Day 9 - Favourite Pet Abilities

Day 9 of Navi's (The Daily Frostwolf - Druid Edition) 10 days of pet battles Topic.

What is your favourite pet ability? If you could have a pet with your favourite abilities, what would they be?

What is your favourite pet ability? Any pet ability that is different to it's Type.

For example my Feline Familiar. The move Onyx Bite are strong against the Flying Family since it is a Magic Type move. Feline Familiar is in the Beast Family, and Beast moves are Weak against the Flying Family. Having Onyx Bite gives Feline Familiar an edge over the Flying Family that a member of the Beast Family usually wouldn't have.

But Feline Familiar is clearly a magic cat, so there is a reason for it's Magic Type move while being a member of the Beast Family like other cats.

 

Source: http://nestly.deviantart.com/ (http://fav.me/d2tqcb8)

It is similar to my prized Plankerchu. A Pikachu with Surf Move. Pikachu is Electric Type Pokémon. It's Electric Attacks cannot damage Ground Type. But I obtained with Pokéwalker a Pikachu with Surf, a Water Type Move. Water does double damage to Ground Type. But Pokémon has STAB (same-type-attack-bonus) gives a type a 50% boost to attacks of the same type, so it isn't quite the same thing.

With World of Warcraft Pet Battles without STAB, there is no incentive to stick with moves from that class. If you go just adding moves that are from another class it robs that battle pet of its identity. There has to be a reason for Pet X to have Move Y.



If you could have a pet with your favourite abilities, what would they be?

Feline Familiar is clearly has a magic broom, you could also justify adding a flying type move as well. So I would replace Pounce with Alpha Strike. The two moves work fairly similar already, it is only a Type Change mostly. (Side Note: you can also get a Pikachu that knows the Fly Move, I would call it Pikachute).

The Magic Attack (Onyx Bite), Beast Attack (Devour) & Boost Attack (Prowl) would remain unchanged.

Now for the other two skills: Stoneskin & Call Darkness. Not replacing any of these with a heal because Feline Familiar is clearly Arcane not Holy Caster. You can get some health back with Devour and you can boost defence with Stoneskin. Keeping Call Darkness for synergy reasons and nerfing the enemy's ability to heal.

A normal Feline Familiar move set looks like:

Row 1: Onyx Bite, Stoneskin, Devour

Row 2: Pounce, Call Darkness, Prowl

So the modified Feline Familiar move set would look like:

Row 1: Onyx Bite, Stoneskin, Devour

Row 2: Alpha Strike, Call Darkness, Prowl

In the end after considering all the balance and placement issues, I ended up only changed one move. Pounce to Alpha Strike. I decided to design it so you couldn't have both the Flying & Magic Attack on your set list at the same time. It would be not balanced otherwise.

Also went with Alpha Strike not Nocturnal Strike. Having both Nocturnal Strike & Call Darkness would be unbalanced for this Feline Familiar with this much Type diversity. The Gilnean Raven and Crow ONLY have Flying Moves + Call Darkness &Nocturnal Strike so they have a clear weakness and can be dealt with.

Everything else, by coincidence, remained in their same spots. It has become clear to me during this article that some real thought into move composition has already been done by the Blizzard Development Team.