Posts with tag pet-battles

2012 is nearly over. If you were playing WoW on this date in 2011, you were playing a significantly different game, raiding the ultimate raid of Cataclysm with the Dragon Soul, or... probably not doing much else. One of the biggest changes between then and now is one that's often commented on, namely that there's a much wider variety of content in Mists of Pandaria at the endgame level. Level 90 players can choose to run scenarios, heroic dungeons, use the Looking for Raid tool, engage in pet battles, pursue one of a wide variety of daily quests which allow for the gaining of reputation with various factions, run challenge mode dungeons, or get involved in 10/25 man raiding. One can even step into older raid content with or without a group for the purposes of collecting gear for transmogrification or simply for fun.

I've said before and will say again that quests like Welcome to the Machine demonstrated real mastery on the part of the development team behind Cataclysm. To my mind, the real lesson of the Cataclysm to Mists transition is threefold. Cataclysm was extremely well designed, but the majority of its best content is in those revamped 1 to 60 jones, or to coin a term, is in vertical content, a pillar of content that players ascend. Mists content is horizontal -- while there are several zones to level from 85 to 90 in, the true flowering of the vast majority of Mists content is a plateau, an expanse that blossoms outward. Once you ascend those five levels, you get more to do, not less. However, it must be said that this isn't a trend that Mists invented. Pretty much every innovation in Mists of Pandaria's content delivery is built on the edifice of Cataclysm, which itself built on previous expansions.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill laments being knocked successfully up past the Suppression Room, only to pull the boss and be knocked back down and across the Suppression Room while the original knockback mobs die. UGH.

Well, Naxxramas is big enough that I'll leave a whole article to it. The other raids from the original raiding scene of level 60 can fit into one since they're relatively easy to do. The roadblocks to finishing them are largely mechanical tricks, not damage output or survivability problems.

There's no real difference between the specs in these earliest raids. I run as destruction mostly because it's fast-paced, but any spec and almost any talent setup can do these raids.

During Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard gave us the Peggle and Bejeweled addons. In Cataclysm, we got an amazing in-game version of Plants vs. Zombies (which rewarded a Singing Sunflower pet that actually sang). Now in Mists of Pandaria, the latest addition to the growing collection of games within the game is the new pet battle system which is reminiscent of the beloved Pokémon series.

Well, beloved to everyone else anyway. See, Pokémon and I have a bitter past. It started when I was 12, and I told my mother the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a Gameboy and a copy of Pokémon Blue. It was an expensive gift to ask for from a single parent working two jobs, but I was desperate. In the months prior, all my friends at school had ceased socializing about comics and fantasy novels in favor of playing Pokémon. Every day at lunch they'd scarf down their meals then whip out their link cables and start dueling. Not having a Gameboy myself though, I was completely left out.

Sadly, when Christmas came there was no Gameboy. Instead I received a Pocket Pikachu, which was a weird toy pedometer crossed with a Tamagotchi. The idea was that you'd keep it in your pocket and as you took steps you'd earn currency to buy presents for Pikachu, who would then be your friend. The problem was the pedometer wasn't very sensitive to normal steps, so you were better off shaking it over and over. So for the next few months, while my friends continued to ignore me to play Pokémon, I shook a stupid, yellow pedometer up and down.

Anyway, long story short, I'm not too crazy about a pet battle system. And while I appreciate that Blizzard has made great efforts to integrate such an indepth feature into the game, I feel like they've missed out on the perfect opportunity to add a minigame to the game that would fit perfectly into Mists of Pandaria: mahjong.

If you haven't purchased the Pandaren Monk pet off of the Blizzard store (or don't have access to the numerous limited edition murlocs and holiday pets), it can be a challenge finding a good humanoid pet to use in pet battles, especially early on in your battling career. The first one you'll gain access to is the recently implemented Harpy Youngling from the Northern Barrens, but it isn't very good as a humanoid pet as it has primarily flying-type moves. You can acquire the Stunted Yeti as early as level 12 in Feralas, but in my humble opinion, the first humanoid wild pet worth its weight is Zangarmarsh's Sporeling Sprout, acquired around pet level 18.

The Sporeling Sprout, which spawns in Zangarmarsh near Sporeggar, possesses a moveset that deals a mix of humanoid, undead, and elemental damage, all depending on which abilities you decide to use. Its attacks are as follows:

• Scenarios now include Dungeon Finder queue features, including leaders, backfill, vote to kick, and deserter debuffs. Roles are still not required.
• Raid groups are no longer required to enter pre-Mists of Pandaria raid dungeons. Get to farming!
• Speaking of old raid dungeons, a variety of new pets have been added to old raid bosses.
• For fans of Pet Battles, be sure to check out the new Battle-stones, used to upgrade the quality of pets.

Blizzard has integrated the features of many current add-ons into the pet battle UI for patch 5.1. The journal, wild pet tooltips, and battle UI now display information making it easier to choose which pets to capture and which to kill.

• During battle, the quality of the pet is shown in the color of the opponent creature's name as well as the border of the icon. This renders Pet Battle Glow unnecessary.
• Mousing over a pet in the wild now shows how many of that creature you have collected, if any. It does not show what the highest quality of that particular pet you own, however. So the Pet Caught add-on will still give more information than the new UI.
• Mousing over the opponent creature during the battle will also display how many of the pets you own, but again, not their qualities.

More changes are after the break.

• It shares its spawn with the Thundering Exiles in the area, so you must kill them for a chance at a Tiny Twister spawn
• It shares its spawn with any other type of wild pet in the area, so you must eliminate those for a chance at a Tiny Twister spawn
• Only X number of Tiny Twisters can spawn in a given length of time, so all you can do is wait

There is more evidence for that second option than any other, but without the ability to see the coding behind its spawns, we can't be too sure in any direction. In any case, killing the Thundering Exiles and eliminating other wild pets in the area would be a good way to pass the time while waiting for a Tiny Twister to spawn, so it doesn't matter which theory is correct, in any case. Engaging in all of the above applies in one way or another. All of that being said, if you rush out to Arathi Highlands immediately after a server reset, you'll find the place absolutely littered with these little guys and will have no problem catching one whatsoever.

Of all the 5.1 news that's been released so far, some of our favorite changes and additions involve battle pets. The first is the introduction of new rarity stones that will make your poorly statted yet hard-to-find pets better. Even cooler than that, Blizzard is introducing an entire new set of battle pets into the game as rewards for killing old world bosses.

Today we'll focus our attention on the three ghoulish gifts that drop off bosses in Naxxramas. These creepy undead come with a variety of suitably spooky abilities, and all promise to fit well into many competitive battle pet teams. Undead are one of the best types in pet battling, due to their powerful passive self-resurrection ability and that they're super-effected by critters, one of the worst types in the game. I'm hoping that this trio of terrible terrors might cause us to start seeing something other than Lil' K.T. and Landro's Lichling in PVP pet battles.

How to consume friends and alienate people

Stitched Pupling drops off Gluth, the third boss of Naxxramas' abomination quarter. Despite his terrifying visage, this pup is more of guard dog. While we don't know his approximate stats yet, we do have an idea of his moveset (though no knowledge of which column the abilities fall into). He has two self-heals in Plagued Blood and Consume Corpse. Plagued Blood also gives him some nice utility for your next pet to switch in on, and Consume Corpse's large heal combined with this pup's undead nature guarantee a prolonged war of attrition will be needed to take him down.

If you're on a quest to catch all of the wild pets Azeroth has to offer, there's one pet you'll want to add to your arsenal as soon as possible: the Terrible Turnip. Why? Two words, my friends: Weakening Blow.

Weakening Blow is an Elemental ability unique to the Terrible Turnip. It is, perhaps, the most powerful tool in a pet collector's arsenal. Weakening Blow cannot reduce an enemy's health below 1. That means, if you're using your Terrible Turnip, you'll never again accidentally kill that rare-quality Nether Faerie Dragon you've been spending hours attempting to find.

It also means you don't need to continuously level mid-range pets to prevent your level 25s from insta-gibbing critters in old world zones, should you need to go back and find something you missed. The Terrible Turnip, even at level 25, will never kill those low level critters. In the world of pet collecting, nothing is more essential to your toolkit than Weakening Blow.

At its most basic level, pet battles are a game of rock, paper, scissors. Flying beats Aquatic, Aquatic beats Elemental, and so forth. However, there are a few pets that change up that dynamic and add another level of complexity to the system. The Nether Faerie Dragon, for example, is a Flying pet. Despite its Flying designation, it abandons most stock Flying abilities, possessing a range of powerful Magic abilities instead.

Its abilities are as follows:

• Slot 1 Slicing Wind or Evanescence
• Slot 2 Arcane Blast or Life Exchange
• Slot 3 Moonfire or Cyclone

Only two out of six spells on this Flying-type pet are actually Flying abilities, while the rest are Magic.

Choosing between Slicing Wind and Evanescence is purely a matter of personal preference -- the former provides more offensive versatility while the latter provides more defensive options. However, it almost seems foolish to pass up the deadly combination of Arcane Blast and Moonfire.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I cannot adequately express how happy I am that weather is back in Pandaria. Fishing off the coast of Krasarang in the pouring rain is unbelievably relaxing.

Puntable1 asked:

Pet battle question. What do you use to kill crabs? They are the only wild pet I have a problem with.