Questions about learning leveled pets and turnips..

[Lysi]

I haven't done the pet battles because I don't like the whole dying thing, as some of you know. I don't want to get into a debate about that here since it's already been talked about in other threads, I just have an idea and I'm wondering if it would work.

I have a friend willing to level a turnip for me. I understand it has an attack that never kills. Can I learn and use a leveled pet even though I've never done a battle before? (I did "train" battles just to get jade crane, raven, crawler.)

If so, can I use the leveled turnip to get some pets w/o ever killing anything? I'm assuming I can forfeit if the turnip is in danger, and forfeit if I'm not able to capture the pet so it doesn't die. (I'm guessing you can't always capture the pet even if the health is low enough--please pardon my silly questions and assumptions, having never done battles myself I'm clueless!)

I don't care about rares, pet dailies, achievements or anything like that. (Although it does bother me if the pet has a gray name, like they're saying it's as worthless as vendor trash, otherwise I don't care about quality. But I figure I can forfeit, or if I end up capturing something I decide I don't want, I'll just let it go.) All I want is to get a few of the colorful pets not available to me now, because I don't battle.

Bottom line, I never want a battle to end in death. Doable?

[NathKnave]

You could certainly do pet battles up to a point without actually killing anything. You could battle and capture every pet you come across, releasing them after the capture if it's not something you want to keep. Once you reach battle pets that are level 5 and up however, there will be two bets in the battle. Since you can only capture one pet per battle, you wouldn't be able to finish the battle without killing one of them. Unfortunately, you need to finish the battle in order to gain exp for your pets or to complete a capture, so level 4 pets are the highest level battles you would be able to complete without killing anything.

[Lysi]

OK, so you can't capture anything unless you win the battle, and after level 5 a second combatant always joins so one would have to be killed? So I guess my friend only needs to level the turnip for 5 or 6 for me to try it. Thanks for the info!

[Quintessence]

If you don't have a pet that's the same level or higher than the one you're attempting to learn, you can't learn it. So unless you already have a pet that's level 5, you won't be able to add a level 5 Terrible Turnip to your collection.

This might have changed since the beta, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

[Arvelayne]

Nope it still runs that way. You can't learn a pet unless you already have one of that level.

Arve,
tidy alt.

[Tartelet]

Note that the turnip has other attacks - if you add damage over time with that, it will hurt the opponent even if you "pass" og do the not-kill move.

[Swiiftwiind]

I havnt tried getting a higher pet level than what I already have but I am sure Quintessence is right.
So your best bet Lysi is to level up the Terrible Turnip yourself. In all citys and starter areas there are plenty of pets that are L1 so you would have plenty to lookout for. Personaly if I was you I'd keep to L1 for a few levels wont take long for your turnip to get to L3-4 then go for the L2-4's ( that way your health would be much greater giving you more tries with your traps).

Update... Just done some quick counting, there are well over 50 pets that are lower than L5 so this would be a definate route for you to add pets to your collection without killing anything.
Low level pets generaly give alot more rares that other harder ones, so you could just go for the rares if you wanted or at least uncommon. Also a friendly reminder dont forget you can only have 3 of each, you will soon start to capture the pets realy fast and its very easy to forget to sort out the captured ones from low levels.

[Lysi]

Thank you for the info, everyone! So I can get pet leveling xp from captures, not just kills? I guess even if I couldn't, I could still capture some level 1 pets (assuming capturing is available at level 1?) It looks like the Weakening Blow I need is the only level 1 turnip ability, yes? So I guess I just need to know how to forfeit and how to capture? I want to be clear on that before I try the battle interface. I've been browsing the pets, there are several level 1 cuties I'd love to have! Thanks again for any help!

[NathKnave]

Your last post made me realize that you don't unlock the ability to catch pets until you have leveled a pet up to level 3 (the trap comes from the achievement). I'm not sure how you could do that without killing anything. The only possibility I can think of is if someone concedes from a PVP pet battle, but I have no idea if that even gives exp.

If there is a way to make this work, I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out.

[Lysi]

Your last post made me realize that you don't unlock the ability to catch pets until you have leveled a pet up to level 3 (the trap comes from the achievement). I'm not sure how you could do that without killing anything. The only possibility I can think of is if someone concedes from a PVP pet battle, but I have no idea if that even gives exp.

If there is a way to make this work, I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out.

I knew there would be a catch to it, lol. I doubt someone conceding would give xp, but I guess it's worth a try. Isn't there a / command you can use to just go up to another player and pet battle? I forget what it is but I've seen someone post it. I could test the idea with a friend.

[Arvelayne]

The problem is that you'd be using a single pet, and even with level 1s the random PvPer usually has 3. The chances of getting someone to forfeit several times is unlikely as well, as they would have to use at least one action, and would be almost guaranteed to win against one pet.

Not impossible. Just very very unlikely.

And you can't get XP from a 'duel' pet battle with another person.

I'm afraid I don't think you can do it, at least not with the way it's set up just now, unless you can get matched with someone you know would forfeit. I believe that pet names show in PvP battles. It's a longshot though.

Arve,
sad alt.

[Lysi]

The problem is that you'd be using a single pet, and even with level 1s the random PvPer usually has 3. The chances of getting someone to forfeit several times is unlikely as well, as they would have to use at least one action, and would be almost guaranteed to win against one pet.

Not impossible. Just very very unlikely.

And you can't get XP from a 'duel' pet battle with another person.

I'm afraid I don't think you can do it, at least not with the way it's set up just now, unless you can get matched with someone you know would forfeit. I believe that pet names show in PvP battles. It's a longshot though.

Arve,
sad alt.

Well, it was an interesting thought experiment, anyway. Maybe they will make some changes to pet battles in the future. Thank you to everyone for the thoughtful replies!

[Renmiri]

do you really "kill" them or they just "faint" ? Because dead pets would not show up on your journal... I think at least up to level 5 you can battle and knock some pets unconscious ?

[Gwenolyn]

Playing WoW you're killing things. Pet battles you just knock them out. How do I know? Sometimes the pet I have caged for capture gets knocked out by an aoe ability. I still capture him. And he looks fine to me. So if you're worried about killing things, you should ONLY be pet battling in WoW and not questing or leveling where you actually kill things.

[Hydramith]

Lysi, a question. It might seem like an attack, because it's hard to phrase it in another way, but don't worry, it's more of an attempt to a helpful thought to your concerns.

I see on your profile that you own the Armadillo Pup. This pet is a result of slaughtering 50,000 critters across the guild. Aren't you supporting the exact behaviour you stand against by having this pet in your list?
It might be that you only don't mind certain pets getting killed, but the pets for this achievements actualy got killed. For battlepets there's a debate about wether it's killing or knocking out. (I personaly think it's killing, since the word used on the bandages and spell is "resurrect" and not "bring back to conciousness").

Anyhow, it is indeed entirely possible to level only capturing pets up to level 4. From level 5 onwards this isn't possible anymore due to the double pets/battle.

[Arvelayne]

Anyhow, it is indeed entirely possible to level only capturing pets up to level 4. From level 5 onwards this isn't possible anymore due to the double pets/battle.

Someone else already pointed out that you don't get a trap until you've levelled a pet to 3, so you still have to have at least 4 fights without a cap.

And yeah I looked vary carefully at the whole 'kill or knock out' thing to see where Blizz had went with it, because my lass had issues with it too.

Arve,
pointy alt.

[Lysi]

I posted this thread for the technical question. And it sounds like that issue is resolved, it's not doable unless they change pet battles. I thought it would be an interesting challenge, oh well. No biggie.

As for the killing pets in pet battles debate, it's come up before in a few threads. Personally I'm happy to agree to disagree, don't want to keep rehashing it. Here are a couple of the threads
http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=547
http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=373

[Equeon]

Honestly, unless your character is level 1, or one of those few people that got to max level simply by exploring and gathering, you can't say that pet battles is any worse than what you yourself have done.

In real life, animal fights are terrible things: but we don't have resurrection spells that heal them 100%. Also, in real life animals are not just models with programmed animations and sounds. If you're so uptight about pets fighting each other, don't do it: and miss out on all of the battle pets that you can get.