Flawless Battle-stone

[Ironwolfe]

First let me begin by informing you that I'm new to battle pets; so I've a lot to learn.

I've a question about Flawless Battle-Stone

Does it make the pet the exact same as the pet would be if you captured it as a rare?

what I mean is, do the stats etc, upgrade to exactly as those on the rare pet you caught?

[Dolz]

Yep, it makes the pet the same as if you had caught a rare with those characteristics. You might want to hold on to your stones for some of the harder to find pets like the Giraffe Calf, Unborn Val'kyr, and of course the infuriating Minfernal.

By the way, welcome and the folks here are glad to help out.

[Pettea]

Breeds matter a lot, you may want to read up on them if you're new.

[Ironwolfe]

Thanks for your responses, I was worried that it only changed the pet name from green to blue and kept the stats as they were.

I have been checking the breed section and I have a basic understanding of it now, but I still don't understand which is best to have, H/B, P/B, S/B or B/B... I'm thinking the H/P would probably be best overall, and I'm not sure about the value of the B/B... I guess it will all come together with more battle experience, but I'd like to maximize my 3 pet slots if you know what I mean.

Thanks again for the responses and the kind welcome.

[Peanutty]

While breeds are important, they aren't going to make or break your pet battle experience for the most part, unless you plan on doing PVP or are following very precise PVE strategies. But if you're still really unsure about breeds, I would hold off on stoning things that come in multiple breeds until you feel more comfortable with the whole breed thing (much of that will come with experience).

As a general rule you should save stones for vendor/drop type pets and very rare wild caught pets (i.e. Minfernal), as most wild pets can be caught rare with enough luck and patience. If a vendored pet comes in only 1 breed that eliminates the question of "Did I choose to stone the right one?" so it makes the stoning decision much easier.

If you have a couple of pets you're considering stoning right now, you can post what you've got and maybe the folks on the forum will be able to help you make a few decisions to get you going.

[Maizing]

Different pets have different "best" breeds. There are even some pets that have more than one "best" breed. The [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] actually has more than 3 "best" breeds. Which breed is "best" depends on what abilities the pet has and what you want to do with it.

I have at least one pet that I have gone out of my way to get as a B/B breed (usually considered the "worst" breed) because the other breed that pet comes in wasn't cutting it on the battles I was using it for.

[Pettea]

Different pets have different "best" breeds. There are even some pets that have more than one "best" breed. The [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] actually has more than 3 "best" breeds. Which breed is "best" depends on what abilities the pet has and what you want to do with it.

I have at least one pet that I have gone out of my way to get as a B/B breed (usually considered the "worst" breed) because the other breed that pet comes in wasn't cutting it on the battles I was using it for.

If only Blizzard allowed us to have more pets, you'd maybe see more variety in PvP

[Ironwolfe]

Msg me in game when ready to get any & all info on battlepets....I am on Trollbane....

Welcome and get ready to have to most fun ever!!

Thank you so much for the very warm welcome and though I'd really and truly love to have someone to bend my ear on this subject, my pets are all on Dalaran, and I guess this is the true noob in me, but I don't know how to message people in-game that are on a different server.

[Tekulve2012]

Hiya
Welcome to the pet collecting craze!

I suggest auctioning the flawless stone if you need gold. The prices are still high despite WoD changes.
The gold you make can be used to buy pets to further yourself along. People might level pets you'll need for 1k per pet or so

The pet menagerie level 3 gives pet charms that will supply the same thing (approx. 2 stones per 3 days of daily battles in garrison)

The undermine journal website can show you what the flawless stone goes for approx.

Good luck with it all
Tekulve

[Ironwolfe]

While breeds are important, ... (much of that will come with experience).

As a general rule you should save stones for vendor/drop type pets and very rare wild caught pets (i.e. Minfernal), as most wild pets can be caught rare with enough luck and patience. If a vendored pet comes in only 1 breed that eliminates the question of "Did I choose to stone the right one?" so it makes the stoning decision much easier.

If you have a couple of pets you're considering stoning right now, you can post what you've got and maybe the folks on the forum will be able to help you make a few decisions to get you going.

Thanks so much, this is exactly what I have been thinking, well, that and the fact that I've only just yesterday started receiving a stone now and then, and I haven't wanted to waste the handful that I have.

I'm more than willing to wait or farm for hours to get a rare or two; usually until I have 2 or 3; the 6 hours waiting for the Emerald Proto-Whelp will bare witness to that! haha, and though about a dozen spawned almost at the same time, I only managed to get one rare, the rest, but 1, were all poor quality, and all of the same breed as the rare I had won on the first battle!

I was thinking about the Unborn Val'kyr (uncommon H/H) that I won yesterday (still trying to get the B/B), and a few others I've gotten (I wish I had a Minfernal!). You can see from my collection that over 50% are rare, the rest are all uncommon that are either from vendors, drops or quests, and the handful that I won, (in ignorance), in my first pet battles.

I definitely will use this forum for all of your assistance with any of my pet questions; I'm honestly extremely and pleasantly surprised with the friendly and positive responses all of you have given to me here.

[Ironwolfe]

Different pets have different "best" breeds. There are even some pets that have more than one "best" breed. The [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] actually has more than 3 "best" breeds. Which breed is "best" depends on what abilities the pet has and what you want to do with it.

Thank you Maizing, that is very good to hear, I've been trying to keep 2 or 3 of different breeds because I thought that through battling I'd know which I liked best.... It's like my Cat (P/S) that I won outside of Stormwind, I still love it's battling ability, but from my battling yesterday in Northrend, I would love to tweak it's stats a bit; so I'll be getting more of it in different breeds to discover which is best for different scenarios.
Right now I've been trying to only keep the variation breeds (P/S, P/H, etc) and have only kept the balanced when I can't get any of the others; from your words, that will change.

[Ironwolfe]

I suggest auctioning the flawless stone if you need gold. The prices are still high despite WoD changes.
The gold you make can be used to buy pets to further yourself along. People might level pets you'll need for 1k per pet or so

The pet menagerie level 3 gives pet charms that will supply the same thing (approx. 2 stones per 3 days of daily battles in garrison)

Thanks so much Tekulve... it's funny that you mention the pet menagerie, this is what got me to start thinking about breeds, pet types, etc, as the only 3 pets I had at level 25 (to be honest they were only level 21 at the time) were my Cat, Stinker and Mechanical Axebeak... they lost dismally. So I hurried to get them all to level 25 thinking that they'd be awesome, because I've thought they've been awesome since level 1... again we tried but they lost to those 2 boars as though they were children against real warriors. Okay, perhaps not that badly, but I could see almost from the beginning that they'd not be winning the match, we didn't come close to bringing the first one down.
I know it's my inexperience with pet battles, and I will be improving! But from this I know that I need to understand not just my pets, but those that I'm battling, and make sure I have the right combination ready for each battle.
So as soon as I can start winning those pet menagerie dailies I'll be able to follow your advice, to which I again thank you for sharing with me.

[Tekulve2012]

I will give you a pandaren water spirit..I'll level it to 24 so you can add to achieves for leveling..I'll also give a lvl 24 chrominius..this way you can howl bomb -a strategy you've likely heard of

Valk-CoD/haunt
PwS- geyser/whirlpool
Chrominius-howl(bomb goes off)..and surge of power if needed

This combo(even with the call not at 25).. Can beat any daily pretty much

Just add me and I'll get the pets to you

Kingsfoiler#1479

Tekulve

[Ironwolfe]

I will give you a pandaren water spirit..I'll level it to 24 so you can add to achieves for leveling..I'll also give a lvl 24 chrominius..this way you can howl bomb -a strategy you've likely heard of...

Thank you so very much for such an extremely kind offer, and advice too!

Thank you so much Tekulve, you're very kind.

[Peanutty]

I was thinking about the Unborn Val'kyr (uncommon H/H) that I won yesterday (still trying to get the B/B), and a few others I've gotten (I wish I had a Minfernal!). You can see from my collection that over 50% are rare, the rest are all uncommon that are either from vendors, drops or quests, and the handful that I won, (in ignorance), in my first pet battles.

The Val'kyr is a good example of a wild pet that I would stone (best breed is debatable... I have a H/H myself), as it's hard to find due to limited spawns and also useful in the "howl bomb" strategy that Tekleve mentions. Otherwise it does sound like you have some patience when it comes to getting wild pets so if you think you can handle it, you can be super picky and aim for catching rare quality specific breeds.

I suggest auctioning the flawless stone if you need gold. The prices are still high despite WoD changes.
The gold you make can be used to buy pets to further yourself along.

This is good advice, depending on the server of course. The BoE stones can still sell for decent amounts and you could sell your stone, then turn around and buy a couple of rare quality, pre-leveled pets from the AH. It might be a better investment in the long run as you can get general BoA stones via menagerie, and family specific BoA stones from Pandaren and "end game" tamers bags (Winterspring, Deadwind Pass, old Shadowmoon Valley, Icecrown, Uldum).

[Jerebear]

Different pets have different "best" breeds. There are even some pets that have more than one "best" breed. The [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] actually has more than 3 "best" breeds. Which breed is "best" depends on what abilities the pet has and what you want to do with it.

I have at least one pet that I have gone out of my way to get as a B/B breed (usually considered the "worst" breed) because the other breed that pet comes in wasn't cutting it on the battles I was using it for.

I just want to add to this: Your opponents also sometimes dictate which breed is the best. Take the [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] mentioned above. For most uses, you will often see people say s/s is the best breed because it makes better use of kick and blitz when you are faster than your opponent. However, if P/S is faster than your opponent, then it is technically better than S/S for "that" opponent. S/S is just the fastest version so it makes sense to get that to cover a wide variety of opponents that you may not know the speeds of.

The Val'kyr is a good example of a wild pet that I would stone (best breed is debatable... I have a H/H myself),

Kind of a side discussion, but I've been thinking about this and for PvP I wonder if H/H will be accepted as the best now (B/B was for the speed advantage by a lot of people...excluding me). But now since Haunt misses while under the Undead Racial buff (so the round you "die" and the round you come back for), having more health seems like a better thing to get more possible use out of Haunt. For PvE it still just depends on the opponent. Thoughts?

[Ironwolfe]

The Val'kyr is a good example of a wild pet that I would stone (best breed is debatable... I have a H/H myself), as it's hard to find due to limited spawns and also useful in the "howl bomb" strategy that Tekleve mentions. Otherwise it does sound like you have some patience when it comes to getting wild pets so if you think you can handle it, you can be super picky and aim for catching rare quality specific breeds.

Well, I did end up stoning the Val'kyr and I'm glad I did, but it doesn't mean that I've given up trying to get another one but B/B this time. and yes, I do have the patience for it.

This is good advice, depending on the server of course. The BoE stones can still sell for decent amounts and you could sell your stone, then turn around and buy a couple of rare quality, pre-leveled pets from the AH. It might be a better investment in the long run as you can get general BoA stones via menagerie, and family specific BoA stones from Pandaren and "end game" tamers bags (Winterspring, Deadwind Pass, old Shadowmoon Valley, Icecrown, Uldum).

Thanks for the additional information about this. I'll check my server AH pricing on the stone and on some pets; if I see that it going to work for me, then that's what I'll do. I also appreciate you mentioning the Pandaren and End Game tamer bags, I wasn't aware of them.

I really am new to all of this and you all have been really wonderfully helpful; Tekleve even talked me through my first Draenor Harrison Ellis match, which took me 3 attempts, and though my Val'kyr was only level 19, I blame myself, not my pets, as I didn't give them the support they needed. I can say however, that after that they did their first pet battle in my garrison and they took down the carrots in admirable fashion!

[Ironwolfe]

I just want to add to this: Your opponents also sometimes dictate which breed is the best. Take the [pet]Flayer Youngling[/pet] mentioned above. For most uses, you will often see people say s/s is the best breed because it makes better use of kick and blitz when you are faster than your opponent. However, if P/S is faster than your opponent, then it is technically better than S/S for "that" opponent. S/S is just the fastest version so it makes sense to get that to cover a wide variety of opponents that you may not know the speeds of.

Yes, I see what you mean. My Cat is a P/S, and the times he hasn't been the fastest are only about 30% (maybe less) of the time, otherwise having his extra power has finished the fight quickly as I will take some risks with him.

Kind of a side discussion, but I've been thinking about this and for PvP I wonder if H/H will be accepted as the best now (B/B was for the speed advantage by a lot of people...excluding me). But now since Haunt misses while under the Undead Racial buff (so the round you "die" and the round you come back for), having more health seems like a better thing to get more possible use out of Haunt. For PvE it still just depends on the opponent. Thoughts?

I sort of get what you mean on this one... my first battle with the Val'kyr (remember level 19) I felt if she had a bit more health we may have had a better chance of it... I'll be able give a more informed opinion after I've fought more battles; but I do appreciate you opening my thoughts to this.

[Tekulve2012]

You really seem to be doing things right!

If collecting wild pets matters to you..rather than backtrack for rares later, just grab them as you level a toon through a zone..some people have differing opinions on this approach but I didn't enjoy re-hunting for rares..even as a druid

Pandaria tamer dailies will generate 1 to 2 stones per day but always get your pet charms and Erris battle xp and stones to help level your squad

Nice meeting you in game..keep on improving your collection ..its evident that you like your pets
Tekulve