WarcraftPets Forum

Fourdegrees wrote:For this reply, I'm going to assume a high-level character that *just* learned pet battles and has zero acquired pets beyond what companions you accumulated pre-MoP. IMO, this is the fastest way to get max level pets and subsequently the fastest/most efficient way to get all of your pets to level 25. I call this method the "fast but hard" way to 25 but once you have a team of level 25 pets, it becomes stupidly easy. I say "fast" because you spend virtually no time grinding pet levels (with one optional exception), but "hard" because your battles along the way can be challenging and you will lose sometimes.

Be aware you have to grind at least one pet to level 3 in order to start getting the trainer quests, but this is trivial because battling the level 1 pets around the capital city pet trainer gets you level 3 in no time. You also have to get your pets up to a certain level before you can make a full team of 3 pets (level 10?), but this part won't slow you down either. I'm going to assume you've read a guide on the basics of pet battling, that you can use this website to look up what zones have what level pets, and that you can look up what pet trainers have what level pets. I also HIGHLY recommend the addons Pet Journal - Enhanced and Battle Pet Quality Notifier.

Basically, take your pet(s) to a zone that has pets 1 or 2 levels higher than those in your team. Challenge those pets and capture them. Get any 3 different pets of the level in the zone you're battling in. Once this is done, take that new team to the next zone level up and repeat the process. Continue this leap-frogging of pet levels by constantly swapping out your team for the highest level pets you've captured. Soon, you will have a full team of level 23 pets (23 because higher pets lose 2 levels when captured and there are now level 25 wild pets, but you will have to hunt for them in Pandaria). This is the fastest way possible to get a team of level 23 pets, but it is hard at times because you are always one or two levels below the pets you are battling. Protip: if you're in a pet battle with a really hard pet that you really want to capture, such as a level 25 rare, but your team is getting owned, log out before the pet battle is over. When you log back in, the pet you were after will still be there for the taking, rather than despawning after a failed battle.

The second part of this strategy is the pet trainers. They are critical to complete so you are steadily unlocking all of the realm dailies. As you capture higher level pets, take on the trainers (a couple levels below you just to save on frustration). Use a strategy of, say, taking your team of Azeroth pets to Outland and getting an Outland team that you then take back to defeat the Azeroth trainers, and so on. This part of the strategy is very important, because once you have a full team of level 23 pets, you want to get them to level 25 as fast as possible. This is where trainers come in handy because they give a big bonus to xp when you beat them.

Here's how to abuse a trainer for leveling: Take their daily quest and beat them BUT once the battle is over and you've gotten the bonus xp for the fight ... abandon the quest. You get to keep the bonus xp and you can grab the quest all over again. Rinse and repeat. You'll see the amazing power of this trick in just a bit.

Your best bet for reliable leveling from 22-23 to 25 is a Cataclysm trainer because the ones in Pandaria tend to eat teams of level 23 pets unless you get lucky. I recommend Brok in Mount Hyjal only because he's close to the zone portal and a Stable Master so there is less travelling around. As soon as your team is level 25, you're headed to Valley of the Four Winds for the most ridiculous abuse of a trainer for xp gains in the history of taking advantage of game mechanics.

I highly recommend capturing a rare Dancing Water Skimmer in VoEB and picking up a Personal World Destroyer from an engineer (this is the only pet grind from 1-25 I recommend as part of the strategy, but it is optional because you could easily just capture two Dancing Water Skimmers and do just fine.) The reason for the recommendation is just below.

So now you have a full team of level 25 pets and all of the Pandaria pet battle dailies unlocked. Let's assume you took my recommendation and have a rare DWS and a PWD. Go introduce yourself to Farmer Nishi in Valley of the Four Winds, you're going to become very well acquainted. Why? Because she has two pets of the elemental type (Siren and Toothbreaker), which aquatic damage is very strong against, and she has one beast type (Brood of Mothran), which mechanical damage is very strong against. One of your pets can waste two of hers by itself, and if the third one kills your DWS, you bring in the PWD and lay waste to that one. Here's how: Use your DWS's Water Jet, Cleansing Rain, and Pump. Use your PWD's Metal Fist, Supercharge, and Screeching Gears. Nishi always sends one of her two elementals out first, which you will eat with your DWS, then she sends out the other elemental, which you will also eat. By the time she sends the beast out, your DWS may be low, but no worries, you can finish that off easily with your PWD. The fight is over in very short order and can be repeated as often as you can stand.

Nishi is the final piece of the strategy to getting lots of pets up to level 25. Now that you have a sense of how to defeat her, she is your ticket to ultra fast and easy grinding. Put the pet you want to level in your first slot, followed by the DWS and PWD. Start the fight with Nishi. Use that pet to cast one ability, it may miss and your pet will take a hit, but if it doesn't get one-shotted, rotate it out to the DWS, then PWD as needed. Your lowbie pet gets a huge xp bonus (especially if you have the Safari Hat) and you can repeat this process as often as you can stand it. Note that you may need to level your lowest pets a bit so they can survive the first hit Nishi's pets deliver, but that's no big deal. By level 3 or 4, pretty much all pets can survive it. I'm in the process of leveling all of my pets from the "top down" so I haven't yet come across the highest level pet that still gets one shotted by either Siren's or Toothbreaker's opening attack.

So there you have it, the fastest (albeit occasionally hard) way to get a team of level 25 pets, and then the fastest/most efficient way to get a vast number of level 25 battle pets.

Is the proof in the pudding? I'm currently ranked 8th on my server for highest cumulative pet battle levels, which I know isn't saying a whole metric ton because Trollbane-US isn't ranked that high overall, but you'll see me in the top rankings soon enough:
For this reply, I'm going to assume a high-level character that *just* learned pet battles and has zero acquired pets beyond what companions you accumulated pre-MoP. IMO, this is the fastest way to get max level pets and subsequently the fastest/most efficient way to get all of your pets to level 25. I call this method the "fast but hard" way to 25 but once you have a team of level 25 pets, it becomes stupidly easy. I say "fast" because you spend virtually no time grinding pet levels (with one optional exception), but "hard" because your battles along the way can be challenging and you will lose sometimes.

Be aware you have to grind at least one pet to level 3 in order to start getting the trainer quests, but this is trivial because battling the level 1 pets around the capital city pet trainer gets you level 3 in no time. You also have to get your pets up to a certain level before you can make a full team of 3 pets (level 10?), but this part won't slow you down either. I'm going to assume you've read a guide on the basics of pet battling, that you can use this website to look up what zones have what level pets, and that you can look up what pet trainers have what level pets. I also HIGHLY recommend the addons Pet Journal - Enhanced and Battle Pet Quality Notifier.

Basically, take your pet(s) to a zone that has pets 1 or 2 levels higher than those in your team. Challenge those pets and capture them. Get any 3 different pets of the level in the zone you're battling in. Once this is done, take that new team to the next zone level up and repeat the process. Continue this leap-frogging of pet levels by constantly swapping out your team for the highest level pets you've captured. Soon, you will have a full team of level 23 pets (23 because higher pets lose 2 levels when captured and there are now level 25 wild pets, but you will have to hunt for them in Pandaria). This is the fastest way possible to get a team of level 23 pets, but it is hard at times because you are always one or two levels below the pets you are battling. Protip: if you're in a pet battle with a really hard pet that you really want to capture, such as a level 25 rare, but your team is getting owned, log out before the pet battle is over. When you log back in, the pet you were after will still be there for the taking, rather than despawning after a failed battle.

The second part of this strategy is the pet trainers. They are critical to complete so you are steadily unlocking all of the realm dailies. As you capture higher level pets, take on the trainers (a couple levels below you just to save on frustration). Use a strategy of, say, taking your team of Azeroth pets to Outland and getting an Outland team that you then take back to defeat the Azeroth trainers, and so on. This part of the strategy is very important, because once you have a full team of level 23 pets, you want to get them to level 25 as fast as possible. This is where trainers come in handy because they give a big bonus to xp when you beat them.

Here's how to abuse a trainer for leveling: Take their daily quest and beat them BUT once the battle is over and you've gotten the bonus xp for the fight ... abandon the quest. You get to keep the bonus xp and you can grab the quest all over again. Rinse and repeat. You'll see the amazing power of this trick in just a bit.

Your best bet for reliable leveling from 22-23 to 25 is a Cataclysm trainer because the ones in Pandaria tend to eat teams of level 23 pets unless you get lucky. I recommend Brok in Mount Hyjal only because he's close to the zone portal and a Stable Master so there is less travelling around. As soon as your team is level 25, you're headed to Valley of the Four Winds for the most ridiculous abuse of a trainer for xp gains in the history of taking advantage of game mechanics.

I highly recommend capturing a rare Dancing Water Skimmer in VoEB and picking up a Personal World Destroyer from an engineer (this is the only pet grind from 1-25 I recommend as part of the strategy, but it is optional because you could easily just capture two Dancing Water Skimmers and do just fine.) The reason for the recommendation is just below.

So now you have a full team of level 25 pets and all of the Pandaria pet battle dailies unlocked. Let's assume you took my recommendation and have a rare DWS and a PWD. Go introduce yourself to Farmer Nishi in Valley of the Four Winds, you're going to become very well acquainted. Why? Because she has two pets of the elemental type (Siren and Toothbreaker), which aquatic damage is very strong against, and she has one beast type (Brood of Mothran), which mechanical damage is very strong against. One of your pets can waste two of hers by itself, and if the third one kills your DWS, you bring in the PWD and lay waste to that one. Here's how: Use your DWS's Water Jet, Cleansing Rain, and Pump. Use your PWD's Metal Fist, Supercharge, and Screeching Gears. Nishi always sends one of her two elementals out first, which you will eat with your DWS, then she sends out the other elemental, which you will also eat. By the time she sends the beast out, your DWS may be low, but no worries, you can finish that off easily with your PWD. The fight is over in very short order and can be repeated as often as you can stand.

Nishi is the final piece of the strategy to getting lots of pets up to level 25. Now that you have a sense of how to defeat her, she is your ticket to ultra fast and easy grinding. Put the pet you want to level in your first slot, followed by the DWS and PWD. Start the fight with Nishi. Use that pet to cast one ability, it may miss and your pet will take a hit, but if it doesn't get one-shotted, rotate it out to the DWS, then PWD as needed. Your lowbie pet gets a huge xp bonus (especially if you have the Safari Hat) and you can repeat this process as often as you can stand it. Note that you may need to level your lowest pets a bit so they can survive the first hit Nishi's pets deliver, but that's no big deal. By level 3 or 4, pretty much all pets can survive it. I'm in the process of leveling all of my pets from the "top down" so I haven't yet come across the highest level pet that still gets one shotted by either Siren's or Toothbreaker's opening attack.

So there you have it, the fastest (albeit occasionally hard) way to get a team of level 25 pets, and then the fastest/most efficient way to get a vast number of level 25 battle pets.

Is the proof in the pudding? I'm currently ranked 8th on my server for highest cumulative pet battle levels, which I know isn't saying a whole metric ton because Trollbane-US isn't ranked that high overall, but you'll see me in the top rankings soon enough:
gu ildox.co m/g o/g.asp?r=Trol lb ane-US &w=& a=25

TL;DR: leap-frog pet levels up to 23 via capturing while also unlocking pet dailies, grind from 23-25 by abusing Brok, abuse Farmer Nishi repeatedly to grind a single pet up to 25, repeat as often as you like to get an army of level 25 pets.

P.S. - If there is enough interest, I would be happy to go into detail about how to use the DWS & PWD to wtfpwn Nishi's pets and how you can level decent pets even faster if you're smart about it.

Edema wrote:Here's how to abuse a trainer for leveling: Take their daily quest and beat them BUT once the battle is over and you've gotten the bonus xp for the fight ... abandon the quest. You get to keep the bonus xp and you can grab the quest all over again. Rinse and repeat. You'll see the amazing power of this trick in just a bit.

I hope everyone who has done this gets all thier pets reduced back to lvl 1, and to tell someone to do this just shows that some people have no honor or integrity. Ive never used this nor will i ever, and i have 39 25s and im rank 1 on my server. That may not seem like much to the exploiters, but at least I got mine leveled up honestly.

Edema wrote:

Fourdegrees wrote: Here's how to abuse a trainer for leveling: Take their daily quest and beat them BUT once the battle is over and you've gotten the bonus xp for the fight ... abandon the quest. You get to keep the bonus xp and you can grab the quest all over again. Rinse and repeat. You'll see the amazing power of this trick in just a bit.

I hope everyone who has done this gets all thier pets reduced back to lvl 1, and to tell someone to do this just shows that some people have no honor or integrity. Ive never used this nor will i ever, and i have 39 25s and im rank 1 on my server. That may not seem like much to the exploiters, but at least I got mine leveled up honestly.

Quintessence wrote:Everyone's free to play/level in their own way and there's no absolute "right" or "wrong" way to do it. But much like everything else in the game that seems too good to be true or sketchy, use discretion when participating in such activities as using the abandon/pick up tamer daily method. Although there hasn't been any official word that using this is an exploit or bug, be aware that it might not be intended. If it is a bug, though, it might get fixed a future patch.

The most important thing is to have fun.

Florencia wrote:We got two or three threads on wow forums talking about how nishi farming is an exploit...they even link mumper's words from twitter..

• Q: Why can't we abandon daily pet quests? You obviously wanted pet xp gains to incrase, but remove the best way to gain xp.
  Mumper: They are set like this to avoid an exploit of fighting the same tamer over and over by abandoning the quest.
  
  Q: Seems like you can abandon the pet tamer daily quests now, is that intended? It's a bit of an OP way to grind levels.
  Mumper: We have not seen any reports of this, the tamer quests are designed to not be abandoned.

Quintessence wrote:

Florencia wrote:We got two or three threads on wow forums talking about how nishi farming is an exploit...they even link mumper's words from twitter..

Unless I'm missing the thread where Twitter was discussed, from what I've read on the forums the quotes from Mumper were taken out of the wrong context. But I did find that he mentioned the Tamer dailies in this conversation:

• Q: Why can't we abandon daily pet quests? You obviously wanted pet xp gains to incrase, but remove the best way to gain xp.
  Mumper: They are set like this to avoid an exploit of fighting the same tamer over and over by abandoning the quest.
  
  Q: Seems like you can abandon the pet tamer daily quests now, is that intended? It's a bit of an OP way to grind levels.
  Mumper: We have not seen any reports of this, the tamer quests are designed to not be abandoned.

Since it's very likely that the Tamer dailies will get a fix in the near future so you can't continuously abandon and pick them up again, it's probably not advisable to continue using the dailies in such a manner that wasn't intended.

There are other ways of using the dailies to level your pets, though. Swapping in a low lvl to take a hit or two and then letting a higher lvl pet finish off the fight, for example. I still get a large chunk that would otherwise take me a handful of wild pet battles to earn. You can only do this once per day, per Tamer. But that's ok since I'd much rather be out hunting for rares and battle-stones.

Edema wrote:However going to a trainer and using this "Nishi Exploit" is nothing more then cheating