MGTTDPB 5.2: My guide to tamer daily pet battles for 5.2

[Stencil]

An emperor crab totally destroys Nishi. I have a yellow moth as my back up for it, but rarely, if ever, use him. If I'm totally distracted and keep using the wrong abilities at the wrong time, then maybe, but RNG really needs to hate me.

With Cabadath's strat, Nishi's last pet will most likely die on round 15; is Emperor Crab faster than that?

[Threnody]

An emperor crab totally destroys Nishi. I have a yellow moth as my back up for it, but rarely, if ever, use him.

I used to solo Nishi with a P/P Emperor Crab too, but I find that the strider strat is much faster. Maybe I just get tempted to heal more with the crab so it takes such a long time to die and give way to my carry pet.

[Stencil]

I used to solo Nishi with a P/P Emperor Crab too, but I find that the strider strat is much faster. Maybe I just get tempted to heal more with the crab so it takes such a long time to die and give way to my carry pet.

Your carry pet will take the same amount of damage from Siren's Sunlight on the front row as it does on the back. Start with your carry pet, perform one action with them in the first round and then swap to the first pet of your kill team. That way you don't have to worry about swapping later.

[Threnody]

You're right, Stencil. I think I got used to having my carry pet on the 2nd slot for tamer dailies.

Anyway, this makes an even stronger case for a strider for Nishi. Pump is so much faster for nuking elementals.

[Tahsfenz]

I tossed a strider in today, and it is indeed faster. I would say it saves a few rounds. Either is solid if someone is interested in something different

[Stencil]

My new favorite team for Seeker Zusshi is Snarly (112) and a "Bat"* (121). I usually get the kill around turn 13. What I really like about this team is that it doesn't suffer at all if Mollus kills the lead off pet with dive. When that happens, Snarly will have Ripped (strong vs critter) and Surged and taken half of Mollus' life before dying. The bat can easily finish off Mollus with Bite (strong vs critter), along with the ticks from Snarly's Rip. Reckless Strike (strong vs aquatic) will destroy Skimmer.

vs. Diamond
-round 1: Rip
-round 2: Blood in the Water
-round 3+: Surge

vs. Mollus
-round 1: Rip
-round 2: Surge
-round 3: Blood in the Water

if Snarly died to Mollus' Dive
- select carry pet
- swap to bat
- Bite until Mollus dies
- Reckless Strike until Skimmer dies

if Dive missed
- Rip until Mollus is dead
- if Mollus is at low health (200 or less), then use Surge to finish him off
- put Rip on Skimmer
- swap to carry pet (which will eat Soothe)
- swap to bat
- Reckless Strike until Skimmer dies


* I personally use a Vampiric Batling because: 1) its the only leveled "bat" I have and 2) I like that the Undead pet passive could kick in if killed by Pump and give me the extra time needed to finish off Skimmer. I have not needed that ability so far; my Batling has never died. For this reason, I expect a regular Bat would work just fine for those who don't have a Vampiric Batling.

In fact, there is a chance, someone would need to test this, that the P/P Bat could actually be a better option than the Vampiric as it has 20 more Power. 2 Reckless Strikes from the Vamp, while not quite enough to kill Skimmer, bring it down to a low health value (137 for example). If the P/P Bat's extra Power allows it to kill Skimmer with two hits, then it would be the better option.

[Tahsfenz]

The problem is TE vampiric batling isn't obtainable any more and I not think there is a comparable replacement for those without him.

[Amethice]

The problem is TE vampiric batling isn't obtainable any more and I not think there is a comparable replacement for those without him.

Agreed, guides/tactics should probably best be written without demanding unobtainable pets, though it should mention them being superior replacements where necessary.

*hugs her trio of Vampiric Batlings*

[Mantrhax]

For the record, it worked today. I cannot honestly say I know what the difference is. I did everything exactly the same as the prior few days.

*shrug*

I can say, when it works, it is pretty nice.

I made a quick video (I have a runny nose sorry) of doing Hyuna and Seeker both with the same Ooze based team:
Hyuna there is RNG if you get Skyshaper first, but the Seeker battle the only thing to ever RNG-hate me is missing an Acidic Goo, which unlucky misses can screw any attempt, so I rate it as one of the most reliable strats I use for the Tamers.

Very nice setup, ooze is really good

[Stencil]

The problem is TE vampiric batling isn't obtainable any more and I not think there is a comparable replacement for those without him.

regarding this specific tamer strat:
My Batling's undead passive has not yet been triggered in any of the kills I've made so far. Therefore, I think a regular Bat should work very well as a replacement, though I haven't been able to test it yet. I've edited and updated my posts with the information.

Agreed, guides/tactics should probably best be written without demanding unobtainable pets, though it should mention them being superior replacements where necessary.

regarding the general issue of a strat using such a pet:

I disagree. If a strategy is found that offers a better combination of reliability and speed, it should be shared. There are combinations of pets I use that I would probably not have put together except that I read about someone else using them. Saying not to post strats with that kind of pet almost feels like saying people shouldn't even use those pets (because not everyone has them).

Had I been posting a full, comprehensive guide, then yes there would need to be alternate strats to cover folks without it. But my post is just an offering of an alternate strat, a "superior replacement" if you will, for the strat from Cabadath's guide. The implicit alternative for those without that pet would be to continue to use the one from the original guide post.

[Livingdeath]

Bump! This should be a sticky topic.

[Charmed6229]

this soooo needs stickied.

[Quintessence]

Stickying this great post! Cabadath, if you plan on keeping this guide updated for 5.3 and future patches, this post can be moved to the Community Guides section.

[Moritsume]

I'm not sure if anyone else has run into this but using Explode vs. a Beast seems to only do 40% of the caster's max health. The tooltip shows 60% of the max health as dmg due to it being a move strong against beast type pets but against Jeremy Feasel my Dragonling is only blowing up for 560 not the expected 840 dmg against Fezwick.

[Cabadath]

Stickying this great post! Cabadath, if you plan on keeping this guide updated for 5.3 and future patches, this post can be moved to the Community Guides section.

I tried to reply to your message, but I couldn't send it because the anti-spam check didn't work (typed in the words but it never worked). Therefore, I reply here instead.

Thanks for your kind words and for the sticky .

It took a lot of time, notes and effort to write the guide, and when I finally posted it felt like the end of a chapter. I haven't logged in or continued testing. Therefore, the guide won't be updated and it won't be suitable as a community guide. But I have to say I appreciate the nomination.

There have been a lot of nice replies to my guide, and even though I wanted to reply to those and to revise the guide, I didn't because I wouldn't log in to actually test the suggestions. It is important to me that changes to the guide are thoroughly tested to ensure quality. I found the guide to be sufficiently suitable for people to use, combined with the users reading the posts suggesting different setups. This particularly applies to the teams I wanted to perfect, such as the teams with anubisath idol / emerald proto whelp (solid enough, but I wanted more efficient pets with higher damage).

PS: I have checked up on the guide from time to time, and have itched to answer questions and comment input (particularly, I don't really understand the problem with the jade oozeling vs zusshi - it worked for me every time). But as I felt a bit outdated, particularly after 5.2 went live, I didn't want to give semi-accurate responses.

To be the best tool it can be, the guide should be revised and updated for 5.2 and eventually 5.3 and future patches, also involving extensive testing of new teams suggested by people. In particular, it would be very interesting to see if any of the new pets in 5.2 or 5.3 would be better options for many of the teams. Also, now that I know that every tamer always starts with a predetermined pet and don't have a chance of starting with a different pet every time you engage him/her, the guide could be simplified by removing the tactical notes concerning which pet you start off agains first.

If warcraftpets.com wishes it, I would accept that someone other than me takes over revising my guide so that it isn't rendered moot or less than optimal. Just send me a message or post a reply

Sincerely,
Formerly Bandobras @ Al'akir EU, currently Bando @ Auchindoun EU, alias Cabadath @ Auchindoun EU

[Gendou]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still having a lot of RNG with the Darkmoon Tamer.
Going Infinite Whelpling / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling or Fel Flame / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, I'm still running into extensive losing streaks. It was really frustrating today where it ended up taking me seven or eight attempts to finally clear it, barely.

The monkey, man. The monkey is just brutal.

[Tahsfenz]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still having a lot of RNG with the Darkmoon Tamer.
Going Infinite Whelpling / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling or Fel Flame / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, I'm still running into extensive losing streaks. It was really frustrating today where it ended up taking me seven or eight attempts to finally clear it, barely.

The monkey, man. The monkey is just brutal.

Use a clockwork gnome (2/1/1). After the second turret, heal. Usually the gnome is close to killing the first 2 pets. I take a leveling pet & usually yellow moth.

[Stencil]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still having a lot of RNG with the Darkmoon Tamer.
Going Infinite Whelpling / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling or Fel Flame / Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, I'm still running into extensive losing streaks. It was really frustrating today where it ended up taking me seven or eight attempts to finally clear it, barely.

The monkey, man. The monkey is just brutal.

Have you tried an Enchanted Broom in the place of the MPD yet? Sandstorm should reduce quite a lot of damage you'd otherwise take from Banana Barrage. The broom is fast so it will only lose one round to Clobber; should you have to take a Lock-On hit from the Tonk while swapping in, the Magic racial passive will at least cap the amount of damage taken. Generally I end up swapping in when the Tonk is low and I'll use Sandstorm as the attack to kill it. Then I just use Wind-Up to kill off Fezwick.

[Stencil]

I think what I'd really love to see stickied is a new thread where the first post, instead of being a guide, is a continuously updated and maintained compendium of links to posts containing strats. Ideally, for each strat there would be some collected data for average number of rounds to kill. This would allow the community to identify those combinations which reliably produce the fastest kills while still giving alternatives to users who don't yet (or never will) have access to specific pets used in a top strat.


Average rounds to kill data would have to include wipes if they happened. For example, on Feasel I remembered to record data for four kills, the first of which had a wipe. So, in my own strat/guide post/thread I'd report my results like: 21+18 13 15 18. The sticky compendium post could then have an entry for with something like:
21.25 4 Stencil [url=http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2809&start=60#p22104]Infinite Whelpling + Enchanted Broom[/url]

The 4 (total number of kills) is in there to give an indicator about the quality of that average score - you can see that there's only 4 data points represented at that time. Maybe those with a better knowledge of stats can suggest a better way to express a confidence level in a given average or guidelines perhaps for numbers of trials needed.

The temptation will surely be there for any of us who feel attached to "our" strats to want to dismiss and leave out data from attempts where we had bad luck and/or "blizzard screwed us!" (they dodged my ion cannon? really? grrr!). But the best thing for that is keep it in and just keep collecting more data points. We need full accuracy to compare strats that have different levels of risk in them.

For example, I know that my Red Cricket strategy will never kill Wastewalker Shu as fast as Cab's Onyxian Whelpling can. But, Lift-Off has a built in 20% miss chance and whenever the first one failed to kill Crusher the attempts always became much sketchier and I would have some wipes. So in order to compare strats like those that we'd need full data, wipes as well as kills, to see what they truly average.

What do people think about something like that?

[Cabadath]

It would be a very helpful tool to have objective data based on a unified standard.

Experience dictates that such input will differ when people have to make their own tests and submit them. The data would most likely not be totally comparable. I'm not saying that the inputs will be too inconsistent to ensure the required quality for it to become a valuable tool, but it would require quite a bit of effort from one person to gather the data and churning out results for each setup.

It is a lot easier to make the tests oneself, as one then would have absolute control of the data you gather, ensuring consistency and thereby reliable results.

The ultimate way would perhaps be for someone to write an addon which is synched up with an online database (wowhead comes to mind), which logs the team setup, abilities chosen/used, which tamer one fights, number of rounds it takes, win/loss, the impact of misses (particularly for those high chance to miss-abilities). Perhaps even log the sequence abilities are used in. Damage output could also be calculated if that would be useful, and perhaps other information as well. The data could then be extracted for different purposes, such as rating the most used / most successful teams for each tamer, how many rounds it takes, win/loss ratio (to factor in the reliability of the team). This would ensure that people don't have to make notes of what they actually do, and the data extracted would be 100 % comparable from battle to battle. But this seems unrealistic to hope for, as it involves a lot of work and requires a lot of people to install the addons.

The realistic way of gathering information would be for one person to take it upon themselves to make a guide, and post it to get input which can be tested by that same person. The person should also explain what his guide actually tells readers, such as what is considered "high reliability" etc.

A sticky topic to different guides which are kept up to date could be useful indeed. In my experience the quality of guides and such vary. I have read a lot of guides and seen a lot of youtube clips in which the author gives more or less ultimate tips for defeating tamers. Most have been erroneous, inaccurate or shows a lack of knowledge of how to best use abilities or team setups. In particular, I noticed that the guides seemed to boast a random team which one could use to defeat a tamer (in and on itself fair enough), but the guides didn't aspire to find the most efficient way of defeating the tamer. As we know, most tamers can be defeated pretty easily, but the question is how to find the fastest and most reliable way of defeating them. This was my main motivation to write my guide, even though I knew that my guide wouldn't be perfect and needed input to be polished further. There are simply so many combinations that I realized that I couldn't hope to find the best tactic on my own.

Wall of text. Discontinuing typing now.