Beave's Comments

Overall I've been very very happy with the pet content in this xpac, but they're missing one issue... Lil' Leftovers needs his drop rate buffed a bit too. I've cooked approximately 500 times (2000+ green food items) and still no drop.

This is a very nice critter pet. He has a large HP pool and a nice moveset that combos well. In slot 1 Stampede (swarm) increases damage after one round and the debuff lasts extra rounds so you can immediately use feed (slot 2) to restore 600+ HP, or do about 800dmg if you have his power attack selected in slot 3. Otherwise in slot 3 he a dodge and those are always nice to have. The only downside is he isn't all that fast.

Dazzling dance plus Feign Death is a really nice little opening combo for PvP fights where speed is often king, and she has a pretty strong slot 1 attack too. Nice and unique move set for a flying pet. 

Don't overlook Plushie's utility as a battler. His "Cute as a Button" attack gives him a 25% dodge chance, and "Itchin' for a Stitchin'" gives you a free swap with either your slot 2 pet or whichever was last active. (I need to confirm this with more testing.)

 

When stoned to rare he has over 2500hp, and is incredibly useful for soaking up big attacks. My best strategy for Master Payne was to let Globule's dot's chip away at the second and third pet while Plushie took dmg.

Swamp Croaker is the best "critter" I've found for most PVE battles. He's my #1 pet off the bench against trainers when I need an undead matchup, and in my top 2-3 against elementals. Against undead set him up with tongue lash in slot one, flies in slot two, and bubble in slot three. As an aquatic pet he's strong in defense against Undead, which is typically why you're looking for a critter. Against elementals use water jet in slot 1. This is a very under-rated pet.

This may be a pet you want to use a stone on. I spent almost an hour trying to force respawns at Bastion Rise by killing all the non-battle pet calves and hippos around the water hole, and battle pets never spawned. It is nice that there's a flight path that drops you right at the edge of the pool there. Good luck hunting.

I did all of the candy buckets today and managed to collect enough candy for the two new pets. My initial thought is that Birman is a better looking pet, Widget the slightly better battler. Birman's moveset has Call Darkness, but no move to work off of to make a power combo. Definitely take Spirit Spikes as a slot 2 move. Spirit Spikes isn't a bad move for pve, but anyone with any pvp experience knows just to not hit you for a round.

Call Darkness + Spectral Strike deals great damage. Based on the move set, if you can only pick one of the two new cats, Widget seems to have better moveset over Cursed Birman. Birman has call darkness, but no move to combo off of it for mega damage. I haven't leveled mine to 25 yet, but I already plan to pair him with any two of crow, raven, and dread hatchling for the call darkness power combos.

They tweaked his Crush ability a bit in 6.0. The hit rate base is up to 100%, and it now does a range of damage rather than a set amount. Overall it'll probably end up being a very minor nerf and this will still be a top5 battle pet.

 

Also, I highly suspect there's an error in the mechanics of Crush. It's still missing at an astronomically high rate with standstorm up compared to the claimed 90% hit rate. I suspect the hit rate flavor text was updated, but the actual data is still at 80% base.

Just got one from someone in trade chat for 1000g. At worst I can flip it for more than that if I farm a few up myself. Haven't leveled him yet, but he seems to have a nice set of slot one moves. You get bonus damage for being faster or slower than your opponent depending on which you choose. That could make him a pretty powerful PVE pet for daily trainer battles, especially flyers.