Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Celestial musings



   So, my last post was a bit of a rant, hopefully it didn’t quite make into the category of rage.  Today I’ll try for something a little more light hearted, so the topic will be pets.  You may have gathered that pet battles are an aspect of the game I enjoy.  One of my earliest memories of the game was discovering an NPC somewhere in Dun Morogh sold a snowshoe rabbit pet.  I simply had to have this pet.  This pet is still in game and costs 20 silver.  Back in the day, the days of Vanilla WoW, this rabbit went for something like 5 or 10 gold, a veritable fortune a level 10 character, and I had to grind mobs to get enough money to but the thing.  This was my very first pet and is what launched my interest in vanity pets.  The pet that was the most memorable in acquiring was without a doubt the disgusting oozeling.  I spent hours a day for weeks farming him.

    Fast forward to now.  I currently have 426 unique pets.  49 of them are max level.  I have most, but not all of the pet achievements in the game, minus the PvP ones.  This is the week I will make a bona fide try at the tournament.  I have already made a few forays, and have figured out how to down Shademaster Kiryn and Wrathion.  I would like to at least make it through the tamers and try taking on the legendary beasts this week.  I have been hard at work scouring the interwebz for suggested pets and leveling pets I think will work.

    Hands down Wowhead has what I thing is the easiest to follow and most comprehensive guide for the tournament.   I have most of the recommended pets, but still need to level three of four to follow this guide verbatim.  Despite my love for minipets and pet battles, leveling is a bit of a chore and a grind. 

   I have worked out my own strategy for Little Tommy Newcomer, although I am quite sure others have figured out the same tactic.  I use Chrominus, Darkmoon Zeppelin, and Son of Animus.  I understand this might be difficult for some as the Son of Animus is pretty rare and hard to come by.  I open with Chrominus, who has the first move against Lil’ Oondasta.  I use howl, which debuffs Lil’ Oondasta so he takes double damage for two rounds.  Oondasta counters with a frill blast, which does massive damage and does a force swap on your pets.  Your highest health pet is the one that is swapped to the front line, in my case this is the zeppelin.  Round two, I use the Zeppelin to call in a bombing run and round three I use the rocket attack.  At this point, my zeppelin has just a sliver of health remaining.  On round four I use decoy, and then just pummel Lil’ Oondasta with rockets until he finally takes out the zeppelin.  Once the Zeppelin is gone, I bring out Son of Animus and use interrupting jolt, touch of animus, and batter; in that order.  So far this has worked 100% of the time for me.

   The Timeless Isle rares have stubbornly refused to drop anything at all for me.  It may be I will be stuck buying most of these critters off the auction house.

   The update of the moment is, I beat the tournament!  It did take me a few tries and some tinkering around with stuff.  Winning was all the more memorable because my team lost to Xu-Fu.  Although my pet pool for level 25s is not deep, I did some serious thinking.  Xu-Fu was the last battle I had to win, and I really did not want to start from the beginning.  I decided to try the Pandaren Water Spirit+Chrominus trick, a one I have used on many of the Pandaren legendaries.  For those who may be new, the strategy involves starting a fight with the water spirit and casting geyser on the first turn and whirlpool on the second.  On the third turn you switch to Chrominus and cast howl, the howl causes its target to take double damage for two rounds.  This results in both the geyser and whirlpool hitting for double damage.  This wasn’t quite enough to kill Xu-Fu, so on round four I cast surge of power and this was enough.  I used my winnings to buy the mini Xu-Fu pet and leveled him to 16 the same night.

    One thing I have noticed in the forums is that a large amount of players are complaining about the celestial tournament.  It’s too hard many claim.  It sucks, it is entirely based on RNG other say.  I side with those who say rubbish to this.  I consider the tournament the end-game for pet battles.  End-game is not supposed to be easy.  Sure pet battles were originally made to be light hearted, and for the most part they are, but the tournament is something a little different, a little special.  As for the RNG crowd, well there is randomness in everything in WoW, from specific battles in raids, to what gear drops when successful in these battles.  Sure there is RNG involved in the tournament, but I certainly don’t think it’s to the point of being a show stopper.  There is a lot of work in leveling the needed pets for the tourney and some work trying and perfecting each teams strategy, but to me it’s all worth it.  I have an achievement that’s hard to get and was earned, and I have a pet that relatively few have.  Things that are easily obtained, things that are common, are generally not treasured. 

    As a note, this week’s trainers in the tourney were Ion Goldbloom, Loremaster Cho and Sully.  For me, this is what I consider to be the easiest line up.  It will be interesting to see what next week brings.

   In closing, this has been a nice opening to the week.  I admit last week I was kind of down.  Along with the tournament victory, I cleared Gates of Retribution and snagged a level 528 mace for my DPS set.  The night before I was able to pick up the 540 tanking trinket from Rook in a flex raid.  I can only hope the positive momentum continues.  Other things I did in the last few days, completed the master of the ways quest and grabbed the cooking school bell, and made a Pandaren Treasure Noodle cart.

    Not sure what to do with myself now, just like I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about in the next installment.  I am sure something will come to me.

    Until then.

   Peace.

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