A year after Legion Pet Battle Tuning. Thoughts?

[Rosqo]

A dead wish pet will still have its wish go off.

No it doesnt - to be precise it depends:

#1 - Pet cast wish - opponents turn - caster pet dies - new pet comes in - wish doesnt go off.

BUT

#2 - Pet casts wish - caster pet gets killed - new pets comes in - wish goes off.

There is not an active pet in your first example for the wish to heal. That's different to it not working correctly.

[Paladance]

I was expecting a hijack, but not a flood… Not even gonna quote because of the length it would have produced, sorry for that.

I forgot that [ability]Screeching Gears[/ability] ability isn't progressive, thank you Gráinne for a reminder.

Other babbling:

• Jellies are nice, I haven't tried [pet]Blightbreath[/pet] or [pet]Snobold Runt[/pet] for anything because I don't have "proper" breeds of them yet.
• Split and clones. NEVER FORGET indeed. And [ability]Chaos Nova[/ability] (a bad case of copypaste) and now that [ability]Bend Time[/ability]? Why is it so crazy right now? Perhaps this is why in the PTR do you experiment on an NPC pet?
• I sort of like how traps hadn't been getting as much attention (other than meeting occasionally [pet]Curious Wolvar Pup[/pet]) until there appeared a nigh-equivalent of Ragnaros available to everyone. It's itchy to ask, what would happen if the same thing applied to [ability]Righteous Inspiration[/ability]?
• And nobody has said yet (okay, Biscuit foreshadowed that) how [ability]Weakness[/ability] (a functional mirror of RI) seems to be OP on fast pets (though, thanks to the additive buffs, the flyers shrug it out)? I like my Enthusiast so far but don't envy those that loathe macro-scale PvP, and I'm glad it's a humanoid (= not really immune to the meta).
• Nevertheless, I'm disappointed how some pets seem to be ruined by unfavourable breeds -- though, on the other hand, perhaps the best of them would be too terrifying (even a B/B [pet]Broot[/pet] with its base is… )? Alas, poor [pet]Ageless Bronze Drake[/pet] or [pet]Dreadmaw[/pet].
• I think that rewards for Family Familiar and Battle on the Broken Isles should have been swapped. Or just FF have additionally given something else, like a title. The treant alone is just a bit "meh", especially in comparison to Trunks.
• Fix the Deadmines pets, please.
• A piece of trivia: S/B [pet]Elfin Rabbit[/pet], P/S [pet]Mongoose[/pet] and [pet]Miniwing[/pet] ( ) have exactly 338 speed so just a bit more than WS (checked in-game so no display errors I think*). I'm not saying that each of them would go, but they might serve as a sample for The Question™.

*Also:
F: 1,3*25(base+bonus*2)
S/B Elfin Rabbit 9,5: 32,5*(9,5+0,9) = 338
S/S Wicked Soul 8,35: 32,5*(8,35+2) = 336,375 (so why is it displayed as 337? For a case of an exact 336? Phhh.)

[Drlambda]

Righteous Inspiration is a silly, silly ability and thankfully only available to a fraction of all players. I guess if it was on a easily-available pet, everyone in here would be crying murder. I'd like to see more fair swap buffs though, they add a really interesting dynamic to the game.

Weakness is pretty strong. After the recent focus on Wyrmy Tunkins in the youtube community, i've been trying out the other Weakness pets with Speed buffs. The only one that is really able to match the DPS of Wyrmy/Enthusiast is Wretched Servant though, who replaces DOTs with Consume Magic. He's really hard to kill, but he doesn't go on a rampage through most of the tier 1 pets when he's fast unlike Wyrmy. It's fun jumping through the hoops to make Weakness work right now, but i don't look forward to see a pet with Weakness that is naturally fast.

On unfavorable breeds - i agree on that, although Blizzard generally did a good job on breed balancing. I'm more bummed out by pets with no interesting aspect in their movesets (again, basic Snakes are a good example) - there are just way to many "3 random attacks" pets out there that could at least have any kind of redeeming quality.

[Vakeetah]

Weakness is pretty strong. After the recent focus on Wyrmy Tunkins in the youtube community, i've been trying out the other Weakness pets with Speed buffs. The only one that is really able to match the DPS of Wyrmy/Enthusiast is Wretched Servant though, who replaces DOTs with Consume Magic. He's really hard to kill, but he doesn't go on a rampage through most of the tier 1 pets when he's fast unlike Wyrmy. It's fun jumping through the hoops to make Weakness work right now, but i don't look forward to see a pet with Weakness that is naturally fast.

[pet]Viscidus Globule[/pet] is the fastest Weakness user (289). While that speed is insufficient to lock most pets down, it can definitely perma-weaken many pets (including some bosses) and slowly chew through them.

That said, its skillset isn't really interesting, and it lacks the endurance and sustain of Humanoids, so it doesn't do much beyond being annoying.

[Drudatz]

And my point remains that a buff shouldn't just magically disappear if the caster dies.

And there is no buff disappearing.....

By that logic, let's solve the trap problem here and now: kill the pet that laid the trap down and then it'll just *POOF* be gone. Perfect solution, right Drudatz?

There is no trap problem....

On Righteous Inspiration:
If they add a widely accessible pet with RI, they better damn give a quarter of all pets the ability to Smoke Bomb. Cause that's the only 100% safe way to handle it.

Seeing claims like this makes me wonder if you even do pet pvp
otherwise you wouldnt tell such a bold untrue claim.
(yes ofc proper handling to counter RI you need some experience but that is what pet pvp is about... )

Sorry I dont see any pet out of line as Graves was but go ahead and cry more
I personally think Blizzard did a good job with legion and they kept pet balance.

[Gráinne]

I must have played at least 50 matches with that wisp, and never saw the Wish happen when it was dead. And the caster has an animation when Wish is actually applied as well, so I always assumed that it was intended. However, I was wrong and the Wish can be applied after the death of the caster. It took me some trying to reproduce that, but I did:
i.imgur.com/ZkTmGgT.png. The buff doesn't disappear. It's about what order the round ends. If the caster dies, the round doesn't end until the next pet comes in, but the dead caster consumes the Wish before that. I apologise for the misinformation and the red herring.

And, Paladance, you certainly have considerable derailment going on already.

Drudatz, I get that you really didn't like the chain stun, and that the change to Frog Kiss did eliminate it. But in the process, it destroyed a significant ramp-up move. Along with others, I think the right answer would have been fixing resilience. And if not that, I think a reduction in stun chance would have been less bad than destroying the ramp-up. But that last is a matter of opinion, and we're not going to find a basis for agreeing.

I do think that, overall, balance is much better than it was during Graves, and that the devs should use a lighter hand in general in any coming tuning. Though I suspect we won't get any more during Legion.

Sorry, Drudatz. I often commit the start of a long post early, and then edit more in. It avoids losing long posts to forum or user error. I didn't realise you had already responded to my first para. when I continued. Day-um, and another one after that. I think I'll leave it for now and come back when there are fewer people hovering.

[Drudatz]

And thats exactly how I explained it

[Rosqo]

I actually have to agree with brawler in regards to smoke bomb being the only 100% way to counter righteous inspiration. Of course you could counter it by predicting it's cast but he said 100% safe way which predicting isn't. I can't think of any other team wide block priority move.

With traps they are very rng which means they can go off at both 'good' and 'bad' times. So the person playing them is just relying on luck rather than skill. It's the same argument as the 25% stun abilities or an idol running demolish which is where the problem with the ability lies. Unlike the other % chance moves a trap always detonates which is where I think it should be changed. It would still probably go off but at least there's a chance it wouldn't. They could also make it actually follow the tooltip and only activate on an attack but that's probably too much to ask.

[Gráinne]

Anyway, we can battle anytime though if you'd like to test your inaccurate hypothesis.
Is betting gold on pet battles against the ToS?
If not, I'm game for 100k.

Can't cross-battle US-EU. Even if you make a starter character, and even if you buy a month, you can't bring your pets with you. Even the PTR often doesn't recreate pets.

[Drudatz]

You contradict yourself once again. You claim that Bend Time should go away if the caster dies, but now you say there is no buff disappearing. Which is it?

I didnt claim anything YOU are putting words in my mouth. I said mayhaps bend time acts the same way apocalypse does.

So, in your mind, they work perfectly and you wouldn't change, adjust or tweak anything about them in any way, shape or form? I believe you to be in the minority of PVPers that wouldn't change how traps work.

Do I like traps? no. Are they working as expected? yes, they are.

On Righteous Inspiration, how would you handle Murkalot WITHOUT guessing when you think your opponent is going to pull the trigger on RI?

(yes ofc proper handling to counter RI you need some experience but that is what pet pvp is about... )

However, Smoke Bomb always goes first and is an AOE dodge. Need I say more?

And still wouldnt make you dodge RI if your opponent fools you into doing it at the wrong time. (ie with the help of bend time :p)

Lastly, once again you try to throw judgement and claim that I don't know how to PVP.

Again putting words in my mouth but you sound very agressive and like someone who clearly HATES pvp and wants everything he doesnt like to be nerved to the ground.

Is betting gold on pet battles against the ToS? If not, I'm game for 100k.

In game gambling is against ToS since always.

I actually have to agree with brawler in regards to smoke bomb being the only 100% way to counter righteous inspiration.

Half-wrong. Deflection for example would work too even without ANY guessing.

With traps they are very rng which means they can go off at both 'good' and 'bad' times. So the person playing them is just relying on luck rather than skill.

Ofc isnt that the sense behind them?

It's the same argument as the 25% stun abilities or an idol running demolish which is where the problem with the ability lies. Unlike the other % chance moves a trap always detonates which is where I think it should be changed.

because its a unique move and has nothing to do with any of the active moves you listed.
the other move you could compare it to is XE-321 Boombot which does dmg after 3 rounds.
you know after max 9 rounds the trap will go off, dmg and stun you BUT it also can happen sooner.

[Rosqo]

Isn't deflection just the pet that casts it? Like ethereal?

[Rosqo]

@Drudatz I just don't think games should be decided on a fire and forget luck ability with no real counter. You can counter the stun with critters or arcane winds but what else? Blind the cast possibly but pretty obvious to most people. How do you counter traps consistently?

[Drudatz]

Isn't deflection just the pet that casts it? Like ethereal?

thats why i said "half-wrong". from my experience people try to use a single pet big hit with RI.

I just don't think games should be decided on a fire and forget luck ability with no real counter.

so you want a boring 100% predictable game? traps is sadly the only thing that brings rng in and imho there should be more rng not less.

You can counter the stun with critters or arcane winds but what else? Blind the cast possibly but pretty obvious to most people. How do you counter traps consistently?

I dont have to because I barely see people with traps.
mayhaps a Lil'Ragnaros once in a while or my favorite in EU with his combo of Magma Rageling, Curious Wolvar Pup (double traps, yeah! /s) and a Celestial Calf with Stoneskin and Wish to take every big hit and heal everyone.
In reality you see more cyclone-dance, darkness teams. And yes if I lucky to be on my team with a critter I use him as long as the trap is up.

ps: I saw yesterday a Blightpaw survive an apocalypse because of its racial - intended or bug?

[Rosqo]

Whenever I see righteous inspiration it's with aoe abilities. Smoke bomb would cover all situations though like brawler said.

I prefer making better choices to decide a match than rng.

The meta is either haunt or darkness teams for me.

The brightpaw thing is probably intended. Can't take more than 35% hits regardless of how.

[Drudatz]

Whenever I see righteous inspiration it's with aoe abilities.

out of curiosity, how often is that? (you seeing someone with RI)

I prefer making better choices to decide a match than rng.

So taking a darkness team is a better choice

The meta is either haunt or darkness teams for me.

So you want easy wins instead of a challenge?

The brightpaw thing is probably intended. Can't take more than 35% hits regardless of how.

(I do know the racials...) Well our american friend then surly wants the tooltip changed.

[Rosqo]

Rarely, probably as much as you see people running RI with single target abilities.

I don't really play that many darkness teams but it's one of the strongest strategies in the current meta so going into a blind queue you could say it's a better choice than triple aquatics if you want to use darkness as your example.

Oh I meant I face darkness and haunt teams a lot. I use a whole mixture of teams except sunnyday/photosynthesis. If you see the teams I play you'll know it's not easy wins.

I think biscuit brawler makes good points in his comments not sure why you made the quip about tooltips just focus on the discussion.