Which BreedIDs are on your to-get list?

[Kagalii]

Hi guys,

my question is about multiple breedID pets. Of the rarer ones (for instance flayer youngling, sporeling, minfernal etc), which breeds are you looking for for your collection? I've heard people mention they want breed#5 of the flayer, and a couple others.

Thanks

[Epithdeios]

could some1 explain what a breed is?

[Adashiel]

could some1 explain what a breed is?

Basically, the idea is many (but not all) pets have variations, differences in the three pet stats. So, say you find a Rare quality Cockroach. Should you be content? Not so fast! There are ten different varieties of Cockroach, each with a slightly different mix of health, power, and speed. (Actually, it's more like 5, since for some odd reason, gender is also a stat, but I don't think it has any actual effect.) If you wanted a fast Cockroach, but got a healthy one instead, your search would not be over.

Unfortunately, it's a completely undocumented feature of pet battles. Its inner workings were more or less reverse engineered by players. Personally, I wish they'd just scrap breeds altogether. They make things needlessly complicated. Instead of breeds, they should instead shift the variations to similar species. For example, they could make it so each of the umpteen different roach species has slightly different strengths and weaknesses.

[Quintessence]

could some1 explain what a breed is?

Just wanted to add another hands on example in addition to the info provided by Adashiel (great explanation btw).

In Adashiel's example with the Cockroach, you can check out this pet's profile [url=http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/critter/insects/cockroach/]here[/url]. Next to the "General Info" tab, select the "Battle" tab. You'll find a Stat Calculator located at the top.

This new tool has the breeds integrated into it, so you can gauge how a pet of a certain quality and stats will scale as it levels up.

Pick a level and then choose a quality. Let's say, level 10 cockroach in rare. After that, next to the heart, sword, and arrow images, there's another arrow that you can select to change the breed of that level 10 rare cockroach. As you change it, you'll notice the values of each stat change slightly.

The great thing about this tool is that you can select a breed and then see what its stats will be in 10 levels from now. In the case of a level 10 rare cockroach, Breed #6 Breed #16 (hover over the stat sliders and it will show you the breed), I can see its health, speed, and attack when it reaches level 20. It's health will be higher than a level 20 rare cockroach. Breed #5 Breed #15.

It's very helpful when capturing the same pet but of varying levels. Although you can't compare them directly since the levels throw their stats off, you can use the Stat Calculator to see which one would have the most desirable stats when they're the same level.

[Poofah]

Flayer #5! You can use the sliders to look through the various possible stat configurations on this site [url=http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/humanoid/miscellaneous/flayer-youngling/]here[/url], or on Warla's site [url=http://schaffhauser.me/Warcraft#PetBreeds]here.[/url] The flayer has more possible breeds than most, which makes finding a rare of your favorite breed very annoying (I have released literally 10 rare flayers over the past week, it's very sad).

For most pets I favor the highest power version, especially pets with heals or life leech-style attacks. Flayer is actually an exception, because he has multiple abilities that rely on going first to be super effective. Flayer #5 is the fastest, with 325 speed (but only 260 power and 1400 health).

Importantly, not every pet can come in every possible breed. So even among pets with identical movesets (e.g. Disgusting Oozeling, Jade Oozeling, Oily Slimeling), only some of them might have the stats that you want. In this case, Jade Oozeling has the best option imo: breedID 4, which is 1481 health, 325 power and 244 speed.

Some others that I have favorites for:

Nether Ray Fry, breedID 4, 1319 health 341 power 260 speed
Ghostly Skull, breedID 7, 1627 health 305 power 228 speed (there's no breedID 4 for this pet, or else I'd want that)
Baby Ape, breedID 4, 1400 health 325 power 260 speed
Molten Hatchling, breedID 18, 1238 health 305 power 305 speed
Restless Shadeling, breedID 6, 1806 health 260 power 244 speed (no good choices here actually, so it doesn't really matter)
Jade Oozeling, breedID 4
Lost of Lordaeron, breedID 3, 1563 health 293 power 244 speed (also no good choices)
Spawn of Onyxia, breedID 4, 1400 health 341 power 244 speed (this one is just miles better than the other breeds)
Minfernal, I would prefer breedID 4 if you're using Meteor Strike, and breedID 6 or 7 if you're using Explode.
Darkshore Cub, breedID 4
Flayer Youngling, again this depends. If you want to beat up critters, then breedID 4 or 6 (high power or high health). For pvp, breedID 5 or 8 (fast and weak, or moderately fast and strong).
Sporeling Sprout, I like breedID 4 or 6. Like Flayer, having a lot of health plays nicely with the humanoid racial, and Sprout has DoTs that trigger it more often, so your return on health is very high.
Fel Flame: there's no breedID 4, so in general I'd go with breedID 7 to get the highest power. The tanky breedID 6 is very good for killing mechanicals though.
Nether Faerie Dragon, breedID 4, this guy is brutal since his Flying racial ability lets him go first despite being only 260 speed, and he has 341 power.
Crimson Geode, I like breedID 4 (358 power!) but it's almost overkill with his burst abilities: the breedID 6 still has 293 power and quite a bit more health.
Blighthawk, breedID 7 has the highest power (305) and decent health -- they don't get any faster than 273 speed, so there's not much point aiming for a 'fast' one.

For more common pets, there are also some special snowflakes. For example if you want a crab with the highest power, you need an Emperor Crab (358!). For cats, Snow Cub (325--Sand Kitten is next best); for the shale hatchling, Emerald and Amethyst have 325 power versions. For Spiders, you'd want a Widow Spiderling or Twilight Spider, they have 341 power versions. For snakes, Tree Python has the top power.

[Kagalii]

Thanks, Poofah, for your extremely detailed post. All of your reasoning for favorite breeds makes sense. I've been trying to get my hands on some of the ones you listed, not an easy task.

[Jone]

Poofah, why not prefer the Searing Scorchling to the Fel Flame? The abilities are the same, and the Scorchling has 305 attack at level 25.

[Kagalii]

Poofah, why not prefer the Searing Scorchling to the Fel Flame? The abilities are the same, and the Scorchling has 305 attack at level 25.

We were mainly talking about wild-caught pets I believe.

[Poofah]

I overlooked the cases where a wild pet and a non-wild shared a moveset. It's more complicated since they can have different base stats in addition to different breeds.

For the Scorchling, he doesn't have the same base stats as Fel Flame (8.5,8,7.5 base, vs Scorchling 7,9,8 base). The high-power Fel Flame is a breedID 7 (1.8 total bonus, spent in health and power), vs Scorchling is breedID 10 (1.7 total bonus, 0.9 in health, 0.4 each in speed and power). Those two things combine to make the Scorchling very light on health, with a large investment in speed. Since his speed is still not very likely to let him go first (only 273), I prefer the higher health on the Fel Flame. If this moveset included a decent heal, then I'd probably prefer Scorchling, but as it is the 16 extra power is not worth the loss of 243 health (which is ~48 'points' in health, to compare directly to power), even with the extra speed. All imo.

Also, Scorchling is not made of green fire!

Two cases I can think of:

Nether Ray Fry vs Fledgling Nether Ray: no contest, Nether Ray Fry #4 has more health and 19 more power, for a loss of 16 speed.

Bananas vs Baby Ape: again, no contest -- they start with the same base stats, but Baby Ape #4 gets 2 bonus points in power, whereas Bananas gets 1.5 bonus points all spread out. This is a little bit sad for such a hard-to-get pet (but probably good for balance).

[Hellomynameis]

Restless Shadeling, breedID 6, 1806 health 260 power 244 speed (no good choices here actually, so it doesn't really matter)

First of all, NICE LIST

I would say breed #9 or #19 because of Phase Shift, and the fact that it will dodge twice if you are the first. Avoiding damage two rounds are much better than Death Coil, imo True, its not really that speedy even as #9, but its faster than #6.

[Darkke]

For cats, Snow Cub (325--Sand Kitten is next best);

I'm not exactly sure how non-wild pets differ, but it might be worth looking at the Cornish Rex Cat. While he has a Breed ID of 4, his base stats are (7, 10.5, 8.5)(att = 341@ rare). He takes a hit in health, but has a slightly higher attack and speed then the Snow Cub (8, 10, 8). Now mind, he's an uncommon, and not necessarily worthwhile until 5.1 releases with battle stones.

Also, it would be interesting to see if this guy would sell well, since he's not a wild pet, particularly if trained to 25. Slightly off topic, but has anyone heard if we will be able to sell stone upgraded non wild pets?

[Vhale]

I wouldn't think they'd lose their stone but that's a good question. Sounds like a potential bug to be.

I wasn't going to read about breedIDs, now I am caught D:

I'm not sure how far I'll go for rares with the right ID. I have alts on 3 servers and when I poked at the other two after being frustrated with my main, I was pleasantly surprised that pets were far more available. Full Jade Oozling spawn ftw. I would like to get the nice ID of my molten hatchling and possible the wildhammer gryphonling and nordrassil wisp.

[Poofah]

I'm not exactly sure how non-wild pets differ, but it might be worth looking at the Cornish Rex Cat. While he has a Breed ID of 4, his base stats are (7, 10.5, 8.5)(att = 341@ rare).

Good point -- I have to admit I didn't even look at the non-rares. Once we can upgrade pets, there are likely to be some hidden gems like this. Another example is the moths, which have a nice moveset but seem to top out at 305 power in the wild: but Yellow Moth from that vendor in Exodar has a breedID 4 with 341 power, once you rarify it. I think that just became a priority for my Flyer battle stone.