Thoughts on the new 5.4 pets

[Aeolyn]

Well, I got a Kovok. It's H/H breed which I never see any conversation about. Looking at the numbers, it seems like the difference between the AoE power between H/P and the other breeds is a pretty small gap, so I'm kind of wondering why H/H is seemingly the hated breed.

Is H/H actually subpar enough to justify being ignored in all Kovok conversation?

Thing is that Kovok mainly spends his time switched to the backrow until you wait for pheromones to become available again, thusly having less need for a huge health pool. Theres good arguments for either HP or HS. But HH is nothing special in comparision.

Wouldn't I have enough bulk to justify staying out long enough to throw poison and Puncture around a bit? I agree that the extra health is wasted if I'm constantly in the back row but that seems a product of the other breeds needing to hide.

[Luciandk]

Well, I got a Kovok. It's H/H breed which I never see any conversation about. Looking at the numbers, it seems like the difference between the AoE power between H/P and the other breeds is a pretty small gap, so I'm kind of wondering why H/H is seemingly the hated breed.

Is H/H actually subpar enough to justify being ignored in all Kovok conversation?

Thing is that Kovok mainly spends his time switched to the backrow until you wait for pheromones to become available again, thusly having less need for a huge health pool. Theres good arguments for either HP or HS. But HH is nothing special in comparision.

Wouldn't I have enough bulk to justify staying out long enough to throw poison and Puncture around a bit? I agree that the extra health is wasted if I'm constantly in the back row but that seems a product of the other breeds needing to hide.

Considering Pheromones is Kovok's strongest move, you are better off protecting him as long you can and saving your burst to finish off a straggler. Though I sometimes open up with Poison Fang, Pheromones, Black Claw before switching. Then both front and back pets is melting. And they switch out the Clawed pet, it takes even more damage from Pheromones!

[Poofah]

Is H/H actually subpar enough to justify being ignored in all Kovok conversation?

If I were going to build the Kovok/Blossoming Ancient/Crawdad team, I'd pick HH Kovok. For Kovok(AoE only)/AoE/dedicated sweeper, I'd prefer HP, but HH would be fairly interchangeable; and for Kovok(AoE+sweep)/AoE/sweeper, I'd highly prefer HS.

I think the main issue is that a H/S Kovok is simply not fast enough for it to truly matter. For example the Jademist Dancer as S/S only comes at 317 speed, vs the normal S/S speed being 325. And making the P/S a much better choice.

I agree, sort of, in theory. Relying on a 305 speed pet to be a lone sweeper would be pretty bad. But when 305 is your 2nd-fastest pet, it becomes a lot more relevant. Now you can have a truly fast pet to trump their fastest pet, and Kovok only needs to beat their 2nd-fastest.

By analogy, consider a 5.3 swap team of SS Fiendish Imp/Giant Bone Spider/X. If Bone Spider (289) were your fastest swap pet, that would be pretty bad. But when you have 333 speed Imp to match up with their fastest pet, the Spider can now pick fights with the 2nd/3rd fastest, which are much less likely to be 300+.

Also, Kovok's base damage/coefficients are just really high. That means that power gives him a disproportionate benefit, but it also means that his damage without additional power is already very high. So power is potentially not worth investing in further because it might be overkill, depending on how much benefit you can get by investing elsewhere. Pheromones is 1120 (HS) or 1236 (HP); Puncture Wound with beast passive up is 700 (HS) or 773 (HP). The extra damage is significant, but if your sweeping Kovok gets matched against a pet in the 276-305 range, then the HS would have an extremely large advantage over HP. And you're making this matchup a lot more likely to happen when you have a 325+ pet in reserve for their top-speed pet.

[Abashera]

Dont have it yet, but ive been considering [pet]Blackfuse Bombling[/pet], what breed that would be great for it. P/P stands out, as it peaks at 341 power and comming with the [ability]Armageddon[/ability] move for massive aoe damage. It is a base 20 attack and would yield about 350 damage to every opposing pet, which should make it an excellent lead pet.

Depends on what you're using it for. For straight out, constant DPS, P/P seems to be the better choice.

But for straight out burst damage, the H/H Blackfuse has the highest health of all "Explode" pets, making it a must have to any explode team.

Personally, though I don't have a Blackfuse yet, I will get the H/H first tp pair up with my H/H Minfernal for explode (unless I see a good deal (steal) on a P/P Blackfuse first).

[Luciandk]

Dont have it yet, but ive been considering [pet]Blackfuse Bombling[/pet], what breed that would be great for it. P/P stands out, as it peaks at 341 power and comming with the [ability]Armageddon[/ability] move for massive aoe damage. It is a base 20 attack and would yield about 350 damage to every opposing pet, which should make it an excellent lead pet.

Depends on what you're using it for. For straight out, constant DPS, P/P seems to be the better choice.

But for straight out burst damage, the H/H Blackfuse has the highest health of all "Explode" pets, making it a must have to any explode team.

Kinda outdated comment of mine, look ahead in the thread. Ive grown to like the H/H for the stronger explode and better survivability. PP just feels fragile and Armageddon is hard to use to full potential.

[Aeolyn]

I don't have a Blackfuse at all but it seems to me like Armageddon pushes you too hard in the direction of having to use it early while all 3 enemy pets are still alive. Explode can be used to revenge-kill the first, second, or third pet cleanly without "wasting" any damage potential due to an enemy already being dead.

This is one case where I would happily take the H/H or maybe even the H/P over the P/P version.

[Luciandk]

I don't have a Blackfuse at all but it seems to me like Armageddon pushes you too hard in the direction of having to use it early while all 3 enemy pets are still alive. Explode can be used to revenge-kill the first, second, or third pet cleanly without "wasting" any damage potential due to an enemy already being dead.

This is one case where I would happily take the H/H or maybe even the H/P over the P/P version.

Yep, Tactically inflexible and Armageddon looses oomph as soon an enemy pet goes down or disappears. Like a Haunting Valkyr. Though as I said earlier, I speculate that armageddon could have use with Murkalot and his Righteous Inspiration. But start with bombling to let it take some hits and use its Flame Jet, before swapping it out for Murkalot, whom then launches it back in, going Nuclear! Mainly so you dont trade 1481 life for 2168 enemy team damage, but preferably something closer to 2-300 life for 2168 enemy team damage done.

[Moritsume]

Going to give H/P Kovok, S/S Death Adder, and B/B Unborn Valk a shot. I like the synergy this team has, if my opponent has a Valk/Kovok of their own I'm opening Adder to Blind the Pheromones(which puts it on cd lol!) or Blind 2 Haunts. From there I can swap to Valk to begin Curse/Haunt into a Black Claw->Pheromones. I can bring the Adder back in to Blind and fire off Puncture Wounds.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, H/S Kovok and an S/S Death Adder Hatchling sounds deliciously nasty now. Though what skills would you use for both?

[Ligre]

I would see no reason to deviate from the typical Poison Fang on both the Adder and Kovok. If the opponent thinks he's gonna get slick and start swapping to try and avoid Punctures, you've got some insurance there. There IS merit in taking Body Slam for Kovok, but unless you know you're gonna be facing flyers, I say don't bother. Keep the DoTs rolling as best you can, cuz it can only help strengthen Pheromones if/when they do start sneak-swapping. That actually gives YOU more swap freedom, by proxy, especially if you have the faster breeds (S/S Adder + H/S Kovok).

As for a 3rd pet...well...can't really go wrong with a Jademist Dancer (breed is inconsequential here, IMO...but the faster, the better I say). It's open to interpretation though. Why not a Valk? Rabbit perhaps? P/P Emperor Crab for opposing Valks/Fossilized Hatchlings? Some Magic annoyance (Lantern, Wisp)?

[Moritsume]

Hrm, H/S Kovok and an S/S Death Adder Hatchling sounds deliciously nasty now. Though what skills would you use for both?

H/S would definitely work better than H/P for this team but I haven't been able to buy another Kovok yet. I was leaning towards Poison Fang/Pheromones/Black Claw on Kovok, Claw instead of Puncture to make the Adders Puncture/Valks Haunt a little heftier. Adder was looking like Fang/Puncture/Blinding Poison. Blinding Poison is just too strong with 341 speed. I almost toyed with Siphon Life instead of CoD on the Valk, but I'm not sure if it heals the Valk while Haunting, and if its worth not using CoD.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, seems to me that Unborn Valkyrs infact is keeping aoe teams (Kovok) from getting out of hand, due to their massive presence in the metagame. With only 1 effective target in the backrow, the power of aoe teams is amputated.

Definitely a pet arms-race or power creep going on.

[Poofah]

I'm a little worried about it too. If the best counter to Pheromones is Valk, that's a problem, especially because Kovok and Valk fit together nicely in a single team. Emperor Crab has emerged as a very good Valk counter, but playing him puts a big constraint on your team. And I haven't seen many great ideas about Kovok counters. Minefield mechs? Enchanted Broom? Sandstorm? None of these seems good enough, especially when Droplet of Y'Shaarj is a popular Kovok sidekick and counters them all fairly directly.

About power creep in general though: I think its inevitable, and necessary. It's a natural consequence of Bliz learning how to design pets. In 5.0 they didn't know how to make a moveset fair while also making it good, so we got hyper-conservative pets with Maul but no bleed (for example), or slow pets with Dodge, etc etc. It's a process. As time goes on, they make better pets, then people figure out how to handle those pets, then they make better pets again. There's plenty of examples of pets that seemed too strong initially, and then people learned to handle them and they're no big deal anymore (Kun-Lai Runt, Lil Rag). And of course there's pets that were actually too strong and needed nerfs (FFF, Flayer/Anubisath).

The problem right now is Pheromones and Haunt: too much damage, too convenient, and too hard to avoid. The power level went up in general in 5.4, but these 2 abilities are enormous outliers. Ie the base damage of 'good' movesets went from roughly 24 per move to 28 per move. But Haunt is 50 and Pheromones is 80, with insufficient drawbacks.

As examples for the above, Droplet of Y'Shaarj seems like a very good moveset, but Acid Rain/Dreadful Breath is only 27 damage per move. Jademist Dancer doing Geyser/Rain Dance/Steam Vent/Steam Vent is 47 damage per move, but it's a rigid 4 turn sequence and easily avoided/disrupted.

[Shagina]

I think the way to deal with Kovok is not to mitigate his aoe, but to take him out quickly. You want pets that hit hard and fast, and with a way to keep him out (lots of swaps or muddy weather perhaps). Came across Kovok, Droplet of Y'Shaarj and a third aoe pet the other day (nexus whelpling or something along those lines) and I did beat the team with enough margin to say I could take a positive W/L vs the setup (65 -35 or something, RNG is always hard to predict). The trick was to prevent as much of the pheromones as possible through force swaps, blinding poison and the threat of massive nukes forcing him to swap on his own (was playing SS imp, bone spider and SS death adder). Once I got him on the defensive and he couldn't spread aoe like he wanted to it just came down to not making mistakes.

That being said I agree that he is probably too good right now. In the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing and with a different setup (I think you would want at least 1 support, not 3 aoe pets) he will be taking a lot of easy wins. Val'kyrs seem to be the only straight forward efficient counter right now, but pair the guy with a magical crawdad and even the val'kyr will have little effect.

[Luciandk]

Starting to see 2x Kovok+Creepy Crate teams. Quite nasty with the aoe, plus having a force swap in Death Grip.

Played a bit more with Droplet of Yshaarj, not entirely sure what people see in it. Its quite fragile and locked in place compared to Kovok and goes down rather fast.

On the other hand I am absurdly impressed by the Death Adder Hatchling S/S. Using Vicious Fang, Crouch and Blinding Poison. Its suprisingly durable thanks to the 2 defensive moves, allowing it build up Vicious Fang to be a nasty hitter. Was able to take out a Darkmoon Tonk 1on1, as well Ragnaros in another battle.
Edit: Been soloing several other pets with it. Its definitely an upper tier pvp pet. -VERY- useful!

Am I wrong, or does [ability]Vicious Fang[/ability] keep the damage increases even when taking a break in using it?

[Ligre]

You're not wrong. As of 5.4, the Vicious Fang keeps its buff when not in use.

[Luciandk]

You're not wrong. As of 5.4, the Vicious Fang keeps its buff when not in use.

Hrm, now you say it, Arcane blast seems noticeably stronger too.

Definitely makes Arcane Blast using dragons worth revisitting, such as Lil Tarecgosa or Nether Faerie Dragon. Though I think the later might be a bit too fragile. LT is hp breed and can sit and nuke, which should quickly grow a nasty punch once the 50% enemy hp mark is reached, and when she gets low, a final going away present in Surge of Power. I just wish her third slot was better.


Edit: Death Adder Hatchling looks to work quite well with a Valkyr. Open with the Valkyr, the expected Curse of Doom and Haunt combo, getting a free swap to the DAH, whom blinds the target and keeping them from retaliating and lowering damage with crouch while the Haunt and CoD runs its course.

[Luciandk]

Just recieved and leveled the [pet]Macabre Marionette[/pet] to 25. At initial glance it seems a bit disappointing, but looks can decieve.

Both slot 1 moves are 100% hit moves, thusly low damage. (309)

The slot 2 moves are Death and Decay and Siphon Life, both underwheming on their own.

The slot 3 moves is where it starts to get interesting. [ability]Dead Man's Party[/ability] is the first undead type stampede ability. While [ability]Bone Barrage[/ability] unfortunately is on the same slot for the pet, death and decay deals comparable dot damage with greater accuracy, but no initial burst damage.

Cast either of the slot 2 abilities prior to Dead Man's Party to double their damage while they tick. Though from testing, the healing component of Siphon Life is -NOT- doubled, due to the healing amount being hardcoded into the skill and not dependent on the damage done. Like with Siphon Anima.

While Siphon Life arguably deals the highest damage of the slot 2 skills, you have to recast it each time you end a Dead Mans Party, whereas Death and Decay lasts for 9 turns and it cant be swapped out of. So while less damage per turn, it adds up the longer the Macabre Marionette is able to spam Dead Man's Party. And being undead with the H/P breed you can last for a while, albeit having rather high base speed for an undead pet so you may not always be the slowest pet.

Imo, the Marionette is one of the better stampede type pets due to its durability - fairly high hp and being undead. Though I concede the damage level is not on par with a [pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet]. But bringing it in undead flavor is quite unique.

Edit:
On the other hand using [ability]Bone Barrage[/ability] and rolling either of the slot 2 skills allows you a bit more burst and letting you spam your slot 1 skill as well without being locked in place. It might possibly be higher damage than the above.

Edit 2:
Just realized that the Macabre Marionette is a doublecounter to Dragonkin. Undead taking less damage from them, and having a humanoid attack. Being the second undead with a humanoid attack, but [ability]Macabre Maraca[/ability] is much more spammable than the [ability]Call Darkness[/ability] used by [pet]Scourged Whelpling[/pet] and not reducing your own efficiency.

[Ligre]

It's just too bad that the Marionette is completely (and I DO mean completely) neutered by Sandstorm. Found that out the hard way. Gonna have to do some more team design tweaking to get this pet to work, heh.

[Luciandk]

It's just too bad that the Marionette is completely (and I DO mean completely) neutered by Sandstorm. Found that out the hard way. Gonna have to do some more team design tweaking to get this pet to work, heh.

All dotters have that problem, which is why you bring a weather of your own to counter sandstorm.

Edit: Call Lightning is a massive buff to dots.