Rare Hunting: The Next Generation.

[Ruzgofdi]

As of 5.2, retreating from a wild battle does two things:
1) It injures the team of pets you started the battle with.
2) It respawns the team you've retreated from.

So, the plan I've been working with has been to start a battle to check for rares. If I don't find one, I retreat and take the damage. If I do find one, I retreat and take the damage, heal my team, and re-start the battle.

After today's rounds on the Thunder Isle, having seen nothing but poor and common teams, I'm wondering if others maybe doing the same thing, which eventually leads to nothing spawned but teams that rare hunters don't want. And there's a small, dark part of me thinking maybe an "accident" with an ability would get a better team to spawn in it's place.

Thoughts?

[Jadax]

I quite often use an ability to annihilate a pointless wild pet

Only in areas with reasonable spawn rates, though. You won't catch me slaughtering Scourged Whelplings, for example.

[GilroyKilroy]

If they are poor/common then I will retreat and nuke the pet so it will respawn something else. Uncommon I will leave up for someone else. Rare I take for myself (unless I have one already of that breed.)

[Ruzgofdi]

Okay. Random thought: What needs to be uncommon or better to earn the team a stay of sentence?

Lets say I start a battle with an Elder Python. The Python itself is poor, but one of its two back up pets is a rare cockroach. I have an uncommon python and a rare cockroach already, and the third pet isn't worth mentioning. I'm going to back out of the fight. Do I let that trio live?

[Jadax]

Okay. Random thought: What needs to be uncommon or better to earn the team a stay of sentence?

Lets say I start a battle with an Elder Python. The Python itself is poor, but one of its two back up pets is a rare cockroach. I have an uncommon python and a rare cockroach already, and the third pet isn't worth mentioning. I'm going to back out of the fight. Do I let that trio live?

I probably would, aye.

[Iconyx]

For commonplace pets, i.e. pets in high numbers with fast respawns, anything is fair game. If you want a rare, do whatever you need to get it. With that being said, as a courtesy, if you farm an area 'dry,' take a spin around the block and kill all the wild pets before leaving. That gives a fresh batch of respawns for the next pet hunter.

For super-rare wild pets, if you unnecessarily nuke the ones you don't want, I will find you, and I will kill you.

[Quintessence]

I generally don't forfeit a wild battle unless I forgot to switch out a pet/ability. Each battle that I win yields quite a few Lesser Charms. Poor/common/uncommon, I'll battle them all for a chance at collecting charms! It saves me from having to do other misc dailies.

I do agree that everyone will do what they feel is necessary to find the pet they are looking for, but remember to be courteous to your fellow pet collectors when hunting for those especially hard-to-find wild pets.

[Waveryn]

Okay. Random thought: What needs to be uncommon or better to earn the team a stay of sentence?

Lets say I start a battle with an Elder Python. The Python itself is poor, but one of its two back up pets is a rare cockroach. I have an uncommon python and a rare cockroach already, and the third pet isn't worth mentioning. I'm going to back out of the fight. Do I let that trio live?

Anytime I find a rare I don't need no matter which pet it is I leave battle and mark the pet with a raid icon.

[Syrrie]

I generally don't forfeit a wild battle unless I forgot to switch out a pet/ability. Each battle that I win yields quite a few Lesser Charms. Poor/common/uncommon, I'll battle them all for a chance at collecting charms! It saves me from having to do other misc dailies.

I do agree that everyone will do what they feel is necessary to find the pet they are looking for, but remember to be courteous to your fellow pet collectors when hunting for those especially hard-to-find wild pets.

I haven't done too many wild pet battles since patch hit, but I've gotten around 250 lesser charms mostly from tamer dailies and beasts of fable fights. The drop rate is quite impressive, I have to say, as before I struggled to even hit the 90/week mark since I despise dailies.

As to the rare thing: On the isle of thunder I, personally, haven't been hunting pets that hard since the phasing issues on top of all the mobs is just too frustrating. I have, however, managed to snag 3/4 rare quality with only casually looking for pets. Last time I was on the island I checked pet spawns, but mostly left them alone if they didn't have the upgrade I needed since they're still pretty heavily camped.

[Mehetabel]

If they are poor/common then I will retreat and nuke the pet so it will respawn something else. Uncommon I will leave up for someone else. Rare I take for myself (unless I have one already of that breed.)

This is how I've been doing it too.

[Ruzgofdi]

I generally don't forfeit a wild battle unless I forgot to switch out a pet/ability. Each battle that I win yields quite a few Lesser Charms. Poor/common/uncommon, I'll battle them all for a chance at collecting charms! It saves me from having to do other misc dailies.

I haven't done too many wild pet battles since patch hit, but I've gotten around 250 lesser charms mostly from tamer dailies and beasts of fable fights. The drop rate is quite impressive, I have to say, as before I struggled to even hit the 90/week mark since I despise dailies.

Yeah. When I'm up over 700 on lesser charms thanks to grinding wild pets to level my rares, finishing a fight for the chance to get more lesser charms has about the same motiviation level as finishing a fight for the chance of a flawless stone (just based on the odds of getting a flawless stone from a single fight; if I was getting flawless stones as fast as I was getting lesser charms, every battle would be fought to the end).

I thought I'd see more people saying not to kill pets. I guess it's just the old "hunter looking for a rare skin spawn to tame" in me.

And do not worry. I'm not going to kill low spawn rate pets to improve the quality of their spawns. I still feel bad about the Festival Hatchling that got caught in the crossfire on my old pvp server, and those at least have a set time of when you should know to look for them.

[Mowse]

For super-rare wild pets, if you unnecessarily nuke the ones you don't want, I will find you, and I will kill you.

xD

I was in Tanaris last week and some guy was boasting in /1 that he had killed around 30 sand scarabs trying to find a rare. I was just like..if you weren't of my faction..

[Index]

I saw the same on my realm (tho the moron was CRZ - Draenor EU) with the minfernals. He was camping almost 24/7 and killing everything until HE got HIS rare pet.

When I was hunting them, I'd always alt+f4 out of a battle to leave one standing

Some people have a nasty combination of greed and ignorance it seems...

[Jalad]

As of 5.2, retreating from a wild battle does two things:
1) It injures the team of pets you started the battle with.
2) It respawns the team you've retreated from.

So, the plan I've been working with has been to start a battle to check for rares. If I don't find one, I retreat and take the damage. If I do find one, I retreat and take the damage, heal my team, and re-start the battle.

After today's rounds on the Thunder Isle, having seen nothing but poor and common teams, I'm wondering if others maybe doing the same thing, which eventually leads to nothing spawned but teams that rare hunters don't want. And there's a small, dark part of me thinking maybe an "accident" with an ability would get a better team to spawn in it's place.

Thoughts?

.... Why the heck have I not thought of that, re: retreating and healing up! Thank you

I dislike nuking pets, especially on Isle of Thunder, but I will probably end up resorting to it for the frogs and snakes. Just not enough of the flappers and gators spawning :/ I have one of each, but no rares.

I may take the time to fight out the battles for leveling purposes, too. But once that is done? Battles can take so long (it feels like), and my time to rare hunt is limited enough...

[Threnody]

Anytime I find a rare I don't need no matter which pet it is I leave battle and mark the pet with a raid icon.

I do the same. Sometimes I announce the coords on zone general chat too, but so far I haven't seen anyone swoop in after my announcements...

[Delinda]

If they are poor/common then I will retreat and nuke the pet so it will respawn something else. Uncommon I will leave up for someone else. Rare I take for myself (unless I have one already of that breed.)

I do the same. I have caught the frog, electric thingy (elemental) and python (all green) and the fourth wild pet is yet to be seen.

[Restofarian]

I generally don't forfeit a wild battle unless I forgot to switch out a pet/ability. Each battle that I win yields quite a few Lesser Charms. Poor/common/uncommon, I'll battle them all for a chance at collecting charms! It saves me from having to do other misc dailies.

Dont forget these fights can also give you family specific stones. I got an aquatic stone battling the new frog and imediatelly updated the next one I found with the breed I wanted. gg.

[Laraven]

I'm glad I got all my rares done before 5.2. I did however need the new ones. With Phasing being an issue on the Island, and the new changes it was a pain. But I really reccomend killing the pets if no rare is found. This is how I got my new rares of all the island pets. These things spawn so quickly, your really not hurting anything by killing non-rares.