Creating a pet party that benefits most from a fight

[Pouzzler]

Hello, I am working on an addon, Auto Pet Switcher, which I discuss more in detail in the addons subforum, whose purpose is to switch pet teams automatically.

I would now like to implement the automatic creation of a pet team when selecting a wild pet :

(every detail of my example is probably erroneous, it's the idea that is interesting)

(1) Player selects wild pet, for example <Rabbit> in some level 15 pet zone.
(2) Addon knows that rabbits get destroyed by snakes
(3) (optional) Addon knows either by learning and communicating with other players who have the same addon, or through extensive research before hand that rabbits in some level 15 pet zone will often be flanked by more rabbits, and moths.
(4) With this information, addon calculates that a team of level 10 snakes will be able to totally destroy the opponent, and get tons of xp.
(5) Addon finds 3 level 10 snakes in your roster, and automatically puts them in the battle slots. Or at least does its best to put up a team that will benefit the most from the fight about to be engaged.
(6) (optional) Addon starts the battle

I'm reasonably able to program all of this - what I don't have is the information, mostly because I don't play WoW that much.
Could any learned pet battler grant me any bit of knowledge that would seem to go in that direction?

Edit :

For example, are all the wild pet teams "known" (is it always the same teams in the same zone, even if no one ever bothered to make a list)?

Thanks

[Cypetcollector]

No offense, but would this really be used by anyone? Who tries leveling pets against lowbie mobs? People level their pets against top level pets and use any of the many carry team configurations already available and just use rematch to handle automatically loading them. Just my opinion

[Paladance]

I can imagine usage of it during Sign of the Critter weeks such as this one.

Regarding lowbies, maybe not the very beginnings but a druid levelling both pets and themselves in Moonglade or a DK in Plaguelands, why not?

@OP There are specific pools of backline pets for each zone. You can find a rabbit, but it would then be accompanied by tiny harvesters that would harm your snakes! (It won't happen because Westfall doesn't have backline pets, just an example.) The Cata zones are especially tricky, such as Hyjal and Uldum.This causes that to ensure you'd get Best in Slots you'd actually need to enter the battle (preferably with placeholders so no actual fighters are harmed) and then forfeit.
Also, if you've seen a rare, you'd want to have an option to pick up a Molten Corgi, Terrible Turnip or Corgnelius for a killing prevention… but only if you don't have that pet and it doesn't represent a weak breed!
Now it doesn't seem such convenient. :S

[Pouzzler]

There is absolutely no offense taken. However, I strongly disagree. By "people", you mean "whatever statistically not very significant share of the WoW population I have discussed the pet leveling subject with".

In particular, while you are farming every wild pet you can, how could it not be beneficial to get 2000xp out of a fight, without having to lift a finger to create and load a configuration, rather than 2000xp after having lifted quite a few fingers, or worse, 500xp without having lifted a finger, or worse of worse, 500xp and a lot of finger lifting?

Absolutely beneficial for every single pet collector who does not have a full menagerie of lvl 25 rares.

[Pouzzler]

It took some time maturing inside my head, but that's actually a pretty good idea you had there, Paladance :

what would you people think of this :

1) Select a few pets you don't care about, maybe even automatically.
For example, if you are in a low level capturing mood, lvl 25s ain't particularily useful.

2) Enter battle with these pets, instantly abandon with a one-click mechanism, rather than the usual cumbersome click-and-confirm one.

3) The addon automatically selects the pets that will most benefit from the fight you just avoided, and puts them in your slots.

4) Enter the fight again.

There still remains the problem that I have little info about which pet to use against any specific enemy. Surely this pet loving forum has got a lot of experience on that subject?

[Cypetcollector]

Actually you would want to capture pets with level 25s. You would put your pet you want to level with in spot 1, have them take an initial hit, then swap to a pet with weakening blow, or Superbark. Get the pet low enough to cage, then kill the remaining pets with your 2 25s.

Terrible Turnip and Corgnelius can be picked up on the AH or the quests, though they will take a little time, and Grumpy you get via a quest in Val'Shara that takes about 5 mins or the AH if you don't feel like questing.

[Pouzzler]

Nope, I wouldn't
The whole point is to get as much XP I can for a fight I can not avoid since I want to capture a blue. A 25 will get zero XP, therefore I would, this is the whole point of this thread, want to automatically assign the lowest level possible pets I already own, that will survive this fight, so that they get the maximum possible amount of xp from this fight.

[Paladance]

No problem.

The point was that the experience pool is shared between all alive participants, even if a pet outlevels the enemy and doesn't get experience due to that -- but a level 25 pet is an exception and it doesn't count as a receiver at all.
The only situation you could get more exp splitting the pool would be if you, for example, compare a single level low/high level pet to a duo of level 11 pets. It's a pretty complicated matter not fully explored yet, but this thread has already covered a lot of points.

Regarding the best counters, mentioning them for each particular pet would be overwhelming. There's a counter finder for each type + ability combination, but that covers only the raw damage aspect, not any particular feature such as weather, shielding, healing, bursts and so on.
Also, outlevelling the opponent would make the defensive qualities less required; e.g. a regular Mech would be still more effective than WoD moths. Maybe could you tell me examples of pets you'd like to counter first, if you really wish to?

What I haven't mentioned regarding capturing, not each pet of value is necessarily rare, many times you focus on breed instead. Do you have a breed detection implemented?

[Cypetcollector]

Nope, I wouldn't
The whole point is to get as much XP I can for a fight I can not avoid since I want to capture a blue. A 25 will get zero XP, therefore I would, this is the whole point of this thread, want to automatically assign the lowest level possible pets I already own, that will survive this fight, so that they get the maximum possible amount of xp from this fight.

You don't understand how the leveling system works with pet battles. 25s get none of the exp since they are already max level. All the exp goes to the pet that isn't leveled. That's how you can take a level 1 pet to 25 in 2 battles during Pet battle weeks.

I'd suggest reading several of the many guides available and learn all you can about types, breeds, rarity, counters, abilities, weather, etc, before starting work on an addon. Once you have all the information, it will be alot easier.

[Jerebear]

Nope, I wouldn't
The whole point is to get as much XP I can for a fight I can not avoid since I want to capture a blue. A 25 will get zero XP, therefore I would, this is the whole point of this thread, want to automatically assign the lowest level possible pets I already own, that will survive this fight, so that they get the maximum possible amount of xp from this fight.

Cypetcollector covered most of it, but wanted to throw in:
Common sense would make you think that the lower the pet level, the higher the EXP. However, pet EXP doesn't follow common sense. Versus a level 25 enemy, pets level 10 & 11 get the most EXP with it decreasing as you go out either direction. For reference, a level 1 and a level 20 pet get the same amount of pet EXP. It's a weird quadratic equation.

Just to continue the example,
Versus a level 24 opponent, a level 10 pet gets the most exp
Versus a level 23 opponent, a level 9 or 10 pet get the most exp
Versus a level 22 opponent, a level 9 pet gets the most exp

hopefully you can see the pattern.

My Carry Pet Experience guide in my signature has more info if you are interested. I still have to add the 3 new tamers, but have been busy lately.