Easy to obtain affordable Pet Capture team?

[Lanxtone]

So I slept through WOD and was AWOL in Legion. Im just getting my critter paws under me and was hoping for a
sustainable capture team like Quintessence mentions below. I but I don't have a Million Gold to get a Celestial Calf. Any ideas for the broke and newly re-newbied?

Quintessence <RoKK> 120 Night Elf Druid
Jul 31
I've been going with Feline Familiar, Celestial Calf, and either of the corgi pets on Beta.

First two for HP sustain (self-heals, don't have to stop or use bandages), and the corgi to lower the target's health to 1.

Might swap the latter with something else though, it doesn't feel very effective. The Calf with Deep Bite actually works better than the corgi in most situations, because the damage starts out small enough to get the target low for capture. Maybe I'll try a moth or something, IDK.

There's A LOT of Aquatic wild pets in BFA. Then quite a few Flying, Critter, Beast. I guess same as usual for most expansion, but waaaaaaay more Aquatic this time. Just putting that out there if you're looking to make an efficient team.

[Digem]

So I slept through WOD and was AWOL in Legion. Im just getting my critter paws under me and was hoping for a
sustainable capture team like Quintessence mentions below. I but I don't have a Million Gold to get a Celestial Calf. Any ideas for the broke and newly re-newbied?

Quintessence <RoKK> 120 Night Elf Druid
Jul 31
I've been going with Feline Familiar, Celestial Calf, and either of the corgi pets on Beta.

First two for HP sustain (self-heals, don't have to stop or use bandages), and the corgi to lower the target's health to 1.

Might swap the latter with something else though, it doesn't feel very effective. The Calf with Deep Bite actually works better than the corgi in most situations, because the damage starts out small enough to get the target low for capture. Maybe I'll try a moth or something, IDK.

There's A LOT of Aquatic wild pets in BFA. Then quite a few Flying, Critter, Beast. I guess same as usual for most expansion, but waaaaaaay more Aquatic this time. Just putting that out there if you're looking to make an efficient team.

the terrible turnip and any corgi are fine catching pets and I use them all the time

[Ravyn]

[pet]Grumpy[/pet] is perfect for a pet capture team and he is easily obtainable. All you need to do is go to a burning house in Bradensbrook, Val'sharah. At the top floor is a dog who needs to be rescued. Complete the quest and you've got yourself a new pet. Granted, you have to do a bit of Legion content, but it's goes really fast. In fact, Grumpy might be very cheap on the AH. I know have a lot of extras from leveling alts (I'd offer you one if you were in the EU).

Anyhow, Grumpy is so great because of his Howl and Super bark combination. You can easily get most pets into the capturable range with just the combo, though sometimes I bark a few times first on the rares.

As for the other pets on my capture team, I often use Darkmoon Zeppelin and Chi-Chi, both of which you have, according to your profile.

[GormanGhaste]

I love to use oozes as capture pets for aquatics. Bonus defense and absorb is low power damage and a self heal.

[Lolfixheal]

Doesn't matter what you use really, the wild pets are always weaker than your 3x blue 25 team, but sure anything with a heal, reduced damage is nice, and having 1 pet with a Weakened Blow-style ability is really handy. You don't want to accidently crit the blue rare wild pet you finally found. What I've found most useful is a strong/fast counter to the wild pets you see most often, any pet that can 2-3 shot wild pets to remove them quickly to bring you to the rare pets in the lineup.

I guess for classic sustain pioneers you got HH Anubisath Idol, PP Emerald Proto Whelp. BFA has mostly Aquatic pets, and wild flyvers can be annoying due to outspeeding you. So something strong against that.

When hunting wild pets heres few tricks/tips:

- you don't have to battle what you found if you don't like it, simply forfeit. This will incur 10% damage on current health on your team, which means you can go on forever since its current health. That also means you can have 3 random crap pets you don't plan on using for "checking".

- if you don't find anything useful, kill off the battle pet critter, this will force a respawn eventually on nearby critters of same type in the area. Always do this, not only to help yourself, but others as well. Should be code of conduct among pet battlers tbh. If you leave bad wild pets up everywhere, no one is going to find anything useful for longer time. I've found respawns to quite quickly actually in BFA, so you can keep circling the area.

- secondary pets can be pets from the zone, so you're not forced to roam Atal'Dazar for that Golden Beetle. Most the rares I find are usually secondary, so don't restrict yourself to a subarea with potential few spawns. Your rate of finding good stuff is always best the more "nodes" you have.

- some pets like the Glutted Feeder can kill itself before you capture it, if you're hunting a pet with Explode-like abilities, make sure you use your "checking" team and check the abilities of the wild pets before doing the match. Every time you forfeit they randomly re-shuffle their moveset, so only do the fight when you see it has selected the non Explode option.

- if you're into breeds, make sure to have your addon such as Pet Battle BreedID updated to lastest and capture the breed of the wild pets you want regardless of rarity. It is better to have the correct breed and able to stone if you eventually just give up on finding a rare in that breed after hours of farming. If you do find a rare, you simply release the non-blue one. This also goes for pets which has different models such as Coastal Bounder if you want that big pink one.

- always use your pet heal over bandages, and use it often, 8min goes by fast. Depending on how many bandages you have, you probably never use stables who can also heal your pets for 10s. Myself, having thousands of bandages, don't give a shit and just bandage if pet heal is on CD.

- for BFA it seems some critters and neutral regular npcs can actually aggro you if you kill off a battle pet, this is the main reason why people have found themselves randomly "stuck in combat" during their leveling process. If this happens, stop and check around and clear anything on you. Also when you kill off battle-pets you can't use, do use single-target spells, so you don't kill that frog next by who potentially had a rare on it. That would be a bad day.

- some pets clutter up in packs, to tell them apart, you can use raid icons on them, also the first second after clicking "battle". This will help you to tell which ones you have checked.

- bind "Interact with target" to something on your keyboard, its handy for those people on mammoth mounts blocking your questgivers, but also has its uses for pet battling. A lot of pets are stuck in akward positions, uneven ground and hard to engage/battle, simply spam this keybind and you will get a lock.

- since battle pets spawn on critters and this is very much an aquatic themed expansion, that also means a lot of crabs are found on the seabed, far away from battle range. You don't have to, but can kill them using Underlight Angler (169% movement speed+Underwater breathing), to forcespawn them onto the beach.

- despite the sloppy work of the pet journal UI, some wild pets do spawn other zones than listed. Have wowhead on your alt-tab at the ready to check where you can find stuff, now that pettracker doesn't seem updated as well.

[Gráinne]

Very comprehensive post from Lolfixheal there!

My current Taming Team is P/P [pet]Emperor Crab[/pet], [pet]Grumpy[/pet], [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet], though I'm avoiding the Crab since the new model; it creeps me out.

The Crab gives you lots of sustain. Drop a heal and switch in a low-health pet.

I also use [pet]Hyjal Wisp[/pet], to replace the Crab, especially in flyer-heavy areas. Casting Wish on a low-health pet keeps things going. In Aquatic-heavy areas, [pet]Pterrordax Hatchling[/pet] has oodles of self-sustain. And the [pet]Teroclaw Hatchling[/pet] with Ravage for a heal is still a terror against critters, as are Cornish Rex Cat and Xu-Fu with Feed.

Grumpy can be replaced by Terrible Turnip and Snobold Runt, but that Howl+Superbark combo usually wins out for me.

[Uduwudu]

Doesn't matter what you use really, the wild pets are always weaker than your 3x blue 25 team, but sure anything with a heal, reduced damage is nice, and having 1 pet with a Weakened Blow-style ability is really handy.
...

Don't forget that your knowledge and ability in these fights will make a difference, and if you use one of the addons that shows the enemy's spells, you will be able to easily figure out what will be used first, and make the necessary moves. Generally, I use the Teroclaw for opening, and have a "bomb" on the 2nd spot, and then my leveling pet on the 3rd slot, to get one shot in and then get XP from it. The "bomb" would be anything that can pop a large amount of damage, and I like the Eldridge, and the nexus Whelpling, or Stormborne Whelpling in those slots.

But, seeing what is coming, for example, allows you to adjust ... so watch this ... spider pops the Goo and your Teroclaw is stuck for a couple of rounds, and it will take a big hit ... heck, refresh your heal, for example, which is like thinking a step ahead. Likewise some pets that have double abilities, like Dive and Invis, and can go three rounds without taking an attack, and you need to take advantage of one of those rounds to gain yourself the heals if you know that you can not take the pet down ... which is the case many times with some healers, and you really need to switch to your bomb, but can't.

All in all, having a good choice and kinda knowing what you are going to fight, makes all the difference. If you know, that in a couple of places in the new expansion you are going to get 2 of those butterflies and one honey bee, you already know that you will be taking some serious damage, specially if one of them is a PS or a SS and they are green or blue. The other lesser two are not as difficult, but can still hurt if you do not know how to adjust.

So far, the preferred strategy I have seen on the new continent is the pets ability to make sure you can not swap pets, and your heals (as in Teroclaw) is not enough and that pet will take you down, specially if they are blue or green. I posted about this on another thread ... but it seems to be something that we have to learn to work through. But the fun is leveling all your other pets in Val'sharah with all those wabbits, chihuahuas (gleamhoof's!) and skunks ... nice and easy fights for good XP to level a lot of pets ... here I come pet bonus week ...

,,, ohhhhh poop ... I have no pets to level at all! They are all up!

[Edmuir]

Lots of good comments in this thread so far. I'm a fan of the underrated [pet]Molten Hatchling[/pet] as my primary fighter paired with [pet]Broot[/pet] or [pet]Blossoming Ancient[/pet] (admittedly, not the easiest pets to come by...) and then do your capturing via [pet]Grumpy[/pet]. If you're short on bandages or too far from a stable master, throw a [pet]Gleamhoof Fawn[/pet] or any other strong [ability]Bleat[/ability] pet to go along with your hatchling. There are very, very few wild teams that can handle a rare P/S [pet]Molten Hatchling[/pet] and it will typically end up very close to full health.

[Jerebear]

It's not an obvious choice, but I use Chrominius as my lead pet on my capture team. Spam Arcane Explosion to whittle all the pets down, use heal as needed, keep surge of power ready if you need to finish off a specific pet you don't intend to catch. I pair it with a corgi (for super bark) and a frostwolf ghost pup (for AoE healing when I need it). This has generally been a good overall team for capturing for me.