October 1, 2013

Today’s Team: Mooninites
P/P Xu-Fu (Spirit Claws, Feed, Prowl)
S/S Nether Fairie Dragon (Arcane Blast, Dodge, Moonfire)
P/S Chi-Chi (Fire Quills, Tranquility, Ethereal)

Strategy:
This is a team based on the weather Moonlight. Moonlight enhances healing and magic attacks and also allows Spirit Claws to hit 100% of the time rather than 80%.

With this team I will start with the Nether Fairie Dragon and change the weather to Moonlight. The Fairie will also use Dodge to avoid any big incoming attacks. Arcane Blast can be tricky on this pet because the Fairie Dragon is fragile, but you want to use Arcane Blast without swapping so that its damage can build up. I’ll need to be careful here.

Xu-Fu has a fairly straight forward function: pump out the damage. Xu-Fu is also a fragile pet. Feed can keep it alive, but missing Feed (a move that heals for the amount that it damages) is usually catastrophic and it’s only a 90% accuracy move. It always worries me to rely on this move.

I picked up Chi-Chi today with this specific team in mind. Fire Quills provides some anti-mech damage. Mechs are scary enemies because they are a soft counter to the Fairie Dragon’s magic attack and a hard counter to Xu-Fu. Ch-Chi has Tranquility, an HoT that will be buffed by Moonlight. I hope to surprise someone by gaining back my flying bonus after losing it by Tranquility healing and Ethereal dodging.

Concerns:
This is a fragile team. Feed always feels like a case of “putting all my eggs in one basket”. If it misses then Xu-Fu will go down fast. Fire Quills is my only anti-mech attack and it’s a speed based multi-attack, if Chi-Chi loses the flying bonus Fire Quills will hit at most two times.

The Opponent:
H/P Snarly
B/B Electrified Razortooth
P/P Curious Wolvar Pup
My fragile team versus a hard hitting bleeding team. At least I know how bleeding teams work pretty well.

The Battle:
It starts off as Snarly versus my Dragon. I don’t Dodge right away because I’m hoping to bait the Blood In The Water. I cast Moonfire and Snarly Rips. I Dodge and hope that Snarly wastes the Blood In The Water, which happens. I know the swap to the Razortooth is coming so I keep the Fairie Dragon in and Arcane Blast. Now the Razortooth has a bleeding pet in front of it, will my opponent go for the bait twice? Yes! I swap to Xu-Fu and watch the second Blood In The Water miss. The Razortooth Rips again and I use Prowl.

Then my opponent swaps to the Curious Wolvar Pup as I use Feed. It may have been too early to use the Feed, I didn’t get much healing from it. The Wolvar puts down a Trap that goes off immediately, dang I hate Traps. I swap to my Fairie Dragon and take out the Pup before it can get another Trap down, phew. Snarly comes back in and I bring back Xu-Fu in the hopes that my opponent will do something dumb like waste another Blood In The Water. It didn’t happen, Snarly just Surged Xu-Fu to death. Xu-Fu contributed very little damage.

Now here’s where I was completely surprised. Chi-Chi came in and through a combination of Tranquility and well timed Ethereals managed to take out Snarly and half of the Razortooth. This was due in part to an unnecessary swap, but the fact that Tranquility continued to tick while Chi-Chi was dodging also helped a lot. I was able to avoid a Blood In The Water and even take one to the face. The Fairie Dragon was waiting patiently until Chi-Chi died and came in to finish off the Razortooth with Dodge/Moonfire/dragonkin racial/Arcane Blast. The Fairie Dragon survived with 49 hp, that was a close one.