Closing thoughts on the Celestial Tournament.

[Poofah]

The firefly is faster than Xu-fu so when he dies you usually have 2 rounds with the debuff up and call lighting mechanical buff still in effect.

Double-damage debuffs like swarm/stampede/howl are bugged with the 50% damage reduction buff on the celestials and beasts of fable: instead of resulting in 200% * 50% = 100% dmg, they yield 150%, which is why Chrominius/Water Spirit makes the BoF so trivial. I use this trick too -- I'm just pointing out that the fights can be quite a bit harder for somebody who doesn't know the trick, and it's not common knowledge or apparent from the tooltips.

The pets are amazing that you can get, but the biscuit and hotdogs are woefully inadequate for the investment you put in to do the tourney.

I agree, but I'm also kind of glad that I don't feel like I need to do the tourney every week any more. I'm pretty burnt out on the Pandaria tamers since they're the only reasonable way to level pets; if the tourney had a really compelling reward, I suspect I'd be burnt out on that too.

[Kpb321]

The firefly is faster than Xu-fu so when he dies you usually have 2 rounds with the debuff up and call lighting mechanical buff still in effect.

Double-damage debuffs like swarm/stampede/howl are bugged with the 50% damage reduction buff on the celestials and beasts of fable: instead of resulting in 200% * 50% = 100% dmg, they yield 150%, which is why Chrominius/Water Spirit makes the BoF so trivial. I use this trick too -- I'm just pointing out that the fights can be quite a bit harder for somebody who doesn't know the trick, and it's not common knowledge or apparent from the tooltips.

I'm not sure it's a bug as it is simply applying them in an additive rather than multiplicative manner and it isn't unique to the tournament. It's true even for regular pets with things like crouch. It may not be obvious but it is how things work across the board which makes me thing it isn't a bug and it is far from the only thing that isn't obvious from the tool tips in pet battling such as shield that reduce dmg by X being applied before other bonus dmg multipliers.

[Azrile]

Yeah, I think 12 weeks was about right. If there were better rewards, then it would feel more mandatory.

I didn´t mean to sound so negative in my OP. I think I had to actually reset the tournament one time, and then I had one other time where I won Xu with my 3rd team by a miracle, but both of those were early weeks. I guess what I was just more trying to express is that there isn´t any gameplay to doing it. You don´t think, you don´t react, you just follow your pattern and if he crits, or you miss, it screws it up.

Maybe it is that the devs have gone the wrong way with some of the trainers. They balance it so tight with the expectation that you know what move is coming. A difference would be the Ram ( 3rd pet) in the Kun Lai daily quest. About 10-20% of the time, he does a completely different order to his attacks, which you can still beat if you react to what he is doing.

[Tiggindy]

For me, the CT was only interesting the first week.

I went in the first day, was getting frustrated after using up over 100 pets, because (as others said) if you had something that almost worked and didn't, you would have to leave and start over again. I didn't do that. I just kept plugging away, and I think I was nearly "out" of mechanical pets. Then again, part of the reason I could even do that was because I had pretty much every pet at max level going into it.

After the first week, it was just a matter of refining strats, or reading what others have done, and it was simply another weekly chore. And it was definitely a chore because it was mandatory (no one is going to not do it because pets) and not only was it 'rinse and repeat', it was repeating with at least one backup team for a couple fights because a single miss (or crit on you) meant you lost the fight. I did the minimum 10 weeks to get the pets, and have no plans to ever touch it again. Then again, I have no need of the other rewards, since it's fast enough to level new pets already (since they come one or two at a time).

[Quintessence]

I like the idea of implementing a "check point" of some sort into the CT. That would certainly make it less frustrating for newer battlers and less daunting.

I could see a few (and I mean "a few") complaints that a check point would trivialize the "challenge" of the tournie. But it's not as if we can't find healing work arounds already.

They could treat any changes to the tournament (or any pet end game) like they treat raiding. After a certain period of time, "nerfs" are implemented to make the content more accessible to a wider audience. Coming up on X months until the release of the next expansion? Implement that check point or some other nerf. It's not as if it needs to be this way right from the get-go. Satisfies both those that want the challenge and have no problem with the content, and those that aren't as inclined.

Overall, the CT was a good experiment of "end game" pet PVE. Hopefully developers will take what they've learned from the tournament and create new WoD end game pet content that's even better.

[Ruststorm]

They could treat any changes to the tournament (or any pet end game) like they treat raiding. After a certain period of time, "nerfs" are implemented to make the content more accessible to a wider audience. Coming up on X months until the release of the next expansion? Implement that check point or some other nerf. It's not as if it needs to be this way right from the get-go. Satisfies both those that want the challenge and have no problem with the content, and those that aren't as inclined.

Please no... oh please no... :O

[Quintessence]

Please no... oh please no... :O

It was just a thought. XD I'm sure there are other (better) ways to make end game content balanced and accessible.

[Peanutty]

Please no... oh please no... :O

It was just a thought. XD I'm sure there are other (better) ways to make end game content balanced and accessible.

I actually think this would be a good idea (the nerfs and the checkpoint/save point... ok the save point I'd just want for myself lol!) I know many people on this forum are pretty hardcore about pet battles, but that's not the majority of the player base. When I'm just standing around with one of my tournament pets out, I regularly get whispers asking, "How did you do it?" and "I spent hours in there and I'm just stuck, can you give me some tips?" So just because I thought it wasn't that bad, for many players it IS that hard. And even when I tell them WCP has strategies listed, a lot of times they just don't have the pets needed or don't understand about the breeds and such and they get frustrated that "fun side content" has turned into a grind.

I also think the "minimum 15 pets at level 25" was unrealistic in the sense that the some casual pet battlers took that to mean they could just walk in with 15 max pets and somehow eek out a win.

[Ishildur]

It's not really the difficulty of the tournament though. Sometimes you have a working team, except you were tired or distracted and pressed a wrong button for your usual sequence and usually it would be fine except you missed and they critted. Not a major deal except now you lost and have to start over again from scratch and do all 4 fights again. I was fine with that for the pets. I'd be fine with that for say 3 pet biscuits. It would be a bit too tedious for 2 biscuits though I might be tempted to do it a couple of times at least. But no way I'm doing all that effort for 1 biscuit.

[Kring]

I always wonder, why do people buy biscuits but not battle stones for the tournament reward? Do you really have all flyers, beasts and critters rare but not leveled to 25?

On the other side, doing all tamers takes me less than 1 hour and rewards me with 2-3 stones, some of these pets that rarely sell and about 2.5 pets leveled to 25. Which is 20-30 min for a stone, or 1 hour for a stone after exchanging it.

The tournament takes about 20 minutes with precreated teams and rewards 1/3 generic stone, or 1 stone per hour, nothing to sell and no leveled pet.

After getting all 4 pets from the tournament there's no reason to run it again, unless you've already completed all pet tamers that day and feel like some more PvE pet battles. The tournament is unrewarding, compared to tamers.

[Nikkip]

I hate this thing. Too much RNG base too it. I understand with any pet battle there is RNG BUT this is too much. I got the one pet (tiger) and just ready to give up and hope blizz makes these pets cageable

[Ishildur]

I always wonder, why do people buy biscuits but not battle stones for the tournament reward? Do you really have all flyers, beasts and critters rare but not leveled to 25?

Yup. I imagine not everyone is in the same situation but right now I keep couple of spare stones for whatever new pet is next and sell the rest, but since my entire collection is stoned and I've still 60 pets left to max, the biscuits are the better choice for spending for me. Even if I max the remaining 60, thinking ahead to Warlords I'll be continuing to get random stones from tamer dailies and wild battles but the big biscuits are limited to pvp weekly and buying with coins. They're simply a more limited commodity to me at least.

[Dawayn]

I always wonder, why do people buy biscuits but not battle stones for the tournament reward? Do you really have all flyers, beasts and critters rare but not leveled to 25?

Lol, yes, I do

And why on earth would I want more stones when I have already about 100 sitting in my bank.....

[Hemming]

I have only done the CT once, on the first day, with my toon Killiandeux and in spite of going into it blind I manage to complete it and get the achievement. About half of my 200 25's died in the process and there was more luck than skill involved. What turned me off to it was an issue I had when trying to leave the tournament. Due to a glitch I ended up having to log out and back in to leave the arena. When I did I was bounced back to the Shrine of Seven Stars and when I got back to Timeless Isle I was not able to turn in the quest and get the 3 coins. Instead I was offered the quest again. I went around and round with Blizz for almost 2 weeks trying to get the issue fixed but their final word was "We can see that you completed the Tournament, got the Achievement, and didn't get the coins but since you were offered the quest again you have a chance to get the 3 coins again so it wouldn't be fair to other players if we gave you the coins you earned". Of course it is not certain I would actually get the 3 coins you receive for the original quest if I did it again since I'd actually already completed it. I may only get 1 so I would not be able to get the first pet everyone else got after completing it the first time. I've pretty much stopped doing Pet Battles since then and worked on collecting dropped pets. I suppose a lot of people will think I overreacted and perhaps I did but in the 7 or 8 years I've been playing Warcraft this is really the only time I've felt that Blizz has dealt with an issue unfairly.

[Luciandk]

I always wonder, why do people buy biscuits but not battle stones for the tournament reward? Do you really have all flyers, beasts and critters rare but not leveled to 25?

Lol, yes, I do

And why on earth would I want more stones when I have already about 100 sitting in my bank.....

Same, got about 100 in my bank too. And not really feeling a need to turn everything in my collection blue, saving stones for interesting pets that needs them. And WoD is sure to add a ton, and having oodles of stones should cut down a lot on the time needed to farm rares of desirable pets.

[Tiggindy]

their final word was "We can see that you completed the Tournament, got the Achievement, and didn't get the coins but since you were offered the quest again you have a chance to get the 3 coins again so it wouldn't be fair to other players if we gave you the coins you earned".

First question is: How do they somehow think that it's fair to you that you didn't get what you earned, even though they can see that you earned it?

Second question: Was it only one petition?

Step 1: re-petition
Step 2: If you get a second person that stupid, ask for their full name (not in game handle) and their number (or employee ID, or some other kind of specific identifier). Then ask for the name of that person's manager and direct line/extension for that manager.
Step 3: Ask to speak to that manager.
Step 4: Repeat Step 1-3, only during step 2 if you haven't been contacted by a manager (or if you have, and they still play stupid), then when you petition, ask for the manager of manager.

[Hemming]

their final word was "We can see that you completed the Tournament, got the Achievement, and didn't get the coins but since you were offered the quest again you have a chance to get the 3 coins again so it wouldn't be fair to other players if we gave you the coins you earned".

First question is: How do they somehow think that it's fair to you that you didn't get what you earned, even though they can see that you earned it?

Second question: Was it only one petition?

Step 1: re-petition
Step 2: If you get a second person that stupid, ask for their full name (not in game handle) and their number (or employee ID, or some other kind of specific identifier). Then ask for the name of that person's manager and direct line/extension for that manager.
Step 3: Ask to speak to that manager.
Step 4: Repeat Step 1-3, only during step 2 if you haven't been contacted by a manager (or if you have, and they still play stupid), then when you petition, ask for the manager of manager.

I had several in-game chats with GM's and filed 3 different petitions between 9/10 and 10/5. At first they told me that they could see that I completed the Achievement and it shouldn't be a problem to fix the situation but they needed to investigate further. Nothing got done so I submitted another ticket. The answer to that one was that they could not see that I had actually done the tournament so they couldn't help me. I tried to explain that if they looked up Killiandeux in the Armory they would see that I had in fact completed the Achievement but the ticket got closed without any further action. The 3rd ticket was the one where they told me what I quoted in my first post. I gave up at that point. Since it's been 5 months since I submitted the first ticket I doubt it would do any good to pursue it. At some point I'll probably try the Tournament again as I'd like to add the pets to my collection and hopefully I'll actually get the 3 coins for the first try.

[Azrile]

I like the idea of implementing a "check point" of some sort into the CT. That would certainly make it less frustrating for newer battlers and less daunting.

I could see a few (and I mean "a few") complaints that a check point would trivialize the "challenge" of the tournie. But it's not as if we can't find healing work arounds already.

They could treat any changes to the tournament (or any pet end game) like they treat raiding. After a certain period of time, "nerfs" are implemented to make the content more accessible to a wider audience. Coming up on X months until the release of the next expansion? Implement that check point or some other nerf. It's not as if it needs to be this way right from the get-go. Satisfies both those that want the challenge and have no problem with the content, and those that aren't as inclined.

Overall, the CT was a good experiment of "end game" pet PVE. Hopefully developers will take what they've learned from the tournament and create new WoD end game pet content that's even better.

Yeah, It was definitely awesome that they added something challenging at the end of an expansion for pet battles. Maybe that is the other answer, if it was a one time thing like raiding. For me personally, once I killed Garrosh on normal, I was done raiding. I am not a gear hound, especially at the end of an expansion.

Maybe if the CT was more like a raid.. you killed 2 tamers, then one celestial (and got that pet), then 2 more tamers, then another celesital( and got that pet), etc.. so it would be possible to get all the pets the first week, if you were able to make it through all 12 tamers with intermittent celesitals.

[Simmias]

Fun for the first few days, my stream even get 300 or so people watching while I slogged my way through! But after that, it was very dissapointing. I killed all the tamers without using the cheesing strats, which is prob why I got so many viewers was raging quite hard due to some careless errors on my part. But after the first week I used the heavy damage bombs on the celestials just to get it over and done with, the stream suffered as a result and I lost interest. Have not been back since, not even to get the 50% biscuts.

Got my yak pet the first week, other pets don't really interest me. Anyone else felt this way?

[Tiggindy]

Got my yak pet the first week,

I went for the yak the first week too. Then the dragon, then crane, then tiger, IIRC.

other pets don't really interest me. Anyone else felt this way?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

There's loads of pets that don't interest me, moths, rats, roaches, crickets, squirrels, and others.

What's that got to do with pet collecting?
You get them, you upgrade them (if necessary), you level them. Otherwise you're not collection complete.
Currently, I'm eagerly looking forward to finding a winning lottery ticket so I can buy a murky code on ebay.