Life Gets In The Way

Hey y’all.  I just started a new job that’s taking up most of my time, and the rest of the time I spend taking care of my baby daughter, which leaves me with no time to play WoW or blog.  So I’m going on indefinite hiatus.  I am currently looking for someone to fill in for me while I’m away.  Email me at enzzo@warpets.info if you’re interested.

Take care, and thanks for reading!

Aki the Chosen - Patch 5.2 Edition

The first time I fought Aki the Chosen, I won; my last pet had less than 50 health, but I still won!  These days, victory is much more certain, and I can even carry a level 1 pet (as long as it’s not an elemental).  Check out how below, and/or in my video strategy guide.

Pets and Abilities to use:

Anubisath Idol (level 25) with Crush, Sandstorm, and Deflection
Yellow Moth (level 25) with Alpha Strike, Cocoon Strike, and Moth Dust 

Strategy Overview:

Use Anubisath Idol’s Sandstorm to negate all damage from Chirrup, and whittle it down with Crush. Bring in your carry pet to Chirrup while Sandstorm is active. Use Crush to dps Stormlash while keeping Sandstorm up.  Do as much damage to Whiskers with Anubisath as you can, and finish him off with Yellow Moth if necessary.

Reliability: 5/5 (Very Reliable)

Detailed Strategy:

Aki’s pets are Chirrup the Cricket, Stormlash the Dragon, and Whiskers the Mongoose.  She will randomly choose Chirrup or Stormlash to go first; usually it’s Chirrup. Whiskers always goes last. Regardless of which pet she puts out first, bring up Sandstorm right away; for Chirrup, you’ll take 1 round worth of damage from Swarm, and all future hits will be completely blocked. As of Patch 5.2, you won’t even get the Shattered Defenses debuff. Swarm always lasts 3 rounds.  After Swarming, Chirrup will cast Inspiring Song; then, if his health is low enough he will do Nature’s Touch. Then it’s back to Swarming again. Make sure to refresh Sandstorm periodically, but make sure it’ll be available when Stormlash comes up (unless he went first). 

Stormlash himself is simple enough to defeat.  Use Sandstorm on the first turn to overwrite Lightning Storm, then whittle him down with Crush.  Normally my Anubisath Idol will still be alive for Whiskers; if not, you can use your Yellow Moth to do the last hit on Stormlash, then kill Whiskers.  If you don’t have a Yellow Moth, almost any species of flyer will do.  Remember to wear your Safari Hat!  

Thundering Pandaren Spirit - Patch 5.2 Edition

Though I’ve already revised my Thundering Pandaren Spirit strategy once already, the latest patch has forced me to revise it again; oddly enough, bringing Fluxfire Feline back into the mix.  You can view the updated video guide on Youtube by clicking here, or read it about it below.

Pets and Abilities to use:

Rabbit (Speed>300, level 25) with Flurry, Dodge, and Burrow
Fluxfire Feline (level 25) with Claw, Flux, and Prowl.

Strategy Overview:

Lead with your carried pet and allow it to soak some damage, then use Rabbit on Pandaren Earth Spirit, and Fluxfire Feline on Sludgy.  Use Prowl-Claw-Claw to kill Sludgy; then the Rabbit dodges or Burrows under all of Darnak’s attacks.

Reliability: 5/5 (Very Reliable)

Detailed Strategy:

With this strategy, it doesn’t really matter which of your opponents’ pets you face first.  Lead with your carried pet and allow it to take a damaging hit before swapping out.  Any Magic pet, even a level 1, is capable of this, because Magic-type pets cannot take more than 40% of their HP in a single hit.  Level 1 Mechanicals can also be safely carried, since a large hit will just cause Failsafe to kick in and they will come back to life.  Once your pet has taken a hit, swap to your Rabbit for the Pandaren Earth Spirit, or Fluxfire Feline for Sludgy.  It’s critical that the Rabbit has a Speed higher than 300 so that it goes first against the elemental and Darnak, each of which has speed of 300.  Pandaren Earth Spirit will always attack in the following pattern:

  1. Crystal Prison
  2. Rupture 
  3. Stone Shot
  4. Stone Shot
  5. Stone Shot 
  6. Rupture
  7. Crystal Prison
  8. Stone Shot 
  9. Stone Shot
  10. Rupture 
  11. Stone Shot
  12. Stone Shot
  13. Repeat

Rabbit’s avoidance cooldowns are Dodge at 4 rounds, and Burrow at 5 rounds (counting from when you go under; the cooldown doesn’t begin ticking down until you burst out).  Since Rabbit is a critter, and you’re going first, it doesn’t matter if you get hit with Crystal Prison, and you will take reduced damage from Stone Shot.  Rupture does a lot of damage, so you want to try and avoid it as much as possible.  Use Burrow on rounds 2 and 8, and Dodge on rounds 5 and 10. By weaving your Dodges and Burrows so that you avoid Ruptures, you can whittle him down with Flurry, which will always strike at least twice since you’re going first.

Darnak, like the Pandaren Earth Spirit, also attacks in a set pattern:

  1. Stoneskin
  2. Burrow (go under)
  3. Burrow (burst out)
  4. Stone Rush
  5. Do Nothing (empty round, everything on CD)
  6. Stone Rush
  7. Repeat

Using a fast Rabbit, you can Dodge on Round 3, which will avoid the Burrow burst-out and 1st Stone Rush, and Burrow on Round 6, which will avoid the 2nd Stone Rush.  Use Flurry on all other rounds.  It’s slow, but it’s 100% reliable.  You will never take a hit from Darnak using this strategy.

Notes on Pet Choice:

Any Rabbit with Speed over 300 should work, but ideally, you want one with Speed as close to 300 as possible.  305 would be the best.  The reason for this is any Speed higher than that is essentially wasted, because it could have gone into other stats.    I’ve used a plain Rabbit, breed 11 (S/B, 1465 health, 240 attack, 322 speed), but breeds 3 (B/B) and 12 (H/B) would be even better. Other viable options areArctic Hare breed 3, 11, or 12, Grasslands Cottontail breed 5, Hare breed 3, 11, or 12, Mountain Cottontail breed 3, Snowshoe Hare breed 3, 11, or 12, Snowshoe Rabbit breed 3 or 11, Tolai Hare breed 3, 11, or 12, and Tolai Hare Pup breed 3, 11, or 12.

Elite Battle Pets: Not Worth Farming For XP

The experience gained from defeating an Elite pet is so minimal (297 with Safari Hat on), it’s not worth putting together a 2-pet team to defeat them.  Just go for the quick win to complete your (daily) quest :) 

Check out my posts on the subject here.  I have made a map showing the optimal route to take to defeat each tamer and elite pet in sequence, as well as my initial thoughts on defeating each elite pet.  Since defeating them with 2 pets is a waste of time, it should be fairly easy to come up with a good 3-pet comp to defeat each one.

Here are my notes about each Elite pet:

Dos’Ryga was harder than I thought he’d be, but with 3 high-damage flyers, he went down. Magic pets are no good since he has a Dragonkin attack; Vampiric Batling would probably be awesome. 

Turns out Ka’wi the Gorger is a Critter, not a Beast.  Anubisath Idol, with Crush, Sandstorm, and Deflection worked very well against him.  Use Deflection on rounds when he has Chew.  Flayer Youngling as a backup.

With the new Prowl changes, even if Nitun misses or is blocked on his first Prowled attack, he’ll keep the buff for the next attack.  Bats did pretty well against him, but Snake bit the dust.

As I predicted, Flayer Youngling defeated Lucky Yi with no problems.  Kun-Lai Runt as a backup.

Against No-No, Emperor Crab is king.  Alternatively, flyers will also make quick work of him.

Anubisath Idol and Enchanted Broom are great against Skitterer Xi’a.

Two explodes are too much for Greyhoof to take.

Turns out Gorespine is a Beast, not a Critter.  Enchanted Broom did fairly well, followed by Darkmoon Zep to Explode and Clockwork Gnome to finish up.

Kafi hits like a truck.  MechPanDrag, Darkmoon Zep, and Darkmoon Tonk were able to take him down, despite the fact that Explode is bugged.  It only does 40% damage, despite the tooltip saying it does 60% against Beasts, and Flyby doesn’t increase the damage it does.

Ti’un does love to spam Tidal Wave. Fortunately with Sandstorm up, it doesn’t do much damage; however, since he has Shell Shield, it effectively doubles his defenses.  Also, the unpredictability with which he casts Pump makes him a difficult opponent.  I was able to beat him with Anubisath Idol and Enchanted Broom.  The Batter ability is worthless in this fight. 

Patch 5.2 Drops Today

As I previously mentioned, Patch 5.2, which goes out on live servers today, brings some serious nerfs to Fluxfire Feline, and the Reflection->Deflection nerf impacts Flayer Youngling, another favorite of mine.  However, between the time I wrote that and now, they also decided to nerf Anubisath Idol in the following way:

  • Anubisath Idol: Sandstorm and Deflection have swapped ability positions.

What does this mean for us?  Unfortunately, now you can no longer have Sandstorm and Stoneskin at the same time.  This will impact Anubisath’s usefulness somewhat, though it won’t be as devastating to him as the Wind-Up nerf will be to Fluxfire Feline. I believe Anubisath Idol will still be a very valuable pet; though he will probably no longer be able to solo any high-end tamers.

Again, this bad news is tempered with a little bit of good news:

  • Master Trainers in Northrend, Cataclysm, and Courageous Yon will no longer field pets with higher than intended stats.

While Courageous Yon isn’t that much of a threat, this is great news, as it means that Major Payne will be less of a… well, major pain.  In the rear.  I’ll work on formulating a good strategy for him in the next few days.

Lil’ Ragnaros is also receiving a nerf in the form of a Conflagrate damage reduction:

  • Conflagrate’s base damage has been increased by 20% and its bonus damage has been reduced by 60%.

Keep in mind that the “bonus damage” was doubling the base damage.  If my math is correct, this is something like a 30-40% nerf overall to the damage of Conflagrate (when the opponent is Burning). 

I know a lot of tamers have been looking forward to this quality-of-life enhancement:

  • Battle Pet Bandages now stack to 25 and are Bind to Account.

Of course, the biggest news of the patch is the new quest and pets they’re adding:

  • A number of new pets can be found on the Isle of Lightning, including rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops.
  • Elite Battle Pets have been added to the game world. These rare pets will spawn alone against an entire team. The Beasts of Fable taming quest will now become available from Gentle San or Sara Finkleswitch once Aki the Chosen has been defeated. Defeating all of the fabled beasts will award the new Red Panda pet, while completing the associated daily quest has a chance to award the rare brown, white, and orange variants.

I know I can’t wait to get out there and start collecting :) And I’ll post strategies for the new Elites as soon as I can!

Happy hunting!

Pandaria Tamers Speed Run


All the Pandaria tamers defeated in a single video :) Sped up for your viewing pleasure.  In real time it took me 53 minutes to complete.  As always, links to the individual videos are available on my Youtube Channel, or the Tamers page.

Delveddeep Vs. Seeker Zusshi

 Bat really is pretty excellent, I know Reckless Strike seems like a big risk, but it’s a huge hit with little in the way of other downsides, and bite is a solid beast attack for critters.  Bat is great for aquatic/critter teams, much like Snarly does excellent with elemental/critter.  Usually Snarly kills the elemental and 3/4ths the critter, bring in lowbie for a round, then switch to bat, one bite dead, reckless, reckless, then bite will kill (just in case it misses and you soak a pump after being slept)
-Delveddeep


This alternate strategy for Seeker Zusshi works quite well; it’s fairly reliable, and it has the upside of taking about half the time of my strategy.

Pets and Abilities to use:

Snarly (level 25) with Rip, Surge, and Blood in the Water
Bat (level 25) with Bite and Reckless Strike

Strategy Overview:

Snarly takes out Diamond quickly, then rips into Mollus.  Once Snarly dies, bring in the carry pet for a round against Mollus, then finish up with your Bat.

Reliability: 4/5 (Fairly Reliable)

Detailed Strategy:

You want to lead in with Snarly against Diamond (Diamond starts most of the time, but if you get Mollus, you probably want to forfeit and try again).  As Delved said above, Rip, Blood in the Water, Surge, Surge to defeat Diamond; then Rip, Surge, Blood in the Water against Mollus.  At that point you’ll probably be dead (you’ll be lucky if you get to use BITW on Mollus); bring in your carry pet for 1 round against Mollus, then use Bat’s Bites to finish Mollus; Reckless Strike Skimmer until he’s toast.  Check out the video of this fight here.

Notes on Pet Selection:

As previously noted, Snarly is the best of the 4 crocopets, but any of them should work pretty well.  There are a lot of different breeds of Bat; Delved uses a Breed 4 (P/P), and since I don’t have a Breed 4, I use a Breed 7 (H/P). Both of them work well, but his does more damage.