Lets talk Qiraji Guardling breed choices

[Luciandk]

The Qiraji Guardling comes in four breeds according to Battle Pet Breed ID:

P/P
S/S
H/P
P/B

The P/B is right out, a bad choice. H/P seems passable for an all around pet. But when looking at the pure breed options, the choices gets more interesting.

P/P: As much as high power buffs Crush to powerful levels, 483 damage which further can be buffed with Hawk Eye, it feels held back by Reckless Strike in the third slot. Which deals 517 damage with 1 turn cd and debuffing you with extra damage taken. Reckless Strike might have appeal if you use WhirlWind in the first slot instead, but still feeling like a dubious choice to me when having Crush. And a P/P would never use sandstorm. Makes Crush a bad hitter and lowers the damage of Whirlwind too much.

S/S: On the other hand have promise. Due to the scaling of Crush, it still deals respectable damage as S/S - 392 damage per hit, which still would benefit from Hawk Eye. And being a speedy pet, you can make use of Blackout Kick. If you are the faster pet, you will interupt your opponents current turn AND the next turn!

So its my belief that the S/S Guardling would be the ideal breed to hunt for come tomorrow.


Edit: After having checked all pets with guaranteed Cause Stun abilities. I find the Qiraji Guardling is one of the speediest and having a good scaling main attack.

Edit 2: I could see the Guardling performing well as a third pet. So many times Ive seen pet battles decided on the last few hits between the 2 remaining badly wounded pets on both sides. Then being able to stun and outspeed your opponent and land a free hit on him, while avoiding one could be a gamechanger. Beside the humanoid racial for slight healing. Plus once on his last pet, your opponent will NOT be able to swap out to minimize incomming damage.

[Ril]

i'd like to add that H/P might be stronger than P/P due to the racial self-heal bonus. it scales with HP (4%) so this might definately make a big difference.

we use crush along with sandstorm with our anubisath idol all the time, so i don't see why we shouldn't use it with the guardling. of course the whirlwind looks pretty promising too, but it would make no sense with sandstorm.

[Luciandk]

i'd like to add that H/P might be stronger than P/P due to the racial self-heal bonus. it scales with HP (4%) so this might definately make a big difference.

we use crush along with sandstorm with our anubisath idol all the time, so i don't see why we shouldn't use it with the guardling. of course the whirlwind looks pretty promising too, but it would make no sense with sandstorm.

I wouldnt use Crush with Sandstorm, its such a bad hitter that gets even worser. Only 70% chance to hit, even worser than the trihorn charge of direhorns.


Edit:
P/P have 1400hp, with H/P having 1546. A 56hp heal per hit vs 61hp. A truly microscopic difference.

Edit 2:
On second note, a P/P Guardling could pair quite well with a Direhorn using Primal Cry. Beside making most targets vulnerable to Horn Attack, it would also ensure that the Guardling's stun lands first and lasting an additional turn vs most other pets.

[Dragonwizard]

WowHead is only showing 2 breeds, H/H and H/S. Can anyone confirm if it's just the 2 breeds per Wowhead or if there is 4 breeds per the addon like the OP said?

[Luciandk]

Hrm. A guy on oceanic have some already:
http://www.warcraftpets.com/collection/ ... ny/#page4c

They are listed as H/S and B/B. And the Qiraji Guardling page shows several more breeds now.

H/H, S/S, H/S, P/S and B/B

So I would say the addon is wrong.

[Gilneas]

I wouldnt use Crush with Sandstorm, its such a bad hitter that gets even worser. Only 70% chance to hit, even worser than the trihorn charge of direhorns.

The idol does fine using Sandstorm and Crush. And Whirlwind just wouldn't work with Sandstorm since you'd block pretty much all of your own damage. Crush seems to be the better option if you're using Sandstorm. Yeah, it'll have a 70% accuracy if you're using Sandstorm - but its accuracy relative to Whirlwind is unchanged (Whirlwind would hit for 90% in Sandstorm -- still a 20% difference). Crush is designed to do more damage but miss more often. When it hits in Sandstorm, its still dealing a good chunk of damage, whereas Whirlwind would deal very little given the damage reduction.

[Poofah]

Yes, exactly: the lower accuracy is annoying, but the expected damage actually benefits from Sandstorm (compared to normal attacks). This is because more damage is packed into fewer hits, which means Sandstorm subtracts a smaller proportion of the hits. And when you miss, Sandstorm doesn't subtract anything.

Compare:

Punch: 20dmg * 1 = 20
Punch under Sandstorm: 15dmg * 0.9 = 13.5
so 67.5% of normal damage.

Crush: 28dmg * 0.8 = 22.4
Crush under Sandstorm = 23dmg * 0.7 = 16.1
so 71.875% of normal damage

And also, they've nerfed Reckless Strike heavily since 5.0, making it barely better damage than Crush but with a nasty drawback and a cooldown. So I think Crush/Sandstorm/Blackout Kick is the only way to go, but it's tough because Blackout Kick demands speed while Crush would prefer power, and Sandstorm+humanoid passive would really prefer health. And sadly if you go for health/power, the Guardling can't get the stats that Anubisath has, because it's stuck with a minimum of 260 speed. So I'm not sure what to do with this guy.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, sounds like it will just be yet another notch in pet bank.

[Teacake]

I picked up an S/S last night and leveled her right away (yay pet treats!) so I took her out for a spin this morning at 25, to see how she performed against a few of the tamers. I found her to be of very limited use. Maybe in PVP the fast stun would be useful but overall I found her moveset very awkward and didn't feel like it worked well together. Took her off my favorites list, sent her to the Island of Misfit Rare Spawns to hang out with my Minfernal.

[Kandystryper]

The Qiraji Guardling

S/S: On the other hand have promise. Due to the scaling of Crush, it still deals respectable damage as S/S - 392 damage per hit, which still would benefit from Hawk Eye. And being a speedy pet, you can make use of Blackout Kick. If you are the faster pet, you will interupt your opponents current turn AND the next turn!

So its my belief that the S/S Guardling would be the ideal breed to hunt for come tomorrow.


Edit: After having checked all pets with guaranteed Cause Stun abilities. I find the Qiraji Guardling is one of the speediest and having a good scaling main attack.

Edit 2: I could see the Guardling performing well as a third pet. So many times Ive seen pet battles decided on the last few hits between the 2 remaining badly wounded pets on both sides. Then being able to stun and outspeed your opponent and land a free hit on him, while avoiding one could be a gamechanger. Beside the humanoid racial for slight healing. Plus once on his last pet, your opponent will NOT be able to swap out to minimize incomming damage.

this is so far the best reasoning I've encountered to go for S/S, but what about the current menagerie of pets that reduce your speed by 25% and are also S/S like the direhorn runt? my S/S Qiraji seemed void after a few pvp battles with them

[Luciandk]

I think a guardling could pair well with a direhorn using Primal Cry. If being S/S, you will retain a higher base speed even when hit by primal cry and using a primal cry of your own.

[Teacake]

Now that they increased the spawn rate and I could do it without feeling a jerk, I went back this morning and got a P/P. (Within about 3 minutes; there were a ton just hanging out. Have plenty of humanoid stones so quality didn't matter.) Will level her tonight and try a couplefew games with both while doing my PVP weekly. I'll use the S/S on a team of... something... with the stun, probably much the way I'd use the speedy flayer. I'll try the P/P on a Sandstorm team with Reckless Strike.

[Luciandk]

After much deliberation, I ended choosing a P/P breed. Just seems overal more flexible in what it can do.

[Bistromath]

I got a P/P on opening day, and so far I love it when pair with one of my Direhorns. However I would like to get a H/P, and a S/S to test which I like more.

So far though my P/P hits like a truck.

[Ril]

well, it all comes down to what skill you want to use in your 3rd slot. the other skills are normal ones which are always the same: more damage per hit versus one more round.

for reckless strike, PP is vastly superior because not only it means a better damage-to-debuff ratio, it also means that most of the time you're going in second, resulting in being hit one time less with the debuff.

for stun, i think that's a no-brainer, SS is the way to go.

therefore i've been going for both breed (actually i kept a green HH as well, because heck, why not), because i couldn't decide.

[Ravnhawk]

I did the same last night since there were so many up and I had let a lot of people come get one while I held it engaged. Every time I disengaged there were 7 or more up that I counted.

So I got a poor P/P and stoned it. I'm with you I didn't feel like a jerk since there were so may up, plus if it wasn't a breed I wanted I just disengaged and left the pet alone. Later that night there was an alliance killing them, so I'd engage one and let any friends on know so they could come get it. I did that for several hours so as many people as I could either in guild or on my friends list could get one. And seriously what a jerk for doing that anyway makes me sad top see people kill pets just to be a jerk.

This is on Steamwheedle Cartel is anyone shares CRZ lots and lots were up right around 7:30 pst

[Awq]

I have the P/P and the S/S breeds. I am trying to get a P/S or a H/S breed (for when I do not need 325 speed).

Both power and health increase a Qiraji Guardling survivability.
Sandstorm absorbs 86 damage on P/P, while 70 on S/S & H/H. H/H has a bigger healthpool and stronger healing, he however heals for 13. Hits can miss and do not always heal, while Sandstorm always works. H/H will still be the better tank, P/P will however have stronger synergy with team members. I prefer a P/P version as Sandstorm provider (with either Reckless or Blackout).

I always liked to use a Stun + good damage in the next 2 rounds. For this I will use my S/S breed. S/S is faster than most other pets with a stun. Fast pets counter stun pets, Qiraji has less counters. The stun is great for finishing pets in mid & end game. I like the stalling, the high damage and the postponed weather effect (you can use a crush without Stun -> Crush -> Sandstorm).

[Tahsfenz]

So I decided to go down and grab a speed and power breed. Then Nishi was kind enough to drop a human stone. Leaning toward power to start.

[Iskren]

S/S is the way to go imho cuz of the stun skill.....if not then P/P or H/P or H/H depending what u like most.