Mini-Tryouts: Ripgrinder
P/S Stonegrinder (Woodchipper, Thunderbolt, Clean-Up)
H/P Snarly (Rip, Surge, Blood In The Water)
H/P Infested Bear Cub (Infected Bite, Bash, Maul)
A mech pet that can be used on a bleeding team that isn’t Pierre! Pierre was a pretty big let down in the long run but I don’t think Stonegrinder will be. It has Woodchipper to apply the bleed, the new and improved “split evenly” AoE Thunderbolt and a somewhat handy utility move Clean-Up. My biggest concern is that it doesn’t have a spammable normal attack. The plan is simple just like every bleeding team: apply the bleed with Rip or Woodchipper than watch the big damage come from Maul or Blood In The Water. This is an easy pet to get, it’s as simple as walking into a cave in Tarador with a few obstacles and picking it up. Unfortunately mine is a P/S, supposedly it comes in a P/P as well. I’ll pick up a P/P off the auction house but for tonight I’ll use my P/S. Oh, did I mention that is looks to be some sort of mechanical puppy? Pet battles is going to turn me into a dog lover if they keep making these cute canine pets.
Battle 1
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Mini-Thor, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
After the Decoy was gone I put the bleed on the mech dragon and we played a game of chicken. I waited to cast Blood In The Water since I thought a swap was coming, my opponent didn’t swap since they thought I would keep waiting. One turn, two turns, on the third turn I let the BITW fly and there was still no swap. Boom, or whatever sound a croc bite makes. Failsafe was needed, on the next turn a Surge finished off the MPD. I swapped to Stonegrinder after Mini-Thor came in and was hoping to use Clean-Up on some mines but they never came. Mini-Thor won the head to head against against Stonegrinder, the Infested Bear Cub finished the big mech off, Snarly and the bear finished off the valk. Good start.
Record: 1-0
Battle 2
vs. Fishy, Baby Ape, Azure Whelpling
Ahh, the Azure Whelpling. Those dragonkin are what really got me into pet collecting in Cataclysm. I had a different whelpling for each of my characters: crimson for my DK, emerald for my hunter and druid, blue for my priest and shaman, dark for my warlock. Good times, until I tried to battle with them. The 289 speed of my then favorite Crimson Whelpling didn’t work well in PvP, and I’ve never really seen the blue do very well. This battle was no different; the Azure Whelpling wasn’t much of a factor, especially when it used its magic nuke Surge Of Power for weak damage on my mech. Fishy actually gave my the most trouble, believe it or not. Pump sure hurts! The battle ended with my undead bear using Maul on a bleeding Baby Ape. Pain. It really does seem like most of the pet battles I do from my garrison use the same garrison setting, at least since I hit 100. I’m probably just on a streak of the same setting. Nevertheless, I’ll go somewhere else to change it up a bit.
Record: 2-0
Battle 3
vs. Ominous Flame, Scourged Whelpling, Flayer Youngling
I’m really liking the diversity that I’ve been seeing since the nerfs and the mechanic changes that WoD has brought us. Here I got to fight against the rarely used Ominous Flame. Foreboding Curse is a great move and this opponent had the right idea combining it with Scorched Earth and Death and Decay. It was a very close battle that they may have won if the flayer was level 25 instead of level 23. I may have let them win to help them level under different circumstances, but I was only at 143 Dreanor pet battle wins coming in to this battle. I need that level 3 menagerie so you’ll have to try again with your flayer. 144 now.
Record: 3-0
Battle 4
vs. Wild Jade Hatchling, Jademist Dancer, Zandalari Anklerender
This would have been an interesting and possibly close battle if my opponent hadn’t had tunnel vison when it came to applying Rain Dance. They felt that it was worth taking a strong Blood In The Water while bleeding in order to get Rain Dance off. It was not worth the 976 damage. Snarly finished the Jademist Dancer with a Surge. There was no coming back from that, Snarly and Stonegrinder cleaned up easily for a fast nine round victory.
Record: 4-0
Battle 5
vs. Magical Crawdad, Twilight Spider, Fossilized Hatchling
Thanks to me either overthinking or just being out thought on the head games the initial match up of Snarly versus the Twilight Spider was a draw, meaning that they killed each other. After that my Stonegrinder had to apply the bleed to the Fossilized Hatchling, swap to the bear to kill it, swap back to Stonegrinder to use Woodchipper again, swap back to the bear, then finally kill off the Magical Crawdad with Stonegrinder. It wasn’t easy and I don’t think I would have been able to do it with the older version of Thunderbolt.
Record: 5-0
This is a great team so far, I’m feeling good about its long term potential. I’m not going to be able to do the daily battle tomorrow due to holiday travel, so happy Thanksgiving to you in advance!
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Love that team, gotta go get me a Stonegrinder.
Hi guys. You know the addon that, amongst other things, tracks cooldows of enemy pet abilities? Mine only works for PVE opponents, not PVP. Is this the same for all of you because it’s a bit of a pain to have to go back through the log yourself during a battle. I haven’t changed the addon at all and it’s up to date… any thoughts?
I’m pretty sure that Pet Tracker is what I’m using to track the moves in PvP.
Happy Turkey Day, discodoggy. I love your blog! If you had a “donate” button I would use it.
Also, I don’t know if you have any interest in streaming on Twitch but I’d love to watch you do some live pet battling.
Thanks and welcome :). I’ll look into Twitch, it shouldn’t be too hard so set up, and the donate button as well.
Have you thought about putting a frostwolf pup (the living one) on a bleed team at all?
It’s not particularly special in terms of raw stats, but it can run both howl and maul. It could be a spectacular finisher or get used to force the other player to swap, maybe?
Forgot to add – I would be willing to give you one to try out if you’ve no level 100 horde of your own.
So far I’ve only seen P/S of stonegrinder, however doesn’t mean there’s no P/P.
If there is a P/P Stonegrinder. Wowhead hasn’t heard of it.
And yes, though Twitch obviously hates me since it stutters and buffers like crazy when I watch, I’d certainly tune in to a Discodoggy stream.
In other news, Rematch 4.0 has entered Beta, and the author is actively looking for comments and especially conflicts with other pet addons, so if there are features anyone would like or would like to influence, now’s your chance. I won’t link it in case I fall foul of a filter, but it’s currently top thread in the Pet Battles section of WarcraftPets.
Pretty sure I wrote that before all the info was available, not sure where I go it though. I had this addon that showed all of the possible breeds for WoD pets and it was way off in the beginning of the expansion. I’m pretty content with the P/S anyways.
Oops, sorry. I think I had two pages open at once, ‘cos I was looking up your use of Stonegrinder, and thought this was the recent battle.
Oh np. This isn’t the first time that addon got me in trouble. I wrote a (horrible) article for Adventures In Poor Taste and said that a bunch of pets were available in breeds that they weren’t. That’s not why it was horrible though, I said that the spores were must have pets of WoD, forever ruining my credibility as a theory crafter. I think I’ll wait until the pets come out and stick to what I’m good at: battling with pets that already exist.
Here’s the link:
8/19/15