Countering Overpowered Battle Pets

The distraction that prevented me from leveling for days at a time.

I, admittedly, do love the Pokemon series and being able to use my beloved vanity pets in WoW in a Pokemon like mini-game makes me happy.

^_________________^

That happy.

I actually can't say it's all the battle pets' fault. I think I just suck at leveling. Now that I'm going to be leveling my stealthies to 90 I'm actually considering buying a guide like Zygor or something, but that's for another day. Back to battle pets.

I've noticed a few "overpowered" battle pets. I figured someone out there could probably use some help getting past some of them so I'm going to provide you with some quality pets and how they're frequently used.

Pandaren Monk
QQ: Takedown, Focus Chi, and Fury of 1000 Fists. The only real fear is if they manage to stun you. The best thing to do when you get stunned is switch pets. They are really hard hitters so your best bet is to just beat them down. Trying to stall out a Pandaren Monk is pretty difficult in tit's current state.

 Counter: Use a pet with an Undead attack. Even better if it's a Beast.
Any Spider will do. Maggots do well too.
Any pet with a move that dodges, blocks, or reflects can do well too. Flayer Youngling comes to mind.

TLDR - My favorite has been a Spider. Easy to obtain and they are a Beast with an Undead attack. In addition to that, their attack recovers some much needed health.

Any Frog
QQ: Frogs are fast and Frog Kiss is a real pain.
I'm sure that it really is only a 25% chance but it doesn't feel that way at all when you get turned into a frog 4 times in a row.

Counter: Anything with a flying attack should do. I don't know if there's anything that will prevent or lower the chance of transformation. You could also opt for a magic pet to take less damage from Frog Kiss.

The only thing that could trip you up is if they're using Lifelike Toad, a mechanical type.

TLDR - Enchanted Broom is magic and learns Sandstorm, a flying type move.

Clockwork Gnome
QQ: Speaking of Mechanical types...
Build Turret. Period.
They can set up 2 Turrets and swap out to a staller like a crab (we'll get to these fuckers soon)

Counter: There are actually quite a lot! Let's start the list.
ANY elemental. Mechanical pets take more and deal less damage against elementals.
Pets with moves that destroy objects like Tidal Wave and Magma Wave

TLDR - Lil' Ragnaros is elemental and learns Magma Wave. 

Magical Crawdad/Any Crab
QQ: They can whittle you down while they laugh at you and your ineffectiveness.
Between Shell Shield and Renewing Mists, Healing Wave or Wish, they can shut you down.

Counter: Honestly I didn't have a strat aside from attack til it dies... If it dies. I kept going through my flying types til I found Gilnean Raven.

Either of the first slot abilities are fine.
Call Darkness reduces the amount they can heal by 50%
For the last slot I prefer Nevermore over Nocturnal Strike, but often times it doesn't work out to your favor.
With Nevermore whether it stops their shield or healing you should be able to beat em up before it becomes usable again. They could, however, use an attack instead and get that disabled so they can continue stalling.

TLDR - Gilnean Raven can halve their healing and attack effectively with flying attacks.

Chew users (Esp. in combination with Stampede and Soothe)
QQ: This combo was a serious pain. I think the only people that liked sheep and rams were users of this strat. Luckily it got nerfed but it can still hurt in the right hands.
For a while there I was seeing triple Summit Kid users in PvP.

Counter: Magic pets because they can't take more than 50% life in one turn.
Anything that can reflect damage/block damage. I can't think of any in particular right now except Flayer Youngling.

TLDR - Flayer Youngling take less damage from critter attacks and can reflect damage. To be honest, you don't have to worry about this strat anymore. I started this post before Chew got nerfed.



I've heard that Lil' Rag and Lil' Deathwing are OP too but I haven't faced either one in PvP yet so I don't feel I can accurately assess them. I have a Lil' Rag but I only ever used it to beat the Gnome. Eventually I dropped it from my team because it felt too slow.

Ultimately I don't feel that any one pet is OP (anymore... *cough* chew *cough*). There are counters to everything. Even when Chew was still a bastard move it could be countered with a little know how.

If you wanna plan a team or get a better idea of what's out there, check out:
http://www.warcraftpets.com and http://www.petbattlearena.com

If anyone has any other pet battle resources, or anymore strats/counters I've left out, leave a comment!


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PS - I published a more refined version on Squidoo!
http://www.squidoo.com/countering-overpowered-battle-pets

Give it a look. I may update the blog version as well. The only thing I left out of the Squidoo version was a lot of the links (moves, etc)