So it was fairly recently that I decided to crawl down the rabbit hole that is World of Warcraft – Battle Pets. Having never played any of the Pokemon (or similar) types of games before I was curious if the rock-paper-scissors mechanics would appeal to me.
After asking some questions on twitter it was suggested to me to work with some fairly robust starter battle pets in order to level them up to 25 and then power level any new pets I might get along the way. Taking their advice I quickly slotted my Murky, Lil’XT and took a quick trip to AQ40 to grab the Anubisath Idol (thankfully on my first try looking for it). We quickly worked through the low level quests and zones becoming acclimated to the interface and pet abilities/classes. I grew to understand why the Idol and a strong mechanical pet worked well against the multitude of critter/beast wild pets out there. I’ve never been a huge fan of leveling, even alts for that matter, but I found pet battles to be pleasant and low key enough that I could tolerate it well enough. I suppose it helps that I’m watching TV on my computer while I do this in windowed mode. It wasn’t long before I had a team of three level 25 battle pets (with Murky being swapped out for an Emerald Proto Whelp P/P).
Now that I wanted to cultivate a larger roster of leveled pets and take on the Pandaren Spirit Trainers and ultimately Beasts of Fable it was time to get my safari hat! Having 39 out of 40 trainers and having missed the Darkmoon Raven I opted to create an Alliance Worgen character and play it through the starting area. Having never done this before I thought it would be a good idea to experience it for the first time while picking up a Gilnean Raven and battling my last trainer alliance side for the hat. It took a few hours but I was rewarded with everything that I wanted and a new found appreciation for the worgen starting experience!
I decided that I would farm the Pandaren and Spirit Trainers for a short while to get a couple of stones (and VP) before giving the Beasts of Fable a go. After doing a little bit of Pet Collecting here is my battle menagerie currently:
Level 25 combat ready rare quality pets:
Anubisath Idol Bat
Chrominius Darkmoon Tonk
Emerald Proto Whelp Emerald Turtle
Feline Familiar Gilnean Raven
Kun-Lai Runt Lil’ XT
Mini Mindslayer Pandaren Water Spirit
Rabbit Rapana Whelk
Yellow Moth
Pets in progress towards level 25
Flayer Youngling Nether Faerie Dragon
Mojo Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
Spirit Crab Disgusting Oozling
Snarly Sunreaver Micro-Sentry
Zandalari Anklerender Murky
*Bold pets are my priorities for leveling
With the pets that I do have leveled to 25 I decided it was time to take on the Beasts of Fable. While I know there are people out there that are already farming these guys regularly and I’m MONTHS behind the curve I was still really excited to be able to take them out.
And take them out I did. On my first serious attempt to clear them all, though there were wipes along the way, I managed to get them all done which was really exciting for me. Since i’m not using any extremely rare or hard to find pet I tried to stick to some of the basics for the fights and utilize whatever tricks that I could (such as Life Exchange on a few of them).
While I am no where near ready for PvP Pet Battles, I am still having lots of fun with the system and really must commend Blizzard for implementing such an amusing mini game. If something like this can get someone who logs in almost exclusively for raids such as myself to spend more time in game for a fun alternate method for VP acquisition then I consider that a victory. While it is old hat for many I might create a list of the pets I used for each encounter on here so people might be able to use it as a reference.
On the whole I must say that Pet Battles are indeed fun and inspire us all to be collectors. I will never expect it to be anything more than an amusing mini game but it is rewarding enough to feel like time well spent. This, in my book, is a success.
