The Murkapult

[3wd]

The only few effective ways to counter a kovok/murk team, especially with a bone storm on the 3rd pet, will be a aquatic heavy team.

I lost a few times to a team with a crawdad, snarly and a singing sunflower. This team can be very tough to beat when played well for a murk team.

Basically the idea to beat a murk team with heavy aoe dmg : you need to have a lot of heal and HP to survive the burst dmg.

[Poofah]

Official forum is reporting that RI got hotfixed to better reflect the tooltip -- ie it is now a single-pet buff instead of a team-wide buff. [url=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10496969972?page=3]http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10496969972?page=3[/url] and [url=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10490649691]http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10490649691[/url]. This prevents (for example) Pheromones/swap/RI from causing double Pheromones damage, unless Kovok is swapped in by RI, which is generally not the case. However something like RI/Bonestorm or RI/Armageddon still produces 1462 or 2166 damage, respectively. So it's a good first step but obviously RI is still very potent.

This is the best possible nerf from their perspective, since it really is a bug fix. My guess is that they're being extra attentive since Murk is such a high-profile pet, and obviously they put effort into making his moveset unique and interesting. So this fix happened really fast, and I'm sure they're going to keep an eye on him, but I bet they're very reluctant to make any further changes. Any additional nerf couldn't be justified as a bug-fix and would be much more likely to upset the people who bought Murk based on his PTR info.

[Paggy]

From the murkalot teams I faced last week, there is a significant burst damage dealt + immunity. Trying to come up with possible counters involves, you have to do either of the following

1) aoe shield
2) aoe heals
3) trap + nuke murkalot

I wonder if a team that uses Mudslide from Skunky Alemental + Pandaren Earth Spirit + (Some Useful Third pet) be useful.

Does mudslide prevents RI from swapping?
Another possible counter is pet with grasp if that too can root murkalot. Essentially any tanky turtle can work or even we can find unusual use of tideskipper here?

Has anyone tried these strategies?

[Poofah]

The biggest issue with roots is that RI has priority (it's 1838 speed basically). So if they start Murk and you start a pet with a root, they can RI before you can root regardless of speed. If you can catch the Murk with a root, it will prevent RI from swapping: but more likely you will root the incoming pet instead.

Mudslide does prevent swapping, however it doesn't apply a root until a new pet swaps in. So again if they start Murk, then Mudslide will not prevent the new pet from swapping in (instead, it will root the new pet).

Basically, roots alone is not enough -- you need additional threats or tricks.

A good case is Giant Bone Spider, with Bone Bite, Web, and Death Grip. This is a neat matchup:

Murk chooses RI; Spider chooses Web -- a new pet swaps in with a double-damage buff and gets rooted (and beats the heck out of the spider).

Murk chooses Shieldstorm; Spider chooses Web -- Web goes first; Murk gets webbed and the spider eats him.

Murk chooses RI; Spider chooses Death Grip -- RI goes first, the new pet swaps in, then Death Grip swaps it back out (probably for Murk). Happy spider.

Murk chooses Shieldstorm; Spider chooses Death Grip -- Death Grip goes first and the spider swaps out the tasty Murk for something a lot meaner. Sad spider.

[Aldrahn]

Aside from experienced battlers though,there has been an influx of newcomers farming wins using Murkalot.
90% if not more of them,almost always go Shieldstorm into Righteous Inspiration,so atleast the Bone Spider is good enough for those...or as someone posted on the EU forums,an uncommon Creepy Crate(though it being uncommon kinda defeats the purpose of a strong team,but atleast it might discourage some).

The fix is welcome though,Kovok into Murkalot was kinda over the top.

[Brisela]

You I do agree at first I was very concern that bliz mesding the quality of an expensive pet
But then for new comers dpend 40 and start winning 90 percent of time is unfsir to vetd
I mysrlf have finished all bliz pet achievements 11/12 and 5000 pvp title was already earned before 5.4
So for me tp wprk really hard for another 5k pvp wins having to face a murlac kovok team is frastrating
But then again everyone shoild have an awesome murlot pet here and care alot tobwin pvp
So we are battlimg on ssme umique advantage.
Not necessarily sonce the time I queued level 25 battle witj my all time wimniest team 9/10 pre 5.4
Against murklot bone shield hatchling and pandaren mech drahonling I pulled. Win and that wad the first encounter
The guy using the murk was very good but you need to remember I have over 20k pvp pve batyles so I feel like I know ypur nextove is and plus 2 ps hawslks and a unborn buffered vs a humanoid

Brisela

[Luciandk]

A good nerf to murkalot, which really was a bugfix, it was clearly unintended to buff everything.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, I wonder..

Murkalot+Unborn Valkyr+Pandaren Water Spirit.

Surely you could ensure a timing so both Geyser and Whirlpool detonates just as you use RI to swap in the water spirit, while the unborn is 'dead' to not interfere.

[Shagina]

Predictable as hell and murk offers no advantage over, say, Chrominius in that scenario. Murkalot is a support pet, with a dead valk and the Pandaren Water Spirit left, you're stuck with a pretty poor matchup for the opponents two remaining pets (that¨'s if he actually soaked the nuke, far more likely is him blocking it in some way).

[3wd]

I agree the valk + water spirit + murk combo is very predictable and will not work in most PVP battles.

If you want to use the idea of the double delay damage, I think the only pet will fit will be the frosty due to it's high HP and undead racial.

Say you can have a good team as : frosty + murk + a around 1400 HP pet (such as a netherwhelp with 1400 HP and extremely good for late game 1V1)

So you start out with the frosty, cast an ICE tomb
switch to murk
inspiration, frosty coming back up, double damage on the ice tomb, 888 dmg, and your opponent stun for next round
100% speed + 100% extra dmg for frosty, the speed doesn't help much since the tomb stunned your opponent (unless its critter), and then cast a 100% hit blizzard will give you 370+370 = 740 dmg, if your opponent will not switch, 1628 will kill most of the pet, if they switch, you have your opponent 2 pet with half HP left. Not that bad.

But after this rotation, your option will be very limited, using the same rotation again will not be effective in late game as your opponent will have choice to use almost dead pet to eat the double dmg tomb or your buffed pet. So you maybe better off just let the frosty stay in the field fight till death and hopefully he can cast a second ice tomb.

this should be a decent team.

[Jerebear]

Righteous Inspiration itself isn't too horrible, but I wish it was a damage debuff on the enemy rather than a buff on the player (they could still get the speed as a buff).

I had my wife try Brisela's suggested counter (I didn't have two levelled up blighthawks), but I must be missing something as it wasn't as effective as I had hoped. We only had two tries on it though, so I am sure we were just missing something simple.

If RI will put a damage buff on your opponent, it will make this the worst skill in the game and while will you lose 1round and put a 100% dmg buff to your opponent?

I was saying Debuff, not buff. Think Shattered Defenses. Currently, since it is a buff, it means all outgoing damage (AoE) gets buffed, while being a debuff on the enemy means only the one pet gets double damage.

RI is a 'goes first' move, so what happens is this:

when you select RI as your move for the turn, Murk's speed goes to 1838, which is faster than the opponent unless they chose Surge/Deflection and are naturally faster. So RI swaps Murk out and swaps in your highest-current-health pet; your team gains the RI buff; and then the opponent's move for the turn goes off -- if it's an attack, it hits the newly swapped-in pet. So it's not a free swap the way Feign Death is. Then the next round begins, with your team having the RI buff until end of turn.

Given that and it seems like most do Shield then RI, would a pet like Tideskipper be somewhat viable? I was thinking since Tideskipper is slower, use Tidal Wave on the first round to eat the AoE shield, then plop clobber for the RI round so you end up stunning the swapped in pet? Not a full proof method (they could just skip the shield and go straight to RI to avoid this combo), but I am just playing around with some ideas to start with.

[Vek]

Come on.... I blind him and he still hits me 2 out of 3 with his hammer....fix this crap please.

[Brisela]

Jarebare
I queued and finshed today and won 9/10 and finished weekly
So I had won against the kovok murkalot team and I had same team rsn away twice

You need ti remember murk csn tske about 2.5 hits from ps hawk regulsr attack and they are fsster and they csn do big hesls
With unborn hsunt you are always able to heal off unborn. So eventuslly murk will wear out
The kovok will do some nice damg and noticed it will last 3.5 hits witj hawk and becuase of the h/p is kovok preferred pvp breed it is slower in thus setup. Eventually unborn csn always dot and hide in their body and doom them
Give hwaks high chance to attcj first svoid big attk and heal
Timing is importsnt and brred is importsnt
P/s haeks x2 and h/h unborn keep it up uou will see it is the strongedt team

Brisela

[Luciandk]

Jarebare
I queued and finshed today and won 9/10 and finished weekly
So I had won against the kovok murkalot team and I had same team rsn away twice

You need ti remember murk csn tske about 2.5 hits from ps hawk regulsr attack and they are fsster and they csn do big hesls
With unborn hsunt you are always able to heal off unborn. So eventuslly murk will wear out
The kovok will do some nice damg and noticed it will last 3.5 hits witj hawk and becuase of the h/p is kovok preferred pvp breed it is slower in thus setup. Eventually unborn csn always dot and hide in their body and doom them
Give hwaks high chance to attcj first svoid big attk and heal
Timing is importsnt and brred is importsnt
P/s haeks x2 and h/h unborn keep it up uou will see it is the strongedt team

Brisela

Brisela, you might want to edit that typonese, hard to read.

[3wd]

Someone told me after the hotfix of the inspiration, actually it also created a monster team.

Now that the inspiration buff is not a team wide buff anymore but rather will just stick on the pet you call up, well, if you murk will use inspiration and call in a valk.

In that round which your valk will have 100% speed and 100% dmg buff, cast the haunt, your haunt will have 100% dmg enhancement for the whole duration because it basically frozen all the buff & debuff on your valk at that round.

So the new monster team will be like this :

murk
valk
kovok

1. murk inspiration, unless you expect your opponent will cast skills to force you switch or dodge / evasion ect, then maybe use shieldstorm first. You valk will get hit this round.
2. valk, because you go first, you cast haunt, 100% hit chance.
3. switch in Kovok, you are facing a pet with double damage haunt, you want to kill the backrow, so cast poison fang first, and then switch to AOE or black claw, no need to get him out, just fight till death.
4. get your murk in, inspiration to your valk again.
5. with a heavy hitter of close to 800 dmg normal attack, you valk do not need to use haunt again and just kill your opponent easily.

[3wd]

to counter the 333 imp, just simply put the valk in the first slot, and the murk always use shielstorm first.

If the imp will switch you in the first round, he will get the valk directly. bingo.

If the imp will use anything else in the first round, then you will have shield on your valk, so the inspiration on second round will be totally immue to any switch skills.

[3wd]

Tried this team for some PVP,

Valk
Murk
Kovok

I can confirm that the inspiration buff will work on the whole duration of the haunt, and this team may not be as strong as the original design, but still is insane at the moment.

[Ligre]

Wow...that's really cheesy, and shame on Blizzard for allowing such a thing. Hopefully, this gets fixed. I really do not look forward to auto-deaths simply cuz the opponent's Valk is taking advantage of yet more lazy Murkalot buff coding.

[Maleric]

I feel like the murk/valk/kovok team can be countered by an aquatic with a shield, just like other valk teams. If you swap to a P/P emperor crab or a magical crawdad the turn the valk comes out, your pet shouldn't take more than 200 or so damage from the haunt. And unlike the standard valk teams, the murk versions don't have a spare pet slot to fit in a crow or another aquatic killer.

[3wd]

I feel like the murk/valk/kovok team can be countered by an aquatic with a shield, just like other valk teams. If you swap to a P/P emperor crab or a magical crawdad the turn the valk comes out, your pet shouldn't take more than 200 or so damage from the haunt. And unlike the standard valk teams, the murk versions don't have a spare pet slot to fit in a crow or another aquatic killer.

Yes you can counter this team with lots of aquatic pets, especially a crawdad because of the heals.

But this valk/murk/kovok team basically can destroy most of the other teams.

And I don't think Blizz can do anything about inspiration anymore, because the current state of sticking the buff to the called up pet is the correct setting, its just exactly match the unique setting of haunt - which will frozen your pet's buf/debuff status in that round.

Actually, other than the kovok, there is another very sneaky way to team up with the valk/murk with this setting.

Try this : Scalded Basilisk Hatchling

After the huant, switch in the basilisk, use Crystal Prison to stalk couple rounds, hit couple rounds, and then at the round when the haunt to wear off. use Feign Death, as long as you can control your valk to have the most health.

haha, next round you will see your valk standing in the front with the buff still, and you can do the whole thing again.

This is not as strong and safe as using a kovok, but it is still lots of fun.