Deadly Pet Brawler
Posted: June 15th, 2013, 11:42 am
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
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
