WoW Pet Battle AOE Smash

WoW Pet Battle Team: Lil’ XT and Kirin Tor Familiar


It’s a new week following the review of our Double Damage pet battle team, and that means it’s time to kick off a new squad of killers!

My first real inspiration for a team when I started playing with pet battles was simple: I wanted to try all AoE damage. You know, fill a team with pets that deal damage to all 3 pets on the other team at the same time and try to kill ’em all at once.

It didn’t work back then, but patch 5.2 brought a lot of subtle changes to AoE abilities that might just let the strategy pay off now. Let’s find out!

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WoW Pet Battle AOE Pets

Lil’ XT

Role: Burst AoE DPS
Type: Mechanical (Rare)
Source: $10 on the Blizzard Store
Defining Ability: Tympanic Tantrum

Kirin Tor Familiar

Role: Steady DPS
Type: Elemental (Rare)
Source: Higher Learning achievement
Defining Ability: Gravity

Your Options for AoE (Area of Effect) Attacks in WoW Pet Battles

Your main, multi-pet options for AoE damage are:

  • Arcane Explosion: the classic that hits the front pet for full damage and half to the back
  • Thunderbolt: this spell was completely redesigned in patch 5.2 to be a long-cooldown AoE that hits all pets for the same damage, and is really really strong — it’s the hardest hitting AoE in the game, dealing over double a regular punch in damage
  • Whirlwind: A humanoid attack where they spin and deal equal damage to the whole team
  • Magma Wave: A spammable, low-damage Elemental AoE that removes objects on the board
  • Cyclone: A long-duration AoE that has a chance to hit pets every turn

Those are all the general, shared AoE spells I can think of, but my favorite AoE spell is actually a unique abiliy for the Lil’ XT bots called Tympani Tantrum. It’s the third-hardest hitting AoE in the game (only Thunderbolt and Whirlwind deal more total damage), and unlike the other two, it goes for 3 rounds in a row, letting it dish it out without long cooldowns in between.

Why The Combo Works

My first pic for the AoE team was Lil’ XT for that awesome AoE burst damage–the only burst damage AoE has in the whole game. But he’s a Mechanical pet, and we all know how much of a liability Mechanical pets can be when the enemy team has Elemental pets.

So for my second pet, I decided to go with the Kirin Tor Familiar. I like that it has two magic-damage AoEs, a weather effect to override any problematic weather plays, and some decent single-target damage to force out elemental pets.

WoW Pet Battle AOE Beam

How To Execute It

  1. 1. Turn one, play the pet that counters who I think they’ll start. Mechanical counters Beasts, but is weak to Elemental. Magic damage from Kirin Tor counters flying, but Elemental pet is weak to Aquatic.
  2. 2. If don’t have any counter pets, I start with XT and immediately activate Heartbroken
  3. 3. Next turn I take a big hit, but immediately start the Tympanic Tantrum AOE. With that buff, I should be dealing 130% punch damage to the front line pet every turn, and 75% punch damage to the backline every turn. That’s the equivalent of almost 3 punches every single turn. Not too shabby
  4. 4. Then I’ll punch with XT until he dies, which I’m guessing will only be one turn after he finishes his AOE, using the resurrect that Mechanical Pets to help him last
  5. 5. Then I’ll bring in Kirin Tor Familiar, or the third wheel if they counter the enemy pet and start spamming AOEs like a madman, using single-target DPS only if really necessary to deal with a problem.
  6. Realization: If my pet is slower than the enemy, I won’t actually reduce their DPS by killing one of their pets, unless one of their pets deals more damage than the others.

Concerns

I actually have quite a few concerns with this team. I’m not actually sure that AoE damage is going to be powerful enough to be viable, and I’m worried that even if it is, the strat allows the enemy team to keep all of their pets and chain their combos together uninterrupted. Frankly, I’m not sure it’s going to be a whole lot of fun if I never kill an enemy pet before losing. If they end with all their pets at 10% health, I’m going to feel terrible. Those little victories of killing a pet during the fight are nice moral boosters, even when you’re on a losing streak.

WoW Pet Battle AOE Zap

Suggested Third Wheels

Picking a third wheel is going to be tough, but for the best reason: there are a lot of good options to round out this team.

I know I want a pet that has either Thunderbolt or Whirlwind because those are the two hardest-hitting AoEs in the game, but I’m not sure what pets to bring with them.

I’m tempted by the Darkmoon Zeppelin, because has Thunderbolt, a big Elemental damage AOE, and it can lay down a decoy that blocks attacks. But the rest of its abilities are lackluster, and it wouldn’t even have a spammable attack—just 3 abilities with super long cooldowns. And it’s Mechanical, which leaves me even more open to a hard Elemental counter.

I like the Curious Wolvar Pup too. It’s got Whirlwind, a humanoid AoE attack, a self-buff to boost its damage, and a spammable punch in Beast or Humanoid flavors to help diversify.

And once again, my great seductress rears its tempting head: that sexy Tranquil Mechanical Yeti. It can summon Lightning Storm to boost all Mechanical damage by 25% and add damage to every hit—both of which are awesome for Lil XT’s AoE Mechanical attacks. I’m not sure that it’d be a good pet. I think it’d likely be another throwaway for a single-pet trade, and I’m not sure I need two of those on the team. Maybe I’ll try it just for old times’ sake.

WoW Pet Battle AOE Wolvar

How To Get The Pets

Lil’ XT
Bad news! Lil’ XT is only available through the Blizzard Store, where you have to pay $10 to unlock him.
Good news! There’s another pet that’s an exact copy of him that’s not sold on the store!
Bad news! The clone pet is only got through loot cards from the TCG, meaning you have to pay for it too
Good news! The loot card is a little cheaper on eBay than buying Lil’ XT ($8 at the time of this post)

Bring: Real money and then choose who you want to pay it to.

Kirin Tor Familiar
This little guy is the symbol of many proud achievement hunters in Wrath of the Lich King. You earn it by completing the achievement Higher Learning, which grants you access to a secret room in Dalaran, which houses the vendor who sells the pet.

Just getting into the secret room is fun, and I’d highly recommend everyone pick up this achievement with some simple, casual spawn checks. It’s pretty simple: you need to read six rare-spawn books in Dalaran.

To do this with minimal effort, just park an alt inside Dalaran and log in there once a day or so to run around and check all six spawn points. This map will help you know the general area that the books spawn, but you’ll also want to view this video once so that you can see where it is within the rooms/architecture.

Bring: a level 70+ character and a little patience.

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