Least Effective Pet Abilities

[Quintessence]

Jonathan LeCraft (senior game designer) is looking for some feedback on Twitter:

• What are the worst pet abilities and/or pets?
  Mostly looking for those that suck in both [PVE and PVP]. Hawk Eye is a great example.

Thoughts on least effective abilities?

Feel free to respond to him on Twitter (if you have an account) or leave your thoughts here and the bulk of the discussion can be linked to him. Perhaps with decent input, some changes can be made to make some pets/abilities more viable in battles.

[Vek]

Soothe? Invisibility?

Toxic skin. 5% damage of opponents health for 5 turns, if you get directly attacked those turns. Thats about 70 damage per hit you take.

Croak. Reduce opponent Crit chance by 25% for 4 turns… why….perhaps if combined with something else it could be good, like inbuilt heal or shield or just something, or at least some damage component.

Spiked skin. It’s not going to stop dots and only do very very little damage when directly hit.

Plant. It just seems like a crappy Hibernate.

Confusing Sting. 10% to harm themselves for very little damage.

Adrenal Glands. Anyone ever taken this gamble?

Rebuild. Heal is very low and heals only mechanicals.

Sadly there are lots of pets that never see the fun of pet battles except when they get caught. Mainly the very generic pets with mediocre abilities and often not too good stat distribution.

[Denarian]

[ability]Apocalypse[/ability]

This ability is essentially useless. I have never seen it actually go off in pvp, although I have seen it used before a couple of times. The thing is, though, the match usually ends before then. In pve, I have intentionally kept the fight going with a wild pet, just to see it hit, and when it did, it missed my pet anyway.

[Kpb321]

croak seems useless because most of the debuff is wasted. The base crit chance seems to be well below 25% so you are only getting a 5 or 10% reduction in crit chance instead of 25% unless they happen to have a crit buff up.

[Liopleurodon]

My replies were:

ability - Nature's Ward (heals for ~100x5, ~500 total, swaps your pet to Elemental). Relatively useless in PVE, because in tamer battles you know what you're fighting and in wilds there *really* few times you'd need to make that swap. For PVP it could be useful, but for now, it's only on Gazelles. No way am I frontloading a fawn in PVP just in case somebody's running beast-heavy or a darkness team. Added to other pets, or with other swap types it could have a niche (even in PVE, if there are pets with easily timed cross-family abilities) but as it is, no.

pet - Minfernal. Though it's nice that such a rare pet is kind of crappy so people don't feel compelled to sit in Felwood for hours for a competitive edge. Explode is decent vs single-pet PVE but there are other pets with similar.

[Peanutty]

[ability]Apocalypse[/ability]

This ability is essentially useless. I have never seen it actually go off in pvp, although I have seen it used before a couple of times. The thing is, though, the match usually ends before then. In pve, I have intentionally kept the fight going with a wild pet, just to see it hit, and when it did, it missed my pet anyway.

Yeah I have to vote Apocalypse too (though Hawk Eye and Croak are really awful... I didn't even realize Croak was in the game!) I have tried many times to use it in PVE, just because I want to see it work, and it never seems to hit! Waiting 15 rounds to see "Miss" is beyond annoying!

[Kring]

The magic pet family passive.

[Papazol]

For all families:
- low dmg abilities with lesser dmg and 100% hit chance like bone bite, skitter etc.,
- abilities, what reduse incoming dmg for 50% for 2 rounds, like crouch
- abilities, what increase team speed on 25%
By family:
aquatic:
- croak, toxic skin;
beast:
- hibernate, not so bad, but less useless, than another such abilities, and need to be redesigned;
critter:
- apocalypse, flank - also not so bad, but never used on pets, what have it, mudslide - need to a little more sinergy with abilities of pet, who uses it, like multi round damage abilities etc.
dragonkin:
- emerald dream - betther, that hibernate, but just cose pets are stronger, spiked skin - dont worth to waste round for it, starfall - useless at all.
elemental:
- belly slide - penguins can't cast blizzard and just too weak to swap and miss every 2d round, super sticky goo.
flying:
- accuracy, hawk eye, claw - they aren't bad by themself, but just dont worth to cast for that pets, from another way hit+crit buff can grealy work with ciclone, but for now birds have only crit buff. Nevermore - neversaw, wild winds - useless.
humanoid:
- rapid fire - great potecial, weak in practice,
magic:
- adrenal glands, haven't grunty but think stimpack is same,
mechanical:
- quake, tympanic tanrium, rebuild,
undead:
bone prison, rabid strike

P.S.

The magic pet family passive

is great to lvl hem cose they can survive any hit on any lvl. Also pasive saves magic from beeng one shoted by some abilities.

[Luciandk]

You undervalue Emerald Dream. Its a very potent heal on a P/P Emerald Proto Whelp. It just keeps going, going and going, especially if you make sure to roll the shield move and you will bounce back from nearly everything many pandaria tamers can throw at you.

Ive recommended that pet to MANY new battlers and they love it as a core team pet.

[Ligre]

Are you kidding me, Papazol?

Crouch not useful? Blighted Squirrel and Sporeling Sprout both say "hi". I've kicked some major butt with both those pets making use of Crouch.

Flank owns...just ask Unborn Valks and Blighthawks. Same with Mudslide.

Quake is weak, but Tantrum is not...especially when combined with Heartbroken. Granted that's rare, but...yah...Tantrum IS useful.

[Peanutty]

Tympanic Tantrum + Heartbroken is amazing, try it on the trainer in Krasarang Wild.

Emerald Dream is also very good. Even with my Emerald Proto-Whelp being a less optimal breed it still heals for quite a lot.

[Helbrecht]

I disagree with a lot of Papazol's list. I've seen Mudslide crit for over 1k, that's definitely not weak. Belly Slide is the key ability in my favorite team (though like Demolish, it hits way more than 50%). Belly Slide from an HP Tundra Penguins puts a major hurtin' on the opponent.

As for abilities I *do* think are weak, I think Croak takes the cake. Completely, utterly useless.

All of the abilities that do bonus damage to a target under 25% (Swallow You Whole, Impale, Predatory Strike). Against most pets they'll kill with just their base damage, so the bonus damage is worthless, but they do ~9% less damage than similar abilities that don't have the 25% clause. In almost all cases, the "no-frills" version of the attack is better, e.g. Water Jet > Swallow You Whole.

Vengeance isn't very inspiring, particularly because it's only on slow pets.

[Domie]

[ability]Healing stream[/ability] and [ability]Rebuild[/ability] are 2 abilities i really dont like, its pretty rare i want to heal someone other than the pet that is currently in battle, and with these abilities, you even need to be full on one type for it to really be effective.
I know there is worse out there, cause atleast these can heal you on a turn where you cant attack, but these are the two i personaly really dont like :P

[Domie]

All of the abilities that do bonus damage to a target under 25% (Swallow You Whole, Impale, Predatory Strike). Against most pets they'll kill with just their base damage, so the bonus damage is worthless, but they do ~9% less damage than similar abilities that don't have the 25% clause. In almost all cases, the "no-frills" version of the attack is better, e.g. Water Jet > Swallow You Whole.

I agree that these are rarely useful, but ive personaly used predatory strike quite a bit to finish of the Aquatic Beast of fable.

[Vek]

All of the abilities that do bonus damage to a target under 25% (Swallow You Whole, Impale, Predatory Strike). Against most pets they'll kill with just their base damage, so the bonus damage is worthless, but they do ~9% less damage than similar abilities that don't have the 25% clause. In almost all cases, the "no-frills" version of the attack is better, e.g. Water Jet > Swallow You Whole.

I agree that these are rarely useful, but ive personaly used predatory strike quite a bit to finish of the Aquatic Beast of fable.

I can see them being useful in a Sunlight environment, but thats quite narrow window of usefulness.

[Maizing]

[ability]Healing stream[/ability] and [ability]Rebuild[/ability] are 2 abilities i really dont like, its pretty rare i want to heal someone other than the pet that is currently in battle, and with these abilities, you even need to be full on one type for it to really be effective.
I know there is worse out there, cause atleast these can heal you on a turn where you cant attack, but these are the two i personaly really dont like

Many of the heals are weak... sure there are a few that shine, and some that are only mediocre, but there are several that are not worth bothering with. Why heal for around 400 (or less) when you are taking 500+ per hit? Waste of a turn... and team heals over all are pretty bad.

[Kring]

P.S.

The magic pet family passive

is great to lvl hem cose they can survive any hit on any lvl. Also pasive saves magic from beeng one shoted by some abilities.

Create a new pet treat we get like the size treats which gives the current magic family racial to the pet. (Does not work in PvP and does not work on pets above level 20 (I don't want to see them as must have in a guide for some tamer)).

[Avalee]

I must say I don't think Hawk Eye is a very good abillity but I do use it occasionally.

Abillities that can go are:
- Adrenal Glands
- Apocalypse
- Croak
- Invisibility - Get invisible after 2 rounds; A big gamble.
- Rapid Fire
- Stimpack

[Vek]

I don't really find Rapid Fire useless. Well on it's own, yes it's quite weak. But when you do Call Lightning and then Rapid Fire(perhaps a stun before that) you get lots of extra damage since it actually hits each pet twice. But if you don't run with Lightning then it is quite worthless, since you don't really have another option for a basic attack with the cool down on the attack in third slot.

[Skavenged]

Papazol, I can honestly say that I was shocked by your list. Quite a few of those are very nice abilities. I personally use Flank, Mudslide, and Belly Slide quite a bit in both PVP and PVE. I've also seen Tympanic Tantrum, dazzling dance, damage reduction and Bone Prison used very effectively by other players. And if you think Emerald Dream is useless, then you've obviously never faced off against someone who knows how to properly use the Whelpling. Those guys can be very tough to take down. I've even used apocalypse effectively for pet leveling. You just throw your leveling roach or beetle out first, use Apoc, and then use a Valk and rabbit to evade until it hits. In case anyone doesn't know, if a valk haunts on the Apoc round, he comes back just like normal