Question: How Important is Breeding?

[Merinna]

Howdy!

I'm one of these people who are slow to pick up on the resources of a community, so a few days ago, I finally figured out that each pet has a breed which distinguishes a different set of stat priorities. I get the general rules of this and I've seen how, say, two Wanderer's Festival Hatchlings may have different stats because one is H/H and another is H/S.

My question is really how do good players approach these differences in the breeds? Does this change how you use your pets in battles? Or does it not matter? Or does it really matter very much?

There's one level of my mind that sees a turtle with an H/S breeding and realizes that even if this is a fast turtle, he's still just a turtle and a slow marmot is going to out race him. So battling with a speedy turtle is like a rogue using an Intel dagger. It's just wasted stats.

But there's another level at which I think when I put my speedy, high health turtle against the right opponent, maybe an elemental if some sort, and I run my tactics well, it just doesn't matter what breed pet he is, I'm going to win anyway.

Or, maybe this is more important in PvP battles. I haven't done much PvP, so I just don't know.

How about you guys? What are the practical impact of breeds?

[Shmiles]

To be quite honest, don't worry too much about breeds for PvP.

I'm not the most experienced, but once you start to understand the main pets people use, just counter it and you'll be fine. There's lots of guides up on different blogs where people test different combos. Give those a go and you'll win 2 out of 3 for sure.

[Furkel]

Anyone with a substantial enough pet collection will probably have something that does well in most battles without worrying about breeds, but if you're just starting out it probably couldn't hurt? I've never cared much about it myself but then I've never really gotten into PvP either, and I WILL admit my P/P spider has gotten me through some difficult trainer battles more than once.

[Yamum]

Breed is mostly unimportant but for certain tasks it is necessary.

PvE example; on certain fights you really need an S/S Flayer Youngling, other breeds aren't going to work.

PvP example; you really want an S/S Fiendish Imp.

I wouldn't worry about it too much for now.

[Rendigar]

There are definitely times in PvE where breed can be extremely important, but in most places you can just get by with almost anything. One thing you can do is take a look at the pet's moves to give you an idea of what it will benefit the most from (if you HAVE to make a decision on breed, so you don't go crazy thinking you need to get all 10 possible for each sproutling!):

Does the pet have an explode move? It benefits the most from high health, so H/H is the way to go. You also can get good mileage out of things like H/H turtles with a shield up, the damage reduction combined with high health really makes them last.

Does the pet have a move that hits more times/for more damage if it goes first? Does the pet have defensive move like Dodge / Burrow / Ward? Then S/S may be the way to go if you can get it. Be careful though, as there are a couple of pets with these types of moves that even their highest speed breed is kind of slow - I want to say they tend to NOT have an S/S breed in those cases, but I am not certain.

Does the pet have a big healing move or a move that does more if it goes last? Then shoot for P/P since healing scales with it and moves like tail sweep and early advantage benefit from going second (the latter only works if the enemy pet has less health than yours AFTER the first part of the attack, so getting hit first helps with that often times).

Other than that, it's pretty much up in the air - I will say you see the breeds P/P, S/S, H/H and P/S the most in guides for PvE which are aimed at min-maxing the fight as much as possible. Many times you can squeak by with the hybrids (S/B, P/B, B/B, etc) but in general the pure breeds will be better simply because they have more total stat points.

[Guest]

Breed is more important than rarity, because rarity can be improved. Can breed make a difference? Absolutely, especially during speed changes. When speed changes happen because a buff drops/ is applied you may go from being first to second, doesn't sound so bad but it is like letting your opponent get an extra hit in for free. Ever find yourself fighting an opponent where you can do 510 damage but he has 518 and wish is getting ready to proc? bet you 'wish' that you had used a P/P instead of a P/B so you could have done that extra damage.

BTW nitpick time. We are all talking about breeds, not breeding. Breeding has not been implemented, and may never be. So the answer to your subject line is: It could be quite important, but until Blizz lets us do it (pun intended) we will not know. Breeds on the other hand depend on your play style, mine, pretty darned important.

[Digem]

To be quite honest, don't worry too much about breeds for PvP.

I'm not the most experienced, but once you start to understand the main pets people use, just counter it and you'll be fine. There's lots of guides up on different blogs where people test different combos. Give those a go and you'll win 2 out of 3 for sure.

Pvp is where breed matters most.
Some moves hit an extra time , stun or blind an opponent if one goes first.
If you are using moves that do extra if you go first the you want the fastest breed you can get to do so.
Take the death addler if you have an s/s breed you go first except to flyers.
Going first gives your blind two turns and helps makes these pets tough to beat.

Some pets benefit from going last like dragons and tail sweep or undead since being slower gives your undead move two times to hit the opponent.
So in these pets you are looking for health or power instead of speed.

Another are rabbits and dodge if you are s/s you can go three rounds without being hit when you combine that with borrow.


Breed helps you maximize your pets moves in pvp.
In pve you can ignore it since it isn't as important but in pvp it is the difference between winning and losing.

Since I have over 5000 pvp wins I think I have good knowledge on this.
It helped me win.

[Kpb321]

I'd say it's all situational. For PvE it's not that important, except when it is and then it can be critical !?!?!?!?! For PVP it can be important but it is also challenging because you never know who your opponent will be.

Speed is the easiest one to see where it can be really important or not matter at all. A Flayer Youngling is a good example. It's best or probably most commonly used abilities set is Blitz, Deflection and Kick. Two of these abilities directly benefit from going first. Blitz hits an extra time and Kick only stuns the opponent if they go first. Between those two things the different between being faster and going first and not being faster and not going first is huge. You loose damage on Blitz and kick is just a slightly lower damage attack with out a stun. It will make the difference between winning a fight an loosing it in most cases. Now do you need an S/S breed or will a H/S or P/S breed do? That depends on your opponent. If H/S or P/S is fast enough then they are technically better breeds as they still get the advantage of going first and have more power or more health. Personally, I've just got a rare S/S Flayer Youning at lvl 25 because I didn't want to bother with trying to capture and level multiple breeds to have the best version for every situation. I just went with the fastest because he'd handle the most situations.

On the other hand breed may not matter much at all. I recently followed a guide for one of the Menagerie fights that recommended a H/H breed for a particular pet. I had a H/S breed and it worked fine anyway. It was pretty close on him dying sometimes and the extra speed didn't help at all so H/H would have been better but H/S worked too.

[Shmiles]

To be quite honest, don't worry too much about breeds for PvP.

I'm not the most experienced, but once you start to understand the main pets people use, just counter it and you'll be fine. There's lots of guides up on different blogs where people test different combos. Give those a go and you'll win 2 out of 3 for sure.

Pvp is where breed matters most.
Some moves hit an extra time , stun or blind an opponent if one goes first.
If you are using moves that do extra if you go first the you want the fastest breed you can get to do so.
Take the death addler if you have an s/s breed you go first except to flyers.
Going first gives your blind two turns and helps makes these pets tough to beat.

Some pets benefit from going last like dragons and tail sweep or undead since being slower gives your undead move two times to hit the opponent.
So in these pets you are looking for health or power instead of speed.

Another are rabbits and dodge if you are s/s you can go three rounds without being hit when you combine that with borrow.


Breed helps you maximize your pets moves in pvp.
In pve you can ignore it since it isn't as important but in pvp it is the difference between winning and losing.

Since I have over 5000 pvp wins I think I have good knowledge on this.
It helped me win.

Yup you have a lot more experience than me.

BUT PvP is chance... you can't know what the opponent will do. In PvE you almost always do and the guides on wowhead are there to counter that rotation.

[Blixtiya]

pvp is indeed random who you face, but that makes breeds even more important. You basicly need to plan what each pet is supposed to do. Fiendish Imp is one of the best examples. to make as much use as possible the most powerful attack it has (Nether Gate) you want it to be fast. if Fiendish Imp is faster (which it mostly will be at S/S, with 333 speed) its basicly a stun+damage+forcing a switch. it will be a lot less effective if your imp is slower, since it will then take damage first,and with 1359hp, every hit it takes is a big chunk.

I have 2 other examples of pets Ive personally used a lot in pvp.

Bonkers: this comes in five breeds. What is in general the best pvp breed is the same as for Fiendish Imp. S/S. While slower than the Imp, with 325 speed, its still a pretty fast pet.
But looking at its moveset, the first noticable choice is between Haymaker and Tornado Punch. And Haymaker is in general way too random with 50% hit chance, and punishment if it misses. So Tornado Punch it is. Tornado Punch gets better with two stats. Power will increase the damage it does. But Speed will basicly make it win the fight every 4th time, since if it stuns when going first, it negates two attacks.
Add to that the fact that it also has Dodge, which also works the same way.if youre faster, it will negate two attacks.

So basicly you have a pet that with high speed will not only hit somewhat hard every now and then, but can stay untoched if used right for a long time.

The other example is not as clear, but Ill give you my reasoning on my pick of breed.
Jademist Dancer.
This also have an S/S breed. but thats not what I prefer on this pet. I prefer the the P/S breed.
While Bonkers is made to be annoying while hitting between that, this is basicly a hard hitter. Standard set in pvp is Steam Vent, Rain Dance, Acid Rain. It will hit like a truck. and since it doesnt have any other role than that, Power becomes more important.
It also have another flaw in S/S breed. it has 317 speed. Theres a number of pets you sometimes see that has 325 speed. but the most common is Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling. And Dragonling WRECKS S/S Jademist Dancer. But P/S can do a lot more against the Dragonling, as it hits harder, but doesnt lose any speed advantage. More power also increases how much Rain Dance heals. Therefor, My choice is P/S, since it does more resistance to other pets that would be faster ayway.
That said, mostly when I face it, other use S/S, so Im probably in minority.

This became a long post, sorry for that, but I hope I made it clear why breeds are VERY important in competative pvp (sadly the most important stat there is usually speed).

[Ryderly]

The answer here really depends a lot on the pet in question and the type of opponents you're fighting. If you're just running around the zone battling the resident teams that spawn, it won't matter very much. If you're fighting in the Celestial Tournament or against level 25 PVP opponents, then it will make a very big difference if you have the right breed for your pet type.

For pets with avoidance abilities (like Soul Ward or Burrow) or abilities that deal more damage when they make a preemptive strike, it's very crucial to have enough speed to be able to ensure they get the first move each turn. For pets with moves guaranteed to go first, or with damage over time abilities that hit at the end of the turn regardless of speed, power becomes much more important than speed. The most important element to take into consideration when trying to determine which pet breed will be the most effective for each pet are the abilities the pet has at its command. A S/S Nether Fairie Dragon gets to strike first and can use Evanescence to dodge two attacks instead of just one for most opponents, but a P/P one would have its Moonfire hit for 451 base damage instead of 370.

Another way to look at it is that the speed stat is a win-or-lose stat: if you have the higher speed stat, you win and you get to attack first, but if you have the lower speed stat you lose and have to take a hit before you get the chance to act each turn. For the power stat, it's much more straightforward: the more power you have, the greater the amount of damage/healing/damage absorption your abilities can do. And your pets' health is simply the amount of beating you can take before you run out of time to win (barring a few quirky abilities like Explode).

If you're just getting started, then I recommend trying to maximize speed for speedy pets and those who have abilities dependent on striking first, and seeking high power for your other pets. If you have questions on which breed is better for specific pets, there's usually some valuable user feedback in the comment section of each pet's page in the Warcraft Pets catalogue. Also, don't forget that there are other important elements to consider such as pet family traits and ability damage types. Hope this helps.

[Celya]

[quote="Merinna] So battling with a speedy turtle is like a rogue using an Intel dagger. It's just wasted stats.[/quote]

It seems to me that you have a good grip on the basic concept!

I thought a bit before jumping in on this, and I think a lot of the posters before me have done a great job of explaining the importance of breeds in both PVE and PVP situations. Breeds are important, but they're like a second layer of complexity (ie, intended for advanced rather than beginner pet battlers).

If you're just getting started, I would strongly advise you to just generally go with the better rarity pet since a blue [insert pet here] with a suboptimal breed will generally be more useful to you than a green [insert same pet here] with the "best" breed. I would, however, hold off on using things like upgrade stones etc until you understand what you want from the different breeds a bit better.

Not all pets have a clear "best" breed anyway. It's hard for me to imagine someone making a case for a non-S/S Fiendish Imp in PVP, but the Bonkers example outlined above also shows that your "best" breed might differ from someone else's depending on your respective playstyles. Also, I have been seeing more non-speed breed Death Adder Hatchlings which can be surprisingly effective when used with a different tactic than the usual one.

[Ril]

If you care about efficiency during pet level grinds with tamers, and to a lesser extent about successful PvP strategies, then breeds are important. Some breakpoints, especially with speed, are important in strategies and can reduce a fight's duration or improve the chance of winning significantly. However, there are lots of good strategies out there that don't require specific breeds of a specific pets. They work just as well, but usually they're slower, taking more rounds. Breeds are mostly about min/maxing. This doesn't matter much at first, but cutting as much time as possible and squeezing as many battles as possible into a treat duration (1h) suddently becomes appealing once you realise you're going to level hundreds of pets.

In PvP, some pets *need* to be faster than about anything they encounter (think death adder or about any pet that uses dodge types of defense), or depend on self heals that scale with power. Choosing a breed well can increase your success rate slightly in PvP.

That said I'd focus on breeds when you want to follow a strategy that requires a specific one (say a P/P Nexus Whelpling for the JSA daily challenge or a S/B rabbit for the thundering pandaren spirit), otherwise I'd try to get as much variety as you can. Take wasps, for instance. There are 4 types of wasps (the bone wasp uses claw instead of bite, it's the only difference, so you could argue there are 5) with the exact same skillset and base stats, and there are 4 breeds. So I'll simply choose one of each, whatever comes first in rare.

[Khorah]

Lots of good info in here that I can't really add to..
But, I will say, someone on the forums here had mentioned this addon in a different thread.
It is [url=http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/battle_pet_breedid]Battle Pet BreedID[/url] which helps a TON as it automatically tells you what the breed is for your pets and the pet(s) you are battling. In addition, it will tell you what other breeds are available (if any) and what the stats are for those breeds. So, it is nice if you have say a P/P breed pet that you think is a REALLY good counter, but you are a smidge too slow. You can hover your mouse over the pet portrait and see if there is maybe a P/S breed and see there speed at 25 to see if that might give you the edge.

Overall, I would agree with the earlier statement.. If you are just getting started, grab a few solid pets that you enjoy and load up your menagerie. Then, you can go back and begin to switch out breeds if you want.
With over 600 pets in my collection, there are a LOT of pets that don't see the light of day as their combat sets are ok or I just don't like their look (sorry [pet]Infested Bear Cub[/pet] you just creep me out). But I HAVE went back and picked up a few different breeds once I captured a pet so get a better build.

[Vetteranger]

I mostly worry about breed in connection with maximizing what you want out of a certain pet. For example, with a tank pet like a turtle, I want lots of health, so I look for a Guardian breed.

With flying pets, they already have the racial speed bonus, so I consider that a speed breed is wasted. I want Power (Destruction or at least a mixed Power breed) so that the existing speed advantage packs a punch as my flyer goes first.

As was mentioned above, you want a speedy Flayer so that you can rely on the Kick move's interrupt. However, in PvE cases where S/S (Ninja) is recommended, my P/S Flayer seems to do just fine.

In most cases, I tend to favor Power over Health, and that has worked well for me. I'm generally configuring teams to do the most damage they can rapidly, not to hang on by their fingernails.

But with all of that, when all I have in a certain pet is Balance, under most circumstances it performs just fine, which makes me agree with previous statements that breeds really only make a critical difference in certain specific fights or configurations - for example against Tommy Newcomer when you need specific breeds of Clockwork Gnome and the 3rd line pet so that the Gnome is correctly forced into the battle.

[Kpb321]

As was mentioned above, you want a speedy Flayer so that you can rely on the Kick move's interrupt. However, in PvE cases where S/S (Ninja) is recommended, my P/S Flayer seems to do just fine.

The names are just a breed id add-on being cute so I'd stick with either P/P or the actual breed numbers.

As far as the P/S vs S/S slayer goes it all depends on the speed of your opponent. If P/S is still faster than your opponent then the P/S is better than the S/S as it still gets the benefits of going first and has more power. If it's not faster then you are at a definite disadvantage compared to a S/S breed. Your kick won't stun. Your blitz won't give you an extra attack. It makes a huge difference in how effect the pet is.

[Awq]

Or, maybe this is more important in PvP battles. I haven't done much PvP, so I just don't know.

How about you guys? What are the practical impact of breeds?

It's tough to answer. A specific breed might be important for a specific strategy that you have, or for a specific fight, but generally it does not matter.
I personally would not worry too much about breeds. Having a diversity of pets/breeds is best imo.
There might be a few cases where you eventually want to get a different breed, but then you can always go back to go hunt for this specific breed.

But I agree with Kpb.
The most relevant stat is Speed. Being faster than an opponent can be a game changer (for specific pets).
* Speed can be a big damage increase. There are certain abilities that do additional damage when you are faster. Alpha Strike, for example, will do 40% more damage when you are faster.
* When you are faster you gain an additional turn throughout the fight.
* Specific avoidance abilities last for 2 rounds instead of 1 round.
The additional speed is often wasted. There effectively is no difference between 292 speed and 390 speed when your opponent has 289 speed. The additional speed only results in wasted stats that could have been spent elsewhere.
The most relevant question (in my opinion) is: How much speed do I want?

[Axarien]

I can't speak for PvP since I am still pretty new at this pet battling thing, but I have found that in PvE breed is generally unimportant. It can be important if you are trying to implement a specific strategy, especially vs. a legendary "boss" battle or a running 2-pet/carry pet leveling team where you have less margin for error and the number of turns you take/abilities becoming available at a specific time becomes significant. I have found that speed or power stats can really matter in those cases, getting to go first is a huge advantage, as is taking one fewer turn to kill something.

[Kandystryper]

offtopic sorry

...or I just don't like their look (sorry [pet]Infested Bear Cub[/pet] you just creep me out).

the big bears that roam the area to get the cub GROSS me out I can BEARLY look at them

[Taerie]

Breeding can be surprisingly important- especially when you're trying out a strategy someone else recommended. If your breed differs from theirs your mileage may vary.
I recommended a strat on wowhead once about a fight I solo with the same pet every day for months on end with absolutely no variation. I was surprised to get a handful of responses saying their pet died. Turns out my pet is an h/h breed and a beefy little tank that can survive what his species mates cannot.