When is rarity determined?

[Hippo]

Hi guys,
I recently started to work on my pet army and I have a question...

At what point is the rarity of a wild pet determined?

Is the pet "uncommon" or "rare" as soon as it spawns and then, when captured, that rarity is revealed? Or are all wild pets of some sort of average rarity and then when you capture one, a roll happens behind the scenes to determine the rarity of the captured pet?

I'm asking because I noticed that during fights, you can see pets' stats before you capture them and the stats seem to vary so I was wondering if it is possible to see if some pet is going to be low quality or high quality before you even start to fight them. That way you could just start a battle,heck the stats and if it doesn't look like there is a rare in there, then just forfeit and try again.

I'm assuming the rarity is determined by a roll AFTER you actually catch the pet, it would be too easy to hunt rares otherwise. Does anyone know for sure, how it works, though?

[Epicleptic]

There are addons and macros allowing players to outright see a Wild Pets quality in-battle rather than guessing based on statistics - which in later levels can be quite daunting. In patch 5.1 these won't actually be required as Blizzard is implementing it as an in-game feature itself. You could consider it to take away a small amount of fun from Pet Battling but alas, it's all for the better.

Wild Pet quality, though, is determined when the Wild Pet(s) spawn. It's easier to notice when a group of them spawn. Examples are things like the Alpine Foxling in Kun-Lai: where it sometimes spawns and has 2-3 Alpine Foxling Kits following it. If both (or more) are able to be Battled then you will notice that they both have an Alpine Foxling and Alpine Foxling Kit, as well as a 3rd pet - but that all 3 pets with have the same quality regardless of which pet you battle. So if you accidentally killed the pet instead of capturing you would have that 2nd chance immediately after.

The above statement can also be true of other Wild Pets that don't appear to be grouped but in some cases are. This is my experience anyhow

[Geraldine]

I don't know when exactly it is determined but it has been determined once the battle starts. You can guess based on the stats or there are addons that will show you clearly. I use an addon called PetTracker and it shows you the rarity of all pets in the team you are battling against, as well as the location of wild pets on your map.

[Hippo]

That's great news! Thanks for the info!

[Drrum]

I believe the rarity, as well as the companion(s) and their rarity, is determined when the pet is spawned. The reason I know this is because I've started battles with pets before healing up from the previous battle. I'd heard that instead of surrendering, you could "release" from a battle by logging. So when the creature happens to be a rare, I will log out/in for another chance at it (not sure if that's an exploit or not, so I have only done it a couple times when the creatures are scarce spawns). Anyway, I notice upon logging back in, the creature is still there, is the same rarity, and its companions are all identical, including their rarity levels.