Aki the Chosen

[Ashlataar]

Hopefully I'm not reposting or anything - new to the forums here!

I'm having some trouble with Aki. I'm using Level 25 Anubisath Idol as everyone recommends, bringing it out first and dispatching the critter without much problem (usually have about 75% HP once it's dead).

When the dragon comes out I use Deflection to avoid the storm attack, and after that I start Crushing. The problem is, the dragon's attacks are so powerful that it only takes my Idol to miss once and the dragon kills me. I've played about 5 matches with Aki and had the same result, so I don't understand how people say they are soloing her with the Idol?

Does this happen to anyone else? Is there something I'm missing?

[Anubishaman]

I use bonkers, death adder hatchling, and crow and its is pretty easy fight. bonkers can dodge and punch really hard the draggon, the other two are easy

[Rioriel]

I use:

[pet]Baby Ape[/pet] with Smash, Roar and Bananas. Time your attacks so that Bananas kills the grasshopper thing, leaving two turns of the debuff on her dragonling. Her second pet comes out and kills Baby Ape with Lightning Storm.

[pet]Kun-Lai Runt[/pet] with Takedown, Frost Shock, Deep Freeze. Frost Shock, THEN get a Takedown in, THEN Frost Shock may well kill it (or take it very low). Usually you'd do Shock, Freeze, Takedown something that won't swap out. See what works for you with the damage, either way you won't have much of an issue unless you miss.

[pet]Amber Moth[/pet] with Alpha Strike, Cocoon, Moth Dust. If her dragonling is stunned, she'll swap to her otter. Use the turn to switch to your Moth. You should be faster so get a Moth Dust in, and Cocoon when it dives. Just beat it up, and you'll have enough HP on your two pets left to finish off her Dragonling when it swaps back in.

Probably far better combinations, but I stick to what I know despite newer pets being available

[Digem]

Hopefully I'm not reposting or anything - new to the forums here!

I'm having some trouble with Aki. I'm using Level 25 Anubisath Idol as everyone recommends, bringing it out first and dispatching the critter without much problem (usually have about 75% HP once it's dead).

When the dragon comes out I use Deflection to avoid the storm attack, and after that I start Crushing. The problem is, the dragon's attacks are so powerful that it only takes my Idol to miss once and the dragon kills me. I've played about 5 matches with Aki and had the same result, so I don't understand how people say they are soloing her with the Idol?

Does this happen to anyone else? Is there something I'm missing?

Are you keeping stone skin up?
If so you should enter the battle with the dragon at full strength.
And reapply it one round before it falls off to make she it is always up.

Should be the first thing you apply versus the grasshopper.
It blocks all of its swarm attacks.
Humanoid healing will heal you up from the first round of attacks because the critter went first.
When you go into the first round against the water pet that is the last pet apply first round since you will miss anyway since it dives first round.

[Klaital]

You should never use sandstorm with idol against Aki, always use deflection, sandstorm just makes your idol die because it will miss all the time. Also make sure your idol is at full health before you kill the cricket, it can't do any damage to you while you have stoneskin up so you can wait for it to heal so you can hit it again and heal yourself to full with the humanoid racial, and make sure you refresh stoneskin just one turn before you finish off the cricket. Then against the dragon, deflection first, then just spam crush until the dragon is dead, don't refresh stoneskin against it. Then against the otter, stoneskin, deflection, then 4x crush, stoneskin, deflection, crush until the otter dies.

[Dirkie]

It is a little slow but if you use [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet] and start with the shield , then just snap until the first one is dead putting shield back up as needed. Then Whirlpool and Snap the dragon. Switch to any carry pet once the crab dies and finish off with a Moth. Never fails and can level any pet taking no damage. Sometimes I need to let my crab die so I can swap in the carry pet or I will wipe all three with just the crab.

[JEC]

I always use the team in the Battle Guide from this site - Zandalari Kneebiter, Clockwork Gnome, and if I'm leveling something, a carry pet, otherwise, a random selection. It works perfectly.

[Khorah]

It is a little slow but if you use [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet] and start with the shield , then just snap until the first one is dead putting shield back up as needed. Then Whirlpool and Snap the dragon. Switch to any carry pet once the crab dies and finish off with a Moth. Never fails and can level any pet taking no damage. Sometimes I need to let my crab die so I can swap in the carry pet or I will wipe all three with just the crab.

^---- This x10..

I used to avoid doing Aki as she was such a pain until I found this strategy.. after that, she is cake..
I use a slightly different rotation, but the same basic concept..
Use [pet]Spirit Crab[/pet] and start with the shield , then just [ability]snap [/ability]until you need to refresh the shield. Then you go 3, 2, 1.. new shield, [ability]whirlpool[/ability], then [ability]snap [/ability]. In comes the dragon, whom you [ability]snap [/ability] and then the whirlpool goes off on him. Keep snapping (and keep your shield up to avoid the storm damage) until he dies. When Whiskers comes in, hit him with a whirlpool. Yes he is going to dive, but the whirlpool will still take effect. Keep snapping until the crab, dies, switch in carry pet, then switch in your flyer (I use the Hippogryph hatchling for giggles, but use whatever you want that does extra damage to aquatic).. profit..

[Wakamaru]

I personally use the following:

--------------------------

[pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet] (1, 2, 1) P/P Breed
[pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet] (1, 2, 1)
Carry Pet (I always use carry pet teams)

Open w/ [pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet]. Bite, then spam Leap until Chirrup is dead. Because of Leap, you will go first when Stormlash comes out, so cast Black Claw. [pet]Zandalari Kneebiter[/pet] dies here.

Switch to [pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet]. Use Turret. Stormlash usually dies here, if not, hit him with Metal Fist.

Switch to Carry Pet immediately following Stormlash's death. He won't take damage on Whiskers first round.

Switch back to [pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet]. Use Turret when it's up, otherwise use Metal Fist until Whiskers is dead.

--------------------------

Good luck with Aki!

[Furkel]

I have a sort of 2,5-pet strategy for Aki, meaning I can have a carry pet along IF it can handle the cricket on its own (meaning it works fine for any lvl 20-ish pet with a beast move, pretty much). Goes like this:

Carry pet kills cricket, then immediately switches to...

Second pet, currently using [pet]Bonkers[/pet] but [pet]Feral Vermling[/pet] has worked just as well - probably any hard-hitting humanoid could do the job, as your only goal is to kill the dragon before it kills you. If I miss once, I usually die first, which brings us to...

Third pet, which used to be a [pet]Crow[/pet] or [pet]Gilnean Raven[/pet] and required a bit of luck to win - it's now a [pet]Dread Hatchling[/pet] and works every time. Finish the dragon of with Call Darkness if it's not already down, and then just Nocturnal Strike / Peck the otter to death.

[Graven]

What Digem said - it's all about stone skin. Keep it up and Chirrup can't damage you at all. You will always kill him with 100% health left (make sure you recast it before the killing blow so you don't have to recast it during the Stormlash fight). You can take as long as you like on this pet since he can't touch you through stone skin, so if he heals when you wanted to kill him, just do one more crush then recast stone skin again before getting the killing blow, so you have the maximum 4 rounds of shielding against Stormlash.

As you said, deflection on the first round of Stormlash to block his call lightning, then crush until he's dead (don't bother recasting stone skin even if it fades, you'll take too much damage from tail lash to make it worthwhile).

First round against Whiskers, recast stone skin. Second round deflection, to block his dive, then more crush spam. You will either kill him, or your Anubisath will die leaving the otter with hardly any hp and you can bring in another pet to finish him in one hit (any flyer will do fine).

Super easy fight with this strategy, meaning you can start with even a complete lowbie of a carry pet, just as long as it can survive one round of stampede. Then just swap in your Anubisath and stone skin up (he will get hit a bit from stampede, but will regain that damage from the humanoid racial, so will always be 100% by the time Chirrup dies).

[Kpb321]

Personally, I use the Spirit Crab but an idol should work fine and any crab works fairly well. The key to all of these is that a damage reducing ability like Shell Shield, Stone Skin or Sand Storm should completely negate the damage the first pet does. At that point the fight gets pretty easy as you are a pet up on them. A Spirit crab takes less damage from the second pets attacks and shouldn't have any problem finishing him off too. An idol has strong attacks against the second pet so should also be able to finish him too. I've had times where my spirit crab could have finished off the third pet but never actually want to do that because I let him die and swap in a carry pet to get it exp.

As far as Stone Skin vs Sand Storm on the idol I'd think it comes down to exactly what you want to do. If you are trying to carry a level 1 pet through with out letting the Idol die then Sand Storm lets you swap in a level 1 pet or two without them taking any damage while the first pet is doing swarm. Then you can switch back to the idol and try to solo the rest of the fight. If your carry pet is higher level or you are letting your idol die to swap in the carry pet and then finishing with a third pet Stone Skin makes more sense. Protects your idol just as well as sandstorm and doesn't cause you to miss more.

[Graven]

I really would recommend starting off with your carry pet. One round of stampede is probably the lowest damage you're going to take in one round, from any of the three pets (unless the carry pet is undead of course!).

[Kpb321]

0 damage is less than one round of stampede =). If you swap in your carry pet after your first pet dies you can immediately swap to your third pet without taking any attacks and still get exp. Swapping in the new pet after a pet dies creates it's own round in the combat log so that counts as your round in combat to get you exp.

[Graven]

I did not know that. Nice, that means carry pet can always be level 1 if you do it like that. Cool tip, ty.

[Kpb321]

The other not so obvious scenario that works is if your front line pet dies the same round you win the back row pet(s) will get exp. The obvious use for this is a pet with explode finishing the opponents third pet. I use that with Jeremy Feasel and Mo'ruk. Doing that your carry pet never actually needs to be in the fight.

[Graven]

Ooh, you have a 2-pet team for Feasel? Mind sharing? Mine is less than optimal, requiring a 20+ carry pet and some RNG luck.

(sorry for hijacking your thread Ashlataar!)

[Chibimage]

I'm here to chime in with my support for the guide that is listed on this site.

Zandalari Anklerender P/P
Clockwork Gnome
<any pet you like, any level you like>

It is hands down the fastest, most efficient way to do Aki in the shortest amount of time with a high probability of success. Once WoD goes in, it will be 100% effective because no more misses.

I cannot stress enough how the leveling guide for Veteran tamers written on this site is the best, hands down, for the Pandaren Grand Master Tamers.

I've been toying with the idea of doing video guides for them - because I'm personally amazed more people don't use the strats and showcasing how fast/easy/effective they are in a video is a great way to just exhibit it.