<<Replaced by 8 part 5.4 Guide>>

[Rendigar]

For Flowing Water Spirit, I found a strat that works a bit faster than the current set up recommended:
P/P Imperial Eagle Chick [1/1/2]
Carry Pet
Whatever pet you want.
Imperial chick can solo all three extremely easy. Use Lift Off to avoid Dive/Pump/Whirlpool, refresh Cyclone, win. I took Emerald Proto as back up, but didn't even use it.

If RNG is in your favor that's great - but if Lift-off misses, and Cyclone is as useless as it often is, and you only hit 1 out of 3 hits with Slicing Wind the first couple of times you have a dead Eagle and Tiptoe is beating on your 2nd pet (or worse, chain casting Tidal Wave). The guide is definitely aimed at sustainable winning with little or (preferably) no chance of failure / needing to abort, heal and retry. As long as you bring along the Emerald Proto-Drake (or any other high-flying evader, though the heal is very helpful), you can confidently expect to walk away with a win.

You can win with just a single P/P Imperial Eagle Chick, I've even forgotten to bring in my carry pet and finished off the Flowing Pandaren Spirit (and then kicked myself for the lost XP). But I wouldn't recommend planning on it, there are just too many things that can go wrong. But that is also why I switched out the Eagle for the Wildhammer Gryphon as Stencil suggested - it gives a more consistent set of results (equal to Slicing Wind always hitting twice).

[Dekafox]

A P/P Spineclaw Crab can sub in for Snarly and the crocs(sounds like a band name!) fairly well it seems too. It looses Surge, but gains a heal, and the higher power on the rip/BitW makes up for the lost surge.

[Anasa]

Not everyone will agree, but the idea is to make the guide useful to a broader range of people.

I agree with this philosophy.

Of course some fights are "easier" or "better" with rare, TCG, and store pets, but keeping this accessible to "new" pet battlers is a good idea.

I love this guide, but I wouldn't mind maybe a separate guide with absolutely optimal setups even if they require some of those "harder to get" pets (including the new TI pets and baby celestials)

[Moritsume]

Just to chime in, this is the guide for veterans. By its very nature it shouldn't need to be an incredibly diverse guide with multiple teams/etc for people missing pets. This should be the guide where you come for the hands-down fastest/most-efficient teams to beat trainers while leveling a carry pet. At least if you want it to be the spiritual successor of the previous guides. That's the reason I check these guides as often as I do.

If you find a better/faster team that can be proven to be as free from RNG as possible, it should go up in place of slower/rng-prone teams. Hard to find pets? If you're a veteran pet battler then that really shouldn't be an issue. I do agree that unavailable pets (Vampiric Batling) or perhaps ultra-expensive/limited ones (Mini Tyrael/etc) should be excluded, or at least only mentioned as a better option if you have one.

Just my opinion though.

[Quintessence]

Just to chime in, this is the guide for veterans. By its very nature it shouldn't need to be an incredibly diverse guide with multiple teams/etc for people missing pets. ...

I think this is a valid point, and possibly why Phraide created a separate guide for "beginners" or those who may not have access to the harder to come by pets.

That being said, I don't think it's absolutely necessary to create another guide just to include alternate teams. It is definitely more convenient for those that are looking specifically for advanced or beginner teams and strategies, though.

Perhaps by renaming this guide to something more general and all inclusive it would help remove any confusion as to the nature and purpose of the guide? Other than creating two different guides, it's an option to just make one large combination of the two.

[Rendigar]

I think the most difficult part here would be deciding what level of risk constitues "better RNG". As a good example lets take the first fight in the guide above, the Thundering Pandaren Spirit:

In my own experience missiles miss far more often than they should and if a dive misses (1 chance in 5) then you are aborting and restarting. Whereas the rabbit strategy (using the Grasslands Cottontail [5-S/S] especially) wins 100% of the time, even if you miss with a burrow. So which should be listed? Both are perfectly valid, perfectly functional, and if player (A) has no problems aborting and restarting (which adds, what, 30 seconds to their trip), while player (B) just wants to start the fight and know he's going to win, who's right?

Or take the Major Payne fight - Stencil's strategy covers every possible condition you could run into, but not everyone wants to have to interpret the moves that way. Some people want simple, straightforward directions. Is either "better", I don't think so. I've used both, though as could be seen originally I had paraphrased his instructions down to a simpler form that worked for me. As he was the creator and at his request I put his exact strategy with all the conditions in the guide. And the other strat I did use for the other team is one of 2 ways to do it with the same pets, as Nytemarerulez pointed out (though I disagreed on which method is better).

I'll remove "Veteran" from the title (it's too long anyway), and the community can speak for itself. I'm willing to put the work in to continue testing the teams suggested (working on lvl 25 S/S and P/P Nether Faire Dragons at the moment), but I'd like to stick with making this as accessible to the "regular crowd" as possible. I was one of those "regular crowd" not all that long ago, and I haven't forgotten the difficulties in beating a few of the master tamers the 1st time around when I had 4 lvl 25's (Terrible Turnip, Lil' Ragnaros, Clockwork Gnome, and Lucky Quilen Cub).

[Rendigar]

And to put my own 2 cents in (yes, I have them, too) would it be possible to just have a forum with 1 post about each of the Master Tamers, where the absolute BEST build can be listed in the 1st post, and conversation about just that fight can be below it. I don't know about the rest of you - but finding all the various strategies in 8 to 16 pages of responses to guides and general posts and trying to decide which is better was (and is) a pain in the neck. I do not have all the TCG pets, nor am I likely to ever get them so I am not the person to maintain such a library, but it would give all the "elite" a place to get their strategies and for the rest of us to discuss it, individually.

[Rendigar]

I've been getting 12 round kills against the Whispering Pandaren Spirit using a P/P Nether Faerie Dragon (Arcane Blast, Life Exchange, Moonfire) and Chrominius. The only "problem" I've had is that when Whispertail dies in 3 rounds, Wild Winds is still up when I pass my carry pet through and it takes 100 points of damage or so. If you have a level 1 carry pet, you can just grind the Nether Faerie Dragon to death and do a death swap; you'll just spend a couple more rounds on the fight.
vs Dusty
- Moonfire > Arcane Blast x3 > Dusty dies
- if slept, Arcane Blast > Life Exchange > go back to first line
vs Whispertail
- Life Exchange > Arcane Blast til Whispertail dies (usually twice)
vs Spirit
- swap to carry pet
- swap to Chrominius
- Howl > Bite > Surge of Power

I tried this out with both 5-S/S and 4-P/P breeds (simulating being slept at least 6 times each, forfeiting when the 1st Moth Dust missed), and it doesn't feel as sure as the Celestial Dragon version. It does win, but if you get slept by the 1st Moth Dust and the 2nd Moth Dust doesn't outright miss it seemed a lot dicier (Chrominius could be left with a goodly amount of health to Bite through). The 5-S/S doesn't hit as hard - though Dusty still melts, but is at least always faster than Whispertail. getting you one more attack before being killed. Have you not had any failures when slept the 1st time?

[Moritsume]

I've been getting 12 round kills against the Whispering Pandaren Spirit using a P/P Nether Faerie Dragon (Arcane Blast, Life Exchange, Moonfire) and Chrominius. The only "problem" I've had is that when Whispertail dies in 3 rounds, Wild Winds is still up when I pass my carry pet through and it takes 100 points of damage or so. If you have a level 1 carry pet, you can just grind the Nether Faerie Dragon to death and do a death swap; you'll just spend a couple more rounds on the fight.
vs Dusty
- Moonfire > Arcane Blast x3 > Dusty dies
- if slept, Arcane Blast > Life Exchange > go back to first line
vs Whispertail
- Life Exchange > Arcane Blast til Whispertail dies (usually twice)
vs Spirit
- swap to carry pet
- swap to Chrominius
- Howl > Bite > Surge of Power

I tried this out with both 5-S/S and 4-P/P breeds (simulating being slept at least 6 times each, forfeiting when the 1st Moth Dust missed), and it doesn't feel as sure as the Celestial Dragon version. It does win, but if you get slept by the 1st Moth Dust and the 2nd Moth Dust doesn't outright miss it seemed a lot dicier (Chrominius could be left with a goodly amount of health to Bite through). The 5-S/S doesn't hit as hard - though Dusty still melts, but is at least always faster than Whispertail. getting you one more attack before being killed. Have you not had any failures when slept the 1st time?

I've been using a Nether Dragon (P/P) for this fight, but I open with the carry pet (I don't have any level 1 pets except for the new Isle ones, so they can tank the first dust if it hits). It works, although getting slept by the 2nd dust can be problematic, as Chrominius isn't strong against Whispertail if you have to do significant damage with him. If the carry pet can land a decent shot on the first turn it works beautifully.

I'll give the Celestial a shot though, I'd mostly been using my Nether Faerie because it was the first pet I tried post 5.4 that worked quickly.

[Stencil]

I tried this out with both 5-S/S and 4-P/P breeds (simulating being slept at least 6 times each, forfeiting when the 1st Moth Dust missed), and it doesn't feel as sure as the Celestial Dragon version. It does win, but if you get slept by the 1st Moth Dust and the 2nd Moth Dust doesn't outright miss it seemed a lot dicier (Chrominius could be left with a goodly amount of health to Bite through). The 5-S/S doesn't hit as hard - though Dusty still melts, but is at least always faster than Whispertail. getting you one more attack before being killed. Have you not had any failures when slept the 1st time?

I know that I encountered some sleeps when originally developing it, because in my first post about it in the 5.3 thread I mentioned that, when slept and having had to use Life Exchange against Dusty, at least you had the Dragonkin buff up for the first attack against Whispertail. I'm not sure how extensively I tested then, but I just did a bunch of test passes now.

Following your example, I would pass each of the first two turns to simulate being slept, forfeit if the first Dust missed, swap in a carry pet on death, and Howl > Bite > Bite against the Spirit. If the second Bite landed then I counted that as a Death since in a real attempt it would have been Surge of Power and a kill. If the second Dust slept me, then I did not count that trial in the results because two sleeps is too difficult, and too rare, to be a requirement for a team IMO.

The results were 12 successful kills in 13 attempts. I would have done more, but on attempt 13 I actually killed the Spirit with the two Howl buffed Bites. I hadn't done the math and just assumed that couldn't happen, heh. There were several kills where Chrominius died at the end of the turn from Wild Winds, so there were some close shaves.

The one failed case was really about Whispertail getting 6/6 Flyby buffed Slicing Wind hits. There is some RNG between Slicing Wind and the number of Moth Ball hits you take, but I had a couple of kills where 7/8 moth balls did hit, for example. I also had kills where I ate a Moth Dust crit. Overall, the average rng seems to fall shy of causing the wipe; basically felt like everything had to go wrong to die.

I only noted the second Dust missing once. Even if we assume that I missed or failed to note some missed second Dusts, I would claim that at least 2/3 of the kills did include two Dust hits (I remember scrolling up a lot just to make sure) which I think is significant. There were also a few attempts, besides the one where I know the second Dust missed, where the Faerie Dragon was able to get a second Arcane Blast off against Whispertail which made the fight cake. I think that happens when Moth Ball rng falls to our side.

Because of the Dragonkin buffed first attack, Chrominius should need 3 Bites maximum to kill Whispertail. If you can get off 2 Arcane Blasts then you should only need 2 Bites and that does make things feel *way* less nervy ... There were many times when I felt that Wild Winds just killed me before I could cast that second Blast. I was going to do 20 trials, but around the 10th I decided I'd do the last 5 trials with the Sprit Darter Hatchling. Sprite Darter Hatchling has 81 more health than the P/P or S/S Faerie Dragon and I wanted to see if I could tell the difference (get more second Blasts). I'm really intrigued by the H/P breed of the Nether Faerie Dragon, which I don't have. It has a 146 more health and I suspect it would almost always get off a second Blast. I think it would probably retain enough power that Chrominius would only need two Bites two finish Whispertail. If those two suppositions are true, then that would be the safest/best version of the pet to use.

I didn't like the S/S for this because if you have the speed debuff from Moth Balls (which it felt like I had a lot more than 25% of the time) then you won't actually be faster than Whispertail. Also, for the majority of the attempts, when you don't get slept, I'd rather Life Exchange after Flyby for that little bit of extra damage/healing

[Stencil]

I've been getting 12 round kills against the Whispering Pandaren Spirit using a P/P Nether Faerie Dragon (Arcane Blast, Life Exchange, Moonfire) and Chrominius. The only "problem" I've had is that when Whispertail dies in 3 rounds, Wild Winds is still up when I pass my carry pet through and it takes 100 points of damage or so. If you have a level 1 carry pet, you can just grind the Nether Faerie Dragon to death and do a death swap; you'll just spend a couple more rounds on the fight.
vs Dusty
- Moonfire > Arcane Blast x3 > Dusty dies
- if slept, Arcane Blast > Life Exchange > go back to first line

I've been using a Nether Dragon (P/P) for this fight, but I open with the carry pet

Ack! The beauty of the Nether Faerie Dragon is that, if the first Dust doesn't sleep you, then you can kill him *before* he even has a chance to cast a second Dust. My first thought was that you were trading one Dust for another, but actually its worse. You're trading a Dust for a Dust, a Cocoon Strike and a Moth Balls.

My opening (Dusty's action > Faerie Dragon's action)
1: Moth Dust > Moonfire
2: Cocoon Strike > Arcane Blast (breaks open Cocoon)
3: Moth Balls > Arcane Blast
4: passes > Arcane Blast (kills Dusty)

Your opening (Dusty's action > Faerie Dragon's action
1: Moth Dust > carry pet's action
2: Cocoon Strike > swap in Faerie Dragon
3: Moth Balls > Arcane Blast (breaks open Cocoon)
4: passes > Moonfire
5: Moth Dust > Arcane Blast
6: Cocoon Strike > Arcane Blast (breaks open Coccon)
7: Moth Balls > Arcane Blast (kills Dusty)

I guess you could still kill Dusty on turn 5 if your carry pet applied a dot broke open the Cocoon for you or if it hit pretty hard. But lower level pets are more likely to miss and I would think that attack would have to hit pretty hard indeed for only one Moonfire and Arcane Blast to finish off Dusty.

Have I missed something?

[Grizz083]

I was curious if the PetBattle Tactician add on still functioned correctly. It hasn't been updated for a bit.

[Rendigar]

I was curious if the PetBattle Tactician add on still functioned correctly. It hasn't been updated for a bit.

Yes, it is still working fine - I use it every battle

[Rendigar]

I didn't like the S/S for this because if you have the speed debuff from Moth Balls (which it felt like I had a lot more than 25% of the time) then you won't actually be faster than Whispertail. Also, for the majority of the attempts, when you don't get slept, I'd rather Life Exchange after Flyby for that little bit of extra damage/healing

Well that just proves (to me) that my luck is worse than average. I wont replace the Celestial Dragon team, but this one certainly seems solid enough if you can pull off 12 in 13 (and you are right 2 sleeps is unreasonable). If they ever fix the hit chance reductions so that moth balls can be reduced to a 0% the best strat may change entirely, but until then looks like these will do the job.

I need to go back and assume the same "luck" and fix the CD team for # of rounds, but the NFD team is still faster.

[Grizz083]

That's good to know, I have been using PetTracker and it works fine but has a lot more extra stuff then I wanted. Your guide rocks as well! I don't have quite a few of the suggested pets leveled to 25 but I was able to use your strategies and blow through pandaria dailies before maintenance. Hopefully soon I will have your pet list leveled and then I can start leveling the rest of my collection. Thanks for the guide/feedback about the addon!

[Stencil]

My fellow tester always used the [pet]Electrified Razortooth[/pet] instead of Snarly, but what I could not get around was the lack of a "goes first" move which makes several fights go smoother.

Just to be clear I was suggesting it as an alternative for the Burning Pandaren Spirit tamer only. Partly was so that I didn't use Snarly two fights in a row, but also because I think I had an attempt where Cyclone really tore up Snarly before he could even switch in.

Wastewalker Shu: The only reason to not use a Tonk/Custodian is that 5% miss chance on Shock & Awe.

That's why I prefer the Yeti as well, just would hate for someone to say "oh, I don't have a Yeti, so I'll just skip that strat." Its hard to figure out how to strike the balance between letting people know the optimal, best choice while also letting them know when there are lesser alternatives. Perhaps we can do some kind of markup on pet names to indicate when something is mandatory or critical and undecorated names indicate some kind of wiggle room ... For example, there is no real substitute for the Red Cricket in its strat and so it could be something like:

• 1: [pet]Red Cricket[/pet] [-] (1,2,1)
  2: Carry pet
  3: [pet]Tranquil Mechanical Yeti[/pet] [-] (1,1,2)

Flowing Pandaren Spirit

By the way, the original strat from Cabadath had a P/P Spawn of Onyxia (Tail Whip, Healing Flame, Lift-Off). Phraide changed it to the Emerald Proto-Whelp because he wanted to reduce the number of pets required in his guide. Personally, I'd rather have a 95% chance to hit with Tail Whip than a 90% chance to hit with Emerald Bite. It makes sense to limit the number of pets in a beginner's guide so that people can bootstrap themselves up, but I don't agree with that for the Veteran's guide. Heck, trying to get and level "best" pets for particular strats gave me purpose and goals!

Farmer Nishi: I think you missed that you don't start with the carry pet now, so "Pump > swap to Tonk > Ion Cannon" wont get your carry pet any XP.

Ah, I did miss that. But I'm also not sure why you went that way. Using the Death Swap for a carry pet spares it damage, but Sunlight will hit it just as hard in the back row as it will out front; damage taken by the carry pet is a wash. A death swap can gain you an action versus a hard swap, but only if the dying pet was faster. The strider is slower than Brood, so it won't get off its Water Jet on the turn it dies. Therefore, in terms of actions completed, using one Death swap and one hard swap is no better than 2 hard swaps. My carry pets action on the first turn is essentially useless and wasted; you have a wasted turn when Brood Burrows so that's a wash as well. So, we'd be even except one thing, you're having to cast Shock and Awe before Ion Cannon while my strat does not. I'm assuming that's because in yours Brood gets to cast Consume and heal himself up some and you're playing safe. That's okay, but it does mean that your strat is actually 15 rounds long, not 14, so my version is one faster Oh, and should Brood's Burrow miss you can't take advantage of that, in fact it might screw you up a bit.

This is how I see it: 5 rounds for Siren, 4 rounds Toothbreaker and 6 for Brood
1: Goo >> Pump (2)
2: Burrow (1) >> wasted action
3: Burrow (2) >> Strider killed before it can act, select carry pet
4: switch to Tonk >> Consume
5: ??? >> Shock and Awe
6: ??? >> Ion Cannon

Being able to bring a carry pet who takes no damage might appeal to many - I have the "bad" habit of levelling all pets to 10 before I use them on the circuit.

Heh, that's what I've always used Stone Cold Trixxy and Lydia Acoste for. I have alts parked at each of them, and since they give crap XP to higher level pets I use them to bump up my level 1's.

Moruk / Feasel: Once the DMF comes back around I'll run through your post. Since the current Decoy/Explode works with the Zeppelin vs Moruk I don't think it needs to be altered, but I like the no-miss with Bombing Run so I better test it.

Note that using Decoy/Bombing Run on Moruk requires a carry pet that can eat Moth Dust. So, that can be held against it in terms of what's the better strat for the guide. But, I have enough other places to take a level 1 carry, and I find the margins on Moruk to be somewhat narrow (which is why I don't just death swap the carry after Chrominius dies, don't want to lose a turn of dps on Moruk bringing the Zep in) because of Missiles missing. /shrug

[Chibimage]

I suppose that you're going for speed here - because I see all this talk about the Whispering Pandaren Spirit and a P/P Emerald Proto-Drake can solo it. I have to pass to let it die to the Spirit every time. Yes, it totally takes longer - but you're 100% going to win every time without worrying about the sleeps or RNG. It's just something to consider. You pass with the spirit, switch to your carry pet, and finish it off with a Chrom>Surge of Power. The Spirit is always so low it never even needs a Howl round. /shrug


I really hate Tiptoe - and the Bat always seemed like a weak choice, so I'm excited to try the Imperial Eagle Chick/Wildhammer Gryphon. I'm also excited to try the totally and wildly different Wastewalker Shu strat and the much, much faster Kneebiter strat on Aki. Thanks for that!

I'd love to see/try some testing with the new 5.4 pets. I'd be willing to help in any way!

[Rendigar]

My fellow tester always used the [pet]Electrified Razortooth[/pet] instead of Snarly, but what I could not get around was the lack of a "goes first" move which makes several fights go smoother.

Just to be clear I was suggesting it as an alternative for the Burning Pandaren Spirit tamer only. Partly was so that I didn't use Snarly two fights in a row, but also because I think I had an attempt where Cyclone really tore up Snarly before he could even switch in.

Yes, I've had Cyclone rip up Snarly something fierce (once or twice) and he's died before killing the Spirit. I think the Electrofied Razortooth might be better here, with all the crocs as viable alts (see my comment below). I used Snarly + Toothy, myself, for the same reasons, so I would have 1 less healing stop on the trip.

That's why I prefer the Yeti as well, just would hate for someone to say "oh, I don't have a Yeti, so I'll just skip that strat." Its hard to figure out how to strike the balance between letting people know the optimal, best choice while also letting them know when there are lesser alternatives. Perhaps we can do some kind of markup on pet names to indicate when something is mandatory or critical and undecorated names indicate some kind of wiggle room ... For example, there is no real substitute for the Red Cricket in its strat and so it could be something like:

• 1: [pet]Red Cricket[/pet] [-] (1,2,1)
  2: Carry pet
  3: [pet]Tranquil Mechanical Yeti[/pet] [-] (1,1,2)

Hmmmm, I like the idea of the in front of the "must have" pet(s) for a strategy. Though then you are left with people wondering which "alternative" pets would be viable. What about just listing alts where applicable? Like this:

• 1: [pet]Red Cricket[/pet] [-] (1,2,1)
  2: Carry pet
  3: [pet]Tranquil Mechanical Yeti[/pet] [-] (1,1,2)
  Alt 3: Darkmoon Tonk [-] (1,1,2) / Menagerie Custodian [-] (1,1,2)

It would add another line (or two, at most) to any given strategy, and would require people to know what abilities replace them (so like replacing an eagle with a moth, know that Cocoon Strike would be used in place of Lift-Off), but veterans should know that in any case.

Flowing Pandaren Spirit

By the way, the original strat from Cabadath had a P/P Spawn of Onyxia (Tail Whip, Healing Flame, Lift-Off). Phraide changed it to the Emerald Proto-Whelp because he wanted to reduce the number of pets required in his guide.

You know what? I don't recall ever testing with the Spawn of Onyxia for that fight and 95% definitely beats 90%. I'll have to make that change back again. And use the Alt #: + notation to cover it.

Farmer Nishi: I think you missed that you don't start with the carry pet now, so "Pump > swap to Tonk > Ion Cannon" wont get your carry pet any XP.

Ah, I did miss that. But I'm also not sure why you went that way.

I really need to hammer this out again because IIRC using the alternative was better because if you get hit with a Sunlight + 2 un-buffed Solar Beams and one of them crits you can lose your Strider. Using the posted strat makes it take 1 turn longer but is immune to that issue (and I like to avoid RNG as much as I can). However, if either strategy misses with a Pump release you're likely in deep trouble.

[Yamum]

I think the most difficult part here would be deciding what level of risk constitues "better RNG".

Whatever is better on net. That's going to take a lot of time to determine, so its good to have the community test the different setups.