March 29, 2014

Pet Focus: Eternal Strider
The various strider pets have been used regularly in PvP since the introduction of pet battles. With a move set that has some built-in synergy these underused pets can catch your opponent by surprise. While surely not a top-tier pet, I consider striders and skimmers a solid choice to build a team around.

There are four types of striders: Aqua Strider, Mirror Strider, Eternal Strider and Dancing Water Skimmer. Here is how the stats break down for each breed of each pet (health/power/speed):

S/S Aqua Strider 1319/227/374
B/B Dancing Water Skimmer 1481/260/292
H/S Dancing Water Skimmer 1546/244/305
S/B Dancing Water Skimmer 1465/257/305
H/B Dancing Water Skimmer 1546/257/289
P/S Eternal Strider 1400/273/305
S/B Eternal Strider 1465/257/305
H/S Mirror Strider 1465/244/322
B/B Mirror Strider 1400/260/309
H/B Mirror Strider 1465/257/305

That’s a lot of stat allocations to choose from. Back in 5.1 I used to use the Aqua Strider. I thought it was awesome to be so fast! Then I realized that’s a lot of wasted speed, there’s really no need for 374 speed unless you’re fighting a 357 speed pet. When I realized this I switched to the H/S Mirror Strider, but even then the 322 speed was a waste. Why? 325 is a fairly common speed and the 322 is obviously slower. Also, 305 speed is the next common speed breakpoint (besides the occasional 309 speed pet), and pets with that speed are not that common. So with 322 speed you are putting a lot of stats in speed that won’t help you much. The big exception here is the S/S Jademist Dancer with 317 speed, so if you encounter those a lot go with the H/S Mirror Strider. Otherwise, in my opinion the best strider is the P/S Eternal Strider. This is now my strider of choice. With 305 speed it is still faster than most pets out there in the meta. 273 power is the highest power of any of the striders and this is what you want in a strider due to the desired move set.

Slot 1: Water Jet or Poison Spit
While Poison Spit may have some uses as a beast damage DoT, it is the aquatic moves that make this strider hit hard. Water Jet is a 95% accuracy move, which is my favorite type of spammable move. It’ll miss once in awhile, but you can easily go an entire battle without it missing.

Slot 2: Cleansing Rain Or Healing Wave
Here is where Water Jet will get its first buff in the form of Cleansing Rain. Cleansing Rain is an AoE heal which also changes the weather. Under this weather hostile DoTs last for one less round and aquatic abilities do 25% more damage. The 322 damage water jet just shot up to around 400 damage in a 95% move.

Slot 3: Soothe or Pump
Is a 25% damage increase not enough for you? Fine. Pump is a “wind-up” type move that takes one round to charge and one round to release. While it is charged the strider will do an extra 10% damage. This damage is really starting to get big. In Cleansing Rain Pump does over 900 damage when released. While I love 95% spammable moves I absolutely hate the 95% accuracy of some charge up moves. Usually if you miss one of these it’s good game. Not always, but its hard to come back from missing a two turn move.

I made it sound pretty good overall, right? So why isn’t the Eternal Strider making everyone’s top pet list? At 1400 hp it won’t last long and it takes one round to get Pump charged and one round to change the weather, which only leaves a few rounds to dish out the damage. You have to be careful with this pet. Let’s make some teams and see how it does.

Team 1: Aqua Teens
P/S Eternal Strider (Water Jet, Cleansing Rain, Pump)
P/P Purple Puffer (Water Jet, Healing Wave, Pump)
P/P Emperor Crab (Snap, Healing Wave, Whirlpool)

This team is a really old team of mine. It started out as a fun themed team but won a lot. Unless of course there was a flyer on the other team. Then I might as well concede. I mentioned this team in an old thread about base dodge and how it effects the outcome of battles: 101 PvP Pet Battles. It was quite a soft study, but you can see the Aqua Teens (with the Mirror Strider) used to kick some butt. For nostalgia!

Battle 1
vs. Effervescent Glowfly, Amethyst Spiderling, Malayan Quillrat
Great, a flyer. Otherwise this team looks like it might be easy. I wasn’t sure whether to start the Emperor Crab or not. It could heal through a lot of the flying pain but its beast attack would be weak against the flyer. I went ahead and started it. The Effervescent Glowfly started against it. The Emperor Crab won since the DoTs didn’t bother it much and the fly had Scratch as its main attack. After that it was very straightforward, there were no swaps at all. Crab beats fly, critter kills crab, fish kills critter, spider kills fish, water bug kills spider.
Record: 1-0

Team 2: Aqua Disaster
P/S Eternal Strider (Water Jet, Cleansing Rain, Pump)
H/H Spirit Crab (Snap, Whirlpool, Shell Shield)
S/S Robo-Chick (Batter, Overtune, Wind-Up)

A variation on the team above. The aquatic crab was replaced by an undead version. The Robo-Chick was brought in because I both like it and it can do well against fast flyers. Not always, but enough times so that I keep it in mind when I think about countering flyers. There’s a little bit of synergy with Whirlpool and Cleansing Rain.

Battle 2
vs. Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, Darkmoon Monkey, Enchanted Lantern
Sometimes pet battles make me want to do something else. The battle went exactly as I wanted it to. I had this battle totally wrapped up. I cast Overtune against the S/S Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling so my Robo-Chick was faster. I had already charged Wind-Up. I just needed to kill the dragon, the remaining Darkmoon Monkey would be easy clean up. Except Wind-Up missed. The Silver Dragonhawk took out my Robo-Chick then finished off the slower strider with strong Quills. You would think that after so many PvP battles I would be so used to losing some games to misses that it wouldn’t bother me much. You would be wrong.
Record: 1-1

Team 3: Death By Water
P/S Eternal Strider (Water Jet, Cleansing Rain, Pump)
S/S Jademist Dancer (Steam Vent, Rain Dance, Acid Rain)
H/P Snarly (Rip, Surge, Blood In The Water)

This team is all about hard hitting aquatic damage buffed by Cleansing Rain. There’s so much aquatic damage I’ll be in a lot of trouble if I encounter any magic pets.

Battle 3
vs. Emerald Turtle, Mr. Bigglesworth, Electrified Razortooth
The Emerald Turtle had a lot of hp. A 916 damage Pump took care of most of it. I made sure not to use anything important while there was a threat of Ice Barrier going up. I passed on the turn my opponent thought I might break it after it was up, letting the Ice Tomb break it and get blocked. There was too much aquatic damage for the Electrified Razortooth to be a factor.
Record: 2-1