Must have duplicates with different breeds?

[Nearlysober]

My initial goal in Battle Pets was just to collect all the unique pets I could. So when I started my collection, duplicates weren't really important to me and paying attention to breed didn't matter too much.

Lately I've been trying more battle pet PvP, and doing more of the battle family achievements, etc. and I've really found out how important breed can be to some strats.

So I got a duplicate of Bronze Whelpling because I needed S/S for the optimal Squirt carry, and I needed P/P for some other battle strat.

And that got me thinking... what other pets are really valuable to have multiple breeds of?
Like, I've got a P/P Iron Starlette but I've seen some guides recommend P/S so that's one I should probably pick up

My first priority is collecting a lot of pets so I don't want to waste too many slots with necessary dupes.

[Gráinne]

I went over some of the most popular, and I'm not sure there are many that you really MUST have in multiple breeds.

I've kept multiples since the early days, before bandages were more abundant than leaves on the trees, so I could do the rounds in Pandaria and the CT easily, and I naturally have taken advantage of keeping multiple breeds of the same pet, and when I go down the list, I keep thinking: well, I need that breed, and that one is nice to have.

For example, in the case of both [pet]Qiraji Guardling[/pet] and [pet]Nether Faerie Dragon[/pet], I keep three breeds, but rarely use anything but S/S.

I keep three [pet]Iron Starlettes[/pet], and favour H/H in general, but P/P and P/S will usually do the same job.

There are times when I want an S/S Zandalari Anklerender, and times when I want a P/P, but you can cheese that, since some other raptors are identical for battling, so you could get an S/S of one, and a P/P of the other.

Frostfur Rat and Ore Eater are also both S/S and P/P dualists.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

I think that I only have two Rapana Welk's for duplicates now, and it is more for being lazy and not have to select which one today for the Murlocs!

But I had, for the longest time, 2 Unborn Val'kyr's and they were very useful in different situations ... in some cases you could get her to do one damage hit, before having to do what she was at the battle to do.

Had 2 Iron Starlettes, since the Brothers in Stormheim used them, but the same one would either get beat on the first fight or the second fight. Now it doesn't matter a whole lot, and I don't even know which one I kept!

I think those were the only ones ... the birds, mice and rabbits, for the most part I have always kept the SS types, and I like them going first.

The Pet Battles, in general, are centered on two things ... the big hit, or the faster hit. Even the pets that heal themselves are not as efficient, as the ones you are battling, for example, that tend to do what seems like twice the amount that you would normally be able to do with a similar character throwing the same spell. "FEED" is a great example ... that heal is crazy high, but at least the pet is beat'able!

If I felt that the "defense" on any of those was more important, I would have kept it, but I'm not sure that I have seen that in the majority of the pet battles, to even bother concentrating on it.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

A side step/story ...

In the early days of Wow, shammies had totems that helped with the various attacks ... one totem would cut the fire damage, the other the cold damage, and so forth, and it was helpful in raids and such. These shammies were all Horde. The Alliance, had Paladins, and they healed, so the need for "defense" was not as important, though a raid buff like the Druid was helpful and these worked on adding your hit points instead of improving your defense.

One day, it was decided that shammies would also show up in Alliance, and that paladins would also appear on the Horde side ... and on that day, all defense was kinda taken out ... and I think it was in the next couple of expansions that the shammie totems were broken apart, and eventually they did what they do now ... NOTHING. They just look pretty on the ground, and there is no visible change to your stats that I have ever found.

The pets' situation has been the same. With the only difference that bosses are tougher, and you have to find a way to mitigate their damage, which now is more than ever centered on their type and then abilities combined with their breed.

And one day, Blizzard thought that a fighting pet changing their abilities so you could not take it down that easy was a far out thing ... and on top of it, they did this as a double ability ... two for the price of one, and you only get one go, and it does not do squat for those two abilities.

Thus, it has become necessary to have a reasonable idea of what you are fighting ... a beast, a critter, a this that switches to that ... and so on, so you can swap pets if you need to and not take the larger damage hit. that helps decide the fight. AND prevent you from getting those Pet Charms.

[Vakeetah]

I'd say that pretty much all pets that have access to both P/P and S/S breeds. For example, Bronze Whelpling, Qiraji Guardling, Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar or Bonkers are vastly different as P/P or S/S. Wouldn't call any of them a must have, but the differences between breeds and their supported skillsets certainly make it interesting to collect both breeds.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

My thoughts are centered on the fact that a lot of the pet battles, do not require different anything ... Squirt's fight, if you do it with the Fjord Worg Pup, DOES require the proper breed, and the other one I remember (which I haven't done in a long time) is the brothers fight in the old days in Stromheim. Something has changed there, since I do not remember it being two separate fights, and when they were "together" you really needed 2 Iron Starlettes. Now that they are "separate", one will do, because you can heal in between.

And that is, just about the only examples I can give you ... maybe the fight against those awesome legs in Stromheim will be able to be done with rabbits that have no speed ... guess what ... it can, but it's very time consuming and you have to know what you are doing ... and sometimes, knowing that much just takes the fun out of the pet battle! This is the reason why I do not do PvP ... it becomes ... I have better pets than you, kind of thing and this is boring to me.

The Rapana Whelks ... I can not see that one breed does the fight with the Murlocs better than the other ... they seem about the same to me.

In the old days, it was all new ... and VIVE LA DIFFERENCE was valuable ... now it's all copy of a copy ... and having different breeds just seems like a waste of time ... and by the time you have 900 pets ... TRUST ME ... it is a waste of time!

But don't forget one important factor ... now you have so many pets, and you got plenty of them to cover just about anything!