Guide to tamer daily pet battles (5.3) - For veterans

[Stencil]

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Pandarian lvling guide
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There are places where you've taken an existing strat and made changes without explanation where, to my eyes, the original was superior ...

Aki the Chosen
3: Amber Moth [9] (1,1,2)

Hyuna of the Shrines
3: Amber Moth [9] (2,1,2)

Both of these strats originally use a P/P Yellow Moth which is the hardest hitting Moth in the game. I can see no advantages in those fights switching to the H/S Amber Moth you've listed.

Thundering Pandaren Spirit
1: Elfin Rabbit [11] (1,2,1)
- bring in Elfin Rabbit
vs Darnak (he comes out as Sludy is dead)
- switch to Elfin Rabbit
> Scratch > Scratch > Dodge > Burrow
Swap to carry pet
Swap to Elfin Rabbit
- scratch > dodge > burrow > scratch

Original used an S/S Grasslands Cottontail which has 36 more Power than the S/B Elfin Rabbit you've listed which gives an extra 40 damage per Scratch. The only advantage to the Elfin Rabbit would be that it is faster than Sludgy, but you aren't really making use of that fact. If I you're going to use the Elfin the I'd think it would be advantageous to Dodge on the first round versus Sludgy sparing the Dragonling damage from that first Expunge. I'd possibly even Scratch once after that, while Dodge was still up.

The bigger problem is that your sequencing for Darnak is all kinds of wrong. You're casting Dodge > Burrow which makes no sense. The damage avoidance you'd get on the first round of Burrow is wasted if you're casting it while Dodge is still active. It also means that you're swapping your carry pet right into a Stone Rush.

There is only one safe turn to swap in a carry pet against Darnak and that's on the very first round when he casts Stone Skin before Burrow. You can't do it later in the fight on that turn (the one before his Burrow) because you'll always be completing the second round of your Burrow which was used to avoid a Stone Rush. Trying to double swap at any other time will result in one of the pets being exposed to damage.

The line "your Elfin Rabbit will not sustain any damage from Darnak until the final round which will kill your pet and his leaving only your carry alive to gain exp" only makes sense if it means that you're intentionally allowing your Elfin Rabbit to be hit by Stone Rush and relying on the self inflicted damage to kill Darnak ... that sounds like a very foolish strategy.

Scratch has a chance to miss. Burrow has an even bigger chance to miss. You cannot predict or guarantee the exact amount of damage you will do to Darnak leading up to the Stone Rush that kills you which means Darnak might not die. The amount of damage that Darnak self inflicts with a Stone Rush is comparable to a Scratch so its not even saving you that much time versus keeping your rabbit alive the whole fight.

Darnak - first 2 rounds
if Mechanical Dragonling is active pet
- Explode > select carry pet > swap to Rabbit
if carry pet is active pet
- should be the case when Explode was used to kill Sludgy
- swap to Rabbit > Scratch
if Rabbit is active pet
- should be the case when Dragonling died and Rabbit was needed to finish off Sludgy
- swap to carry pet > swap to Rabbit
Darnak - rounds 3 to death
- Dodge > Scratch > Scratch > Burrow > Scratch
- repeat

Wastewalker Shu
1: Zandalari Anklerender [4] (2,2,2)
2: Chrominius [6] (1,1,2)

That team has a notorious reputation for unreliability due to RNG. While I'm probably biased, I'm going to claim that a Red Cricket based team is still best for this fight http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/f ... 828#p41828

Flowing Pandaren Spirit
1: Vampiric Batling [8] (1,2,1)

The Vampiric Batling was best because it had a Flying attack and a Beast attack. Now that Tiptoe is Aquatic, and not a Critter, the Vampiric Batling is likely worse than many other choices. My recommendation as the best pet to put in that slot is a P/P Imperial Eagle Chick (Slicing Wind, Adrenaline Rush, Lift-Off)

Farmer Nishi

I posted a better action order for the Strider versus Nishi here: http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/f ... 240#p50589. It's better because you can unload a charged up Pump on the first turn versus Brood. That makes it that much easier for your mechanical who should only have to Ion Cannon to finish the finish the fight.

Blood Knight Antari
1: Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling [5] (1, 1, 2)
2: Silkbead Snail [9] (2, 2, 1)
- Decoy > Breath > Breath > Breath
- Dive > Shell Shield > Absorb > Absorb > Absorb > Dive > Absorb > Absorb
- Decoy > Breath > Bombing Run > Breath > Breath > Breath > Breath > Breath

The Scourged Whelpling and Flayer Youngling combination has worked very well in my experience. Why change? Especially for a strat with so much miss chance. You'll only hit both of those Dives 36% of the time you will miss one or both of those Dives. You hit all 9 of The breaths you listed only 39% of the time.

Bordin Steadyfist - deepholm
vs Crystallus
- Rip > Rip > Blood in the Water > Rip

As the creator of this strat, the rewrite of the Crystallus section misses the importance of Surge in reducing incoming damage from Flank. The ability to survive a full Flank attack on turn 3 in order to cast Blood in the Water is often in doubt. And Forget about ever getting off a Rip on turn 4; one of the two of you would definitely be dead. If you want to simplify the presentation of the strat then write it like
- Rip > Blood in the Water (Rip if still on cooldown) > Surge > Surge

[Stencil]

After taking on Little Tommy and only getting 1.8k when I did a carry pet team, I instantly knew it wasn't worth it for the tourney. Why I gave up and just went with a team that can beat them fast. Also during the PTR the medic would heal your pet inside but reset your progress, now she doesn't do that, and the one outside doesn't heal either. So your left with you 8min heal and bandage which make it not worth it.

Well, Little Tommy is a single Legendary fight and those have always given poor xp whereas the Pandaren Tamers give fantastic XP. I figured it was worth a shot to see what they gave. I also worked for a while on trying to create a 2x3 team for Taran Zhu but it wasn't very reliable. With two tamers (and the Zhu fight tending to drag out) you'd use the 8 min heal instead of bandages more.

[Jerebear]

I know the spirit of this involves quickly killing the tamers, but if I can do two carry pets, even at the expense of longer battles, I find it a good tradeoff. That said, I usually do two carry pets on both Aki and Yon. Aki is slightly RNG, but I rarely have issues...it's just a bit long. Yon is very straight forward and generally ok on time. For both fights I use the Anub Idol with the following abilities:

Crush - pretty standard
Stoneskin - I know everyone likes sandstorm, but this works out better for me when going for two carry pets.
Deflection

Aki:
-------
Cricket:
R1: Cast stoneskin
R2: swap in CP1 (needs enough health to survive stampede: a little less than 200HP)
R3: swap in CP2 (needs enough health to survive stampede: a little less than 200HP)
R4: swap in Anub Idol
R5+:
Refresh stoneskin when 1 round left and crush away.
Make sure Anub is at full health before killing the crickit.
When 1 hit away from killing the cricket, refresh stoneskin, then hit. If he heals keep him at 1 hit away refreshing stoneskin right before the final hit that will kill him. This is the part that makes the fight long, but having him at full health + 4 rounds of stone skin helps against the dragon.

Dragon:
Crush until dead. Stoneskin will negate the extra damage from lightning storm. Don't worry about refreshing stoneskin...just kill with crush. This part of the fight really determines if RNG will screw you, so get through it fast. You can deflection the lightning storm cast if you want, but it doesn't always help and just delays the tactic

Beaver:
R1: Stoneskin while he dives
R2: Deflection
R3+:
Crush until stone skin falls off. He'll dive that round so you can refresh it then without worry of taking extra damage. Deflect the dive, and repeat. As long as you got through the dragon phase quickly, you should have enough health to kill the beaver before he kills you.


Yon:
--------
Bird:
R1: Crush
R2: Stoneskin - he'll lift off
R3: Deflection
R4: swap in CP1 (needs enough health to survive stampede: a little less than 200HP)
R5: swap in CP2 (needs enough health to survive stampede: a little less than 200HP)
R6: swap in Anub
R7: Crush
R8: Stoneskin - he'll lift off
R9: Deflection
R10+: Crush until stoneskin wears off. Again, due to lift off's cooldown, he'll lift off the round after, so you can refresh it then.

Rabbit:
R1: Crush
R2: Stoneskin - he'll burrow
R3: Deflection
R4: Crush
R5: Crush
R6: Crush
R7+: Repeat R1-R6 until he dies.

Goat:
R1: Stoneskin
R2+: This part is just reactive. If he does chew, Defelction the next round. Otherwise, keep stoneskin up and crush away


Again, I realize these aren't the fastest strategies, but the tradeoff for two carry pets might be worth it for some. While the Aki fight is a bit RNG dependent (dragon phase mostly), the Yon fight has very little RNG issues since all 3 pets are neutered by stoneskin+deflection.

I'm sure someone else posted this before, but I'm new and didn't really see it discussed anywhere I could find in this thread (at least searching "aki" in this thread didn't turn up anything).

[Wenll]

Yea I actually a had a "credit" section where I was crediting you and the OP and a few others for the format of my guide along with the strats but for some reason it said I couldn't post it cuase it had a site link....I dont know it was weird even when i took the site link out.

I will have to try out the alt strats you mention.
The reason I changed the strat a bit from the main one was that there was for one there were a few new ones not listed and changes not listed either for 5.4 yet so I wanted those to be included. In addition some of the strats didn't work for me. Becuase I have different breed types some strats listed simply aren't compatible with the breeds I have. With the sheer number of pets to obtain and lvl it is alreayd a pain to get them as rares to catch them as a specific breed as well is too crazy nor do I want to waist a stone on a battle pet as opposed to a pre mop pet that can't be caught as rare. Personally Id be happy if they did away with the entire breed system as its just makes things overly complicated for something thats supposed to be a "fun mini game" :/

Yea I actually do only have 2 teams for the Beasts of Fable.

So if your pet starts out it does not need to actually attack to gain xp you can just swap it strait out and get exp? I have not tried it yet as I did not want to waste a tamer experimenting with that lol.

Good to know about the BOF and tounry pets giving terrible xp as well!

I heard wolf was good against Yu'lon but I could never get it to work I will try again next week with what you suggest tho see if it works.

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Yea some changes where pet types, some were breed types, and some were full on team changes. This is just a "beta" guide. I created it over the past few weeks taking the original guide, some suggestions others have made on other teams theyve used here and other places and found what worked for me personally making the guide I listed.

Again I changed the moth becuase the Yellow Moth I had did not work and Amber did. Prob wrong breed type.

I do appreciate the criqique of my Thundering Pandareian spirit tho as That has been my biggest hurdle. Its always 50/50 weather I win that or not :/ All the other teams I have with the exception of that xu tiger are just a matter of maybe finding faster alt teams I can make or something but Xu and thundering spirit are 2 ones that still whoop my butt. But yea all the rest I have listed havnt been too much of an issue for me unless I just have really bad RNG. I did'nt do lood knight antari the normal way becuase again I don't have those breed types appearently so that strat won't work so I had to find a strat that would work with my pets/breeds I do have. And I am being a stubborn person and refusing to go breed hunting. I might do that when I get every pet in the game as rare at max lvl but until then got waaaaay too many other pets to worry about /grumbles at blizz for pet breeds :p

But thanks will try some of the stuff you suggested

[Wenll]

Darnak - first 2 rounds
if Mechanical Dragonling is active pet
- Explode > select carry pet > swap to Rabbit
if carry pet is active pet
- should be the case when Explode was used to kill Sludgy
- swap to Rabbit > Scratch
if Rabbit is active pet
- should be the case when Dragonling died and Rabbit was needed to finish off Sludgy
- swap to carry pet > swap to Rabbit
Darnak - rounds 3 to death
- Dodge > Scratch > Scratch > Burrow > Scratch
- repeat

I tried this strat and it can't work. Not with my pets anyways.
What ends up happening is Darn dies, I cast explode, he casts stone skin, I swap in my carry pet, he burrows, I cast my carry pets ability, I swap to rabbit, my rabbit gets one shot by burrow and has no move time to react or dodge it or anything.
So unless I am missing something this strat does not work for me at all and never will :/

This is a really hard one for me tho again. I have not seen a viable strat yet that works for me with 5.4. The strat I have listed works only 50/50 and is the closest I have found. Id rather find a strat with no bunny involved at all or with a 2nd carry pet that can solo last 2 bosses instead of just one cuase my rabbit on final boss is terrible :/

[Jerebear]

I think he was saying:

Cast explode <--> casts stone skin
swap carry pet/swap bunny <--> burrows
cast dodge <--> burrow fails

you shouldn't need to do your carry pet ability. Just swap in and swap out in the one round.

[Yamum]

No offense intended to any of the contributors, and not wanting to be a forum Nazi, but I think this thread is getting a little out of control.

Can we limit this thread to tamer daily discussion and leave the Celestial Tournament for another thread?
Can general pet battle advice be saved for a more appropriate thread?

Mod: agree/disagree?

[Yamum]

I have been working on a faster and more reliable setup for this battle for a while. I think I finally have it.

I am introducing a new criteria for all my strats from now on: RNG tolernace. This means how many negative "RNG" effects this setup can tolerate before it fails. Negative RNG effects include one of your attacks missing, being crit, being stunned, etc. The higher the number the better.

Thundering Pandaren Spirit
17-18 rounds
RNG tolerance: ~2
1: Scooter the Snail [-] (1,1,1)
2: Darkmoon Zeppelin [-] (1,2,2)
3: Carry pet

vs Pandaren Earth Spirit
- Dive (charge) > Dive (release) - if your Dive misses you can forfeit here and start again without having to heal
- Acidic Goo > Ooze Touch until Pandaren Earth Spirit dies
vs Sludgy
- Ooze Touch > Acidic Goo > Ooze Touch - Scooter the Snail should die here (ideally you want your last attack that lands to be Acidic Goo so that it has 2 turns remaining when Darkmoon Zeppelin comes in, so adjust your sequence according to your own RNG experience)
- Switch in Darkmoon Zeppelin > Missile until Sludgy dies
vs Darnak
- Missile > Decoy > Missile until Darnak has 618 health or less, then use Explode - Darnak dies - Darkmoon Zeppelin dies
- Carry pet will be the only pet standing and will receive XP without having to enter the battle

Note: Any snail should do, I just used Scooter because he only comes in one breed.

Any feedback on this would be welcomed.

I am currently working on improved setups for Wastewalker Zhu and Flowing Pandaren Spirit, they should be ready in a few days. Taking requests for improved setups for other tamers as well.

Edit: corrected the damage done by Explode.

[Wenll]

OMG YAmum I loooove you. Your strat for thundering panderen spirit is perfect =D Finally a better strat then that rabbit of doom that makes me cry tears of RNG.

[Stencil]

I think he was saying:

Cast explode <--> casts stone skin
swap carry pet/swap bunny <--> burrows
cast dodge <--> burrow fails

you shouldn't need to do your carry pet ability. Just swap in and swap out in the one round.

I would rewrite that as:
Cast explode - select carry pet <--> casts stone skin
swap to bunny <--> burrows
cast dodge <--> burrow fails

I think its important to note that the carry pet is entering the fight at the very end of that first turn.

Wenll: any pet which is active at the end of a round of pet combat is eligible for xp at the end of the fight. The only time you would have perform an action with your carry pet is if it started the fight; even then, you could still pass and when that first turn ended the pet would be eligible.

Most strats for the tamers make use of what we call the death swap. Your first level 25 pet dies and you select your carry pet as the next one and it swaps in. Critically, that happens before the round ends which is why the next round your carry pet could perform an action. Since it ended a round as the active pet its now good for XP and so that action is swap to your other level 25 pet. So the carry pet comes in at the very end of one round and leaves at the very start of the next; its never exposed to any danger, but qualifies for XP.

In the thunder strat with the rabbit and dragonling, we suicide with an Explode in the first round against Darnak and it works like a regular deathswap. There's also the special case when you use Explode to kill the last enemy pet of a fight. Its like the game behind the scenes says, "right, your pet is dead so you need to swap in the next, but hey the fight is over so I'm not going to pop up UI and make you pick it, instead I'll just pretend you did."

I did once take a team with a Pet Bombling and two low level pets into the wild and had the Bombling solo everything and use Explode to kill the last pet - both low level pets got XP. Thought it was kind of weird, but it does make sense if we assume that as design decisions they are trying to both 1) not bother us with UI to select a pet when the fight is essentially over and 2) not screw us out of any XP.

[Stencil]

I know the spirit of this involves quickly killing the tamers, but if I can do two carry pets, even at the expense of longer battles, I find it a good tradeoff.

If there are two pets getting XP then each will get *half* as much XP as if they had been the only pet getting XP. So, over the course of two days against the same boss, you would get pets A and B to the same place whether you leveled just A and then just B or leveled A and B together twice.

For proof, I went to stormwind with and fought two level 1 squirrels. The first with one level 1 pet and the second with two level 1 pets both getting XP. First pet got 55 xp from its fight; the other two each got 28.

[Yamum]

A- To answer the first one tournament is consider a weekly daily so it falls under the tamer dailies, as they are tamers you have to take on.

"Weekly daily" is an oxymoron. The Celestial Tournament is something completely different to several standalone battles.

B - Advice is how we create the teams for this thread

This is the veterans guide, aren't we past that stage already?

1st Does the snail need that much Health?

I chose Scooter because he is easy to acquire. A rare H/P Shimmershell Snail is a lot more work to obtain. The fact that Scooter also only comes in the one breed simplifies the setup. Feel free to experiment with different breeds of snail and report back which works the best.

2 since the snail is a Critter instead of diving on 1st turn to avoid Crystal Prison you can use Acidic Goo so it takes 25% more damage on top of 50% extra damage it take from Dive being an aqua attack. Also since critter Prison will have no effect on it, and it still avoid damage from rapture. Sure if you miss diva you eat some damage from Stone Shot but that might not matter.

If you Dive on the second turn you will take damage from Rupture, which will be more than what you take from Stone Shot. I would be interested to know how you fare once you have tested this setup.

[Rendigar]

vs Darnak
- Missile > Decoy > Missile until Darnak has 640 health or less, then use Explode - Darnak dies - Darkmoon Zeppelin dies
- Carry pet will be the only pet standing and will receive XP without having to enter the battle

The zeppelin (unbuffed) explodes for 618 - minor difference, but could be critical for those with horrible luck (I've exploded vs Moruk's third pet when he had 619 health left - carry pet won it though ). Also, you have to make sure you don't chose to explode on a turn when Darnak has Burrow off CD because then his move will be Burrow - and since the zep is slower (273) than Darnak (300) the explode will miss.

It takes 3 missiles (assuming no crits) to get him in explode range:
Missile > Decoy > Missile x 2-3 > Explode -- works if you miss with only 1 missile
Missile > Decoy > Missile x 4 > pass > Explode -- works if you miss with 2 missiles in the first 4 fired, but the fifth better hit

If you are me and you miss with 3 missiles out of the first 5, well that's just RNG hating on you... And that's why you set RNG to 2 (great idea, though it's so fuzzy it may not hold up as a real value - a crit by them might be worth 2 misses by you).

Note: If your zep died once vs Sludgy then missing with a missile would be fatal - stone rush would kill you before you can explode. I can't say if that's something that is likely to occur as I only tested the zeppelin part of this repeatedly (without the final explode) to verify the 618 and speeds (I don't have a 25 snail, oddly enough).

[Wenll]

Ah ok. Yea this whole time I thought that the pet had to cast some spell and then be swapped an survive till the end to get xp. So thats great to know.

I never played past pokemon yellow >.< I have almost all of em tho. Im so bad for not playing them lol. Not sure if they had breeds in pokemon yellow. I never noticed tho. I do understand the concept of it...I just dont like it :p I mean you had 300+ pets added to get, (took me 6 years to get 213 and they more then double that in one fell swoop). You now have pets dropping off raid bosses which is bad for pvp players. (I raid But I am thinking of those who don't). You have rareity added to the pets. Granted you had it before but now its a full system of everyone being upgradable to rare. And then you also have breed ID's so you have to find the pet, then find it as a rare, and then find it as a rare of a certain breed? Blah. Granted you can use a stone but Im still using stones on the non battle pets you cant even catch as rare at all before I do that.

I actually ahve that breed of shimmershell snail! Thats the one I am using in place of scooter becuase he was not turned into a rare before. Its working great with that strat yamum suggested. Personally I think having one guide/threads for all the various tamers that drop bags, spirits, beasts, and now celestial tournys is a good thing. It means you have one place to look for all your needs rather then a billion. I mean we could do a seperate thread for each indivisual tamer but why do that when you can have it all in one! xD Tho syou should seperate each "section" of the guide/thread for that purpose. Thats what I did on my personal guide was seperate based on beasts of fable, mop tamers, bag tamers, clestials, and so forth.

[Jerebear]

If there are two pets getting XP then each will get *half* as much XP as if they had been the only pet getting XP. So, over the course of two days against the same boss, you would get pets A and B to the same place whether you leveled just A and then just B or leveled A and B together twice.

For proof, I went to stormwind with and fought two level 1 squirrels. The first with one level 1 pet and the second with two level 1 pets both getting XP. First pet got 55 xp from its fight; the other two each got 28.

Yep, already knew that. But, and maybe I am the exception, I usually end up with pets at level 24, so doing two at once keeps me from wasting XP when hitting 25, which I would have done using only singles. My general route ends up with getting some pets to 24 (not on purpose, it just happens that way). I tend to finish them all off using 2 pet strategies to make use of as much of the XP as I can.

Ah ok. Yea this whole time I thought that the pet had to cast some spell and then be swapped an survive till the end to get xp. So thats great to know.

Only if you start with the carry pet does it have to do something. Swapping out on the first round doesn't count for xp, so you have to do something in round 1, but a swap in/swap out after another pet dies will count.

[Yamum]

The zeppelin (unbuffed) explodes for 618

Thanks for the correction, I'll edit the original post. For some reason I was thinking 640 but never bothered to actually check.

Also, you have to make sure you don't chose to explode on a turn when Darnak has Burrow off CD because then his move will be Burrow - and since the zep is slower (273) than Darnak (300) the explode will miss.

Correct. I just assumed that most people reading the veteran's guide would be aware of this, but it is worth noting all the same. So far I have found that my explode coincides with Darnak's second stone rush. In a worst case scenario where you had to use Explode early or die, it would be best to use it on the round that would be your "fail safe" round, and hopefully the carry pet can finish Darnak off. However I have yet to find myself in that situation.

And that's why you set RNG to 2 (great idea, though it's so fuzzy it may not hold up as a real value - a crit by them might be worth 2 misses by you).

It certainly is fuzzy but I can't see any way around that for the reason you stated. Its more of a rough idea of how reliable the team is. As an alternative you could call it "reliability" and give a value of high, medium or low. Ideally, if there was a Simcraft type application for pet battles, then you could offer definite success rate percentage.

I don't have a 25 snail, oddly enough

Don't forget the Rapana Whelk.