Skill? What helped you develop your skills?

[Sunderezz]

Recently some posts have referenced a lack of skill as a potential factor when losing to frustrating teams. This really has me thinking While many factors influence a match outcome, skill is of course a priority. The game is deliciously complex What are the most effective pathways to developing our skills? Of course everyone is different, yet for me, it helps learning about "best practices" or what worked for those who are have achieved success in the game. So, thanks in advance for your generosity in taking the time to share one or two tips that reflect what you found to be helpful "on your way up". Also, apologies if this question has been asked - this forum is one of my most important resources and there a huge amount of really helpful information, just have not found things related specifically to strategies for skill building.

[Rioriel]

Tackling the NPC battles by not just blindly using whatever XuFu says, and taking the time to see what pets you'll fight, what school they are, what their big abilities are, and what you've got amidst your ranks to counter... and then beat it.

[Rosqo]

It's pretty much just knowledge that is the skill you need.

PVE is just the same few gimmicks for nearly every strategy. Black claw, stampede, howl, explode etc. The meta here is normally just complete the match in as little time as possible and sometimes with a levelling pet.

PVP you need to set up the team so it's good enough to beat the common meta stuff along with the current teams you're facing. When setting up the team where possible you should have a strategy of your own or general counters. It's important to have diversity in pet families and damage types. You then need to understand what the opponent will try and do with their team. Sometimes it's worth applying simple logic with which pet will have what match up, depending on the teams in the game that won't always work. During the game where possible if you can predict abilities, usually cc, it can swing a game. Once you play a couple of games vs the same person they might change their comp to counter and you should try and play around obvious counters. Changing your team so it's good vs the original but also using different pets so counters are less effective.

I'd also say that having the right add-ons installed so you can give more attention to playing than messing around with trying to find out information that could be immediately accessable.

[Gráinne]

I agree with both of the others.

The basis has to be knowledge, of course. One way to develop basic knowledge that anyone can do at any time without frustration is to tackle the PvE battles without using someone else's strat as a template, and - as a slightly harder exercise - constrained to using certain types of teams, like AoE, Cyclone, Control, Bleed & Stampede, Howlbomb (what's left of it). So, for example, try one tamer with an AoE team, then with swaps, stuns, and dodges, then with a Cyclone team, then with heavy-hitters. Then try the same for more tamers. Rematch is wonderful for selecting the pets you will use.

That should build basic competence at team building when you have a target in mind. That foundation can be applied everywhere, even in PvP. Put it this way: if you can't do that exercise for any tamer, then you will benefit by practicing it more to learn.

In terms of PvP, where you don't have a target team in mind, I would defer to Rosqo. I did my 1K wins in WoD, and only 1K more since, so I'm nowhere near current. What I did learn is that I can dial my wins rate up above 90% and down as low as I like (my pity/joke team Snot Easy Being Green is 5-0-104 ) by my choice of team, and that's where I lost interest. There are basic principles that haven't changed, and you can get those from Disco's site in text, or from the many videos he and Rosqo and Llennoca and others have made. But if you keep meeting a team of X, Y, and Z, you should be able to think of half-a-dozen candidate counters immediately.

For myself, during Warlords I found the whole PvP game simply an exercise of mental arithmetic. Is my pet going to kill his pet, assuming the most likely moves? Calculate how the health pools go down. If so, am I faster than his likely next pet? If not, will my next pet kill him instantly, or at least without taking much damage? If not, do I have something to swap in that will ruin his whole day? Which two pets do I want left at the end? Then mix in any gimmicks and AoE (which makes it a lot tougher, since you have to keep backline HP in general view as well.) I did find it very tiring, and I imagine I still would.

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

Knowledge helps, but getting to it is the issue ... reading a lot is often more confusing than helpful and you can read one or two websites, and you know quickly that the poster DID NOT even try the battle ... because the fight is not even close ... and one great example is FARYL in Ardenweald where a lot of the suggestions in that one website are just bad jokes ... and written without any care whatsoever to the pet's abilities that you are fighting and the fact that they hit twice harder than any normal pet with the same abilities!

What I did, and I probably am not a good one to discuss strategy, is that I keep a NOTEPAD file with the list of fights and what has worked for me ... with the only fight giving me problems being the FARYL fight. Other than that it is not too bad, however, now that I read this thread I have not even checked Xu-Fu for their strategy, specially when they have been so reliable for so long.

One other detail about Xu-Fu ... do not, under any circumstances, get "attached" to one pet all the time ... you got to learn other pet's abilities and how to use them ... and a really good way to learn these is to go through the pet battles on the Timeless Isle (yeah the ones that you have to do for 3 different weeks 4 times to get the 4 pets!!!!!) ... and pay special attention to the details and the spells used ... in the end, you will end up adding at least 10 to 15 other pets to your "arsenal" and use them more ... and in many ways this is more fun.

All in all, I am relying less and less on Wowhead ... too many posts, it looks like are "theory/idea crafting" based on pet battles 5 or 6 years ago, and the pets these days, switch bases too many times and often have spells that belong to another set of types, that you did not expect for one critter, or aquatic or undead. This makes the fights a bit harder ... but once you learn to vary your "knowledge", I think that things get easier ... my take these days is that I can't even stay under 800/900 pet charms any day of the week, though I am silly enough to use those battles for all the 3 and 4 sets of fights for the factions. Considering the ease of some of these, I imagine that sooner or later some of this will get nerf'd ... and the fights changed.

[Sunderezz]

Ever since I posed this question I have been thinking of what helped and what hindered me from starting to learn what is now my favorite part of WOW. Thanks for all your great answers. I left WOW right after battle battles became a "thing" in WOW, returning just before the onset of the pandemic. My first few pvp battles were total wipe outs, as might be expected, so starting from there . . .

(+) ATTITUDE - for me this was the most important aspect in learning the game. I had to accept I was going to lose, lose, and lose some more but each match I lost was a learning opportunity. I enjoy challenges and love learning, so accepting that my learning curve was going to be long and steep was one of the most important elements I credit with helping to keep me engaged and willing to put in the time to gather essential information and apply it over and over and over some more. Closely related was being willing to put in the time to research and read/watch some of the amazing resources available on line.

(+) FOUNDATION KNOWLEDGE - I wholeheartedly agree with everyone that suggested knowledge is essential to skill development. For me it works to consider "knowledge" related to pvp pet battling as "leveled": foundation; beginning; intermediate; and beyond. FOUNDATION included pet families, pet species, and the strengths and weaknesses of each family. I think knowledge of essential add-ons fit best here. I went for months before realizing that add-ons make a world of difference. At this stage pve was helpful to get a feel for how each battle pet functioned, as was watching the excellent youtube clips that are available.

(-)NOT SO HELPFUL at this point was thinking that if I had ALL the top battle pets I would gain some mastery of the game. I quickly acquired the top pets, before I learned about things like stacking abilities, synergy, and counters. Maybe this is the point that those who buy a few cheap, over-powered pets and run them in duos and trios might stop and evaluate their goals. Ironically, those who run duo and triple op pets might be missing the creative elegance of deeper theory.

(+) BEGINNING KNOWLEDGE - once I had a tiny clue about the complex diversity of the hundreds of available pets and how families/species related to others it seemed I was really able to benefit from the wealth of knowledge this amazing community has made available online. There are so many well done videos (looking at you rosqo, disco doggy, and others) web pages, and discussions to deepen your knowledge. For me, this was the point I was able to start having occasional success in building teams, and even winning from time to time I deeply appreciate everyone's generosity in sharing their skill and knowledge, this supports new players in learning the game.

(*) INTERMEDIATE - HA! On some days I would say I am starting to play at this level, some like about 2 out of 10 lol. Right now playing, watching, and reading feel like they are essential for continuing to deepen my pvp experience.

There are so many online resources, I am only going to post a link to the very useful "Guide to WOW Pet Battles" featured on this site https://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pet-battles/

I truly appreciate the depth of knowledge in this community and the generous willingness of so many who take the time to share with us newbies. A special note ~ Gráinne, I try to read everything you write, thank you so much for your gracious and patient mentoring of all us noobs over the years . . . here is a great thread from a few years ago viewtopic.php?t=17070