Kafi

Hello, welcome to Kafi Talk. I’m your host, Lio Richman.

Today we’re going to talk about strategy for the beast of fable from book one Kafi, New York, daughters, dogs, you know no big whoop.

Kafi has 3 attacks, and they all have twists to them. His first, Leap, is a smallish hit, but gives him a 100% speed boost for the next turn. His second is Gnaw, which hits fairly hard, but tacks on an additional hit if he’s faster than your battle pets. Because most Mechanicals are fairly slow it’s really likely your pets will be slower than his 292 speed even before he starts tacking on Leap. His last ability is Headbutt, which is on a relatively lengthy timer but hits hard, and has a small chance to stun.

With all that in mind, here’s the team.

As long as you have 3 capped level mechanical battle pets with decent offense, you’ll probably be able to beat this fight pretty handily, though the stun can be a gamechanger. The real star of this fight is going to be the Darkmoon Zeppelin, and we’ll see why in just a bit. The other 2 battle pets I chose here (Clockwork Gnome and the Darkmoon Tonk) just have fairly strong, Mechanical offenses.

I’ll start the fight by pulling out the Zeppelin, and using Decoy and Missile until it’s within a turn of being dead. With Kafi’s relative speed, we’ll be using the res turn to Explode, so we have to hit it on the turn before he’ll kill the Zep. Remember that dual attack on the Gnaw here, too! Explode hitting is crucial to this strategy.

After that big a hit I’m feeling a little verkempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. The Phoenix Hawk Hatchling is neither a Phoenix nor a Hawk. Discuss.

Explode is another of those odd percentage-based attacks which, although it isn’t buffed by most other moves, and isn’t affected by family weaknesses, it goes straight through that halfed damage buff the Beasts of Fable have, too. While in many cases this doesn’t make a huge difference, with such a big nuke being able to bypass the shield, Explode makes for an amazing tool to mow down any Beast of Fable. The Family weaknesses of the rest of the Zeppelin’s moves and its large healthpool in specific just make it a really good pet all around to beat up Kafi.

At this point the fight is mostly over. I just construct a turret to provide filler damage, then swap to the tonk and continue to nuke, and I win this one handily. I’ve beaten him before with just a Zeppelin and a Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, just nuking a bit and then Exploding. The Dragonling does worse at this than the zeppelin, just because the zeppelin has more health to start, and its Decoy doesn’t share a slot with its Explode, giving it a really good bit of longevity. There are a handful of non-mechanicals with Explode as well, if you’re in a pinch. Just remember that if you use Explode with the last pet alive on your team, you’ll lose the fight because it doesn’t activate Failsafes.

Another good alternate strategy would be to use the clockwork gnome, a pet with Thunderstorm and the Cogblade Raptor. Like I said though, most teams with 3 mechanicals are like buttah for this fight.

First Look: Tamers of Draenor

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Once again, WoW Developer Jonathan LeCraft has been busy, and has been kind enough to share his work on twitter.

This Gilnean girl, the first Tamer we’ve seen new for Warlords of Draenor, has a very unique team. Most of her pets are nigh-unattainable by most players, the exception being the pet hailing from the Diablo 3: Reaper Of Souls expansion pack (which coincidentally launches today), the Treasure Goblin. All 3 pets on the team are references to Diablo, so perhaps this is less coincidental than it seems. The Treasure Goblin is a humanoid with a lot of Magic attacks and a few defensive moves.

Most enviable is the Mini Tyrael battle pet. Mini Tyrael is a Humanoid with entirely Humanoid moves. Considering these first two pets, it seems like an obvious conclusion that an undead pet, or a pet with a wide complement of undead moves, will be excellent to have in your pocket to beat this new tamer. The third pet on the team, Mini-Diablo, is the only magic battle pet here, and he has quite the varied moveset. It’s next to impossible to recommend a hard counter here before seeing his actual move setup as a result.

The most interesting part of this post though, is the text of LeCraft’s tweet, indicating that this particular tamer will be showing up at our brand new Garrisons! This leads me to all kinds of wild speculation about Garrisons and how they interact with pets, but considering that I have my professionalism hat on just now, I’m not going to indulge. We already knew that Garrisons were going to play some role in how pet battles shape up in Warlords, but continued confirmation of that is really nice.

something something Mini Tyraels growing out of the ground like weeds something something.

If you’d like to help Mr. LeCraft name this team, he’s open to suggestions.

Dos-Ryga

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It would be wildly inappropriate to begin a walkthrough with cursing, but I am sorely tempted.

Dos-Ryga is one of the Beasts of Fable in Book 1, along with Nitun, Kafi and Ka’wi. He is also one of the more confounding battle pets in the entire series. Dos-Ryga is an Aquatic battle pet, so his simple counters are Flying damage offense and Magic family defense, right? So then we start the battle with a Magic pet to counter and

not so fast. While Dos-Ryga has an aquatic nuke with Whirlpool, that is on a relatively long cooldown, but his main nuke Frost Breath is, bizarrely, a Dragonkin move, meaning that Undead pets defend strongly against him. There’s also quite the wrinkle in his third move, a massive heal. Luckily it’s on a cooldown as well, meaning that this is a good place for a burst synergy team.

The Shrine Fly adds 2 DoTs, one Flying, which really packs a punch. The Sen’jin Fetish adds Wild Magic, and has a bit of an extra defensive boost because it’s Undead. The Chicken is there because of Flock. Nearly any substitution involving these 3 abilities, or proxies to these three abilities (eg, Expose Wounds vs Wild Magic) will work swimmingly here.

Get it? I said swimmingly, and he’s a fish?

Everybody’s a critic.

We’ll start off the fight with that Shrine Fly and its two DoTs. There is one oddity here though.

The Shrine Fly’s Glowing Toxin will always deal 6% of the target’s health per tick. The only thing you can use to buff this move’s damage is something like Sunlight, which buffs max health. It’s still a really good move to keep in your pocket for single-pet fights like the Beasts of Fable, because it’s unaffected by the halfed-damage Boss buff these pets have. But, it’s also not going to be buffed by the rest of the moves we’re about to set up, while the other is. This isn’t a bug. It’s intended. Don’t panic. Have your towel? Moving on.

After we hit Dos-Ryga with the first couple DoTs, the fight starts to get a little hairy. Dos-Ryga’s moves are dynamic, like Nitun’s, so I can’t tell you for sure exactly how it’s going to go down. After your Fly goes in, the clock on Whirlpool is ticking, which does big damage and roots your active pet. When this happens, I just sit back and nuke a bit with the pet I’m currently using, being sure to keep up my applicable buffs (the DoT, Wild Magic, etc). Even if the stars don’t align and your DoTs from the Fly wear off before you can bust out your Chicken, you’ll still be fine as long as you keep up the duration on Wild Magic. I do advocate making your swaps ASAP and not wait until each pet in the chain dies, because dawdling will only prolong the fight.

At some point, you’ll be able to put in your chicken, and that’s when the magic happens. Flock away, and try not to get fish scales on your boots.

The real benefit of using Flock over Howl is that, not only do you get the big buff, but each individual hit of Flock is also buffed by Wild Magic’s damage. This makes Flock’s damage component go from feeble to fearsome.

Alternately, you could just grab a team full of Crows and Gilnean Ravens with Darkness to half the healing and lots of frontloaded Flying damage, but where’s the fun in that? Especially since crows eat fish, and this is one fish you’re going to want all to yourself.

Somebody pass the tartar sauce.

Emerald Whelpling

Ka’wi The Gorger

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Ka’wi The Gorger is one of the Beasts of Fable in Book 1, along with Kafi, Dos-Ryga and Nitun. He’s quite a bit more predictable than either, and relatively easy to beat. The strategy I put forward for Nitun also works here, but I’m going to discuss some other, different tactics for Ka’wi. Because Ka’wi is easier to beat, this is more of a team building post than a specific breakdown of one strategy.

Before we discuss the actual pet battle, let’s talk about how to get there. For some reason, I am perpetually getting lost trying to find Ka’wi. If I do though, all I have to do is find the Jade Serpent Statue in the Jade Forest and look directly South. Between the road and the river is where you’ll find Ka’wi.

In fighting Ka’wi, you have a couple options. His offense is a mix of Critter moves with Chew and Flying moves with Moth Balls, so my first inclination in team building was to use a Humanoid team, because they defend against Critter moves. Most humanoid battle pets have really strong offense when paired with stuns and unfortunately, because Ka’wi is a Critter, he’s going to be immune to all of these. Chew is on a relatively short cooldown, but has a ramp up, so my personal prerogative is to go with something to just avoid this when possible. The Anubisath Idol, Bonkers, the Flayer Youngling and Lil Bad Wolf are all humanoids with either Dodge or Deflection. The latter 3 also have Beast moves, which hit the critter Ka’wi extra hard, making them the better choices if possible.

Because the other half of his offense is Flying another simple counter is to use a Dragonkin. Fortuitously, many of these dragons also have avoidance in the form of Lift-Off, which is easy to employ, because Chew’s damage hits at the end of the round, when DoTs do. Many Dragonkin battle pets also use Beast attacks, which is fantastic for Ka’wi. Of particular interest are those that combine both the avoidance and beast damage, namely the Phoenix Hawk Hatchling and Proto-Drake Whelp. There are a couple others that do as well, but by using Roar, which isn’t really effective in the ‘beast damage’ conversation. The Untamed Hatchling and Chrominius combine beast damage with heals, which is also fairly effective. Chrominius’ Howl option makes for a much stronger offense, which is able to rip through Ka’wi like a hot knife through Fudgie The Whale.

Here’s my preferred team for Ka’wi.

I lead with Chrominius because of the previously mentioned Howl offense. I usually like to frontload my offense, because it makes it easier to tell how the fight is going to go. The Phoenix Hatchling and Flayer Youngling both have good defense. I like mixing up the families just because it’s a good habit to foster.

The reason why it’s generally better to go piecemeal here rather than develop a specific strategy is because of Ka’wi’s one ability we haven’t discussed yet. He’ll cast Super Sticky Goo fairly frequently, which restricts swaps. This puts a bit of a damper on a lot of different synergies, so it makes more sense to just evaluate on a per-pet basis.

Clock Em

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Ironically, I occasionally explore parts of the game which don’t involve either battle pets or my druid. In fact, sometimes I just want to get out some aggression and punch some dudes in the head. And though that’s kinda what twitter is for, there are places to get my kicks in WoW, too. You just have to know where to go.

The Brawler’s Guild is something I just recently started playing through, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It’s oddly similar to pet battles, in that there’s a puzzle element, but it’s way less, “Death Adder Hatchling I choose you!” and more “THERE IS A CAT EATING MY FACE RUUUUN.”

One (literally) small incentive kept me going (though I ought to be careful slinging around that ‘small’ stuff while playing a gnome). When you hit rank 4 in the Brawler’s Guild, meaning you’ve done the first 12 fights successfully, you can buy a Clock Em battle pet of your own for 20-30 silver (the price varies slightly based on reputation discounts). This is the only way to obtain a Clock’em of your own, so if you want a tiny robot with enormous spiked fists of fury, better get sharpening your daggers and make your way to either the Deeprun Tram or the Brawlgar Arena. Clock’em starts off Rare and you buy up to 3 as soon as you hit rank 4, but they are uncageable and BoP, so if you want one have to fistfight your way to the top of a pile of corpses.

Clock ‘Em is unique in that he has a full complement of humanoid abilities, but is a mechanical battle pet, so he gets extra utility in the guise of the resurrection mechanical family ability. A few other mechanicals have a couple humanoid abilities, but Clock Em is all but entirely humanoid. Overtune is the one exception, and it’s used primarily to buff Clock Em’s speed, not really as a damage move. That speed buff has a lot of excellent synergy with his Kick move, which stuns if Clock Em goes first. However, Kick shares a slot with the utility move Dodge, which is frequently the better choice. Sharing a slot with Overtune is Counterstrike, which makes sense because Counterstrike has the best functionality if your pet is slower than its opponent. Rounding out his moves in the first slot is either the straightforward humanoid attack Jab, or the slightly odd Haymaker, which has a 50/50 chance to either deal damage and stun your opponent, or miss and stun the caster.

One big thing to be aware of using this battle pet, even in PVE, is cooldowns. Aside from Jab and Overtune, every ability in Clock Em’s moveset has a relatively lengthy cooldown. You need to choose carefully and use your abilities in an order so you’re not cooling your heels for a few turns. Clock Em’s Humanoid damage and Mechanical family make him relatively ideal for killing dragonkin that use a good bit of Magic damage. Unfortunately, Trixxy in Winterspring is the highest level tamer using a setup like this. He fights pretty well against most dragonkin though, as long as they’re not using Elemental damage.

Now, who do I have to garrote to get a cup of coffee in this stinking place?

Oh, don’t bother answering. I’ll figure it out. Trial and error.

Warcraft Pets Pet Of The Month

Pandaria Tamer Roundup

Seeker Zusshi

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This last tamer in Pandaria is a unique one, and not just because he’s the only Jinyu tamer. He’s also quite useful for carries, because of one really specific trick & combo. I’ll also give you tips on beating him with other teams, but you can carry a level one on this fight with a specific team. Here it is:

The Anubisath Idol is fairly indispensable here because of his Sandstorm/Deflection combo. To carry a level 1 Sandstorm is really key, but if you’re going for level 10 or higher carries, or just beating the encounter the first time around, most pets with a decent heal will work pretty well in the first slot. My trusty crab Ishmael is of course a good pick, but I’ve also used frogs and my Perky Pug Bertha for this too. The carry pet is in the middle slot, and the anchor is a Flying battle pet, preferably with some kind of avoidance move. Moths with Cocoon and fliers with Lift-Off work really well, but another option is to go glass cannon, with something like a Gilnean Raven.

First up is Diamond, and he’s the reason we’re packing the Anubisath. He uses Howling Blast, which does an AOE on all your pets as long as your front battle pet is Chilled. This is why Sandstorm is key if you’re trying to carry a level 1 battle pet. Occasionally my back row will take 10-20 damage if there’s an elemental-weak Mechanical, but other than that Sandstorm will block all damage from that AoE. After you’ve sorted that, Diamond just needs to be burned down.

Mollus is a Rapana Whelk with the Acidic Goo/Dive combo we’ve seen before, and Absorb. The thing here is that Absorb’s reflexive heal will make the battle drag on a bit while Dive makes for big damage, which is why I highly recommended either a pet with a heal or a big dodge in this slot. To be clear, because of the mechanics of Dive, an ability with a similar mechanic will only result in your battle pet taking damage. Avoid that Dive when you can and get those hits in otherwise and you’ll dispatch Mollus handily.

Skimmer always leads off with the same combo, and this is why you can carry a level 1 pet. He’ll self-heal and apply weather, then use Soothe, and then charge his Pump before releasing it on his fourth turn. Because Pump is the only offense he has, and he dawdles before actually unleashing it, this makes his offense both easy to counter and easy to use for a level 1 carry. I usually swap my leveling pet in as soon as Mollus dies, regardless of whether my first pet is healthy, active, whatever, to take advantage of this first downtime, because after the first go around it gets a bit less predictable with the various ability cooldowns. From there, just try to avoid Pump when you can and burn Skimmer down.

It has been quite a journey, through all the daily Tamer pet battles in Pandaria, so it’s fitting we end in the ever-glowing twilight of the Townlong Steppes. From here, it’s almost possible to forget that we, the players, in our travels through Pandaria, ruined Hyuna’s view, that we had a hand in polluting Moruk’s water, and that the vegetables surrounding Nishi will no longer grow enough to feed the Heartland so all the farmers will starve.

Just don’t tell Zusshi he’s one of a handful of Jinyu left. It’s extremely likely that all his friends & family are dead.

Um, to Draenor?

(edit) – This strategy works perfectly well as an Elekk Carry for your Awfully Big Adventure too.

Farmer Nishi

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9/25/2014: This fight is now up to date for Warlords of Draenor. For an Elekk Carry, simply use the advice for a regular carry.

Nishi was the laughingstock of the Pandaren tamers for a good long while. Most player tamers could solo her with nearly any level 25 battle pet. Located in the heartland of Pandaria’s Valley Of The Four Winds, she made an easy target even for those level 86 alts.

However, a bug fix in 5.4 gave her claws.

The abilities her pets avoided using in order to make her such a pushover were suddenly back in full force. Luckily, like most of the other tamers, as long as you know your counters, you are good to go.

The Strider has a lot of very strong aquatic offense and a weather effect. I’ve used frogs in this slot too. Either is fairly reliable as long as you make sure to switch in that weather effect. The crab is pretty much just there for cleanup. I’ve used mechanicals in that slot, because this battle pet will be facing Nishi’s beast, but if my first pet goes down early this can make for bad times because the rest of Nishi’s pets are elementals. A Flying with Lift Off or the Anubisath Idol makes for a good anchor too.

The biggest chunk of your strategy begins immediately. Nishi’s Siren has Solar Beam, which hits very hard normally, but tacks on an extra big hit if it’s in Sunny weather. So of course the first thing Siren does is cast Sunlight. You need to change the weather, now. You have an intervening turn where Siren casts a heal on itself before it’ll explode your pet’s face off. If your first battle pet is above Siren’s speed (280) you can put in your carry pet off the bat and enough time to change the weather. However it’s important to note that if your pet is at or below 280 speed you won’t, so you’ll need to start with your first ‘real’ battle pet, and then swap in the carry pet further down the line. In this case I usually switch in the carry during Toothbreaker‘s Sons Of The Root, and make sure my carry is above level 8 or so. Either way is fine, but you just need to be aware of it before you start.

After you change the weather, beating Siren ain’t no thing. The very first thing the next pet, Toothbreaker, will do is submerge and start hitting you with Sons of the Root while he’s immune. When I use the Strider, I use these turns to do things like heal (by casting my weather again) and set up Pump. You really just have to wait a handful of turns while you take a bit of damage. Just stay calm and take your turns. Then, when he surfaces, beat him up. His offense isn’t all that strong.

Last pet, Brood of Mothallus, is a Beast with Burrow and Acidic Goo. That combo together can produce some devastating results. With the crab as long as I keep up heals and that shield I’m good to go, especially since Brood’s 3rd ability, the reflexive heal, is Undead damage. If I use an Anubisath, I use Stoneskin and Deflection to counter Burrow, and that’s all she wrote. With a Flying I use Lift Off when he Burrows and boom goes the dynamite. If I use a mechanical you know what I’m kind of running out of idioms to say I win, so let’s just say I win.