Perks N Peeves: (US) Celestial Tournament Strats: Second Week

I finally found some time to complete the weekly quest for the second week of the Celestial Tournament. This week I didn't have the leisure of taking my time to figure out which teams were best for me, and instead I mainly used the suggestions from the WarcraftPets forums. It's not ideal, but what can you do when you're pressed for time right?

The first three were fairly straight forward, however Taran Zhu can be tricky. For the last three, I used the same teams and strats that I used in the first week. They worked well (although Xu-Fu can still be a pain if RNG crits you the wrong way heh).

Anyway, here are the teams and strats I used (many thanks to everyone on the WarcraftPets forums for testing and suggesting). I played them horribly due to rushing, but they still worked out in the end.

ROUND ONE - Random Rotation of Misc Trainers

Taran Zhu

First: Ruby Droplet (2, 2, 2)
Second: Mr. Grubbs (2, 1, 2)
Third: Crawling Claw (1, 2, 1)

I believe this fight always starts with Yen, but at some point he will use the Feign Death ability and then Bolo will be your active opponent. Once Bolo is defeated, Taran will normally switch Yen back in for a few rounds, and then Feign Death to bring in Li. Sometimes Li will step right in after Bolo, though.

My approach to this was to use my Ruby Droplet to the fullest. It's quite a tanky pet, and has strong attacks against Humanoids. This pet took on Yen (until he used his swap ability) and then ate through a large portion of Bolo's health. My Droplet wasn't able to completely solo Bolo, but Mr. Grubbs made quick work of the second panda pet. Two out of three of Bolo's attacks are weak against beasts, so Mr. Grubbs was perfect for the job.

Li is the "healer" of the group, so defeating him took some patience. Mr. Grubbs did very well, despite the interrupts and heals. Li went down with ease and all that was left was Yen. I didn't even need my third pet, Crawling Claw, to defeat Yen as Mr. Grubbs did his wiggly work and bested the last panda pet.

Some key things to note: Timing your two avoidance abilities for the Droplet and Mr. Grubbs will help loads. You'll want to make use of Bubble and Burrow whenever the pandas interrupt/stun abilities are coming off of cooldown. It's likely they'll use those CC attacks, and you don't want to get caught in them.

EDIT: Secondary ("better?") team

First: Ghostly Skull (2, 1, 2)
Second: Fozzilized Hatchling (2, 1, 2)
Third: Ruby Droplet (2, 2, 2)

My original team didn't work out as well, so I looked around for some alternate teams. I decided to try out this one, but added the Ruby Droplet over another pet. It worked pretty well.

I did as much DPS with the Ghostly Skull as possible. Against Yen, I started with Ghostly Bite. Since he always stuns you on the second turn, I figured that I'll be stunned instead. Additionally, because this ability hits hard, it takes Yen down to 50% HP or less, which triggers his AI to use Feign Death. So even if my Skull is stunned on the next round, Yen will be using an ability that doesn't do any damage.

Next up, Taran will bring out Bolo. I kept my Skull in the battle and did as much damage as possible with Death Coil and Ghostly Bite. On the turn that my Skull died and resurrected, I cast Unholy Ascension. The Fossilized Hatchling then swapped in to finish off Bolo.

I used my Hatchling's Ancient Blessing on cooldown as well as BONESTORM. The rest of my attacks were filled with Bone Bite. Unholy Ascension combined with BONESTORM took down a bit of the pets' HP in the front line and backline. In fact, this strategy managed to defeat Yen who was in the back and not the active pet.

Against Li I continued to damage until my Hatchling died. Last up was my Ruby Droplet which tanked Li quite well. I made sure to use Bubble when I saw Li's Spin Kick ability had one cooldown round left. This meant I blocked his stun and could continue damaging. I mainly used Absorb, but if my Droplet's health fell below 50-60% and Li's Spin Kick was still on cooldown, I used Drain Blood for a large heal.

Chen Stormstout

First: Son of Animus (1, 1, 1)
Second: Xu-Fu (2, 1, 2)
Third: Snarly (1, 1, 2)

Another team that I used from the WarcraftPets forums (minus the Animus, that I subbed in on my own). I have to admit that I played this TERRIBLY, and it could have gone so very wrong.

The battle against Tonsa was straight forward. Mech damage while withstanding high burst from Tonsa. I figured the Son of Animus would be perfect for this since it's strong against beasts and has a self heal. All went as planned.

And then I made a bad move.

To my horror, I made the stupid mistake of switching out my Animus once Tonsa was defeated. Chirps came onto the battlefield and I immediately switched to Xu-Fu. That was a BIG mistake. Chirps immediately decided to use Lullaby, effectively incapacitating my pet for TWO whole rounds. This allowed Chirps to use Locust Swarm and ultimately my Xu-Fu didn't have enough time to recover. In the end, my pet died and I had to switch back to my Animus.

What I SHOULD HAVE done, is left my Animus in even when Chirps entered the field. Let my pet soak the Lullaby and then switch in Xu-Fu for some hard hits against Chirps. I could have also simply swapped out Xu-Fu once it was asleep, but I was hoping that it could recover (being strong against Chirps).

Anyway, Chirps went down using Animus to finish him off. Brewly was straight forward using Snarly. Rip, Blood in the Water, and then finish off with Surge. Even with the accuracy debuff from Brewly, Blood in the Water should have an "always" hit chance with Rip up.

This entire encounter was by far the worst I've played in the Celestial Tournament. Next time I won't make the same mistake though.

Wrathion

First: Tree Frog (2, 2, 2)
Second: Feral Vermling (1, 2, 2)
Third: Peddlefeet (1, 2, 1)

I must admit that again, I didn't play this team well enough. It's another team suggested on the WarcraftPets forum, and it could be amazing, but with the sloppy way I played it, I don't have much confidence in it's strengths. My fault, though.

My Tree Frog went up against Cindy, and I used attacks in no particular order. Kept Swarm of Flies up, Tongue Lashed whenever Cleansing Rain was on cooldown.

Next up was my Feral Vermling against Alex, but unfortunately wasn't able to solo her. In the end I used Peddlefeet to finish off both Alex and Dah'da.

EDIT: Secondary ("better?") team

First: Any frog (2, 1, 2)
Second: Anubisath Idol (1, 2, 1)
Third: Qiraji Guardling (1, 1, 2)

I was never very satisfied with the original team I used against Wrathion's team, so I found this one on Wowhead that worked well.

Two things that I didn't like about the first team I used: 1 - Changing the weather to Cleansing Rain meant that Alex's heal was more potent which was annoying. And 2 - Dreadful Breath seemed like such a poor aoe ability that it wasn't really worth locking my pet into a multi-round move.

Anyway, this new team worked out well, but I should mention that the Qiraji Guardling needed for this must be a specific breed; Speed/Speed so that Blackout Kick is actually viable.

This time I used Mojo and used the same strategy as the original team against Cindy. Except instead of using Cleansing Rain, I self-healed my frog with Healing Wave. I put Swarm of Flies up first, Tongue Lashed for the next round or two, and then healed. Cindy went down quickly and my frog had enough health to take on Alex for a little bit.

Once Mojo died, I swapped to my Anubisath Idol to finish off Alex. Stoneskin helped mitigate a little bit of Alex's dot, and Deflection came in handy to avoid a little bit of damage. Other than that, I used Crush the majority of the time. Since it only has an 80% hit chance, it did miss a few times, but I managed to get through the encounter with some health left on my Idol.

Last was Dah'da. I saved Deflection to absorb the falling Elementium Bolt and used Crush as much as I could before my pet went down. The Qiraji Guardling came in finished off Wrathion's pet like a champ. I didn't bother with Hawk Eye and simply DPS'ed. Because my pet was faster than my opponent, when Dah'da's Elementium Bolt came off of cooldown, I used Blackout Kick to stun so he couldn't use it for another round. This gave me a little bit more time to use Crush until Dah'da was dead.

ROUND TWO - Celestial "Boss Pets"

I used the same teams and strats that I used last week, so I'll be omitting the strategies I employed and instead just list my teams for each Celestial.

Xu-Fu (tiger)