[EN] Pet Battles - Basics explained (and more)

[Ventress90]

>>> VARIANTA IN LIMBA ROMANA AICI <<<



[EN] Pet Battles - Basics Explained


This guide is destined for those who wish to get started and find out more about the new Pet Battles introduced in Mists of Pandaria.
The information presented here is not my creation, this guide is merely a combination of bits and pieces I have found throughout the web. Enjoy!


CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
2. Getting Started with Pet Battles
3. The Basics of Pet Battles
4. Pet Tracking and General Combat
5. Pet Battles User Interface
6. Your Pet-Powered Arsenal
7. HOW PET BATTLES WORK
8. Battle Pet Families and Abilities
9. Capturing Wild Pets
10. Organizing your Collection
11. SOURCES, links, and more useful stuff





1. Introduction:
With the release of Pet Battles in Mists of Pandaria, a whole new type of turn-based mini-game opens within World of Warcraft. Pet Battles allow players to raise their companions’ level (up to level 25), capture wild pets, and even battle other players' companions. So let us start our journey across Azeroth, catch as many as we can and be the best there is, as this frenzy of players battling with companions instead of dueling is growing more and more.



2. Getting Started with Pet Battles
Just like any other thing in World of Warcraft, learning something new will cost gold. Visiting your Battle Pet Trainer in either Orgrimmar or Stormwind will cost one 10 gold to become initiated in battling their companions, as well as receiving a new Track Pet option for their mini-map, in order to make it easier to find wild pets throughout Azeroth.

The level requirement to receive Battle Pet Training is level 5, and once you've learned how to battle on one character, all your other characters will also receive the training.



3. The Basics of Pet Battles:
After visiting the trainer and learning the Pet Battle ability, the first slot for your battle pet becomes available! Just open up your Pet Journal (shortcut is Shift-P) and choose any of your companions, drag and drop it into the slot and you're all set.

But before you head off, you'll need to speak with your trainer again. The trainer will start you off on a short quest chain that will teach you the ability: Revive Battle Pets


Revive Battle Pets icon

This spell is essential, as it is the most convenient way for you to heal and resurrect your wounded and fallen pets, and is located here:



If a companion dies during the battle, it will need to be resurrected before it can participate in another encounter or be summoned as a traveling companion. Get that pet a medic! Or in this case, a Stable Master. Stable Master NPCs can heal and revive your pets for a small fee, and there is no cooldown on the Stable Master's heal. You’ll find Stable Masters in major towns and cities across Azeroth.
Heal spell on cooldown? Can't seem to find a Stable Master? Well, you're in luck because there's yet another way to heal your companions! The Battle Pet Bandage is the third way to heal and resurrect your pets. It's a random drop from the Sack of Pet Supplies that you can obtain by defeating NPC Pet Tamers. It functions in the same fashion as the Revive Battle Pets spell, but it doesn't have a cooldown. They are bind-on-account so you can move them between all your characters, and are stored in stacks of 25.



For more information on Pet Battle Quests, check out this awesome guide made by MindBreaker which further explains Horde and Alliance Pet Battle Quests



4. Pet tracking and general combat:
The ability to track wild pets will allow you to see which critters are capturable and which aren't. If you have the tracking ability selected for your mini-map, a green paw print will show up if a wild pet is nearby. This same icon will also appear above a critter if it is a pet you can battle and catch.


Mini-map tracking and Wild Pet display

When you've chosen a wild pet you would like to battle, right click on the critter and it will take you into a unique Pet Battle UI. You can't engage a Pet Battle if you are in combat, and any attack from a player or nearby creature will remove you from the Pet Battle.

As a tip, make sure that the area in which you will want to engage in your Pet Battle is flat and does not have any objects obstructing the view.



5. Pet Battle User Interface:

The Pet Battle combat UI will show you your active pet's abilities, your opponent's health, stats, quality and abilities, and there will be options for you to switch pets, pass a turn, capture a pet or forfeit the match.


Pet Battle UI example

The golden border and the 'speed' mini-icon surrounding a pet's portrait indicate its initiative (i.e., whether it will be the first to use an ability or attack each round). Initiative is based on a pet's speed, and if this stat is higher than your opponent's, you will be designated to go first. It's as simple as that.


6. Your Pet-Powered Arsenal:
Each pet has 3 abilities it can use during a battle, but a total of 6 to choose from. They will also have a total of 3 active spell slots that show which abilities can be used during a Pet Battle. The first spell slot will already be unlocked, but the second and third will only become available once the companion has reached a certain level. Other spells will also unlock after reaching higher levels.

Each slot has two spell options, and you can switch abilities in each, but only before and after your pet battles - not during. To switch an active ability, click on a pet's active slot in your Pet Journal, and a select which ability you'd like your pet to use from the drop down menu.


Pet Battle ability example



7. HOW PET BATTLES WORK:
Combat is turn-based and there is no time limit on each round in a PVE Pet Battle. You can take your time to determine which spell to use next. In a PVP battle, where you battle another player, each turn has a set amount of time in which you must decide what to do next. Some pet abilities have multiple round cooldowns, while others can do extra damage if certain conditions are met. If your pet's health gets too low or its attacks aren't very effective against a certain combatant, you can always switch out your current pet with another companion on your team.

Once the match is over, you can always change up your active pet team, which is useful if one of your pets is low on health or dead. Each battle that you win will yield experience for each pet that participated. However, deceased companions will not receive any experience (so make an effort to keep them alive by swapping in a different pet).

Experience gains are based on your pet's level compared to the wild pet. Defeating a higher level opponent will grant more experience than a much lower level one, but be ready for a tough fight!

REMEMBER: Only pets that are considered active (those in your three Battle Pet Slots), may be switched in and out during the battle.
BE CAREFUL: Higher level wild pets are often accompanied by more than one critter in battle. Only after beginning the battle will you be able to see any accompanying pets on their team. To win the battle, you will need to defeat (or capture) all of the opposing battle pets, even the newly joined ones.



8. Battle Pet Families and Abilities:
Each pet is categorized into a group or family type. There are 10 pet families: Aquatic, Beast, Critter, Dragonkin, Elemental, Flying, Humanoid, Magic, Mechanical, and Undead. Every pet family has its own strengths and weaknesses, as well as a passive bonus. This information is helpful to know so you can plan stronger attacks against pets who are vulnerable to them, and defend against pets whose attacks are strong against your pet type.


Pet families icons




Thankfully, the source (warcraftpets.com) has provided us with some helpful Cheat Sheets:

Here you can see the types of pets compared to one another:




Left side for when your pet attacks, and the right side for when it is attacked:




Passive Pet Family Bonuses:
Each family conveys a passive bonus to pets of that type. These bonuses can have a significant impact on the outcome of a Pet Battle under the right circumstances.

Aquatic: Harmful damage over time effects are reduced by 50% on Aquatic pets.
Beast: Beats deal 25% extra damage below half health.
Critter: Critters are immune to roots, stuns, and sleep effects.
Dragonkin: Dragons deal 50% additional damage on the next round after bringing a target's health below 50%.
Elemental: Elementals ignore negative weather effects.
Flying: Flying creatures gain 50% extra speed while above 50% health.
Humanoid: Humanoids recover 4% of their maximum health if they dealt damage this round.
Magic: Magic pets cannot be dealt more than 35% of their maximum health in one attack.
Mehcanical: Mechanical pets come back to life once per battle, returning to 20% health.
Undead: Undead pets return to life immortal for one round when killed.



9. Capturing Wild Pets:
Most of the PVE battle pets you face in the wild can be can be captured. To capture a wild pet, you will need to bring its health down to less than 35% and then use the Trap ability once it lights up. Note that using this will take up your turn for the round. In addition, you may only capture one companion on a team of wild pets, so choose wisely!

CAUTION: If your goal is to collect a wild pet, be careful not to kill it! Remember, your objective is to drop it below 35% health. So avoid using any strong attacks against the wild pet when it drops below 50%.

Not all the pets that join a wild pet's team will be capturable. However the majority of them can be trapped. The best way to determine whether or not a pet can be caught is by checking for it in the Pet Journal. If the pet isn't listed, it likely can't be captured.

There is always a chance that your trap will fail. The good news is that the chance of failure drops with each additional attempt. In some situations, a failed trap might mean you need to bring the wild pet's health down again for it to be eligible for caging.





10. Organizing your Collection:
With over 250 wild pets to find and capture, it is very likely that your collection will soon feel full, cluttered. There are a few ways to organize your collection, but there are also some restrictions to keep in mind: the maximum number of total pets you can own is 1000 pets (this includes any duplicate companions) and you can only have 3 of any one pet (and only 1 of certain pets).



There are two ways of dealing with unwanted pets: Caging a pet or Releasing them. Caging a pet will create an item in your inventory, with your caged pet, so that you can either sell it at your Auction House, or give it as a gift. Caging a pet will PRESERVE it's stats and level, so keep that in mind.
While some pets can be caged, other cannot. Then the only way to let go of it is to Release it.



11. SOURCES, links, and more useful stuff:
This guide is not made by me, I only collected the information and complied it all into one thing.

MAIN SOURCES: Warcraftpets.com (90% of the info to be completely honest), WoW Freakz database
Other Sources: Wowhead Battle Pets Guides (various), Top 20 WoW Battle Pets
SOME ADDONS: Curse.com Addons

Pet Tracker - tool designed to help all kinds of trainers in their pet tracking and battling duties. Currently, it:
- Displays the locations of all pets, stables and tamers on the world map.
- Tracks your progress of catching pets in your current zone.
- Shows the rarity of pets in battle and warns you of upgrades.
- Exposes pet breeds in combat, the journal and tooltips.
- Determines and displays all your enemies abilities as you fight.
- Provides a journal of all tamers and their teams.

Collect me - Collect Me keeps track of your mounts, companions, titles, toys and followers in the game and can show you what mounts, companions, titles and toys you're missing with additional information on where to get them. It can also summon companions and mounts randomly from a user defined list.

Pet Journal Enhanced - one of the best addons on this list, it can:
- Hide pets by right clicking on their entry in the Pet Scroll List and select Hide/Show. A red circle with a slash thru it will appear over the pet.
- To hide these pets, uncheck 'show user hidden pets' in the miscellaneous filter menu.
- Pets now show the their predicted Level 25 stats in the pet card.
- For both breed information and level 25 stat prediction; Grey text indicates a low confidence in the prediction. Gold text indicates strong confidence
- Pet names are colored by their rarity.
- Shows each pets rarity in its border in the pet journal list for non wild pets.
- Shows each pets specialization is the pet journal list as an icon showing their highest stat. Now you know at a glance if your pet is tanky, speedy, or powerful.

PetBattleMaster - See the details of your and your opponent's pets in a tabbed view. You get a notification if the enemy pet is missing in your collection or if it has a higher quality than your existing one.

Pokemon Trainer - Pokemon Trainer (PT) was the very first pet battle related addon for World of Warcraft on Curse and is your individual combat helper when it comes to pet battles. It is completely overhauled and rewritten. Choose between the next-generation or the old combat display and start duelling until your keyboard catchs fire.





Useful videos:
Pet Battles - Beginners guide
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pfbuI84FrIw:



Top 25 Pets to level to level 25
https://youtube.com/watch?v=78oIjjrd6JU:



Leveling Battle Pets quickly
https://youtube.com/watch?v=htaK2-zFVGU:



All Tier 1 Battle Pets
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uv0ZIgVYim4:



WoW Battle Pets Youtube guides
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4B6SokqkZ-Sg5ofLBWdG0Q






Remember to always have fun, and if you believe that this guide has helped you in any way, don't forget to say thanks or like it



For those who have read all of this until the end, have this complementary achievement:



| The COMPLETE Rogue PvE guide | Legendary Cloak Questline - GUIDE |

[sorrowknight]

suddenly i feel smarter about pet battles, too bad i'm not gonna practice them

[Ventress90]

you're missing out on all the fun though!


| The COMPLETE Rogue PvE guide | Legendary Cloak Questline - GUIDE |

[Ashcool]

Great job on your guide!

Ashcool - TEMPORARY UNAVAILABLE - Please contact Denim.

[Ventress90]

thank you very much


| The COMPLETE Rogue PvE guide | Legendary Cloak Questline - GUIDE |