe wins (~9 out of 10), I wouldn't fear your Spider or Imp any second - but I definitely fear that stupid direhorn ...

Direhorns are the new KLR (same goes for triple force Teams) - only they are much more dangerous then any KLR

[Tuatha]

Saa, Poofah,

My Admiral's Hat is off to you. And my team, the most sincerest form of flattery, is past 50% of the way to my Trainer title--100+ of those wins just this past weekend, after acquiring a S/S Imp.

Thanks for the tips, thanks for the ridiculously fun team, and thanks for the insight to prep the best counter team I can muster. I'll hit 1k before I get 5k, and I'll still be shooting for that cheevo

[Poofah]

There is some marginal point you all seem to miss?

The spider is gets eaten by any critter in no time

True, everything has a counter. But critters are in a bad place right now due to the prevalence of Direhorns, as you said, and this team uses a Direhorn in part to protect the spider from critters.

I mostly play Idol/Broom/Stinker if I go for safe wins (~9 out of 10), I wouldn't fear your Spider or Imp any second - but I definitely fear that stupid direhorn

Stinker is 260 speed, so if it's Stinker versus Spider, then the spider can Death Grip him out without getting hit. If you really insist on swapping him back in, then he can hit the spider twice (540 each, for 1080 total) before getting Death Gripped again. Meanwhile the Spider did 310*4 = 1240 damage in those 4 turns. I'm not saying that's how it would play out necessarily -- just that it's difficult to get the matchup you want (Stinker vs Spider), and it might cost more to get it than it's worth.

[Teacake]

925/1000... almost there.

Been using my Spider a lot more lately and I agree with much of what Poofah says. Even more than the relatively short cooldown on Death Grip, I think the thing that makes him so powerful is 100% accuracy across the board, including the swap. I still love and use my S/S Imp, but the number of matches I've lost due to Nether Gate missing makes me a little sad. The fact that the spider can't miss makes him extremely powerful even against his direct counters, and also still keeps him pretty accurate versus the ever-growing number of Sandstorm teams, which my comps tend to be weak against so that's a nice plus. (I always take Bone Bite and not the poison in slot 1.) I've had no problem with critters with him, not that you see so many critters anyway, and he tears up those Idols I'm seeing so many of right now.

Not that I don't still lose to Idol teams, but now if I do it's usually because I've done something stupid like mistime the opposing Deflection.

As for the direhorns, Lil Rag has been toasting them in their tracks with trap/sons. I don't get why so many people continue to run Rag with the conflag setup, he's so powerful when used the other way, although being so slow and squishy keeps him from being OP.

[Kring]

I don't get why so many people continue to run Rag with the conflag setup, he's so powerful when used the other way, although being so slow and squishy keeps him from being OP.

What do you do when the opposing players Ragnaros submerges? What's the best use you can get out of those two rounds?

[Spary]

There is some marginal point you all seem to miss?

The spider is gets eaten by any critter in no time

True, everything has a counter. But critters are in a bad place right now due to the prevalence of Direhorns, as you said, and this team uses a Direhorn in part to protect the spider from critters.

I mostly play Idol/Broom/Stinker if I go for safe wins (~9 out of 10), I wouldn't fear your Spider or Imp any second - but I definitely fear that stupid direhorn

Stinker is 260 speed, so if it's Stinker versus Spider, then the spider can Death Grip him out without getting hit. If you really insist on swapping him back in, then he can hit the spider twice (540 each, for 1080 total) before getting Death Gripped again. Meanwhile the Spider did 310*4 = 1240 damage in those 4 turns. I'm not saying that's how it would play out necessarily -- just that it's difficult to get the matchup you want (Stinker vs Spider), and it might cost more to get it than it's worth.

You are right, but if you grip out Stinker, the broom or the Idol come back. Both offer some Thread to the Spider now, the Idol can go in with Sandstorm while the Broom charges up and kicks your Spider backwards - should it stay. However since I didn't realize your 3rd pet would be the direhorn - this all is irrelevant. This guy can destroy the Brooms biggest advantage and the Idol offers no threat to it. (thats why I mentioned it, there is no other single pet I hate that much )

[Teacake]

I don't get why so many people continue to run Rag with the conflag setup, he's so powerful when used the other way, although being so slow and squishy keeps him from being OP.

What do you do when the opposing players Ragnaros submerges? What's the best use you can get out of those two rounds?

My 2 cents, best is if you've got Sweep/Tidal Wave/Lava Wave, it'll sweep away the Sons and he'll just sit underground and cry. Just be careful because if he put down a trap first, your wave will set it off on you. You can also hit him underground with any submerge moves of your own; dueling Sons of the Root is always funny. Another favorite of mine is AOE moves that will chew up the back row a bit.

If I haven't got any of that or don't want the pets who do to take the damage, I tend to use those rounds during which he can't do anything to set stuff up: swap pets, throw down traps and whatnot, cast heals and buffs. An Imp is good for taking the damage as he can Immolate/heal from back row afterward, or else you can spread it across multiple pets and it's not that bad.

[Slab]

Lil Ragnaros submerges guarantees I switch in my Water Waveling (Tidal Wave clears out the sons and does some back row damage).