Why Three Pets?

[Skulldent]

G'day All

There's something I've been wondering for a long time but have not been able to find an answer for:

Whenever I hover over a pet running wild a text box comes up saying "collected 1 of 3" as an example.
Can anyone tell me why?
Is there a reason to collect three of every critter?

I'm just wondering because if there is a benefit to collecting three of each I will do so but there are so many pets to collect that the pet journal gets crowded enough without having three of each kind in there.

[Gráinne]

Welcome to pet battling!

No, there is no specific reason to collect three of every pet.

Three is just the limit of the number of pets of a species you can have in your roster at one time. Some people make a point of having only one of each. There are about 900 species of pets, and you are allowed only 1500 total, so you actually can't have three of everything anyway.

You might want more that one of some species. Here are some reasons:

1. A pet may have multiple Breeds. A Breed determines the pet's Health, Power and Speed for battling. You might want to have an S/S (Speed) pet for certain battles and a H/H (Health) pet for other battles, for example. If you're starting to collect pets for battling, you should start looking up which breeds you want for each new pet.

2. A pet may come in more than one colour. Some people collect different colours.

3. Some pets are cageable and tradable. If you're in the business of making gold from selling pets, you can keep three in your roster to level, and then cage and sell them.

4. In instances like the Celestial Tournament and Pet Dungeons, you can't heal your pets until you have completed the test. Having two or three of a useful pet lets you continue even though one has been hurt or killed during the trial. I originally started collecting two Anubisath Idols and Pandaren Water Spirits and Chrominiuses back in Mists, when flying around the dailies every day, so that I didn't have to heal between tamers, because Bandages were scarce back then. That came in handy during the Celestial Tournament.

5. From a very practical perspective, when collecting wild pets, it allows you to keep the best one of a species you have found so far, while still hunting for another.

Why is there a limit per species at all? Probably Blizzard wanted to save memory space.

Why is the limit three? A battling team consists of 3 pets. This allows you to use three of the same, though that is usually not optimal.

Some people do have more than 3 pets of some species. That's historical. When pets were made account wide, if you had collected a Companion, as they were then, on more than 3 characters, they were all merged into your roster.

[Peanutty]

Reasons to collect more than one of any given pet:
- Some pets have abilities that benefit noticeably from multiple breeds (i.e. I run a P/P Flayer Youngling, some strategies call for a S/S).
- Some pets are pretty OP (and have unique movesets) that you may want multiples of it (i.e. Ikky, I know a few people that run 3 Ikky teams for PVE battles, as easymode).
- Some pets have multiple skins/sizes, so for someone that values that, you would need to have up to 3 of one pet (i.e. Parrot has 3 unique colors).

Reasons to not collect multiples of any given pet:
- As you noted the journal space is limited and it's impossible to have 3 of every pet, so as new pets come out you'll have to keep releasing extra pets to make room.
- If you're OCD it'll drive you crazy to see all those pets! And then there's the whole issue of stoning and leveling them! And, honestly, are you really going to use them all?

I think most players do keep extras of pets that they find particularly useful. I collect for aesthetics so the duplicate pets I have are there to cover unique looks.

[Skulldent]

Thanks guys for very helpful replies.

Usually I've only collected pets because I like having one following whatever toon I'm currently using. I usually rotate through the list each time I log in.

It's taken me quite a while to get used to the battle pet concept and these answers are very helpful for helping me explore that as I didn't know a lot of what you mentioned.