Dailies Post Patch 5.3

Now that the Unborn Val'kyr's been added to my collection, I had more time to do other things both in real life and in-game. Today was the first day since the patch was released that I had time to do the Tamer and BoF dailies.

While going about doing the dailies, I noticed the updated tooltips that show the hit percent for each attack. Not only is it just nice to see, but they also change as your opponent's abilities come into play. If you're hit with an attack that reduces your chance to hit, your abilities' tooltips will reflect that and the accuracy percentage will turn red and drop down to the appropriate value.


before debuff


after debuff
It's quite nice and it comes in handy in some situations where any attack will work making it tough to pick the "right" one for that moment. In situations like that, you could just find the one that has the highest chance to hit and be done with it! :P

BoF Dailies
I also got a chance to do the new BoF dailies. After reading the WarcraftPets forums and finding suggestions on how to beat the updated BoF NPCs, rather than going with a Cockroach apocalypse-survival team, I decided to try out a fox. I found the battles to be a bit more challenging, but not impossible. There were only two fights that I had to restart; both were aquatic NPCs.

Here's what I ended up using for each family-type (in no particular order):


Against the Critter BoF NPCs -

- Curious Wolvar Pup

attacks: 2; 1 or 2; 2

- Flayer Youngling

attacks: 2; 2; 2 (used Kick on Nitun instead of 2nd choice)

- Alpine Foxling

attacks: 1; 2; 1

Against the Aquatic BoF NPCs -

- Alpine Foxling

attacks: 2; 2; 1

OR

- Zandalari Kneebiter

attacks: 2; 2; 2

- Two moth pets with high power

attacks: 2; 1; 2

Against the Beast BoF NPCs -

- Darkmoon Tonk

attacks: 1; 1; 2

- Darkmoon Zeppelin

attacks: 1; 2; 2

- Dark Animus

attacks: 1; 1; 2

In some situations, I didn't need the third pet, but in others (mainly against the aquatic NPCs) I needed to use all three.

Since the Aquatic pets seem to be the most troublesome, my strategy was put up Howl first, and then swap out to a moth and use Moth Dust. If my moths seemed like they were in danger, I would use Cocoon Strike to try and avoid the incoming damage. It was up to RNG after that.

The Critters were less punishing than the Aquatics, although Nitun will give you some problems if you allow your pet to die during his Ravage (it will heal him a ton). This mechanic isn't new and hasn't changed since 5.2, though. Much like before, swapping pets helps as does using a Flayer Youngling to block the first attack after Nitun uses Prowl, and then using Kick to prevent his second attempt to attack while Prowl is still up. Again, it's all RNG after that.

Out of all of the BoF NPCs, I think the Beasts were probably the most straight forward. I rarely had to use a third pet to defeat the Beasts. Yay Mechanical pets that have a second life! :P

Overall, the BoF dailies are harder. You have to be more aware of some of the pet's attacks and respond appropriately to them. Finding abilities with synergy really helps. However, I did find that the pets that healed were annoying as they would heal up to half or even full health in one turn. Those just required some endurance (and stamina) to whittle down their health, though.

It CAN be very frustrating at times, especially when RNG just seems to laugh in your face the entire match. But with enough patience and determination (and RNG not being rude), I think most strategies should work.

Ramped up difficulty? Yes. Doable? Also a yes. I feel like if this was how they were first implemented, no one would really complain. They are "hard" as advertised. Because they were buffed after the fact, though, players who were already so used to how things were, felt as if it was overkill. It's understandable since it's never fun to go from feeling super strong to super weak. Buffing the NPCs made it seem as if players themselves got nerfed. I'm sure everyone will eventually adapt to the changes, though.