Are there reasons to collect more than one of a pet?

[Harpua]

The subject is the TLDR version.

Longer version - I have been haphazardly collecting pets. Got an added interest when the Hallow's Eve pets dropped. I'm going to different zones and leveling pets while looking for zone specific rares.

I have two conflicting impulses. One is that I don't want to waste a rare just because I already have them. OTOH, I don't want a lot of clutter. So I've been deleting most of the duplicates unless they had a color difference.

Then I read the thing about pet breeds and it's made me rethink it. Apparently, some squirrels might be more useful than others. But I'm also sure there a lot of pets where it's not worth bothering.

So are there some pets that are worth grinding until you get the right breed? Or does it just not matter that much?

At least it gives me a good reason to buy another Feline Familiar.

[Peanutty]

It really depends on what you want to do with your collection and what aspects of pet collecting appeal to you. If you're PVPing or trying to use certain abilities for PVE, then breed does matter. And you might want duplicates for certain abilities. If you just want 1 of everything and have your journal all tidy, then no, it doesn't.

I have one of each pet, period, except for pets with unique skins (i.e. parrot, scarab hatchling). I only really care that they're rare and lvl 25. For certain pets I did go back and get specific breeds (i.e. P/P yellow moth, S/S nordrassil wisp) but for the most part, I just keep the first rare I come across, my logic being, am I really going to use cockroach #17 or rabbit #12 in my collection??

[Kenneloth]

I just collect 1 of every pet, don't see any reason to have more.

[Mwebly]

I started out in the "one of each rare at 25 and I don't care about breed" camp but after I started doing pet battles I realized that breed does matter, and you may want duplicates of some pets because they are useful for the Tournament. But as Peanut said, it only matters on certain pets, and it only matter when you get serious about battling rather than simply collecting. I have a suggestion for you based on how you like to play the game:

1.If you like collecting pets in the wild and searching for that rare then keep doing it, get one of each and don't worry about breed. Once you finish your collection and start to level them up through the trainer dailies you will notice that having a particular breed would be advantageous, not needed but more efficient. Go out and find that breed, taking the time to find it as rare or stoning the first one you come across, because at this point you will start collecting a lot of stones from the dailies. As you do more pvp pet battles you'll notice the same thing, certain breeds are better, so go out and get them.

2. If you do not really like collecting rare pets and the grind is killing you, so that having to go back to areas and find another rare makes you want to die, then do the research now to find the "best" breeds for pets that matter, then don't settle for less than that in your hunt. It will take you longer to complete your collection, but you will be effectively done when you do.

I like finding rare pets and often go find one for the fun of it, already owning it in the correct breed and everything. Some nights I head to Northrend and won't leave till I find a Valk, or a rare Scourged Whelp. The key is to figure out what you like to do and do it, because while breed matters, it won't matter to everyone.

[Mystik_sok]

I used to only have 1 of each pet as I don't care about skins and I only care about breed if I'm going to actually use the pet for battling. With the addition of the Celestial tournament I feel that this model is probably going to be used a lot going forward because it lets Blizzard increase the difficulty/Challenge of pet battles without increasing pet levels and the number of actvie abilities. Personally I'd love to see it being a lot more random and not so repetitive.

So with this feeling I went out and picked up duplicates of the most useful pets. Several Dragonkin for instance, 3 Unborn Valkyr's, 3 Kun-Lai Runts and I want to get another Son of Animus if I can get it without to much gold.

[Maizing]

I used to only have 1 of each pet as I don't care about skins and I only care about breed if I'm going to actually use the pet for battling. With the addition of the Celestial tournament I feel that this model is probably going to be used a lot going forward because it lets Blizzard increase the difficulty/Challenge of pet battles without increasing pet levels and the number of actvie abilities. Personally I'd love to see it being a lot more random and not so repetitive.

So with this feeling I went out and picked up duplicates of the most useful pets. Several Dragonkin for instance, 3 Unborn Valkyr's, 3 Kun-Lai Runts and I want to get another Son of Animus if I can get it without to much gold.

Yes, this is my own reasoning as well. I've always had multiples of favorite pets (such as my beloved [pet]Emperor Crab[/pet]s) and I'd kept the 3 [pet]Vampiric Batling[/pet]s I started with (originally because they are no longer obtainable and can't be caged), but when the Celestial Tournament was introduced, I went out to get multiples of certain other pets specifically for tournament teams.

[Peanutty]

I admit the Celestial Tournament almost made me cave and get doubles of some pets (to the point that someone gave me a second Pandaren Water Spirit to use) but in the end I stuck with singles. As silly as it sounds that's part of the challenge for me, plus I just have to have my pet journal as clean and minimal as possible.

Mwebly had some good advice and my approach was definitely number 1 on that list. I love taming wild pets as rares and will go out of my way to do so, even with a mountain of available stones, but now that I have a full collection breed is starting to matter. And when it comes to finding a specific breed then I'll settle for stoning to make sure I get the stats I want.

[Brisela]

For pets pvp

[Shagina]

I have a few duplicates, but not many. I got an extra raptor to help with the BoF dailies, I got three val'kyrs (1 of each breed maxed, a spare B/B not yet stoned or leveled), two flayer younglings (one S/S and one P/S) and two scourged whelplings, one of each breed. For the most part it's a matter of convenience, the flayer is neat as against some trainers I don't need more speed than the P/S one has, so I can get some more power to do the trainer more quickly.

[Astraldr0p]

I have one of each except those with different skins. I don't go out of my way to find it, though. If I happen to come across it while leveling my pets, then I'd grab it.

I also have more just for trade reasons too

[Harpua]

Thanks for the replies. It's pretty much what I thought.

I would expect that there's no reason to keep a bunch of a common critter like a squirrel. But I hated the thought that I might be releasing something that I'd spend 2 hours grinding for at a later date. It's kind of like wondering how many valuable baseball cards I tossed away as a kid.

The other thought came to me when I read that they may introduce pet breeding in the future. It reminded me of what they had in SWG. Although that system was very complex (and I don't expect anything that detailed here), it wouldn't hurt to have a few extras to experiment with.

Now if I can only figure out which pet & breed combinations are good...

[Azrile]

I admit the Celestial Tournament almost made me cave and get doubles of some pets (to the point that someone gave me a second Pandaren Water Spirit to use) but in the end I stuck with singles. As silly as it sounds that's part of the challenge for me, plus I just have to have my pet journal as clean and minimal as possible.

Mwebly had some good advice and my approach was definitely number 1 on that list. I love taming wild pets as rares and will go out of my way to do so, even with a mountain of available stones, but now that I have a full collection breed is starting to matter. And when it comes to finding a specific breed then I'll settle for stoning to make sure I get the stats I want.

It is just wrong to think that some pets are that useful that you need two of them. When the tournament first started, the water spirit was one of my pets still at lvl 6. I read so many accounts of how useful it was for the final 4 fights that I was going to powerlevel it.

Then I tried the tournament and beat all of the last 4 fights with nothing but very generic pets ( 3 foxes, 3 raptors, 3 snails and a grell gell). None of the fights were even close. I still don´t know, but I am guessing most of them have some B´s in there because when I was capturing them, I didn´t even know about breeds.

If I can beat chi-chi with just 3 random snails, there isn´t much the devs can ramp things up to where I would feel compelled to have multiples of certain pets, or even to where breed matters for pve.

I wouldn´t keep two copies of a pet, but I would ditch a B pet with a pure breed.

[Peanutty]

It is just wrong to think that some pets are that useful that you need two of them. When the tournament first started, the water spirit was one of my pets still at lvl 6. I read so many accounts of how useful it was for the final 4 fights that I was going to powerlevel it.

It isn't wrong it's personal preference whether or not someone wants to keep copies of pets. I don't. But I don't think someone is doing things wrong if they do. Each collector will have their own approach.

I like using the one round nuke on Chi-Ji now since that's the fight that annoys me the most. I admit I'm not enough of a strategist to have thought that up so I'm grateful to the people who posted it.

[Droodics]

Depends on the pet, for example: I need in Celestial Tournament two Unborn Valkyr (one for Chi-Chi and one for Xu-Fu, for my strategies).
Same thing with Kun-Lai Runt. I use two of them in Celestial Tournament, and i mostly keep two of them because I use them in pet leveling vs critters.
Depends on your needs and on your choice.

[Ishildur]

It's so situational I wouldn't be picking up pets for it unless you find you have a real and specific need for it. I did have a second Chrominius for a little bit to help out in the Celestial tournament, but then I found a replacement team that worked and sold my spare. I wouldn't be grabbing extras 'just in case' if you're still struggling filling out your collection and have a lot of unleveled pets just because it's a lot of extra work without knowing if it's even going to be useful or needed.

[Yazhi]

I'm just a collector, wasn't too big a fan of the pet battling system....UNTIL they introduced those lovely little 4 celestials that need pet battling. I good friend advised me on some pets that are really useful there so now I have several Chrominius, Pandaren Water Spirit, Darkmoon Tonk/Zepp. There's several others but these made my life much easier to defeat these and I really received some nice advice from friends/people I met on forums etc.