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Previewed at BlizzCon 2011, the Pet Battle System will allow most formerly non-combat pets, also known as companions, to become battle pets and battle each other for bragging rights, leveling, and addition of abilities. While this feature will not be released until the Mists of Pandaria expansion is released, the expansion will not be required use the pet battle system and will be available to all players.^[1]

Contents 1 Background 2 Beta FAQ 3 Upcoming in Beta 4 Information 5 Details 5.1 Limitations 5.2 NPCs 5.3 Pet Journal 6 Battle pets 6.1 Battle pet family overview 6.2 Families 6.3 Strengths and Weaknesses 7 Battle pet abilities 7.1 Battle pet passive abilities 8 Battles 9 Leveling 9.1 Calculating experience 9.2 Experience table 9.3 Leveling tips 10 Media 10.1 Video 11 References 12 See also 13 External links

Background

From the official World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria website:^[2]

For years, your faithful vanity pets have accompanied you on countless adventures. They've provided you with comfort, company, sometimes even with entertainment and hours of fun. Maybe you only have a handful of pets you really love, or maybe you have made it your quest to capture as many of them as you can. The fact remains, heroes love their little companions... and in Mists of Pandaria, they will take the spotlight in a brand-new way.

Beta FAQ

As of Beta build 15851:^[3]

• Fight pets around the world in solo, 2v2 and 3v3 battles.
• Capture pets in the world of varying quality and strength.
• Duel and queue for PvP battles against other players.
• Interact on an epic questline to defeat Master Pet Tamers across all of Azeroth.
• Buy and sell pets on the AH (not all pets are tradable, like wild caught pets).^[4]
• Earn a wide assortment of Pet Battle achievements and associated rewards.
• Browse the new Pet Journal and manage your pets.
• Use your pets across any character on your Battle.net account (Battle Pet achievements are account-wide).

Known issues:^[3]

• Pets are currently healing to full health after a battle. This is a known bug and hotfix planned soon.
• Pre-existing pets have no stats. Any pets that you acquire new are fine. This is also a bug to be hotifxed soon.
• In certain cases, starting a pet battle with a creature in the world will report an error about the pet being currently in battle, or that the account is locked. Both of these are hopefully on the hotfix list.
• Some pets will be missing abilites, ability FX or animations.
• The questline is very much work-in-progress.
• The XP curve being tuned so any feedback on this is appreciated.
• Spawn rates on pets in the world are WIP. Feedback on this is appreciated.
• An issue where players are sometimes losing a battle slot. A relog should fix the problem.

Upcoming in Beta

Post build 15882:^[5]

• Unique Tamer emotes.
• Unique Tamer pets.
• Tamer battles have been tuned up in difficulty.
• One Grand Master Tamer per continent. Defeating him/her will unlock all the daily's on that continent.
• The flow has been consolidated to work though our two main trainers in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
• We have implemented more than 40 Tamer fights across the entire game. This does not include the boss fights!
• Daily quests on Grand Master Tamers offer the Sack of Pet Supplies as a reward.
• A new achievement reward for defeating all the Tamers. A "Tamer" title.
• All of the quests to fight Tamers are now account-wide. This means that the one-shot quests can only be completed by one character on your account. The daily's can be completed by any character, once per day. Account wide quests are denoted in the quest log.

Information

This system will act much like a secondary profession and will be available to all players.^[6]

Companions will now be able to battle each other in a new turn-based combat system to level up and unlock new abilities. Pets will also be able to encounter and battle pets in the wild to capture them for the player.^[2] Players will be able to fight with teams of pets up to 3 for each player at a time.^[7] Customization, progress status, abilities and info will be tracked in a new Pet Journal.^[7]

Eventually you will be able to seek out new Master Pet Tamer NPCs (were called master pet trainer) to learn new pet abilities from them if your pet is worthy and can defeat the trainer's pet.^[2]

Engaging in pet battles may award the player experience similar to gathering professions.^[8] Players may disable invites to pet battles.^[8]

To get the highest percentage possible of participants, Blizzard has decided that players will not know the identity of players they are fighting against. This is to avoid trash-talking. Another way they are hoping to diminish the negativity involved in some aspects of PvP, they are also only recording wins.^[9]

Details

Some more details were released during the March 2012 press event:^[10]

Battles

• A battle will feature a player and his 3 pets standing on each side of the screen, with 1 pet will move towards the middle as the active combatant.
  • On each turn, you can use 1 of the active pet's 3 abilities or swap to a different pet.
  • Possibly 2 general abilities that you could use once per game.
  • No record of your losses will be kept, only a running total of your victories.

Pets

• Name your pets.
• Each pet will have 6 possible abilities that you can unlock and pick 3 from for each fight.
• Pets have 4 stats: health, attack, defense, and movement, which acts like an initiative roll, deciding who attacks first.
• Pets are leveled individually and you unlock pet slots by earning achievements in pet battles.

Other

• You will not see other players' names or be able to chat during pet battles.

Limitations

General limitations:

• In the brief time when it was semi-enabled prior to build 15581, you needed to be level 90 before you could engage in pet battles, since the pet battle trainers only allowed you to learn [Battle Pet Training] at level 90.^{[citation needed]} Later in the beta as of build 15851, you should be able to learn at a level as low as 5.^[11]

Known limitations on pets that can be used for battle:

• Trading pets:^[12]
  • Players can trade Blizzard Store pets excluding [Guardian Cub] (because it's not BoP and it's unique).
  • Collector's Edition and other limited edition pets (like [Mini Tyrael] or BlizzCon pets) will not be tradable, either.
  • After build 15882, pets caught via pet battles in the wild will not be trade-able.^[4]
• Pets excluded from battle system:^[12]
  • Currently the exceptions are pets with humanoid children models. They will not be included in pet battle system.
  • Nor will the [Guardian Cub].

NPCs

Battle Pet Trainers^[3]

• These NPCs teach players Battle Pet Training, granting the ability to fight and capture pets. The training comes with a pet heal/rez spell and the ability to track pets in the world. These trainers can be found in all the racial start zones as well as Orgrimmar and Stormwind. The guards in the capitals can direct you to them as well. Note that this training is account-wide, so you only need to learn it on one character.
• Pet Battle Training requires level 5 and 100g.

Master Pet Tamers^[3]

• These are NPCs for the battle pet questline. You can fight these characters in a pet battle for increased XP, achievements and rewards. Defeating the Grand Master on each continent will unlock daily quests (via an achievement) for all of the other Tamers on that same continent.

Pet Journal

Main article: Pet Journal

You will track all your battle pets via the Pet Journal and build teams to battle other player's pet teams. This will be the main UI for the system when not in battle.

Details from the Beta FAQ:^[3]

• Players can have up to 500 total pets and up to 3 versions of the same pet.
• Pets can be named, released, marked as favorite or put in a cage for trading/selling from the journal.
• Filters allow you to sort your collection by family, source, collected/not collected or favorites.
• Source info shows you where to obtain a pet and small lore blurb about it.
• Abilites loadouts for your pets are set in the journal. This becomes available on pets at level 10.
• View stats on your pets. Stats include Health, Speed, Power and Quality.

Battle pets

Main article: Battle pet

Account-Wide Pets^[3]

• Pets (companions) are now account-wide. This means that any pet you have on one character will be shared with all of the others on your Battle.net account. Earn level 6 with Grunty on character A? Log in character B and that level 6 Grunty will be there waiting for you.If you have multiple versions of the same pet on multiple characters on your account, they will be merged into one. We will place any extras in your bags or mail them to you if you are out of space.

Capturing^[3]

• Pets are caught via PvE battles in the world. Any pet you can fight, you can catch. In order to catch a pet, you need to get it to low health and use your trap ability. Traps upgrade via specific achievements, improving your chance to catch higher level pets.
• You can catch up to three of the same type of pet.

Pet Quality^[3]

• Pets that are captured in the world have varying levels of quality, just like an item would. The quality stat is randomly determined every time a pet spawns. Higher quality pets get a larger stat allotment each time you level. Be on the lookout for Rares!

Pets on the AH^[3]

• Most pets can be bought and sold from the AH. A new section is on the AH specifically for this.
• Pets that are sold on the AH retain their stats and levels.
• Pets that can't be traded will display a warning in their info text as well as having the “Put in Cage” option disabled.

Battle pet family overview

Battle pets will fall into one of 10 possible pet families. Each pet family has its own strengths and weaknesses when up against certain other companion families.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Families

•  Aquatic^[16] - Aquatic attacks deal bonus damage to Elemental companions and less damage to Magic companions.
•  Beast - Beast attacks deal bonus damage to Critter companions and less damage to Flying companions.
•  Critter - Critter attacks deal bonus damage to Undead companions and less damage to Humanoid companions.
•  Dragonkin^[16] - Dragonkin attacks deal bonus damage to Magic companions and less damage to Undead companions.
•  Elemental - Elemental attacks do more damage to Mechanical companions and less to Critter companions.
•  Flying - Flying attacks deal bonus damage to Aquatic companions and less damage to Dragonkin companions.
•  Humanoid - Humanoid attacks do more damage to Dragonkin and less to Beast companions.
•  Magic^[17] (not Mystical,^[18] or Mythical^[15]) - Magical attacks deal bonus damage to Flying and less damage to Mechanical companions.
•  Mechanical - Mechanical attacks deal bonus damage to Beast companions and less damage to Elemental companions.
•  Undead - Undead attacks do more damage to Humanoid companions and less to Aquatic companions.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Chart courtesy of Wowjuju.^[19]

Battle pet abilities

Battle pets will have abilities, just like player characters, but they will be more simplified, generally increase in effect based on battle pet level, and have specific strengths and weaknesses against other battle pet families.

Battle pet passive abilities

Each battle pet of particular family/type will share a specific passive ability:^[16][20]

Battles

Basics from Beta FAQ:^[3]

• PvE battles take place in two ways: against NPC trainers and against pets that you can fight in the world. Pet tracking will let you find pets in the world that you can fight and capture. Keep an eye out!
• PvP battles also have two varieties. You can choose to duel another player or you can queue up and be matched against another player of similar skill. Note that you do not earn XP for duels.
• Pets heal a portion of their health after every fight. The amount healed is 50% of the damage that they took during the fight. You can also full heal all of the pets in your journal with the [Revive Battle Pets]^ω ϖ spell (10 min cooldown; 3 min warmup after login).^[21]
  • If one of your pets die in battle you can resurrect it using the Revive Battle Pets spell or just find a friendly, neighborhood Stable Master.

Leveling

How catching affects level:^[22]

• Catching any pet level 15 or under retains its current level.
• Catching a level 16-20 pet will lose 1 level.
• Catching a level 21-25 pet will lose 2 levels.
• The XP required to level for pets after level 10 has been dramatically reduced.

Calculating experience

If your pet team prevails in combat, experience is awarded to all surviving pets that participated in combat. Pets that do not enter combat have no effect on the experience awarded. Similarly, pets that die in combat also have no affect on the experience awarded. The experience that dead pets would have received is not "lost". Instead, the system considers dead pets the same way as non-participating pets.

When you defeat an opposing pet, the experience awarded is calculated using this formula:

[opponent level + 9] X [level difference + 5]

The level difference is capped at +2, so there is no benefit to defeating an opponent more than 2 levels higher than your pet. If your pet is 5 or more levels higher than the opponent, it will receieve zero experience.

When your opponent is level 5 or higher, there will be two of them, and you recieve experience for each of them (200% normal experience). When your opponent is level 15 or higher, there will be three of them, and you receive full experience for the first two, and half experience for the third (250% normal experience).

The quality of the defeated pet does not affect experience gain, and you get full experience if you capture or defeat your opponent.

The experience awarded to each surviving pet is calculated by dividing the experience in the table below by the number of surviving pets:

Experience table

Pet level	Experience	-4 level	-3 level	-2 level	-1 level	Same	+1 level	+2 level
1	50	na	na	na	na	50	60	70
2	110	na	na	na	44	55	66	77
3	120	na	na	36	48	60	72	84x2
4	195	na	26	39	52	65	78x2	91x2
5	280	14	28	42	56	70x2	84x2	98x2
6	450	15	30	45	60x2	75x2	90x2	105x2
7	560	16	32	48x2	64x2	80x2	96x2	112x2
8	595	17	34x2	51x2	68x2	85x2	102x2	119x2
9	720	18x2	36x2	54x2	72x2	90x2	108x2	126x2
10	760	19x2	38x2	57x2	76x2	95x2	114x2	133x2
11	900	20x2	40x2	60x2	80x2	100x2	120x2	140x2
12	945	21x2	42x2	63x2	84x2	105x2	126x2	147x2
13	990	22x2	44x2	66x2	88x2	110x2	132x2	154x2.5
14	1150	23x2	46x2	69x2	92x2	115x2	138x2.5	161x2.5
15	1200	24x2	48x2	72x2	96x2	120x2.5	144x2.5	168x2.5
16	1250	25x2	50x2	75x2	100x2.5	125x2.5	150x2.5	175x2.5
17	1430	26x2	52x2	78x2.5	104x2.5	130x2.5	156x2.5	182x2.5
18	1485	27x2	54x2.5	81x2.5	108x2.5	135x2.5	162x2.5	189x2.5
19	1555	28x2.5	56x2.5	84x2.5	112x2.5	140x2.5	168x2.5	196x2.5
20	1595	29x2.5	58x2.5	87x2.5	116x2.5	145x2.5	174x2.5	203x2.5
21	1800	30x2.5	60x2.5	90x2.5	120x2.5	150x2.5	180x2.5	210x2.5
22	1860	31x2.5	62x2.5	93x2.5	124x2.5	155x2.5	186x2.5	217x2.5
23	1920	32x2.5	64x2.5	96x2.5	128x2.5	160x2.5	192x2.5	224x2.5
24	1980	33x2.5	66x2.5	99x2.5	132x2.5	165x2.5	198x2.5	231x2.5

Example 1: If one of your level 3 pets defeats a level 2 opponent, it will receive 48 experience.

Example 2: If you have three active pets of level 4, 5, and 9 that all survive a battle against a level 6 opponent, the experience awards would be as follows:

Your level 4 pet would receive (1/3)(91 x 2) = 61 experience.

Your level 5 pet would receive (1/3)(84 x 2) = 56 experience.

Your level 9 pet would receive (1/3)(36 x 2) = 24 experience.

Example 3: If two of your high level pets die in combat against a level 16 opponent, and your level 12 pet survives, the surviving pet would receive 147x2.5=367 experience.

There are two cases where this table is not accurate:

1) If your pets are different levels, the higher level pet will "steal" a few experience points from the lower level pet. You can ignore this becauswe usually only one or two eperience points are transferred, which is irrelevant.

2) If your pets are different level, at some point the entire team will be penalized. The penalty will be the equivalent of the opponent being one level lower, which is very significant (about 30% reduction in experience). Beyond about level 10, try to keep all of your pets the same level, unless you are power levelling a baby pet, in which case the experience penalty is worth paying.

Leveling tips

Use the trainers and quests: At higher levels the experience grind is very slow. The fastest way to gain experience is to follow the quest line and defeat the trainers. Trainers award much more experience than opponents in the field. This means that you should maximize your experience from trainers, and avoid a situation where you waste the experience boost from lower level trainers by defeating them with a too high level team.

Do not waste time farming for many rare pets at low level: You will often capture the same pet at much higher level, and you will have to abandon the low level rare to make room for the higher level rare.

Plan your high level grind, not your low level grind: The first few levels are easy, it does not matter where you do them. At higher level, find a place with a nearby stable master to grind opponents that are equal or slightly weaker. The stable master is very important because higher level opponents will leave your team very weak, and you do not want to have to wait 8 minutes between each combat. For example, Winterspring is a good place to grind level 17 to 21 because there are many high level opponents available near to the Everlook stable master. Another good strategy is to grind using a herbalist and/or a miner, because you can make gold while you wait for the 8 minute cooldown.

Media

Video

Pet Battle System Top 10 Picks(07:49)
8,937 views

References

See also

• Battle pet
• Companion

External links

Official info

AddOns

Other info

News

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