Celestial Tournament 101 [Full tourney + 4 beasts tips]

[Rendigar]

Nice write up thank you. I did have an issue though. You said to use "Chrominius" TWICE. Mine was dead when I got to Xu'fu. Do you have 2 leveled? Thank you.

Yes, I actually do (Chrominimus and Chromaximus) because I use them so often. My strats are pretty undeveloped at the moment, there are definitely some better ones being put up (or call them comparable? a win is a win after all). I think the best thing we're doing right now is getting lots of ideas out there so that people can have some options to go with. You need a lot of pets to make it thru the whole thing, so choices will make it easier for people - especially if RNG rears it's ugly head and kills the team you expected to win with.

[Cyberjus]

and his heal (even without Moonlight) is obnoxious.

I had success getting him to use the ability that heals him on the zeppelin's decoy. Without that heal it was much easier to do.

[Domie]

Chi-chi - I used a pet with Life exchange, even tho it can only take 35%, i found it very effective. The pets that also have moonfire does this the best ([pet]Sprite Darter Hatchling[/pet] [pet]Nether Faerie Dragon[/pet]). chi-chi goes - heal, attack, dodge, attack. The turn she used the second attack i use health swap, sometimes i die on this, but thats okay, then i just concede and change to another pet with health swap. get moonfire up early on her, it seems like a bad idea to up her healing, but the idea is to kill her before she heals again.
After my health swapper died, i changed to living fluid. Be aware if her dodge is off CD, if it is, just pass the first turn. If not use evovle, follow it up with Corrosion and then use ooze touch till you die. Have a third magic pet ready to kill her off, i used my disgusting ooze, but something with a lot of power would be ideal.

This worked for me twice in a row, but thats not enough for being 100% that its reliable.

Yu'la - i used [pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet], [pet]pandaren monk[/pet] with jab, steps and 1000 fists. last pet shouldnt matter to much, i used crawling claw (im 100% sure you can find a way better pet for the last). Just start out with the valk. just use your normal attack, make sure to use doom before you die, and then your last turn should ofc be ascension. Then bring out the panda to bring the hurt, start with 1000, and use it again if it ever goes of CD, when yula is in the air, you use steps, and that gives you some more turns to bash on.

My best strat for both of the 2 others was [pet]dragon kite[/pet] (or any with call lightning) [pet]cogblade raptor[/pet] + [pet]clockwork Gnome[/pet], but i only have 1 of each, so i just had to wing it with random mechanicals, not impossible, but not recommended :P

Hope this helps someone, and that i didnt just write something already posted :)

[Anasa]

Here were my winning teams, but for next week I may make some changes (Nordrassil Wisp to the Chi-Chi fight, for instance).

TL;DR Any way you can find among "good" pets to avoid attacks (lift-off, burrow, deflection, dodge, stuns, etc) will make it all much easier. Especially with the Celestials themselves, there's always one "bomb" attack that if you can avoid a reasonable number of them, you can grind it out.

Dr. Ion Goldbloom:
-[pet]Nordrassil[/pet] Wisp (2,1,1)
-[pet]Thundering Serpent Hatchling[/pet] (2,1,2)
-[pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet] (1,2,1)

Lorewalker Cho:
-[pet]Nexus Whelpling[/pet] (1,2,1)
-[pet]Onyxian Whelpling[/pet] (2,1,1)
-[pet]Kun-Lai Runt[/pet] (2,2,2)

Sully "Pickle" McLeary:
-[pet]Spiny Terrapin[/pet] (1,2,2)
-[pet]Lil' Bad Wolf[/pet] (1,1,1)
-[pet]Guardian Cub[/pet] (1,1,1)

Powerball your way to victory over Socks, healing a couple times, and the rest goes much smoother.

Zao
-[pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet] (2,2,1) (mine is SS)
-[pet]Crow[/pet] (2,2,2)
-[pet]Pocket Reaver[/pet] (1,1,2)

The Kneebiter will take Zao down to ~300 health with Black Claw > Hunting Party. Unfortunately the Kneebiter will die. The Crow swaps in for Darkness to reduce the heal Zao will get from Wish (I can't quite kill him fast enough to prevent it). Then Nocturnal Strike. Crow will probably die, the Reaver mops up.

Xu-Fu
-[pet]Sunreaver Micro-Sentry[/pet] (2,1,1)
-[pet]Menagerie Custodian[/pet] (1,1,2)
-[pet]Darkmoon Tonk[/pet] (1,1,2)

Usual Call Lightning > Fel Immolate. Swap the Tonk and Custodian around to get off Shock and Awe > Zap/Missile > Ion Cannon. It's a similar strategy for Tommy Newcomer.

Yu-La
-[pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet] (1,2,1)
-[pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] (1,2,1)
-[pet]Netherspace Abyssal[/pet] (1,1,1)

This is my iffy-est team. I'm leveling my Death Talon Whelpguard to take the place of the Anubisath here. Basic strategy here is that each one has a "Humanoid" attack, and each has a way to avoid the damage from her lift-off. The Kun-Lai would probably work here too, if he's not nearly dead from fighting Cho.

Chi-Chi
-[pet]Unborn Val'kyr[/pet]
-[pet]Pandaren Water Spirit[/pet]
-[pet]Chrominius[/pet]

And now we come to it. The team I tried here first ([pet]Rapana Whelk[/pet], [pet]Living Fluid[/pet], [pet]Lil' Tarecgosa[/pet]) did not work out. The DoTs, even under a damage buff, just can't take her down fast enough, especially trying to get around Ethereal. So I ended up falling back on the BoF team. It's less effective than it was, but it does still work.

Val'kyr starts with Curse of Doom > Unholy Ascension (yeah, the Doom is going to go off a little early, but still with a 25% bonus). Swap to Spirit, cast Geyser > Whirlpool. Swap to Chrominus, Howl > (bombs go off, she's stunned) > Surge of Power.

Next week I'm going to try it with a pair of Nordrassil Wisps. The timing of Etheral vs. Soul Ward works out so that you're warding when your attack would be soaked by Ethereal, and you avoid a round of Quills.

Good luck!

[Zanastar]

3 of the last 4 celestial battles
chi chi
xu-fu
zao


i tried a few strats from vids then said f it and used my main battle team
crawling claw
stitched pup
scourged whelp
i watched the vids to see the skill rotation
but primarily i did
crawling claw , curse of doom, heal, agony , on chi chi i think i did curse/agony and skipped the heal and switched when he did his block i cant remember if block was on 2 or 3.
then i switched to stitched pup,take one to the face, then howl boom
then bite and and curse and agony explode with the diseased bite added, i only used scourge on last one,your pets get some health after a win.So that kept em alive as well.
Shhh don't tell anyone my team.

Funny thing is i tried a few strats like i said and thought well i shouldn't save my A team it was a hail mary, i had some good pets left but chi chi was being a jerk, so all in all a one shot and i chose Xu-fu
Have fun and may the hit chances be always in your favor

[Mantrhax]

Zao
Sunreaver micro senty
clockwork gnome
tranquil mechanical yeti

Call lightning>fel imolate>swap>Clockwork gknome>build turret>swap>tranquil yeti>call lightning>ion cannon>Swap>clockwork gnome>build Turret>swap>sunreaver mico sentry>fel immolate

Very good setup, was having some trouble with the HEAL ...those turrets did the job

[Ril]

chen: i started with him because success depended on the first round. a stun meant re-start the scenario, no stun meant the first decoy goes through and cakewalk. darkmoon zep 122, curious wolvar 212, snarly 112.

wrathion: any critter with critter damage and burrow is a double counter to cindy. just use your hardest hitting ability and burrow the ice bomb. i used a yellow bellied marmot PB 111. my anubisath idol was more than enough for the rest. used a flayer youngling SS 121 as backup.

taran zhu: i've found that mr. grubbs 212 and a nether ray fry 211 are pretty good there. the pterrodax hatchling 111 as a third pet was an almost unkillable backup.

xu-fu: many multi-hit mechanicals are good there (used blue clockwork bot and darkmoon tonk as i don't have leveled the bot yet) but there has to be a lightning storm.

zao: PP zandalari raptors are the way to go, you should lose only one of them and the second won't take any damage. i never had to use a third pet but be sure to add one.

yu'la: peddlefeet (121) is a very good pet and does most of the other already mentionned humanoids. use shot through the heart when he lifts up as it has a upfront charge. i killed him with peddlefeet and my monk (feline familiar was backup).

chi-chi: had trouble with this one using a doom pet, the water spirit and chromie. curse of doom doesn't line up well with the rest (it hit one round early) but i killed him anyways with chromies surge. this strat did line up with his defensive spells but i guess any long term damage debuff is better than doom for the first two rounds (doom, swap). e.g.: cleansing rain, swap.


edit: it might be worthwhile to try chen with a rabbit as a first pets. there are many alternating high damage and absolutely damage free rounds, but i will have to wait for next week to check it.

[Anasa]

I've starting trying to work out teams for the tamers that weren't in my tournament this week. I'm loading a lot of spiders for Taran Zhu.

I'd just like to say that Shademaster Kiryn looks like a dirty cheater. A mech kitty with both Call Lightning and Turret? WANT.

[Poofah]

I'd just like to say that Shademaster Kiryn looks like a dirty cheater. A mech kitty with both Call Lightning and Turret? WANT.

I wrote SANDLING in big letters on my cheatsheet for that guy.

Sadly they didn't fix the elemental passive like they said they would, so Sandstorm doesn't shield elementals currently, but Stoneskin should still do the trick.

For the monk team, I still don't know their speed; they have a lot of CC so I'd like to be faster than them. Two of them have beast attacks, so flyers would be a good choice anyway -- Nether Ray Fry and random bats have UD attacks and I'll probably use these for my first shot at it.

It's my impression that EU servers got Taran Zhu/another guy/another guy while US got Ion/another guy/another guy, can anyone on EU confirm/deny?

[Luciandk]

I am EU and I got: Taran Zhu, Chen Stormstout and Wrathion

[Anasa]

US got Dr Ion, Lorewalker Cho, and Sully "Pickle" McLeary (at least on my realm they did)

[Sellys]

I think it might be useful to have multiple ways of dealing with each of the celestial pets at the end, since we may or may not need some pets for the first 3 tamers that vary (although most people just seem to get by those tamers with a rock paper scissors match making system, which is fine).

I did mine last night and had to face Cho, Sully, and Ion.

Cho starts with Wisdom, a flying type with 1694 health, 300 power, and 338 speed (effectively 507 above 50% health). He can be fairly easily countered by a dragon type with magic abilities, bonus points if you have an ability that will allow you to avoid attacks, I ended up using my Emerald Proto-whelp. Patience will start off with wild magic, and you should start with Proto Strike. That will put you in the air to avoid the 2nd round rake (the from it hurts when combined with wild magic). After that you can just emerald bite and use ancient blessing to heal. I think Ancient Blessing is more useful than Emerald Presence here.

Patience, a magic type with 1928 health, 319 power and 272 speed is out next. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling works well here. He has a dragon type attack, he's faster, and he'll take less damage from the sweep while not taking more damage from the humanoid broom attack which kinda whomped on the dragon I used (dark whelpling iirc). Shouldn't take much more than spamming your breath attack with the mechanical pandaren dragonling to finish off patience. Ideally you want decoy out for the start of Knowledge.

Knowledge is Cho's last pet, a dragon type with 1694 health, 375 power, and 263 speed. I forget if he opened with amplify magic and then solar beam or if he solar beamed by right of the bat. Either way it hurt like hell, but he has to recharge for two rounds so meh. I ended up killing him with my Kun lai runt, although it was a close thing iirc. I wanted to save my Flayer Youngling for Yu-la, but I shoulda just used it here since I didn't end up using it on Yu-la anyway.

I did Sully next. His three pets in order are:

Socks, undead type, 1975 health, 319 power, 263 speed. He has a beast type attack, so don't use a critter like I did. I spent a fair bit of time dying to socks and monte b/c apparently I've forgotten the standard undead counter team of three frogs I built for Nearly Headless Jacob. Sully's only got one undead, so one frog is enough. Mojo was able to kill socks and get some decent damage on monte, the next pet.

Monte, critter type, 1694 health, 375 power, 281 speed. He's got burrow, so something that can dodge is nice. He has Vicious streak which will boost his speed by 100% so you're probably not going to out speed him. Either way any old random beast type should work fine. I used one of my many zandalari raptors.

Rikki, aquatic type, 1741 health, 319 power, 309 speed. He's an aquatic type with beast moves, so any flyer with flying type moves is a super counter. The cute face ability is annoying but nothing you can't power through. I got my yellow moth killed on an earlier attempt on this guy so I ended up using my vampiric batling. I seem to be a bit short of flying types in my stable of level 25's. A nether ray free might be a decent choice here since you could equip it with bite to finish off monte in the event something goes wrong and then still have slicing winds to use on rikki, but I hate the randomness of slicing winds.

Last was Ion Goldbloom.

Screamer starts off first. 1694 health, 366 power, 272 speed (408 above 50%). It's a flyer with flying moves so grab your trusty dragon with magic attacks of choice and beat him down. Emerald Proto Whelp (if you didn't use it for cho), sprite darter hatchling, nether faerie dragon, emerald whelpling, w/e floats your boats. He'll end up starting with Lift off so keep that in mind if you have an avoidance ability that doesn't automatically go first in a round. If you don't want to deal with the Feign Death you could always howl+surge of power one shot him if you like.

If you let him feign, you'll get trike next (he's got more health than chaos). Trike a direhorn beast type with 1881 health, 333 power, and 267 speed. He's got beast and critter type attacks but no tri horn charge. He does have Adrenaline Rush to boost his speed to enable him to use horn attack. Bring a mech and beat him down, there's nothing really special here.

Eventually, possibly sooner than later you'll get to Chaos a magic type with 1694 health, 300 power, and 338 speed. He's got a humanoid ability that'll hurt your standard dragon type (whose dragon moves will do more damage to him since he's magic). But since he's magic he's capped at 35% of his health and I found I was getting to that cap with my high damage dragon moves so I'd suggest a beast since they'll take less damage from Logic. Alternatively something like a Sen'jin Fetish or Voodoo Figurine would have a dragonkin type attack without being a dragonkin themselves and getting their asses kicked. Same goes for Nether Ray Fry or Fledgeling Nether Ray.

On to the Celestials:

Yu-la

I did Yu-la first since she seemed the simplest. Dragon type, 2303 health, 591 power, 272 speed. Like Ti'un she's got a shield which combined with her -50% damage taken buff can be annoying but as long as you avoid multi hit attacks you should be ok. I used a feral vermling, my anubisath idol, and the third pet didn't join the fight although I think I threw in the Kun-lai runt since he'd survived the fight with Cho relatively unscathed. In hindsight I shoulda lead with the idol (led with vermling instead) since he coulda dodged the lift off. Nothing special heal really just beat yula down with humanoid attacks, it's 3 on 1 it shouldn't be hard unless you used up your good humanoids in the first 3 trainers.

Xu-fu

Beast type, 2209 health, 606 power, 296 speed. I took advantage of the fact that blizzard seems to have a strange idea on how 100% damage buffs and 50% damage reductions should interact. I used a P/P zandalari raptor that accomplished very little due to being slower, but my Chrominius and a random mech, I forget which one, were enough to finish it off. The mech weakened him, then chrominius finished him off with howl+surge of power even with the whole "You can't take more than 35% of your health in one hit".

Zao

Beast type, 2303 health, 591 power, 294 speed. I'm not too sure what's wrong with this guy but last I checked 50% of 2303 is not like 1200 or 1300 that his wish healed him for. I don't quite remember if I managed to do enough damage to overcome the wish or if I died and tried again with a better set up/timing, but iirc I just pounded him with mechanicals like Darkmoon Tonk, Warbot, and a menagerie custodian.

Chi-chi

Flying type, 2303 health, 591 power, 295 speed (almost 450 if she's above half health). I used a nexus whelpling with arcane storm and mana surge, followed by a shimmering wyrmling with mana surge, followed by some other random magic dealer to clean up. I may have gotten lucky in that she only tranq'd once.

[Gip]

Unfortunately, I went into the Tournament without looking into any of the fights/scenario. I managed to get through most of the fights after a few attempts. I was down to Xu-fu and , sadly, I wasted many of my mech pets earlier. After failing on Xu-fu many times, I was down to less than 10 of my 122 level 25s. I managed to get lucky with [pet]Eye of the Legion[/pet] (2,2,2), [pet]Effervescent Glowfly[/pet] (1,2,1), and [pet]Firefly[/pet] (1,2,1). I used the Eye's Rot to turn Xu-fu undead then used the flies' Swarms to eventually kill him. I also had a lucky opportunity to use Cocoon Strike to avoid a heal.

Even though I was in there for more than two (at times frustrating) hours, the overall experience was fun and I am now the happy owner of a [pet]Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen[/pet].

[Kpb321]

A couple of thoughts Sellys,

Yu-la
Gregarious Grell is awesome in this fight if you happen to have one or can pick one up. Depending on your luck he can solo Yu-la.

Xu-Fu
I'd sub a bird with flock or swarm in for him instead of a raptor. They take less dmg from Spirit Claws and Feed which also reduces the amount that he heals for but still provides the 100% debuff. I'd aim for a bird with enough speed to be faster than Xu-Fu with out the racial so you can ensure that you have 2 rounds of the 100% debuff your follow up mech to pound him. If you open with a random Call lighting pet and a DM Tonk or custodian it should be an easy win to blow him up.

Zao
This is where I used my p/p raptor. It ended up dying with him low health and wish going off at the end of the next turn. I brought in another raptor and he died before wish could go off but a good mech should work too.

[Drrum]

Thank you all for posting your choices and favorite combos for the tourney. The tamers were pretty easy, but I struggled with the celestials. Since I didn't have any doubles, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to complete the tourney. But from this thread I was able to piece together enough data to compile my own list and build some celestial teams from what I happened to have leveled up.

[Tekulve2012]

I edited the original post to add better pets than my first attempt at the tourney

[Sellys]

A couple of thoughts Sellys,

Yu-la
Gregarious Grell is awesome in this fight if you happen to have one or can pick one up. Depending on your luck he can solo Yu-la.

Yeah, a gregarious grell is nice but in order to keep info useful to as many people as possible I try to avoid using pets that cost real world money. Mostly b/c I don't have them. heh. So while mentioning it in case someone has one is fine, I think sticking to the more readily available pets will benefit more people.

Xu-Fu
I'd sub a bird with flock or swarm in for him instead of a raptor. They take less dmg from Spirit Claws and Feed which also reduces the amount that he heals for but still provides the 100% debuff. I'd aim for a bird with enough speed to be faster than Xu-Fu with out the racial so you can ensure that you have 2 rounds of the 100% debuff your follow up mech to pound him. If you open with a random Call lighting pet and a DM Tonk or custodian it should be an easy win to blow him up.

Yeah, bird is a good idea. One of the things I noticed in my first run through of this is that I don't have a lot of levelled flyers. Turkeys just weren't high on my priority list of things to level. I'm addressing that now for future weeks. It also seems like there isn't a lot of variety among flyers. It's basically moths, firefly type things, and chickens with the occasional crow and what not. We could use some more cool flying type pets imo.

Thinking about this fight more, I'm pretty sure Xu-fu missed his first spirit claws attack, which allowed for black claw + hunting party. You're definitely right about wanting to be faster than him though. Whether it's to get two 100% damage turns after a flock or one after hunting party, you should have your pet faster than the victim.

Zao
This is where I used my p/p raptor. It ended up dying with him low health and wish going off at the end of the next turn. I brought in another raptor and he died before wish could go off but a good mech should work too.

Yep, another raptor would work well too. But at that point I think I'd used like 3 or 4 already so I was running low.

[Derrhans]

Kinda new here
But here's how i did Zao which i had the most issues with during my trail and error attempts.

Zao:
i killed with a [pet]Fjord Worg pup[/pet] type P/P with: bite / howl / dancing (think any pet with Dancing and howl will do)
- Starting with Bite > Dancing > Howl
Switched to my [pet]Ash Spiderling[/pet] with: poison spit /brittle web /swarm
- Starting with Brittle / Swarm / poison spit / Brittle
Switched to my [pet]Sunreaver Micro-Sentry[/pet] Immolate / unused / Call Lightning
- starting with Call Lightning / Immolate till dead

The poison and immolate fire will kill him off just before he can kill you (mechanical passive got used)


When i won the tourney i only lost 14 pets and 5 pets being injured during the whole tournament.
I had 75 (now 76 <3 Xu-Fu ) @ max lvl in total so i had some room to play with during some failures to find the optimal team and reset the scenario.

Trainers this week were, Taran Zhu (3 monks are a bitch), Chen Stormstout and Wrathion.

Sadly no time to tel what i used on them all @ office and not much time to do non-work stuff.


-edit-

I've starting trying to work out teams for the tamers that weren't in my tournament this week. I'm loading a lot of spiders for Taran Zhu.

For Taran Zhu i used:
1st pet [pet]Fossilized Hatchling[/pet] Start with Bone storm (very very good) > Ancient Blessing > Bone storm > Bone Bite when undead passive
(might not always hit bone bite or able to cast it if Taran Zhu pet crit once)
2nd pet [pet]Jungle Grub[/pet] type H/S > starting with Burrow (he feign death) than keep Acid Goo /Consume till burrow
3rd pet [pet]Blighthawk[/pet] P/S > Infected Claw till you need Consume Corpse kill him off with Infected Claw.

Creepy Crate also got Bladestorm but mine isnt on 25 yet, maybe a[pet] Fossilized Hatchling[/pet] + [pet]Creepy Crate[/pet] combo is usefull.

[Moksu]

possible to make a new topic for EU? i'm so lost and confused.. can't even kill taran zhu :/

[Kpb321]

Yeah, a gregarious grell is nice but in order to keep info useful to as many people as possible I try to avoid using pets that cost real world money. Mostly b/c I don't have them. heh. So while mentioning it in case someone has one is fine, I think sticking to the more readily available pets will benefit more people.

He is tradable so you don't have to buy him for cash. I've seen him in the AH often enough on my server and others that I wouldn't call him rare but I understand trying to make sure readily available options are listed too.