Monthly Archives: April 2014

Pet Breeding – Gone!

That’s right. The one feature semi-announced at Blizzcon for the future of pet battles is no more.

nopetbreeding

(link)

I find the wording here interesting for a few reasons. One, Mr. Stockton specifies Draenor’s release, leaving things wide open for 6.1 and beyond. The other is the citation of balance concerns as the reasoning.

breedid

I’m torn here, because for me, one of the main benefits of seeing battle pet breeding enter the game would have been to level the playing field. My crappy H/B Grasslands Cottontail could’ve been bred with one of my legion of S/S Spring Rabbits and been far more useful. With just one swap with a more common pet with a better breed, anyone else could’ve stacked the deck in the same way.

But, rabbits are a dime a dozen, so that’s not a huge consideration. As another example, I was one of the lucky ducks who managed to snag a Power breed Gilnean Raven, widely considered to be relatively overpowered, as opposed to the later default, B/B breed only. Breeding would have allowed people to swap another, less strong battle pet’s Power with their Raven. As of now, the only way to get one is to pay roughly as much gold in most markets as a Crawling Claw commands. There are a lot of other examples: a Speed breed Death Adder Hatchling is in that same general price bracket as well. It makes for a much higher barrier to entry for people just starting to catch up now. However, in the hands of somebody like yours truly, I can definitely see where I would make a swap here or there for an extremely strong pet. So I guess it’s a little bit my fault, maybe.

gilnean raven wow warcraft pet battles

…nah.

I’m also far less worried about breeding as a feature of pet battling per se. Immediately following Blizzcon, the overarching feeling surrounding battling was less than stellar, and many people latched on to breeding as a talisman, myself included. Frankly, it was pretty much the only thing we’d heard besides a maybe-perhaps mobile version. Even the mentions of breeding were secondhand. But in the time that has elapsed since, we’ve begun to see a far more broad view of battling as far as Draenor goes. I’m quite intrigued by the Eggs mentioned in passing, for one. There seems to be a wide array of new pets coming out, including my much-anticipated peacock. There are places in our Garrisons to display our pets, and new traveling tamers to visit us there.

The loss of breeding now is far less keen, because we know there’s going to be plenty for us tamers to do once we hit Draenor. Also, many of the more fun, dynamic aspects of pet battling were added in subsequent patches, even though it was a central selling feature of the previous expansion. The Celestial Tournament, Beasts of Fable and Spirit Tamers were all later additions. The minigame used to just end with Aki as the last challenge, and I think it’s a good thing that we get to add on as the next expansion goes, again.

aki

Though, the Aki of Draenor may not be too happy about it.

Greyhoof

greyhoof

This walkthrough will be mostly about how to do a cool thing with a cool thing and… well, let’s just get started.

greyhoofabilities

Greyhoof is located in the Valley of the Four Winds, near Stormstout Brewery. He is in book 2 of the Beasts of Fable daily with Lucky Yi and Skitterer Xia. Greyhoof’s offense is mostly tied up around Roar. Meaning, after he Roars, your pet is going to go down quick with his buffed Hoof and Trample. He has no defense or healing to worry about. You just have to kill him before he kills you.

greyhoofteam

The Wild Golden Hatchling is there entirely for Call Lightning. Any other pet with Call Lightning will work here. A Tranquil Mechanical Yeti is probably the best pick overall, but it doesn’t really matter. The Clockwork Gnome and Lil Bling are relatively key, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The Gnome’s Build Turret and Lil Bling’s Inflation and Make It Rain abilities come into play here, and all of those are unique (relatively) to each pet.

To start off the fight, we’ll cast Lightning Storm with the Wild Golden Hatchling, then swap to the Clockwork Gnome for a turret. Here’s what happens next.

greyhoofturret

Each tick of the gnome’s turret effectively hits twice, because Lightning Storm buffs each hit with an extra hit of its own. It’s nice. Kinda cute. But we can do better. We’ll swap to Lil Bling, then go right into Inflation. Inflation is a series of small hits, buffed with the Lightning Storm, which is nice too. Then, the Shattered Defenses debuff kicks in for the Turret fire.

greyhooflilbling

That damage ticks 3x per round, so with the turret and Lightning Storm synergy alone it’ll take just 4 turns to complete this fight, but you’re also getting the 3x ticks from Inflation. If Inflation runs out, a quick Make It Rain will finish this fight.

The damage from Lightning Storm obeys all debuffs on each pet, so any additive or multiplicative debuffs have amazing synergy with it. A Lightning Storm strategy was one of my favorites in PVP before the duration on Lightning Storm was halved a few patches back for this exact reason. If you don’t have a Lil Bling to use, you can use a similar strategy with a Wild Magic or Exposed Wounds pet, though without the finisher Lil Bling brings with Make It Rain. This is definitely a glass cannon strategy more than a control strategy, but since Greyhoof has no real defense to speak of, this is a good place to use it.

greyhoof2

I’ve also had success here with the strategy I used for Kafi, though it’s a bit harder to predict exactly when Greyhoof is going to kill each battle pet, making this a hit or miss proposition.

Warcraft Pets Pet for April – Spring Rabbit

bunny

I had a lot of fun writing about this critter for this month’s installment of Warcraft Pets’ Pet Of The Month. It’s frequently my MO to pick the cuddliest battle pets I can to enact maximum carnage on my enemies, because I find that hilarious. This bunny has always been one of my go-to pets for this.

The reason I went with this specific rabbit is because Noblegarden starts in under a week, so it’s prime time to highlight him. There are a lot of other bunnies out there, but this is the only one with a really cool pet interaction, plus it has an S/S breed by default. I talk at length in the post why this is useful, plus a few strats and tips as always, so go ahead and check it out!

Lucky Yi

luckyyi wow pet battle

Lucky Yi is an unassuming little cricket in the second book of the Beasts of Fable dailies. He’s a stone’s throw away from Farmer Nishi in The Valley Of The Four Winds.

yimoves

Lucky Yi has 3 abilities. One is an enormous heal with a component that increases his maximum health. He also has Uncanny Luck, which increases his chance to hit by half and his chance to crit by a quarter, and the straightforward Quick Attack, which always goes first, and either hits for 300 or over 500, depending on whether he crits.

So, this is a fun one.

yiteam

In this particular strategy, the Hatchling’s main role is to provide Exposed Wounds. There are many other pets that can do the same, or use Wild Magic. Either works well here, but the extra Beast damage provided by the Hatchling’s Bite is a really nice perk to using the tiny raptor. The Summit Kid can be swapped for a different Lamb, but there aren’t a ton of choices here. This is the key pet for this strategy, with Chew and Stampede. The Zooey Snake is a beast pet with a lot of good synergy with the other two because of its poison, but just about any 3rd beast will work out really well here. I’d recommend a monkey with Banana Barrage here too.

The first thing you’re going to do is throw that additive debuff up on Yi, then swap to your goat. This is where the combo comes in. We’ll use Chew, and then use Stampede to apply the Shattered Defenses debuff. That next round, Chew will also hit, now doubled by the huge buff from Shattered Defenses.

yi chew pet battle wow

Stampede itself also gets a really hefty bonus from that Exposed Wounds buff, but don’t get too comfortable, because the fight isn’t over yet.

yiheal

Lucky Yi’s heal, with his incredible 549 power, heals for over 700 damage. Even halved, that’s a significant amount of healing to overcome, which is why I go for burst over a heal debuff team. Most heal debuff pets don’t have good utility against a single critter, and those that do tend to be hampered a lot by the Darkness accuracy debuff. Lucky Yi’s Uncanny Luck means that he is not, so I find I have a really dicey time due to RNG when I try going that route.

After Stampede runs its course, I Chew, which hits from the back row, then swap back to the Lashtail, both for a big Bite buffed with Shattered Defenses, and to refresh Exposed Wounds. I then swap back to the Goat to Chew and Stampede again, then (if necessary) swap to the Snake.

yihit

In general, Chew when it’s ready, keep up that Exposed Wounds buff, and Stampede as a filler and you’ll be in really good shape.

For more options, the strategy for Nitun works excellently here, as does the Howl Bomb team.

Lillidan

Edit – Yep, this was an April Fool’s joke! I know a lot of people think they’re played out, but I had fun pulling it together. I hope I didn’t get anybody’s hopes up too high!

With the phrase, “I was told this would be popular,” WoW Dev Jonathan LeCraft, as always, has tweeted a pic of a new pet. This time, it is the long-awaited Lil’ Illidan, or as I like to call him,

lillidan wow world of warcraft pet battle lil illidan

LILLIDAN.

You guys. I can’t even with this. I realize that posting memetic sentence fragments is unprofessional even with my typical colloquial style of writing but no really the feels.

lillidan moves wow world of warcraft pet battle

He also included a stats & moveset screen, which doesn’t really reveal a ton, other than Lillidan is very powerful but a little sluggish. Even so, I could not be more excited to own this little terror, so I can tell him to hush any time I damn well please.

I’m not sure yet whether he’s a part of another iteration of Raiding With Leashes, or if he’s from the Pet Shop. Either way, he’s certainly going to be a part of my collection as soon as I can get my grubby mitts on him.