Kpb321 wrote:I think that really depends on the popularity of the swap teams after the nurf. If you are still seeing tons of swap teams in pvp then it really isn't going to be very good but you are right that against a team with out a swap or with only a single swap pet you do have to worry about dealing with it.
Death Grip got overnerfed but Gate/Sweep probably didn't get hit hard enough. I suspect imps and brooms will still be prominent. Other than that, a lot of the popular teams don't have good answers for Prowl/Feed. Critters are the best avoidance pets but they're basically extinct due to Direhorns, which also got undernerfed and will still feature. And anyway Xu'Fu doesn't need any fancy tricks against a critter; he can 2-shot them with just Spirit Claw.
The mechs that became popular due to Direhorns will help discourage Xu'Fu, but aside from Zeppelin (not super common) they don't have avoidance. So Xu'Fu will take 2 big hits, chomp them for 1k+ while healing to full, then happily backline himself.
Otherwise, I'm struggling to think of popular pets with good answers. Anubisath is a solid option, but only if he takes Demolish over Crush. Crows could limit the damage: if the crow opens with Darkness+Nocturnal Strike, then Prowl+Feed would be 735 damage + 370 heal (with 20% miss chance). This is obviously better than 1k+1k but it's still a lot for 2 turns.
The other new 5.4 pets and changes are going to shake the metagame up quite a bit though. A bunch of overpowered stuff is just now becoming available, e.g. Jadefire Spirit's stupid Fade, Valk's new Haunt, Xu'Fu, Kovok, etc. It could be quite a mess -- ie, Xu'Fu is obviously not ok by 5.3 standards, but the power level is going up in general, so by 5.4 standards he might be more in line.