About to have my first 25 pet... now what? (LF Advice!)

[Ist]

Greetings all, I just recently got into the pet game and it is... interesting, to say the least.

As my slightly-tongue-in-cheek title suggests, I am about to have leveled my first set of pets to 25 (Harpy Youngling and Chrominius, with the Terrible Turnip not too far behind). I have completed all of the Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms quests and am about to finish the Outlands series, but after that I am a bit stuck.

I have noticed battles are becoming more and more difficult as I stubbornly try to force wins through using the pets I have leveled. I have poked around the guides on this site pretty extensively and noticed a (slightly disturbing) trend of specific pets being "necessary" for specific trainers. Not so much in WotLK where I am about to head, but definitely in Mists - which has brought me to making this post.

Once I get my trio of fearless beasties to 25, and completed the Outland trainer series, should I pause on the questing aspect and just start grinding additional pets to 25? If so, should I grind said levels in WotLK (where I typically would head next due to the trainer quests), or head right to WoD and level there?

I realize that guides are looking for the "optimal" way to do things, but one of the aspects of old Pokemon games I enjoyed (and led me to try pet battles in the first place) was the ability to craft your own team and just make it work. Assuming I at least try to match strong vs weak types, how much flexibility is there in team creation once I get toward the tougher tamers in Mists and WoD? Do I have to follow the cookie-cutter teams laid out if I want to avoid hair-pulling-frustration, or can pets like Eggbert, Chuck, and my Wolpertinger have their day in the sun?

I am sure to have follow-up questions, but thanks for reading this ramble thus far and providing any advice you can!

[Kpb321]

It is entirely possible to come up with teams for all the trainers yourself and they can all be beaten by a variety of different teams using different strategies but you are getting to the point where most people get stuck on the trainers. Before Wrath you can pretty much get by with any three pets because if nothing else you can get a couple levels on them and overcome most any weakness in your team. Once you start facing equal level pets you need better plans or better match ups to be successful.

I'd strongly recommend taking a look at the following guides. Once you've got your first level 25 team the quickest way to get more pets to 25 outside of buying them on the AH is to carry a pet for the trainers.

http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4580

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15353775980

Either one of these will get you started on that quickly. Neither is going to be the fastest or best team to carry a pet for all the fights but it's a good way to start getting those other level 25 pets so you can try your own teams and come up with your own strategies.

A number of the menagerie dailies are also good options for carrying pets so that is another area to look at.

An Awfully Big Adventure and the Celestial Tournament are probably your two biggest challenges for figuring out your own teams, if you want to do that, but you need to have some already leveled pets to use on those teams.

[Peanutty]

The guides are just that... guides. There's nothing that says you can't come up with creative strategies that will allow your current team to advance through the quest chain. Yes, you will probably reach some point where you discover that you really need to swap something in or out to continue on, but by then your main team should be max level and you'll probably have captured some decent wild pets along the way to help round out your stable and help you progress.

I got by with a very badly thought out team (3x Mechanical!) when I first started out - that team took me from the starter quests all the way through the end of the Northrend chain. It was only after those pets finally hit 25 in Pandaria that I started branching out and trying different pets.

[Taerie]

The guides are just that... guides. There's nothing that says you can't come up with creative strategies that will allow your current team to advance through the quest chain. Yes, you will probably reach some point where you discover that you really need to swap something in or out to continue on, but by then your main team should be max level and you'll probably have captured some decent wild pets along the way to help round out your stable and help you progress.

I got by with a very badly thought out team (3x Mechanical!) when I first started out - that team took me from the starter quests all the way through the end of the Northrend chain. It was only after those pets finally hit 25 in Pandaria that I started branching out and trying different pets.

Oh man‚ that reminds me of my experience starting out. I got all the way through Aki the Chosen with an am men vale lashling‚ molten hatchling and an aqua strider a probably the worst team ever- but I didn't know any better.
I did win though- so I guess this is my round about way of saying to the op that no‚ you don't necessarily need a cookie cutter team to do well- but it'll make your experience less of a head ache. A lot of the guides and comments on wow head now are geared towards doing things super efficiently or with a certain team because of the plushie achieve where you have to beat all the tamers with two pets essentially. Plus pet battlers like to do things better‚ faster‚ smarter etc.
It wouldn't hurt you to train new pets- you'll need a robust team for the celestial tournament anyhow. The tournament is pretty much the place where pet team flexibility goes to die. There's a guide for beating the tourny with 18 pets (just Google that phrase) so it wouldn't hurt to start leveling some of the more popular utility pets listed there. Idk how you're leveling your pets but definitely don't just battle pets in the wild- look into speed leveling guides by taking a carry pet on the master tamer dailies.

[Ist]

Thanks for the rapid responses all!!!

It is reassuring to hear flexibility exists (minus the Celestial tournament, and I know exactly the guide you're talking about).

In the guide you linked Kpb321, it looks like it levels solely through those trainer encounters. Can you run them multiple times per day, or is there a good supplemental "wild" grinding spot I can use to compliment the tamer dailies?

[Jerebear]

Thanks for the rapid responses all!!!
It is reassuring to hear flexibility exists (minus the Celestial tournament, and I know exactly the guide you're talking about).

As a note, the Celestial tournament also has a lot of flexibility. It is tougher, so more RNG teams tend to stick out more there, but there exists tons of teams for each tamer and celestial that work well. The Celestial Tournament tries to force you to have a larger stable to achieve it (Rotating Undercard Tamers, no Healing/Revive Cooldown, more difficult tamers). It doesn't always win that battle, but it tries. None of the fights in the CT are so hard that there isn't any flexibility though and every fight has multiple stable teams that can beat it.

[Kpb321]

Short answer is it is once per account wide daily. That focus is because those fights have an exp multiplier that makes them reward much more experience and they are fixed so you can optimize your team and strategy do be quicker.

More than you probably ever wanted to know about pet battle exp:

http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8829

Longer answer.

The Pandara elementals could be run repeatedly until you turned in the first one time quests to get the daily versions and the fights in your garrison from the Menagerie can be done unlimited times. I've also read that you can visit someone else's Garrison and fight using their Menagerie. Today's Menagerie team happens to be one of the teams that is good for pet leveling but there are a couple and they come around regularly.

If you want to grind wild pets there are a number of options.

Any number of places in the vale are a good option because they only have Flying and aquatic pets making it easy to build a team that counters them.
Many people liked the area NW of HalfHill in Valley of the four winds as it was safe for low level alts and predominantly aquatic/critter pets.
The Veiled Stair has teams of only critters which makes for good grinding.
Several of the Beasts of Fable have groups of battle pets surrounding them which aren't a bad option.
I'm sure there are other places in WoD too. Generally the ideal spot has plenty of battle pets with minimal variety of families making it easy to counter.

[Jerebear]

In the guide you linked Kpb321, it looks like it levels solely through those trainer encounters. Can you run them multiple times per day, or is there a good supplemental "wild" grinding spot I can use to compliment the tamer dailies?

EDIT: Kpb321 beat me to it!

For wild battles, some of the best places I have found:
Frostfire Ridge (yes Alliance can go there too) Icespine Hatchling packs...very dense.
Shadowmoon Valley moonshell crab packs...not as many as the Icespine from Frostfire Ridge, but a good spot none the less
Pandaria: Farm in VotFW, Western VoEB, areas around some of the Beasts of Fable can be really good.

Keep in mind that tamers get a multiplicative bonus that wild pets do not. MoP tamers (and most of WoD tamers) get 5x more EXP per battle than a level 25 wild pet enemy team would net you. Wrath and Cataclysm tamers give 3x more EXP per battle than level 25 wild pets. All of the 3 pet menagerie battles give 3x more (The post is considered a "tamer"). All of the 2 pet menagerie battles give 2.4x more EXP than level 25 wild pet battles. Single pet battles (except for Little Tommy Knocker) give very litte EXP though, so avoid those.

[Kpb321]

Thanks for the rapid responses all!!!
It is reassuring to hear flexibility exists (minus the Celestial tournament, and I know exactly the guide you're talking about).

As a note, the Celestial tournament also has a lot of flexibility. It is tougher, so more RNG teams tend to stick out more there, but there exists tons of teams for each tamer and celestial that work well. The Celestial Tournament tries to force you to have a larger stable to achieve it (Rotating Undercard Tamers, no Healing/Revive Cooldown, more difficult tamers). It doesn't always win that battle, but it tries. None of the fights in the CT are so hard that there isn't any flexibility though and every fight has multiple stable teams that can beat it.

I agree the CT is very flexible. In some ways it does punish it (not being able to heal and potentially having to restart) but I believe that also encourages it. If you could heal between fights you'd see a lot more people just saying use Chromi and Water spirit to bomb all the celestials. With the limit on healing that doesn't work as well. I tried a lot of different teams when writing my CT guide and came up with some interesting strategies and read many others.

[Peanutty]

When starting out the easiest way to level your team of pets is through a combo of wild battles and tamer battles (once per day, except menagerie, as noted). The wild battles don't give as much XP but you can grind them endlessly, and they have the additional bonus of possibly netting you some new pets that are already a decently high level and rarity.

The CT is a little more flexible than some might think. Most of the teams I used are different than what you find listed in guides, because they worked okay enough that I saw no reason to change them. It really is the inability to just heal up everything at the push of a button and the fact that you do need a stable of a decent size that makes it a challenge.

[Elfuego]

Hey mate, saw you were looking for some guidance for the more challenging Grand Masters and Tournaments even! Heres a few resources to guide you!

First, go thru the leveling experience. There are so many different ways to get to the end game. DO what works for you. Heres a guide to the initial 1-25 Horde and Alliance side leveling : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/powerleveling.html

Once you have your first 25s, then you have to decide what you want to do IE: Grand masters? Celestial Tournament? Pet Menagerie? Once you make that choice, you can start. Heres the order they came in: Grand Masters MOP : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/grand_masters_main.html then Beasts of Fable MOP: http://www.wowpetbattle.com/beastsoffable.html then it was the Celestial Tournament : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/celestialtournament.html

From there, WOD added the 6 Grand Masters: http://www.wowpetbattle.com/warlords.html The Scrapping Dailies: http://www.wowpetbattle.com/menagerie.html and an achievement called An Awfully Big Adventure : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/plushie.html

In between, you have the Dark Moon Faire : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/darkmoonfaire2.html

As for starting out, Id say get a list of all the pets your going to find most useful and reoccur in fights : http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8050&p=62046#p62046

Then all you need to do is pick a place to power level them, the easiest is in Pandaria here : http://www.wowpetbattle.com/speedleveling.html Located in Mistfall Village easiest done with 2 fliers strong against aquatics like the DMF Crow or Gilnean Raven. Heres a Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ycGnWyngao Or you can go to Gromgar and circle the Devils Tower thing near Gargra here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfhLLFJZ8xA

As for forum help, Seek [profile]Jerebear[/profile], [profile]Chibimage[/profile], or myself [profile]Elfuego[/profile]. Were all here to help!

I hope it helps!

[profile]Elfuego[/profile],
http://www.wowpetbattle.com
GET OWNED!!

[Ist]

Thanks again all. I think I have a solid idea of what to do (and both who and how to level!) next, and it is truly appreciated.

This is a pretty amazing community eh? I'm sure that is nothing you did not already know though

[Rendigar]

They are at that, and it's all the same advice I'd have given as well. However, just to let you know that stubborness can get you even farther - I was too stubborn to level other pets and beat everything prior to the Timeless Isle with only 4 level 25 pets (granted one was Ragnaros and he hits like a truck). Even changing around the order you use your pets, or switching between them, or altering their move sets can get you thru fights your "stock" setup fails at. You just have to be stubborn enough. Definitely having a team management add-on like Rematch or Pet Battle Teams can make this even easier.

[Awq]

Once I get my trio of fearless beasties to 25, and completed the Outland trainer series, should I pause on the questing aspect and just start grinding additional pets to 25? If so, should I grind said levels in WotLK (where I typically would head next due to the trainer quests), or head right to WoD and level there?

I realize that guides are looking for the "optimal" way to do things, but one of the aspects of old Pokemon games I enjoyed (and led me to try pet battles in the first place) was the ability to craft your own team and just make it work. Assuming I at least try to match strong vs weak types, how much flexibility is there in team creation once I get toward the tougher tamers in Mists and WoD? Do I have to follow the cookie-cutter teams laid out if I want to avoid hair-pulling-frustration, or can pets like Eggbert, Chuck, and my Wolpertinger have their day in the sun?

There is no reason to optimize. While the information is tempting, you probably won't need it. People 2vs3 everything. There are quite a lot of pet combos that can 2vs3 most trainers. You can easily 3vs3, and use non-optimal pets.

There are no necessary pets, I can guarantee you that! There are some pets that are insanely good in a fight, or a pet that is good in a lot of fights. But like I said, you do not need pet X for fight Y. There generally are dozens of solutions to solve the puzzle.
Sure you might find a few roadblocks along the way, but that's the fun of it! "This marmot that I've caught might be useful. The opponent does Elemental damage and it stuns".

There is no need to rush and grind many pets, at least not at the point in the game where you are at. But then again, pet battles is only a sub-part of Warcraft, and you might rush through the content quite quickly (especially when you are following guides).

Somewhat related:
Chuck is amazing! Eggbert is not so good. Wolpertinger is a RNG pet.