Buying or working for pets?

[Avalee]

I'm in the situation that I can just buy all pets (well ofcourse not the non-cageble ones), but I'm so cheap I won't even buy a 200G pet and will spend weeks to get the required materials to get just one of them.

So If gold wasn't an issue, what would you do; Just buy all your pets from the AH or would you still work on getting them the hard way?

[Sedaii]

I like to get my own pets when it is reasonable to do so. It gives me a lot of satisfaction and more of a feeling of accomplishment. For example, I like to make all my own crafted pets. I'm an altoholic and level up one of each profession to max.

That said, I am fine with trading or buying some of the pets that may require a ton of rep grind, especially cross faction. I've also spent many thousands and thousands in gold on the raid dropped pets. I don't raid much anymore and it is worth it to me to have the pets

[Gabrizar]

I do a mix. If something I care to do, I try getting the pet the "normal" way.
If something I dont really want to do, or have horrible luck at, and isnt too insane prize, I am happy to buy it off the AH.

I rarely farm for pets, not how I like spending my days. I did get fox and other one from there on my own, but boring farming = AH visits.

I do however craft all my pets myself, as a altaholic, I have all proffs, even if it take MUCH longer, same with mounts. Did get the new bush chicken on my own, same with moon moon, but otherwise I would had gotten from the AH, and did use ah for both darkmoon faire tamer pets. Have awful luck with pets, and have a bit gold to spend.

[Peanutty]

I do whatever I deem more efficient. I would rather earn pets myself but I don't like going up against RNG. Frankly it's easier for me to make gold than to farm pets with low drop rates so in those cases I'll simply buy or trade for the pet.

[Ishildur]

Depends. Is it time intensive and requires social interaction with people who have no skills at anything social? Yes I'll buy a pet that drops in LFR so I don't drain more sanity than I can stand to lose. Now I'll make a couple of attempts first, then I'll look for the best deal available. Glad that I do go a couple of attempts since my second run through I did get hatespark.

Now things that just take a few weeks or possibly months but don't take a huge amount of insane tedious grinding for one pet I will get on my own. Things like profession pets and mounts, it's easy enough to get an alt to a level where I can feed mats to them. Same for rare spawns that are a once a day type of deal, or raid pets that I can only solo once a week per character anyway. Gold hasn't been an issue for a good while for me but I like getting these things on my own. It's easy to be patient when you know if you really do get completely fed up you can just pay your way through the frustration. I do snatch up pets if I see them at a massive discount from average sell price, I like to get my pets by myself but I ain't stupid.

[Jesjbrown]

I get really stressed out in LFR so I've slowly been buying all the dungeon pets on the AH. It's taking awhile (since I don't ever seem to have any gold), but I have Raiding with Leashes 1 and didn't have to get called a "noob" a single time!

[Azillero]

I do a mix. If something I care to do, I try getting the pet the "normal" way.
If something I dont really want to do, or have horrible luck at, and isnt too insane prize, I am happy to buy it off the AH.

I rarely farm for pets, not how I like spending my days. I did get fox and other one from there on my own, but boring farming = AH visits.

I do however craft all my pets myself, as a altaholic, I have all proffs, even if it take MUCH longer, same with mounts. Did get the new bush chicken on my own, same with moon moon, but otherwise I would had gotten from the AH, and did use ah for both darkmoon faire tamer pets. Have awful luck with pets, and have a bit gold to spend.

I'm a lot like this. I'll farm for a while, then get irritated and go buy it if it's cheap enough. For example, I farmed and farmed for the Anubisath Idol and it just wouldn't drop. So, I eventually bought it.

For others, I won't pay beyond a certain amount. I'm cheap. I don't know exactly what the limit is, but I know it when I see it .

[Aalea]

I also do both. I have farmed at least 90% of my pets and will continue to do so but I had contemplated buying Hatespark and the Bush Chicken. Thankfully the Bush Chicken dropped for me the other day and I got Hatespark today.

[Jazeel]

I farm where reasonable, i trade both cross faction, and on AH. As i don't raid and have no luck in LFR when it comes to pets i have bought all those pandarian raid drops. I have a few alts on another server, where i trade a few pets and occasionally pick up a bargain that saves me a grind a thon or two

[Ranok]

Back when I was working on trying to score some pets running legacy raids, quickly caught on that if I spent the same number of hours farming G instead, could make a whole lot more than the pets cost on AH.

[Dash]

I've been buying the MoP raids pets since I don't really raid anymore, and the money was on my alliance char which I'll probably never play anymore so that was convenient. Other than that as most of the others said I do like to work for my pets, even though I'm quite comfortable with my gold. That said, I'm also super cheap so unless Hatespark is dropping to the 10k range, things look a bit grim. Maybe I'll work out a trade, because coughing up 40 or 45k, no way, the seller can go to hell (even though I do realize the rarity of that pet, even more so when the anniversary is over)

[Abashera]

As a rule, I won't buy a pet I can make myself. A lot of people had Rascal Bot and Pierre as soon as they came out, which they bought off AH for ridiculous prices. I waited until I could make them myself. I'm still making the mats for another Racal Bot. I got the speed version, and it's speed isn't enough for me to justify not owning the power breed instead.

I didn't even entertain the thought of buying a Crawling Claw, when I knew I could farm it. And to this day I still don't own that stupid epic parrot you get from farming pirates. One day it will drop for me; but I don't NEED to own it. And considering I have "The Insane" title... that goes to show you my luck with that dumb parrot.

But there are a lot of pets I bought as well. I got the Black Tabby off the BM AH for about 4k. It was a steal compared to the regular AH where it goes from 7k to over 20k. And I bought several of the ones that drop out of raids and dungeons in MoP. And good thing, because I never saw one single pet drop when the content was current—and I often used my bonus rolls for bosses that dropped pets.

I was very fortunate to get Hatespark on my first run. But if it didn't drop for me, I doubt I would ever own it, because I won't pay 20k+ for a pet.

My biggest pet purchase was the S/S Gilnean Raven. I got it for 7k on the AH, and I think that was a steal. Considering other ravens were up for the same price, I don't believe the person knew what he had. He was more likely someone who doesn't understand breeds, who leveled another Worgan, and sold one of the two he owned, not knowing one was ultra rare. There's a P/S on my AH now for over 20k. That guy knows what he has. I bought a S/B Gilnean for a few hundred gold, and that was a rare find as well. Because he's more powerful, I often use him instead of the S/S when against non-flyers. My second biggest pet purchase was Gregarious Grell, which was close in price to the Raven. It's OP, I had to own it, lol.

I'm saving for a mount I want, which I expect to pay upwards of 300k. That will be the largest purchase I ever make. But it's impossible to get it any other way. Must - own!

[Beast_mast0r]

I buy everything under 500g that I don't have ;D.

[Morlis]

I have purchased many pets, mostly ones that required grinding tons of kills on really low mobs. Like many of the dragonkin whelplings and a parrot type bird that the name escapes me. I just hate that sort of grinding and I am never lucky enough to get stuff like that when I am the appropriate level for those zones.

Biggest single purchase would be 23k for a Darkmoon Rabbit. but total I would have to say I have easily spent near 200k on pets.

[Kozia]

I do a bit of both as well. I won't buy any of the proff pets as I'd rather make them myself. I'm even levelling alts for that specific purpose. That being said, pets I don't find fun to grind anymore or see as a bargain on AH, I don't mind buying. Just bought the spineclaw crab from Timeless Isle today for 1000g which I thought was a steal and I've gotten tired of trying to farm that. I especially hate those timeless pets where you only have 1 chance and then have to wait another hour or even longer for another low chance for it to drop. Especially now when Timeless is old content.

I also bought/am buying many of the MOP raid pets when I see them cheap on AH as I only ever got 1 even after running tons of LFRs and I don't want to wait until I can solo them. My biggest buy yet has been that bloody hatespark, which I had to drop 25k on last weekend as after 4 runs I had had more than enough of MC (I've run it time and again, even back when it was an actual raid) and I didn't dare wait any longer. That was even more expensive than my TCG spectral tiger cub which I got for 12k, and now I'm a poor toon again.

I will farm for as many as I can though, also because I seem to be perpetually bad at earning G in this game, but I don't mind buying when the opportunity presents itself. There are plenty of pets I have to work for anyway and I'd rather buy than spend many afters doing something I hate.

[Kpb321]

I guess you could say I'm lazy and cheap. I've got a pretty good collection but I'm also not in a hurry to get all the new pets. I don't have any problem buying pets but I'll typically hold off on pets I'll get eventually or I expect to get cheaper but I'm also not going to stubbornly hold off on buying something that I don't think is going to get much cheaper and I haven't managed to or won't be able farm on my own.

I ended up buying a DM Eye a while ago and still haven't gotten one to drop in a bag in spite of continuing to do the DMF guy when available. I also bought a Hatespark for 10k with no hesitation when I saw it on the AH. I did the raid once and don't have any desire to run that raid repeatedly to hope for a drop and I don't often have the time needed to dedicate to that raid. Knowing that it is a limited time drop I knew it would end up going up once the raid is gone and 10k is a pretty cheap price right now. If I see another one I'll pick it up and hold on to for a while before trying to sell/trade it.

I do have a fair amount of gold I've earned from buying and selling pets and I've kept that separate from my characters gold so I have no problem spending that gold on more pets but being patient with it is probably why I still have that gold to spend.

[Faerdin]

I only ever purchase pets when:

a) They are rare and I am getting one for a friend.
b) I don't have any particularly strong feelings about them.
c) They are really, really cheap and I ask myself, "Why not?"

For example: the Magical Crawdad, the Spineclaw Crab, the Frostwolf Ghostpup, and Hatespark the Tiny were all pets I had really strong feelings about. They looked fantastic and/or had abilities that I knew would make them must-haves on my Battle Pets roster, so I hunkered down and set out to gather them. I carry this out especially if the pet in question is pseudo-rare and realistically pretty easy to get (Seriously, how are people making thousands of gold on the Ghostpup?).

But pets like the Black Tabby Cat that are just for an achievement? I bought that.

Going out and searching for a pet you are really going to use just makes them feel that much more valuable in the end, and it almost makes me feel a bit more attached to them since I have stories about the time I got them. It's a lot less fun when stories start with "So I was scanning the Auction House" instead of "So I was on the Timeless Isle and nearly got ganked by Huojin Landing trying to attack the Monstrous Spineclaw that I spawned."

[Sycophantic]

I typically have no issues with long grinds and/or waits for pets.

I also find it helpful to check the forums to see what other people are looking for so I can trade for em.

That being said I totally paid 17k for hatespark the tiny. I ran MC back in vanilla and had less than no interest grinding the new MC for it.

[Opallena]

If I see a rare pet cheap on AH, I snag it and give it to one of my sisters/friends who needs it still. If it's something rare like the TCG pets (I.E.: Spectral Tiger Cub) I'll buy it with gold rather then spending hundreds of dollars on it, same goes for raid drop pets since my luck sucks in LFR; never did get any of them to drop.

Profession Pets I like to work for myself, since I have alts with all of the professions. I give farming a good shot before giving up, particularly if most people are getting the pet within 500 kills of a mob (or less than 25 if its a rare spawn).