There are a lot of changes coming in the patch but this is the one I’m really excited about:
Elite Battle Pets have been added to the game world. These rare pets will spawn alone against an entire team. The Beasts of Fable taming quest will now become available from Gentle San or Sara Finkleswitch once Aki the Chosen has been defeated. Defeating all of the fabled beasts will award the new Red Panda pet, while completing the associated daily quest has a chance to award the rare brown, white, and orange variants.
While we won’t be able to capture these pets, it’s still exciting to think that we’ll be seeing and battling these in the wild soon.
A number of new pets will be found on the Isle of Lightning, including Rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops. One of the models I’m looking forward seeing to is the Living Sandling – a raid drop from the Throne of Thunder.
How cool does that look?
Check out these changes:
- Supercharge now provides a 125% damage bonus (was 150%), and its cooldown is now 4 rounds (was 3).
- Fluxfire Feline‘s Wind-Up has been replaced with a new ability, Flux, which deals damage to the enemy team.
- Mr. Bigglesworth‘s Prowl has been replaced with a new ability, Ice Barrier, which blocks two attacks.
- The Tuskarr Kite has a new set of abilities that’s more appropriate for a Tuskarr Kite.
- Pets that had been affected by a crowd-control ability will now be granted Resilience, making them immune to crowd control for a short while.
- Volcano‘s damage has been reduced by 15%.
- Ice Tomb, Elementium Bolt, and Stun Seed‘s damage has been reduced by 25%.
- Geyser‘s damage has been reduced by 12.5%.
- Conflagrate‘s base damage has been increased by 20% and its bonus damage has been reduced by 60%.
- Siphon Life now heals for a flat amount instead of a percentage of the damage that had been dealt.
- Arcane Explosion’s damage to back-line pets has been increased by 20%.
- Frost Shock now properly chills targets of 2 rounds (was 4).
- Deep Freeze now has a cooldown of 4 rounds (was 3).
- Ghostly Bite‘s damage has been reduced by 20%. now has a cooldown of 7 rounds (was 3 rounds).
- Ghostly Skull: Ghostly Bite and Siphon Life have swapped ability positions.
- Call Darkness now lasts for 5 rounds (was 9 rounds).
- Blocking abilities that last for 2 turns like Decoy, now have a cooldown of 8 rounds.
- Feign Death now has a cooldown of 8 rounds (was 5).
- Prowl now lasts for 2 rounds.
- Crystal Overload now lasts for 2 rounds.
- Focus Chi now lasts for 1 round.
- Sprite Darter Hatchling and Nether Faerie Dragon– Evanescence and Arcane Blast have swapped ability positions.
- Pet levels will now only display on the map when pets are tracked.
- Level capped players will now have a chance to each Lesser Charm of Good Fortune after winning a pet battle versus a Pet within 5 levels of the highest level pet on their team. Higher level pets will offer a better chance to earn a Charm. An interesting change since I’m no longer doing dailies
- Winning a pet battle versus a team within 5 levels of the player’s highest level pet will now award player experience. LOL, too bad I’ve levelled my main alts already :P
- Battle Pet Bandages now stack to 25 and are Bind to Account. Great change right there!
- Battle-Stones now have a chance to be awarded from PVP Pet Battles. This gives me a little more incentive to start doing these again.
- Pet levels will now only display on the map when pets are tracked.
- A number of new pets can be found on the Isle of Lightning, including rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops. Can’t wait :)
- Reflection has been replaced with Deflection, an ability that always attempts to go first and causes the pet to avoid all attacks for that round.
- Thunderbolt has been redesigned. It is now a powerful team-damage spell.
- Players may now participate in pet battle duels while in the Throne of Thunder instance.
- Brilliant Kaliri, Jade Tentacle, Tirisfal Batling, Firefly, Jade Crane Chick, Gilnean Raven, and Shore Crawler are no longer available in multiple breeds.
- Anubisath Idol: Sandstorm and Deflection have swapped ability positions.
Bug Fixes
- Nether Roach is now a real roach and can now survive the apocalypse.
- Pets whose color schemes change each time they are summoned have returned. Older pets with this behavior now have it back, as well as some newcomers.Hurray!
- Taming the World now lists its reward correctly in the Achievements pane.
- Fleeing a pet battle will no longer despawn the pet that was being battled, but doing so will now inflict some damage on the fleeing pet battle team. Fair enough
- Disconnecting from a pet battle will once again respawn the pets you were fighting. Nice!
- Any pet that has been killed in a pet battle will now never respawn. Will need to be on your toes more if you want to capture that rare.
- Master Trainers in Northrend, Cataclysm, and Courageous Yon will no longer field pets with higher than intended stats.
What are you most looking forward to?
Great summary! RT @Cymre: New Post! 5.2 Pet Battle Changes http://t.co/T2MSaUEN
That Living Sandling looks pretty cool, another awesome Elemental to add to our collection
Moar pets for the pet gods!
more skulls for the skull thone!
But yeah more pets to collect >< I need to stop slacking and head into old raids for more!
I can’t wait for those Epic pets! And I’m glad when you forfeit the pet won’t despawn, I feel really guilty wiping all the pets from the map when I’m looking for a rare, lol.
That is totally a great model – I want one too haha =)
I’m glad they’re changing the bandages to account bound, I do the dailies on my mage (the wonders of teleporting) so she has all of them! I’m also very excited about the Red Panda pet!! :D
A lot of good changes! Yay my dragon kite will change colours again and also that op fluxfire feline will get a nerfbat. And I echo ancients thoughts too about looking for rares.
I’m chuffed about the changes to fleeing, and the removal of the DC-despawn. The addition of Lesser Charms looks awesome too – I am Slacky McSlacker where dailies are concerned, so it’ll be nice to pick those up doing something I actually enjoy
Do we know for sure if epic pets can be captured yet? The patch notes are worded in a way that makes it sound like we may only be defeating them, not collecting them. That would be a big bummer.
You’re right it does, looks like they’ll just be battled for the quest/dailies.