So you can't kill wild battle pets anymore?

[Beave]

I just started out, hit my first group of greenpaws, did a rare check, and when I saw nothing good I went to arcane explosion to force a respawn. The little bugger wasn't hit.

Looks like rare farming by retreating, killing, and forcing respawns may be dead.

[Kel]

Huh, hadn't noticed that.

[Iibis]

I think it's buggy. I wasn't able to kill them with my paladin's consecrate, they just had the debuff but it didn't do anything. Unless it ticked right as they spawned (before they got the battle pet paw). But I was able to kill them with my warlock's rain of fire just as usual.

[Sandrazzley]

Just killed a [pet]sporeling sprout[/pet] with a conflagrate spell without issue. Didn't battle and cancel it first though. getting the "failed to create pet battle" error. There's a couple threads on the eu forums that I've been able to find.

[Wakamaru]

I haven't been able to kill WoD wild pets if they spawn as the primary pet (ie. the one you engage). If they spawned secondary to a pre-WoD pet though I could kill those. It may be a bug, but I'm thinking that it's intentional for the new WoD pets.

I haven't noticed any issues in Pandaria or other old content areas. In on Draenor w/ the WoD pets as the primary spawn.

[Iibis]

Yah true I haven't checked Draenor pets in that regard; pet battles don't work and everything's lagging anyway. Before launch I just had that issue in Pandaria.

[Topaz]

you can kill the ones that are in the garrison channel, but you cant target and kill them outside of it, still can be killed with non target spells like glaive toss for hunters or rain of fire for warlocks

[Peanutty]

Maybe it varies by pet. Just killed a Moonshell Crab by directly attacking (Arcane Shot).

EDIT: So I've now tested it on about 10 different wild WoD pets... apparently most of them can not longer be killed directly but some of them can. Moonshell Crabs can. Royal Moths, Mud Jumpers, Waterfly, Flat-Tooth Calf can't. So I have to think that it's a deliberate choice to protect pets from being killed by player damage.

[Gwenolyn]

Maybe AOE is the fix? Could be, I'd hate to accidently AOE a battlepet someone needed. And Trollers may do just that

[Beave]

I've tried every attack in my arsenal as an arcane mage and couldn't kill an icespine hatchling which I'm seeing a ton of. Nobody is actually killing them, just clicking and forfeiting, so they're not respawning.

[Wakamaru]

I've tried every attack in my arsenal as an arcane mage and couldn't kill an icespine hatchling which I'm seeing a ton of. Nobody is actually killing them, just clicking and forfeiting, so they're not respawning.

Yeah isn't that aggravating as anything! I figure we need 500 Draenor battles to unlock our menagerie and I personally finally have new pets to level so I can use a carry pet... so I battle everything I come in to contact with. Although in the case of the Icespine Hatchling, when I found them in large clusters, I did check them all out before settling in to battle Just in case...

[Liopleurodon]

Yeah, I was flame shocking the crabs that were too far underwater to reach battling. I think it's just anti-AoE.

[Vivienne]

Some of the wild pets I could kill, some I couldn't. It didn't matter if I used single target or AoE. I'm hoping it's a bug.

[Jerebear]

It was like this on Beta. Certain pets couldn't be killed by any means other than battles and some could. My experience was it wasn't an AoE vs Single Target thing but just kill vs not thing. I can both AoE and single target the crabs for example.

Yeah, I was flame shocking the crabs that were too far underwater to reach battling. I think it's just anti-AoE.

If you take a class with a taunt spell, you can taunt the crabs, kite them out of the water and walk backwards. Try not to let them hit you as you do this (stay just ahead of them) an keep your mouse hovering over them. As soon as they give up, they are pet battle-able (is that a word?) and you can right click them to start the battle even as they run away.

I used this a lot on Eagle Chicks in Grizzly Hills and some pets in weird locations (Twilight fiendlings on ledges).

[Gwenolyn]

If you take a class with a taunt spell, you can taunt the crabs, kite them out of the water and walk backwards. Try not to let them hit you as you do this (stay just ahead of them) an keep your mouse hovering over them. As soon as they give up, they are pet battle-able (is that a word?) and you can right click them to start the battle even as they run away.

Oh good tip, thanks!

[Wakamaru]

If you take a class with a taunt spell, you can taunt the crabs, kite them out of the water and walk backwards. Try not to let them hit you as you do this (stay just ahead of them) an keep your mouse hovering over them. As soon as they give up, they are pet battle-able (is that a word?) and you can right click them to start the battle even as they run away.

I used this a lot on Eagle Chicks in Grizzly Hills and some pets in weird locations (Twilight fiendlings on ledges).

Amazing advice. I wish I'd of thought about this for those darned Eagle Chicks. They were such a pain!

[Liopleurodon]

I had completely forgotten about that! Thanks for the reminder!

That trick works to a certain extent for lots of single-target non-damaging offensive abilities... purge/dispel, CCs, fear, etc. In those cases though, the pet just kinda flips out every which way, & will *hopefully* run to a good place to engage it on the evade.

[Ssparkles]

Yeah I noticed this too.
Got frustrated on launch night at all the 'failed to find battle' and thought if I can't fight them I'll just FoK them. Sadly, no.

[Skunkart]

So just wanted to mention the best way to "kill" a critter without actually killing it is to just kill the first one in battle then flee. The undesirable pet will then go away to be replaced by something else after it respawns. Hopefully a rare.

So some tips... use a pet that can kill the first one of whatever pet your farming quickly. So if your farming beast types use a machine ect...

Stick to a small area with spawns rather than traversing entire landscapes. This will prevent others from taking the critters you spawn.

Also remember to kill any lvl 1 critters you might see that aren't battle pets. These can take up spawn points for whatever pet your trying to get a rare of.

(Also things like toxic wasteling and creepy crate can still kill other critters)

Hope this helps.

[Abashera]

This is the very first thing I noticed about pet-battling in WoD.

I made a team called KILL, and I put my Emerald Proto-Whelp in the 1st slot, because he still has close to full health when I'm finished killing the first enemy pet—Then after you've killed the first pet you can forfeit the battle. But I've also noticed that every pet I've killed in WoD takes forever to re-spawn... so long that it isn't worth waiting around in one spot.

Personally I'm trying to capture as many rares in best breed now, while everyone else is racing to level, before the collectors come in droves to capture, because it will be very competitive, and some pets will be very scarce with the longer re-spawn times.

I've already noticed a few of the pets with extraordinarily long timers. One in particular I'm willing to say is going to be the new Minfernal. And I'm sorry if I don't tell which ones I'm talking about, but I want to get one before the diehards figure out their scarcity. I can only say that once the casual collectors are done leveling, there will be people piled on top of one another waiting for re-spawns. I check them daily in hopes of finding one in any breed, and wish I had captured when I had a chance, because checking every day, several times a day, I've yet to see them re-spawn.