Direhorn Runt

[Yellowlab]

Has anyone tried using this pet yet? I must say that in PVP, this pet has been phenomenal. It has an AOE speed reduction that typically lowers most pets speed below its own. It also has an ability on a 1 round cd that has a 50% chance to interrupt a players turn if you go first. This combined with an unusually powerful surge type attack (always goes first). You can always get the jump on your opponents.

I strongly suggest you all try him out, I think you will be quite surprised. Honestly, with how well he has been doing, I really can't see him staying this way for long. I have the H/P breed, and I'm not even sure that is the best one.

[Quintessence]

Funny you should mention this pet, I just leveled the Direhorn Runt today. It's great in PVE as well as PVP (although I haven't actually tried PVP, but I'll take your word for it ), and I had loads of fun with it

Random Observation: This might just be a graphical error on my side, but whenever it used Horn Attack, it would do this odd pathing and walk backwards very slowly a few times before charging forward lol. Made me think mine had performance anxiety or something

[Shmoooey]

It looked to me like he was backing up to get a running start.

[Poofah]

These guys are very annoying, running Trihorn Charge/Horn Attack/Primal Cry. The pvp reward (Stunted Direhorn) has 325 power and 252 speed: with Primal Cry up, it gets to go first versus any pet with 325 speed or lower. You can't swap out of Primal Cry either, because it affects your whole team--and anyway, swapping is a bad idea because if the Direhorn gets lucky with Charge/Horn/Charge, your new pet takes 1200+ damage without getting an action. It even has a decent game versus its counters: versus Flyers, Trihorn Charge lets you go first regardless of speed, so Alpha Strike doesn't get its bonus damage and is nerfed by 50%. Most Mechs can 3-shot it, but with higher speed and lucky Horn Attacks, the Direhorn can get 5 attacks before eating those 3 hits.

[Luciandk]

On a related note. If taking a H/S or P/S direhorn, you'd need a 375 speed pet to outspeed one using Primal Cry.

Those have 281 speed, and Primal Cry reduces a 375 pet to 281.25. Which may possibly be rounded down to 281 as well, but still a draw.

I could see the P/S direhorn to be very popular, especially if theres lots of bunnies around. And a goodly amount of pets have >325 speed.

[Poofah]

A decent number of pets have >325 speed, true, but there aren't many useful pets up there. Rabbits come to mind; Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling (which nobody uses any more since Fluxfire got gutted), Wisps, a few cats/critters/spiders. Anyway if direhorn gets matched up against a bunny, you don't have to worry about speed. You can just spam Trihorn Charge -- the breed 4 direhorn can nearly 2-shot a 1400 health critter with that, and it hits before the rabbit can get Dodge or Burrow up.

[Naplam]

Hah, was just coming here to complain about it, having just gotten smashed unexpectedly by it. Definitely looks like another overused pet once word gets out. (more)

[GilroyKilroy]

I added "Hornie" to my team. He's been pretty successful at getting "it".

[Quintessence]

What do our resident pet theorycrafters think about a full direhorn team for PVP? Either all the same or a mix and match of the three new direhorn pets.

Would it work? Are there many (and often used) mech team counters?

[Poofah]

I think it would be annoying to face, and not that much fun to play. The problem is that direhorns really have no strategic options, they just Primal Cry to make the opponent slower, then spam damage. For this reason they are great sweepers, and Primal Cry makes them extremely strong as a starting pet versus any strategy that relies on higher speed. But they're bad midgame pets. Direhorns have no healing or mitigation, and limited health: they rely on blitzing the opponent before the opponent can get in 4-5 attacks. If the opponent can prolong the fight, then they have a good chance to win: stuff like Scourged Whelpling/Ghostly Skull/Unborn Val'kyr will give you fits with their high health and 2 free UD turns. Certain mechs will probably be beatable as a singleton, but some are going to mop the floor with you--Lil XT with his AoE, or Son of Animus with Extra Plating+Siphon Anima, and probably Clockwork Gnome.

The upside though is that you'll have 3 extra-strong pets, and if you're going to win, then you'll tend to win fast. For that reason it might be a good team to efficiently get the PvP achievement, since you'll learn the bad matchups and can forfeit those, while winning the other matches fairly quickly.

[Luciandk]

This thread have inspired me to work on aquiring the Stunted Direhorn. Have banged out 50pvp wins in the last couple hours. Just 200 to go! It indeed looks like a superb opener.

Also aquired the Pygmy Direhorn today, may level it tomorrow.

[Quintessence]

This thread have inspired me to work on aquiring the Stunted Direhorn. Have banged out 50pvp wins in the last couple hours. Just 200 to go! It indeed looks like a superb opener.

XD I should probably do the same before the direhorn gets nerfed. Feels so cheesey though.

[Luciandk]

Would be nice to see more variation in pets, and encouraging people to use the direhorns to spruce up the metagame some. Seen a quite large amount of kunlai runts today, but never felt they were that much of a problem if you just swap out of their combo.

[Poofah]

XD I should probably do the same before the direhorn gets nerfed. Feels so cheesey though.

That shouldn't stop you. People playing it is the only way to figure out counters and/or if it's really too strong and needs a nerf.

My only issue with this guy is that Primal Cry is just too strong. It's not as bad on the Zandalari raptors because those don't have any speed-dependent moves to go with it. However I think it's too much when you have the combination of a) Primal Cry completely destroying the opponent's ability to use speed-dependent abilities and b) Horn Attack.

Just as a comparison, there are abilities that boost or lower team damage by 25%, and those are fine: the opponent still does 75% damage. However reducing speed by 25% is not fine, because speed is an all-or-nothing stat, and in the vast majority of cases, 25% is the difference between all and nothing (ie -25% almost guarantees that you will now be slower than my 252+ speed direhorn, even if you invested heavily in speed). This destroys any strategy that relies on stuns/swaps/dodges, which is most of the strategies that aren't simply 'spam damage til they die'. So, the reason Direhorn is so good is that it's a high-damage pet that can reduce the game to spamming damage. I don't know whether it's overpowered, but I do know that you can't counter it with CC or other tricks: you can only counter it by out-damaging it, or out-surviving it.

[Khayah]

stunted direhorn (achievement reward) comes as 252 speed in 4/14 and there is no such direhorn runt.
Pygmy direhorn (Horridon drop) comes with 8/18, also unique.

Applying primal cry on a 5/15 rabbit or nordrassil wisp reduces their speed to 268.5 (i don't know if it is - or + in wow), so only the 9/19 direhorn runt and the 8/18 pygmy direhorn versions will be ahead, also mentioning deflection of Anub Idol which i see a lot. Rabbits can counter with adrenaline rush although that ability is hardly used. All beside flying racial.

So Pygmy direhorn in 8/18 is actually the best choice and that should be rather rare and hard to obtain. so question is, rather using a slow 7/17 direhorn to maximize dmg or a fast one 8/18 for covering fast critter.

But i don't see the issue in general, Horn attack is just a coinflip ability with very low dmg worse than Spectral Spine and Trihorn Charge has only 85% hit, you will miss a lot against darkness, sandstorm and flash.

Maybe i don't get the point but there are better "just" dmg pets especially if you consider you have to build up a team around your direhorn.

[Poofah]

Applying primal cry on a 5/15 rabbit or nordrassil wisp

A rabbit is going to do 200 damage per turn to you, while you spam Trihorn Charge for 600 damage per turn. You don't have to care about speed versus a rabbit. Nordrassil Wisp is going to lose to Trihorn Charge spam too, just a bit slower. Trihorn Charge goes first regardless of speed, making Dodge, Burrow, and Light very ineffective.

But i don't see the issue in general, Horn attack is just a coinflip ability with very low dmg worse than Spectral Spine and Trihorn Charge has only 85% hit, you will miss a lot against darkness, sandstorm and flash.

Horn Attack does the same damage as Snap or Strike -- 22 base damage with 95% accuracy (ie 380 damage with the breed 4 stunted direhorn).

[Yellowlab]

For those of you wondering how this pet works versus its counters, I will tell you what I have experienced.

First of all, mechs lay down the damage, but their speed tends to be low, so if you interrupt lands, they are going to be missing out on some turns. I think a full hp mech can handle the runt soundly, but I will just swap out my runt if i see you do this. I use Frosty which has 2 elemental attacks and he covers for the runt nicely.

Second of all, flyers take less damage from the runt, and typically have higher speed due to their racial. This allows them to avoid his AOE slow...but only for half their hp. On flyers, I usually can keep the runt in and know that he will be mostly successful. His charge attack prevents any extra damage from flyers that get bonuses for going fist. I also use a wisp, which does bonus damage vs flyers and provides great cover for me when I do swaps because of his long lasting blind.

My team is designed to give the runt all the support he needs and counter his weaknesses. I would say that one of the best ways to counter him at the start is with a mech pet that has the minefield ability. Force him to fight your mech. Also, don't start swapping your pets out when the runt is below half health. You are just asking to get destroyed, the runt will hit your new pet 2 times for +25% damage, regardless of your new pets speed.

[Quintessence]

For those of you wondering how this pet works versus its counters, I will tell you what I have experienced.

First of all, mechs lay down the damage, but their speed tends to be low, so if you interrupt lands, they are going to be missing out on some turns. I think a full hp mech can handle the runt soundly, but I will just swap out my runt if i see you do this. I use Frosty which has 2 elemental attacks and he covers for the runt nicely.

Second of all, flyers take less damage from the runt, and typically have higher speed due to their racial. This allows them to avoid his AOE slow...but only for half their hp. On flyers, I usually can keep the runt in and know that he will be mostly successful. His charge attack prevents any extra damage from flyers that get bonuses for going fist. I also use a wisp, which does bonus damage vs flyers and provides great cover for me when I do swaps because of his long lasting blind.

My team is designed to give the runt all the support he needs and counter his weaknesses. I would say that one of the best ways to counter him at the start is with a mech pet that has the minefield ability. Force him to fight your mech. Also, don't start swapping your pets out when the runt is below half health. You are just asking to get destroyed, the runt will hit your new pet 2 times for +25% damage, regardless of your new pets speed.

Great info. I'll be keeping this in mind should I create a Direhorn team for PVP.

[Cendir]

Well, people are obviously reading these threads. I just fought 3 (different) Runt teams in a row, completely build around a long term team damage buff, his team wide slow, and his attacks.

Any point to continuing working on this achieve pet until these Runts are nerfed?

[Valielina]

After receiving a sound beating from this pet in a pvp match i rushed to the AH and bought one. I leveled it asap, and love it. Very good battle pet. And if you are leveling your collection I suggest using the Direhorn Runt with Chrominius with your level pet in 4 winds. Most of the pets you will be battle around Halfhill are critters. They will take them out very quickly.