Just a quick question to those who have spent time in the remix…are the (2 or 3?) new pets available worth it? Do they have some good move sets or have the potential to be an “essential” pet that with be on most trainers must have list?
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Disclaimer: The following is only my own opinion. “Worth” is purely subjective and your own interpretation may differ from mine.
The Muskpaw Calf is the cuter of the two, if that is criteria for worth. For both PvE and PvP, it doesn’t have too much to make it stand out amongst other bulky and slow trample beasts, unless you really want to gamble on Cute Face avoiding multiple attacks.
For the Astral Emeror’s Serpentling, it does have the unique combination of Celestial Blessing and Deliberate Retreat, which could give it a very niche use on certain PvE fights. For PvP, said combo is very strong against aoe teams, and the Serpentling’s 358 power lets it deal quite a bit of damage on its own if need be. It could even run Thunderbolt instead of Blessing for more damage. However, it is a healing dragon pet and is therefore deleted and nullified by Call Darkness.
TLDR: The Muskpaw Calf is fairly generic apart from its appearance. The Astral Emperor’s Serpentling has a unique and interesting moveset, but would likely be a fairly niche pick.
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I agree with your points, I see both pets as Mediocre fighters. Fun recolors and +1s for collectors. But not that useful.
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Sorry for making a second post on the same subject, but I wanted to avoid bloating my original post too much with an edit.
I made a serious oversight with the Serpentling’s viability. First, I had forgotten that Deliberate Retreat swaps out at the end of the turn. This on its own is important for a reason I’ll explain in a bit. The other thing I didn’t think of was the turn order of operations.
For those of you who don’t know, if Magma or Snap Trap go their entire duration without activating, they will automatically activate at the end of the last turn. This has the effect of stunning the pet for both the first expected round and the following one. This is because the trap debuff is removed after the general buff/debuff ticker operation. This made me wonder if Celestial Blessing would do the same with how Deliberate Retreat works.
It does work the same! Swapping with Deliberate Retreat after using Celestial Blessing causes the recipient to enjoy an extra turn of 50% damage reduction! This alone is a game changer for it’s viability in both PvE and PvP.
As for why Deliberate Retreat swapping at the end of the turn is strong by itself, it’s the same reason why the buffed Teleport in Pokemon was strong (Teleport was buffed to swap out the active Pokemon at the end of the turn). It means that the pet/Pokemon you want to protect avoids one attack (in Pokemon, this was generally used by bulkier Pokemon who could take such a hit and allow an offensive Pokemon to come in uncontested). For pet battles, this is mostly useful for PvE for bringing in the star of your strategy and maximizing their longevity.
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As Critter pointed out, there are two.
As Crittir also discovered - and that was good work! - the Serpentling has an exceptional interaction that might position it uniquely for some specific battle - maybe one where the opposition has a Cleave and some other pet is especially strong against it.
That, not so much. Crittir’s discovery may make it exceptionally strong in some specific battles, but I doubt you’re going to see it on any “Best” or “Essential” or “Most Used” lists.
However, we also need to consider the “cost” side of the equation when you ask if they are “worth it”.
I want to commend the devs for this: they introduced only two new pets with this event, and both are quite painless to get. No RNG is involved. No heroic efforts. No endless camps or farms.
I levelled a bit in Jade Forest, then went to Townlong, where I got the Muskpaw unreasonably quickly by knocking off a few rares and getting Shado-Pan Exalted with only 10-20% or so of the zone’s quests.
Then at 45, I went to Timeless Isle and knocked out my 4 Treasures, 3 Rares, 3 Rare-Elites in an hour or two.
That’s all it took. Easy-Peasy. Done on the second day - and I wasn’t putting a lot of hours in either day.
So yeah, although neither is going to be part of a core roster, the ease of getting them definitely make them “worth it” to me.
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Sounds like something that has some potential down the road. Perhaps even as a sneaky good pet against content in the next expansion.
That’s what I’m mulling right now. My character in MoP is still a baby (lvl 11)… trying to juggle what i want to do and how to get there as a slooooooow leveler makes all these extra events (even though I definitely appreciate the extra content!) a bit of a battle sometimes.
Still have a metric ton of pets that I’d like to get to 25 before the next expansion comes out, as well. Seems the brain only thinks of that in the last few months of expansions and then nearly drops dead seeing just how many new pets need their levels!