Iron Starlette is becomming a rather familiar monster?

[Luciandk]

http://beta.wowdb.com/npcs/77221-iron-starlette

Spotted a mention of it on the US WoW Forums. Lo and Behold, it had its moveset revised and looks terrifying now for such a small engine of mass destruction.

[Klaital]

Its almost like the pre-nerf fluxfire feline now... with wind-up + supercharge...

[Luciandk]

Supercharge does only last 1 turn now, so if you can pop an avoid on the big hit, youve neutered the combo. As you cant delay it like in the old day, where supercharge lasted 2 turns.

Looking at the quest reward item on Wowhead, it appears to be tradable. Though I wonder if you only can have 1, or a full set of 3.

[Luciandk]

Is the Iron Starlette cageable? And what breed is it, if anyone knows?.

It's cageable. Duno if the PTR breeds are final but I have 3 diff ones atm.

1546 HP, 305 Power, 244 Speed (HP)

1400 HP, 305 Power, 273 Speed (PS)

1400 HP, 341 Power, 244 Speed (PP)

I wonder if theres more breeds, but what do you folks think of these known breeds?
PP has a lot of power, but looks rather fragile and slow., especially considering it dips below the base speed of 260.
PS allows you to gain speed superiority faster, due to being above base speed.
HP gets a slightly stronger explode, a bit better survival, but still low on speed.

PS seems to be edging out in my oppinion. Faster speed superiority so you can blow up all over their face. I think opening with Wind Up for the damage buff and to prep the nuke. Spam Powerball till you go ahead in speed, then supercharge and release the wind up.

[Poofah]

Supercharge+Wind-Up is already 1700 dmg with the PS/HP, so going PP is probably overkill, at least for pvp. One Powerball takes the HP to 292 speed, and takes the PS to 327 speed. The health on the HP is pretty valuable too considering the mech rez (rez with 309 health with the HP), and considering that you're going to spend turns Powerballing and baiting the opponent's avoidance.

I'm going to get one of each: PP for PvE, and my guess is PS for pvp but I'll try HP out too.

Its almost like the pre-nerf fluxfire feline now... with wind-up + supercharge...

Yes, this is definitely troublesome. Supercharge has been significantly nerfed since then though. It used to last until you landed a hit, so avoidance could only delay it, not stop it. Xufu with Prowl+Feed does a similarly large hit, spread between dmg and heal: I was convinced Xufu would be overpowered, but he hasn't caused any problems because his combo is so avoidable. Ofc Xufu is very slow, and Starlette has Powerball to become very fast, and that may or may not push it over the edge. If Starlette is faster and you wait until you see Supercharge, then it's too late to avoid it with regular avoidance -- you would need Deflection/Feign Death. That's problematic. But Wind-Up/Powerball/Supercharge/Wind-Up is 4 turns, and taking 4 turns to kill one pet is really not out of line. So we'll see.

[Klaital]

Personally I think the p/s is the weakest breed, since you have powerball anyway if you really want to go first, Its a glass cannon anyway so I would probably go for p/p to get the most out of it, wind-up hits so hard with the p/p that you probably don't even need supercharge in most cases.

[Vek]

I think that Wind-Up, Powerball and Explode might be better, H/P breed or just P/P for slightly more powerful Powerballs.

Wind-Up. Then Powerball for a while. Finishi the opponent with a Wind-Up. Then you are most probably faster and ready to Explode the scecond pet, depending on if you lost the failsafe or not.

I can see Idols still being popular especially against this pet, taking weak damage from Powerballs and either huge hit with Rupture(greedy) or avoidance with Deflection.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, did not realize Powerball jumped that fast, that does make the other breeds a good bit more appealing.

PP would probably go Wind-Up, Powerball and Supercharge. Powerball is only base 15 damage, so with high power and the 10% buff from Wind-up it can do almost decent levels of damage on its own, but being mainly focused on delivering omg big hits from Wind-Up + Supercharge before its knocked out. But might possibly end with wasted overkill damage and not being able set up against a second pet before dying.

Whereas HP seems to have room for a bit more unpredictability. Wind-Up, Powerball and Explode. Having the health to rely more on Wind-Up alone to do the damage, and having Explode for a final going away present. Plus more flexible against a second pet as you immediately can blow it up with Explode. Not needing to load a Wind-up, or a weak powerball hit.

Edit: Windup is base 45/2damage, to Powerballs' 15. So you get overall more damage from spamming Wind-Up, over Powerball once you are ahead in speed, even with the Wind-Up buff to Powerball.

[Klaital]

Hmm, I think I will name mine 'The Faceroller'

[Vek]

Hrm, did not realize Powerball jumped that fast, that does make the other breeds a good bit more appealing.

Powerball is a really excellent move(+20% speed per powerball), while not powerful damagewise it does decent damage on undead as well. Best part is that the speed buff does not drop off, so you can easily switch the pet out and have a speed edge in end-game. Would be quite brutal to have a Wind-Up saved in back line with high speed.

[Luciandk]

Seems the Iron Starlette may have more breeds than previously thought?
http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/mechanical/miscellaneous/iron-starlette/

2 new additions in H/H and P/B according to the pet page

H/H 1725/276/244
P/P 1400/341/244
H/P 1546/305/244
P/S 1400/305/273
P/B 1465/305/257


Whats the verdict on the breeds now?
I took a look at some of the stats:

Wind-Up deals 893,2 damage every 2 rounds for a P/P breed. (including the 10% buff from Wind-Up. Which is an effective 446,6 damage each turn. With Supercharge, it can deliver a hit up to 2009,7 damage!
The explode of a P/P Iron Starlette will hit for 560 damage. I do not know if explode gets buffed by Wind-up.
Powerball hits for 270 damage. (did not add windup to it, as youd likely not cast Wind-up to start, as getting your speed up is priority)

Wind-Up for a H/H Iron Starlette is 732,6 damage every 2 rounds, including the 10% buff from Wind-up. Which is an effective 366,3 damage each turn. With Supercharge, it goes up to 1648,35.
The explode of a H/H Iron Starlette hits for 690 damage.
Powerball hits for 222 damage. (did not add windup to it, as youd likely not cast Wind-up to start, as getting your speed up is priority)


Im starting to think that a P/P Iron Starlette is simply pure overkill, and thusly wasted against the majority of pets as the standard hp is 1400. H/H provides more flexibility in skills to use, explode becomes a nasty hitter that isnt reduced by damage reductions and you have more longevity and thus more time to roll up powerballs to buff your speed.

[Aeolyn]

Part of me wants to like P/S due to how quickly it can gain insane speed but it again becomes a matter of complete overkill. I'm personally torn between H/H and H/P but the one I got ended up being P/P which should be pretty good against inflated HP total PVE fights.

This is the first pet in a while that I'm really, really not sure which breed I would want to level.

[Luciandk]

I got a P/P iron starlette and leveled it. Oh my god the damage...... On beast pets, Windup+Supercharge hits them for 2865 damage..

[Vek]

Does seem like a powerful new pet. But I'm much more interested in the S/S Bronze Whelpling. Also seems like a powerful addition. Arcane Slash doing more damage when going first. Stun and Lift-Off, for example. There are of course other breeds as well that can be used very differently.

[Luciandk]

Does seem like a powerful new pet. But I'm much more interested in the S/S Bronze Whelpling. Also seems like a powerful addition. Arcane Slash doing more damage when going first. Stun and Lift-Off, for example. There are of course other breeds as well that can be used very differently.

So far it appears Bronze Whelpling only have 2 breeds. P/P and S/S. I bought an S/S for 3k and leveled it. Im quite impressed with it. I think its going to be a core pvp pet for a lot of people. Arcane Slash doing 350 damage for it, having a stun and liftoff as avoidance and extra damage. Liftoff type moves has 100% chance to hit now.

Anubisath Idol feels quite weak, seeming to more often than not hitting the lower damage range of Crush. Frequently saw hits in 200 range. Only infrequently going over 400.

[Kpb321]

Does seem like a powerful new pet. But I'm much more interested in the S/S Bronze Whelpling. Also seems like a powerful addition. Arcane Slash doing more damage when going first. Stun and Lift-Off, for example. There are of course other breeds as well that can be used very differently.

So far it appears Bronze Whelpling only have 2 breeds. P/P and S/S. I bought an S/S for 3k and leveled it. Im quite impressed with it. I think its going to be a core pvp pet for a lot of people. Arcane Slash doing 350 damage for it, having a stun and liftoff as avoidance and extra damage. Liftoff type moves has 100% chance to hit now.

Anubisath Idol feels quite weak, seeming to more often than not hitting the lower damage range of Crush. Frequently saw hits in 200 range. Only infrequently going over 400.

It should actually be slightly over 50% because the base chance for a big hit vs little hit is 50% but all crits are automatically big hits. Any +hit modifier will increase the chance of a high hit so it's entirely possible to get 100% high hits and crits with something like Uncanny Luck.

[Poofah]

Im starting to think that a P/P Iron Starlette is simply pure overkill,

It is. PS and HP will be the most useful, it just depends how you intend to bait their avoidance--either outspeed them more quickly, or take more health so you have more turns to play chicken.

So far it appears Bronze Whelpling only have 2 breeds. P/P and S/S.

I've seen PP SS HP and HS so far (not sure why anyone would want HP or HS though). The SS is the best, it plays a lot like a slightly speedier Netherwhelp, where the dragonkin passive helps make up for the low power. The only trouble is that when dragonkin passive is up, you really really want to Arcane Slash, and opponents will know that. PP is ok but Nexus Whelpling is almost strictly better.

Flavorwise, having a 'slow' and a 'fast' moveset is very nice.

Anubisath Idol feels quite weak, seeming to more often than not hitting the lower damage range of Crush. Frequently saw hits in 200 range. Only infrequently going over 400.

It should be 50% high hits, 50% low hits -- so this is likely your initial impression based on a small sample (but ofc Demolish really was bugged for a while, so who knows). *But* Anub's average damage did go down while under Sandstorm.

old Crush (under Sandstorm): 0.8*(28-5) = 18.4 dmg per turn
new Crush (under Sandstorm): 22-5 = 17 dmg per turn

[Luciandk]

Im starting to think that a P/P Iron Starlette is simply pure overkill,

It is. PS and HP will be the most useful, it just depends how you intend to bait their avoidance--either outspeed them more quickly, or take more health so you have more turns to play chicken.

So far it appears Bronze Whelpling only have 2 breeds. P/P and S/S.

I've seen PP SS HP and HS so far (not sure why anyone would want HP or HS though). The SS is the best, it plays a lot like a slightly speedier Netherwhelp, where the dragonkin passive helps make up for the low power. The only trouble is that when dragonkin passive is up, you really really want to Arcane Slash, and opponents will know that. PP is ok but Nexus Whelpling is almost strictly better.

Flavorwise, having a 'slow' and a 'fast' moveset is very nice.

Anubisath Idol feels quite weak, seeming to more often than not hitting the lower damage range of Crush. Frequently saw hits in 200 range. Only infrequently going over 400.

It should be 50% high hits, 50% low hits -- so this is likely your initial impression based on a small sample (but ofc Demolish really was bugged for a while, so who knows). *But* Anub's average damage did go down while under Sandstorm.

old Crush (under Sandstorm): 0.8*(28-5) = 18.4 dmg per turn
new Crush (under Sandstorm): 22-5 = 17 dmg per turn

Not a pvper currently, have long had my 1000 wins for the trainer title. Being uberspeedy seems less important for the Iron Starlette in pve. But the omg killing power is quite satisfying to obliterate a foe into fine dust.


Edit:
Aquired a P/S Iron Starlette and is in the progress of leveling it. Having slightly faster speed superiority might just be key for overall better performance. one Powerball takes a P/S Iron star to to 329 speed, beating the common 325 speed. And having less invested in power, thus less overkill once the combo executes.

Edit 2:
Also aquired a H/H Iron Starlette and will be leveling it to see how it performs.

[Vek]

What the Starlettes do though is trivialise even further some PvE content. Tough pet on trainer in celestial tournament, wind-up + super charge + wind-up. Quite silly vs wild pets, wind-up + powerball + wind-up.

[Luciandk]

On closer consideration, Im starting to think that P/x or P/P might be more useful in pve against super high hp trainer pets, whom isnt boss pets.

Many of the legendary trainer pets in the tournament comes with 1600 hp at lowest, then 1741, 1863, 1975, 2069 and 2163 at highest that isnt a magic pet.

Its clearly beyond a H/H to to destroy even the lowerst 'common' 1600s one hit, as its combo barely reaches 1600 without critting. (1563-1566) Requiring at least one powerball hit to negate, and which might still be up in the air if the foe uses a heal or have humanoid racial.

A P/x pet on the other hand, deals 1721 damage with its combo, cleanly destroying 1600 pets.
A P/P deals 1910 damage with its combo.
(the numbers listed here is from ingame experiences, which doesnt match with the numbers mathed out in earlier posts. I repeated them a couple times, and kept getting the same numbers except with the H/H that had a small damage variance)

With the 'common' legendary pet being 1600hp , you'd want at least a P in the breed to compare favorably. And I found that more often than not, being P/S would allow me to edge out a win thanks to being innately speedier. Especially since P/S puts you at 273 speed, vs the below average 244 speed of the other Iron Stars. A P/S just needs one powerball to outspeed a 325 speed pet. I feel that is a benefit that is quite hard to ignore, vs a H/P or P/P only going to 292 with one powerball.

The speed advantage is what I also think would make P/S the most favored of the breeds for pvp as well.


Edit: According to the blues. The Iron Starlette will no longer be available after Draenor opens. But it should be fairly easy to secure them right now with the AH's being flooded.