Pet Battles of Tanaan

Over the past week or so, since I finished Draenor Pathfinder and don't feel compelled to do grindy stuff for reputation, I started working on the new boss battle pets in Tanaan.  These are all boss pets with a kind of nasty surprise - they all come with two additional pets.

Direflame

Many of these pet battles wouldn't be nearly as troublesome if you didn't have to deal with two buffed extra pets after knocking them out; the boss pet will cast Fel Corruption throughout the fight while they're up, and in addition to being a fairly hard hitting AOE (and making it hazardous to have mechanical pets in your lineup), it turns the backline pets on their side into minibosses for up to 10 rounds.

Most of these battles I was able to get through with some experimentation, though for a few I had to hit the WoWhead comments for ideas on pets to try.  It should be obvious from the chart that, although some of the commenters frequently push the Anklerender and the Emerald Proto-Whelp, I don't have the former leveled, and I only found the latter helpful once.  I also tried out suggested strategies involving forced pet swaps (to minimize the Fel Corruption), but those gave me no success.

Due to the back line pets, setting up a traditional "Howl Bomb" (Unborn Val'kyer/Pandaren Water Spirit/Chrominius) frequently meant that the Fel Corrupted pets would finish off the AOE-damaged remaining pets even if the boss pet was dropped.  Using 1.5-2 pets to get the boss pet down and cleaning up the remnants with the Anubisath Idol was ultimately more reliable.

Teams 

The numbers after the pet name are the ability slot choices - particularly with Chrominius and the Anubisath Idol, who saw heavy use, there are some fights where not swapping out an ability really hurt.

Pet	Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Bleakclaw	Chrominius 2 1 2	Disgusting Oozeling 1 1 1	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Chaos Pup	Iron Starlette 1 2 1	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2
Corrupted Thundertail	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Emerald Proto-Whelp 2 2 2
Cursed Spirit	Tolai Hare 2 2 2	Mr. Wiggles 1 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Dark Gazer	Lil' Deathwing 1 2 2	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 2 2 2
Defiled Earth	Dancing Water Skimmer 1 2 2	Magical Crawdad 2 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Direflame	Garden Frog 1 2 1	Dark Phoenix Hatchling 2 1 2	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Dreadwalker	Fel Flame 1 1 1	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Felfly	Chrominius 2 1 2	Disgusting Oozeling 1 1 1	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Felsworn Sentry	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Mirecroak	Crow 2 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Netherfist	Unborn Val'kyr 2 2 2	Ghostly Skull 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Skrillix	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 2 2 1
Tainted Maulclaw	Sprite Darter Hatchling 1 2 2	Darkmoon Hatchling 1 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 1
Vile Blood of Draenor	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 2 2 2	Crimson Geode 1 2 2

Pet List

Anubisath Idol: The Anubisath Idol saw heavy use in Tanaan, making it into the lineup for 10 of the 15 battles.  Sandstorm is the big boon here - the damage reduction and its humanoid healing allow it to survive the Fel Corruption-buffed backline pets.

Chrominius: Chrominius makes it into 7 of the teams in Tanaan, although in one he was a barely-used third pet.  He is frequently paired with the Pandaren Water Spirit for the "Howl Bomb," buffing the Whirlpool/Geyser combination, but for the two flying pets, he can simply Howl + Surge of Power to one-shot them.

Crimson Geode: The Crimson Geode makes it into four of these fights, not so much for the boss pets but because it's a strong candidate for cleaning up flying pet adds.

Crow: Crow makes one appearance in Tanaan, using the Call Darkness/Nocturnal Strike combo on Mirecroak.

Dancing Water Skimmer: The Dancing Water Skimmer was brought in to handle the Defiled Earth.

Dark Phoenix Hatchling: The Rebirth ability helped make the Direflame fight doable for the team I was using.

Darkmoon Hatchling: There are other pets with the Predatory Strike ability, but the Darkmoon Hatchling is a Critter, which is less susceptible to Fel Corruption, so it survived on the backline to be brought in as a finisher on the Tainted Maulclaw.

Disgusting Oozeling: The Disgusting Oozeling was put into two lineups in case Chrominius couldn't for some reason handle the flying boss pets, but it turned out to be handy for cleaning up the back lines for them, since Fel-Corruption-empowered pets make fast work of a recharging Chrominius.

Emerald Proto-Whelp: The Emerald Proto-Whelp only turned out to be useful for me for cleaning up the Corrupted Thundertail's back line pets.

Fel Flame: Fel Flame was a trial pet in a lot of battles, but it only ended up on the final team for Dreadwalker - albeit as a starter, not on the bench.

Garden Frog: Garden Frog softened up Direflame enough for the phoenix to finish off - and the crowd control from the Frog Kiss didn't hurt to keep down the Fel Corruption casts.

Ghostly Skull: Bob was brought in for Netherfist; Ghostly Bite is lovely for how hard it hits, even with the boss damage reduction.

Infinite Whelpling: The Infinite Whelpling made it onto three teams; with its mixed bag of abilities, it's useful both on magic and mechanical pet bosses.  The heal doesn't hurt, either.

Iron Starlette: Iron Starlette was one of the suggestions I got from the WoWhead comments; the Chaos Pup was giving me fits, and it turned out to be the mechanical for the job.

Lil' Deathwing: Dark Gazer was Lil' Deathwing's first appearance on a pet team for me.  He is the hardest hitting dragon I've got, and many team combinations went down to this fight before he joined the team.

Magical Crawdad: Magical Crawdad is another pet you see touted a lot, and it can be quite good in some lineups, but for me it only helped with Defiled Earth.

Mr. Wiggles:  Mr. Wiggles was brought in, as he not infrequently is, for an undead fight, the Cursed Spirit.  Being a critter, he could take the Fel Corruption on the back line better, and he hit especially hard following up the rabbit.

Pandaren Water Spirit:  The Pandaren Water Spirit made it onto 4 teams, most often as a truncated version of the "Howl Bomb," i.e., with no leading Val'kyr.

Sprite Darter Hatchling: The Sprite Darter Hatchling was brought in for Life Exchange versus the Tainted Maul Claw; it helped set up for Predatory Strike from the Darkmoon Hatchling.

Tolai Hare: The hare, like almost all the rabbits, can be wicked against undead pets, and it made the team for the Cursed Spirit as an armor break before Mr. Wiggles.  Dodge and critter resistance to elemental damage didn't hurt.

Unborn Val'kyr: The Unborn Val'kyr made it onto only one team, versus Netherfist.

Alternate Teams

I'll update as I find additional combinations that work.

Direflame: Jungle Darter, Pebble, Crimson Geode
 

Garrison pet battles

After a couple times through the Menagerie's pet rotation, I realized I wasn't going to remember what had worked if I didn't start keeping notes.  So now I have a spreadsheet for what teams worked for what; here's a visual version of the spreadsheet if any of them are giving you trouble.

Some of these pets are harder to find (Unborn Val'kyr in particular), and some of them (I'm thinking of the Crimson Geode) are perhaps not as commonly leveled; I did that one in particular for the tamer in Spires of Arak.

Archimedes, Samm, Jahan; The Beakinator
The team:  Disgusting Oozeling, Crimson Geode, Chrominius
Both these fights are flyer heavy; Chip (my Disgusting Oozeling) can take the Beakinator by himself, but if he gets knocked out in the three bird fight, the other two can finish them off.

Brutus and Rukus
The team: Pandaren Water Spirit, Fox Kit, Alpine Foxling Kit
This is the two boar team.  Make sure both foxes are set up with Bite; I've got flurry on the Fox Kit from the Floret team fight and forgot to swap it for the picture.  Any two foxes will work here; these are my two rare quality ones.

Deebs, Tyri, Puzzle
The team: Scourged Whelpling, Crawling Claw, Ghostly Skull
Deebs is a magic pet, so you'll want to start out with the Scourged Whelpling in this line-up.  The Crawling Claw and Bob... er, the Ghostly Skull can handle the other two.  Make sure you set them up for some healing before the whelpling dies.  Tyri is going to pop Darkness, so you can set up the skull with either of his hard hitting abilities.

Eleanor
The team:  Any three rabbits (shown here: Tolai Hare, Tolai Hare Pup, Elfin Rabbit)
Slot three rabbits, pop dodge, stampede until it's dead, rinse and repeat.

Grubbles, Scrags, Stings
The team: Elder Python, Mechanical Squirrel, Chrominius
This is a basic critter/beast/flying team, so counter with a beast/mechanical/magic team.  Chrominius gets thrown in for the magic here because Howl/Surge of Power is going to do 2000+ damage.

Hanos, Manos, Fatos
The team: Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Lil' Deathwing, Chrominius

This is the fight that finally made me level the Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling.  Manos, the Hand of Fate, is probably best known as a MST3K episode.  You can probably substitute the Scourged Whelpling or another mechanical in if you don't have Lil' Deathwing, since he's a CE pet.

King Floret and Queen Floret
The team: Pandaren Water Spirit, Fox Kit, Eternal Strider
This is similar to a "Howl Bomb" set up, except that you don't start with the Unborn Val'kyr - Geyser, Whirlpool, swap to the fox, Howl, Dazzling Dance, Flurry and Howl till the fox is dead, and then swap to the strider to finish things off.  You can buy the Fox Kit now, but I got it back when it was a drop in Tol Barad.  Apaprently "Reynard" is a restricted name, so I went with the alternate spelling.

Mr. Terrible, Carroteye, Sloppus
The team: Two frogs (here, Jungle Darter and Garden Frog) and the Emerald Proto-Whelp
Set up your frogs with Frog Kiss and go to town.  When the frogs are down, finish off Sloppus with the proto-whelp.  Apparently frogs don't blink for pictures; they just hop out of the frame.

Protectron 011803, Protectron 022481, Blingtron 4999b
The team: Terrible Turnip, Tiny Shale Spider, Mr. Grubbs
This is a team that gave me fits, and the use of the shale spider came from reading the comments in WoWhead.  I got the shale spider on Super Bowl Sunday - it was the first day the population was low enough to snag the rare.  You can throw any pet in the third slot, really - the shale spider will close out the fight.

Quintessence of Light
The team: Unborn Val'kyr, Pandaren Water Spirit, Chrominius
This is the classic "Howl Bomb" configuration; you can probably substitute the Ghostly Skull for the Val'kyr (I haven't tested it, but it also gives you the Unholy Ascension option).  You want to close with Chrominius if possible for that Howl/Surge of Power combo.

Rockbiter, Stonechewer, Acidtooth; Kromli and Gromli
The team: Crawling Claw, Scourged Whelpling, Ghostly Skull
This is basically the same team you use for Deebs/Tyri/Puzzle, but you can start with the Crawling Claw.  Try to line up the Ghostly Skull's stun from bite with the gronnling's haymaker - it's got a pretty good chance of stunning him.

Stitches Jr.
The team: Unborn Val'kyr, Sprite Darter Hatchling, Chrominius
Stitches Jr. has that annoying trait that he only takes damage if the attack deals at least 500, so you're going to want to debuff him for Doom, ascend so he takes more damage, swap to the Sprite Darter, Life Exchange, Moonfire so magic abilities deal more damage, and then swap to Chrominius for Howl and Surge of Power.  You may want to throw in a Bite before Surge.

Tirs & Fiero
The team: Unborn Val'kyr, Disgusting Oozeling, Silkbead Snail
I haven't got a max level crab, so this is the team I ended up using for this pair.  The snail works fairly well.

Battle Pet: Bob

I know, I know... the Ghostly Skull is supposed to be named after @CM_Zarhym, but... come on, Dresden Files.  If you've seen any of the one season that made it to TV, Terrence Mann as Bob was amazing, and Bob in the books is generally always entertaining.

My undead pet family always feels like one of my weakest, so part of how I picked ones to level up after the initial few (Andrew, one of the shades from Deadwind Pass, and Hilde, my Val'kyr) was I went with ones pet tamers used that I found annoying to deal with:  the Scourged Whelpling, the Crawling Claw, the mariachi dude when I could get him, and of course the Ghostly Skull, because Ghostly Bite can dish out some serious damage.

The Val'kyr may be a more commonly used undead pet, due to the "howl bomb" configuration - with the Pandaren Water Spirit and anything, usually Chrominius, that can cast Howl or a similar damage-doubling ability - which can be very effective versus a single boss pet, but I've found Bob particularly useful in two of the NPC battles: Tarr in Nagrand, with his triple murloc team, and the Diablo trio in the Menagerie.  I think I've used him versus the Goren and Gronn Menagerie teams, as well, but the last time I did those was before I started taking notes, so I'm not completely sure.

What I do know is that, despite Ghostly Bite's stun, it can be devastatingly effective, especially when timed with something (for example, Geyser) that is going to stun your opponent, so the stun rounds line up and become moot.  This can be particularly useful against Gromli, whose Haymaker is as likely to miss and stun him as not, and against Murkalot, whose Falling Murloc will stun him.

Another benefit of Bob is that the one I've got is breed #7 - H/P, which means he's got a lot of health and a power rating over 300, so Ghostly Bite usually hits for over 700.  On humanoid pets, it's amazing, and if you've got it combined with a damage doubler, it can be way out there.  (Not as mind boggling as Chrominius's Surge of Power with Howl up versus a flyer, but still nothing to sneeze at.)  The stun frequently doesn't matter if you're using him as a closer.

If the stun makes you too nervous, you can substitute in Spectral Strike, whose miss chance isn't as much of a hindrance against the Diablo team, since you know Tyri is going to throw out Darkness.

I frequently team Bob up with the Scourged Whelpling and the Crawling Claw for these teams - since the Lord of Terror is a magic pet, the Scourged Whelpling's dragon abilities are useful, and then Death and Decay and Plagued Blood give your later pets some healing.  Like Bob, the Crawling Claw hits hard, so it can knock things down fast, and the undead family's extra turn doesn't hurt.

In the end, only one question remains:  Where in Draenor did Tarr find three murlocs?

Elekk Plushie - Draenor Tamers

Now that my Elekk Plushie is overstuffed, I decided to take it around to all the tamers on Draenor and start working on [An Awfully Big Adventure].  Some of them took more work to figure out than others.

Here's what worked for me:

Gargra, Frostfire Ridge:  I used a Fluxfire Feline (S/S) and Mechanical Squirrel (S/B) for this since her set up is three wolf pups.  The Fluxfire is set up with Pounce, Flux, and Supercharge; I started with it for some backline damage.  Once it dies, the Mechanical Squirrel (Metal Fist, Overtune, and Wind-Up) can take out the other one/two left.

Cymre Brightblade, Gorgrond:  Cymre took some work to figure out; she's got magic, undead, and mechanical pets.  Ultimately I ended up using the Anubisath Idol (H/H) with Crush, Stoneskin, and Deflection, paired with the Infinite Whelpling (P/P) with Tail Sweep, Healing Flame, and Early Advantage.  These two are actually one of my go-to pairs for working with carry pets, but I hadn't used them in a while.  Deflection has to be paired up opposite the Idol of Decay's Rot for this to work.

Tarr the Terrible, Nagrand:  Okay, so I hadn't actually beaten Tarr before I tried this, and doing it straight up with the Elekk Plushie took some work.  He's got three humanoids (murlocs), so I went with double undead pets:  a Ghostly Skull (H/P) with Shadow Slash, Ghostly Bite, and Siphon Life, and a Scourged Whelpling (P/S) with Shadowflame, Death and Decay, and Plagued Blood.  I opened with the whelpling, made sure to keep Death and Decay up (including refreshing it before he died), and finished them off with the skull.  There's some RNG involved in this combination, but it will be really close even when it fails.  (If I bump my whelpling from uncommon up to rare, it might be more consistent.)

Ashlei, Shadowmoon Valley:  She's got an Elekk Plushie slotted - how hard can she be?!  Anywho, her other pets are magic and beast, so I used the Emerald Proto-Whelp (P/P) with Emerald Bite, Ancient Blessing, and Proto-Strike and the Mechanical Squirrel (same set-up as for Gargra).  The Emerald Proto-Whelp will almost solo this.

Vesharr, Spires of Arak:  Vesharr has two flying pets and a mechanical that will briefly masquerade as a flyer.  I went with a Sprite Darter Hatchling (S/S) with Arcane Blast, Life Exchange, and Moonfire and a Crimson Geode (H/S) with Feedback, Amplify Magic, and Stone Rush.  I originally decided to level the geode because I've always found the Deepholm tamer annoying to beat, and it paid off for this.

Taralune, Talador:  Taralune has the standard Draenei pets, three moths.  I had good luck with a Disgusting Oozeling (H/B) with Ooze Touch, Corrosion, and Expunge opening for the Sprite Darter Hatchling.  The sprite darter's Moonfire will negate the Call Lightning, which can be really bad with Moth Balls.

Bonus:  Darkmoon Faire

I did both Darkmoon Faire tamers with the Elekk this week, too.  For Jeremy, with his magic/mechanical/beast team, I just used my regular Infinite Whelpling (same set-up as for Cymre) and Water Waveling (B/B - Ice Lance, Frost Nova, Geyser) set up and substituted the Elekk in for the Mechanical Squirrel, which is normally my third.  When the RNG is in your favor, the Infinite Whelpling will solo the first two pets, and eat the monkey's initial stun, and then the waveling can finish him off.  One of the keys is hitting the tonk with Early Advantage with the dragon buff, so you might need to pass a round (or heal or something) on the eye to get it active for the tonk.

Christoph took some experimentation to figure out.  He's got that initial fast magic pet with both a hard-hitting geyser and an attack-blocking bubble, and the obvious counter is a dragon - but which one?  It turns out the Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling (S/S) with Quills, Conflagrate, and Flame Breath can survive it.  Open with the Flame Breath to set Syd on fire; since it's a 100% speed breed, it's going to go before Syd's second-round bubble, so you can go ahead and Conflagrate on turn two, then basically Flame Breath or Quills till Syd's dead.  The tri-horn is going to kill the dragon, but a Mechanical Squirrel (Metal Fist, Overtune, Wind-Up) can take out both it and the cow.  Wind-Up will pretty much take out the tri-horn right away, but with the cow you may want to Metal Fist when you've got reduced damage to avoid wasting Wind-Up's big damage.

Battle Pet: Infinite Whelpling

The Infinite Whelpling is one of my favorite battle pets; he's one of the three I use to beat the Darkmoon Faire tamer.

In its native environs

In the wild, the whelpling is found by the entrance to the Caverns of Time, and the spawns I've seen have all been level 13 and 14.  They're not uncommon, so unless someone is farming for a rare, you can probably pick one up easily.

For his first slot ability, you can pick between Tail Sweep and Sleeping Gas.  I usually have Tail Sweep slotted, since he's not particularly fast, unless I'm using him to farm levels for low-level pets, since he's faster than most of the wild pets I'm usually fighting. Tail Sweep is especially nice against a faster magic pet, since you'll get the type bonus on both hits.  This is what I use to knock out Judgement fast.

His second ability slot can be either Healing Flame or Weakness.  I'm not sure I've ever slotted weakness - Healing Flame is pretty good, especially if the pet you're fighting has a predictable ability pattern.  The harder he's hit the previous attack, the more he'll heal.

The third ability slot lets you pick either Early Advantage ('cause, well, he's part of the infinite flight) or Darkflame.  Early Advantage is especially good versus Jeremy Feasel because he'll follow up Judgement with Honky-Tonk, and the ability is strong against mechanicals.  Since he likely took a good deal of damage from Judgement, he'll get the double damage, and he'll probably have the dragonkin type bonus, too.  Darkflame can be useful in fights against pets with healing that needs to be countered, though.

We haven't seen the last of the infinite dragonflight!

Lil' Oondasta

Lil' Oondasta is a new daily pet battle on the Timeless Isle.

Just like the big Oondasta, he's got a Frill Blast, Spiritfire Beam, and Crush.  Frill Blast will deal a large amount of damage to your active pet and swap it for your highest health pet.  (Woo forced tank swap.)  Spiritfire Beam is like a chain lightning, dealing moderate damage to all pets, and Crush is a single target attack.

It took me several combinations to find a group that worked for the fight, and ultimately, treating him like Dos-Ryga and opening with a Stampede-style ability worked best.  Lil' Oon isn't particularly fast, so most of the pets I tried got to go first in a round vs. him.

Thlayli

I started with the Tolai Hare after realizing flying pets were probably a bad idea (Spiritfire Beam and Frill Blast do additional damage to flyers).  Sure, he's a critter, but Oon doesn't have beast abilities despite being one.  He's got the Stampede I wanted, and he's wicked fast.  Of course, being such a speed-heavy little rabbit, Oon's Frill Blast one-shotted him.  This is not surprising: Frill Blast one-shots a lot of things.  If you pop Dodge your first round, the Stampede will get off a bit extra damage, as well, because you'll just dodge the first Frill Blast.

Anapa

A Frill Blast death pulls in the Anubisath Idol, since he's the highest health pet in this group.  Even if the Hare dies from other damage, I swap him in second.  I had included him for this fight because a) he's got a decent amount of health and b) he's got a wicked hard Demolish vs. Beasts.  Stampede's armor break allowed the Demolish to hit basically for full damage, and as long as you don't miss, he's going to get in probably two, three if you're lucky and Oon misses one round.  If you want to try for a chance to do a bit more damage before Lil' Oon eats him, you can try to get a stun off Rupture.

Bolts

Once the Anubisath Idol is dead, Oon will probably be low enough for a mechanical with Wind-Up to finish him off, even though the armor penalty has worn off by now.  I went with the Mechanical Squirrel; I know a lot of people like Brooms with Wind-Up, but the Spiritfire Beam does less damage to mechanical pets, so it's more likely to survive the fight on the back lines.

The first time I tried this combination, they one-shot Lil' Oon.  The second night it took I think three tries, and I played a slightly more careful match (using Dodge and Rupture) to improve the odds of it going through.  If you haven't got three strong mechanicals (I don't; I have three 25s, but two are middling), you've got other possibilities if you play towards what you've got that will hit him hard, debuff him, or doesn't take extra damage from his abilities.

Quality of Life Addons

I don't run with a lot of addons.  I use the default interface for most things, including raid frames and healing.  I have the standard minimum for raiding - a boss mod (DBM), a threat meter just in case, and a DPS meter (Recount) to make sure I'm not entirely useless.  Most of what I use is for minor quality of life, things, though.  Here are the ones I absolutely can't do without:

• Altoholic:  Keeps track of what I've got on who, when the last time I logged everyone on was (I do a full log-on of my random little alts about every three weeks), who has auctions I should check on, and so forth.  It also keeps track of what my toons are wearing, so when I log over to a crafter, I can easily see who needs upgrades in which slots, or which slots aren't enchanted.

• AuctionLite and AuctionLite Improved Search:  I love love love the purchasing interface for AuctionLite, and I appreciate the searching/pricing options on the selling tab.  The improved search purchasing interface lets me search specifically for Battle Pets, and all the various entries for each pet are smooshed into a single entry in the big list, so I can easily see if any of the handful of auctionable pets I don't have are listed.

• BattlePetCount:  There are other similar addons out there; this is the one I use for the mouseover information and quality flagging (it tells me if what I'm fighting is better than what I've got with an asterisk).  Given that I occasionally try to up my standing on my realm on WarcraftPets, it's been fairly handy.
• CT:  I'm using three parts of CT: MailMod, MapMod, and PartyBuffs.  MailMod is nice for opening a lot of mail at once and having a log of just who you just mailed that 500g to, and it's the one that makes me realize a patch has disabled my addons (because they're now "out of date"), because it's the first one I notice missing.

I run others, but these are the ones that I miss the most if they're broken or if I haven't yet re-enabled addons.

Beasts of Fable

The initial pass on the Beasts of Fable took a couple tries for some, but for most of them I guessed pretty well.  I love my Infinite Whelpling.

• No-No: Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
• Lucky Yi:  Infinite Whelpling, Mr. Grubbs
• Greyhoof:  Infinite Whelpling, Mechanical Squirrel
• Skitterer Xi'a:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
• Gorespine:  Anubisath Idol
• Ti'un the Wanderer:  Infinite Whelpling
• Kafi:  Fluxfire Feline, Robo-Chick, Mechanical Squirrel
• Dos-Ryga:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling
• Nitun:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling
• Ka'wi the Gorger:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling

Even with the nerf to the Anubisath Idol's Deflection (it was Reflection), he's still pretty strong.  There are several aquatics, and the Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling's Quills are really useful even when it doesn't go first.

I excised the Cinder Kitten from the second pass through, mostly because he makes such sad, sad, mewing sounds when he gets hit.  He's a total glass cannon, too - you'll get to hit hard with him maybe twice before he's dead on these guys.

One fight I haven't figured out how to do differently is Kafi - I'm still having to stack mechanical pets for him.  He eats the Anubisath Idol too quickly, and even with the critter's stun duration reduction, they still didn't make a dent like Wind Up or the Fluxfire's Supercharge + Pounce combo does.

Spirit Tamers

There are a lot of combinations of pets you can use to beat the spirit tamers; some rely more on the random numbers coming out in your favor than others.  These are some of the combinations I've had decent luck with.

Thundering Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter: Mr. Wiggles or a Tolai Hare.  Mr. Wiggles has the health and a hard-hitting attack to survive and pummel the Pandaren Earth Spirit, and the Tolai Hare just as the speed to ignore the crowd control and usually dodge enough to get the job done.
• Beast or Dragon:  Mr. Grubbs or the Infinite Whelpling.  I've had good luck with both beating the critter-family ooze.  Set up Mr. Grubbs with Leap to flip the speed advantage and you'll get to hit hard twice in a row.  (In the screenshot, the Cinder Kitten is filling in for Mr. Grubbs.  Adorably.)
• Mechanical:  Mechanical Squirrel or Fluxfire Feline.  Really, anything with Wind-Up is going to get the job done.  Stone Rush is going to hit hard, so something that can get back up afterwards helps.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter: Mr. Wiggles again.  The moth can be taken out by a lot of things, but Mr. Wiggles seems to be surviving best right now of what I've got available.  It's a critter-classed moth, rather than a flyer.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The dragon pet does mostly air attacks, which are weak against dragons, and the Infinite Whelpling generally hits hard, especially when going second, and can heal if needed.
• Dragon or Magic:  If the Infinite Whelpling didn't survive the dragon for some reason, the Disgusting Oozeling or another dragon (Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, etc.) can finish off the Air Spirit.

Flowing Pandaren Spirit:

• Dragon: Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling.  Quills is strong against the fish, even if you don't get to go first.
• Critter or Beast:  I've found Mr. Wiggles to be quite nice with his combination of Headbutt and Crouch.  Hoof is a solid filler attack.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  A solid closer in most cases, the Infinite Whelpling will have few problems with the Water Spirit.

Burning Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter:  Mr. Wiggles.  The Fire Spirit gives me the the most trouble still, but I've been going with Mr. Wiggles, against whom his attacks are weak.  Headbutt plus a self-heal make a decent combination here.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The Infinite Whelpling can handle the dragon pet here without many problems.  Just know that the dragon will do Lift-Off after Cyclone, so don't waste a cooldown skill on that round.
• Magic:  Disgusting Oozeling.  The Disgusting Oozeling puts flying pets to shame.

There are other pet combinations that will work, but with a half a dozen pets, you can comfortably cover all four.

Farmer Nishi

This probably isn't new news to anyone who's been battling Pandarian pet tamers for a while, but... Farmer Nishi is amazing for leveling up your low-/mid-level pets.  You can take two low-level pets up against her; they just need enough health to survive up to about four castings of Sunlight.

Farmer Nishi has two elemental pets that mostly heal and have weak damage options: the Singing Sunflower, set up with Photosynthesis, Inspiring Song, and Sunlight, and the Terrible Turnip, set up with Leech Seed, Inspiring Song, and Sons of the Root (yep, she's cheating on her skill set ups).  Her worm is a beast set up with Consume, Acidic Goo, and Burrow.  I think he's supposed to be a silkworm, but his skill set is more like Mr. Grubbs.

The key to making this fight easy, I think, is an aquatic pet with a) a moderately strong, often available damage spell (the sunflower is going to heal ~200 hit points a round) and b) a self-heal, because you're going to need to keep it alive through all three of Nishi's pets.  As you can see in the screenshot, I'm using Jubs, a Jungle Darter.  Most frogs and toads have this same skill set.  Other aquatic pets, or pets with aquatic abilities, may work just as well; aquatic is strong versus elemental, and the extra damage helps with the sunflower's healing.

Whatever pet you're using for killing things, you want to start with your low level pets, doing one ability with them before swapping them out to make sure they get credit for the battle.  Neither the sunflower nor the turnip is likely to kill them, as long as they have about 500 hit points, and the worm will always go last.

Nishi will open with either the sunflower or the turnip, but usually the sunflower.  If you get the turnip first, that's great; just kill it straight through.  If you get the sunflower first and you're using a frog, you want to use Frog Kiss on it until you get it frogged; Nishi will then swap it out for the turnip.  You're doing this because her worm has a very good chance of killing your pet if you take it on without the extra hit points from Sunlight.

The sunflower will open with Sunlight, then do nothing but heal itself until Sunlight is down to two on its counter, then cast it again.  The turnip generally starts with Sons of the Root, which should give you an opportunity to heal yourself once before you can actually damage it.  Sons of the Root is an eight round cooldown, so if you don't miss, you'll probably only see it once.  It usually follows with Leech Seed, which is a four round cooldown, and then Inspiring Song, a three round cooldown.  This means you will have rounds where the turnip does nothing.

If you've managed to get the sunflower second, either through chance or Frog Kiss, once the turnip is dead, you can kill the sunflower.  At this point, if you're  using the frog, you do not want to use Frog Kiss, since you're going to want to use it heavily on the worm, and you don't want to risk swapping the sunflower and the worm back and forth, because the sunflower will heal them both like mad.  If Sunlight is going to run out soon, it may be worth passing to keep the sunflower alive long enough to cast it again; you want it for at least two or three rounds on the worm, if not longer.

The worm tends to open with Acidic Goo, then will Burrow and alternate Consume and Acidic Goo until Burrow is back up.  If Burrow connects, it hits hard, easily 500 to 800 points, depending if it crits.  Luckily it does miss often enough that it's not a guaranteed game-over.  Spamming Frog Kiss and using Healing Wave on cooldown usually keeps a frog alive if it's got a couple rounds of Sunlight for extra hit points.

Depending how low level your pets were to start, you're usually looking at two to three levels when the battle's over.

If you don't have an aquatic pet with a heal yet, there are frogs, turtles, and water striders throughout Pandaria, which will start at level 22 or 23 depending where you catch them.  Any of those should take you just a few tamer battles to max out, and they're plentiful if you want to farm for a rare one if you haven't got an aquatic stone.

I may have a problem

Here I am, camping for a Minfernal.  I spent at least eight hours in Felwood Saturday, broken up between flying around Shatter Scar Vale killing Tainted Rats, Tainted Cockroaches, Tainted Moths, and occasionally Tainted Oozes (because, let's face it, Disgusting Oozeling is spelled G-O-L-D) and flying around the zone as a whole wiping out battle pets to, theoretically, free up some to spawn elsewhere.

Saturday went badly, since, well, I didn't even see a spawn.  I did finish off my fifty rare captures (and have two to three each of the tainted pets and the toads rare).

So today I made a death knight on a low population PVP server, figuring I'd see how their Felwood camping was.  I got it about halfway through the death knight starter zone, and then my husband wanted to run Ahn'Qiraj on an alt, so I went along to help kill Twins.  I logged back over, and, since I had logged out in Felwood, as soon as he invited me, it popped me into his server's CRZ mix of Felwood.

I don't really know what server I actually popped out on, since CRZ is anything but obvious, but I joked to him that I would be right there... as soon as I did a flyover of oh my God there's one spawned.  Eight hours on Saturday, an hour and a half invested in a (green cow) death knight, and the bane of rare campers everywhere, CRZ, gets me a Minfernal spawn.

He's common quality, but I really don't care.  A Qiraji Guardling in March and I'll be a Zookeeper.

Battle Pet Theme Teams

My initial pet battle team was formed a bit haphazardly; I had played around with it on the beta (for about three days exclusively), and from that I knew that mechanicals were strong against beasts, beasts against critters, and for most of my early fights, the third pet was going to suck if it was something else.  So my initial team looks like:

• Mr. Grubbs
• Mechanical Squirrel (Bolts)
• Rustberg Seagull (Sully)

There wasn't really any rhyme or reason other than that Mr. Grubbs is my favorite pet; Bolts seemed good as an engineer, and the random third pet is strong vs. aquatics, and I keep running into Toads.

Beta Team

But, as I've been assembling themed stables for Stampede (Aesop for Dusk, undead for my Forsaken, August Celestials when my Pandaren is higher level... and I'm not sure yet what for the other two), I've also been thinking about some themed secondary and tertiary pet battle teams, preferably ones that don't use two of the same pet.

I can't do all of these (I'm missing a handful), but I can do most:

Aesop again:

• Jade Crane Chick
• Fox Kit
• Gilnean Raven

Watership Down:

• Spirit of Summer (Frith)
• Rabbit (El-ahrairah or Thlayli)
• Sea Gull (Keehar)

Valley of the Four Winds:

• Black Lamb
• Chicken
• Feral Vermling

August Celestials:

• Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
• Jade Crane Chick
• Winterspring Cub

Obscure Star Trek:

• Shimmershell Snail
• Bombay Cat
• Fishy

Jungle Book:

• Panther Cub (Bagheera)
• Dun Morogh Cub (Baloo)
• Emerald Boa (Kaa)

Rudolph/Island of Misfit Toys 1

• Winter Reindeer (Rudolph)
• Tranquil Mechanical Yeti (The Abominable Snowman)
• Father Winter's Helper (Hermey the Misfit Elf)

Rudolph/Island of Misfit Toys 2

• Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm (Spotted Elephant)
• Guardian Cub (King Moonracer)
• Tiny Snowman (Sam the Snowman)