Breed IDs
Hello, while I've been battling and capturing pets for awhile, I've only just learned about BreedIDs. I'm trying to determine how to decipher the right build is P/P, S/S or H/H always the best to go with? Or is P/B, S/B, H/B better? Thanks, Jie-Lightbringer
Re: Breed IDs
It is not a simple question. 
Please read this thread, which has answers from several people, including my answer, to the same question.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16959&p=135196
Feel free to read it two or three times, looking up pets as you go. As I say, it is not a simple question.
I'll try to recap the process again. The more times you hear different presentations, the better!
Choosing the best breed(s) for a specific pet can involve many factors, and experienced battlers may still differ, but there are two major steps.
1. Do you want Speed?
2. How valuable is Power vs. Health?
in that order.
1. If you are using moves which require you to go first for their full effect, you should prioritise Speed. It's hard to find a reason to get anything but the fastest Rabbits with Dodge, Flurry, Burrow, or Scalded Basilisk Hatchling with Thrash and Crystal Prison, because if they are slower, those moves are not worth much.
1a. However, sometimes, if you already have the very fastest rabbit (357-speed) you may well want to get a second rabbit (341-speed or 325-speed) for cases where 357 isn't needed, and the extra bit of power or health you gain in the trade-off against less speed can be helpful.
In the same way, while you might prioritise the fastest generic Frog (Leopard Tree Frog S/S breed) you also might choose to get the most powerful Frog (Yellow Bullfrog P/P). When you know your Leopard Tree Frog will be faster than its opponent, you will likely use that; when your opponent is faster than your S/S Leopard Tree Frog, so its speed is no use, you will pull out your more powerful P/P Yellow Bullfrog.
1b. Also however, sometimes you may use different movesets on a pet, which will change the priority.
Sometimes a pet would be gr-r-reat! if only it had high speed. But no breed has a speed high enough to make its moves worth using. Such pets tend to be viewed as disappointments by many battlers.
2. Having decided the speed factor, you now choose between Health and Power options. Again, this may not be simple. Some racials play into this: Humanoids recover 4% of their Health when they do damage, which argues for preferring Health on Humanoids, and Flyers get a 150% speed buff when above half-health, which also argues for Health. If you intend to use a heal or shell mitigation on the pet, that is a strong argument for Power, since power increases the amount of the heal or protection.
For a cheat-sheet of answers, I would direct you to this survey of breeds chosen for pets:
https://pastebin.com/UE8TSGGs
So if you want to find which breed to prioritise for, say, Qiraji Guardling, you can see that S/S is most popular, (because when using Kick, you need to be faster than your opponent), and P/P is next most used.
As your roster grows, you may choose to keep two or three of the same species with different breeds for different conditions. Perhaps the simplest case to explain is Iron Starlette. The Starlette is usually used Wind-Up, Supercharge, Wind-Up. That does a ton of damage. It also has a speed increase, Powerball, which is most commonly taken. The P/P breed does a lot more damage in its Wind-Up than the H/H breed, but the H/H breed is more likely to survive for a second cycle. Sometimes you want to be sure to be faster before you unleash your big Wind-Up, to prevent the opponent Dodging it. The P/S breed needs one less Powerball to get to the same speed than the P/P or H/H breeds, and if that is the priority, then you would choose the P/S. I keep all three breeds, and use the one most appropriate for each case.
You need to be using the addon Battle Pet Breed ID which you can find on Curseforge.com. It will show you the breed of each pet without you having to work it out by memory or menthal arithmetic.
(You should also be using the addon Rematch - every battler should! - and probably Pet Tracker and maybe Derangement's Pet Battle Cooldowns, but those aren't about breeds, specifically.)
Also feel free to join the WarcraftPets Discord https://discord.gg/FBtGdKU where people are delighted to opine on which pets in which breeds are better than other pets and breeds.
P.S. Apart fom the thread I already linked above, here are two recent threads with people discussing which breed would be best for newly-released pets. You may pick up more from practical discussions than from generalisations:
7.3 Breed Choices: Argus
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17327
BfA Wild Pet discussion
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17756
Please read this thread, which has answers from several people, including my answer, to the same question.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16959&p=135196
Feel free to read it two or three times, looking up pets as you go. As I say, it is not a simple question.
I'll try to recap the process again. The more times you hear different presentations, the better!
Choosing the best breed(s) for a specific pet can involve many factors, and experienced battlers may still differ, but there are two major steps.
1. Do you want Speed?
2. How valuable is Power vs. Health?
in that order.
1. If you are using moves which require you to go first for their full effect, you should prioritise Speed. It's hard to find a reason to get anything but the fastest Rabbits with Dodge, Flurry, Burrow, or Scalded Basilisk Hatchling with Thrash and Crystal Prison, because if they are slower, those moves are not worth much.
1a. However, sometimes, if you already have the very fastest rabbit (357-speed) you may well want to get a second rabbit (341-speed or 325-speed) for cases where 357 isn't needed, and the extra bit of power or health you gain in the trade-off against less speed can be helpful.
In the same way, while you might prioritise the fastest generic Frog (Leopard Tree Frog S/S breed) you also might choose to get the most powerful Frog (Yellow Bullfrog P/P). When you know your Leopard Tree Frog will be faster than its opponent, you will likely use that; when your opponent is faster than your S/S Leopard Tree Frog, so its speed is no use, you will pull out your more powerful P/P Yellow Bullfrog.
1b. Also however, sometimes you may use different movesets on a pet, which will change the priority.
Sometimes a pet would be gr-r-reat! if only it had high speed. But no breed has a speed high enough to make its moves worth using. Such pets tend to be viewed as disappointments by many battlers.
2. Having decided the speed factor, you now choose between Health and Power options. Again, this may not be simple. Some racials play into this: Humanoids recover 4% of their Health when they do damage, which argues for preferring Health on Humanoids, and Flyers get a 150% speed buff when above half-health, which also argues for Health. If you intend to use a heal or shell mitigation on the pet, that is a strong argument for Power, since power increases the amount of the heal or protection.
For a cheat-sheet of answers, I would direct you to this survey of breeds chosen for pets:
https://pastebin.com/UE8TSGGs
So if you want to find which breed to prioritise for, say, Qiraji Guardling, you can see that S/S is most popular, (because when using Kick, you need to be faster than your opponent), and P/P is next most used.
As your roster grows, you may choose to keep two or three of the same species with different breeds for different conditions. Perhaps the simplest case to explain is Iron Starlette. The Starlette is usually used Wind-Up, Supercharge, Wind-Up. That does a ton of damage. It also has a speed increase, Powerball, which is most commonly taken. The P/P breed does a lot more damage in its Wind-Up than the H/H breed, but the H/H breed is more likely to survive for a second cycle. Sometimes you want to be sure to be faster before you unleash your big Wind-Up, to prevent the opponent Dodging it. The P/S breed needs one less Powerball to get to the same speed than the P/P or H/H breeds, and if that is the priority, then you would choose the P/S. I keep all three breeds, and use the one most appropriate for each case.
You need to be using the addon Battle Pet Breed ID which you can find on Curseforge.com. It will show you the breed of each pet without you having to work it out by memory or menthal arithmetic.
(You should also be using the addon Rematch - every battler should! - and probably Pet Tracker and maybe Derangement's Pet Battle Cooldowns, but those aren't about breeds, specifically.)
Also feel free to join the WarcraftPets Discord https://discord.gg/FBtGdKU where people are delighted to opine on which pets in which breeds are better than other pets and breeds.
P.S. Apart fom the thread I already linked above, here are two recent threads with people discussing which breed would be best for newly-released pets. You may pick up more from practical discussions than from generalisations:
7.3 Breed Choices: Argus
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17327
BfA Wild Pet discussion
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17756
Re: Breed IDs
Hi,
I think that the past couple of expansions, things have gotten a bit more and more, either towards speed, or power, and nothing in between.
The thing that is important for me, specially when battling is knowing the stats and make up of the pet I am battling ... so I can adjust. So if you are in Val'sharah and doing a battle, and you have 2 bunnies and one hoof'is, and two of them are fast ... I probably would rather use the power plays, instead, since they are going first regardless ... I might as well punish them and not waste my speed on them. The hoof'ie is the easy one, but if you get 2 of them and let's say they are blue (rare), it won't be easy ... they heal really well, and your speed is kinda wasted ... and you probably want to power them down, for example ... and then you get a combination of 2 spiders ... and one is blue and the other green ... and you will have a tough time with these, and your Teroclaw is going to go down, because it's heal is a lot less than what the spiders are doing ...
I'm not an expert on this ... and by the time you get to 500/600 pets you will have a much greater idea of how some of these mechanics work, but I am not sure that you can learn enough about these with only 100/200 pets ... at that point, your needs are concentration on having the really important pets for most fights, and I would say that there are a good 100 pets that we all use almost all the time for most battles.
Duplicates ... I used to have them, but since the "family" thing started, I gave them up ... it doesn't turn me on, and too many pets are designed to take down this type or that type and your 3 pets and your ability/mind will go through heck to try and get the fight done ... it's not worth the hassle for me. Maybe my age (68) has something to do with it, but it doesn't turn me on, and there are better looking blondes out there ... for the picking ... (hehehe!!!!).
But the most important is using the breed ID addon, so you can see which one you should have ... for example, you don't need to know the breed to realize that there is a pet with 275/275 and another one with 270/295 ... and logic will tell you that you are not losing that much damage and are almost 10% faster ... I'll take the faster one at that point ... but the tough ones are something like 240/325 and 270/295 ... and this could be tough, and is usually found in rabbits and mice, and it really depends on the fact if you use them at all and how. There is only one fight or two with all bunnies (in Stroheim) that I remember, and I am not sure I have seen/found one with all mice, though this same fight should work, if the pets are the same type ... all critters or all beasts or all this or that.
I will default to a couple of folks on this board because they really know their stuff ... I only speak from my experience, and I do not do numbers to prove/show my points unless you want your taxes done!
I think that the past couple of expansions, things have gotten a bit more and more, either towards speed, or power, and nothing in between.
The thing that is important for me, specially when battling is knowing the stats and make up of the pet I am battling ... so I can adjust. So if you are in Val'sharah and doing a battle, and you have 2 bunnies and one hoof'is, and two of them are fast ... I probably would rather use the power plays, instead, since they are going first regardless ... I might as well punish them and not waste my speed on them. The hoof'ie is the easy one, but if you get 2 of them and let's say they are blue (rare), it won't be easy ... they heal really well, and your speed is kinda wasted ... and you probably want to power them down, for example ... and then you get a combination of 2 spiders ... and one is blue and the other green ... and you will have a tough time with these, and your Teroclaw is going to go down, because it's heal is a lot less than what the spiders are doing ...
I'm not an expert on this ... and by the time you get to 500/600 pets you will have a much greater idea of how some of these mechanics work, but I am not sure that you can learn enough about these with only 100/200 pets ... at that point, your needs are concentration on having the really important pets for most fights, and I would say that there are a good 100 pets that we all use almost all the time for most battles.
Duplicates ... I used to have them, but since the "family" thing started, I gave them up ... it doesn't turn me on, and too many pets are designed to take down this type or that type and your 3 pets and your ability/mind will go through heck to try and get the fight done ... it's not worth the hassle for me. Maybe my age (68) has something to do with it, but it doesn't turn me on, and there are better looking blondes out there ... for the picking ... (hehehe!!!!).
But the most important is using the breed ID addon, so you can see which one you should have ... for example, you don't need to know the breed to realize that there is a pet with 275/275 and another one with 270/295 ... and logic will tell you that you are not losing that much damage and are almost 10% faster ... I'll take the faster one at that point ... but the tough ones are something like 240/325 and 270/295 ... and this could be tough, and is usually found in rabbits and mice, and it really depends on the fact if you use them at all and how. There is only one fight or two with all bunnies (in Stroheim) that I remember, and I am not sure I have seen/found one with all mice, though this same fight should work, if the pets are the same type ... all critters or all beasts or all this or that.
I will default to a couple of folks on this board because they really know their stuff ... I only speak from my experience, and I do not do numbers to prove/show my points unless you want your taxes done!