I’ve compiled more data from my meta, this time around I did 1000 battles. I used a spreadsheet to keep track of wins and losses over spans of a few days to a week off and on from 6/2 to 7/26, in either chunks of 125 or 250 battles at a time.
Rather than list all the data as I’ve done in the past I’ll just include a few items that I think are important. I’ll put the link to my spreadsheet down at the bottom if you want to see it all the data.
Here are the pets that appeared the most frequently. I limited the list to pets which appeared 10 times or more.
pet – frequency – % encountered
MPD 131 13.1%
Graves 115 11.5%
Unborn Val’kyr 114 11.4%
Teroclaw Hatchling 81 8.1%
Fiendish Imp 75 7.5%
Bone Sepent 72 7.2%
Rabbit 58 5.8%
Weebomination 58 5.8%
Fragment of Anger 57 5.7%
Iron Starlette 57 5.7%
Chrominius 53 5.3%
Anubisath Idol 50 5.0%
Fox 50 5.0%
Death Adder 49 4.9%
Bonkers 47 4.7%
Scourged Whelpling 46 4.6%
Molten Corgi 46 4.6%
Lil’ Ragnaros 44 4.4%
Ghastly Kid 41 4.1%
KLR 39 3.9%
Xu-Fu 38 3.8%
Fossilized Hatchling 36 3.6%
Direhorn 35 3.5%
Frostwolf Ghostpup 31 3.1%
Fel Flame 31 3.1%
Clockwork Gnome 29 2.9%
Pan Water Spirit 28 2.8%
Lil’ Bling 27 2.7%
Corefire Imp 26 2.6%
Trunks 25 2.5%
NFD 25 2.5%
Spawn Of Onyxia 25 2.5%
EPW 25 2.5%
Ore Eater 24 2.4%
Ashwing Moth 24 2.4%
Generic Moth 23 2.3%
Dread Hatchling 22 2.2%
Frog/Toad 21 2.1%
Z Raptor 21 2.1%
Nexus Whelpling 21 2.1%
Celestial Dragon 20 2.0%
Hydraling 18 1.8%
Son of Sethe 18 1.8%
Magical Crawdad 18 1.8%
Chi-Chi 16 1.6%
Zomstrok 16 1.6%
Spider 15 1.5%
Raven 15 1.5%
Murkalot 14 1.4%
Crab 13 1.3%
Sunreaver Micro-Sentry 13 1.3%
Jademist Dancer 13 1.3%
Sky-Bo 13 1.3%
Alterac Brew Pup 13 1.3%
DM Tonk 13 1.3%
Sunflower 13 1.3%
Son Of Animus 12 1.2%
Abyssius 12 1.2%
Harbinger Of Flame 12 1.2%
infected squirrel 12 1.2%
Mechanical Scorpid 11 1.1%
Blighthawk 11 1.1%
Junglebeak 11 1.1%
Spawn Of G’Nathus 11 1.1%
Phoenix Hatchling 10 1.0%
Infinite Whelpling 10 1.0%
Clockwork Rocket Bot 10 1.0%
Stitched Pup 10 1.0%
Servant Of Demidos 10 1.0%
Swamp Croaker 10 1.0%
Core Hound Pup 10 1.0%
Fragment Of Desire 10 1.0%
Lil XT 10 1.0%
Sister Of Temptation 10 1.0%
DM Zeppelin 10 1.0%
Next are the pets that did the best against me. This requires a little explanation. Overall my record was 788-181-31. This means that my opponents beat me 18.1% of the time. It was Poofah’s idea to include the ratio of each pet’s win percentage to the overall win percentage of my opponents. I called it the relative ratio for lack of a better name. This gives a better indicator of how well a pet does. For example, the Bone Seprent had a 38.9 win percentage. Doesn’t sound too great, but when you compare that to the 18.1 overall win percentage with a ratio you can see that the Bone Serpent is really good: 38.9/18.1 = 2.15, so the Bone Serpent was twice as likely to beat me as a random pet encountered in the queue. Here are the pets that appeared at least 10 times listed in order of their win percentages:
pet – win % – relative ratio
Zomstrok 56.3% 3.11
Alterac Brew Pup 46.2% 2.55
Direhorn 42.9% 2.37
Ghastly Kid 41.5% 2.29
Bone Sepent 38.9% 2.15
Sunflower 38.5% 2.13
Graves 38.3% 2.12
Weebomination 37.9% 2.09
Fiendish Imp 36.0% 1.99
Murkalot 35.7% 1.97
Fossilized Hatchling 33.3% 1.84
Hydraling 33.3% 1.84
Magical Crawdad 33.3% 1.84
Lil XT 30.0% 1.66
Sister Of Temptation 30.0% 1.66
MPD 29.8% 1.65
Fragment of Anger 29.8% 1.65
Bonkers 27.7% 1.53
Mechanical Scorpid 27.3% 1.51
Junglebeak 27.3% 1.51
Spawn Of G’Nathus 27.3% 1.51
Crab 23.1% 1.28
Sky-Bo 23.1% 1.28
DM Tonk 23.1% 1.28
Frostwolf Ghostpup 22.6% 1.25
Death Adder 20.4% 1.13
Stitched Pup 20.0% 1.1
Iron Starlette 19.3% 1.07
Rabbit 19.0% 1.05
Z Raptor 19.0% 1.05
Unborn Val’kyr 18.4% 1.02
Clockwork Gnome 17.2% 0.95
Ashwing Moth 16.7% 0.92
Son of Sethe 16.7% 0.92
Teroclaw Hatchling 16.0% 0.88
Lil’ Ragnaros 15.9% 0.88
Nexus Whelpling 14.3% 0.79
Fox 14.0% 0.77
Dread Hatchling 13.6% 0.75
Spider 13.3% 0.73
Raven 13.3% 0.73
Fel Flame 12.9% 0.71
Ore Eater 12.5% 0.69
Chi-Chi 12.5% 0.69
Anubisath Idol 12.0% 0.66
Corefire Imp 11.5% 0.64
Lil’ Bling 11.1% 0.61
Scourged Whelpling 10.9% 0.6
Molten Corgi 10.9% 0.6
Xu-Fu 10.5% 0.58
Infinite Whelpling 10.0% 0.55
Servant Of Demidos 10.0% 0.55
Fragment Of Desire 10.0% 0.55
Blighthawk 9.1% 0.5
Generic Moth 8.7% 0.48
Son Of Animus 8.3% 0.46
infected squirrel 8.3% 0.46
NFD 8.0% 0.44
EPW 8.0% 0.44
KLR 7.7% 0.43
Sunreaver Micro-Sentry 7.7% 0.43
Jademist Dancer 7.7% 0.43
Chrominius 5.7% 0.31
Celestial Dragon 5.0% 0.28
Trunks 4.0% 0.22
Spawn Of Onyxia 4.0% 0.22
Pan Water Spirit 0.0% 0
Frog/Toad 0.0% 0
Abyssius 0.0% 0
Harbinger Of Flame 0.0% 0
Phoenix Hatchling 0.0% 0
Clockwork Rocket Bot 0.0% 0
Swamp Croaker 0.0% 0
Core Hound Pup 0.0% 0
DM Zeppelin 0.0% 0
Finally the family data:
family – % encountered – frequency – win % – relative ratio
undead 24% 714 197 28% 1.55
mech 14% 417 80 19% 1.05
humanoid 12% 355 68 19% 1.05
beast 11% 329 60 18% 0.99
elemental 10% 293 36 12% 0.66
flying 9% 261 32 12% 0.66
magic 4% 124 9 7% 0.39
dragon 8% 231 17 7% 0.39
aquatic 5% 164 27 16% 0.88
critter 4% 112 17 15% 0.83
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I copied this from the US forums so that EU players would have better access to it.
With so much undead around, you would think that the strongest class against them would be higher up the list. But it’s on the bottom. I don’t know how to explain that one.
Graves isn’t so bad in my meta, I also get the feeling that it’s also being not as used much in the last couple of weeks. Maybe people are getting bored with it’s Iwin buttons already.
My meta is chock full of MPDs, Valks and Kids though.
It’s not that hard to explain. With the lack of a pokemon-style STAB mechanic (Same Type Attack Bonus; pokemon do bonus damage with moves that are the same type as one of their types) there’s no incentive to use a real critter to counter undead types. There are aquatics, beasts, and even other undead who can deal critter damage to counter undead. Additionally, there’s a wide variety of pets with beast attacks like Bite, Snap, Headbutt, and Burrow, which will scare any critters off easily.
Meanwhile, there is a similar lack of top-tier critters; while most pet families have two or three higher-tier pets, the only standout critter I can think of is the rabbit, which is easily countered by both flying pets’ speed, and a beast type attack hitting their tiny HP pool once they’re done with the dodge/burrow game. If there were additional promotional critters being added, instead of just humanoids and undead, then that usage % would be way up, just because there would be powerful critters to bring to the table.
Long story short, Critter is just like pokemon’s bug type back in the early generations. Enough pets can cover their attack types, too many pets can counter them offensively, and there just aren’t any strong examples of the type to prop up the numbers.
Wow. I’m floored by this list.
Thank you so much for putting this data together.
I tip my hat to you, sir.
I’ve gotta say, I’m not terribly surprised by the information here. If anything, I can definitely see Frostwolf Ghost Pup climbing in frequency.
The numbers for magic and dragon types made me laugh,but also pretty sad at t he same time. I’d really like for blizz to show those to families some love. Hyjal Wisp is still one of my favorite pets though.
Poor dragons and magic. Even the two attempts at buffing them have failed. Try again Blizzard?
I’ve been back for a few days now and haven’t done a write-up or video. I was going to tonight but just too tired to produce anything of quality. I’ve been putting in a lot of extra time setting up my new classroom. Definitely more important than pet battles, but I hope to get back to them soon.
Statistics are cool in the abstract. But there are so many mitigating factors, it’s hard to know how much it all means.
The appearance data is most interesting. Wonder if the Fox would be that high up if you did it 2 months ago? For all the angst about Murkalot, 13 out of 1000 times is nothing to get worked up over. Plus the fact that a lot of my favorite pets don’t even show up on the list show how much diversity there is.
Win % has to be taken in context. The average pet battler wouldn’t do nearly as well if they could replicate all 1000 battles. Individual pets can do better or worse depending on who else is on their team. And who you battled with makes a big difference.
Still, an impressive set of data. Always the contrarian, I can see I need to build a critter, aquatic, dragon team…
The frequency is the most useful data here imo, I figured as long as I’m keeping data I might as well see how pets are performing against me. The individual pet records are less meaningful when taken out of context.
how did you track all those battles? manually write up after every single one?
would be interesting to know what pets you used in all of this. top tier pets or just whatever you felt like? i assume you switched around quiet a bit so its hard to say how precise those data collected surrounding win % can be ( if you flavor counter to magic/dragons in your teams, it would explain why they are the lowest ). do you have a list of pets you used in this ? love the passion you put into this!
Yes, I entered all the data manually.
When I did this before I kept my pets’ records too, but this time around around it seemed redundant since I’ve been keeping my team records since April. Here are the teams that I use the most:
LOVE seeing all those Trunks teams!
Not the best per se, but which are your two favorite pets to team up with him?
I usually go with a P/P Junglebeak and a random 3rd pet.
Trunks can fit in a lot of teams with the Smash / Ethereal / Avalanche move set. After playing the two Trunks and FoA teams I haven’t used Trunks much. So many pets, so little time lol.