An Odd Question to ask but..

[Bergylettuce]

I don't really know where else to put this so I'm putting it here for the time being, With that being said.

With MoP Classic coming sometime in the near future, I've decided to impose a rather foolish.. All be it, Interesting challenge for myself, To see if I can reach the maximum level (90) Whilst only doing Pet Battles or Pet Battle Related Quests that Don't Involve Killing Mobs, Doing Dungeons or Completing Quests that don't give anything pet related. However I need some help with the challenge before I attempt it.

The Main Questions I have in mind before attempting are the following:

1: Which Race would be the best for getting the gold and silver needed to buy your pet and training before hitting the bare level minimum to do Pet Battles and Start the Challenge (And if it's not possible to purchase at all before Reaching the Minimum Level, What would be an acceptable level to Start my Journey?)

2: What Quests Would Count as Pet Battle Related? (For Example, Fighting Trainers and Doing PvP Pet Battles count, But what about quests that reward you with pets that don't involve killing mobs out in the open, A good example of this would be the Lawn of the Dead questline where the final quest rewards a Pet but you have to do a bunch of non-pet related quests beforehand, Or the Children's Week/Hallow's End Creepy Crate Questline which has the same issue)

2.5: (This is more so an extension to the last note but) If I hit 90, Should I be allowed to then do quests like Lawn of the Dead to get the pet since it wouldn't grant me any XP for completing the prior quests?

3: Should I be allowed to buy pets off the auction house if it means Not Having to Kill a mob that drops it for XP? (An Example would be something like a Rare Spawn with a guaranteed pet drop but I can't obtain it due to me having to kill a mob for said pet to be obtained, This would also go for things such as Darkmoon Rabbit, Moon Moon, Isle of Giants Pets, ETC)

Finally, 4: What other rules should I add to this challenge? I've already got a few established ones such as No Making Alt's to obtain Additional gold (Which may change should I be unable to before hitting the minimum level), No Promotional/Blizzard Store Pets, No Poor/Common Pets, ETC (If you'd like a full list of my imposed rules, Lemme Know BTW!) I just want to know what other rules would make this challenge fair.

[Gráinne]

I could be wrong, but I don't see a way to get gold to start battling. It costs 10 gold to train pet battling now, and I think that is unchanged from Mists.

If you can't loot anything, and you can't complete quests, the only gold (copper?) you can get is from selling your starter gear. Or have I missed something?

If you can start professions, you can sell herbs and ore and fish on the AH, while getting some XP from your gathering, but you need gold to train professions.

And as I recall, you need to be level 5 to train professions and pet battling. Maybe you could do that by travelling - getting exploration XP?

Once you have paid for the battle pet skill, and you have bought your initial pet from the trainer, getting to 90 is a breeze. A long and slow breeze maybe, but you can get character XP at any level even by battling low-level pets, so long as your own team is of the same level. So, level 1 pet vs level 1 pet = character XP, regardless of your character's level. Though I'd say pet level 5 is when you will start to get some value from it, since that's about when you start to meet 3-pet teams; 1 v 1 gives much less. You could level to 90 without ever leaving Ellwyn or wherever, or without ever getting a pet past level 6 or so.

I am reminded of a Discodoggy video where he had a character still in Gilneas that was close to max level -all done by Pet PvP.

A NE, Druid, or Rogue obviously have stealth or Shadowmeld advantage, which would be valuable.

I would ask a friend for the initial gold, or level an alt to earn it and mail it to your pet battler. I just don't see a way to get the gold otherwise.

I think the Lawn of the Dead questline would be fine - entirely eithin thespirit of the challenge.

You don't need any AH pets just to get to 90. You can do that entirely with wild pets, and, as I said, not even using high level pets. The Idol was the Hero of Pandaria - it could solo an awful lot of things - but you don't need it for levelling. If you're looking at the Idol or other AH pets, you must be looking beyond levelling - to the Safari Hat or the Celestial Tournament or something like that. In that case, I would consider it reasonable to allow trading pets.

[Bergylettuce]

I could be wrong, but I don't see a way to get gold to start battling. It costs 10 gold to train pet battling now, and I think that is unchanged from Mists.

If you can't loot anything, and you can't complete quests, the only gold (copper?) you can get is from selling your starter gear. Or have I missed something?

If you can start professions, you can sell herbs and ore and fish on the AH, while getting some XP from your gathering, but you need gold to train professions.

And as I recall, you need to be level 5 to train professions and pet battling. Maybe you could do that by travelling - getting exploration XP?

Once you have paid for the battle pet skill, and you have bought your initial pet from the trainer, getting to 90 is a breeze. A long and slow breeze maybe, but you can get character XP at any level even by battling low-level pets, so long as your own team is of the same level. So, level 1 pet vs level 1 pet = character XP, regardless of your character's level. Though I'd say pet level 5 is when you will start to get some value from it, since that's about when you start to meet 3-pet teams; 1 v 1 gives much less. You could level to 90 without ever leaving Ellwyn or wherever, or without ever getting a pet past level 6 or so.

I am reminded of a Discodoggy video where he had a character still in Gilneas that was close to max level -all done by Pet PvP.

A NE, Druid, or Rogue obviously have stealth or Shadowmeld advantage, which would be valuable.

I would ask a friend for the initial gold, or level an alt to earn it and mail it to your pet battler. I just don't see a way to get the gold otherwise.

I think the Lawn of the Dead questline would be fine - entirely eithin thespirit of the challenge.

You don't need any AH pets just to get to 90. You can do that entirely with wild pets, and, as I said, not even using high level pets. The Idol was the Hero of Pandaria - it could solo an awful lot of things - but you don't need it for levelling. If you're looking at the Idol or other AH pets, you must be looking beyond levelling - to the Safari Hat or the Celestial Tournament or something like that. In that case, I would consider it reasonable to allow trading pets.

First of All, Thank you for responding to my question, I've been waiting to get a true and solid answer to this mystery.

Secondly to answer some of your questions: I only plan to stop doing quests, killing mobs, etc once the bare minimum level was hit, That being Level 5. Even then I believe it's not possible to get enough gold before the quota, So I will most likely make an alt to gather the bare minimum amount of Gold and then transfer it to the main to go get their training.

The AH Pets question was More so a question relating to my Endgame Goals for this entire thing (Which Includes completing the Celestial Tournament and achieving at least 1 of the Pets, Beating All the Challenge Tamers such as the Pandaren Spirits, The Books of Fables, ETC) as Without being able to Obtain very important key pets such as the Zandalari Anklerender and Kneebiter, Anubisath Idol, MPD (Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling), Etc. These tamers would be a lot harder and very RNG Dependent

I am in Agreement with the Lawn of The Dead Questline, Considering it rewards you with a pet at the end. This would also allow stuff such as Creepy Crate and Other pets with similar ties to count so long as they don't involve killing mobs (that give XP) throughout the questline.

I was planning to most likely go a Hunter (Mainly for freezing trap and feign death) and then choose my Race based off whatever the best starting pet/zone would be for pet battles, Since some zones such as Ghostlands and Bloodmyst Isles have exclusive pets behind the areas and since earning gold will be much harder and it will take longer just to earn riding & A mount, I want to know what would be the most optimal place for leveling and obtaining new pets without having to pull insane stunts to reach them (Though in some regard I suppose that is part of the fun in it all? )

Again, Thank you for responding <3

[Gráinne]

Thenks for the clarifications!

I got mentally stuck on the Level Five Problem, so I investigated the WoW Pacifist Challenge to see how they dealt with it. Exploration gives decent XP at that level. so travelling cross-country to your capital city will get you quite a ways. Also, there are Treasure Chests that give a big chunk of XP. And a few non-killing quests, though you may have to travel a lot (more exploration XP!) to get to them. Looking up videos, I see that getting to 5 is actually not really a big thing - it's pretty simple and relatively fast.

Then at level 5, you can sell your starter gear for enough to learn a profession, and after that, of course, you can make effectively endless but slow gold by gathering and vendoring. So it is definitely possible. Maybe you would rather not, but it is possible.

Of course, if you are allowing yourself an initial store of gold for pet battle training, first pet, and flying, gold may not be an issue any more. BTW, a DK would be the ideal alt to make for earning your starting gold quickly, ifyou can make a DK under Mists Classic rules.

I could see going either of two ways: saying "I will level only by pet battling and exploration XP" and skip the gathering and gold thing or saying "I will level only by pet battling, gathering, and exploration XP". If you really, really want to avoid gathering XP while earning gold you could stick to fishing.

I'm not seeing the difference between starting zones for pet battling. There are no essential battling pets in any of the starting zones. If you are intending to complete the Safaris, you can always go back to any starting zone later, at high level, and sneak in. Just avoid the guards as much as possible. That's what I did back in Mists. I take it you are not also disallowing deaths, like Ironman or Pacifist? That would be pretty tough. Bloodmyst is hard as a Horde, for the Ravager Hatchling, but can be done. Ghostlands, for the Spirit Crab and Larva, is not so bad to get into as Alliance, though you will still probably die at least once getting in.

Neither do I see a lot of difference in availability of pets in starting zones. The lowest farming area I know with high-level infinitely respawning pets in one spot is the Dragonbone Hatchlings near Wyrmrest. No starting area has non-stop pet spawns. All of them do have plenty of pets, but you will have to run between them rather than stand and battle around a 30 yard radius.

[Bergylettuce]

So I decided to come back to this to ask a couple more questions as there are some things I wanted to ask for clarification or get a second opinion on, Any thoughts on these would be greatly appreciated

I have established already that I am Banning Store Pets/Promotional Pets as I do not think it is fair that I can just buy stupidly OP Pets with real money or get a free pet from external sources (Like playing another game or purchasing a food product) However there is one pet I am iffy about whether or not should be allowed, That being the Core Hound Pup, As you get it from authenticating your blizzard account. (Which also provides other perks such as extra bag space and such) However, I am unsure whether it should be banned in the same regard as Store Pets or Promotional Pets due to how it is obtained in comparison

I've ultimately decided that I will be allowing professions as I Don't see any issues with them and the Minimal amount of XP they provide shouldn't be that big of an issue, I will try not to rely on them for straight-up raw XP, and mostly will be using them for additional income as I won't be making a lot of gold throughout this challenge.

this is more so a question but would it be possible to get the Wild Jade, Golden, and Crimson Hatchling pets without completing any of the quests/dailies to get exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent for them to show up, I am doubtful as the only other method would be through turning in Firestorm Eggs from the Timeless Isle, Which I can not do without killing crimsonscales, Therefor breaking a challenge rule.

Finally, Once I hit max level, Should I be allowed to do other quests in order to get gold and other resources, Or should I still be stuck to purely pet battles and such for gold? (Aka the trash from pet supplies and such)

I am currently working on a document of my ruleset and such for the challenge, But at the moment it is incomplete so any additional rules you all would like to suggest or recommend would be greatly appreciated!