Monday, October 28, 2013

This Week's MVP is...



   The Dandelion Frolicker.
 
   The first thing I like about this guy is that it’s a humanoid.  Humanoids, in my opinion, have one of the best racial perks out of all the pet families, a self-heal.  For those new to the pet scene, any round a humanoid does damage, they heal themselves for 5% of their maximum health.  My frolicker is a speed breed and has 1400hp at level 25, so every time he does damage he heals for 70hp.
   The second thing I like about this guy is his move set.  In the first slot you can chose between ‘Scratch’ a strong basic attack versus undead or ‘Bite’ a strong basic attack versus critters.  I generally use the bite attack.  This is because the Dandelion Frolicker is part of my leveling team, and many if not most wild pet battles seem to involve fighting critters.  As an added bonus, the bite attack has a 100% hit chance, which negates RNG, so long as he is max level and has no debuffs, he will always hit with the bite attack.
   The second slot consists of defensive moves.  You have a choice between ‘Frolick’ and ‘Barkskin’.  Frolick gives your frolicker a 50% chance to dodge for two rounds and Barkskin lasts 5 rounds and reduces the damage done by 67 for each attack against you.  I use Barkskin in this slot.  When battling, I generally keep this ability up all the time.  Between the self-heal and Barkskin, you are negating 135 damage each and every turn.  I have also noticed that a lot of the critters I fight in Valley of the Four Winds have an annoying ability called poison fang, which leaves a DoT.  This DoT is completely negated by having Barkskin up.

   The third slot consists of utility moves.  Your choice is between ‘Kick’ which interrupts an opponent’s round if you go first along with doing damage and ‘Dazzling Dance’ which increases the speed of your entire time.  Kick is a strong attack versus the dragonkin family.

   I mentioned that this guy is part of my leveling team.  The strategy I use for this team revolves around leveling carry pets from level 10 to level 16-17.   I do all my fights using this strategy in Valley of the Four Winds, which I think I mentioned.  You could bring in a lower level carry pet, but there is a good chance he won’t see the end of combat if you do.  A level 10 can go in on the first round and generally take a single hit.  Between levels 10 and 15-16, a single battle should give you a whole level, provided you are wearing your safari hat!  I avoid the aquatics and engage the critters.  The biggest reason I avoid the aquatics is the turtles you will encounter in Valley of the Four winds have an attack called ‘Grasp’ which will prevent you from swapping pets for two rounds if it hits.  You will occasionally get the turtles as adds, so be mindful of this ability.

   The Dandelion Frolicker can pretty much solo all the critter battles in the Valley, so you can chose just about anything you like for your third pet.  This week I have been using a spider, it’s a beast so is generally strong versus critters and it has a heal.

   Using the Dandelion Frolicker+Spider allows me to go for several battles before I need to heal my team up.  This team is the most efficient I have found for leveling things in the 10-17 bracket.  I have not yet used the frolicker in the Celestial Tournament or against a trainer, so I will probably try that out this week.  At the very least, I think this guy would do well fighting Yula (a dragonkin) in the Celestial Tournament.

   The Dandelion Frolicker is somewhat hard to obtain outside the auction house.  Prices have dropped enough that this guy isn’t too expensive; I personally paid 5K for mine.  Currently the mean price for one across all servers is 4.2K.  If you are a purist you can try to farm the drop.  So far I haven’t has one drop, if I do I am not sure if I will keep it as a back-up or try to sell it.

    The drop is from the ‘Scary Sprite’ event on the Timeless Isle, which you can do once per day, per character.  This event is started by clicking a large purple crystal located at coordinates 47, 73 on the isle.  This turns all the nearby friendly sprites hostile.  For sixty seconds you need to go on a rampage and kill as many sprites as possible, each one you kill has a chance of spawning an add called ‘Scary Sprite’ that you must kill.  The pet drops from the scary sprite.  For some reason Wowhead lists the drop chance as .08% from the ‘nice sprites’ which are the mobs you have to turn hostile and kill to spawn the scary sprites.  Without going into a long explanation, your chance at the drop is around 1-2% each time you successfully do the event.

   So, cheers to the Dandelion Frolicker, this week’s MVP.

   Peace.

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