The Siege of Orgrimmar patch (5.4) has introduced a new and interesting ability for battle pets called Rot. It has a 3 round cooldown and a 95% chance to hit. The most interesting part about it is that it turns your opponent into an undead-type creature. Even more interesting is that the Undead special ability of coming back to life for one round doesn’t seem to go along with it. Here’s the verbiage on Rot
“Rots the target’s flesh, dealing 411 Undead damage and transforming them into Undead for 5 rounds.”
So immediately I start to think about – what if there were a pet that had Critter damage (bonus damage to Undead) and also had the ability to Rot an opponent. Lo and behold, Willy has Tongue Lash and Rot. Tongue lash would be a great attack if Willy were a bit faster, so if you had a speed buff like Dazzling Dance from a pet previous to Willy I could see him doing some decent damage.
What other pets can you find Rot on? Well, to be specific, there are 8. I’d like to draw attention to 2 great set-up pets that have it; Sen’jin Fetish and Voodoo Figurine. Both of these pets are Undead and are great at setting up the next pet in line because you know exactly what round they are going to die. They also both have the ability Wild Magic. Wild Magic adds a tremendous amount of damage to each attack against an opponent – up to 82 per attack!
“Adds 82 damage to every attack against the target.”
With the ability to turn an opponent into undead and place a debuff that adds so much damage per attack, these pets are just begging to be paired up with any of the 60 pets that have Stampede as an ability.
“Starts a stampede, causing 162 Critter damage. Opponents struck by the stampede take double damage for 2 rounds. Stampede continues for 3 rounds.”
Either of these pets paired with Clefthoof Runt, Giant Sewer Rat, or Winter Reindeer (just to name a few) will bring down a non-dodging elite pet easily. I can see this being the new Unborn Val’kyr/Pandaren Water Spirit/Chrominius splat combo for the near future. That is, until it gets nerfed.
Pet Charge 