Wailing Critters - What did you think?

[Badpathing]

[*]You cannot do the dungeon on level 109 or below character. Being Alliance, I found this pretty annoying since getting to WC is a pain. I'd have preferred to park a Horde alt there and do it weekly.

Yeah, I really wish I could do it on a low level alt for some XP gain. However, there's at least a shortcut to WC - talk to Manapoof in the Dalaran pet shop (once you've completed the initial run I believe) and it'll port you there!

Do you know I JUST found out about this???

[Mirith]

So any thoughts on how they could make these more interesting? I don't mean games for yourself.

I am a little worried that as time goes by and they add pet dungeons, if it is just "Do these very similar 11 battles" its going to go stale pretty quickly.

[Paladance]

Don't be afraid of throwing trivia that would update our knowledge but also contain some nostalgic references. For example, maybe you could interact with that machine in Gnomeregan that exchanges grime-encrusted objects. Maybe you could even exchange them there aswell? Who knows, maybe it was replaced by a more modern hardware after all and now utilises Battle Pet Bandages.

Show the results of a player's success. I don't mean a group of dead creatures, of course. It can be simple like
"after defeating the leftovers you can attempt to cook something more edible there" but it can also be something more meaningful as "the impact that Van Cleef has left on these mines seems to… ??? as you investigate what might be a source of encountered problems" (sorry, I don't want to contradict the current state of the dungeon). These are lame examples, I know, the Wailing Caverns had a wider background.

Embrace the strategical approach. I don't want to say that you can not, as seen by Nightwatcher or Algalon encounters. But show you expect what kind of pets the player might wish to use. A half-cyborg critter using mechanical attacks would put a need to use something more than beast damage, and no, one won't use their average stales against another guy, because he not only prevents healing, he has either [ability]Wild Magic[/ability] or good ol' bursts! [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RadishCure]Or goes very defensive himself[/url].

And a pet peeve: Don't put multiple stat profiles to non-guaranteed rewards. That's a stacked RNG, and that isn't fair. Not like it is any different from raid drops. Garrosh, we still hate you.

[Gráinne]

So any thoughts on how they could make these more interesting? I don't mean games for yourself.

I am a little worried that as time goes by and they add pet dungeons, if it is just "Do these very similar 11 battles" its going to go stale pretty quickly.

Here's an element by element comparison between CT and WC. I'd love to see if someone can intuit an aspect I missed.

Schedule: Both are Weekly Account.

Mode: Both are in an instance.

Constraint: Both have a no-heal-between-battles constraint.

Ambiance:
- CT is in a pleasant sunny place.
- WC is an unpleasant dark dingy one.

Movement:
- In CT, you stay in one spot.
- In WC, you move forward between fights.

Progress:
- CT has three sets of three battles that can be done in any order, rotating each week, followed by the same 4 boss battles every week that can be done in any order.
- WC has 5 trash battles, 5 minibosses, one Legendary, in a strict sequence.

Battles:
- All CT battles are tightly tuned, with all Legendary pets.
- In WC, we spend most of our time sweeping up random backline White trash.

Rewards:
- CT provides 4 fixed pet rewards that we earn deterministically over 9 weeks, and they are not cageable.
- WC rewards one fixed pet and three in multiple breeds awarded by RNG, over any number of weeks, and they are tradable.

[Paladance]

See the PTR topic. It seems they attempt to replicate the CT model regarding rewards.
I don't think however that they're going to "retcon" WCa what would be needed for consistency of the tier.

On the other hand, I'd prefer to keep some differences to preserve the CT's unique character. Each to their own, I guess.

More "yay"ish than RNG and Pet Charms for sure (and it means single breeds ).

[Drlambda]

I enjoyed it both times i did it until now. But yeah, i agree that the "no healing challenge" isn't really a challenge - at least once you reach the plateau of 600+ level 25 pets that most players on this site have. The thing is, it probably wasn't meant as endgame content, and it absolutely isn't. I don't even have an idea how an endgame pet battle dungeon would look like - but i'm pretty sure i'd grind it out.

[Gráinne]

Paladance, I agree that they're not going to re-create the CT. It wouldn't be the same now, anyway. The CT is still there for beginners, and the people who did it when it was current are not now even affected by a no-healing rule. Back in those days, I was so proud of myself for getting and levelling 2 Idols, 2 Chrominiuses, and 2 PWSes to have a margin of backup. Now that we have hundreds of pets, and levelling is so quick and easy, there is no need even to think about using a pet more than once.

BTW, I had an idea, and checked. In WC, although you can't heal, you can cage and learn pets, so if you really wanted to go crazy, you could bring in a flock of Ikkies, a herd of Zandalari raptors, and a temple of Idols in your bag.

I was enumerating the elements to get a sense of what might change if you changed an element.

For example, suppose it was a Monthly Account quest? No longer preserving the Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action? Suppose it was a chase over all Azeroth?

Twelve legendary pet supervillains, led by Macavity (who would have to be a cat with a Vanish or Dodge, which with Legendary speed should be scary), are organising a takeover. Breanni gives you your first clue, which should not be as open-ended and vague as the Mind-Worm clue; it should limit you pretty reliably to three or four places on Azeroth.

There you find the first of the 12, with two Epic henchmen. These Epics are chosen randomly on the day, but everybody on that day gets the same two. With a Legendary and two Epics, you actually have to solve the battle, and choose your team accordingly. Everybody doing that battle that day can share ideas, but the clock's ticking on the day! On defeating the first, you get the clue for the location of the second ... and so on, until you have cornered Macavity himself, who has two Legendary assistants. That should solve a bit of the Battle Pet Bandage storage problem we all have.

On defeating the last, you get to choose one pet from a set of 12 based on the 12 conspirators.

(Yes, it would take a year to get the whole set.)

There could be an easier quest, battling Blues and Greens, that does not award a pet, but you can take only one quest; if you switch monthly quests, you give up any progress made on your original quest.

For a smaller difference, consider changing the constraints, or the progress presentation, within a dungeon. Instead of no-heal, try enforced weather conditions. Instead of a strict sequence, or two rounds, try a series of choices between which of two opponents you want to battle to get to the next level.

Breaking down the elements is just a way to consider alternatives.

P.S. While I do pine a bit for my early days working up to the Celestial Tournament, I want to give credit to the team for Family Familiar for a great spread of battles, and especially my congratulations to whoever tested Flummox and Bredda.

[Paladance]

BTW, I had an idea, and checked. In WC, although you can't heal, you can cage and learn pets, so if you really wanted to go crazy, you could bring in a flock of Ikkies, a herd of Zandalari raptors, and a temple of Idols in your bag.

Nice idea, but I believe you can't cage wounded pets? Only release.

A flavour of the month looks awesome, though a part of me starts to wish there were 12 families (what will never be because it'd break all dependencies we know and love -- poor MPD!). The months themselves can take a part in creating the background; for example May full of flowers, October full of Indian summer and Eversong-y nostalgia (or everything reversed because Ahune case)… though perhaps it'd end in sticking to less subtle clichés and already existing world events. I'm an intruder I know.

Breaking down the elements is just a way to consider alternatives.

I miss that approach while observing pets that are just clones (mostly aquatics and beasts). I don't want to create yet another game, but take a pet, read the pet journal flavour text and change just one ability to reflect it where not accounted. There are some pretty blatant, hm, overlooks.

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On topic, this week I managed to avoid casualties too, though I kept using [pet]Hyjal Wisp[/pet] definitely too often. I can't stress enough the handiness of S/S [pet]Mechanical Scorpid[/pet] and [pet]Rotten Little Helper[/pet], sweeping dinos before they do any damage and in case of Scorpid making fun of most of bosses. Of course that isn't uncommon considering the family factor but I guess it's a thing to know if you don't want to put just random pets, and prefer to make it faster than with EPW (a [pet]Sky Fry[/pet] and cousins provide some variety).
The last part was [pet]Syd[/pet] + two beasts, of course. I met a flapper, but decided to not forfeit and [ability]Niuzao's Charge[/ability] managed to take care anyway.

[Gráinne]

BTW, I had an idea, and checked. In WC, although you can't heal, you can cage and learn pets, so if you really wanted to go crazy, you could bring in a flock of Ikkies, a herd of Zandalari raptors, and a temple of Idols in your bag.

Nice idea, but I believe you can't cage wounded pets? Only release.

Great catch! DOH!! - I should have remembered that.

On topic, this week I managed to avoid casualties too, though I kept using [pet]Hyjal Wisp[/pet] definitely too often. I can't stress enough the handiness of S/S [pet]Mechanical Scorpid[/pet] and [pet]Rotten Little Helper[/pet], sweeping dinos before they do any damage and in case of Scorpid making fun of most of bosses.

This week I decided to start just going all Rambo on the battles there, blowing them away quickly, using a separate team for each, not caring about casualties, not healing anything, no EPW shield/heal. It worked well up to Hiss. That Boss buff is annoying. Next week the sucka gets Lightning, Bleed and Stampede to the max.

[Gráinne]

I can't stress enough the handiness of S/S [pet]Mechanical Scorpid[/pet]

And I can't thank you enough for the tip.

I changed up my teams this week to provide a bit of variety, and Stampeded Son of Skum, forgetting his nasty shield.

Hm. Fail.

Remember Paladance's tip.

S/S [pet]Mechanical Scorpid[/pet] absolutely destroys Son of Skum. Needs to be S/S to get the Blinding Poison up first to avoid the strong Thunderclap, but given an S/S, Son of Skum is toast!

[Paladance]

Glad it helped.

No discoveries to me this week. For Everliving Spore, it was a second time I used S/S [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet] or [pet]Molten Corgi[/pet]* + [pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet] + [pet]Infected Squirrel[/pet] and it seems to work despite Squirrel going into racial, but I suspect it can fail sometimes, because hey, Boss.

*depends on the adds. Imp should avoid the raptors and Corgi should avoid the crocs. In a case of both, [pet]Enchanted Broom[/pet].

For the others: pushing Spore into the backline twice, then [ability]Doom[/ability] + [ability]Haunt[/ability] + [ability]Fungus[/ability] + [ability]Stampede[/ability] when the adds exist no longer. The second part is a trick going back to Beasts of Fable, which was reworked by Nyari wherever [pet]Ikky[/pet] is possible instead.

[Belcanzor]

I enjoyed it. I also went in blind and didn't have too many issues. Having a large stable of pets and a pile of max level mechanicals helped tons. I am interested to see how Blizz expands on this idea.

[Peterc]

I enjoyed it. I also went in blind and didn't have too many issues. Having a large stable of pets and a pile of max level mechanicals helped tons. I am interested to see how Blizz expands on this idea.

Summed up my view as well.

Also easy, hard, boring, exciting, RGN reliant or tokens - it's just great to get pets as rewards for doing pet related stuff. This is a novel idea Blizzard should look to do more often . Now back to working on my DK alt, and where is my monk, oh and the towers on my alliance druid and horde warlock and .........

Peterc

[Cluey]

Glad it helped.

No discoveries to me this week. For Everliving Spore, it was a second time I used S/S [pet]Fiendish Imp[/pet] or [pet]Molten Corgi[/pet]* + [pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet] + [pet]Infected Squirrel[/pet] and it seems to work despite Squirrel going into racial, but I suspect it can fail sometimes, because hey, Boss.

*depends on the adds. Imp should avoid the raptors and Corgi should avoid the crocs. In a case of both, [pet]Enchanted Broom[/pet].

For the others: pushing Spore into the backline twice, then [ability]Doom[/ability] + [ability]Haunt[/ability] + [ability]Fungus[/ability] + [ability]Stampede[/ability] when the adds exist no longer. The second part is a trick going back to Beasts of Fable, which was reworked by Nyari wherever [pet]Ikky[/pet] is possible instead.

That team with the [pet]Enchanted Broom[/pet] sounds like how I beat it the first time!
Cleared the mushroom and pushed him to the backline so he wouldn't decimate my backline before I got to use them.

I've been using the S/S [pet]Mechanical Scorpid[/pet] since the first week, Blind is great when you're faster, much like dodge. The other pets I've found to be good, in scripted NPC battles, are the ones with Ironskin [pet]Runeforged Servitor[/pet] and [pet]Direbeak Hatchling[/pet]. It's strong enough to completely avoid some attacks.

I've gone through with no casualties but it gets a bit slow doing the Wish dance, I think I should get some duplicates of some useful pets!
The ectoplasms can spoil the plan with a huge crit if you're unlucky, they're the only fight in there I need a better plan for. I'll try and work one out next reset, assuming I've got enough time.

[Gráinne]

I've gone through with no casualties but it gets a bit slow doing the Wish dance, I think I should get some duplicates of some useful pets!

I've moved on towards an aim of never using the same pet twice.

I changed teams as I went. Not quite there yet. Looking down my Rematch group for WC, I see I still have the [pet]Blue Clockwork Rocket-Bot[/pet],[pet] Iron Starlette[/pet], [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet], [pet]Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling[/pet] in there twice, because I have duplicates of them, but I'll probably manage to straighten that out next week.

[Paladance]

Indeed, [pet]Periwinkle Calf[/pet] has a thing when it comes to Budding Everliving Spore. I didn't even expect that but an H/H soloed the encounter, even going on [ability]Tail Slap[/ability]s instead.
I also like [pet]Bleakwater Jelly[/pet] for quickness (crits!).

Experimental : A [pet]Pterrordax Hatchling[/pet] ([ability]Flyby[/ability], [ability]Ancient Blessing[/ability], [ability]Lift-Off[/ability]) took more than 75% of the Son of Skum's health. Don't worry about AoE, it's enough when your pets are faster and have an instant healing ability.
If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.