Huge nerf to BFA tamers?

[Riddley]

I just did Kusa while her WQ was up with a lvl 5 and a lvl 25 and got 186 pet XP. What the heck?!

They also changed the first pet so that he no longer does Sandstorm and instead does Mud Slide making it more difficult to level lvl1 pets, but I guess with the XP buff that doesn't matter anymore.

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but I have to assume it's intentional.

[Huntermyth]

just completed zujai and i can confirm that i also got very very little exp compared to pre-patch. if it is intentional, i suspect blizzard is just toying with us nothing else.

[Gilneas]

Since they changed them to be repeatable as many times as you want when their quest is up in order to make the new achievements easier, I assume this is intentional. I was done leveling pets so I didn't have anything to check with yesterday, but the thought crossed my mind that they wouldn't maintain the full XP due to the change. Seems I was correct.

[Ranok]

Remember that same thing happened with Garrison menagerie daily back in WoD. At first lots of XP for leveling pets and then, with no announcement, nerfed for everyone but Squirt.

[Ocelot2000]

Yeah, I also had to use a level 23 pet instead to get it done with my strat and changed when to put him in and hardly any XP. I have so many pets to level this is now going to take years, lol. I'm pissed off!!!

[Quintessence]

Reduced pet experience from BFA trainers is indeed intended. See this post from Blizzard: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/bfa-experience-changed/45847/3

This was an intentional change.

With the new Family Battler achievement, we changed all of the Kul Tiras and Zandalar trainers to allow them to be battled at any time. This makes it so that players can complete the achievement at their leisure, rather than having to wait for a specific World Quest to become available.

At the same time, we increased the chance for pet leveling stones to be a World Quest reward, and reduced the chance of both battle pet bandages and War Resources to show up as potential rewards from pet battle World Quests.

[Riddley]

I'm also unable to go do old-world tamers anymore. They no longer have quests for me on any toons. Is this planned? Does Blizz think we should only level pets with wild battles now?

With all of the things wrong with the game right now, I'm just baffled that they would make these changes. How are we supposed to level our pets?! So frustrating.

Edit: I *can* do Panda tamers, just not Barrens/etc ones.

Edit2: Turns out you have to re-do the Org quest for first-time pet battling and the quests come back. SMH.

[Toabo]

This is ridiculous. Getting a tiny fraction of the XP as before.

[Gilneas]

This is ridiculous. Getting a tiny fraction of the XP as before.

It’s either that or needing months/many alts to do Family Batller, like it took for Family Familiar.

Not like we are short on leveling options with the daily bug fixed.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

I was originally disappointed, as I enjoyed using a lower level as the 3rd pet almost all the time, and now that option is really not worth it anymore.

All in all, there are places where you can still get some decent XP for your pet and help level it, but these new areas are not it.

[Teekkee]

With this nerf it's not even worth my time to do pet battles anymore. I have many many pets to level up still, so this is really disheartening. Even with the Pet Battle Bonus week the rewards are dismal.

[Ranok]

The WQ tamers are still worth it when they drop Pet Charms or Battle-Stones, in fact easier now that you don't have to worry about a carry pet in your strategy. The others, why bother? I do my pet leveling mostly in Draenor and PandaLand anyway so this hasn't been a big deal for me.

[Peanutty]

Like Ranok I still do tamers for charms or stones (don't need either but I can't stop myself from stocking up) but I still do carry pets with BfA tamers. Some make it so easy to carry a level 1 (or even 2 of them) that it's a waste not to do so (i.e. Chitara, Crawg in a Bog, Spineleaf, Jammer, Sizzik) so that's a few levels in a single battle that I was going to do anyhow. Otherwise I'm usually carrying level 24 pets that are close to leveling, just to finish them off, since that's usually not too hard and I was used to carrying a pet anyhow.

[Dalandius]

What is odd is Chitara, Crawg in a Bog, Spineleaf, Jammer, Sizzik can only be fought when they WQ is up and can only be fought once and it not part of the achievement but their XP still got nerfed?

[Peanutty]

What is odd is Chitara, Crawg in a Bog, Spineleaf, Jammer, Sizzik can only be fought when they WQ is up and can only be fought once and it not part of the achievement but their XP still got nerfed?

Sizzik is part of the battler achievements, the others are not as apparently all the "single boss" pet battles don't count. They're "too easy" is what I figure the reasoning is behind that.

[Dalandius]

What is odd is Chitara, Crawg in a Bog, Spineleaf, Jammer, Sizzik can only be fought when they WQ is up and can only be fought once and it not part of the achievement but their XP still got nerfed?

Sizzik is part of the battler achievements, the others are not as apparently all the "single boss" pet battles don't count. They're "too easy" is what I figure the reasoning is behind that.

The odd this is not that they are not part of the achievement but that they got a XP nerf at the same time as the fights that are part of the achievement.

[Jerebear]

The odd this is not that they are not part of the achievement but that they got a XP nerf at the same time as the fights that are part of the achievement.

Are you sure they got nerfed? They have always been extremely low (I mention this in my pet experience guide on this site). They were giving the same exp as a single wild pet battle, which is very abysmal, but it was consistent, even up until after the BFA tamer nerf. Now I haven't tested them since right after the nerf, but they didn't change then, so the change would have to be more recent if so.

Expected values pre nerf with NO safari hat or other buffs
Level 1 Carry pet = 290 exp
Level 10 Carry pet = 380 exp
Level 11 Carry pet = 380 exp
Level 20 Carry pet = 290 exp
Level 24 Carry pet = 198 exp

Equation would be (carry_pet_level + 9) * (enemy_pet_level + 5 - carry_pet_level) which for a level 25 boss enemy reduces to:
(carry_pet_level + 9) * (30 - carry_pet_level)

Level 25 Tamers have a modified version:
(carry_pet_level + 9) * (30 - carry_pet_level) * 2.5 * Tamer_Bonus * Sum_Of_Buffs_Bonus

The 2.5 comes from having 3 pets (but the bosses are only 1 pet so their bonus is only 1).
The Tamer Bonus is what got nerfed from 3.0 (it was terrible before the nerf) down to 0.2. Krawg and the rest were always at a tamer bonus of 1 since they weren't tamers.
The Sum_of_buffs_bonus is basically 1.0 + Safar_Hat + Pet_Week + Food + Darkmoon_Tophat where all those values are decimal (0.25 for 25%).

All the details are in my guide:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8829

[Gilneas]

The odd this is not that they are not part of the achievement but that they got a XP nerf at the same time as the fights that are part of the achievement

They didn't get nerfed XP. They always had nerfed XP. "Boss" fights have traditionally had less XP than "tamer" fights.

The distinction is also why they aren't in the achievement (like similar battles in Legion before them) -- the achievement is specifically for tamers.

[Dalandius]

The odd this is not that they are not part of the achievement but that they got a XP nerf at the same time as the fights that are part of the achievement.

Are you sure they got nerfed? They have always been extremely low (I mention this in my pet experience guide on this site). They were giving the same exp as a single wild pet battle, which is very abysmal, but it was consistent, even up until after the BFA tamer nerf. Now I haven't tested them since right after the nerf, but they didn't change then, so the change would have to be more recent if so.


All the details are in my guide:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8829

Thank you, most informative post

[AinotDruid]

Certain Legion world quests still give great xp. And the world quest is repeatable for the day, similar to Squirt. I'm doing that now with the weekly event. Two battles takes a pet from 1-25, with the safari hat only.

It has to be a tamer quest, basically any quest that is part of the "Family Familiar" achievement.