Today’s Team: You Knew It
H/H Spirit Crab (Snap, Surge, Shell Shield)
H/H Spirit Crab (Snap, Surge, Shell Shield)
H/H Spirit Crab (Snap, Whirlpool, Shell Shield)
Rationale:
You knew it was coming. All throughout 5.3 and 5.4 the Spirit Crab was my favorite pet, and in my opinion one of the top pets. The nerf to 95% moves like Snap took the undead crab down a notch, but it’s still a solid pet. I had undead leveling stones that I didn’t know what to do with so I recently leveled up my third Spirit Crab. I never thought that I’d need it. Today though, I’ve been facing a ton of Fiendish Imp and Son OF Sethe teams. Maybe three shields will come in handy, who knows.
Concerns:
Critters aren’t a huge concerns since I have Snap, but any non-critters with critter moves may be a problem. Foxes and flies come to mind.
The Opposing Team:
P/P Harbinger Of Flame
H/H Celestial Dragon
P/B Nordrassil Wisp
The Battle:
Okay, I feel like a troll. Not only that, this was a boring battle. The first crab took out the Celestial Dragon and most of the Harbinger Of Flame’s health. It was almost a two for one trade. The next crab finished off the humanoid and I thought I had it all wrapped up. Not exactly, I swapped out the second crab for the third after getting blinded. The problem was that the third crab didn’t have Surge, so it couldn’t get some damage in before the next Flash came. I missed three Snaps in a row, damn. At this point I was getting a little bit nervous, but it really wasn’t all that close. Two more Snaps (one while blinded) killed the wisp. So boring.
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Just curious as to why you elected to use Whirlpool on your third pet instead of Surge, especially since you used the Whirlpool pet as your sweeper? Perhaps you just forgot you selected it 😉
I too enjoy the Spirit Crab, but haven’t added it to any 6.0+ teams.
I was complacent after being so far ahead. It would have served me right to lose.
Oh dear, as if dealing with the… people in the pvp queue who have 3 of a kind teams isn’t bad enough, now the pvp blogger is doing it as well? *dismayed face*
I know, I’m a bad example. But, but, it’s the Spirit Crab. I sometimes wished I would have named the site spiritcrab.com, that’s how much I used to love this pet! The triple crab team was inevitable.
Haha, I guess that’s fair… maybe I should just start making triple teams of pets I like. Like 3 Servants of Demidos – imagine all those Magic Sword crits!
On second thoughts, it was hard enough getting one copy of it, not gonna camp/buy two more just for a team that’ll get eaten alive by any MPD user…
I’ve been plugging away at getting the pet monument, 1100 battles done. I’m leveling alts in FFRidge with pve and a PvP battle once in a while to break the tedium. I’ve noticed a big jump in frog kissing and elemental pets on my meta.
I did have the fun of dishing 4 straight losses to a triple anub.team ..the player never fled or changed his comp…I beat it with 2 different comps including a darkness team with soul of the aspects/frostfur rat/giln.raven(p/b)…the first team was Mr wiggles/sister of temptation/Frostfur rat
I recently got another alt to 100 by leveling this way. With heirlooms going all the way up to 100 and that garrison exp buff item I couldn’t believe how fast it went.
The frostfur is an h/p breed- I use flurry/crouch/call darkness
1485 health+crouch makes it tanky…no stunning it,285 pwr and 276 speed…its a decent undead beater that can change weather
So one might say that all the imps and fetishes have left you feeling somewhat…crabby? /rimshot
I’ll leave now.
And of course I ruin my own crummy pun by getting the wrong pet in there. GG me.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t point it out
@Disco
Normally I wouldn’t link to the warcraftpets forum, but I don’t really want to retype everything or embed html tags for abilities. Anyway short version is I made a list of pets with ‘attack first’ moves that are also high power breeds. Thought it might be useful for the battlers here on possible sweeper pets.
Cheers,
http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13846&start=20#p112821
You might find this of use. I (Vapid) have compiled a list of ‘sweeper’ pets. These are high powered pets that have mechanics which enable them to attack first – through the ‘attack first’ abilities some pets have. The most commonly used one (myself included) is the P/P Emperor Crab: Surge (attack first) combined with a shield and a heal make for a durable pet, that also is a strong counter to undead. My Emp crab has by itself countered a triple healing team (Blossoming Ancient, Singing Sunflower, Puddle Terror) and a triple undead team (Unborn Valk and two Weebombs).
But other good sweeper pets exist. I have put the pet name in italics and the ‘attack first’ ability move in bold; additional notes after each pet. I have also included what type of racial the attack is, but I leave you to figure out what that makes the attack powerful against (ie Surge is aquatic damage and is therefore powerful against Elemental pets). The additional sweepers are:
P/S (1400/289/289), Warpstalker Hatchling (Beast)
Moveset
Blinkstrike (magic) — Triple Snap (beast) — Comeback (critter)
**This is the least powerful sweeper with only 289 Power, but it counters three different classes. The Blinkstrike is a magic attack first ability which is useful against birds. Comeback is a nice addition to deal with Undead.
P/P (1400/341/244), Azure Crane Chick (Flying)
Moveset
Flock (flying) — Cleansing Rain (weather) — Surge (aquatic)
**Truthfully I don’t use the first ability, so you could select Quills instead if you find it to be a better Aquatic counter. The perk about the AzureCC is having an aoe heal that changes the weather (great against darkness and sandstorm teams) and the weather buffs your priority move Surge. The flying racial doesn’t get used so much, but the 341 Power makes ties it for second strongest attack first pet.
P/P (1400/341/244), Diemetradon Hatchling (Beast)
Moveset
Quick Attack (critter) — Triple Snap (beast) — Comeback (critter)
**The other strong 341 Power works well with the attack first Quick Attack, which also is strong against Undead. The other two abilities you might use in different situations, probably mainly the possible 3 hits of Triple Snap against a Critter.
P/P (1441/325/252), Stunted Direhorn (Beast)
Moveset
Trihorn Charge (beast) — Stampede (critter) — Trihorn Shield
**To acquire this pet you first need to win 250 pvp pet battles, sorry. Trihorn Charge is the strongest attack first ability in game (that doesn’t require a setup mechanic like Trunks in Moonlight), but the charge is only 85% hit chance. But if you first use the Shield to negate damage and then spam the charge this can be a useful combo. Stampede is the ability I selected to just cover another pet race.
P/P (1400/325/260), Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar (Mechanical)
Moveset
Charge (humanoid) — Pig Out (beast) — Decoy
**A Mechanical with a heal and an avoidance? Yes this is a useful pet with three very good abilities and a racial that lets you attack again. Though to be fair, considering the number of anti Decoy teams and Fiendish Imp that currently exist, this pet would be less than optimal. Still very good. I keep expecting someone to run an annoying 2x MPD and the LMF together.
P/P (1400/325/260), Sporeling Sprout (Humanoid)
Moveset
Charge (humanoid) — Creeping Fungus (undead) — Crouch
**You probably have never seen this pet played. I am pretty sure I have only seen it once in over 2000+ pvp games and that game was yesterday. Still a humanoid with an attack first, an undead dot, damage reduction, and humanoid racial healing is pretty decent. Most people only run with one humanoid (Fiendish Imp or Anub) on their team thanks to the prevalence of undead pets, but the Sprout is decent.
H/H (1887/292/195), Spirit Crab (Undead)
Moveset
Snap (beast) — Surge (aquatic) — Shell Shield
**While not a pure power pet like those above, Discodoggy’s number one friend deserves a mention as a great sweeper. The incredible undead racial plus high health and a shield give this pet longevity that can prove to be quite handy. Snap is nice against critters too.
And finally to be a thorough, I include the EmpCrab.
P/P (1481/357/211), Emperor Crab (Aquatic)
Moveset
Surge (aquatic) — Healing Wave — Shell Shield
**With the highest Power at 357, the EmpCrab also has the most potent Surge. A great counter to undead and elementals, the heal+shield combo is excellent. Dislikes flyers.
There are other pets with attack first abilities, especially surge, but none of them come in P/P varieties which benefit the most from a first attack. Hope this is helpful for team building.
It looks better copy/pasted then I expected. I was concerned that the bold, italics, or links to abilities would screw up. Guess not 😀
Hope it is useful for battlers!
I would consider flyers overall sweepers against nonflyers, but clearly its a tradeoff. Flyers also tend to die on the backline due to aoe or at least lose their flyer advantage.
Ive come to favor natures ward pets, not because it heals but because it type changes. hoping for more like that soon.
id try a rot team as well but everything already is undead usually :p
currently the team i find most annoying is the switcharoo aoe team, mpd, fossilized and that dragon thingy. aoe does so much damage you dont really lose anything on the swap. It does just thunderbolt, swap, bonestorm, swap, whirlwind, swap.
Havent been able to beat it yet.
Great list. I really like the Warpstalker Hatchling and Diemetradon Hatchling getting some attention.
I have short runs with the Sporeling Sprout but all the undead usually scare me off after a few battles.
Nice list there
I have seen a Sporeling Sprout… and it was a PITA… when I was running my sunny day team a little while back it soloed me. I could have played it better as I lost a few rounds to the surprise factor but it was impressive.
It used leech seed instead of creeping fungus which made it veeeery tanky.
Which one did you fight? I’m thinking about giving the P/P a go, see where it goes.
Seems I actually had an S/S one leveled, but the speed is wasted on priority move usage.
The difference between the S/S and P/P is 48 damage on the Charge move and 32 (16 for dot) on Leech Seed.
This pet feels more viable as S/S and then probably with Jab and not Charge. Dragons aren’t that common currently either, although neither are Beasts. Surge is a way better priority move due to it’s strong damage to elementals and weak damage to a useless pet group.
All the other priority moves have something for them. Blinkstrike hurts flyers who otherwise are superfast (and often costs them damage). Quick Attack is strong vs. Undead (although weak vs. humanoids). Trihorn Charge rapes rabbits.
Although I guess there is the bronze whelpling, and the Mana Surging dragons, but those are generally quite slow anyway.
But let me know what you do with your sprout, I’m curious
I still won the few battles I played with it, but I put it into my Teroclaw Challenge team 😛