I was following a strat on Xu-Fu and I inadvertently came up with a new one. And I discovered another way to give my pets experience that I didn’t know was possible.
The strat I was using (and bungled) involved Nexus Whelpling (all three of mine are P/P), Chrominius and my carry pet (which should be at the very least 11th level, or higher, if it’s a flying pet).
The strat calls for Nexus Whelpling to take out Breezy Book in three Tail Sweeps. But out of habit, I hit Arcane Storm first. (I think we’re all used to doing that with Nexus Whelpling: Arcane Storm then Mana Surge.)
Then I remembered the strat and started using Tail Sweep. Three sweeps and Breezy Book was dead. Then Helpful Spirit came in and helpfully cast Curse of Doom on me (just in time, since my CoD from Breezy Book was on its last round).
I cast Arcane Storm again, and then used Mana Surge and took out Helpful Spirit with the first two surges, then used the third during the Immortal Round.
When Helpful Spirit died after the Immortal Round, Delicate Moth came in, having been hit with two Arcane Storms and facing my Nexus Whelpling, whose Dragon innate was up.
I used Arcane Storm, which killed Delicate Moth, and Curse of Doom finally finished off my Nexus Whelpling.
Now, here’s the part that surprised me: My carry pet got experience.
I’m not unfamiliar with suicide strats; I use two of them myself. I use one on Nameless Mystic on Broken Shore, and another one on Rumbling Spirit in Pandaria. I’ve also seen one involving Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling on Ashlei in Shadowmoon Valley.
But what makes this different is that only one of my pets died. Chrominius was in the backline and although he took some backline damage, he was still very much alive. And my carry pet never came in.
Now, I tried again and again, to make sure I didn’t swap in my carry pet at some point and forgot about it. But it worked every time (except for those times when Helpful Spirit didn’t die his first death to the second round of Mana Surge).
Maybe I didn’t realize this is how it works, but every suicide strat I’ve seen calls for both pets to die and for the carry pet to stay in the blackline where it gets all the experience when the enemy’s three pets die to the Explode attack to Darkmoon Zeppelin.
Go ahead and try it yourself if you have carry pets that are at least 12th level (or 16th, if flying pet) and a P/P Nexus Whelpling. Your 25th level backline pet will survive and your carry pet will still get experience.