Yearly Archives: 2014

Celestial Dragon

As you collect more & more battle pets, at specific benchmarks, you’ll get an achievement and a new pet. The first one is the Reeking Pet Carrier at 50 unique pets. This counts, for example, a brown snake and a black snake as 2 different pets even though they’re not exactly special little snowflakes. Who are you trying to fool, snakes? Up until 150 pets and the Littlest Pet Shop achievement, they’re all pretty much duplicates of other pets you can tame or purchase. With that milestone, the Celestial Dragon awarded has both a model vastly unique from any other battle pet in the game and a few unique moves as well.

The unique move is, well. Starfall is similar in nature to Moon Moon’s moon tears, and packs a lot of really cool graphic punch (see above), but as both offense and heal, it just isn’t all that effective, even on 2nd go-around after it’s buffed by its own Moonlight effect. It’s also on a fairly long timer, making it kind of a poor choice unless you’re just grinding wild battles and want to see some stars.

She’s been the recipient of a few nerfs over time. She used to have the much stronger Dragonkin ability Breath instead of the current Elemental Burn in the first slot. Combining this with a strong heal in Ancient Blessing made even stronger with Moonlight in the third slot made for one of my go-to battling grinders. The overall effect was close to a current Spawn of Onyxia with more staying power. But now, she’s not really a first choice. Rounding out her moveset is the offense dampener Roar (though for me this is a poor choice because it deals little damage and that first slot is most of her offense) and the completely bafflingly placed Arcane Storm, which isn’t really a popular choice to begin with.

By now, most WoW players are aware that our favorite scapegoat Greg Street has moved on to Riot Games. As a result, many players were in a tailspin for a while there. Who is going to be at fault for every little aspect of the game that goes awry? Enter Celestalon.

Celestalon’s official title is Technical Games Designer. Though Celestalon’s level of snark isn’t quite what Mr. Street once used, a hashtag (#blamecelestalon) has been circulating, used in the vein of #thanksobama, to blame Celestalon for things that couldn’t possibly have been his fault. So, I’d encourage those of you battlers to #blamecelestalon for the nerf to the Fluxfire Feline, just to make him feel at home.

Or um, because this is supposed to be trying to butter up devs for upcoming information, that’s probably not such a hot idea. Maybe you should just #leavecelestalonalone? I’m kind of bad at this.

(You can follow him on twitter @celestalon).

Dread Hatchling

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I usually don’t do extremely current events news, but I honestly could not wait on this. Earlier today, a battle pet was datamined, and then shortly thereafter shared out on Twitter by a dev I surely owe cookies by now, Jonathan LeCraft.

That pic shows a pet with so much power it makes me a little weak in the knees paired with a Gilnean Raven-style moveset in the top row. There’s also at least one new move, the one in the bottom right. It was suspected that this pet was the Warlords of Draenor Collector’s Edition reward pet, much like the Quilen Pup was for Mists of Pandaria. I’m here to tell you simply

Confirmed.

Well, as confirmed as it’s going to get before I pony up $60 for the latest WoW expansion CE. The battle pet model shown there is a placeholder, and just Anzu. The real model was datamined by Adriacraft, and it is really adorable. It’s a kind of a reskin of the Ji-Kun Hatchling, but in a textured blue and yellow appearance, with a lot of really lovely blue glowing effects.

The other thing I was curious about was that mysterious bottom right icon. I did some additional poking around on the PTR just to see if I could find anything.

I was glad I was sitting down. Anzu’s Blessing is like a 5-round Acidic Goo, but if your opponent dies that’s totally cool. Heck, if your pet dies that’s cool too because it’s on every pet of your team. The synergy potential here, in both PVE and PVP, is enormous.

Prepare yourselves. Warlords is Coming.

Nitun

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It has been a while since I wrote about the Beasts of Fable. When I did initially quite frankly they were huge pushovers. Since then, they’ve received a revamp where they hit far harder and take less damage, so my old faithful strategy of just grabbing a roach and stalling doesn’t work quite as well as it did. So, time for a revisit!

I’m starting with Nitun, because I find him the most frustrating bar none. Yes, even moreso than that jerk fish guy, or that other super annoying one that you hate (I’ll get to him too, swears). Nitun is super frustrating largely due to the randomness of his abilities. Most other pets and tamers are scripted, and I’ve seen a few turn-by-turn cheat sheets for many encounters, including some of the Celestial Tournament. But Nitun’s move order is a roll of the dice. Nitun is also a part of the Beasts Of Fable Book One daily quest, so it’s almost like we’re going in order, and I have a method to my madness. Who would’ve thought.

This strategy features a very common pet I’ve never used before on the blog.

With the Kneebiter in there you can probably guess what our MO is with that scorpion. I chose the one I did because it was the first level 25 scorpion I saw in my pet list, so breed isn’t an issue here. A snake is also a good pick in the first slot, but has a slightly shorter duration on its poison, which is the main reason I chose the Scorpion. The flavor of the month Death Adder Hatchling has a poison effect, so you’d think he’d be an excellent pick here, but he provides a warning to those of you making subs. Just any old poison won’t work well here, because Nitun is a critter. The Death Adder Hatchling’s Poison Fang ability hits initially for beast damage, which hits Nitun strongly, but the DoT is elemental which hits Nitun weakly, so the whole ‘buff that DoT’ strategy won’t work nearly as well using the Hatchling.

Without the Kneebiter and his incredible Black Claw ability (and no I’m absolutely not overselling here) try a regular raptor with Exposed Wounds, like the Obsidian version you can buy for 50g from Breanni in Dalaran, or another pet with a per-hit additive buff in that vein. I definitely recommend putting a Zandalari Raptor (especially a Kneebiter) in your ‘to be leveled’ list, because again, this combo is just perfection. It’s like a first kiss and cotton candy and the cutest little dinosaur ever all in one. The 3rd battle pet doesn’t really matter with the sheer evanescent glory of Black Claw, but try to pick a beast with strong offense just in case. Another good choice here is a monkey, because Banana Barrage has really good synergy with those debuff moves. If you use the Expose Wounds substitute, I’d go with a snake in the 3rd slot, because he can Burrow as a stall and will add an additional DoT or two for synergy with the debuffs. Another good 3rd slot option, especially if you’re lacking a Zandalari, is a Fox or Dog with Howl, to add Shattered Defenses in place of Hunting Party, and Flurry to benefit from the now-lingering Black Claw.

Nitun has 3 abilities: Prowl, Rake and Ravage. The randomness I talked about before hinges entirely on Prowl, though the heal effect of Ravage contributes to make him extra annoying. Sometimes he’ll cast Prowl on the very first turn. Or second. Or third. While some evasion abilities are useable here, this makes for a hit-or-miss approach which would be really disingenuous of me to recommend. The one respite you’ll have from Prowl comes from the longer-duration 50% shield abilities. Enter the scorpion.

Specifically, the scorpion’s Crouch ability, which allows us to get a couple more turns in before he’s toast, even against Prowl. We’re not totally sure when the scorpion is going to be toast, but we know it’s going to be soon. He’ll be brought well below 50% the first round Nitun Prowls, if not before, even using crouch. I make sure to keep up at least 3 turns on the poison, but I try to time it with Nitun’s Rake. Rake lowers the base damage of the poison DoT by at least half, but I lead with the poison turn 1 even so, just to make sure it’s up, in case Nitun leads with Prowl.

After the Scorpion goes to battle pet heaven, I bust out my Kneebiter and use Black Claw. The real coup de grace comes when I’m able to get the shattered defenses debuff from Hunting Party up there too.

If the Kneebiter gets murdered before I get Hunting Party out, I’ll have to go to pet #3, but with that black claw debuff and that strong beast offense discussed earlier I’ll still make quick work of this particular Fabled Beast.

The one benefit you have against Prowl is that it drastically reduces Nitun’s speed, basically giving you one last hit before you’re toast. Choose that one last hit well, young skywalker, or else his entire bandicoon family is sure to come and eat your force-wielding face off, because bandicoons will pull crap like that.

AUGH, it’s coming right for us!

Here’s the strat in action:

Lunar Festival Lantern

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The Lunar Festival in WoW is loosely patterned on the celebrations that occur on the Lunar New Year in many Asian countries, with most of the customs portrayed hailing from China. Notable among these for pet battlers is the Lunar Festival Lantern. Over the course of the holiday, you must visit Elders for special tokens. You can then take those tokens and use them to purchase Lunar Festival foods, the high-necked brightly colored gowns and pantsuits, fireworks, and of course, the Lunar Festival Lantern. It’s… oh, what’s that?

Yeah, there’s a slight issue here. The reason I personally have the one and not the other is that, since the advent of account-wide pets, I’ve mostly been playing Horde. Once a character has collected 50 coins, Valadar Starsong in Moonglade sells Horde players the Festival Lantern, and Alliance players the Lunar Lantern. I never really got around to collecting enough coins, involving quite a bit of laborious travel around the continents, on my Alliance character.

If you’re only looking at the movesets, the two are identical. They also share moves with the Enchanted Lantern battle pet which, true to the previous gripe, is crafted by Horde-only enchanters with 525 skill, and all 3 battle pets have identical stats as well. The Alliance enchanting pet, the Magic Lamp, has a vastly different moveset, but identical stats. Luckily, all 4 are also cageable, so if you are diehard FOR THE HORDE, and refuse to even so much as roll an Alliance DK for fast flight and easy Elder NPC visits within a couple hours, you still have some options. Also luckily for the gold makers, like all pets they are account-wide and still command a pretty penny, but especially so if you sell them cross-faction. All 4 also start off as uncommon when attained, making for a really nice payday if you have some flawless Magic upgrade stones kicking around.

These lanterns never really had a heyday as battling pets, but they do have a few tricks. They have a really cool 1-2 punch with the blinding Flash and double-hitting when blinded Light. Sharing Light’s slot is the blocking move Soul Ward. Soul Ward works really well against big single hitters, but falls flat against multi-hit opponents because it only blocks one attack. The alternate in the second slot is Illuminate, which causes the Sunny Day weather effect. The Lanterns don’t have a move which really benefits from the sun, so you may want to pair this pet with something that does.

Both first slot choices are straightforward nukes. Beam is Magic, Burn is Elemental. The former hits slightly less hard and has a slightly higher accuracy as a result. This choice is largely dependent on which pets you’re fighting. If you’re up against any Mechanical, without Burn your lantern is a sitting duck.

In the end, the benefit of this pet is more cosmetic than anything. Like the Elders, it is a peaceful memory of a time gone by.

Lil Bling

Wastewalker Shu

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Update for 6.0: This strategy still works really well. If you’re going on an Awfully Big Adventure with your Elekk Plushie, this strategy will work well for that too. Just swap in your Elekk where you ordinarily would any other battle pet to be leveled.

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It’s a new year, and my resolution is to stop slacking and write guides for all the tamers in Pandaria, as well as the Beasts of Fable, the latter of which I haven’t even revisited since they were radically buffed in patch 5.3. Of course this means I’m going to get the guide for Wastewalker Shu finished and then give up after two weeks and eat a lot of ice cream, as that’s how my New Years’ resolutions typically roll.

Wastewalker Shu is a little tricky. The moves you use to beat his pets are somewhat counterintuitive, based on the strategies we’ve used up to this point. But then, what do you expect from a Pandaren who’d just set up shop in the middle of the Dread Wastes right next to Klaxxi-Vess, and then randomly decided to take up pet battling? A whole lot of logical decision making?

The team is going to be pretty familiar if you’ve wandered around this blog before:

The Gilnean Raven can be subbed for many other Flying battle pets to great effect, and in this case can be subbed out for the Crow. It’s debatable whether the Raven or a pet with Lift-Off like the Dragonbone Hatchling is a better choice, but the Raven tends to make for a faster fight. The Crab is there, as usual, because Shell Shield helps a lot for this fight, and others with similar abilities will work here too, like the Anubisath Idol, Feline Familiar, etc. The carry pet is mid-teens because of some potentially nasty AOE.

First up is Shu’s crab, Crusher. The reason I favor the Raven is because Crusher has a heal in his moveset. The reason the Dragonbone Hatchling is also an excellent choice is because Crusher also has whirlpool, which can be a pain for the Raven. It’s also worth noting that the Raven uses Peck in its moveset, and not the usual Alpha Strike. Crusher’s main attack move is Surge, so after his first couple rounds, your pet isn’t going first for the purposes of Alpha Strike’s additional hit.

Second is Pounder, who is the oddball. He immediately leads with Sandstorm.

A weather effect, oh no! *THIS* is why we brought that Raven really, right? To change the weather? We always change the weather! Nope, after a quick Rupture, poor Pallas usually goes up to birdie heaven. If Pallas dies before that Rupture, we’ll swap to the Crab as a soak, then switch to the carry pet for a turn before putting the Crab in til the end. Pounder’s main nuke, Quake, is an AOE that hits for roughly 300 in the front row, 150 in the back, for 3 rounds. Add Sandstorm’s shield effect and that Quake hits for diddly bupkis.

Sandstorm’s duration is only 5 turns now though, so if you opt to choose a pet with Sandstorm over a self-shield, you may be able to go even lower with your carry pet. The sandstorm shield is also one reason why I opted for Snap instead of Surge.

You should finish Pounder with your pet at full (or nearly full) health, at which point Mutilator comes out.

My crab is slower, especially after Mutilator starts in with Powerball, and I didn’t choose Surge for my crab so Mutilator’s Counterstrike won’t proc its extra damage. Because my crab has shell shield, I’ll absorb the reflexive damage from his Spiked Skin too. Just keep wailing away at him while you keep up your defensive abilities, and he’ll be toast in no time. If you’re having trouble the first time around, sub in a single-hitting beefy mechanical here (the clockwork gnome’s alternate moveset–NOT the one with turret–is a good pick) and you should be golden.

I’d end with a witty one liner but I really need to get out of here. Jeez Louise I hate bugs.

The video guide:

The Curious Case of the Elemental Family Ability

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Most battle pet family abilities and their implications in a fight are pretty easy to figure out by reading the mouseover tooltip in your pet journal. Most of them are relatively straightforward. Well, the Undead one is a little goofy in practice.

Your undead battle pet will resurrect for its immortal turn immediately after being killed. If you’re using a slow pet killed in the first half of a round, your pet will resurrect and carry out the action you’d queued before this round. You then get a sort-of ‘extra’ round resurrected.

But, this elemental racial.

It seems straightforward enough, but then you start figuring in all the different weather effects and exactly what the nature of ‘negative’ is, and it gets kind of complicated. The confusion I had with this ability was cleared up by WoW Dev Jonathan LeCraft on Twitter:

I guess. Mostly? Um.

So, with that arose this post. I’m going weather effect by weather effect and laying it all out on the table. This is as much for me as it is for you.

To be clear, the application ability of weather will still hit, barring accuracy issues or blocks, so eg, your elemental will take the ~450 damage from Call Darkness when Darkness is applied.

Sunny Day

Elemental Pet: health greatly increased, and heals for more.
Opponent Pet: health greatly increased, and heals for more.

This matters for percentage-based attacks, and if you or your opponent can heal you can close that gap. You’ll all lose that additional health if the Sunlight lapses though. There really isn’t a negative effect here so elemental battle pets don’t gain an edge in Sunlight.

Moonlight

Elemental: receives additional healing, magic abilities hit harder.
Opponent: receives additional healing, magic abilities hit harder.

Moonlight is a really good example to illustrate the concept. Although magic abilities hitting harder could be considered a ‘negative effect’ (the Sunflower takes additional damage), this isn’t applied on the elemental’s end. It adds a multiplier to the magic abilities of the elemental’s opponent, making this a case where the ‘negative effect’ still applies. In other words, it’s not that the magic hits the elemental harder, it’s that the non-elemental’s magic hits its target harder.

Arcane Winds

Elemental: Cannot be stunned or rooted.
Opponent: Cannot be stunned or rooted.

Arcane Storm is pretty straightforward, as stuns and roots are (generally!) detrimental. This weather effect is an excellent counter to the spider PVP team comps I’ve been seeing pretty often recently.

Sandstorm

Elemental:
Opponent: Takes (X) less damage per hit, accuracy reduced by 10%.

{EDIT} – I was incorrect here, as pointed out by Skarn in the comments. The elemental does not currently gain the damage shield effect, which appears to be a bug (twitter link: https://twitter.com/TheCrafticus/status/419169945335775232). I will be updating this section to reflect this info after more thorough playtesting. I certainly take blame, but will deflect a bit of that blame into boxed wine.

This is another of those strange cases. You’d think that the elemental’s damage would blast right through the Sandstorm. The damage shield is considered as a personal effect like though, so instead the opponent just soaks up that positive effect for itself like the Stoneskin effect. The accuracy blast still makes this a decent bit of weather to use as an elemental, as long as your elemental isn’t trying to stack DoTs on another battle pet or whatever.

Scorched Earth

Elemental:
Opponent: Takes (X) damage at the end of the round; Burning (for abilities like Conflagrate).

In this case, the weather effect is entirely nullified by the elemental. This makes for an excellent choice to avoid certain combos. You go, Sunflower.

Cleansing Rain

Elemental: Aquatic abilities deal more damage, harmful DoTs last one round fewer.
Opponent: Aquatic abilities deal more damage, harmful DoTs last one round fewer.

This is another case where the positive effect is applied at the opponents’ level. Aquatic abilities don’t hit harder on the elemental, they hit harder from the opponent.

Blizzard

Elemental:
Opponent: Chilled

This weather effect is used exclusively for synergy purposes. An Elemental is an excellent c-c-c-c-combo breaker here.

Darkness

Elemental:
Opponent: Blinded, heals reduced, accuracy reduced.

Seriously, Sunflower, I could do with you being slightly less smug in this screenshot. It’s like you don’t even care that you’re completely screwing things up for everyone else.

Mudslide

Elemental:
Opponent: Rooted for 3 rounds when swapped to the front row.

This one pops up only very infrequently, and never, thus far, in the PVE game, but it’s good to know that you can avoid it altogether by using your elemental.

Lightning Storm

Elemental: Deals 10% additional Mechanical damage, takes (X) additional damage per hit.
Opponent: Deals 10% additional Mechanical damage, takes (X) additional damage per hit.

This is the effect that I found the oddest. In light of that tweet at the top of the post, it makes a bit more sense, but I’d assume that an elemental wouldn’t take the extra damage on each hit from lightning. Unfortunately, it does. If mechanical pets didn’t measure up against elementals like undeads against a paladin, this would be an excellent use of weather to defeat an elemental. The DoTs and other strategies can still make good on it, but not so much with mechanicals.

Hopefully this post helped shed some additional light on the weirdness that is the Elemental family ability. Using a family’s ability to the utmost can really help your pet battling strategies be their absolute best. I started drinking around Moonlight so I don’t really know what’s going on but this was super fun so let’s do it again sometime.