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Rockbiter, Stonechewer & Acidtooth

These Goren are getting to be more & more of a problem, seriously.

Rockbiter, Stonechewer & Acidtooth are another intrepid triad you’ll see in the rotation at your Menagerie. All 3 are humanoid, though Rockbiter likes to pretend he’s Elemental with an additional heal from Nature’s Ward. Here’s the team I used:

All 3 pets are relatively easy to get, though you’ll have a time of it leveling them to cap. You can obviously swap the Gilnean Raven for that Crow or Dread Hatchling since we’re using the moves common to all 3. The important abilities here are Darkness, the Flying family, and Nocturnal Strike burst. You may be able to pull it out with the new Bone Serpent that’s a bit sketchy. The Ghostly Skull’s moves are unique, with lots of frontloaded Undead dps, and there aren’t a ton of options there either because we want to use that Spectral Strike move for synergy. Your best bet, if you can’t get one, is to just pick some really big hitting Undead DPSers & cross your fingers. The Blighthawk has a lot of longevity as the anchor with Consume Corpse and Lift-Off, plus undead DPS. Big, single-hitting Undead DPS is the key here, though you may want to pick something like the Fossilized Hatchling with a heal.

So, as I said, the very first thing that happens here is the Rockbiter pretends he’s an elemental with Nature’s Ward. I’m not so much concerned with the Elemental of it all. Moreso, the fact that he now has 2 pretty big heals at the end of every round is concerning. Even though Rockbiter is ‘Elemental’ he still has his Humanoid heal. Cute. So the first thing I do is cast Call Darkness, then Nocturnal Strike. Rockbiter will burrow, but since you act first, you can always time your abilities properly. All Rockbiter’s offense is Beast, which is why having that Darkness on a Flying battle pet (which defends strongly against Beast attacks) is such a boon.

After Rockbiter leaves the fight, Stonechewer enters. I can usually get off a few high DPS moves from my now-ailing Crow, but we really want to make sure that Darkness is up so we can use the Blind synergy for the Skull’s Spectral Strike. You may want to just attack the first few rounds though, because Stonechewer has a very hefty shield, but keep an eye on those cooldowns & durations. This is also why we chose Peck over Alpha Strike for the Crow. At 250 damage absorbed per hit, Alpha Strike can’t hit Stonechewer. Neither will most Undead-style DoTs like Siphon Life or Curse Of Doom. Neither will the reflexive damage of his hugely damaging Body Slam, which is super cute. Another reason I like the skull in this slot is that I can use Unholy Ascension just to ease the suffering of the rest of the match, but that’s not necessary.

Acidtooth’s main ability to watch out for is Spiny Carapace, which deals 78 reflexive damage per hit dealt, with an increase to 234 per hit when it’s re-activated. He will reactivate it pretty frequently, and since Acidtooth’s 244 speed is faster than my Blighthawk’s paltry 230, Acidtooth effectively gets 2 turns with this. I counter this 2 ways. One is with the robust healing ability of Consume Corpse, and the other is using Lift-Off to just avoid attacking through one of those turns. I also Infected Claw, a single-hitting ability, so even when I do hit him I’m not taking too terribly much reflexive damage. Acidtooth also has a DoT with Acid Touch and the straightforward humanoid damaging Punch.

With luck, and time, you’ll be able to banish the goren back to your mines for Lantressor to deal with.

Unearthed Magic

Blingtron 4999b & The Protectrons

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I suppose it was natural that someone so thoughtful and so giving would snap, eventually. They tried to upgrade him! What choice did he have?! His 2 bodyguards will ensure that nothing stops his philanthropic mission.

Why, it’s the Blingtron 4999b, Protectron 022481 & Protectron 011803 pet battle! This couldn’t possibly end in far-reaching apocalyptic destruction.

The team starts with my Pandaren Water Spirit. This is backed up by the relatively easily tamed Electrified Razortooth (you’ll still have to do the very first Isle Of Thunder unlock scenario) and the Molten Corgi, which was automatically obtained for the very recent 10th anniversary but is now no longer obtainable.

The weirdest, most irritating thing about this fight is Roboflauge, which for some reason makes all these pets take damage as though they were critters. Critters take less damage from elemental moves, while Mechanicals usually take extra damage, so this is a serious wrench in the works. Since they still all deal Mechanical damage, this is doubly a problem, since Elementals still defend strongly against this, and Beasts still take additional damage from everything they’ll dish out. To build this team, I simply combed through my list of Elementals for some that deal Beast damage.

The Pet Journal Enhanced addon makes this sort of team building far, far easier, as you can use the enclosed ticky boxes to narrow down your selection to only elementals with beast abilities. If you don’t have very many of these, you can sub out for some elementals that deal off-family damage, like the Water Spirit with its Aquatic damage, but you don’t want to grab too many of those. The Sapphire Cub from Mists Of Pandaria Jewelcrafting is a good pick, and there are a couple Timeless Isle drops that’ll work well too.

The Blingtron leg of this fight comes first. He hits somewhat hard with Club and Batter, and his AoE Armageddon does a bit of damage, but with an all-elemental team it’s not a huge deal.

The one caveat to your selection process is that you need to select something that has either a full dodge or a good couple of heals. Both Protectrons have an identical moveset which includes Ion Cannon. The Molten Corgi’s Puppies Of The Flame or moves similar to it makes this extremely easy to dodge, but you do need to avoid these Ion Cannons if at all possible, because even with the family defenses of Dodge it will hit very, very hard. This is why Miss Gloria is in that anchor leg. She can all but solo the 2 protectrons.

The real insult here is that, even with Roboflauge, these fakey fake critters still use their Mechanical resurrected turns. How rude is that?

Molten Corgi – Warcraft Pets Pet Of The Month

Quintessence Of Light

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It’s yet another menagerie fight! This time, for either Scrappin or Battle Pet Roundup, you’re going to face Quintessence Of Light.

This is going to be a tough one. Quintessence is a moderator & site contributor over at Warcraft Pets, and also writes her own stand-alone pet blog at Perks And Peeves. She knows what’s what. So does this pet, but we’ve got the tools to get the job done.

The Creepy Crate is honestly, oddly, primarily a stall. You can fill this role with most battle pets. Mechanicals are right out, as all Quintessence’s offense is Elemental. The thing I particularly like about the Crate is that it has a lot of DoTs to lend a hand, and that Curse Of Doom is definitely a plus. I’ve used a Fel Flame, the Macabre Marionette, a Wild Golden Hatchling, a Nether Faerie Dragon, and a couple others. Your choices are pretty vast, but I’ll leave this filler up to you. Unfortunately, the latitude there is made up for with a rather specific next couple of pets. The Senjin Fetish can pretty much only be swapped with the Voodoo Figurine or Fetish Shaman, which are effectively the same pet. The Rabbit can be swapped for a handful of other critters, but this is one of a very few times I’m going to caution you on breed. Stampede or Swarm is crucial here, but your critter has to has over 315 speed.

Like I said, the first pet just kinda stalls, up until the point Quintessence Of Light casts Heat Up.

We need to have control over Heat Up to win this fight, because it’s a doozy. Heat Up deals 270 damage to Quintessence’s opponent every time they deal direct damage, and persists for 3 turns as a buff on her. “Direct damage” is an important distinction. DoTs don’t really count. But we need to know when it’s coming to time everything else.

As soon as Quintessence casts Heat Up, swap on over to your Fetish. Cast your Wild Magic and Dragon Breath as needed. You’re slower than Quintessence, a Flying pet, so you should always use Rot on your ‘free’ undead Res turn.

After that, it’s bunny madness!

Stampede your fuzzy little heart out. Depending on prior RNG, Heat Up may come back up during that last turn of Stampede, which is why I go with the speedy rabbits. At that point, Quintessence will be below half health, so my rabbit will suddenly start going first. You don’t want to swap in your rabbit early to try & fudge using a slower rabbit, because Quintessence’s speed means you’re always a turn behind for swap purposes, so your Rabbit will get creamed before it does its job.

All else fails, you can always Howl Bomb this one. I won’t tell. #yolo

King Floret and Queen Floret

8 Replies

These flowers heard you painted some white roses red, and now they’re back… for revenge.

This fight is quite tricky, as both King & Queen Floret use Righteous Inspiration. When they do, frequently, the result is a one-shot death. So, how do you counter that?

A magic pet, of course. The Disgusting Oozeling in particular works well on this fight because when King & Queen swap, they take their DoTs with them. The other battle pets with this moveset work well of course, oozes and blobs and whatnot, as well as a few others. The Twilight Fiendling or Viscidus Globule are excellent picks for this strategy. We do want to stay away from Curse of Doom dots, because of how we’re using that 2nd pet (but to make up your own strategy, you may want to keep it in mind).

The Kneebiter is absolutely indispensable here, but won’t play well with Curse of Doom. You may be able to make something work with a Summit Kid or something like that, but I don’t put a ton of stock in that because it doesn’t lend that Black Claw additive buff. The final pet, the Shimmering Wyrmling, is a bit rare because it’s from the Argent Tournament. It does have a far less rare counterpart, the Mana Wyrmling, which is available off a vendor in Outland, but the Mana version starts off Uncommon. The main ability in play here is Deflection in addition to that Magic family ability. There really isn’t another good option, though if you’re desperate a Magic pet with Illusionary Barrier may work.

The fight gets off to a very quick start, when the 2nd thing Queen Floret does is use that Righteous Inspiration swap. The first thing she does is use an unbuffed Fist Of The Forest for 800-900 damage which is really your only warning.

Or, whatever 35% of your active Magic pet’s healthpool is. The first thing King Floret does as well is that 800 damage Fist Of The Forest, only now it’s buffed by Righteous Inspiration. If you’re using a non-magic pet you must use some kind of Deflect or Dodge or whatever on this or your pet is absolutely going to One-Shot Battle Pet Heaven.

Your very first pet will live long enough for a couple of DoTs on both pets, at which point the Zandalari Kneebiter will come in.

Oddly enough, now that the big-hitting Fist Of The Forest is on cooldown, your Kneebiter can roll through several turns of buffing with Black Claw and Hunting Party, since the rest of the King & Queen’s offense is relatively lackluster, and especially so against Beasts. Your Kneebiter will absolutely ruin King Floret, though unfortunately by now, Queen Floret’s Fist Of The Forest is back up. Your Kneebiter is on its way to Battle Pet Heaven.

From here on out, your only recourse for avoiding that deadly Fist is going to be some kind of outright barrier, and that’s what the Deflection is for. Luckily, because of your pet’s Magic racial, even if you just avoid something you’ll be in good shape, but in general it’s a real good idea to use it the turn after you see Queen Floret use Righteous Inspiration.

As long as you can avoid that Fist Of The Forest, you’ll be in good shape.

If not, don’t worry. They have fetch balls and all the bandages you need in Battle Pet Heaven.

Blizzcon 2014 Battle Pet Information

Carroteye, Mr. Terrible & Sloppus

4 Replies

Carroteye, Mr. Terrible & Sloppus are a trio of extremely questionable foodstuffs apparently scrounged from the recesses of your Garrison’s larder by either a troll or a worgen. Either way, not a race exactly lauded for its excellent culinary prowess. Make sure you stock up on the Maalox before we start this one.

The Eternal Strider’s main role here is to provide big Aquatic offense. The Pump move is an excellent one to keep on hand here. The Strider is easy to obtain at high levels though, so even from a standing start that one shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, though there are other options here too. The second pet I used was a frog, and again, that one is easy to grab from a standing start. A big attack and a bit of longevity is key for the second pet. Snails can work pretty well here too. The third pet is my Emerald Proto-Whelp, which is a bit more difficult, but any dragonkin pet with the Onyxian Whelp moveset will work here too, among others. Strong dragon offense, a dodge and the additional heal finish off this strat.

The weird thing about Mr. Terrible is that he will be unable to kill your pet. Well, sort of. He uses Weakening Blow as his only active offensive move.

However, he also uses Spiked Skin. This means that you have to end things on your terms, which is why we can waste the day away charging up that final Pump for a finisher (though, full disclosure, I kinda screwed this up in the video, though I won anyway, so that’ll tell you what a great strat this is! eh? ehhhh?). Our pet will never be in danger of dying until we attack Mr. Terrible with that huge primed Pump.

Carroteye uses a moveset very similar to Carrotus Maximus, which is why the frog I favored there is making another appearance. Carroteye uses Ironbark just the same, so Swarm of Flies is out. However, since this is a group fight the predominant move I’m going to use here is Water Jet, not Frog Kiss, because if that starts hitting you’re in trouble.

I also like the frog as the mid-point pet, because although all its offense gets destroyed when the final, Magic battle pet comes into play, it can still Frog Kiss a few times in order to hopefully give you a couple free hits.

Sloppus is the most infuriating part of this fight, because Stench means you start missing, and with the changes to Accuracy for 6.0, any time you miss it’s jarring and awful. It also makes the fight an RNG bonanza, which you know I totally enjoy as a strat writer. This, plus Chew, means that we need to have not only some longevity through heals, but also through some dodges. You likely won’t be able to use your avoidance move Chew every time, but with the heals that’s not really an issue.

No, the real issue is how I’m going to get my blood pressure down after this complete hogwash travesty of a missfest.

And now you know why I recommended the Maalox.

Cymre Brightblade

4 Replies

Cymre Brightblade is an archaeologist investigating a ruin in southern Gorgrond. Her battle pets are a sentient artifact, a magical lantern, and a dapper little mechanical who helps run the operation. Cymre’s name is a tribute to Cymre Jones, a battle pet and archaeology blogger over at Bubbles Of Mischief.

This fight is the most challenging of all the independent Tamers on Draenor. So much so that, between design iteration, RNG & being strapped for time, I’ve sadly only managed to formulate a non-carry strategy.

The Gazelle Fawn has a specific move which is fairly crucial to defeating this tamer. The only other pet I’d recommend (other than the other fawns, sheep, etc with this moveset) is the Teroclaw Hatchling, which is brand new for Draenor and easily obtained, but starts Uncommon and at level 1. The Dark Whelpling is pretty much the ideal pet for this situation (given the difficulty of this fight, that’s what I’d recommend here if you’re trying for a 2-pet carry). The Scourged Whelpling is your next best bet. The Infinite Whelpling (don’t use the Sleep ability!) or the Death Talon Whelpguard are decent choices, but require more thorough cooldown monitoring.

To be completely frank, I can pull off a 2-pet strategy roughly half the time with this ideal setup. Rather than beat my head against it and get needlessly frustrated, unless I’m trying for something specific like the Awfully Big Adventure, I opt to put in the Pandaren Fire Spirit over trying a leveling carry. Molten Wave makes Cymre’s last battle pet relatively trivial, and the Cauterize heal is really nice too. The Lava Crab is similar and easier for a novice to obtain, but I just happened to pull the Fire Spirit first.

Whether or not I can pull off a carry depends extremely heavily on what Cymre’s first pet does. It is a doozy.

The only offense Idol of Decay has to speak of is Swarm Of Flies, which is going to be trivial against our critter. Or is it, lololol.

Idol of Decay is a huge troll, and will cast Rot, making your pet suddenly vulnerable. This is why that Gazelle Fawn is so crucial. It can use Nature’s Ward and bust that Swarm Of Flies damage back down to size again, while healing itself back up.

It’s a pretty neat trick, but Idol of Decay still has one more of its own up its sleeve. It uses Dark Rebirth which means you basically have to beat him a second time, but ONLY IF it dies (permanently, as it is also Undead). This ability, whether it’s used at a time when I can wait, whether I wait through several turns and he doesn’t use it, etc, makes or breaks whether or not the carry is viable. If he succeeds in getting off the Rebirth and I’m attempting a carry, I just abandon it and restart because my outcome is not going to be positive.

Cymre’s second pet uses Sunlight and Wish, which is why I favor the Dark Whelpling. Switching that Sunlight to Darkness helps matters immensely. The heal-halving power of Darkflame does quite a bit, but won’t reverse the additional heal that Sunlight brings to the table. Of course, the Wishbright Lantern also uses Arcane Blast, which hurts more each time it’s cast. Even with the change to Tail Sweep which now causes you to usually bottom out on the Wishbright’s Magic family ability, it’s still advantageous to pick it anyway. It will still have more throughput on your third pet.

Gyrexle’s main offense is Build Rocket, which is why I like using Magma Wave. He has Railgun, but doesn’t use it all too frequently. Between Magma Waves and Cauterize, once you can get your Fire Spirit in this fight is over. Gyrexle will occasionally Repair, which can be an issue if you left Sunlight active, but your Fire Spirit (or Lava Crab) will benefit from that, too.

Like I said, it’s definitely a doozy of a fight. You can still use those pet charms to gain a level or 2, at least.

An Awfully Big Adventure

6 Replies

It’s dangerous to go alone, so for the Warlords of Draenor, we’re being given a brand new companion involved in a lengthy achievement called An Awfully Big Adventure. To complete it, you just need to bring your tailor-crafted Elekk Plushie along on Forty-No-That-Is-Not-A-Typo-Freaking-FOUR different tamer battles. Adding insult to injury, your squishy little friend does absolutely no damage or healing. All its attacks are powered by imagination and stuffing. You essentially have to complete all 44 of these pet battles with just 2 pets.

Here’s the list of all the battles you’ll have to complete for the Awfully Big Adventure in alphabetical order with links to either full entries, or just a video guide for simpler fights. The video-only entries will be denoted with (v). Most normal XP carry strategies will work as an Elekk Carry Strategy, so many of these videos & entries will just outline a standard leveling carry. The one difference from a typical carry is that, in order to get credit for this achievement, you do not have to swap your Elekk Plushie into the fight. Just being on the team is enough. But, it’s occasionally quite preferable to let the Elekk soak a big hit, stun, etc.

A warning: several of the more difficult carries listed here use pets I would never suggest in most normal strategies due to rarity, cost, etc. and many of them are excessively fussy in a style I don’t typically adopt. I apologize for this to a certain extent, but this achievement is by leaps & bounds the most difficult challenge handed to us thus far. These strats use any means necessary.

Aki The Chosen

Ashlei

Beegle Blastfuse

Blingtron 4000

Bloodknight Antari

Bordin Steadyfist

Brok

Burning Pandaren Spirit

Chen Stormstout

Christoph Von Feasel

Courageous Yon

Cymre Brightblade