World of Warcraft 5.3 update adjusts Pet Battles

The upcoming 5.3 patch to World of Warcraft works to reduce randomness in the Pet Battles system, and give more information on hit chances.

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World of Warcraft has grown so large and ambitious that patches can focus on individual meta-games without even touching the main title. The next patch, for example, will focus entirely on the Pet Battles system, working to reduce randomness in matches.

A post on the Blizzard blog states that the 5.3 update will add a "Hit Chance" for all abilities, giving you more information on how likely you are to strike a target. It will increase or decrease based on abilities as well. In addition, the update will remove the default 5% dodge chance and reduced the higher-level dodge change from 5% per level to 2% per level. All of this is meant to let you more reliably fight higher-level monsters, though Blizzard notes that it also made some slight tweaks to abilities that were left with a 100% hit chance after the other adjustments were made.

"In a turn-based game, randomness can be a lot of fun if handled correctly," the blog states. "Without a little randomness, the outcome of a match could be predicted to a high degree of certainty before the first swing, and that's no fun. Randomness often works best when it is opt-in, often in exchange for greater attack power, longer duration, etc. In fact, many higher-damage battle pet abilities already had a reduced chance to hit, which will now be visible."

The blog also notes that it left the base 5% critical strike chance in place, at least for now. The blog has a full list of attacks that will have their damage increased and accuracy decreased.

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  • reply
    April 5, 2013 3:45 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, World of Warcraft 5.3 update adjusts Pet Battles.

    The upcoming 5.3 patch to World of Warcraft works to reduce randomness in the Pet Battles system, and give more information on hit chances.

    • reply
      April 7, 2013 9:05 AM

      Boring game.

    • reply
      April 7, 2013 1:53 PM

      Perhaps you should read the rest of the patch notes. The next patch does not focus entirely on pet battles. In fact, I see the as the smallest part of the patch. You missed all the pvp updates, new battleground/arena, new scenarios, heroic scenarios, ect.

    • reply
      April 8, 2013 1:32 AM

      "Without a little randomness, the outcome of a match could be predicted to a high degree of certainty before the first swing, and that's no fun."


      A lot of people quit playing these types of games when their characters are nerfed so that they can no longer predict the highest possible chance of winning using their stat-crafting (aka they have to adapt their build). The only road to "fun" for people like this is near-100% chance of victory.

      So yeah, "fun" is relative to the person playing.

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