Legion Alpha: Oh, Ominitron

I haven't gone into depth about most of the Pet Battle World Quests (I've only been keeping track of them here), but today's battle was especially interesting.

I just can't resist gushing about a particularly hard or engaging pet battle, and this one was a bit of both!


One of today's Pet Battle World Quests on Alpha was in Stormheim. Oh, Ominitron - 3 level 25 epic pets: Mini Magmatron, Mini Arcanotron, Mini Electron

Don't let their 'companion' status on Wowhead fool you -- these constructs can kick some butt.

What's so unique about this battle is that each of these pets only has one ability. HOWEVER, upon hitting any of your team with their single attack, they automatically swap on that same turn. Each one's attack is pretty hard-hitting, but two are particularly annoying.

Let's take a closer look at each one.

First pet to come out is Mini Magmatron. He uses Incineration Security Measures before switching to the next pet (on the same turn). This is just a large AOE on your team. If he doesn't hit any pet on your team, he will not swap out. Instead he'll try using his ability again on the next turn, and will continuing trying until he lands a hit on *any* of your pets (doesn't have to be your active one).

After swapping, Mini Electron steps up to the plate. He uses Lightning Conductor, which is a single target ability but stuns your pet for one round. He's quite fast, so unless your pet has 311+ speed, he WILL be going first. Under most circumstances, that means he'll stun your pet before immediately swapping out (again, on the same turn). Same as the previous Mini, if his hit misses your pet, he won't swap.

The pet switching gets a little random at this point. Sometimes Mini Magmatron will pop back in and it'll go back and forth between him and Mini Electron.

But the real threat is Mini Arcanotron. You absolutely want to avoid this guy's attack, Arcane Annihilator. Not only is this ability a gigantic single target nuke, it also puts the Shattered Defenses debuff on your pet. Ouch. Again, once he hits your pet, he'll immediately switch with one of his teammates. If he misses, he stays and tries again until he lands his attack.


My Struggle and Eventual Success
Initially, I tried to prevent the pets from stunning my pets. Arcane Winds to the rescue! But the drawback was that that also meant I couldn't stun or root any of the Minis either. The constant swapping became an issue at that point. Especially when it came to the giant nuke + debuff.

Next I attempted to root the Minis, but that also seemed to be a mistake. Root Magmatron and he'll just AOE your team into oblivion. Root Arcanotron and he'll finish your pet all on his own with his super hard hitting + debuff attack. And last but not least, Electron - very few of my pets on Alpha are faster than Electron, meaning he has the move advantage and can get his attack + stun off first. Rooting him meant my pet was stunned and then dead before I knew it the majority of the time.

Side note: There might be a bug with this battle. Mudslide didn't seem to work on any of the Minis. Magmatron is an elemental, so it wouldn't work on him of course. But the other two... they just kept swapping like mad. I had no problem rooting them with other abilities though, so yea, probably a bug.

At this point I was pretty flustered. This was the first fight on Alpha that I had run into that left me feeling stumped. The rest I managed to work out, even with the limited number of pets that I have on Alpha, but this encounter...THIS ONE. Geeze.

I decided to enlist the help of the OH and see what his thoughts on it were. After a brief overview of the Pet Battle mechanics involved, we came up with a team that seemed to be more successful than my other attempts.

We decided that the biggest threat was Arcanotron, followed by Electron. Magmatron's damage wasn't to be ignored, but avoiding it wasn't as high a priority as dodging his bros. Avoidance was key.

So the team we made was Stinker, and two rabbits (both with 322 speed). Stinker was really just a damage/damage soaker to be honest. We used Stench but that ability is so unreliable. It did cause a couple rounds of misses for the Minis though. That probably helped a little. A third rabbit would have been preferable but my collection is lacking on Alpha. The MVPs were the bunnies and their speed.

With a full critter team, not only was the AOE weak against them, but they also couldn't be rooted/stunned. This neutered Magmatron and Electron somewhat (the damage was still high and shouldn't be ignored), which let us focus on Arcanotron.

Dodge and Burrow were the way to go to! My rabbits couldn't avoid EVERY attack from Arcanotron, but it was enough so that they could put some decent damage in on all the Minis. I had to really focus and think about each move before using it; any slip up would have been really punishing.

In the end I finally defeated this swap-crazy team - my Dust Bunny had 29 HP left. THAT'S how close it was. THAT'S how tough the battle was, at least with my limited collection on Alpha.

I think I would have had an easier time if I had access to all of my pets that I have on live, but I really couldn't say for sure. Maybe it wouldn't be easier; these Minis are no push overs.

Anyway, fight completed. It's been the most challenging (and frustrating) one on Alpha so far! I immediately went out and captured another 322 speed rabbit right after. Yenno, just in case this quest pops up again. ;)

Kudos to the pet battle dev team for this one. The encounter mechanics are new, different, and really make you consider your pets and strat carefully.

Tough fight, not impossible, but I could definitely see some players struggling with it. Pretty fun and feels rewarding when you get though!