WarcraftPets Forum

I know the quality of the pet determines the amount of stats it gets while leveling. What I want to know is if you catch a rare at say level 6, and catch a lvl 1 and level it to 6, would the stats be the same if they favored the same stat? Or would the one you level end up having more stats then the one caught at level 6.

I seem to remember in pokemon logic that leveling a low level one is better?

The stats should generally be the same; leveling a pet does not give an advantage over catching a high-level wild pet.

The reason why this was the case in Pokemon was because when your pokemon defeated an opponent, it gained Effort Value (EV) that increased its abilities. A pokemon with high EV levels had superior stats than a pokemon with no EVs, and since a wild or newly captured pokemon lacked any EVs whatsoever, a trained popkemon was usually superior to a wild pokemon. WoW's Pet Battle system does not feature a mechanic of this nature.

That said, some Achievements require you to actually level a pet to make progress toward their completion. It is something to keep in mind.

Yes, this is what I thought. To mimic this mechanic it would have been nice if when a pet was caught they were given random stats based off level and not actually any added for the quality, and that the bonus for the quality was only achieved from levels gained. This would just add another element to the whole system that i'd enjoy.

Typically pets you level from 1 have more diverse/unique abilities than ones you catch in the wild. This isn't a strict rule, but it seems to give you motivation to level pets instead of just taming.

I think the only benefits to getting a lower level version would be:
- It's easier to kill them in order to farm for a rare
- There's a battle pet achievement to raise 15 pets to level 10
- There's a battle pet achievement to raise a pet of every family to level 10
- There's a battle pet achievement to raise 30 pets to level 10

Once you've got those achievements, there's really no reason to get a low level version. After all, it will just make it more difficult for you to get all the "Raise a bajillion pets to level 25" achievements. ;P

It's like what Phearia said. There really is no real difference if you raised it or caught it outside of the achievements. What I've been doing is just replacing pets, that can be replaced, as I go along. However, I favorite (star) the pets, that I know can only start at level 1. Those are the ones I would raise for the achievements. Right now, I've got the Curious Wolvar Pup at level 20. When I reach the top level, I'll start looking for the rare versions of the pets I have. The rare versions definitely have a boost in stats all around but no special abilities compared to the same pet of lesser quality.