Interesting new pet changes theyve snuck in

[Luciandk]

Call Lightning has seen a HUGE change. Bonus Lightning damage is only 29(for Yeti, 34 for sunreaver) but during Lightning mechanical attacks does 25% more damage. So for non mechs it's a nerf. And for mech attacks I guess a huge buff.

Um, what? What are you talking about? Lol...nowhere in these changes is Lightning Storm cited.

He probably mixed it up with another ability. Call Lightning is unchanged.

[Vek]

Lol. My bad then. Im old and confused. But I was certain that the Lightning damage was much higher and that the 25% mech damage didn't exist. With that said, I am easily confused. Just felt that the damage was too low during a battle just now which prompted me to look closer at the buff. Scratch my Huge buff comment then.

By the way. Spiked Skin worked nicely during Lightning.

[Ligre]

Rapid Fire appears to have gotten a slight damage nerf from 112 to 98.

I think you mean a buff...from 98 - 112. I checked on it last night.

[Beardydan]

It's kinda weird that they buffed [ability]Quake[/ability] but not [ability]Tympanic Tantrum[/ability].

Other than Goz Banefurys pet Amythel, any tamer pets use the buffed abilites?

[Luciandk]

Rapid Fire appears to have gotten a slight damage nerf from 112 to 98.

I think you mean a buff...from 98 - 112. I checked on it last night.

Updated the OP. I couldve sworn it was the other way around. Dont have a 25 peddlefeet, just find it too silly.

[Arshadi]

Updated the OP. I couldve sworn it was the other way around. Dont have a 25 peddlefeet, just find it too silly.

Peddlefeet doesn't look so silly when he's melting Dragonkin down! But I'm biased; I have always been fond of the little guy.

[Jerebear]

It's kinda weird that they buffed [ability]Quake[/ability] but not [ability]Tympanic Tantrum[/ability].

Other than Goz Banefurys pet Amythel, any tamer pets use the buffed abilites?

Wastewalker Shu's pet uses quake and it indeed increased every round. It look like it went up more than 12% (16ish to 35ish to 46ish on the back row pets), but I didn't sit down and take valid data cause I was aiming for 18 tamers in an hour under both buffs (so no time to write stuff down). Plus it was under sandstorm, so that could have affected how I viewed the results.

Ion Goldbloom's magic pet had a buff that mirrored adrenal glands, but since it isn't an ability that warcraftpets lists, I don't know if it changed too.

[Beardydan]

Other than Goz Banefurys pet Amythel, any tamer pets use the buffed abilites?[/quote]

While in lfr queue I decided to check this instead of being lazy :p

[ability]Quake[/ability]:
[pet]Pounder[/pet], Wastewalker Shu in dread wastes
[pet]Hatewalker[/pet], Zoltan in Felwood

[ability]Nocturnal Strike[/ability]
[pet]Blizzy[/pet], Stone Cold Trixxy in Winterspring

[ability]Hawk Eye[/ability]
[pet]Eyegouger[/pet] Bill Buckler in The Cape of Stranglethorn

[ability]Crouch[/ability]
[pet]Dramaticus[/pet], Narok in Nagrand

[ability]Adrenal Glands[/ability]
[pet]Amythel[/pet], Goz Banefury in Twilight Highlands

[ability]Spiked Skin[/ability]
[pet]Gorespine[/pet], BoF Dreadwastes
[pet]Mutilator[/pet], Wastewalker Shu in dread wastes

So Wastewalker Shu got a big buff :p

[3wd]

Oh, that Crouch buff. Everyone was expecting a Death-adder nerf but he gets buffed instead. Does that mean death-adder will have %50 damage reduction buff whole fight? (Since he can ignore 2 attacks with blind)

This is a very interesting point.

I am actually thinking many people will try crouch now and giving up puncture especially if they use the adder to be more of an utility pet such as in a valk team.

[Luciandk]

Oh, that Crouch buff. Everyone was expecting a Death-adder nerf but he gets buffed instead. Does that mean death-adder will have %50 damage reduction buff whole fight? (Since he can ignore 2 attacks with blind)

This is a very interesting point.

I am actually thinking many people will try crouch now and giving up puncture especially if they use the adder to be more of an utility pet such as in a valk team.

Ive mainly used the Death Adder as a staller pet, and being able to cast Crouch before a big attack lands is invaluable. And with blinding poison and the change, you can pretty much keep it up permanently. While whittling down foes with vicious fang and building up to a huge hitter.

[Adezero]

I was considering using vicious fang and crouch over poison fang and puncture wound.

The buildup of vicious fang might do a lot of damage, but the poison fang dot does some pretty nasty damage if your opponent switches pets often.

[Ziboo]

Thanks for the information. I've never used crouch much or croak, but will have to try those out now.

[Poofah]

I am actually thinking many people will try crouch now and giving up puncture especially if they use the adder to be more of an utility pet such as in a valk team.

The only downside is that the cooldowns don't mesh well. Blinding Poison at 3 turns means the opponent only spends 2 turns non-blinded, but Crouch now covers 4 turns (if the snake is faster). So you can't really use both of them optimally because Blind will come off cooldown while Crouch is still up, and you'll have to choose between wasting turns of the Crouch buff (because the opponent can't hit you anyway) versus not using Blind on cooldown.

With new Crouch, there's a few theoretical cycles you could use. To maximize efficiency, you can Blind/attack/Crouch/attack/attack/attack/repeat: this a 6 turn cycle in which you attack 4 times and are hit 4 times for 50% damage (2 full attacks). Or you could try using your best abilities on cooldown -- Blind/attack/Crouch/attack/Blind/attack/attack/Crouch/Blind/attack/attack/attack/repeat. This is a 12 turn cycle in which you attack 7 times and the opponent hits you 2x for full damage, and 4x for 50% damage, or 4 full attacks. This is clearly less efficient overall, but it also frontloads the damage reduction in the early turns -- you only take 1 full attack's worth of damage in the first 6 turns (while also attacking 1 time less).

With old Crouch, these cycles would be more like this.

old efficient cycle -- Blind/attack/Crouch/attack/attack/repeat: this is a 5 turn cycle that yields 3 attacks, and you get hit 3 times for 50% dmg, ie for 1.5 full attacks.

old cooldown-spam cycle -- Blind/attack/Crouch/attack/repeat: this is a 4 turn cycle that yields 2 attacks, and you get hit 2 times for 50% dmg, ie for 1 full attack.

So if we normalize:

new efficient cycle -- 0.66 attacks per turn, 0.33 opponent attacks per turn.
new cooldown-spam -- 0.58 attacks per turn, 0.33 opponent attacks per turn.
old efficient cycle -- 0.60 attacks per turn, 0.30 opponent attacks per turn.
old cooldown-spam -- 0.50 attacks per turn, 0.25 opponent attacks per turn.

Obviously you will end up using Blind and Crouch tactically in many cases, so these numbers are theoretical maxima. But it's worth noting that the Crouch 'buff' is actually an overall nerf to DAH's theoretical survivability, due to the way the cooldowns now conflict. But obviously the difference is not enormous, and the upside is that you have to cast Crouch less often, leaving you more turns to attack.

The buildup of vicious fang might do a lot of damage, but the poison fang dot does some pretty nasty damage if your opponent switches pets often.

DAH is potentially a great pet to use a DoT, since you spend so many turns using defensive cooldowns and not attacking. Let's compare those above cycles with Poison Fang versus Viscious Fang. Poison Fang is 15 base dmg, plus 5 base dmg per turn as a DoT (including the turn you apply it). Viscious Fang is 15 base dmg, ramping 5 dmg per turn up to 25 max. So we get:

new efficient cycle with PF = Blind/15+5/Crouch+5/15+5/15+5/15+5/repeat(+5). This is 85 dmg on the first cycle and 90 dmg on later cycles, for 15 dmg per turn.
new efficient cycle with VF = Blind/15/Crouch/20/25/25 on the first cycle, or 85 damage. Then on subsequent cycles it's Blind/25/Crouch/25/25/25/repeat, which is 100 dmg or 16.66 dmg per turn.

new cooldown-spam cycle with PF = Blind/15+5/Crouch+5/15+5/Blind+5/15+5/15+5/Crouch+5/Blind+5/15+5/15+5/15+5/repeat(+5). This is 160 on the first cycle and 165 thereafter, or 13.75 dmg per turn.
new cooldown-spam cycle with VF = Blind/15/Crouch/20/Blind/25/25/Crouch/Blind/25/25/25/repeat. This is 160 on the first cycle (13.33 dmg per turn) and 175 dmg on subsequent cycles (14.6 dmg per turn).

So the difference is extremely minor. PF is very competitive with VF even at later turns. PF will suffer from shields and benefit from opponent swaps, but numerically there's not much to separate them.

[3wd]

I am actually thinking many people will try crouch now and giving up puncture especially if they use the adder to be more of an utility pet such as in a valk team.

The only downside is that the cooldowns don't mesh well.

Very well said, I totally agree your points after think it over.

[Poofah]

It's a pretty good change though. New Crouch is a buff for almost all Crouch users, since they will get more uptime for fewer casts. It's just a mild nerf in DAH's case because there's a superior defensive cooldown that Crouch now conflicts with. DAH can certainly afford a mild nerf, and all those poor critters/beasts with Crouch can probably use the buff.

Aside from Crouch, there aren't many impactful changes. Crit modifiers are terrible because crits are only +50% dmg. So for example new Hawk Eye (+75% crit for 3 attacks) is really just a +37.5% damage buff. Over 3 turns, this gives a cumulative benefit of 1.125 extra attacks, for the cost of 1 turn. Pretty much all of these crit-related changes just convert awful abilities into slightly-less-awful abilities. But they're all still irrelevant.

Spiked Skin is pretty interesting. At 69/51 on a 325 power pet, that would be 4 base dmg shield plus 3 base dmg reflect. Shell Shield/Sandstorm/etc are 5 base dmg shields, with the same duration. So Spiked Skin has some real potential on a high-power pet, especially if that pet can prolong itself via a heal. Sadly Purple Puffer has Spiked Skin in the same slot as its heal, so that's not ideal. But Untamed Hatchling might be fun to play with now, and Tiny Red Carp has the newly-buffed Healing Stream. They're both 289 power, which should be a 62 shield/46 reflect.

Healing Stream/Rebuild are now the same size as Healing Stream (30 base dmg) on the active pet, and in exchange for 1 extra round of cooldown, it heals 15 base dmg on same-family allies. 60 base dmg for one ability is a ton, so there's definitely some potential, but the restrictions are probably a bit too much--you have to play all-aquatic or all-mech, and you have to swap around a lot to get full benefit.

Quake and Rapid Fire are mild buffs to AoEs that nobody uses. This brings both of them up to the 'new' level of balanced AoE dmg (ie Acid Rain, which is 9 base dmg), versus the 'old' AoE (7 base dmg, such as Arcane Storm, Tidal Wave, etc). This is a good change but won't have much impact in the current game, because the current game favors stacking a long-cd AoE with Righteous Inspiration or other buff (e.g. Bonestorm, Avalanche, Thunderbolt, Armageddon, or Cyclone/Raindance). When and if spammable AoEs become part of a popular strategy, this change will be a lot more relevant.

Anzu's Blessing is a buff in theory but not in practice. The duration is one round less, making it less effective to cast and then swap. And the Dread Hatchling itself doesn't make good use of +25% accuracy, as its lowest accuracy move is 90%. Furthermore, they took away the UD attack in slot 1 -- now both spammables are flying type attacks. So unfortunately the poor CE pet just got lamer.

[Luciandk]

Im not sure I agree about Dread Hatchling being poor. It still have the excellent combo of Call Darkness and Nocturnal Strike with a LOT of power. (333)

But as I was mentioning earlier, Im starting to speculate that they are aiming to combo Anzu's Blessing with Magic Sword. Given the accuracy reduction to 75% and crit chance increased with 100%. Making damage buffs far more valuable, plus it shores up the poor accuracy.


Anzu's Blessing bears strong resemblance to [ability]Lucky Dance[/ability] or [ability]Uncanny Lucky[/ability]

[Poofah]

'Poor' as in 'unfortunate', because his signature ability is below par and won't get used. He is still excellent with NocStrike/Darkness as you say. But then he's just a SuperCrow. Rather lame for a CE pet. imo.

You're right that Anzu's is like Uncanny Luck/Lucky Dance. But those are mediocre abilities that are hardly ever played. And Anzu's actually gives less benefit numerically: it's just +25% dmg/+25% accuracy, versus Lucky Dance +50% accuracy/+25% crit (which is 'worth' +12.5% dmg).

I don't know the exact numbers on Magic Sword. On ptr it was 20 base dmg, 80% accuracy. So I'll assume it's now 22 base dmg/75% accuracy, since 5% accuracy costs 2 base dmg on all the other spammables. This seems tailor made to fit with Anzu's, as you said. So let's see how it measures up.

spamming Magic Sword is 0.75*22*1.5(because it always crits for 1.5x dmg) = 24.75 dmg per turn, on average.

Now let's try Anzu's, swap, spam Magic Sword until Anzu's runs out (3 more turns):

0, 0, 1.25*22*1.5, 1.25*22*1.5, 1.25*22*1.5 = 41.25*3 = 123.75. Which is 24.75 dmg per turn.

or, forget about Anzu's, and just Call Darkness, NocStrike, spam Shadow Talons for 3 turns. SuperCrow has 333 power, so this is

30, 40, 0.8*24, 0.8*24, 0.8*24 = 127.6 base / 2252 actual. 25.52 base per turn / 450 actual per turn.


Anzu's breaks even at best, basically. The only way to do better than break-even is to cast a low-accuracy DoT, then swap and cast Anzu's, so that you get a full 4 turns' of benefit from the buff. The only popular +accuracy/+dmg buff is Raindance, and it pairs with Cyclone for this same reason. So let's build CloneDance with Anzu's instead.

Cyclone alone: 7 base dmg, 35% accuracy, 3 targets, lasts 6 rounds. The total expected dmg is 7*0.35*3*6 = 44.1.

Cyclone, swap, Raindance: this gives 2 turns of regular Cyclone, then 3 turns of buffed Cyclone, and one last turn of regular Cyclone. 3 regular turns is 7*0.35*3*3 = 22.05 dmg, and the 3 buffed turns are 85% accuracy and 25% crits, so it's 0.75*7*0.85*3*3=40.16 (regular hits) plus 0.25*1.5*7*0.85*3*3=20.08 (crits), for a total of 82.3 base dmg. Add on the 20 base heal from Raindance and it's a total benefit of 102.3 base dmg.

Cyclone, swap, Anzu's: Anzu's lasts 1 turn longer, so we get 2 turns of regular Cyclone, then 4 turns of buffed Cyclone. 2 regular turns is 7*0.35*3*2 = 14.7 dmg. The 4 buffed turns are 1.25*7*0.6*3*4 = 63 dmg. So in total you get 77.7 base dmg.

They learned from Lucky Dance that a longterm buff with no upfront benefit doesn't get played. Pet battles are just too fast to wait 4 turns to get your damage back, and swapping has a huge cost. Modern buffs like Raindance have an upfront benefit and they play out over a shorter term, and they actually get played. So it's disappointing to see them go back to the 'old' style of buff for Anzu's. It's predictably bad, and there's many patches' worth of experience to help predict that by now.

[Liopleurodon]

Brand new late addition! https://twitter.com/TheCrafticus/status ... 7786163200

For the non-clickers, they hotfixed Sandstorm (will hotfix? it's hard to say from that context and I haven't tried it personally) to shield elementals again. If so, Shu's middle pet is making out like a freaking BANDIT this patch.

[Undeadgoat]

. . . OK, having just written a blog post that covered abilities that were likely to be changed, also thanks to some old stuff that Wowhead hadn't quite cleared out of its system yet, I *think* I have a few more precise old tooltips that nobody's pasted here yet--however obviously with healing & damage numbers ofc it's hard to be sure you're looking at an actual tweak and not a different breed or rarity.

First and foremost, I think Nature's Ward has had its healing value increase slightly as well as a wording change?

Both these values were copy/pasted from the main [ability]Nature's Ward[/ability] page on Wowhead, level 25 values I don't know what breed:

OLD:Restores 137 health every round for 5 rounds. While healing, your type is transformed into Elemental.
NEW: Restores 157 health every round for 5 rounds. While healing, your type is transformed into Elemental.

Then this other stuff is more just clarification to some things that have already been said here & not actual "new info":

Croak
OLD: Reduces the enemy pet’s critical strike chance by 25% for 4 rounds
NEW: Deals 280 Aquatic damage and reduces the enemy pet's critical strike chance by 100% for 4 rounds.

Hawk Eye
OLD: Increases your critical strike chance by 25% for 4 rounds
NEW: Increases your critical strike chance by 75% for 3 rounds

Healing Stream (I pulled new level 1 values from Wowhead to compare with the old level 1 value already in this thread):
OLD: "Heals itself and any aquatic allies, restoring 15 health." (at level 1) / 4 round cooldown
NEW: "Calls upon the healing streams, restoring 38 health to the user, and half that to other aquatic allies." (at level 1)/ 3 round cooldown


I think part of the Wowhead cache cleared or updated WHILE I WAS TRYING TO PULL THIS TOGETHER so, yay. (Old info had still been visible in the hover tooltips.) Still don't understand why these changes aren't documented. :/ Is there any database site out there that keeps old spell info around?

[Vek]

Healing Stream/Rebuild are now the same size as Healing Stream (30 base dmg) on the active pet, and in exchange for 1 extra round of cooldown, it heals 15 base dmg on same-family allies. 60 base dmg for one ability is a ton, so there's definitely some potential, but the restrictions are probably a bit too much--you have to play all-aquatic or all-mech, and you have to swap around a lot to get full benefit.

Azure Crane Chick actually has Healing Stream, so you don't need to go all Aquatic since the initial heal is not Aquatic dependant. But this is the only exception I think. Rebuild has no non-mechanical pets, could have been nice with a gnome/goblin type pet.