Are you a ... stealer?!?!1?!?one?!?!

[Kendrah]

Do you steal the teams that you come up against the kick your bootie? I'm just curious. Today has been one of those PVP pet battle days where I come up against a huge variety of teams. I think I only saw one or two teams that were exactly the same. It was very interesting.

I should say, for the sake of honesty, I totally steal teams that kick my bootie really badly two or three times in a row. I don't use them immediately but I do write them down.

[Skavenged]

Of course I steal team ideas. Its the absolute best way to figure out what works and what doesn't.

[Kel]

I have ZERO original team ideas. I think it's all been done long before me. So far I've only done about 8 PvP battles, winning 3 of them. So I have a very crappy record. But also, I play on a medium pop server that doesn't seem to have a huge pet community. So my wait times seem to be longer and you tend to see the same teams over and over.

[Peanutty]

Yup. I freely admit I used someone's darkness team set up to get me started with pet PVP. I'm not good with strategy so I'm always looking at ideas others put forth, then modifying them as needed to suit my play style. By the time I hit my goal of 250 wins I was still running a darkness team, but I'd switched a few pets and abilities by then, so it had become my own team.

[Kel]

250 WINS?!?!?!? Holy hell man! Like I said, I got 3, and was damn happy to have those! Now I feel like I suck!

[Peanutty]

250 WINS?!?!?!? Holy hell man! Like I said, I got 3, and was damn happy to have those! Now I feel like I suck!

You'll get there... it's much harder at first when you're not really sure what you're doing (and worse, have no clue how to read what your opponent is doing, since unlike the computer, a human player won't stupidly follow a rotation). Don't be afraid to switch things up or to try new teams until you find something that meshes with how you want to play.

[Kel]

Yeeeeaaaahhhhh....... So now all I gotta do is figure out how I wanna play.

Yea, I still struggle to not only put together the right team, but then the right moveset, and then know how/when to use that moveset. And to be honest, I bailed on the pet battles at 3 wins. So i still haven't completed that quest.

[Digem]

Yeeeeaaaahhhhh....... So now all I gotta do is figure out how I wanna play.

Yea, I still struggle to not only put together the right team, but then the right moveset, and then know how/when to use that moveset. And to be honest, I bailed on the pet battles at 3 wins. So i still haven't completed that quest.

Once you get better at recognizing what another teams pets are trying to do it becomes a lot easier.
You will get beaten a lot at first but see what the opponent is doing and try to set up similar teams/tatics.
It will come to you soon enough.
I just hit 3500 pvp pet wins slowly getting closer to that 5000 mark.
It is a good way to level Alts and you get some stones along the way just keep at it, it gets easier.

And yes I flat out stole some of my teams.
Great idea when starting out, steal/borrow from the ones kicking your butt.
Then as one gets better make adjustments as they fit you.

[Kendrah]

Yeeeeaaaahhhhh....... So now all I gotta do is figure out how I wanna play.

Yea, I still struggle to not only put together the right team, but then the right moveset, and then know how/when to use that moveset. And to be honest, I bailed on the pet battles at 3 wins. So i still haven't completed that quest.

Honestly? The thing that has helped me get better is understanding the combo's that people make and not being as rigid in my play style. I mean, when I started out, I was still doing the 'this guide says I should do this and this and this in this order' and that really lost me a whole ton of matches.

I can basically tell how the battle will likely go down by now just by seeing his pets. You just learn how the patterns go. Any team with burning is almost always have [ability]Conflagrate[/ability] in there somewhere. Darkness generally brings NS soon after. Thunderstorm weather teams will probably be going to party wide AOE. Kun-lai runt will generally be in a blizzard team that'll use it's three attacks to the best advantage. Sunny weather teams are basically betting they'll outlive you. Now I'm seeing a lot of arcane weather groups that have pets which normally would get stunned by their bigger attacks.

You get used to these sorts of things and can plan pet sacrifices and the out before the bigger attacks hit you. Of course, I'm just at (almost) 120 wins so perhaps I'm not the best judge of things. I still die a hellava lot.

[Skavenged]

I'm currently closing in on the 2500 win mark. Probably the biggest hurdle I had to overcome when I was new was the fear of switching out a pet facing a bad matchup, and thereby giving them a free hit. Once I overcame that, and developed an understanding of what my opponents pets could do, I started winning. The absolute hardest teams are the ones that use common pets, but in a different way than the masses.

[JEC]

The guides are great for trainers where their moves are pretty much scripted, but where pvp is concerned, learning from good opponents is the best way to go.

Absolutely you should borrow ideas from others. Anticipating what your opponent might do and trying to counter their moves will win a lot more battles than trying to stick to some set rotation. And realizing that pvp is mostly all about the matchup - sometimes you're just not going to win.

[Kendrah]

The absolute hardest teams are the ones that use common pets, but in a different way than the masses.

This is the best advice, I think, for anyone new to pvp pet battles. Most teams that tend to be formed are in response to the predictable teams you get. I've won games with sear magic alone, because the person I was battling was completely stumped by such a simple strategy. One kept wasting turns swapping an unborn in to haunt me every time I seared it out.

[Awq]

Honestly? The thing that has helped me get better is understanding the combo's that people make and not being as rigid in my play style. I mean, when I started out, I was still doing the 'this guide says I should do this and this and this in this order' and that really lost me a whole ton of matches.

You get used to these sorts of things and can plan pet sacrifices and the out before the bigger attacks hit you. Of course, I'm just at (almost) 120 wins so perhaps I'm not the best judge of things. I still die a hellava lot.

This so much. It matches my experiences.

I do not steal as much as I should. I generally try to make teams around certain pets/abilities. The last teams that I have copied were: Kun-Lai Runt, Rottern Little Helper, Tiny Snowman & Blighthawk, Nexus Whelpling, Tiny Blue Carp. I stole those around 4-5 months ago and used them for 10 matches. Copying however is a great way to understand (weaknesses of) teams.
Off-topic: If someone knows a good team involving the Tiny White Carp (75%+ winratio), please let me steal it.

[Trece]

I do! I'm 170 into 250 (even though armory isn't showing it) Some days I can't win to save my life so I will copy a good team and play with it. My problem is I never stick with one team I like to use all my pets so I don't win as much as I could.