The Murkapult

[Poofah]

Here's the wowdb page for Murkalot -- http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/149792-murkalot#related:learns

He has a really interesting moveset full of brand new abilities; the craziest is this one: http://ptr.wowdb.com/pet-abilities/1103-righteous-inspiration

"Righteous Inspiration

5 Turn Cooldown

The user inspires a friendly pet to charge into battle. This ability always goes first.

The swapped-in pet has double speed and damage for 1 round. If all their friends are dead, the user can still inspire themself."

It's basically Feign Death/Fade, but without the avoidance -- so your new pet should swap in and then get hit with the opponent's queued ability. Then the next turn, your pet attacks with double speed/double damage. The main points are that a) once you see Righteous Inspiration go off, it's too late to use Dodge/Burrow/etc, because even the slowest pet has 390+ speed after doubling -- so Deflection/Ethereal are the only things that will avoid the double-damage hit reactively. And b), doubling is really abusive with high-coefficient moves: Ghostly Bite/Surge of Power/Ion Cannon are all ~1500+ damage when doubled.

Obviously it's just PTR, but this guy is going to spawn some nasty teams -- start Murkalot, Righteous Inspiration to catapult a Ghostly Skull into play and then oneshot you with 400+ speed. It's even more hilarious if he can take Shieldstorm in the same moveset: then the catapulted pet is also immune to attacks for the round prior to smacking you.

[Luciandk]

Yep, Murkalot is going to be a staple of the pvp metagame if he makes it to live unchanged. I could easilly imagine the blizzcon petcard fetching top bucks on ebay and tcgloot, for he is magnitudes better than any of the earlier event pets with such powerful abilities. Plus the best looks too!

[Poofah]

Luckily the price is effectively capped at $40, as long as the etickets are available. But that would still be the most expensive pvp staple, aside from Mini-Thor (who can be replaced with a warbot, albeit with worse stats).

It's a really fun and ambitious moveset from a balance PoV -- I hope they make it work, but doubling is a very bad idea because of the potential to stack multipliers. Supercharge is ok because the pet can be balanced around it (ie don't put Supercharge on a pet that has Wind-Up or Ion Cannon). But when you can pass the double-damage buff to any pet, it's way too easy to abuse.

[Luciandk]

It does however only last one turn. That would cut down on what you could do with it, before delving into judicious swapping.

But now I wonder if explode would be affected by the buff. To draw on my Explode thread, consider this: Singing Sunflower casting Sunlight, Swap to Murkalot whom inspires a HH Blackfuse Bombling. Whom then potentially detonates for 2166 damage!

[Luciandk]

Hrm, had a thought for the Murkapult idea to fit with my current successful pvp team, and truly giving the enemy team a devils bargain between plague or cholera!

Kovok (HP)
Murkalot
Fossilized Hatchling

The idea is to open with Kovok and casting Pheromones as expected. But if the enemy doesnt respond with a powerhitter as their first choice, you continue with Poison Fang and Black Claw before swapping to Murkalot. Whom proceeds to cast Righteous Inspiration to put the Fossilized Hatchling in play, whom immediately casts Bonestorm. Then stalling for a round or two, casting Ancestral Blessing to help keeping alive. Before returning to Kovok for another round of Pheromones, and by that time Righteous inspiration should have recharged for another round of superpowered Bonestorm.

If the enemy as expected focuses everything on Kovok, theyd likely ignore the aoe damage racking up from inspired Bonestorms.

I considered a PP Blackfuse Bombling with Armagddon. Sure it deals a mindbreaking 722 teamwide damage empowered. But I think you give up too much by using up a pet in 1 move. Sure you could inflict 2166 damage across the enemy team, but giving up 1481 life on your own team for it. Only a net gain of 685. Especially bad as you want to stall while Pheromones tick.

Bonestorm on the other hand deals 243 damage to the enemy team. 486 empowered for a total of 1468 teamwide damage and only sacrificing 148 life to cast it. And the ratio is looking even better if you can pull it off a second time, especially if also managing to get a second Pheromones cast ticking in the background!

Edit: Empowered Bonestorms looks even more juicy with the large amount of humanoids in the meta to shred with heavy undead damage.

Edit 2: I daresay that Murkalot is one of the most powerful pets ever designed thanks to Righteous Inspiration. Just so MUCH you can do with it!

[Anasa]

To draw on my Explode thread, consider this: Singing Sunflower casting Sunlight, Swap to Murkalot whom inspires a HH Blackfuse Bombling. Whom then potentially detonates for 2166 damage!

So you do "two" pet swaps to blow up ONE of their pets real good, and then you're sort of out of tricks for a few rounds until you can do it again.

Maybe Blossoming Ancient to hold in for better stalling instead of the Sunflower?

[Luciandk]

To draw on my Explode thread, consider this: Singing Sunflower casting Sunlight, Swap to Murkalot whom inspires a HH Blackfuse Bombling. Whom then potentially detonates for 2166 damage!

So you do "two" pet swaps to blow up ONE of their pets real good, and then you're sort of out of tricks for a few rounds until you can do it again.

Maybe Blossoming Ancient to hold in for better stalling instead of the Sunflower?

Mind you, the explode thread was meant for dealing with elite bosspets, since Explode ignores damage reduction.

[Anasa]

To draw on my Explode thread, consider this: Singing Sunflower casting Sunlight, Swap to Murkalot whom inspires a HH Blackfuse Bombling. Whom then potentially detonates for 2166 damage!

So you do "two" pet swaps to blow up ONE of their pets real good, and then you're sort of out of tricks for a few rounds until you can do it again.

Maybe Blossoming Ancient to hold in for better stalling instead of the Sunflower?

Mind you, the explode thread was meant for dealing with elite bosspets, since Explode ignores damage reduction.

Noted. And I suppose it's good to keep in mind if/when they end up nerfing the Valk/PandaWater/Chrom bomb team.

Maybe someday I'll even have a Blackfuse Bombling!

[Poofah]

*If* he stays as he is, then Righteous Inspiration/Shieldstorm share a slot, and Falling Murloc/Reflective Shield share a slot. This would make for a fairly obvious team of Murkalot plus either Lil Tarecgosa or Azure Whelpling, for Arcane Storm+Surge of Power. Arcane Storm would prevent Falling Murloc's stun, which turns Murkalot into a beatstick of his own right, much like the old Arcane Storm/Ghostly Skull teams. And Surge of Power combos with Inspiration for a 1500+ nuke.

I don't see him going live in the current version.

[Luciandk]

*If* he stays as he is, then Righteous Inspiration/Shieldstorm share a slot, and Falling Murloc/Reflective Shield share a slot. This would make for a fairly obvious team of Murkalot plus either Lil Tarecgosa or Azure Whelpling, for Arcane Storm+Surge of Power. Arcane Storm would prevent Falling Murloc's stun, which turns Murkalot into a beatstick of his own right, much like the old Arcane Storm/Ghostly Skull teams. And Surge of Power combos with Inspiration for a 1500+ nuke.

I don't see him going live in the current version.

Yeah, especially for such a limited edition pet, just way too good as it is.

But knowing Blizzard he just likely will go live like this, then getting the shizz nerfed out of him later on when everyone plays him.

Edit: On second thought, wasnt the issue with the old ghostly skull that it could chain 2 nuke moves? Hence why they moved them to the same slot. Here it goes something like this: Murkalot enters: Casts Righteous Inspiration. Next turn, tarecgosa blows up for 1500. Takes damage for 2 turns and casts Arcane Storm. Swaps to Murkalot. Whom then spams faling murloc until he can righteous inspiration again. Takes a while to set up the combo.

Edit 2: Though ill say alone Righteous Inspiration and Surge of Power is significantly stronger than Chrominius' Inbuilt combo. Due to that unlike him, theres no Howl to swap out off to avoid severe incomming damage. Plus Righteous inspiration buffs the speed as well.

[Itsmnevis]

How much will Murkalot codes cost on eBay/Amazon around the time of Blizzcon?

I don't have any Murloc pets, and this one looks pretty tempting, but spending $40 on the Virtual Ticket just for the pet isn't something I'll do. There's a comment on the Murkablo Blizzcon 2011 page saying the codes at that time were cheaper than the pass, but that was a while ago.

Some of my guildies are going; they've gone in the past and so have other Murlocs and might be amenable to passing along their code if I made them a reasonable offer.

[Ryazan]

I don't have any Murloc pets, and this one looks pretty tempting, but spending $40 on the Virtual Ticket just for the pet isn't something I'll do.

You COULD also watch the stream you know? :D I don't invest solely to the pet as I usually set up a command center to my living room and have a Blizzcon stream marathon. ^^

[Poofah]

Edit: On second thought, wasnt the issue with the old ghostly skull that it could chain 2 nuke moves? Hence why they moved them to the same slot. Here it goes something like this: Murkalot enters: Casts Righteous Inspiration. Next turn, tarecgosa blows up for 1500. Takes damage for 2 turns and casts Arcane Storm. Swaps to Murkalot. Whom then spams faling murloc until he can righteous inspiration again. Takes a while to set up the combo.

Yes, Skull was a big part of the early Darkness teams with Spectral Strike+Ghostly Bite. Then they nerfed him by making Spectral/Ghostly mutually exclusive, and then Skull found its way into Arcane Storm teams. Then they nerfed Ghostly Bite further, from 45 dmg down to 40, and reduced its accuracy to 90%.

Falling Murloc appears to be 45 dmg with no cooldown, versus Ghostly Bite at 40 dmg/3 rd cd.

In that team, I would probably open with Tarecgosa for Arcane Storm, then swap to Murkalot to spam Falling Murloc. Inspiration is then available for whenever I'd like to hit them for 1500, or possibly to swap to the 3rd pet. The damage output is pretty severe.

But knowing Blizzard he just likely will go live like this, then getting the shizz nerfed out of him later on when everyone plays him.

This is going to be a PR headache for them -- if people pay $40 because he's an awesome battle pet, and then after going live he gets nerfed....

[Luciandk]

Came across a disussion about Murkalot on the US forums, with an interesting snippet here:

Like Awkward said you can really abuse it with a Water Spirit. That might be the best use of all. Geyser -> Water Spirit -> Swap -> Righteous Inspiration -> Water Spirit gets a double damage Whirlpool/Geyser to one-shot the pet, and double damage/speed on the next round too. If that really works like that, that is just nuts if you don't have avoidance. It's basically bringing howlbombing into PVP battles. The Water Spirit would need to survive 3 hits to do all that, and it pretty much will be with 1546hp.


Another snippet:

No kidding.

On a scorched earth team; Inspiration -> In comes a 422 speed Lil'Rag who's conflag does 1182 +394 on a burning enemy.

or on a moonlight team, I wonder what a 504 speed Xu-Fu's spirit claw would be like.




Edit: Righteous inspiration is sure generating a lot of buzz to its potential!

[Poofah]

I've been following that thread too. No offense to Awkward, but that water spirit example isn't particularly good. Howlbombing already exists in PvP but is relatively easy to counter, because you have debuffs ticking down over your head and you know exactly when to use your avoidance. Replacing Howl with Righteous Inspiration doesn't change that at all -- you still have the Whirlpool/Geyser debuffs telling you precisely when the damage is coming.

The dangerous part of Righteous Inspiration is that you don't know when it's coming: if you try to combo it with debuff-based damage, then you lose the principal advantage. RI + Surge of Power is much much more dangerous because it can happen at any time, and after you've seen RI go off, it's too late to queue a Dodge/stun/swap to avoid the Surge.

The Lil Rag example is slightly better, but it requires a pet to set up Scorched Earth and a non-free swap to Murkalot. The really powerful uses of RI are when you combo it with a stand-alone move with high base damage: Surge, Ion Cannon, Ghostly Bite, Armageddon, Feed etc (and Falling Murloc, which is another reason it can't go live as-is).

[Poofah]

ptr update: Falling Murloc now has a 4 round cooldown and hits for 40 damage instead of 45. RI is still the same though.

[Luciandk]

ptr update: Falling Murloc now has a 4 round cooldown and hits for 40 damage instead of 45. RI is still the same though.

One tidbit of note i gleaned from PTR info.

Falling Murloc is 100% chance to hit, 4 turn cd and stuns the user for 1 round.

Ghostly Bite is 90% chance to hit, 3 turn cd and stuns the user for 1 round.

Both are base 40 damage, though Falling Murloc seems unjustly punished with a longer cd. It should have a 3 turn cd like Ghostly bite! Its already punished with lower damage for having 100% accuracy.

[Poofah]

Another important change: they swapped abilities around so that you can now have both Shieldstorm and Righteous Inspiration. That means you can put a shield up prior to RI-swapping, so the incoming pet will be immune to CC/damage prior to unloading its double-dmg/double-speed attack.

Obviously they didn't want RI + Falling Murloc in the same moveset, but the new version is a much better set-up pet.

[Luciandk]

Another important change: they swapped abilities around so that you can now have both Shieldstorm and Righteous Inspiration. That means you can put a shield up prior to RI-swapping, so the incoming pet will be immune to CC/damage prior to unloading its double-dmg/double-speed attack.

Obviously they didn't want RI + Falling Murloc in the same moveset, but the new version is a much better set-up pet.

Whoa, thats an amazing change! Falling Murloc sure pales compared to Shieldstorm in utility. Then he is much closer to the classic supporting paladin.

[Mehetabel]

I don't have any Murloc pets, and this one looks pretty tempting, but spending $40 on the Virtual Ticket just for the pet isn't something I'll do.

As said above, as long as the virtual ticket is available, the price will be capped at $40. However, I'm willing to bet that anyone thinking of selling their code will wait until the virtual tickets are no longer available and then it could go for much higher prices.

You COULD also watch the stream you know? I don't invest solely to the pet as I usually set up a command center to my living room and have a Blizzcon stream marathon. ^^

That's exactly what I do too Ryazan! I love watching Blizzcon and would probably buy the virtual ticket even if there wasn't a pet!