Brutal Pet Brawler debriefing

[Poofah]

I have precisely 250 wins now, and I don't think I'll be queuing up again in the near future. So, I thought it might be fun to compare notes on the 5.3 pvp experience.

I like theorycrafting pet battles, but I hadn't pvped at all prior to 5.3. I tried a handful of popular teams (Darkness, Conflag), but I felt like these comps boiled down to simply spamming damage abilities, and didn't have much control over the match. So my first successful attempt at a team was

Giant Bone Spider, Enchanted Broom, X;

where X was usually a specific counter to a team I'd faced recently (mostly Anubisath Idol or Crow, to beat Lightning Storm and healing strats respectively). Death Grip and Sweep are devastating when you're faster than the opponent because they get their turn skipped, in addition to disrupting whatever strategy they're going for. Initially I tried to use those abilities strategically, but as time went on I became more aggressive with them, often swapping the opponent's pet as my first move. For example against the very common Kun-Lai Runt, I would open with the Spider and immediately Death Grip so as to avoid Frost Shock.

Somewhere around 100 wins, I got hold of a Fiendish Imp. I tried running Giant Bone Spider/Enchanted Broom/Fiendish Imp for a while, but I found that despite the 3 force-swap moves, it didn't have enough oomph. I could wreak havoc with my opponent's lineup, but it didn't matter so much because whichever pet my opponent ended up with would generally out-damage me.

I also tried using a Minefield pet in the 3rd slot, but hated it. The amount of time it took to set up was simply not worth it, especially when the Minefield pet was generally not useful otherwise.

Yesterday I settled on my most successful version, which was

Giant Bone Spider, Fiendish Imp, Direhorn Runt (H/P)

The Direhorn is just mean in general, but he clicked perfectly for several reasons. The problematic opponents for me are the ones with higher speed or with a lot of healing, both of which Direhorn solves with Primal Cry and his high damage. By replacing the Broom with Fiendish Imp and his elemental damage, the Direhorn gets some protection from Mechs, and the Direhorn protects my Spider from critters. But I have to be honest, the biggest strength of the Direhorn is that he has a good chance of plowing through any pet my opponent might have, especially after it gets softened up by Death Grip/Nether Gate. I settled on this lineup last night and got my last 32 wins in a row, and I'm now retired until they add more PvP rewards.

[Ril]

there's a 1000 pvp win achievement, just sayin...

*runs away*

[Poofah]

When they add a pet to that 1000 win achieve, then I'll be back.

[Cpudude30k]

broken team is broken lol

[Poofah]

broken team is broken lol

Yes, I agree: I love it when a plan comes together.

[Saa]

I ran a similar team for a while.

Giant Bone Spider, Jade Oozling (p/p) and Fel Flame (h/p). The aim was to have the opponents pets dripping in dots from the spider and throw them to the back rank, rinse and repeat. Or if the spider died or was forced to the back rank, the oozling could pick up the same role and self heal. The problem I encountered with this team was Sandstorm or shells so I threw the Fel Flame into the mix as a weather changer and for conflag finishers (plus another 2 dots).

Crabs would make my life hell as they're aquatic and could make short work of the Fel Flame, plus the Fel Flames weather hurt the Jade Oozling quite a lot. So I swapped the elem for a Tiny Snowman for Blizzard as the weather changer and for Deep Freeze lols.

However due to the volume of Kun Lai Runts in the meta this ended up hurting my team more often than not.

So I went back to the drawing bored and ended up with

Gilnean Raven (p/b) Alpha Strike, Call Darkness, Nocturnal Strike
Crow (p/s) Alpha Strike, Call Darkness, Nocturnal Strike
Rabbit (s/s) Flurry, Dodge, Burrow

or Edgar, Sharteel and Cuddles as they're known to me haha.

I'm sure to most of you I don't need to explain why this team is so effective but for others I shall. The birds are fast as hell and will invariably go before other pets so Alpha Strike is nearly always guaranteed the extra damage. Call Darkness hits like a truck, especially against Dragonkin which so many people seem to use. Opening on a dragon with Alpha Strike (the dragon will more often than not open with 'it's' weather), then darkness, swap out to the other bird for another darkness usually = dead dragon. Nocturnal Strike is a no brainer under these circumstances tho its crippled against elems due to their racial. A handy trick I found against elems was to OPEN with Nocturnal Strike before darkness to save urself the even further 10% hit reduction on it.

The rabbit is trolololol. counters all those 'will do x in 2 turns' shenannigans like Whirlpool or geyser as you have dodge and burrow. The critter racial laughs in the face of deep freeze etc. And heaven help anyone playing an undead as the rabbit will chew its face off. The fact that it's s/s means its nearly always going 1st too so you can evade things with ease.

I'm 973/1000 pvp pet battles atm.....219/250 since 5.3 so I shall have my lil direhorn tomorrow I suspect and gratz to you OP on yours, however, I'm curious to know how you dealt with the initial issue I brought up at the start of my post....Sandstorm with your setup?

[Poofah]

The problem I encountered with this team was Sandstorm or shells so I threw the Fel Flame into the mix as a weather changer and for conflag finishers (plus another 2 dots).

If I see Anubisath in the other team, then I'm definitely going to open with the Spider, and Death Grip right away if they choose Anubisath. It's suicidal to swap him back in, since he'll take 3 UD attacks before getting an action. If they bring Anubisath in later, Direhorn is excellent due to Crush being weak against beasts, and you're naturally faster so you don't have to Primal Cry, and Trihorn Charge outspeeds Deflection. Prior to Direhorn, I worried a lot about Sandstorm, and would often play Crow or Scourged Whelpling to have a weather-changer.

I've had a couple games where the opponent had one truly crippling ability that I couldn't allow to happen. For example, I played the same person several times in a row who had a Stunted Direhorn, and I simply couldn't allow Primal Cry to go off. My opponent knew this and swapped the Direhorn back in immediately after getting Death Gripped, and won that game pretty easily. If you really want to deny an ability like that, you have the possibility of opening Spider, Death Grip, swap to Imp, Nether Gate, swap to Spider, Death Grip. I won the last 2 matches against this player by doing that.

[Restofarian]

Hi Poofah,

Would u please break down specs and rotation you used please?

Thanks

[Musicality]

I like to run 3 kun-lai runts just randomly. With what people play, it tends to win alot. Some people just quit.

[Teacake]

Currently at 373/1000. I lose, um, a lot. But I'm having so much fun I'll pursue the title.

I really enjoy my Fiendish Imp. He's on most of my frequently used teams. It's more fun now that more people are familiar with the pet: they're trying to figure out when you're going to do the swap, you try to surprise them with it. Sometimes my attempts at timing go tragically wrong, but it's still fun.

I play these teams most often because they win much more than they lose:

Skull - Imp - Lost of Lordaeron (which I probably just spelled wrong): I've just been running into so many idols and runts and humanoids in general that I tend to stack undead heavily. Hitting someone with Curse of Doom and then swapping them into the back row is always fun.

Blighted Squirrel - Fiendish Imp - Infested Bear Cub: For some reason, people tend to not remember that undead bears have Maul too. This is mainly a bleed team but I also use the squirrel's Stampede versus undead; people don't seem to expect that either and it's shocking how often they don't swap out once they've got the damage increase on them. This team works best early in the night though - once I've faced the same people a few times and they know what to expect it's time to change it up.

Stunted Direhorn - Fiendish Imp - Skull. As others have noted, the direhorn is just a powerhouse. Since he's vulnerable to mechs the imp is nice for his elemental attacks. And the skull is there because he's my favorite undead and I start feeling insecure if I haven't got any dead people on my team. Does this make me weird?

I've got several other teams saved via add-on as well, but I used them less often. Fiendish Imp - Corefire Imp - Broom isn't as successful as the others but it's fun - fire up Immolation on both imps and watch the front pet burn up. Having two swappers is also nice, and I'm always so grateful if I happen to have a broom team out when those mechs and their minefields/turrets/metal nonsense show up.

[Saa]

If you really want to deny an ability like that, you have the possibility of opening Spider, Death Grip, swap to Imp, Nether Gate, swap to Spider, Death Grip. I won the last 2 matches against this player by doing that.

So I got my Direhorn this morning, spam levelled him to 25 and tried out your setup and damn it's a lot of fun. (the imp is s/s for extra lols). The above tactic is such a great ability denial trick too.

Darkness teams however are irritating me a fair bit as Tri-Horn charge drops to 75%, tho the imps switch is nice against those pesky crows.

[Poofah]

Would u please break down specs and rotation you used please?

Thanks

You have to anticipate the opponent's plan and then do your best to counter that plan before they can get it going. For this reason, your weakest matchup is actually an opponent who has no particular plan, but instead just has 3 independently strong pets.

Spider is Bone Bite, Siphon Life, Death Grip
Imp is Burn, Immolation, Nether Gate
Direhorn is Trihorn Charge, Horn Attack, Primal Cry

The generic plan is to abuse the turn-skip abilities and backrow healing: start with Spider, Siphon, Death Grip, Siphon, then either tank 2 hits so you can Death Grip again or swap to Imp and let Siphon heal you in the backrow; Immolation, Nether Gate, backrow the imp for the heals; your goal is to get multiple of their backrow pets down to the 1/3 health range, so you can 1- or 2-hit them when they swap in. In reality, the opponent usually has some tricks that you want to counter. For example, suppose they have Kun-Lai Runt. You don't want to let him Frost Shock you, because then he'll get to go first on turn 2 and will stun you--so Death Grip him on turn 1. If they swap the Kun-Lai back in, you get 2 more hits on him with your Spider before you get Frost Shocked; if they don't, great, Siphon or swap to a better counter for the new pet.

Darkness teams however are irritating me a fair bit as Tri-Horn charge drops to 75%, tho the imps switch is nice against those pesky crows.

Darkness is one of the times that I miss the Broom with his 2 magic nukes.

Darkness is almost always going to open with Crow/Raven. So you have a tricky choice: you can open with Imp and Nether Gate right away (in which case they cast Darkness then get swapped), or you can open with Direhorn, which is not crazy because Call Darkness is weak against beasts.

With the first plan, you have to be careful about Nocturnal Strike. You want to either a) backrow it *before* it can Nocturnal Strike, or b) if it does get off a Nocturnal Strike, you really want to kill it before it can get off a 2nd.

With the second plan, you are going to spam Trihorn Charge, and the opponent is going to be very confused as they Call Darkness/Alpha Strike you for 240 per turn while you Charge them for 300. The trick here is that you really don't want to lose your Direhorn, so once the Crow is below 50% (hopefully this is 3 turns), you probably want to swap to Imp. Now the opponent has to choose whether to die to Nether Gate or swap. But if they swap, then you can Nether Gate the new pet. Once the crow is below 50%, they don't have anything that can outspeed you, and you can play your mean swapping tricks with Imp/Spider.

But, sometimes you'll miss a critical Nether Gate/Death Grip due to the -10% on Darkness and lose: that's just the price you pay for relying so much on those abilities.

[Saa]

With the second plan, you are going to spam Trihorn Charge, and the opponent is going to be very confused as they Call Darkness/Alpha Strike you for 240 per turn while you Charge them for 300.

Yeah this was what I was doing however Tri-Horn dropping to 75% is ball-achingly painful on the misses.

Still a great setup tho and fun to play.

[Teacake]

Darkness is almost always going to open with Crow/Raven.

I played my crow without Darkness this morning. I won, but I think it's because the other pets died of shock.

[Poofah]

Yeah this was what I was doing however Tri-Horn dropping to 75% is ball-achingly painful on the misses.

I'm pretty zen about misses, because I've had opponents miss important Nocturnal Strikes or whatever on multiple occasions. The only time I really curse my luck is when Nether Gate or Death Grip misses against an Undead that's low on health, because forcing them to die and rez in the back row is such a huge swing in the game (and I don't otherwise have good counters for UD, so I typically need the extra edge).

In general, I'm going to play the overall strongest abilities--lower accuracy factors into overall damage, but it's not a dealbreaker. Trihorn Charge is a great example where the suspiciously high damage more than makes up for the lower accuracy.

[Yellowlab]

I have been raving about the direhorn runt for a while, but I have got to say...that charge attack seems to miss way more often than it should. That is his main weakness. So teams that use darkness or sandstorm can really get you if you keep missing.

[Ryazan]

I have been raving about the direhorn runt for a while, but I have got to say...that charge attack seems to miss way more often than it should. That is his main weakness. So teams that use darkness or sandstorm can really get you if you keep missing.

I concur. I tested Poofah's setup a bit last night and the biggest problem was the almost infinite amount of teams with Anub. My best miss streak for charge was three in row - needless to say, I lost that match. :P

E: Poofah, I guess you are running with S/S Imp? I have currently only P/B one and it's speed seems to be a bit too slow.

[Ril]

this thread has a huge load of information, thanks a lot poofah and the others. it gave me plenty of insight in how to approach pvp, however the biggest issue remains keeping an oversight on the hundrets of abilities... i guess i need to work this out for myself.

[Grifter]

@Poofah
Which breed of the Fiendish Imp would you recomend for PvP? I have not had any dropluck jet, but they go for about 1000g on my server, so I could save the time and just buy the thing with the breed I need.

Thanks in advance.