Level 10/11 pets with all buffs (1.85x) against a Pandaria tamer equates to 8788 (well 8787.5, but normally the values round), but ingame I get 8787. There was also a level 9 that was one point off with just a safar hat (1.1x). I want to say that one was against a Northrend tamer. In that case, the level 12 (which has the same EXP result mathematically) rounded correctly, leading me to think it was a floating point issue. Most of my data was done no buffs or just safari. I'm working on getting a lot of pet treats to fully vet out "all buffs". Hopefully with enough data I can at least identify where the 1 offs are.
EDIT: yeah, going back through my data, a level 9 with just a safari hat vs a northrend tamer is supposed to get 3118.5, which normally rounds up to 3119, but instead was at 3118. Conversely, the level 12 correctly rounded up to 3119, though both have equal "on paper" mathematical results.
EDIT: This is a copy of the Pre-Legion version of the guide
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A carry pet is one that is included with 1 or 2 higher level pets with the intent that the higher level pets will "carry" the lower level pet through the battle to help it get a larger experience boost and thus level faster. All pets gain experience based on a specific equation (will be provided below). For this guide, the expected context is usually two level 25 pets and 1 carry pet, though the equations can be modified for other scenarios.
The base equation for pet battle experience is:
experience = (your_pet_level + 9) * (opponent_pet_level - your_pet_level + 5)
Negative values result in 0 experience (this happens when opponent_pet_level - your_pet_level is less than -5).
*NOTE: This differs from wowwiki's formula in two ways: 1) [opponent_level + 9] was incorrect and 2) opponent_pet_level - your_pet_level is not capped at +2. I'm not sure if wowwiki was always wrong or if there were recent changes, but either way, wowwiki currently has a slightly wrong equation. Reference: [url]http://www.wowwiki.com/Pet_Battle_System[/url]
In addition to the main experience equation, there are some multiplicative bonuses:
Multi-Pet Bonus: This bonus is based on the number of opponents faced and is denoted by the variable N.
N = 1.0 when fighting only one enemy pet (
Little Tommy Newcomer, Celestials, Beasts of Fable, and low level wild battles)
N = 2.0 when fighting two enemy pets (
Zunta and
Julia Stevens are the only tamers with 2 pets)
N = 2.5 when fighting three enemy pets (Most tamers)
Tamer Specific Bonus: This bonus is based on the tamer. It doesn't appear to have any correlation to enemy pet rarety (epic vs rare pets have the same bonus for some sets of tamers for example). It may have some correlation to the Tamer's NPC level (not the pet level) as there are some trends, but there isn't enough data currently available to verify that. This bonus is denoted as T.
T = 0.1 when fighting most Menagerie battles (Squirt is a notable exception at T=3.0)
T = 1.0 when fighting wild pet battles (non-tamer battles)
T = 2.0 when fighting any Celestial Tournament tamer
T = 2.5 when fighting
Zunta,
Julia Stevens,
Dagra the Fierce, or
Old MacDonald
T = 3.0 when fighting any other Vanilla WoW tamer, Outlands Tamer, Northrend Tamer, or Cataclysm Tamer
T = 5.0 when fighting most WoD tamers, any Pandaria tamer, the Feasel brothers, and
Little Tommy Newcomer.
T = 6.0 when fighting Ashlei
Experience Buff Bonus: There are various ways to gain pet experience buffs. All are additive together before multiplying. This bonus is denoted as B.
B = 1.00 when not using any buffs
B = 1.10 when using only a
Safari Hat
B = 1.25 when using only a
Lesser Pet Treat
B = 1.50 when using only a
Pet Treat
B = 1.85 when using all 3 together.
B = 3.85 when using all 3 together during a Pet Experience bonus event.
- NOTE: Kiamoto on the WoW Pet Battle forums figured out that the Darkmoon Top Hat adds an additional 10% pet experience gain. It seems to be additive (I.E. B=1.85 becomes B=1.95). Be careful buying these as they cost tokens, cannot be sent to alts, and disappear for good once the DMF ends.
- NOTE: Every so often a bonus pet experience event occurs over the weekend. Whenever this occurs, you can add 2.00 to your experience multiplier. Doing tamers at this point can greatly increase your levels on a single pet, so you may want to use low levels to avoid wasting all that delicious EXP.
Difficulty Bonus: The game highlights a "Difficulty Bonus" when levelling against higher level pets. This bonus isn't a multiplicative one and is already captured in the base experience equation. It is technically there when fighting lower level pets and serves as a penalty in those cases. It is represented by the opponent_pet_level - your_pet_level portion of the equation.
The final equation after all those factors is:
experience = B*T*N*[(your_pet_level + 9) * (opponent_pet_level - your_pet_level + 5)]
This equation is interesting in that it is a quadratic equation (Ax^2 + Bx + C). This means that pet experience gained will increase as your pet level increases up to a point, but after that it will then decrease, creating a peak level (or levels) that gains the most experience out of all options. As an example, this is the Pandaria Tamer curve (with B = 1.0):
Notice how level 10 and level 11 pets get the most experience out of any other (4750 experience). Pets lower and higher than those levels get less experience. To calculate this by hand, there is a standard max value for quadratics. For our particular cases, the standard max EXP value equation is:
level_for_most_exp = (opponent_pet_level - 4) / 2
For results that are less than 1, the most EXP comes from level 1 pets
For results ending in an decimal (.5), both the integer level above and below that value give max EXP.
Special Conditions
There are two special scenarios that can modify the equation further but aren't typical scenarios when levelling pets.
Capturing a Wild Pet: Though not a hugely common occurrence since a lot of mass levelling happens at tamers, sometimes while levelling against wild pets, you might run into a rare version of a pet you need (or even a non-rare version if you don't have the pet at all). While it wasn't your intent to farm for that new pet, it just dropped into your lap.
In scenarios where you are levelling a pet but also capture a wild pet, the experience you gain is decreased by 25% before rounding (So multiply by 0.75 before rounding).
Multiple Carry Pets: Most of the time, a single carry pet is used with two level 25 pets. Sometimes, however, one might have two carry pets to split too much EXP (to not waste it) on a tamer that can be solo'ed by one 25 pet.
If the two carry pets are equal level, they get split the EXP straight down the middle. If they aren't equal level, it gets a bit more complicated. In that scenario, the pet with the higher level gets slightly less than half its expected EXP while the lower level pet gets slightly more than half its exptected EXP. I haven't quite nailed down exactly how it is calculated, but have been collecting data on it when I can. On my last run of level 23 carry pet paired with various other levels, it initially appears to be a small amount EXP per level difference between the two, but that is not exact. With the rounding of EXP it's hard to tell for certain the exact value until I go through more data. So for example without the safari hat and a team of 25, 23, and 22 against a Pandaria tamer I got 1392 for the 23 (expected 1400) and 1559 for the 22 (expected 1550). There will be more work on this in the future.
Requirements for Getting Pet Experience
Knowing how to obtain experience is essential to forming a good new carry pet strategy. There are certain conditions that must be met in order to get experience for your pet:
- Must not be level 25
- Must not be 5 or more levels higher than the enemy pets.
- Must be alive at the end of battle
- Must be active at the end of at least one turn
That last one is interesting. Notice that I didn't say "must have done something". It is very important to understand that all the pet has to do is be active at the end of a turn, as this opens doors to a lot of levelling strategies. What qualifies as being active at the end of a turn?
- Performing an action or passing with the carry pet. This is a common one you'll see in pet levelling strats. Even to this day, there are still a lot of guide writers that think this is the only way to get experience for your pet. However, there are others.
- Manually swap in the carry pet and then swap it out for another. Each swap counts as a full turn. This is probably one of the more common method you'll see in guides.
- When a pet dies, select the carry pet, then immediately swap to another pet. This one is also pretty common in a lot of guides. The important thing to note is that when a pet dies, the round isn't over, so selecting the carry pet finishes the round and meets the criteria for the carry pet to be active at the end of a round.
- Abilities like [ability]Feign Death[/ability] or [ability]Death Grip[/ability] that force your carry pet to the front line. This works similar to a manual swap, except it is done via ability (and sometimes by the enemy...see Nearly Headless Jacob or Little Tommy Newcomer)
- Automatically having the carry pet selected when a pet dies. This is less commonly seen but still works very well. Here the game selects your carry pet for you. It occurs when two conditions are met:
- The other two pets have died, leaving only the carry pet
- The current pet died at the same time as the final enemy pet died. This method is most commonly seen in strategies that use [ability]Explode[/ability] (see common Mo'ruk or Thundering Pandaren Spirit strategies involving the [pet]Darkmoon Zeppelin[/pet]).
Pet Experience Chart
Below is a chart detailing the total amount of experience needed to attain a level and the amount of experience needed to get to the next level. This is useful for planning out which pets to level if you aren't going for complete maximum experience gains.
NOTE: Ril posted a slightly more detailed chart here: http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?p=107583#p107583
Pet Experience Gained for Each Trainer
Below is a list of tamers, the experience equation of that tamer, and the pet level(s) that gain the most experience from that tamer. Equations are listed without any experience buffs (B = 1.0).
Classic WoW Tamers
Outlands Tamers
- Nicki Tinytech
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(25 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 8
Ras'an
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(26 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 8 & 9
Narrok
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(27 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 9
Morulu the Elder
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(28 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 9 & 10
Bloodknight Antari
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(29 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 10
Northrend & Cataclysm Tamers
Pandaria & Darkmoon Faire Tamers
Timeless Isle & Celestial Tournament Undercard Tamers
Draenor Tamers
There are 2 different experience curves for the new Draenor Tamers:
- Ashlei
experience = 15.0*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(30 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 10 & 11
NOTE: For trend data only. Not all specific values verified
Gargra
Cymre Brightblade
Taralune
Vesharr
Tarr the Terrible
experience = 12.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(30 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 10 & 11
NOTE: Same equation as Pandaria tamers. Not all specific values verified
Garrison Visiting Tamer
The new random visiting tamer has a chance to use 5 different teams. The tamer has an decent tamer bonus with a set of level 23 pets. Despite the 5 versions of this collector (per faction), you can only complete this battle once per day per account.
- Erris the Collector (Version 1) (Spores, Dusty, Salad)
Erris the Collector (Version 2) (Moon, Mouthy, Carl)
Erris the Collector (Version 3) (Enbi'see, Mal, Bones)
Erris the Collector (Version 4) (Sprouts, Prince Charming, Runts)
Erris the Collector (Version 5) (Nicodemus, Brisby, Jenner)
Kura Thunderhoof (Version 1) (Spores, Dusty, Salad)
Kura Thunderhoof (Version 2) (Moon, Mouthy, Carl)
Kura Thunderhoof (Version 3) (Enbi'see, Mal, Bones)
Kura Thunderhoof (Version 4) (Sprouts, Prince Charming, Runts)
Kura Thunderhoof (Version 5) (Nicodemus, Brisby, Jenner)
experience = 12.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(28 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 9 & 10
NOTE: For trend data only. Not all specific values verified
Menagerie Battles
Experienced gained from Menagerie battles varies by battle. Currently only
Squirt gives decent experience. She provides experience as if she were a Cataclysm or Wrath tamer (T = 3.0). All other Menagerie battles either have an extremely small tamer bonus (T=0.1) or give single wild pet only experience. Neither scenario is worthwhile for levelling pets.
- Squirt (Deebs, Tyri, Puzzle)
experience = 7.5*[ (your_pet_level + 9)*(30 - your_pet_level) ]
Max at your_pet_level = 10 & 11
NOTE: Same equation as Cataclysm and Wrath tamers. Not all specific values verified
Wasted Pet Experience Chart
Below is a chart detailing the level at which pet experience begins to be wasted in various scenarios. This can be useful for planning mass levelling sprees of similar level pets or for setting levelling pet caps in the teams addon Rematch.
NOTE: Special thanks to Ril for inspiration and data related to this chart.
All, who lvling many pets, on some point start to note exp and another things. Your topic has many good datas for future work.
