What are must have pets to be lvled?

[Gráinne]

About rabbits, I think we can agree that a rabbit with the standard moveset of Dodge/Burrow needs to be faster that its opposition, but ideally should be just a little faster.

A rabbit that is slower than its opponent is toast (Welsh rabbit? )

A rabbit that is much faster could have put those stat points into Power or Speed instead.

I was thinking about this, when it occurred to me that rabbits aren't really big as a beginner's pet. I remember being told of my Spring Rabbit when I began that it would serve me well. And it did - eventually. But rabbits are fiddly for a beginner. You need to time them with your opponent's moves, and it took me a long time to get my head around Dodge. There was a Thundering Spirit strat for a rabbit I used for a short while, that I always had to look up move by move every time. When I found other strats, I was delighted to abandon it.

With this in mind, and that rabbits aren't needed for any tamer battles, I could see the point in a 305-ish speed rabbit for a beginner.

Good point about the Mudshell Conch, Paladance. Same stats as Shimmershell, but you can pick them up in Highmountain at high level.

[Paladance]

Actually, a rabbit can be seen occasionally against Yu'la, but I believe that it's a matter of a 2 rounds of evasion rather than anything else, what is covered by plenty of other beings.

Just by the way, an aquatic, tempered down version is an S/S [pet]Slithershock Elver[/pet]. However, with no attack such as [ability]Tongue Lash[/ability], and with a fact it has so many breeds, I can see why it's far from popular. Still, there aren't many fast pets with [ability]Clobber[/ability], are they?

I've mentioned Benax, but apparently its speed is slower than average, so even undead pets (like Epic+) can be too fast for a Tongue Lash. But that reminded me about a certain question not discussed yet, as far as I know.

Before 7.0, one always wanted an undead pet to be slow, because being slower gives two rounds of invulnerability to soak damage. But now, with a res sickness, could the demand be opposite?
I think it depends of a planned purpose -- either DPR/[ability]Haunt[/ability] (fast) or meatshielding [spiritshielding?] (slow), but no longer both. But is it enough to formulate a rule of thumb?
(…[pet]Widget the Departed[/pet]?)

[Peanutty]

But rabbits are fiddly for a beginner. You need to time them with your opponent's moves, and it took me a long time to get my head around Dodge. There was a Thundering Spirit strat for a rabbit I used for a short while, that I always had to look up move by move every time. When I found other strats, I was delighted to abandon it.

With this in mind, and that rabbits aren't needed for any tamer battles, I could see the point in a 305-ish speed rabbit for a beginner.

I guess I'd agree that rabbits are more an intermediate or advanced pet. They're not essential but for certain battles they're very handy. I would not have been able to do the critter-only Family Familiar achieve (which is not a beginner's achieve) without a good stable of rabbits.

The Thundering Spirit strat with a 305 speed rabbit has a bit of a learning curve (as you noted, the first few times you need to look up what to do and when) but it's a very well thought out set up for carrying a lvl 1 pet. Barring some horrendous RNG, it's pretty failsafe, as once you get to rabbit vs. the mole (forgot the name), the rabbit WILL NOT take a single tick of damage, period, if you execute correctly.

I know I've gotten way off the original topic by now, sorry to OP! I will add that most of the pets folks have mentioned on this thread are pretty good pets for a beginner to have leveled. A few others that I hadn't seen listed (pls excuse if I happened to miss them) that I personally like, if you're not quite a beginner but still filling in your stable of 25s:

- a water strider (P/S Eternal Strider and H/S Mirror Strider are ones I use a lot)
- Frostfur Rat (other than rabbits, the only critter I really like using - Call Darkness combines perfectly with Sneak Attack, you can choose the breed that best suits you)
- Servant of Demidos (crit machine, absolutely demolishes flyers)

[Edmuir]

Love this board and great discussion going on here to help us newbs along.

I just wanted to echo the earlier comments on the S/S Grasslands Cottontail. If you're new like me (and not an alt) it's likely that your pet collection is still "developing" (to put it kindly). He gives you a great shot at certain early/old content tamers and is basically free with only a little effort. I've used him to great success in a 2-pet team vs Major Payne so I suspect as I pursue more and more pet achievements, the oft-maligned Grasslands is going to be a nice niche pet.

Regarding the Must Have Pets, is the Infinite Whelpling still considered to be worth nabbing? I'm given to understand that it received a nerf, but I'm too new to really understand the consequences. Your thoughts?

[Darkchyld]

Infinite whelpling is used in two 2-pet strats, Cymre and Jeremy Feasel. Outside of that I'm not sure it has much use so I'll say it's not a must-level type pet.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

I got to admit, that it is interesting to see these suggestions all over the place as to which pets need to be level'd.

The folks involved in the Pet Battles code, seem to be reading these things some, and it's funny to notice a few things ... in Legion ... a fight where the Rabbits rule, a fight where the Whelks rule, a fight where the Zandalari's rule, a fight where the ... rule ... and so on.

In essence, for their strategy to work, and someone being able to use all classes against anything, means that you have to adjust and tone some pets so they are a bit more useful and able to handle bigger fights.

Before Legion, I don't think that many of us used Rats, Rabbits, and in general Critters and Beasts, since they take too much damage and are at the bottom of the list in choices, for other pets that are obviously stronger and have a wider variety of capabilities than the vanila style of some of these.

Surprisingly enough, Rabbits, Rats, Snakes and some of the Critters and Beasts are not as easy to level from 1 to 10, although it is obvious that something has changed, since now, your RARE pet from 1 to about 6 rarely loses a fight, though there is always a Blue Chipper that shows up that hands you your ego on a platter, just when you think that you know what you are doing ... that Spiny critter in a Blue/Green form loves to eat up your pets and you have to split the fight.

All in all, I think this is becoming a sort of ... you got to know your pets and what you can use them for (I do not know enough about PvP to comment on that segment, btw) ... and of all of my pets, I would say that I have used a good and very large percentage of them many times, though my PL'ing pair used to be Anubisath and a bomb in the back with a low level, is now Teroclaw and a bomb with a low level, but on occasion, you see a fight in Val'sharah that is not a bunny, or another Calf, and guess what ... your mouse stampede or bunny dive, just got really big ... and you don't need a bomb!

I say, level all of them, and just select, via suggestion from this site (for example) the best breed for each, so you know how and when to use it, and the rest falls into place soon enough. I kinda think that if I ask for a suggestion, there are a lot of folks that think differently, and with knowing your pets, you will know which one is the one that you are more comfortable with in its use, and not think that is the last pairing that you will always use ... because too many things change in time, that will cause these pairings to get swapped in and out.

[Wargurl83]

Thank you for this!

[FuxieDK]

Infinite whelpling is used in two 2-pet strats, Cymre and Jeremy Feasel. Outside of that I'm not sure it has much use so I'll say it's not a must-level type pet.

I'm not using Infinite Whelp for any of the Feasels... Haven't seen strats using them... Maybe I got them on farm, before IW was even added in the game??

But for Cymre, it's pretty much a requirement...