up to date pet battle advice!?

[Ash_knacksum]

As a new WoW player and new Pet Battler, I have noticed the lack of up to date info on pet battling online. I get that the new update came out, but people are still thinking howl bomb is a thing and spending loads on water spirits, plus the AH house price has yet to adjust.. is this pet still good after the nerf or not? I bought one without even knowing the info was now out of date.. just lucky I love those little guys.. I feel the price should be less if he no longer can do what made him cost so much compared the other basic ones... anyway this isn't really to talk about that, I am looking for more current advice on team building, what combos work and stuff like that. I have a a fair few decent pets so can make stuff work.

Have been looking for a coupe of days now and cannot find anything other than 7.0 changes that is actually up to date info.

Is it just a case that people want to write up the new pets so holding off our something? I understand how a meta works so get it can take time, but surely people have adapted to lack of howl bomb and things like that by now!?

It would just be cool to have more of an idea on what are good teams, which pets work together better so I'm not ending up with a bunch of miss match pets.

Thanks for reading anyway, and hope someone can point me in the direction of up to date info.

[Gráinne]

For PvE, nothing significant has changed except for Howlbomb.

Aranesh keeps his site very up-to-date with the high-level strategies: http://www.wow-petguide.com

Wowhead comments for lower level tamers will still apply, but they're not hard until you come to the last in Outland. And Wowhead comments that don't use Howlbomb - and nobody bothered to use Howlbomb on lower level tamers anyway - should still be as good as they ever were.

I see you don't have a level 25 yet.

Your current agenda, then, will be to work your way up the "Taming" achievements - Taming Kalimdor, Taming Outland, and so on.

You can cheese your way to a "free" level 25 if you upgrade your Warlords garrison to Level 3, and do the quest Unearthed Magic
http://www.wowhead.com/quest=38242/unearthed-magic
which will give you a stone that will boost one pet to level 25, and then you can use that to boost other pets. Or you can continue levelling normally.

Here's a post I wrote with advice to another beginning battler about starting pets, and, again apart from Howlbomb, it still applies: http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/f ... =3&t=15669

[Ash_knacksum]

ok, thank you. I used a stone on my main, but I put it in a cage without knowing what that meant, so now I have to level another 25 to get it back. I do have about 7 or 8 other crates with good 25 pets in as well so I could either rush my crominius or just keep leveling 3 pets for each trainer so I have a whole bunch getting leveled at once.... probably will take a while though.

what you think the best course of action would be?

I have 2 others with garrisons, but the menagerie is not leveled up for them so can't get the stones yet.. will I need some leveled up pets first? (I got my first 1 doing a 60-100 boost and already got my garrison leveled up to a point!)

thanks for the links as well, will check them out.

[Gráinne]

You don't need to have levelled your menagerie to get the Unearthed Magic quest - you just need the Garrison to be level 3. It does still cost 5K to do that though. ;(

You can't really just level one pet. No one pet will beat all the trainers at level. If you're levelling a team of three, from what you have, I'd suggest [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet], [pet]Chrominius[/pet] and, ... um, you have several good possiblities for the third slot - [pet]Dread Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling[/pet] (which I see you have as Blue quality), [pet]Teroclaw Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet].

At level, that team would do nicely for most tamers. For a couple of tamers - Antari, Major Payne - you might have to bring in a ringer at level, or overlevel your team a bit, to get past them.

[Ash_knacksum]

You don't need to have levelled your menagerie to get the Unearthed Magic quest - you just need the Garrison to be level 3. It does still cost 5K to do that though. ;(

You can't really just level one pet. No one pet will beat all the trainers at level. If you're levelling a team of three, from what you have, I'd suggest [pet]Anubisath Idol[/pet], [pet]Chrominius[/pet] and, ... um, you have several good possiblities for the third slot - [pet]Dread Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling[/pet] (which I see you have as Blue quality), [pet]Teroclaw Hatchling[/pet], [pet]Clockwork Gnome[/pet].

At level, that team would do nicely for most tamers. For a couple of tamers - Antari, Major Payne - you might have to bring in a ringer at level, or overlevel your team a bit, to get past them.

thanks... I have stuff like gilnean raven and mechanical yeti as well, but they are caged 25's.. I was only going to rush leveling one in the wild so I could access my boxed 25's really as well!

[Gráinne]

OK, so you want to get one 25 ASAP. You will find that wild levelling gets much, MUCH slower as you get to higher levels.

So skipping a set of levels is a really good idea.

This method became obsolete when Blizzard gave the free 25, but it still works, and it's vastly faster than raw wild battles. You skip from level 14-ish to 22 in a few battles, and that's a huge jump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ihzt0kh6JA

Basically, pick up a couple of level 4-6 crabs.

Fly off to Badlands where you can use them to beat level 14 critters.

When you have captured a couple of level 14-16 crabs, fly to Valley, where you can beat the Critters and capture a 23.

Now go to the Briny Muck and serve your inevitable hour or two looking for the Blue P/P Emperor Crab you'll have to catch anyway someday (so you might as well get some XP out of the search).

In your case, your Chrominius will let you skip straight to the Badlands step.

[Ash_knacksum]

OK, so you want to get one 25 ASAP. You will find that wild levelling gets much, MUCH slower as you get to higher levels.

So skipping a set of levels is a really good idea.

This method became obsolete when Blizzard gave the free 25, but it still works, and it's vastly faster than raw wild battles. You skip from level 14-ish to 22 in a few battles, and that's a huge jump.



Basically, pick up a couple of level 4-6 crabs.

Fly off to Badlands where you can use them to beat level 14 critters.

When you have captured a couple of level 14-16 crabs, fly to Valley, where you can beat the Critters and capture a 23.

Now go to the Briny Muck and serve your inevitable hour or two looking for the Blue P/P Emperor Crab you'll have to catch anyway someday (so you might as well get some XP out of the search).

In your case, your Chrominius will let you skip straight to the Badlands step.

blood in the water.. say no more.. ha ha.. I need some emperor crab and there was a another 1 as well that is really good, razorback or razorclaw or something!?

I will give this a try. Am I ok just leveling pet to a certain level though before the diminishing returns and then go into this method.. and am I right in thinking that I use the crabs to carry another animal and power level it?

I had a lot of gold yesterday so could have done the garrison thing, I could esially make 5k back though.. I just want to fish darkmoon today though.

Do you know if the sea horse drops rare at all? mine looked blue and was green when I oppened it.. I will just buy a blue off AH if they don't drop as stones are more expensive than just buying the pet, you're like at 10-15k for a flawless stone right now, I'm too scared to even use mine.. I used one on a jade owl as I heard it;s a great thing to have to bully flying types. I am saving one so I can just grab any undead valk and one for if I some how mange to ever find a cheap S/S gilnean raven (yes, laugh at me) but I still have hopes.. I own a B/B rare 25 caged that someone gave me for free, but I may just have to try and get an S/S crow from darkmoon.

Stuff you haven't seen yet that I have is the Ji-Kun hatchling I just got this morning (probably my favourite pet aesthetically a long with the rascal-bot and LiL' leftovers)

But caged 25's I have an S/S death adder hatchling, gilnean raven, tranquil mechanical yeti, darkmoon blimp (I have 2 of these, I have a low level 1 as well) yellow moth, emerald whelpling and fossilized hatching. I have more in my bank, I can't remember them all..

and of course my owl I used my stone on. Thing is I just though "ah ok, I love my owl, you have this" that is as much thought went into it.. then I tried to battle the woman, realized my team was all level ones and I thought caging my level 25 owl would send him into the fight... this actually happened.

in all fairness it's a good pet.. if you need a solid flying type the new owls are great IMO. and it will have a total harry potter vibe iun my class halls if the owl thing catches on, hahaha, can't wait.

[Khorah]

You also get the quest for all characters.. So, if you have alts, you can also have them go through the garrison quests, get lvl 3 menagerie and get another stone (or more) that way..
Also, several of the lowbie tamers give some really good exp, so I used them frequently to level up alts.
Also, focus on the achievement that awards the safari hat, which nets you +10% exp to your pets. This adds up quickly, as you go through the process.

Also, pay attention to tamer strategies. There are several out there as you get mid to higher levels, that can be easily beaten with only 2 pets (or sometimes even 1). These are GREAT for leveling up low level pets.

There are a LOT of fine resources available here on Warcraftpets. Take advantage of them. Several folks have put together some very in depth number crunching strategies to maximize your exp, save you time in terms of "best" route between tamers, which tamers are really "worth" the hassle, etc.

Welcome!!!

[Kendrah]

Is it just a case that people want to write up the new pets so holding off our something? I understand how a meta works so get it can take time, but surely people have adapted to lack of howl bomb and things like that by now!?

Howl bomb still works. It's simply not as good. I still use howl and such to one shot pets (yeah, I'm looking at you Tanaan legendary pains in my butt pets.) I agree with the others though. Focus on the taming achievements along with the trainers. You get the hat from there and tons of pets, plus the tamer bags.Those pandaran spirits drop from those 4 tamers in Pandaria, for example, and they drop stone that will up grade pets to rare, along with bandages.

I'd honestly not worry about the strats you see online. Those aren't things you'll need for a while yet. Get familiar with the classes of pets, the weaknesses and strengths, and such like. When you get to the celestial tourny and such, then you can get into the real nitty gritty of breeds and specific skill sets, etc. They were made for people who have a ton of pets and thus tons of options (the tourney, for example, isn't something you can do without a certain number of max level pets.) Starting out, knowing that flying pets kill water pets is much more useful info that knowing how to utilize a howl bomb type move.

[Gráinne]

Am I ok just leveling pet to a certain level though before the diminishing returns and then go into this method.. and am I right in thinking that I use the crabs to carry another animal and power level it?

No, you are not right in thinking that. Watch the video. This is not about power-levelling a carry pet.

Do you know if the sea horse drops rare at all? mine looked blue and was green when I oppened it.. I will just buy a blue off AH if they don't drop as stones are more expensive than just buying the pet,

DO NOT worry about Blue (Flawless) stones. You will be swimming in them in a couple of weeks when you get a few 25s.

You earn Pet Charms from daily battles. You buy Blue stones with Pet Charms.

You will soon have more Blue stones than you need.

[Peanutty]

I'd honestly not worry about the strats you see online. Those aren't things you'll need for a while yet. Get familiar with the classes of pets, the weaknesses and strengths, and such like. When you get to the celestial tourny and such, then you can get into the real nitty gritty of breeds and specific skill sets, etc. They were made for people who have a ton of pets and thus tons of options (the tourney, for example, isn't something you can do without a certain number of max level pets.) Starting out, knowing that flying pets kill water pets is much more useful info that knowing how to utilize a howl bomb type move.

^ This, so much. I understand you're new, you want to get into it right away, but you're FAR better off not sticking strictly to a guide and instead learning your way as you go, so that you have a better understanding of how and why certain strategies work. I find it far more satisfying to come up with a strategy of my own that works for me, and then comparing it to the guides, to see what I did right and what I could improve on in the future. Pet battling gets pretty stale and boring really fast for me if I don't do anything thinking for myself.

A guide is fine to get started, so that you can concentrate on leveling a few pets just to get on your way. It won't help you be a better pet battler in the end.

[Ash_knacksum]

thanks.. really good advice.

I spent the whole day and night fishing at darkmoon. I have enough fish to buy about 20 crabs, but only got 1 sea pony. I have a feeling we can only get one per faire or something as sure I would have had more. I started at 70 fishing today and was at around 647 when I came off just now.

I'll get into some battles tomorrow.

I also managed to get a S/S Crow while at Darkmoon, I should probably upgrade it to rare, right!? it's a poor quality at the moment, but breed it great. It's probably going t be better than my gilnean raven as I only have a B/B.

PS: whats a "ringer"?

PPS: should not have went back on to upgrade my crow, I upgraded the wrong one and can't even sell it, just let the guy go as couldn't bare to look at it as it reminded me of what an idiot I was to do that... then promptly upgraded the S/S and my warbot (was gonna do pet bombling, but I don't even know how good that is, just know it goes for a lot on AH when it;s upgraded in my realm!)

EDIT: I tried to go and start my garrison on my hunter, but I distinctly remember selling the barracks bluprint as it said I already knew it. I can't buy another as the guy has none yet so does this mean I'm screwed on that character now? I tried buying some to mail over but they are soulbound... any ideas how I can get out of this mess please? could do with some luck and being able to boost a pet to 20 is going to really help.

[Gráinne]

Yes, an S/S crow is great, but breeds aren't as simple as "S/S > B/B". It depends on the stats and movesets. You can worry about that later.

By a ringer in that context I meant levelling and using another pet outside your core team.

Having put effort or gold into upgrading or levelling the wrong breed is a useful lesson we all have to learn. You have learned it early. Many people learn it much later, and have sunk much more into pets they ultimately have to abandon.

[Ash_knacksum]

Yes, an S/S crow is great, but breeds aren't as simple as "S/S > B/B". It depends on the stats and movesets. You can worry about that later.

By a ringer in that context I meant leveling and using another pet outside your core team.

Having put effort or gold into upgrading or leveling the wrong breed is a useful lesson we all have to learn. You have learned it early. Many people learn it much later, and have sunk much more into pets they ultimately have to abandon.

thanks.. I just edited that last post as i'm having garrison problems... any ideas how I can fix it?

PS: I understand how breeds work.. B/B is the worst, cross breeds come next and pure breeds always win as they use all of the 20 stats.

[Paladance]

thanks.. I just edited that last post as i'm having garrison problems... any ideas how I can fix it?

You should be already able to build the barracks. If you need the paper for a quest, abandon it and pick it up again.

PS: I understand how breeds work.. B/B is the worst, cross breeds come next and pure breeds always win as they use all of the 20 stats.

Sure. But sometimes a P/P is an overkill, H/H can't work out with a pet being highly speed-related and S/S is so fast or so slow you can't find a use for all of these stats. I still can't figure out what about the [pet]Darkmoon Rabbit[/pet] problem.

Saying that, don't be afraid of being spontaneous. Now, when you know some things, it may be difficult a bit, I know. But it gives you memories you won't get the other way. One of my first pets was an S/S [pet]snake[/pet], a lackluster in the terms of battling, but I keep it for the sentiment, and because there are plenty of other snakes that I can… erm, manage?

[Gráinne]

thanks.. I just edited that last post as i'm having garrison problems... any ideas how I can fix it?

PS: I understand how breeds work.. B/B is the worst, cross breeds come next and pure breeds always win as they use all of the 20 stats.

Watch the video. You can have a pet at 25 in a couple of hours.

No, it's not as simple as "B/B is the worst". As Paladance says, you can find yourself with more of a stat than you can use, or find yourself in diminishing returns on a stat.

For example, I find a P/B Anklerender better than a P/P in most situations. An S/S Crow is nice only because a) in PvP, you will be faster than your opponent at the start of a fight and b) after you lose your racial, you will still be fast. But for those two advantages, you're giving up health and power. Against a slower opponent, you have given up those advantages for nothing.

To evaluate a pet, for PvE or for PvP, you need to look at how its stats come out as a Blue 25, and how those stats measure up against other pets. It's not something you will really understand until you have to work on some battles yourself. Just trust us for now that it's not that simple.

[Ash_knacksum]

thanks.. I just edited that last post as i'm having garrison problems... any ideas how I can fix it?

PS: I understand how breeds work.. B/B is the worst, cross breeds come next and pure breeds always win as they use all of the 20 stats.

Watch the video. You can have a pet at 25 in a couple of hours.

No, it's not as simple as "B/B is the worst". As Paladance says, you can find yourself with more of a stat than you can use, or find yourself in diminishing returns on a stat.

For example, I find a P/B Anklerender better than a P/P in most situations. An S/S Crow is nice only because a) in PvP, you will be faster than your opponent at the start of a fight and b) after you lose your racial, you will still be fast. But for those two advantages, you're giving up health and power. Against a slower opponent, you have given up those advantages for nothing.

To evaluate a pet, for PvE or for PvP, you need to look at how its stats come out as a Blue 25, and how those stats measure up against other pets. It's not something you will really understand until you have to work on some battles yourself. Just trust us for now that it's not that simple.

I played pokemon for a decade or some, I think I'll be alright. ha ha. I used to breed for IV's which is a nightmare (or was) as you used to have to do it without the help of apps.

I'll watch that vid again, but I can't see how it;s any different than me gpong round doing the same thing with my own pets, use a high level pet to catch a higher level pet that counters another pet you want to catch.,.. thats what I do anyway. I use high levcels with one low level and power level it, taking new stuff onto my roster as I go.

Is it because the turquoise turtles have shell? I have loads of pets with shell already... the only thing I want are the high end crabs with blood in the water... I will watch it again though, it was 6:00am last night.

also I only play horde, is it even applicable to me?

thanks for even more info guys...... anyone need a ghost shell crab? I'm giving some away as I went overboard camping darkmoon rabbit, farmed up over 2k dagger mouth... only got one sea pony! :/

P/p anklerender is great btw on a call lightning team. I have both of those versions anyway as I love the little guy. I use him with sunreaver micro sentry and something else that can make great use of call lightning, there are a lot of options really.

I don't here about the hydraling much, I really hear about him much... a similar pet to anubasith idol, just without the healing racial. hydra is also a call lighting user as well I want to call mine "ward" but I don't think enough people know who grant ward is to get the joke. haha "cut off 1 head, 2 more will take it's place"

[Ash_knacksum]

thanks.. I just edited that last post as i'm having garrison problems... any ideas how I can fix it?

You should be already able to build the barracks. If you need the paper for a quest, abandon it and pick it up again.

PS: I understand how breeds work.. B/B is the worst, cross breeds come next and pure breeds always win as they use all of the 20 stats.

Sure. But sometimes a P/P is an overkill, H/H can't work out with a pet being highly speed-related and S/S is so fast or so slow you can't find a use for all of these stats. I still can't figure out what about the [pet]Darkmoon Rabbit[/pet] problem.

Saying that, don't be afraid of being spontaneous. Now, when you know some things, it may be difficult a bit, I know. But it gives you memories you won't get the other way. One of my first pets was an S/S [pet]snake[/pet], a lackluster in the terms of battling, but I keep it for the sentiment, and because there are plenty of other snakes that I can… erm, manage?

I'm completely lost... when I was given the bluprints I sold them, there is no quest to get again.. I can't buy the bluprints again and I cannot tell if any of the quests I have are even going to help.... both of the guys sitting at 100 are basically in the same situation, I have no idea what I'm doing as I used a boost from 60-100 on my first guy and my grrrison was already leveled for me so I have never did it before... I ended up wasting my stone, then caging the animal locking me out of my 25..... been at this days now trying to get a 25 back.... you think a GM would take it out the cage for me? I wasted a flawless stone last night as well on the wrong bloody crow...... things are kicking me in the arse right now.

PS: darkmoon problem? if it's S/S, keep it, anything else put on AH. 20 extra points in speed on that guy is just cruel, haha love it. you farming moon moon as well? the amount of kiting going on, boss got reset 8 times last night, I literally just sat myself down till it looked like people were being more competent.. when you have a marksman hunter pulling agro then running to the leash point 3 or 4 times in a row, you have to start thinking these people are doing this on purpose really.

[Ash_knacksum]

ok I probably wasn't clear the first time.. I sold the baracks bluprints because wehn looking at them it said "already learned" now after going back, I cannot click on the table to build something and I cannot work out what quests are garrison related or not... there is one called proving grounds and one that a tauren woman wants me to do, thats it.

Then on my DH im behind this, so I need to go and kill the yeti and stuff, I think this one is doable still, it;s just my hunter that is stuck with no way to build the garrison.

[Khorah]

Another thing to remember..
This should be fun.. My first team was Rocket Chicken, one of the harder to find dragons, and one of the murlocs (Murkablo maybe...)..
Was it a GREAT team.. no way.. I limped along for a while and got them to 25 with 1 switch when I found a blue Kun Lai runt .. but it WAS a lot of fun as they were some of my favorite pets

So yes, early on, just focus on what abilities are better against certain types of pets. I was well into a stack of 25's before I ever really looked at breeds.
And remember some pets have abilities that don't match their type. For example [pet]Chuck[/pet] who is an aquatic type of pet, has [ability]Rip[/ability] which is a Beast type of ability and [ability]Consume[/ability] which is an Undead type of ability. So you may be able to mix and match pet type and their ability type to overwhelm your opponent !