The Quick Three
I spent most of my time updating the teams page so I only have time for a few quick battles.
Battle 1: Trihard Shield
Fiendish Imp, Warbot, Stunted Direhorn
vs. Swamp Croaker, Clouded Hedgehog, Spirit Crab
I wanted to get off to a strong start so I used this powerful team. Then the Nether Gate missed, which often leads to a loss. Instead my opponent made some really silly moves. The Spirit Crab walked into the Minefield rather than letting it expire, the Whirlpool was mistimed so that it went off on the turn my Warbot died. The final bad call was bringing the Clouded Hedgehog into the second Minefield. With all of that I could have probably afforded to miss another Nether Gate.
Record: 1-0
Battle 2: A Bloody Nightmare
Darkmoon Rabbit, Snarly, Electrified Razortooth
vs. Darkmoon Rabbit, Unborn Val’kyr, Corefire Imp
Wow this opponent was slow in choosing. My DMR was faster which made the battle of the rabbits very one sided. I made sure that Snarly ate the Haunt. It was an easy one overall.
Record: 2-0
Battle 3: Bet On Birds
Warbot, Gilnean Raven, Dread Hatchling
vs. Firefly, Jademist Dancer, Snarly
With a level 23 Firefly and an aquatic against the two powerful birds this wasn’t much of a contest. I love putting up Anzu’s Blessing when a Minefield is out, those buffs are nice.
Record: 3-0
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I had a guy this morning immediately flee after missing a Nether Gate opener. I came up against his team a couple times before in the previous twenty minutes, and he beat me badly each time. I didn’t know how to react to him calling it a loss after one miss when he’d been spanking me up and down the Meta all morning. Is that first miss that huge of a swing even for a top-flight team? I wasn’t even using that great of a team. (Still trying to figure out how to work Vengeful Porcupette in PvP besides type coverage.)
I think it’s a huge deal if you miss the Nether Gate versus an Unborn Val’kyr or you fail to swap before a Minefield expires. Also missing when trying to negate the undead racial can be disastrous. Those are the situations that come to mind as being hard to come back from. In other situations it’s not an auto loss, I wouldn’t expect to lose if missed on the first round.
I really love how the Vengeful Porcupette works, currently one of my favourite pets and one I use the most. Probably because it works so well against many of the so called FOTM pets right now. Not really sure if I understand your “problem” with it.
There is no true partner to make a superior team, like in a bleed team where one pet applies bleed and one can do Maul, at least not that I have figured out yet. The only weather I can see benefit it truly would be Call Lightning, but I would never go that way since you will probably get burnt yourself.
One thing, that I have not tried yet but I just have to try after typing this, is to pair it with a damage buff, like Black Claw(perhaps but maybe a bit too short duration)/Wild Magic/Mangle(10 rounds might do wonders). I can see Forboding Curse(from Ominous Flame) working really well since it also has a speed rebuff.
If think that was what you meant. But if you just need some incentive to use it here it comes:
Facing a S/S Death Adder Hatchling. Two Powerballs and you will down the poor adder in no-time. Best part is when your opponent is oblivious to the power of the porcupette. Turn one to three. Opponent often does Blind – Poison Fang – Puncture Wound. Porcupette do Powerball – Powerball – (you are now faster) Spirit Spikes… the Adder will take huge damage from the double hit of Poison Fang while you take much less damage due to Spirit Spikes.
Facing a Crow/Raven, this is also until they get a clue. They often do Call Darkness – Nocturnal Strike – slot 1 attack. You just do Spirit Spikes then Powerball. Call Darkness is weak against the Porcupette, then they just kill themselves on the Spirit Spikes(easily 500 damage since it is strong vs fliers), then you mop up the left overs. Even if they know about Spirit Spikes they will have to switch or just pass a turn where you will powerball to both get them closer to 50% health where they loose their racial and boost your own speed.
Facing undead, nothing much has to be said, Flank does huge damage. And you can block a lot of incoming damage with spikes. I often use spirit spikes in the turn before CoD goes off, this more often than not leaves the Porcupette alive and even with low health it can be useful to keep in reserve.
Facing the S/S rabbits you will need 3 power balls to outspend them, but they often Dodge – Flurry – Burrow. You will be faster and able to cast Spirit Spikes when they resurface and get hit in the face hard. Even if you don’t have beast attacks they will go down fast.
The most trouble I had with the Porcupette is facing Aquatics with shields and heal(grr Crawdad). If you do Powerball/Spirit Spikes/Flank, like I think you should, you will also be weak against humanoids. Often this is not a problem since when you are faster Spirit Spikes will hurt them bad. The only humanoid that has caused me trouble is the Idol. Weak attacks and Sandstorm/Stoneskin, come to think of it I don’t think my Porcupette has ever faced a Guardling. But to handle Idols and Mechanicals(that are the bane of Beasts in general) I often run the Porcupette with a Voodoo Figurine. Then you got strong attacks vs both Humanoids and Mechancials and you can cleanse minefields, seems like a match made in… well somewhere.
Final point, Mechanicals. My Porcupette has singlehanded handled things like Clockwork Gnome and a few other mechs. Mostly thanks to Spirit Spikes, even if it is weak vs mechs it still is a substantial shield to negate damage. Notably it has even easily survived Ion Cannon hits from Custodians and gotten free turns to take the opponent out.
Replying to myself….
Now come to think of it. If you run Voodoo Figurine with Wild Magic and Rot, that could be a really nice fit with the Vengeful Porcupette. Wild Magic to boost damage and Rot to make your opponent undead which will really hurt.
I’m still toying around with it. It makes a great sweeper, and it always comes through in the clutch, like a harder-hitting, higher-HP Mongoose Pup, but there’s not a good way to make it a central part of a team. I keep tacking it onto other 2-pet combos as a sweeper, like Bleeders and Clonedance. I just have trouble making it stand on its own as a centerpiece. I’m still working on it. I’m still having the most success in a “Type Coverage” team-up with an Emp Crab and an elemental. I’ve used both the Fel Flame and the Emerald Shale Hatchling with solid results, but I still struggle against full teams of top-tier pets.
I keep flip-flopping between Spirit Spikes and Survival, myself. Because the Vengeful has more HP than a Mongoose Pup, you almost always have enough time to Powerball up the speed you need to make the most use of it, and when you’re in a tight spot, those extra rounds of life with the 50% Beast racial can be a huge swing.
I had a fight go poorly with some bad RNG wiping out my first two pets, and the Vengeful swept the entire enemy team because of Survival and a bad swap by my opponent. Flanked the squirrel down to killshot range, and they swapped to their sprite darter. Going first let me smack it when it dodged, and then Survival soaked Moonlight and an Arcane Blast, giving me time to finish it off. Flanked the squirrel when it came in, and then Survival was off cooldown to let me finish off Xu-Fu.
Spirit Spikes is a great move, though, and I keep flipping back to it when the meta seems a little bird-y. But I wish it would still do spike damage on opponents when it completely blocks their attack. Or that its duration was one round longer. My meta is bonkers for Valks, and if a team doesn’t have a counter for it, you’re gonna have a bad day in the queue. Another round of soak would make this guy a lot better for dealing with them.
Don’t think I have tried it with survival, ever. I see there is merit in useing it, guess I just have to try it now.
Voodoo Figurine works really well against CoD/Haunt Val’kyrs. So I really like that partnership. I often run these with a Rascal Bot, manily since it has a stun which is faster than undead and when you finish with Armageddon it will hit Death Adders in backline for 500.
If it has the speed for it, any pet with survival has a solid place in PvP. If you can predict when your opponent is going to go for the killshot, those extra turns can be a lifesaver. Just look at some of Disco’s fights using his Mongoose Pup. An extra round at 1 HP can be a huge turnaround in a close fight, ranging from preventing an Undead round from forcing a draw, to turning a sure loss into an amazing win.
I know survival but have never tried it with the porcupette since Spirit Spikes is unique and I guess I just got blinded to what else to there was to chose in that slot.
Thank you both for contributing such an awesome discussion. I have to admit that I haven’t been able to come up with a good Vengeful Porcupette team. Every time I try it just never quite works well for me. I even tried again after reading this still no luck. I’m having the same problem as Hirrus: I try to build a team around it but making the Vengeful Porcupette the centerpiece doesn’t work out. Perhaps I’ll pair it with a Warbot and Fiendish Imp to get a better feel for it.
I tried it with Wild Magic on a Voodoo Figurine, not really sure how big the impact was since the numbers still looked lowish. I would really like to try it with Black Claw, but bringing two beasts feels a bit risky. Also tried with Rot instead of Sear Magic, also was ok but not spectacular.
Then tried it with Willy to try with Rot from a different pet, ran into triple undead team three times in a row… So no real need for Rot.
By the way, noticed that the Spirit Crab also have Rot, but then you will be missing the Shell.
The real problem with Black Claw is that it doesn’t last long enough. Black Claw only lasts three rounds. After a swap, jumping across to the Vengeful loses you a turn of that sweet sweet damage buff when you could be hitting Hunting Party for huge damage. Usually, my raptor is either dead or just about when Hunting Party ends (The P/P is so fragile) and my opponent will kill it before I can apply Black Claw again for the next guy. And even when I do, they’ll swap on me, making the whole thing a waste.
Right now, one of my favorite “I’ve got my 10 wins for the week, let me just pet battle for fun” teams is my raptor themed team, with Anklerender/Cogblade/Fossil. Of the three, the Cogblade is the best standalone pet, and I’ve used it on other teams with great success. The Cogblade Raptor contributes Exposed Wounds, which is basically a name-swapped Wild Magic, with a 5-round duration. Plus, Overtune->Batter has much the same flavor as Vengeful’s Powerball->Flank. I haven’t yet tried the pair together, but it might be a winner.
Regardless, once the Idols, Crawdads and Blossoming Ancients stop spamming the meta, I can still win pretty regularly with my Vengeful/Emperor Crab/Emerald Shale team, which has no synergy at all. I might just call it a Thursday+ team and declare it a success.
Amendment: The real problem with Black Claw is that it’s TOO GOOD for PvP. An opponent will often stay in with Exposed Wounds, Mangle, or Wild Magic, and try to tank whatever’s coming. You can almost call Black Claw an avoidance move, because opponents will often swap rather than eat an attack with it up. When running my Raptor team, if I think my opponent is a smart player, I’ll hit Black Claw twice in a row and get the debuff up on the next pet after the swap.
It seems to me that Vengeful works best as a sweeper. I think it fills the same niche as the Robo-Chick; it can be used as a counter for fliers, despite not being an actual counter for fliers. Powerball’s speed boost will let it outspeed even racial-buffed fliers if it gets enough of a run going, which Survival can ensure. Plus, soft counter to Call Darkness, since Crows are the bar-none most common flyer on my meta.
I tried leaning on various debuffs for it, especially Wild Magic. I had some success attaching the Vengeful to a Corefire/Scourged duo, letting Flank benefit from Wild Magic and Plagued Blood, but, again, that’s just using it as a third to an existing pair. The problem is the same as non-DoT debuffs generally have; the whole thing is wasted if the opponent swaps. It doesn’t matter if I have Wild Magic on one of their pets, and Plagued Blood on the other. Neither are taking damage.
What I haven’t tried is pairing it with buff pets. It might be worthwhile to throw Celestial Blessing at it. Keeping the Vengeful up for a much-extended run would give it even more time to spam Flank. I just don’t want to hang all my hopes on one pet who is only doing one damage type. An Idol – even a shield Idol – can wreck the Vengeful’s day.
Since Idols don’t usually run with Demolish anymore they often do weak damage, so they are not that huge problem anymore. But if they do run with Demolish you better switch out or die.
I’ve gone head-to-head Vengeful vs Idol a couple of times now, and Vengeful loses about three out of four times. Yes, Crush damage is weak, but so is Flank, and the multi-hit attack seriously suffers from the damage reduction of the Sandstorm. You need to get lucky on your opponent’s Sandstorm misses in order to come out ahead.