Category Archives: tamers

Thundering Pandaren Spirit Tamer

For many tamers, this is the hardest fight in the game right now. The most bandied around piece of advice I’ve heard thus far with the Thundering tamer is to make super extra sure you grab the mini Thundering when you finish that first quest, because hoo boy, you do NOT want to even try to do THAT one again.

Well, I have to say I agree. I mean, I have this sucker down pretty well. The thing is, the nature of this particular fight can make it wildly unpredictable. I’ve blown all 3 of my pets against the first guy before, even after I had half a clue what was going on and wasn’t just sending whatever at him to see what sticks. I’ve also had kills where I used one pet and barely even had to touch a second.

My best advice here is to just keep trying. You’ll get him, I promise.

Here’s my lineup:

The order is a little screwed up… my pug Bertha should be first. She combines burrow and a decent heal with well, being a critter. The mechanical Zeppelin has some good defensive abilities, but most notably, Explode. The crab is there as a filler/tank. His most important role is to gap fill if I get a bad or weird string on Bertha, and to be alive at the end of the fight. For all three there are other options, but I’ll discuss them as I outline the fight.

First up is the Pandaren Earth Spirit. He combines stuns with big damage. His stuns are frustrating and deadly against any other kind of pet (even with the new Resilient buff, so you can no longer be completely stunlocked) those same stuns are pretty much cute against a critter’s crowd control breaking ability. His big, fairly constant damage is problematic, but my pug Bertha uses burrow to try to avoid the larger nuke on Rupture. Since the Spirit’s damage is weak against critters anyway, I get through this part of the fight pretty easily.

I like Bertha’s heal, but many tamers prefer a rabbit here for the extra speed. The critter stun breaker only kicks in at the end of the round. Since she’s slower than the elemental she ‘misses’ a round here & there because the elemental gets a stun off, and then she’s stunned the rest of the round through her turn. You really want to stick with a critter, because of the whole stunlock deal I mentioned earlier, and as shown in the screenshot above, most of the damage the spirit deals is weak against critters (the third ability being a stun with no damage). Snails are also a decent critter pick here, and hit super hard with aquatic Dive.

Another reason I choose Bertha is because her main damage ability can be Beast, which makes her able to damage the second pet, critter Sludgy, pretty well.

Sludgy’s damage is very streaky, due both to his moderate miss ability Expunge, and the way he uses (or doesn’t use) his other two abilities. One is the hard-hitting magic Ooze Touch, and the other is a fairly cruddy DoT spell, Creeping Ooze. It’s relatively random which one he uses, whether it hits or not, etc. Some fights I can plow straight through the whole way with Bertha, and others I get two shot. Hence the above pic illustrating Bertha hitting him hard with her beast damage where there’s a crab in place of poor little dead Bertha.

This is the place where you’d swap in a pet for leveling, but keep them high level for sure. Think either beast damage, to kill critter Sludgy faster, or mechanical pets, to defend against his oddly magic attacks and use Failsafe as a swap backup if he hits you too hard. I’d also pick a pet with some defensive capability if possible. I went with the crab just to get it done, and would suggest you start off with your favorite level 25 tank in the #2 spot until you get a better feel for the fight.

If it starts looking dicey and your pet is about to eat dirt, take it out. You have to have at least one pet still alive in the back row when Darnak comes out with this strategy or you’ll lose. Obviously if you’re trying to level a pet, you want that pet alive or else why even bother, right?

And now use your Zeppelin’s decoy to defend and his missile which is strong against Darnak’s Beastly self to take him to just a bit below 50% and then… boom.

Explode kills your Zep and the other guy, but you cannot use the mechanical Failsafe to res, hence why you must have one other pet alive in the back row. This is kind of gimmicky, but man is it fun, and it’s also kind of lazy. Lazy is kind of my jam. Make sure you use it when Darnak’s burrow is on cooldown though. Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to laugh at your expense, sorry.

As another option, the Mechanical Pandaren Hatchling is very similar to the Zep and slightly more readily available, but needs a stone upgrade to rare. Clockwork Gnome would be a good choice here, but Darnak has a stoneskin ability which would negate his turret so using him is kind of futile. Stoneskin is also why you need to take him a bit lower than you may think if you go with Explode. Some tamers like to use critters instead to reduce the elemental damage from stone rush.

In closing… just… good luck.

Please feel free to ask any questions or woodshed this fight here or on Twitter. Even if you have a solid strategy, it’s still kind of a doozy.

Burning Pandaren Spirit Tamer

10 Replies

Update for 6.0: This strategy is up to date. If you’re here on your Awfully Big Adventure with your Elekk Plushie, just follow the advice given below for a normal leveling carry.

Also, I did finally get my Burning pet. Thanks for asking!

—–

For now, this guy is my white whale.

Oh, I can beat his face in no problem. In fact, this is a powerlevel guide, after a fashion. But I would like to have his tiny doppelganger for my own, and he simply will not drop from his bag. It’s a real love-hate thing, because he does kind of have a cute face, but good lord am I sick of seeing it.

ugh.

And yes, I know that I can just buy one for myself off the AH if I so choose, but now? Now, it’s the principle of the thing.

He has 3 battle pets: Crimson the Dragon, the Pandaren Fire Spirit, and the firefly Glowy. Oddly, the 2 non-elementals don’t have wowhead links. The real obstacle in this fight other than missing links is the dragon, for a few reasons. Here’s my lineup:

The most obvious thing here is that the pet to be leveled is rather high, at level 22. This is because the first pet out of the gate, Crimson, has the ability Cyclone, which has a chance to inflict 150+ damage to any of the pets on your team every turn for 5 turns. If this debuff isn’t present, Crimson will almost always use it, and with Liftoff for mitigation he usually gets a chance to cast it twice, so this debuff typically lasts at least 10 rounds for me. As a result, though RNG plays a factor, I don’t use any leveling pet below level 20 on this fight, and I avoid aquatics (which are vulnerable to the flying damage) altogether.

Crimson’s last ability and main dps ability, Breath, is of the dragon school, which is why I choose Radley the Scourged Whelpling. He’s undead, so dragon abilities ain’t no thang. With his Plagued Blood ability, Radley usually destroys Crimson, and gets through at least part of the Burning Fire Spirit.

Many people use the Rapana Whelk and other snails as their tank of choice, but I’m obviously rather attached to my crab Ishmael. This is one instance though, where the crab just will not do the job. Being aquatic, crabs are very vulnerable to that back row damage from Cyclone I talked about before. Snails are classed as critters, so they don’t have that same problem. Because the whelk is a critter, all of the Fire Spirit’s offensive abilities are weaker against him too, making him really ideal for the second leg of the fight.

One thing you should try to do though, is to use your whelk’s Dive ability to avoid Conflagrate. The spirit usually casts it whenever it’s off cooldown. If you miss it you can still win, but even with the mitigation it can be a big hit.

The third battle pet Glowy has 1 flying DoT ability, a combo DoT and reflexive damage ability and the critter ability Swarm, which increases damage taken by 100%. If it can hit. Luckily, it’s a series of small hits, so any pet with Shell Shield or the like will be able to avoid it. Like oh, I don’t know, maybe a snail.

After the Fire Spirit is dead, cast your shield immediately and keep it up. You pretty much just win eventually, because Glowy can’t hit you. It does take a while though.

And then maybe one day, you’ll get a mini Burning Pandaren Spirit Tamer of your own.

Maybe.

——7/10/2013: added a walkthrough video!

Grand Master Tamer Aki

7 Replies

9/25/2014: This fight is now up to date for Warlords of Draenor. For an elekk carry, use your elekk the same way you would for a level 1 carry.

Another frustrating fight, but Aki The Chosen can be a candidate for powerleveling your pets if you have the right strategy.

I was impressed by how well-balanced this fight is for tamers working their way up the ranks. Unlike some of the other tamers at lower levels, there are several different choices you can make for this Tamer. I’ve used a couple different group makeups, but this is the one I’ve settled on for now as the most reliable for me.

The first pet I chose for this screenshot was kind of a fluke, because I was trying to finish off my leveling achievements at this time. In your first slot, you can choose a level 1, as long as it isn’t Undead. My emperor crab Ishmael is my choice for lead battler, yet again. This time, make sure he picks Snap, since one of Aki’s pets is a critter. Your main requirement for a tank in this fight is that they must have some kind of blocking effect, like Shell Shield. This is one of the two keys for success in this fight. Snails are a decent choice too, but Whiskers can get a little bit dicey because the whelk’s undead absorb ability is so crummy against the aquatic otter. The Scourged Whelp is a very sturdy multi-hitter, and can be replaced by a number of other multi-hitters.

Aki’s first pet is critter cricket Chirrup with 2 heals and the critter ability Swarm, which does several tiny hits in one turn. Because those hits *are* tiny, most level 1 pets can live through one round of it, but it’s a little bit close, and the Undead family weaknesses against Critter damage make them right out. I like to err toward the side of level 3+ personally, but if your pet dies you can just forfeit and re-try with a different level 1 immediately, as all your other battle pets are at full health. After the first round carry swaps out, Ishmael puts up Shell Shield and makes quick work of Chirrup. Make sure to keep that up though, because if you get anything other than a block, miss, dodge, etc, you’ll get hit with a debuff that increases your damage taken by 100%. I don’t think Spiked Skin‘s mitigation is quite enough to reliably avoid getting that debuff. This debuff is very bad for the next pet in Aki’s arsenal.

I leave Ishmael up front with his shell until Aki’s next pet Stormlash the dragonkin casts Call Lightning to absorb the initial hit. This hit is ~400 without the previously mentioned modifier, but upwards of 800 with it, so that extra hit really needs to be avoided. Then, when the weather changes to Lightning Storm, things. get. real.

Lightning Storm increases the damage done by mechanical pets, and also adds 40-50 damage to every separate hit. Sometimes I choose my clockwork gnome because of the boost to mechanical abilities, but I frequently get so excited by the complete annihilation he visits on Stormlash’s head that I forget to heal in a timely fashion. My Scourged Whelpling Radley has better survivability, because I can cast his plagued blood ability, which allows you to heal on each hit (but doesn’t work for the additional hit, FYI). I also choose death and decay because it’s a DoT and tail sweep because Radley is slower than Stormlash so I always get the second hit. Now, I do 150 additional damage because of the storm, and heal for 150 per turn because of plagued blood. It is pure carnage. Simply delightful.

Because Stormlash is a dragonkin, he takes less damage from flying attacks so you should stay away from pets like Shrine Flies. An elemental pet with dots is a good pick too, since they aren’t affected by weather. As a result they don’t take the extra damage, but they do deal it. There are a lot room for preference and experimentation here.

Once I finish Stormlash, I continue with Radley while Lightning Storm persists, and then switch back to Ishmael to finish up. Keep up with your healing and mitigation abilities, though… Whiskers has several mitigation abilities, so he can slowly whittle you down with Surge while casting Survival and Dive.

On a different day, I did this with a level 15 pet, Safari Hat on, and this was my result:

Because she’s a short jaunt from both home cities in Pandaria, she’s really worth beating every day. If you have a different preferred lineup, feel free to discuss it in the comments!

Jeremy Feasel

4 Replies

Update for 6.0: This strategy still works really well for a two-pet carry strategy. To complete this leg of the quest An Awfully Big Adventure, this same strategy can be employed, though it may be a good idea to try & absorb a few more of Fezwick’s hits with your Elekk Plushie to ensure a victory.

—–

Jeremy Feasel at the Darkmoon Faire is a difficult fight to be sure. But how can someone so cordial be so annoying?

Look, he’s even waving. How nice of him. Well, his annoying nature is in no small part because of his damnable monkey Fezwick.

Annoying little Beast. His mechanical tonk, Honky-Tonk can be problematic too, but the tonk doesn’t wear a hat like he’s people. The third in his team, a magical darkmoon eye named Judgement, is the reason we come to the Faire to demolish some pets… the eye is only obtainable from the bag Feasel gives as a daily reward for beating him, and that’s really the only thing in those bags worth obtaining. But, you know, thanks for the grooming kit, Jeremy.

This is the lineup I typically use:

Eagle-eyed observers will note that this is virtually identical to the Major Payne lineup. Well, that’s because it’s the same screenshot and I’m reusing it. For Jeremy though, I usually lead off with my Fel Flame. Dante can typically lay out the first two pets Payne sends at him, as long as he leads with his most damaging DoT (Dragonkin for the Eye and Elemental for the Tonk) and the immediately uses Conflagrate.

Conflagrate typically eats up at least half of Judgement’s health pool and more than that for the elemental-vulnerable Honky-Tonk as long as they’re burning while I use it (hence, dotting up first). Because it’s 2 hits, it doesn’t trigger the magic pet type bonus, where they can’t be dealt more than 40% of their health in one hit, either. After that, I do the less effective DoT, then continue using the strong one until the pet dies. By then, conflag is usually off cooldowns and can be used again once I make sure the new pet is burning.

Feasel will always lead with these 2 pets and then use Fezwick as the anchor. Usually, Dante can take out both these pets on his own no problem, but if he dies before the second one is down, my clockwork gnome Prufrock can step in to finish things off before he has to take on Fezwick.

Prufrock’s mechanical attacks are strong against Fezwick. The real enemy with Fezwick is RNG. If you get stunned a lot, you may be screwed, which is why I keep Ishmael as my strong defense anchor. Sometimes all I can muster with Prufrock is a turret before Fezwick uses a combo of his quicker speed, stuns (which can break the gnome’s Repair ability) and high damage strikes to burn him down. As a result, if you’d like to use this strategy to powerlevel I’d definitely recommend you use something a bit higher level with a bit of defensive power, or just be prepared to burn some tokens.

Elite Pet Battles

1 Reply

Maybe I should say, quote-unquote ‘elite’ pet battles. I was very excited for this feature, but as I noted, couldn’t find much information about the nitty-gritty of the battles. So, with a 45 minute queue behind me and a graphics card that could not be less happy with me, I set off!

I picked up the quest Beasts of Fable from Sara Finkleswitch as I logged on.

From what I understand, this quest opens up alongside the Pandaren Spirit Tamers after you beat Aki.

This round of battles, it is one legendary pet vs your entire group. You can screw around with making up the perfect lineup if you’d like. There’s an excellent, very thorough post on WoWInsider you can use as a guide, in addition to all the locations. The thing is, it isn’t needed. At all. I was able to solo almost all these pets with one pet. Here’s my lineup:

The first thing you probably noticed was an unnamed level 23 resilient roach. He’s just there for insurance. I cast Apocalypse, then immediately send him to the back row. If my other pets don’t manage to kill the fabled beast in 15 turns, I win anyway. This goes through dive, and none of the Beasts are beetles or roaches, so you just… win. I chose the level 23 because it was the highest one I had at the time. Insurance is also why I have my trusty non-critter tank crab Ishmael in the lineup. He’s basically there as a meat shield just in case my nether faerie dragon Spenser doesn’t get the job done.

So, what makes this dragon so OP? In a word (well, 2) Life Exchange.

Basically, the Elite pets are supposed to be 3 pets in one. And that’s the thing, they’re in *one*, meaning they have a huge health pool. Life Exchange as it’s coded now ignores the HP cap of the dragon, which means it looks like this:

I chose the Nether Faerie Dragon as the vehicle for this, but it honestly doesn’t matter which pet with this ability you pick. With one fell swoop, you will deal at least half of any of these fabled pets’ health.

I expect both these strategies to get fixed somehow, because at this point it is too easy. Though, you do have to kill a whopping 10 beasts at all ends of Pandaria to finish the quest for your reward, the red panda.

You should note that when you turn it in you can re-do it immediately as a daily if you’d like. The bag reward has a chance to contain a non-red red panda, and apparently has a much higher drop rate on upgrade stones, so it’s worth redoing. Also, as seen in the below screenshot, you have a really decent chance of getting Lesser Charms with each fight you do. Because people might run low on those, I guess.

One additional thing to add. Remember that level 23 resilient roach? Well, he’s not getting much XP out of the deal, even with my Safari Hat on.

So, this isn’t really a good time to try powerleveling your level 1 undercity roach.

Major Payne

5 Replies

This guy, right here. UGH.

Look at that mustache. What is he, an old-timey strongman hipster?

He was the second fight I had to sort of ‘gear up’ for, and is one of the few for which I don’t yet have a 2-pet powerlevel strategy. However, out of sheer spite, because I hate his STUPID FACE and want as many people as possible to fart in it, here are some strategies I’ve used to beat him.

His 3 pets are the mechanical Beakmaster, beast Grizzle, and elemental Bloom. The elemental is always last in his lineup, but whether Grizzle or Beakmaster goes first can vary. There are two ways you can go about beating him. The first is to pick pets which defend against his pet’s attacks, like this:

Flying defends against beastly Grizzle, elemental defends against mechanical Beakmaster, and critter defends against elemental Bloom. In my experience this is a slightly less reliable setup. In particular, my Nether Ray Icarus has trouble burning down Grizzle quickly enough. Grizzle deals a lot of damage, and also has a really big multi-round heal ability so he can be very difficult to counter. Fel Flame Dante really shines as a glass cannon here, and can pick up some slack. Between her heal and burrow ability to counter Bloom’s multi-round abilities, Perky Pug Bertha had no trouble holding her own.

There are 2 real issues with this strat. Against his pet lineup you need to burn down his pets very quickly, and picking based on defense doesn’t really help that cause. The other is that abilities within pet families can vary pretty widely. This strat gets a lot less doable if you replace the Fel Flame with an elemental with off-class abilities, like the Ashstone Core, for instance.

The other strategy is one I call the glass cannon: Pick pets which have abilities that are strong against beast, mechanical and elemental.

The point of this strategy is to kill them before they kill you. My Clockwork Gnome typically kills Grizzle before he’s any trouble, and then it’s smooth sailing through the rest. A Fluxfire Feline might be a better pick here, because of their burst DPS, but I haven’t found a mechanical upgrade stone or a rare yet so I can’t personally vouch for that. You’ll notice that Dante shows up again to pummel Beakmaster… he is particularly suited for this battle. A Phoenix Hatchling or Dark Phoenix Hatchling are also good choices. My beloved little crab is very hearty, so he’s usually my pick when I need to deal aquatic damage.

A combination of these strategies would have first up against Grizzle a pet in the Flying family with mechanical abilities. I haven’t found any of these thus far. As implied above, the elemental family is both a strong attacker and defender against mechanical pets, so many elemental pets are excellent choices. For Bloom, a critter with some Aquatic abilities would be a good alternative. Namely, a snail or the Rapana Whelk. The dive ability is a good counter to Bloom’s roots too.

Good luck, and please make this jerk eat dirt. For me.