18 new pet NPCs

[Quintessence]

18 new pet NPCs on Argus!
(Thanks to to @patf0rd and [profile]Paladance [/profile]for pointing this out!)

Legendary pet NPCs? Similar to Tanaan Jungle pets? Possibly World Quest related.

Developer Jeremy Feasel also notes,

They will have brand new abilities and world quests next week, keep a look out for the next PTR build! Also some fun achievements

Feel free to post additional information/details/testing on these new battles in this thread.

[Hobbitpolitics]

Achievements excite me the most, hopefully there will be challenging ones as well as casual fun ones. Argus has the potential to include many unique and interesting pets.

[Flohsakk]

Scrolling back in yesterdays WCP Discord chat, [profile]Paladance[/profile] was the one who pointed out those new Fel Corruption pet additions way earlier but wasn't properly recognized at that time Somewhere I've seen the Corrupted Blood of Argus and apparently did a similar investigation, also posted it on Discord and Twitter, so I'm very sorry for taking credit now.

[Paladance]

Wait, so wasn't the Twitter post created some hours earlier?
…unless it shows some US time zone and I compared that to local time

EDIT: Yep, all explained, the Twitter post was actually written after the midnight. So after all, thank both of you for a credit.

[Dalandius]

Interesting maybe a Argus version of Family Familiar?. Which be fun just hope they are more than just a pet WQ's like the ones they put on the broken shore.

[Paladance]

Once the abilities are changed:
Hmm, maybe this?

But I found these while looking for the Corrupted Blood as the RwL V pet.

[Jodmos]

There have been WQs in highmountain (lil'idan spot) with the same name as some of these but nothing in the area when you go to take a look around.

[Gilneas]

Seems like it will be Fel Pets of Tanaan meets Family Familiar.

Battle
Pet Battles
Anomalous Animals of Argus (New) Defeat the following corrupted pets on Argus. 10 points. Account Wide.
Aquatic Assault (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Aquatic pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Beast Blitz (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Beast pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Critical Critters (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Critter pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Draconic Destruction (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Dragonkin pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Elemental Escalation (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Elemental pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Family Fighter (New) Complete the following achievements. Reward: Felclaw Marsuul. 10 points. Account Wide.
Fierce Fliers (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Flying pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Humanoid Havoc (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Humanoid pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Magical Mayhem (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Magic pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Mechanical Melee (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Mechanical pets. 5 points. Account Wide.
Unstoppable Undead (New) Defeat the corrupted pets of Argus with all Undead pets. 5 points. Account Wide.

Edit: In addition to the reward pet (Felclaw Marsuul), there seem to be a number of additional new pets from other locations throughout Argus.

[Jodmos]

Corrupted Blood of Argus - MacAree - Western corner of Seat of Triumvirate (not in the seat itself but in the shadowy area outside it at that corner).
has a switchout (Voidgate i think it's called) Siphon Blood and Slime(damage ability)


Shadeflicker - MacAree - Umbra Hollows - NorthWest of Ruins of Oronaar there is a flower shaped building on the map. Shadeflicker is just a bit north of that.
has a really annoying switchout ability and is quite fast. Also has a dodge and an general damageability.



I could keep battling even after winning and WQ was not necessary.


So far in MacAree I've seen the following wild pets.

Skyfin Juvenille (blue/orange and orange/orange) - main and secondary (caught blue/orange - doesn't appear to be colour changer)
Voidstalker Runt - main and secondary
Arcane Gorger - secondary
Void Shardling - main
Pygmy Marsuul - secondary
Felcrazed Wyrm - secondary

[Quintessence]

Each achievement under the Family Fighter meta requires defeating all 18 of the following Argus pet NPCs.

• Baneglow
• Bloat
• Bucky
• Corrupted Blood of Argus
• Deathscreech
• Earseeker
• Foulclaw
• Gloamwing
• Gnasher
• Mar'cuus
• Minixis
• One-of-Many
• Pilfer
• Retch
• Ruinhoof
• Shadeflicker
• Snozz
• Watcher

This makes the Argus pet family challenges slightly more time consuming compared to the original. Family Familiar only required defeating 12 out of the total number of trainers, while the wording on the new Family Fighter achievements sound like defeating all 18 is necessary.

It's speculated that although these NPCs are spawned indefinitely at the moment, in future PTR builds they will become actual World Quests and only spawn when the quest is active.

[Paladance]

I sincerely haven't expected this. It seems that they really want us to feel that it's a mini-expansion. And the effort to make the place, well, alien -- so much that poor Draenor or Outland don't stand a chance.

Hope that the Marsuul is worth it.

Wowhead has a maintenance and wowdb doesn't show details. Hm. Patience.

[Flohsakk]

Checked for corrupted pets, looks like each of the 3 Argus zones will have 6 pet battles (single legendary pets with boss passive) and the pets share zone-specific abilities:

• Greater Apocalypse (Krokuun)
• Antaen Cannon (Antoran Wastes)
• Void Gate (Mac'Aree)

Here are maps with the locations of corrupted pets and other battle pet related mobs:

Mac'Aree


Krokuun


Antoran Wastes

[Quintessence]

From Jeremy Feasel on Twitter:

PSA: [Family Fighter] pets are up all the time, and can be battled even if their WQ isn't up. Do the achievement at your own pace!

No Family Familiar trainer RNG! Complete the new achievements as quickly or slowly as you like! YAY!

[Jodmos]

Foulclaw - This has Crouch as an ability and while crouch is up it is completely invulnerable as the boss ability also reduces damage by 50%. Figure this is a bug. Awkward when you've only 20 turns to beat it and it's invulnerable for 3 out of every 5/6 turns.

[Flohsakk]

Foulclaw - This has Crouch as an ability and while crouch is up it is completely invulnerable as the boss ability also reduces damage by 50%. Figure this is a bug. Awkward when you've only 20 turns to beat it and it's invulnerable for 3 out of every 5/6 turns.

https://twitter.com/patf0rd/status/892711467170107393
https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/893289336048730112

I would be surprised if any team will see Foulclaw's Greater Apocalypse going off, his Flurry with 548 Power is so strong and usually gets the extra hit with 384 speed.

Btw Foulclaw is not invulnerable, well timed Shattered Defenses, Howl, Acidic Goo like stuff works, also Explode goes through etc. It's hard, but not impossible I think. I expected it to be extremely hard for an Undead team, but had nice results. Right now I'm running out of ideas for Elementals & Dragonkin... they are so weak and some abilities/effects that I call important vs. Foulclaw are missing on these pet families

[Jodmos]

Invulnerable was a bad choice of words as I knew debuffs could help. I just thought it was a bug and the two 50% reductions should be multiplicative rather than additive. (I think this matches other areas of the games with damage reduction not stacking additiviely - may be wrong though)

I had used Lil' Blingtrons (i'd been doing the others with just mechanical). I still think it's badly tuned. Just because it's possible doesn't make it balanced. I found with pets that are not a bad match up, against it's critter flurry, it was killing them in 2 turns.

Anything else that increased damage by set amount (rather than % increase style debuff) I found didn''t work (unless the debuff was there).

This has implications for the family achievement as not all families have abilities that will allow them to beat it. Also, luck will play a large part and this game needs less RNG, not more.

I think undead is doable. it is still likely that it will take 2 turns to kill a pet and then they get an extra free turn. This will be easier than a lot of other families. Doom/agony/haunt and then macabre marionette springs to mind

Chrominius(dragonkin) and Core Hound Pup(elemental) both have Howl and beast attacks. Core Hound Pup is more of an issue as it's unique so elemental would need other ways on top. 3 Chrominiuses may do it for dragonkin.

[Flohsakk]

I don't think players will repeat those pet family restriced fights if they were successful. So I don't think they need to be extremely balanced around... what exactly? A very basic pet collection?

We had pet battles tuned/nerfed during PTR/Betas because people were complaining 20min after Blizzard made those battles available to test ("I tried everything!" or "Impossible!" were the reactions. Yes of course hundreds and thousands of possible pet combos and synergys tested in that short period of time... thanks for asking Blizzard to make stuff trivial).

Argus pet battles were availbale for less than 2 weeks and I don't see the point for tuning them too early. Informing/asking Devs about things that look imbalanced/impossibe... sure! But also we need people with ideas and further testing and a lot of them don't see those fights before they go live.

If I'm on my way to a working strategy and multiple crits wreck it... okay, it's a one timer, I can repeat that and hope for less crits but I see the goal. If the strategy is wrecked by a single crit or for Foulclaw relying on luck (expecting only 2 hits from Flurry each time), I have to optimize things on my side or try something else. So yes I'm completely okay if a pet battle is difficult but it's possible without using only extremely rare pets or three of a kind. If it needs one "uncommon" pet or a new one from Argus wild battles... that's okay too, I don't see the point in completing this achievement on the first day

@Jodmos Are you on WCP's Discord? I don't want to share/spoil teams/strats too early this time so people approach these battles without a direction set. But maybe we can share our ideas/concerns to some of the Argus fights there?

[Jodmos]

Not on Discord.

Generally I like to try and come up with strats myself so only after bashing my head against a wall for some time would I look for tips (and with the exception of carry pets I've not found that to be often). I also generally only take a quick look at tactics on PTR to make sure I can beat the pet. Things like the family achievements I can wait for live for most (far too much stuff on live to keep characters going).

The family fights are one offs, as you say, and people will generally go for a nonfamily specific tactic that's easier if WQ shows up. I can understand if they're not completely balanced. Given that there's a pet going and doing the fights umpteen times with different families I would hope they're not for all intents and purposes undoable except with great luck. Much prefer skill and tactics over RNG.

I suppose we could look at these as the mythic raiding of pet battles. Just that pet battles has been a low level activity where having 1000 pets isn't needed.

As you piqued my curiosity I've been doing it with different families.

So far cleared it with (not used anything particularly rare although some I checked are in less than 30% of collections here)
Easiest
No problem
Humanoid
Flying
Undead
Beast

Not a sure thing
Mechanical (only here as people may not have the pet selection I have. not rare pets but having 3 may be more awkward)

May take some goes
Critter
Aquatic
Dragonkin (used a rare pet)

Hard
Magic (certainly RNG dependent)

Very Hard -
Elemental (VERY RNG dependent and using 1 pet you can't get anymore - Might work 1 in 30 goes or worse. very dependent on flurry hitting 2 times in parts.)
Hardest

All in all I went through 100ish bandages with the vast majority being for magic and elemental

I think the mix of damage reduction, speed, and critter make this as hard as it is.

[Jodmos]

Foulclaw now has Comeback instead of Crouch in today's build. Think they reduced it too much. It's basically not an issue any more.

When I first tried last week I thought it would have been 50% reduction and then 50% reduction of the remainder for a 75% reduction overall (rather than the 100% it was). Think that would have kept some of the difficulty without keeping it practically impossible for some families.

Didn't notice any new pets in the build.

My Blazehound item still wants to teach Drafty.
Don't have the one for Corrupted Blood so can't say if that's been fixed. Got one today and won't teach Corrupted Blood pet, trying to teach Surger


As Foulclaw has been nerfed these are what i used when it had crouch. (and thanks to Muffinus for shoutout on twitter)

% damage abilities helped such as toxic skin and corpse explosion for some families.

Humanoid - Hogs, Lil' Bad Wolf, Lurky (didn';t need lurky)
Dragonkin - Nether Faerie Dragon, Sun Darter, Dream Whelpling
Flying - Iky, Ikky and another
Undead - Infected Squirrel, Macabre marionette, Blighted Squirrel
Critter - Squirrels
Magic - Mini Mindslayer, Transmutant, Jade owl
Beast - Zandalari raptors
Mechanical, Lil Blingtrons
Aquatic - Gulp Froglet, Leviathan Hatchling, Sea Calf
Elemental - Core Hound Pup, Molten Corgi, Electric Razortooth

Elemental was pretty much timing and luck, but a bit of explanation as it was by far the hardest to do.
Core hound Pup used howl and dig then skipped a turn until howl was back.
Used Howl then switched to Corgi which used Superbark and then puppies of flame (to give howl time to come back off cooldown).
The corgi could only be hit 2 times with flurry each time so it got another hit in with bark.
Corgi would die and switch in Core Hound which would then use howl while foulclaw puts it's shield back up.
Core hound dies next turn and then you've one turn to get a hit with howl to do around 570ish damage.
The razortooth used blood in water with a 50% hit rate unfortunately (another rng for this fight).


I had used the bog beast before but its 525 rampage damage was not quite enough. There may be a bog beast I could get with higher power which would have been enough though. Turns out mine is H/H and a H/P one may have done enough damage(I don't generally care about breeds as they normally don't have a big impact on the pve battles and I don't pvp)

[Paladance]

Foulclaw has been nerfed these are what i used when it had crouch. (and thanks to Muffinus for shoutout on twitter)

And congrats to you for both accomplishment and a shoutout!