World of Warcraft Battle Pets Guide & Overview
Those little critters might remind you of Pokémon. Collecting Pets is a unique activity in the game, that even lets you fight NPC bosses or you can even fight the pets of other players. And if this didnt remind you of Pokemon yet, you can also travel trough the world and catch more Poké….Pets, they are Pets!
What are Battle Pets
Battle Pets are a new type of turn-based mini-game 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 in PvP matches.
Getting Started
To become a pet battle master, look out for a Battle Pet Trainer in one of the low level starting zones or in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
Battle Pet Trainers will teach you Battle Pet Training for 10
, as well as how to Track Pets on your minimap.
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.
In addition, the Battle Pet Trainer can teach you a race-specific pet if you don’t already have it in your collection. However, the trainer will only offer to teach you the pet that is designated for your race.
The Basics
After training the Pet Battles ability, the first slot in your Pet Battles team will unlock. To have an active pet on your team, you’ll need to select a companion from the list in your Pet Journal (Shift+P), and drag it into the first space under Battle Pet Slots. You can unlock the other two slots by completing the achievements Newbie and Just a Pup.
But before you head off to conquer the critter and companion world, 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. This spell is essential, as it’s the most convenient way for you to heal and resurrect your wounded and fallen pets.
Once you’ve learned how to heal your companions, you’re pretty much all set to become the very best, like noone ever was. Catching is my real test, and Training is my cause…♪♪♪
Pet Tracking
The ability Track 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 is the same icon that will also appear above a critter if it is a pet you can catch and battle.
As soon 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.
Pet Battle Combat & UI
Whenever you engage in a Pet Battle, the Pet Battle combat UI will show up.
In the Top bar you can find your and your opponent’s pets remaining health, buffs and debuffs on both active pets, aswell as current effect on combat like weather effects.
The golden border and the ‘speed’ mini-icon surrounding a pet’s portrait indicate its Initiative. 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.
In the bottom bar, you will find your current pet’s chosen abilities. You can flee a fight aswell, switch your pet with another one in your team, or capture the other pet if applicable.
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. 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. Only pets that are considered active may be switched in and out during the battle. 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.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.
Advantage of different Pet Families
Each pet is categorized into a group or family type. There are 10 pet families:
- Aquatic
- Beast
- Critter
- Dragonkin
- Elemental
- Humanoid
- Magic
- Mechanical
- 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.
This chart shows all pet types, their unique abilities, and which enemies they are strong/weak against. If a pet is weak to a certain ability, it takes 50% more damage. If a pet hits another pet which has strong defensive against a certain type, attacks will deal 33% less damage.
- Aquatic: Harmful damage over time effects are reduced by 50% on Aquatic pets. Increase Aquatic damage over time effect by 25%
- 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.
- 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.
- Mechanical: 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, but deal 25% less damage.
Battle Pet Quality
Pets caught by players can have different quality. You can raise the quality of your pets with Flawless Battle-Stone.
- Poor – gray
- Common – white
- Uncommon – green
- Rare – blue
- Epic – purple
- Legendary – orange
It’s important to note that players pet cannot reach epic or legendary quality, but PvE Pet Battle Enemies and bosses can have these qualities.
Capturing Wild Pets
Most of the battle pets you encounter in the wild 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!
There is always a chance that your trap will fail. Everytime your trap fails, it increases the chance to catch the pet for the next traps you throw at the wild pet.
PvP Pet Battles
There are two ways how you can engage in pet battles with other players:
- Through the Pet Battles queue.
- By challenging a player to a Pet Battles duel.
To battle against a randomly chosen player and their team of companions, simply hit the Find Battle button in your Pet Journal. The queuing system will attempt to match your team up with an opponent’s team of similar level.
You can also earn experience for your surviving pets by winning those qued matches, but winning a Pet Battle duel will not.
Strategy Tips
We have prepared some general tips and strategies when engaging in Pet Battles.
- Level up more than one team of 3 pets. You can sub out injured companions with other pets of similar level when your Revive Battle Pet spell is on cooldown.
- Early on, it can be quite advantageous to level a mechanical pet and a beast pet as two of your primary battle pets. You’ll run into a ton of beasts and critters at the lower levels, and mechanical is strong against beasts while beasts are strong against critters, allowing you to level more quickly.
- Some pet battle abilities persist through multiple rounds. These can buff your own pets or debuff your opponent’s. Use these abilities first to get the most out of them and pave the way to victory!
- Remember to switch companions during a battle. If a pet on your active team doesn’t participate in the fight, it won’t receive any experience.
- You can earn player experience by Pet Battling. Players that are not maximum Level will earn a small amount of experience when battling wild pets that are within 5 levels of their highest level pet on their active team.