Beasts of Fable

So a couple weeks ago I posted my initial thoughts on the new legendary pets that are part of the Beasts of Fable - something along the lines of them being stupidly easy. I had no idea at the time that they are the most brain dead battles in the game.

I originally had no plans to even post about them. They were simple enough - you pick 3 of a hard counter and press buttons to win. The reason for this post is to demonstrate just how little thought Blizzard put into creating these new legendary time-wasting battles.

What you say? It is sad, but every single one of them can be beaten by a very easy to put together trio of pets, using one skill. "What is this black magic you speak of?" you may find yourself asking.

Trample

In most situations Trample is a mediocre skill. When you are fighting a pet that has around 1600 health it translates into an ability that does about as much as any other. On the other hand, when you are fighting a "legendary" pet that has around 4300 health, that is suddenly 430 damage on top of the 150-200 damage the skill does without the bonus. Some other benefits - the bonus portion of the skill does not miss and it not affected by damage reduction modifiers. Even the turtles with Shell Shield or the Racoons thingy that reduces your damage by half will not affect the bonus damage of trample.

Some examples of me putting my expert skill in to action. In all of these videos I was pretty unlucky with the amount damage I took and they still all died easily.

My team consists of:
Clefthoof Runt
Stunted Shardhorn
Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm

There are a number of other pets that have Trample as well.

Grand Master Yon (Kun-Lai Summit)

Grand Master Yon took me a couple weeks to figure out when I first started but is now consistently a quick one shot. I actually figured an improved strategy but it involves Flayer Youngling which is somewhat hard to get. If you have a Flayer Youngling you can use it in place of the Kun-Lai Runt, but for the sake of this blog I will just list the strategy with Kun-Lai Runt since it is easier to obtain.

My Team:
Infinite Whelpling (take Tail Sweep, Healing Flame, Early Advantage)
Kun-Lai Runt (take Thrash, Mangle and Rampage)
Power Level Pet (no restrictions)

Enemy Team:

Piqua (flying) (Flock, Lift Off, Squawk)
Lapin (critter) (Adrenaline Rush, Burrow, Flurry)
Bleat (beast) (Bleat, Chew, Stampede)


vs Piqua:
Start with Infinite Whelpling. You attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Early Advantage	Squawk
2	Pass	Lift Off
3	Healing Flame	Lift Off (hit)
4	Tail Sweep	Flock
5	Tail Sweep	Flock
6	Tail Sweep	Flock
7	Tail Sweep	Squawk

Kill consistently happens in round 7 unless you miss

vs Lapin:
Continue with Infinite Whelpling. You attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Tail Sweep	Adrenaline Rush
2	Switch to Kun-Lai Runt	Burrow
3	Rampage	Burrow (hit)
4	Rampage	Flurry
5	Rampage	Flurry
6	Tail Sweep	Flock
7	Tail Sweep	Squawk

Kill is likely in round 5 but sometimes happens in round 4.


vs Bleat:
Continue with Kun-Lai Runt. You attack second in all rounds.
If Lapin died in round 4, you need to adjust when to bring the power level pet in. If it a level one pet it is best to wait until the round where it uses Chew (it is possible for a level 1 to survive a round of stampede but not guaranteed)

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Switch to PLvl Pet	Chew
2	Switch to Infinite Whelpling	Stampede
Infinite Whelpling will die. Continue with Kun-Lai Runt
3	Mangle	Stampede
4	Rampage	Stampede
5	Rampage	Bleat
6	Rampage	Chew
7	Thrash	Stampede
8	Thrash	Stampede
9	Thrash	Stampede
10	Rampage	Bleat

Kill is likely in rounds 6-8.

Patch 5.2 Initial thoughts

The Thunder King came out yesterday and so far I have a mixed reaction, there are some really good changes but some annoying ones as well.

Good changes:
Bandages stacking
Pet tamer pets are in a predictable order now (I think)
Lots of new pets! some of which look awesome.

Annoying changes:
Half my pet add-ons are broken (I know this is temporary but still annoying)
The new legendary pets are stupidly easy but give garbage for experience
The new legendary pets daily quest adds a lot of extra flying around
Many of the new pets require you to participate in the new raid instance. I don't have time for that crap. Hopefully they will be cageable so I can just buy them.
They fixed the Dragonkin passive which makes dragons less potent.

Strategy changes:
Overall not much has changed. That's mostly a product of not relying of FoTM overpowered combos to beat everything. I did a run through last night of all the pet tamers and all of the strategies I've posted still work. I have changed one of my strategies which I hadn't gotten around to posting yet for the Vale of Eternal Blossoms pet tamer.

New Legendary Pets:
As I mentioned above, these are significantly easier than I was expecting. I was able to beat several of them with one pet, and all of them with two. It would have been cool for power leveling except for the fact that they give almost no experience. Several of them are easy because their move sets are pretty terrible and do very low damage overall. They are all easy because they only have one pet type. This means that you can stack three hard counters and faceroll. If you are looking for ideas on how to counter specific types, you can check out one of my early posts.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit

I am going to preface this by saying that I think power leveling a level one on this tamer is more effort than it is worth. It can be done somewhat reliably but it is unlikely you would one shot it on a daily basis due to the random nature of Slicing Wind and Moth Dust.

All three of the enemy pets in this encounter use flying attacks exclusively. This means you will want to have a solid dragon team to face them. I use Azure Whelpling because it is a hard counter to the critter. I round it out with Infinite Whelpling because well, as demonstrated in other battles, it is an awesome. pet.

My Team:
Azure Whelpling (take Claw, Arcane Storm, Surge of Power)
Infinite Whelpling (take Tail Sweep, Healing Flame, Early Advantage)
Power Level Pet (no restrictions)

Enemy Team:
Dusty (critter) (Cocoon Strike, Moth Balls, Moth Dust)
Whispertail (dragonkin) (Flyby, Slicing Wind, Wild Winds)
Pandaren Air Spirit (Slicing Wind, Soothing Mists, Wild Winds)


vs Dusty:
Start with Azure Whelpling, you attack second in all rounds

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Claw	Moth Dust
2	Arcane Storm	Cocoon Strike
3	Claw	Moth Balls
4	Claw	Pass
5	Claw	Moth Dust
6	Arcane Storm	Cocoon Strike
7	Claw	Moth Balls

Kill will be in round 5 unless you miss

vs Whispertail:
Continue with Azure Whelpling, you attack second in all rounds.
I am going to detail the pessimistic results here. Moth Dust from the critter has a high chance to miss. If you get to the dragon with 800+ health, go with Claw, Claw, Surge of Power rather than using Sure of Power immediately.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Surge of Power	Wild Winds
2	Pass (auto)	Flyby
3	Pass (auto)	Slicing Wind
After Azure Whelp dies, switch to Infinite Whelp
5	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
6	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
7	Tail Sweep	Wild Winds
8	Tail Sweep	Flyby

Kill is likely in round 6

vs Pandaren Air Spirit:
You attack second in all rounds

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Switch to PLvlPet	Soothing Mists
2	Switch to Infinite Whelpling	Wild Winds
3	Healing Flame	Slicing Wind
4	Early Advantage	Slicing Wind
5	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
6	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
7	Tail Sweep	Soothing Mists
8	Tail Sweep	Wild Winds

This is subject to RNG. You will probably lose if it is not killed by round 8.

Grand Master Hyuna (Jade Forest)

Master Hyuna is another relatively easy fight. Skyshaper's overall damage is pretty low if you let your PLvlPet soak the Glowing Toxin. Dor the Wall attacks once every 4 rounds so with any avoidance ability you can reduce it to getting hit once every 8 rounds and with some of the better avoidance abilities you can avoid ever being hit.

I think any dragon + flying (with lift off) or mech (with repair or decoy) can have the same success rate at the two pets I use below. Since Dor the Wall has Shell Shield, make sure to take harder hitting attacks like Peck rather than multiple smaller hitting attacks like Slicing Wind.

My Team:
Infinite Whelpling (take Tail Sweep, Healing Flame, Early Advantage)
Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling (take Peck, Squawk, Lift Off)
Power Level Pet (no restrictions)

Enemy Team:
Skyshaper (flying) (Slicing Wind, Confusing Sting, Glowing Toxin)
Fangor (beast) (Vicious Fang, Hiss, Burrow)
Dor the Wall (aquatic) (Headbutt, Healing Wave, Shell Shield)


vs Skyshaper:
Start with Infinite Whelpling, you attack second in all rounds

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Tail Sweep	Confusing Sting
2	Switch to PLvlPet	Glowing Toxin
3	Switch to Infinite Whelpling	Slicing Wind
4	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
5	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
6	Tail Sweep	Slicing Wind
7	Tail Sweep	Confusing Sting
8	Tail Sweep	Glowing Toxin

Kill is likely in round 6.

vs Fangor:
Continue with Infinite Whelpling. You should still have the Dragonkin Passive up for bonus damage.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Early Advantage	Hiss
2	Healing Flame	Burrow
3	Tail Sweep	Burrow (hit)
4	Tail Sweep	Vicious Fang
Infinite Whelp usually dies in round 4 or 5. Switch to Gryphon.
5	Peck	Vicious Fang

Kill is likely in round 5.

vs Dor the Wall:
Continue with Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling. Dor only attacks once every 4 rounds and his attack (Head Butt) is weak against air. Lift off is on a 5 round cooldown so every other attack can be avoided. Use squawk prior to the attacks you cannot avoid to further mitigate the damage.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Lift Off	Headbutt (miss)
2	Lift Off (hit)	Shell Shield
3	Peck	Healing Wave
4	Peck	Shell Shield
5	Peck	Shell Shield
6	Squawk	Headbutt
7	Peck	Shell Shield
8	Peck	Healing Wave

Kill is likely in round 6, 7 or 8

This is a slightly different approach using Darkmoon Zeppelin instead of Gryphon. Darkmoon Zeppelin can avoid 100% of  the Turtles attacks with Decoy. I prefer using Gryphon though because as seen in this video, Zeppelin takes forever to kill him.

Grand Master Nishi (Valley of the Four Winds)

It is fitting that Grand Master Nishi is a farmer. He is likely the most farmed master pet tamer in the game. A few patches ago it was possible to accept a tamer quest, defeat all three of a tamer's pets, get the experience reward and then drop the quest so it could be done again. This was really effective because Grand Master Nishi is and has always been the easiest pet tamer in Pandaria.

It is possible to use level one pets in this tamer. The strategy I am going to layout here is the one I use to kill it quickly and efficiently. It does limit the type of level one pet you can use to critters or level ones that have more than 164 health. This limit could be removed by using something with Sandstorm such as Anubisath Idol and starting against Toothbreaker. The limitations comes from the back row damage done by Siren's Sunlight. It does approximately 164 elemental damage. Level one pets tend to have anywhere from 136 to 166 health making it difficult for most of them to survive. Critters take less damage from elemental, so critters will only take about 105 damage making it easy to survive one hit.

In this fight you face two elementals and a beast. Naturally I like to bring out my trusty snail to wreck the elementals. In this guide and video I used Darkmoon Zeppelin but anything that does good mechanical damage will work. I normally use Mini Thor.


My Team:

Shimmershell Snail (take Acidic Goo, Ooze Touch, Dive)

Darkmoon Zeppelin (take Missle, Decoy, Bombing Run)

Power Level Pet (Any critter or any pet with more than 164 health)

Enemy Team:

Siren (elemental) (Photosynthesis, Solar Beam, Sunlight)

Toothbreaker (elemental) (Insipring Song, Leech Seed, Sons of the Root)
Brood of Mothran (beast) (Acidic Goo, Burrow, Consume)

vs Siren:
Start with Shimmershell Snail against Siren. You will attack second in all rounds. I start against Siren specifically so that if there is a miss and your power level pet cannot survive two Sunlight hits, it happens early and you can restart. It also prevents the effect of Sunlight lasting long enough to benefit the Beast.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Acidic Goo	Sunlight
2	Dive	Photosynthesis
3	Dive (hit)	Photosynthesis
4	Ooze Touch	Photosynthesis
5	Ooze Touch	Photosynthesis
6	Ooze Touch	Photosynthesis
7	Ooze Touch	Photosynthesis
8	Ooze Touch	Sunlight
9	Ooze Touch	Photosynthesis

Kill typically happens in round 5 or 6.

vs Toothbreaker:
Continue with Shimmershell Snail. You attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Pass	Sons of the Root
2	Pass	Sons of the Root
3	Pass	Sons of the Root
4	Acidic Goo	Leech Seed
5	Ooze Touch	Insipring Song
6	Ooze Touch	Pass
7	Ooze Touch	Pass
8	Ooze Touch	Leech Seed
9	Ooze Touch	Sons of the Root

Kill typically happens in round 7 or 8.

vs Brood of Mothran:
Continue with Shimmershell Snail. You attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Acidic Goo	Acidic Goo
2	Switch to PLvlPet	Burrow
3	Switch to Snail	Burrow (hit)
Snail will die. Switch to Mechanical
4	Bombing Run	Consume
5	Decoy	Pass
6	Missle	Acidic Goo
7	Missle	Consume
8	Missle	Burrow
9	Missle	Burrow

Kill typically happens in round 6 or 7.

Burning Pandaren Spirit

This is a fight that has some unavoidable back row damage thanks to Cyclone. Fortunately it is able to be mitigated to the point where you have to get very very unlucky to not have a level one survive. There are some limitations though. Sandstorm reduces the Cyclone damage from  around 110 damage to around 30 damage. This means a level one pet with about 150 health should be able to sustain 4 or 5 hits. Unfortunately elementals ignore all weather effects, which means they do not benefit from Sandstorm. An elemental would only be able to sustain one non crit hit. The likelyhood of only taking one hit during this fight is very low.

This fight is also kind of goofy in that Anubisath Idol can solo the entire fight. I like to keep my trusty snail ready in case something goes wrong, but it is not really necessary. You can sub in anything including another level one if you want.

My Team:
Anubisath Idol
Shimmershell Snail
Power Level Pet
As mentioned above, it can be anything but an elemental. It is also better to avoid aquatic since it will take extra damage from cyclone.

Enemy Team:
Crimson (dragonkin)
Pandaren Fire Spirit (elemental)
Glowy (flying)



vs Crimson:
Start with Anubisath Idol. You will attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Sandstorm	Cyclone
2	Pass	Lift Off
3	Reflection	Lift Off (miss)
4	Crush	Breath
5	Crush	Breath
6	Crush	Breath
7	Sandstorm	Cyclone
8	Pass	Lift Off
9	Reflection	Lift Off

A kill is likely by round 6 or 7 but may take longer due to the increased miss chance from Sandstorm

vs Pandaren Fire Spirit:
Continue with Anubisath Idol. You will attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Reflection or Sandstorm	Conflagrate
2	Sandstorm or Crush	Cauterize
3	Crush	Immolate
4	Crush	Pass
5	Crush	Pass
6	Reflection	Conflagrate
7	Sandstorm	Cauterize
8	Crush	Immolate
9	Crush	Pass

Reflection and/or Sandstorm may be on cooldown depending on when Crimson dies. Save Reflection for Cauterize, use Sandstorm whenever it is up, and Crush when everything else is on cooldown.

vs Glowy:
You will attack second in all rounds.

Round	Your Move	Enemy Move
1	Sandstorm or Crush	Confusing Sting
2	Switch to PLvlPet	Glowing Toxin
3	Switch to Anubisath Idol	Swarm
4	Reflection	Swarm
5	Sandstorm	Swarm
6	Crush	Swarm
7	Crush	Swarm
8	Crush	Swarm
9	Crush	Confusing Sting

As long as you keep Sandstorm up and let the power level pet soak the Glowing Toxins, it doesn't matter what attacks or level 25 pet you use. You will not take any damage.