WarcraftPets Forum

Hello there,

for the past 15 mins or so I've been a very annoying situation concerning my Murkalot during pvp battles. Whenever I enter a battle, [ability]Falling Murloc[/ability] comes up as an ability on the second slot, although it's a lvl 20 ability and therefore should be on the third slot as the second choice. When I check in my pet journal, the listing of abilities shows correctly. It only happens when I enter a battle.

I have [ability]Shieldstorm[/ability] chosen on the second slot.

Anyone else having this problem?

Stealth hotfix.

P.S. Looks like the nerfed Pheromones too.

Exactly what I came to report/investigate. My journal shows shield storm as available and the selected skill, but in the actual battle, I get Falling Murloc.

(Hadn't seen pheromone tinkering, but it makes me happy if that's the case!)

This is why they just need to get rid of pet PvP. Its the cancer on pet battles. There's a pet that's remotely good, people whine because they don't have it and Blizzard destroys it for all intents and purposes.

Better to just keep it as a solely PvE mini-game.

Bah.

I came here to say just this... Murkalot is a strong bet in both PvP and PvE, but he was never so OP that one couldn't counter it...

I guess we had it comming, though I am very bummed

Im not seeing any new hotfixes for either Murkalot or Pheromones. What happened to them?


Edit: Oh wow, just looked at my HP Kovok. Massive nerf. Deals 77 damage now to inactive pets.

Gilneas wrote:This is why they just need to get rid of pet PvP. Its the cancer on pet battles. There's a pet that's remotely good, people whine because they don't have it and Blizzard destroys it for all intents and purposes.

Better to just keep it as a solely PvE mini-game.

You can not be more wrong on this.

Most of the feedbacks were given by the players actually had this pet and actually most of them are very good players in PVP.

The people are crying all over this probably just jumped on the bandwagon and they normally suck on PVP.

I am glad that they made this change so that we will actually see more different pets back to the PVP screen.

I agreed Murkalot needed a nerf, I'll be glad to stop using him (he was a pretty boring pet tbh, but too good to ignore). Less happy about the Kovok nerf though. I used him a fair bit while RI was bugged (running the stupidly OP blackfuse/kovok/Murkalot team), but outside of that I didn't find him a very attractive pet and I never considered him too much of a problem when I met him in the days before Murkalot. Now he's basically useless, as pheromones was the reason to take him. To me the Death Adder Hatchling is a far superior choice now.

3wd wrote:

You can not be more wrong on this.

Most of the feedbacks were given by the players actually had this pet and actually most of them are very good players in PVP.

The people are crying all over this probably just jumped on the bandwagon and they normally suck on PVP.

I am glad that they made this change so that we will actually see more different pets back to the PVP screen.

I could not be more right. They wouldn't kneejerk nerf pets without PvP, and we'd be able to have more interesting, fun pets like Kovok.

Pet PvP has to go, since they can't seem to handle it properly and it will keep negatively effecting real pet battles.

Also, further, people did think that they should bring Pheromones damage down a bit; and so did I. They didn't bring it down though -- they made it useless. There was a middle ground that would have been balanced.

this has always been this game's problem.
something is strong or "too" strong for pvp in any form.
they nerf it to the ground and ruin that ability for even pve.
they do not seem to realize this is not a pvp game and pvp means being able to counter ones opponent.
can't tell you how many moves in the regular game have been ruined and hurt players in pve jut for pvp purposes(and this includes raiding and such).
they made the mech cat useless and now these two pets too great.

also, I love those that say they want to see different pets in pvp and glad it happened.
yeah because the same team you have been always using was getting beat now by the new pets so you whined instead of countering it and now will go back to that same old team.
because really how many different teams have we ever seen in pvp pet battling?

Gilneas wrote:I could not be more right. They wouldn't kneejerk nerf pets without PvP, and we'd be able to have more interesting, fun pets like Kovok.

Pet PvP has to go, since they can't seem to handle it properly and it will keep negatively effecting real pet battles.

Also, further, people did think that they should bring Pheromones damage down a bit; and so did I. They didn't bring it down though -- they made it useless. There was a middle ground that would have been balanced.

I don't have a Kovok, but I can agree some balance would have been good (like others have said, halfway to where they sent it). Definitely too drastic a change, and hopefully they'll see the results and tweak it back up a bit (since I am sure they will see the use of Pheremones go from "every fight with a Kovok" to "never" pretty quickly).

But as for saying pet PvP has to go because it breaks PvE? That's just as kneejerk as what Blizzard did to Kovok. Again, as I don't HAVE a Kovok I cannot say for sure - but has anyone posted a Kovok strat that's so awesome in PvE that nothing else compares? I suppose if you weren't trying to level pets vs the master tamers there might be a team comp that works great - but off hand I am not able to think of a single tamer where it would be better than, say, what's in the guide here for 5.4 (which only use 2 pets). I do PvE far more than I do PvP and I haven't suffered from anything they've done to balance PvP for more than a few minutes.

Sure, for example, changes to Decoy caused a change in some fights (and that was made because of PvP, wasn't it?) - but it certainly didn't break anything - it just required a new strategy for 1 or 2 fights. It definitely was something we had to deal with but it doesn't justify removing a game play component that (frankly) a LOT of people spend a LOT of time doing. They broke just as many strats when they "fixed" the pet types on the Thundering and Whispering spirit tamers, too (which generated a lot MORE complaints).

What if Blizzard finally decides that geyser + whirlpool + howl + surge of power is just too cheesy a way to beat all of the beasts of fable? I'm sure there will be some people who'll want to whine that PvE broke the Water Spirit for PvP, too (not many, but I bet some will). Will we hear screams to remove PvE pet battles? Doubtful. And I am still waiting for them to fix "Explode" and similar abilities which ignore damage reduction - which will probably not affect PvP at all - but which will bring screams from all sorts of PvE people who love exploding on the Celestial Children and Beasts of Fable as a speed win.

The argument should be that Blizzard should test their nerf bat before they use it live - because anyone who uses a Kovok, or probably has fought against them, could see cutting their attack almost in half wrecks it. Nerf something because it doesn't work as expected (I doubt they wanted it to change the metagame so completely as it has, same goes for Murkalot) - but think about what you expect it to do, Blizz, don't design in a vacuum).

But as for saying pet PvP has to go because it breaks PvE? That's just as kneejerk as what Blizzard did to Kovok.

Which would be fair to say if this was a one-time or uncommon thing. Blizzard really has a track record with this, both in the normal game and in pet battles (though less developed there since it is newer).

Are there fights this effects in PvE? Hard to say since Kovok just started being widely available the last couple of weeks. Its still a fairly rare pet. Which in fact makes the hard nerf even more puzzling. Very few people actually have him. Its really something they should have taken more time with before making such a dramatic change.

Fact remains that very rarely do changes happen in the other direction, at least so far in this aspect of the game.

Gilneas wrote:

But as for saying pet PvP has to go because it breaks PvE? That's just as kneejerk as what Blizzard did to Kovok.

Which would be fair to say if this was a one-time or uncommon thing. Blizzard really has a track record with this, both in the normal game and in pet battles (though less developed there since it is newer).

Are there fights this effects in PvE? Hard to say since Kovok just started being widely available the last couple of weeks. Its still a fairly rare pet. Which in fact makes the hard nerf even more puzzling. Very few people actually have him. Its really something they should have taken more time with before making such a dramatic change.

Fact remains that very rarely do changes happen in the other direction, at least so far in this aspect of the game.

I can't argue with you there - Blizzard definitely has a track record of screwing things up repeatedly until they finally throw out the whole thing and redesign it (all stuns lasting the same time, all CD's made to match acrosss all classes for CC, diminishing returns for everything, et al) - but that still doesn't mean they should take PvP away, too many people enjoy it and they need all the players they can hold on to. Hopefully they wont ever need to make such sweeping alterations to pet battles...

Gilneas wrote:

Are there fights this effects in PvE? Hard to say since Kovok just started being widely available the last couple of weeks. Its still a fairly rare pet. Which in fact makes the hard nerf even more puzzling. Very few people actually have him. Its really something they should have taken more time with before making such a dramatic change.

Total bullshit, I do pvp pet battles quite a lot (especially lately). And I'd say about 50% of every teams I faced had Kovok (now after the nerf, it's down to 0%)

And regarding the nerfs, Murkalot nerf is just fine. It's still an alright pet with the switch ability but it's easier to counter it now which is good. The Kovok nerf feels like they overdid it indeed, the pheramone ability is useless now. However Kovok is still an OK pet with black claw + poison fang combo.

That being said I was battling with a Kovok of my own and it was indeed overpowered. Using Unborn Val'kyr, Kovok and Gilnean Raven I was able to win about 90% of my battles which added up to at least 500. My losses where usually to Murkalot + Fossilized Hatchling x2. Heck I'd even fool around a bit, passing my turns while waiting for Pheramones to be off cooldown again without killing my opponents 1st pet.

Sharleendk wrote:Total bullshit, I do pvp pet battles quite a lot (especially lately). And I'd say about 50% of every teams I faced had Kovok (now after the nerf, it's down to 0%)

Actually, no, its the truth. Its a very rare pet.

Check here:

http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/beast/insects/kovok/

Or if you prefer a larger sample size, here:

http://www.guildox.com/go/g.aspx?a=31

Gilneas wrote:They wouldn't kneejerk nerf pets without PvP, and we'd be able to have more interesting, fun pets like Kovok.

Pet PvP has to go, since they can't seem to handle it properly and it will keep negatively effecting real pet battles.

PvP is vital for pet battles' longterm health and continued support. Kovok wouldn't be a fun and interesting pet if not for PvP -- in PvE, we don't need new pets, because we beat all the tamers long ago.

Sharleendk wrote:That being said I was battling with a Kovok of my own and it was indeed overpowered. Using Unborn Val'kyr, Kovok and Gilnean Raven I was able to...

It's tough to separate the overpoweredness of Kovok from the overpoweredness of Valk here. You're playing 2 overpowered pets, plus a counter for the only thing that reliably counters both Pheromones and Haunt (crabs/aquatics).

Poofah wrote: PvP is vital for pet battles' longterm health and continued support. Kovok wouldn't be a fun and interesting pet if not for PvP -- in PvE, we don't need new pets, because we beat all the tamers long ago.

Hardly. Its a sidegame of a mini-game. And if they can't do it properly, then its not worth doing at all.

Currently, they are showing they cannot do it properly (balancing both). Unless they get better, the unnecessary part is the part that needs to go.

Gilneas wrote:

Poofah wrote: PvP is vital for pet battles' longterm health and continued support. Kovok wouldn't be a fun and interesting pet if not for PvP -- in PvE, we don't need new pets, because we beat all the tamers long ago.

Hardly. Its a sidegame of a mini-game. And if they can't do it properly, then its not worth doing at all.

Currently, they are showing they cannot do it properly (balancing both). Unless they get better, the unnecessary part is the part that needs to go.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater (and the tub, and the towels, too, I should say)?

1. Kovok is used in 0% of the PvE strategies I have seen to date. So how is this nerf damaging PvE, exactly? This is your MAJOR complaint, so please enlighten us (rather than just Blizz bashing cuz they screwed up as usual).

2. PvP pet battles are widely participated in (1 person in 16 has won 10 PvP battles w/all Lvl 25 pets - more people have won 50 PvP pet battles than have completed The Longest Day or Pro Pet Mob). Not an insignificant # of people, but not a majority, I wont argue that.

3. PvE only gets new pets when they release new content, that's the norm and we accept that - as Poofah said, we beat the current tamers (and the celestials, frankly) without a single new pet they've added since the tamers were released.

4. PvP got a nerf for a rare pet (less than 1.3% of the entire registered community on Guild Ox, anyway, or 1.6% here) that was insufficiently tested. Yeah, they screwed it up, but is anyone really surprised? Especially if they ran the numbers and saw every team using a Kovok (practically) was winning. Didn't the same thing happen with the dino-runts?? Well they added a new mechanic and yep - it's broken/improperly tested.

If Blizzard had your attitude we'd have no PvP of ANY kind, no flying mounts, no arcane reforging, no Looking for Group or Looking for Raid, etc, etc, etc. Stagnation = lost customers AND no new customers. Change = maybe some lost customers and some new customers (and some return customers - how many people come back every expansion for a month or two? and every one of them is a copy of the expansion and a month or 2 subscription in Blizzard's pocket). Change wins. You and I can disagree til we're blue in the face, Blizzard still has, what, 3,000,000+ other subscribers world-wide to leech money from.

PvP pet battling is the reason why I got into the pet battles in the first place and I got my 5000 pvp battles achievement a couple of weeks ago. I used to collect pets pre MoP but that was it. Without the pvp I wouldn't bother leveling any pets at all.

That said, I was quite annoyed with the nerfs initially but after pvp'ing with my other teams again today I've noticed this: Murkalot in combination with Kovok was an almost failsafe way of winning battles especially if your 3rd pet was a considerably hard hitting and fast one, and I think it's the reason why people are so upset with the nerfs. The nerfs are ok in my opinion. There are so many good pets and pet combinations out there that it's actually being fun again to pvp.

And as Rendigar pointed it out so nicely, I don't think I've seen any guides for PvE where Kovok was essential. In PvP, however, it was stupidly op'ed.

As for Gilneas:

This is why they just need to get rid of pet PvP. Its the cancer on pet battles. There's a pet that's remotely good, people whine because they don't have it and Blizzard destroys it for all intents and purposes.

Better to just keep it as a solely PvE mini-game.

Sorry but you' seem to be one of those who do pvp only for the pets that come with it, judging by your commentary of how you got your Stunted Direhorn. This may sound a little harsh, but just because you don't pvp as often as others doesn't mean that it's cancer. Those who pvp simply adjust to nerfs of overpowered pets.