Brutal Pet Brawler debriefing

[Caniki]

You want a S/S Imp.

[Saa]

@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.

s/s or nothing imo

p/s is nice but its main advantage other than switching is flyer damage, so you want to go first.

Edit this thread has made me think. I'm sick of beating randoms in pvp battles and would relish a true challenge. If you fancy some proper pvp pet battling or fancy practicing a team ur testing against me, add me Saa#2952

[Poofah]

I actually used a P/S imp (297 speed), because that's what I could get for cheap at the time. I was at a disadvantage against Brooms and opposing Imps because of that (and the occasional Basilisk or 305 speed spider), but the extra power did help against Mechs. The issue with flyers is that you'll never go first when they're above 50%, so the extra power helped get them below 50% faster, and I saw very few flyers that had above 300 base speed. So I'd say P/S was better in that situation too.

Opposing S/S imps were definitely an issue though. Eventually I began starting Direhorn when I saw an opposing Imp, because that gave the opponent the worst choice: Imp can't win on damage, and can't let Direhorn cast Primal Cry, so typically they'd open with Nether Gate. So I'd open with Trihorn Charge (~400 dmg), and then Nether Gate would typically bring up Spider* and they'd have a bad damage matchup again and would probably swap out. Since I suspected the swap, I'd queue Death Grip so that after Imp swapped out, he'd get pulled back in again. If they didn't swap, then the Imp would take another 450 from Death Grip.

To be fair, I did lose one matchup where it came down to my Imp versus their Imp, and the higher speed absolutely won it for them. If you're worried about opposing swap teams, I'd go S/S; against most other teams, I think P/S was better for me.

* Nether Gate doesn't say which pet it brings out when it swaps, however it's otherwise identical to Sweep which says it brings out the highest health pet. In my experience, I think that Nether Gate also brings out the highest health pet. So in this case having Imp (1359 health) and Spider (1400 health) on the bench means that the opponent's Nether Gate consistently brings out the Spider. When you're playing or facing Nether Gate/Sweep/Death Grip, definitely be aware of the bench pets' health. Often you can mitigate the damage done by the force-swap by planning to have a favorable matchup after the swap goes off. This also means there's an advantage to having 3 pets with different health: if they're all 1400, then the game picks randomly between them. By having Imp (1359), Spider (1400) and a P/H Direhorn (1587), I got to control the opponent's Nether Gate. I didn't have that advantage with Broom (1400) + Spider (1400).

[Teacake]

Butting in here, but speaking for myself, I would not use any other breed of imp besides s/s. I can't tell you how often I've been grateful for his speed, when I'm either opening with him or bringing him in after another pet dies, so he can get the first turn and force the opposing pet to go away before they can cast their weather, nuke, stun, minefield, etc.

333 speed also puts him ahead of the broom, spider, and claw, so I always have the option to be the first swapper if I want it (if you don't count the way-more-than-90% of the time it seems to miss ).

His primary functions for me are the dot from the back row, and to force a swap, and as a utility pet his damage isn't nearly as important as his speed. Sure it would be nice if the dot hit for more, but even at low damage it's quite useful for being the attack that gets blocked by "blocks one attack" type moves on slow pets, so your front pet get his hit in next turn, and also for healing up the imp while he's relaxing in the back.

[Poofah]

I would not use any other breed of imp besides s/s.

It's a calculated risk. Against Broom, S/S is better for sure. But I wasn't seeing enough of those, and not losing to them anyway. Against opposing swap teams, I tended to start Direhorn instead; then they either burn their swap CD while swapping in my swapper, or else they get Primal Cryed and are slower for 4 turns. The exception to this was against Minefield teams, where I'd start Imp (anticipating that they'd start with Rocketbot/Tonk/Thor). In that situation, rather than swap to avoid the Minefield, I'd just dps the Mech: since the Imp does such high damage to mechs, they'd typically swap out after minefield, so I'd queue Nether Gate to go off that turn and swap in the pet they didn't want. In this situation I liked the P/S, because the Imp's job was to stay in and do damage while Minefield ticked down, and encourage the opponent to waste time by swapping voluntarily. This was especially valuable against double-Mech teams: I saw more of these than I anticipated, so possibly that drove me to like P/S better. Also, since I want to protect Direhorn until late in the match, I was more willing to sacrifice the Imp if it meant I could get rid of the Mechs faster.

So basically, in a vacuum, I would prefer S/S. But the matches I ended up playing where S/S would have been better, I often found a way to win anyway. Whereas several of the matches where P/S was better were close calls and I really appreciated the extra power.

[Teacake]

In this situation I liked the P/S, because the Imp's job was to stay in and do damage while Minefield ticked down, and encourage the opponent to waste time by swapping voluntarily.

This is a great example of a situation in which more power would be better. Especially since if the imp is doing enough damage that they don't want their mech to face it, then they won't just keep swapping in the mech to renew the minefield, which happens to me a lot.

I, however, lack finesse, and tend to deal with minefields I haven't prevented from being set down in the first place by just swapping in a pet who can eat it. Not the best approach no doubt, but I also don't like giving the opponent nine rounds worth of control over the field. (Of course, this is where the broom comes in really handy, instead of the imp - I use the broom on a lot of my teams too.)

As always with breed questions, so much comes down to how you play and what you want to do with the pet. Which is probably why I should have left the answer to you since you were the one directly asked. I was just adding my 2 cents.

[Ril]

your weakest matchup is actually an opponent who has no particular plan, but instead just has 3 independently strong pets

would you mind giving examples? i plan on going for your suggested team but like to change teams now and then (e.g. when i get the same opponent over and over).

also, what is a good addition to a kun-lai runt and snowman team? which kun-lai runt breed is best, i suppose P/P?

[Poofah]

As always with breed questions, so much comes down to how you play and what you want to do with the pet.

This is a great point, and that's why I wanted to give some context on how I approached minefield/mechs. My way is definitely not the only way or the 'right' way, it's just how I ended up coping with this matchup. I didn't want to discourage other tactics; only explain why I ended up doing what I did, and why I liked power better for my tactics.

And, actually, most of the time I prefer to use Imp like you described--and as a utility pet I'd prefer S/S also. It's just when I see a mech that he has to be a beatdown pet. But since mechs were giving me an inordinate amount of trouble, and I was seeing them often, that made me willing to sacrifice on the utility to get more anti-mech oomph. I definitely lost a couple games due to the lower speed (versus another Imp, in particular), but I feel I came out ahead overall. So, there are definitely good reasons to choose S/S, depending on your preferred tactics and the metagame you're seeing.

[Poofah]

your weakest matchup is actually an opponent who has no particular plan, but instead just has 3 independently strong pets

would you mind giving examples?

For example, a triple-UD team gives me fits, something like Ghostly Skull, Scourged Whelpling, Blighthawk. Another annoying team was Direhorn, Ghostly Skull, Enchanted Broom. Another was Clockwork Gnome, Scourged Whelpling, Direhorn (although they had some interesting synergy of turrets+Plagued Blood, which healed the Gnome in the backrow). Basically, when all of my opponent's pets are individually better than all of mine, then force-swapping them isn't such an advantage. I still cost them a turn, but I'm not disrupting any pre-planned strategy and I'm not forcing them into a bad matchup. UD are especially annoying because I'm trying to cost them turns, but UD get 2 free turns due to the passive. So if there's 1 opposing UD, I can often arrange to kill it with Death Grip/Nether Gate (so it dies on the backrow and wastes the free turns), but if there's 3 of them then it's very difficult.

also, what is a good addition to a kun-lai runt and snowman team? which kun-lai runt breed is best, i suppose P/P?

I tend to play Runt without Snowman, if I play him at all, because he has his own Chill effect and doesn't need Blizzard (I prefer P/S). If you play Runt+Snowman, you have an awful lot of elemental damage and critters will be a big nuisance. There's not a ton out there, so you could just take the risk. But, a single Snail will really be an issue, and people play them specifically to counter elementals and Runt. So maybe Snowman/Runt plus Direhorn, or Crawdad (depending on your style of play) -- but I don't have much experience playing this.

[Ril]

thanks for the advice. it seemed odd to me that people chose snowman+runt anyways, i prefer more diversity and more counters too. i'll see what i'll try once i get my hands on a good runt.
thats why i'd never pick three undeads in the first place, even if it sounds funny (maybe i will try it once). rather i have found a pretty powerful combination of three strong pets which i run without special strat: gilnean crow (S/S, i just love the extra speed), anubisath idol and fel flame (H/P). they all have weather effects which can be pretty handy for countering weather based combos. i've done a few matches (like, 6) with them and have yet to lose but i'm sure a counter will come eventually (i rarely had to fight really strong teams like yours from the OP). nevertheless, i've never won that many in a row since 5.3, and it seems to counter the many mechanicals/dragons/magicals and whatnot which i seem to keep running into. maybe an arcane winds pet could be a good alternative to the fel flame.

[Doobjanka]

A majority of my wins were done with a trap team. Curious Wolvar Pup, Lil' Ragnaros and Crawling Claw. There is nothing super special about the team, but when a trap would pop and stun them, you knew you won. Thanks to the Crawling Claw, most of my losses were ties. I also had great luck with Rag's hammer strike rarely missing and if there was a dragon in the opposing team the Wolvar could whittle it down with whirlwind. I tried sticking with teams that had only one breed choice.

[Dash]

I had kind of a strat going on which gave me nice results, but then I decided to try a direhorn which I really like. So now my team is a bit wonky but I've been able to counter different pets in different situations so I guess it's still efficient.

[Thevarietygamer]

Impressed, may have to try that out, although in most of my Pet Battles, I have yet to run into a runt type or any others which are listed as popular.... Maybe the group of people I go against are horrible.....(so am I since I lose... lol)

[Gromagrim]

Is there any sort of MMR confirmed for pvp pet battles? When I first started after patch I was going up against the usual mix of good and bad teams, but since I've won over 90% of battle I now seem to be constantly up against other FOTM teams.

It does keep it interesting, but every now and then I'd like to steamroll a team quickly for the achieve or the weekly quest

Not to mention I never went for the 'no time to bandage' achieve, and now it looks very difficult to achieve.

[Kring]

Not to mention I never went for the 'no time to bandage' achieve, and now it looks very difficult to achieve.

The no time to heal achievement doesn't require an all 25 team.

[Gromagrim]

Sorry, should have been more specific - Queue times for anything other than all 25 seems to be crazily long (in EU at least), what has everyone else experienced?

If anyone's got this achieve since 5.3, feel free to give me some tips

[Slab]

Just wanted to thank the folks on this thread and give some assurance to the folks out there that even the most frustrated players of questionable overall skill can potentially improve. Until yesterday, the first three weeks of my 10 PVP battles was slow, bloody and painful; I was almost precisely at a 20% win rate no matter which combination I tried or similar teams I used.

On Friday I was able to get a Fiendish Imp (even though it's not a S/S build, which I wanted), and Pandaren Tamer leveled it to 25. Before that, I had settled on a Darkness team of Ghostly Skull, Scourged Whelpling and Enchanted Broom ... I just felt like I couldn't get any power out of my Giant Bone Spider. After the Imp leveled, I tried a few adjustments (Imp, Broom, Anklebiter ... Imp, Ghost, Claw ... Imp, Broom, Spider ...) before finally settling on Fiendish Imp, Giant Bone Spider and Water Waveling.

I haven't seen the Waveling mentioned much; I brought it in because my choices for Primal Cry was limited to the aforementioned Anklebiter, but I don't like relying on two attack setups like Black Claw/Hunting Party, and he wasn't cutting it. Frost Shock only targets the single opponent pet rather than the team, but I found my team was generally fast enough for most non-Critters, meaning I only had to slow one pet down. And then I found a string of opponents who all used Clockwork Gnome, and Tidal Wave even surprised a person who tried to put Landmines around him. Plus the ability to just do 100 dmg or so to the back pets on various turns helped. Bottom line ... he clicked into what I personally needed in my team. I camped Nalash for 5 hours yesterday (6 Chestpieces, no pet, curse you Nalash!!) while doing chores, but by the second half of the camp I was doing pet PVP between spawns and rattled off a 25-6-2 run. I beat 3 teams with Unborn Val'kyr, and two of my losses were against a guy who managed to go something like 8 for 8 on 80% Lift-Offs (some of them were even during Sandstorms). People were conceding when they were re-matched against me.

I'm sure I'll have to continue to adapt, but as a former poker and Magic player, I was frustrated as hell at my inability to seemingly A) ever get around the randomness factor of missing (I will admit starting to research an all 100% hit team ) and B) having any ability to determine the "meta-game". I have a footing now.

[Kring]

If anyone's got this achieve since 5.3, feel free to give me some tips

I got it last weekend... it involved two person, both in Teamspeak, queuing at the exact same time late at night. You just have to wait 1 minute before forfeiting for it to count.

[Gromagrim]

I got it last weekend... it involved two person, both in Teamspeak, queuing at the exact same time late at night. You just have to wait 1 minute before forfeiting for it to count.

Meh, I'd rather do it the way it was intended, no offense.

[Tiggindy]

I'm at 250 wins. I don't plan to go for the Trainer title unless there's a pet attached to it as well.

After getting no wins for a bit, I decided I needed to counter all the humanoids, elementals and other common things I was seeing. I tried a couple set ups I found online, but wasn't happy with them (or maybe I was doing it wrong), but I tried aquatics, elementals, humanoids, and a couple undead before settling on a team that got me through the achievement.

My team was Murder (what you call a group of crows), Herbert (the name of the son from the short story about the monkey paw) and Suzaku (the Japanese name of the phoenix, or bird of the south)... or a Crow, Crawling Claw and Phoenix Hatchling.

The crow was pretty standard. Alpha strike to take advantage of initial speed, Call Darkness for the hit debuff and hard hit vs dragonkin, and Nocturnal strike for the hard hit vs non-elementals.

The Crawling Claw used Shadow Slash for decent damage and hard hits vs all the runts, idols and imps, Death Grip for the force swap (and decent damage), and Curse of Doom. The force swap was good for interrupting set ups (immolate and conflagrate), or ensuring that curse of doom would land instead of being blocked (swap when there's 2 rounds left).

The Phoenix Hatchling I picked for speed, for the elemental weather immunity and because of all the tonks, clockwork gnomes and sentries that I saw. And I used the standard abilities there too. Burn for a nice hit, Immolate for a DoT and to apply burning and Conflagrate for a nice heavy hit on a burning target, plus it's good vs magic since it's 2 hits so not as much is blocked by the racial.

It was a moderately successful team.