Team Focus: Curious Problems
S/S Fiendish Imp (Burn, Immolation, Nether Gate)
P/P Sen’Jin Fetish (Flame Breath, Wild Magic, Sear Magic)
H/P Shrine Fly (Scratch, Cocoon Strike, Swarm)
A discussion came up about good anti-undead pets on 9/16/14. It made me think of the Shrine Fly. The fly might be good in the current meta because it’s strong against valks and it’s a weak counter to beasts, which are often paired with the unfriendly ghost. I was very uncreative and my first recent attempt paired the fly with the super combo of imp and mask. I see this team beating a lot of good teams in the current meta but getting stomped my idols. I should mention that in the absence of a P/P breed of flyer I like the H/P as a second choice. The extra health keeps the flying racial up longer, plus you get some decent attack 289. There are some flies with 305 power but they only have 1384 hp so I’ll stick with my H/P for now.
Battle 1
vs. Unborn Val’kyr, Death Adder Hatchling, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
So much depends upon the first move in a valk versus imp match-up. If you can gate the valk then most likely it’ll come back in while the imp casts Immolation. If the valk jukes with a preemptive swap then the imp is forced to back line without its Immolation. So few players actually attempt to juke with their valk that I never expect it unless I’m facing an opponent who I’ve faced before and know they can play well. In this case my opponent did everything wrong: let me swap out the imp and cast Blinding Poison at the most obvious time, allowing me to cleanse it. It was an easy win that shouldn’t have been.
Record: 1-0
Battle 2
vs. Jademist Dancer, Blighthawk, Emperor Crab
Seriously? I missed a Nether Gate, a Burn and a Scratch. It really does no good to get angry at these things, after all it’s just a game that’s supposed to be fun. However, when facing one of the OP comps of the current meta and you miss three times it’s extremely frustrating. It sort of makes it more frustrating that I almost won; the Jademist Dancer survived the battle with only 59 hp.
Record: 1-1
Battle 3
vs. Netherwhelp, Mini Thor, Vampiric Batling
Ok, you have cool pets. Why run after one Nether Gate?
Record: 2-1
Battle 4
vs. Magical Crawdad, Mechanical Pandaren Drogonling, Creepy Crate
I’m not sure that I have ever cursed during a write-up but I really wanted to start after this battle. I saved my important Nether Gate for the turn when I thought the Magical Crawdad would cast Wish. It missed. Wish was cast. Oh WoD, where are you and your 100% accuracy? Actually, I’m looking forward to 6.1. I haven’t done much research myself (I prefer to get into it when it actually happens rather than front loading info), but from what I hear 6.0 is going to be more Haunt garbage with the Ghastly Kid. I’m really hoping for something special in 6.1. I think 6.0 will still be interesting with all of the new pets, but another Haunt pet being everyone’s favorite will get old fast.
Record: 2-2
Battle 5
vs. Magical Crawdad, Unborn Val’kyr, Singing Sunflower
I. Missed. Nether. Gate. Again. The rng sort of equalled out when I got a Scratch crit on the valk. That wasn’t the deciding moment, however. It was when my opponent cast Wish then let the Magical Crawdad get killed. If they would have swapped I wouldn’t have been able to handle the extra health from the heal and probably lost. So let’s see, one of my wins was from an opponent fleeing, two of my wins resulted from bad play, in both my losses Nether Gate missing was a huge factor. Lovely.
Record: 3-2
Battle 6
vs. Chi-Chi, Fel Flame, Blighthawk
During this battle I realized how cool the longevity of both the Fel Flame and Blighthawk is. Those pets have been around since the beginning and they have been useful for the duration of their existence. I was really pleased to see this team after facing the crawdad twice. I thought I was doing well but I couldn’t take the Blighthawk down fast enough with the fly. In part this was due to scorched earth breaking my cocoon. It ended as a draw which seemed like a fair result.
Record: 3-2-1
Battle 7
vs. Jademist Dancer, Blighthawk, Toothy
Sigh. More misses, this battle saw my opponent suffer the loss because of them. A missed Steam Vent and Infected Claw. A funny thing was that this time my Nether Gate hit, but finally my opponent juked it. Hilarious. The Sen’Jin Fetish’s cleanse helped immensely, as did the Wild Magic. In the end the fly used Swarm while Wild Magic was up. On the second round it was hitting for 250 each hit, easily killing Toothy. I know I’ve been a bit on the negative side tonight but the misses really got me down. As I mentioned a few days ago my recent decrease in battling has made my miss desensitization lessen. Solution: battle more often!
record: 4-2-1
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in ~7 weeks missing will be a rare occurrence…then we can complain about hitting so lightly the opponent got an extra clutch move in lol.
Nethergate at 100% to hit may be the biggest buff of any. I have lost track of how many games I have lost when nethergate misses the Valk and my imp gets CODd.
It should at least have a non miss against undead clause!
On the other hand, if nethergate was 100% currently, the imp would go from great to possibly OP. As much as I just hate missing especially with absolute key abilities like nethergate, I am really concerned that the upcoming changes will make things to predictable.
I am worried at some moves with secondary effects that are currently “balanced” by rng. I understand that the damage is being adjusted accordingly, but how will the secondary parts of Nether Gate, other swaps and Deep Freeze. And more that I’m not recalling at the moment.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Darkness and other accuracy debuff moves (slippery ice) will still cause misses so pet PvP life will still have surprises
They will still cause misses, yes.
I’ll still have something to whine about
I feel your pain, Disco. I was snarling at my screen last night over misses. My Imp didn’t miss a single nether gate, but he DID miss Burn at least nine times last night, three times in one match.
I kept thinking, “Did something change? Why am I suddenly missing so much?” You know, that scientific thinking we all engage in….
It really does seem like they’ve been more common lately. Of course the key word in that sentence is seem. It still feels wrong when so many happen in succession. I’ve been glancing at PAR more than usual and everything looks right. Except Crush, which is hitting high. Its expected accuracy is 71.99% while the actual accuracy is 79.48% in 458 attempts. I seriously think that someone at Blizzard sneaks in at night and screws up the idol on purpose.