Is there a list of 'similar' pets somewhere?

[Aurica]

I am looking through guides and such, and I notice there are never any rare pets mentioned.

Are there any similar pets guides or something? I'd like to use a ton more of my TCG/rare pets, but they are just never mentioned for the vast majority of rotations. I have looked through a lot of it, and found a lot, but I am sure I'm missing some =)

[Quintessence]

If you're looking for pets with identical abilities, each pet in the WarcraftPets database lists others that have the same moveset under the Battle Info tab of their profiles.

Example: [pet]Cockroach[/pet] > Battle Info tab > scroll towards the bottom and you'll see a number of other pets that share the same moveset as the Cockroach. Hope this helps!

As for the majority of pet battle guides excluding "rarer" pets -- This is to make the strategy explained in the guides more accessible to a wider audience. Bananas may not be viable for everyone, but everyone can acquire the Baby Ape or purchase the Darkmoon Monkey without having to spend money outside of WoW.

[Kpb321]

Many of the TCG and other rarer pets are good pets so you definitely can use them in fights but there are a lot of reasons you won't see them in guides.

1) The writer simply may not have them. I have a pretty good collection but I'm still missing murkalot among other pets so I would never write a guide that used him even tho I know he's a good pet. I won't use a pet in a guide that I can't test out and verify it works as I expect.

2) Usefulness or usability of the guide. Writing a guide take a fair bit of work. Testing the fight, multiple times preferably, to verify your strategy. Explaining what pets are needed and sometimes why. Explaining how the fight should go and what to do in different scenarios. It all adds up and if you are going to spend all that time you'd like to make it as useful as possible at least I do.

3) It's sad because this site is pretty good in general but you do still see people complaining about guides that use harder to get or rarer pets and occasionally even the authors of those guides attacked. Most people don't want to make themselves targets for that type of thing.

[Lolfixheal]

In MoP i used http://www.petsear.ch but the list isnt quite updated or being maintenanced but as a startout it was fine. Now i just use wowhead filtering pet abilities giving me a list of pets with same moveset aka 'identical' pets. From there I go into breeds.

Latest exampe would be me finding out that the new Albino Dragonling has same moveset as Dark Whelpling. Dark Whelping comes in P/S 322/240 and Albino PP is 325/260. Quite simliar on the breed front so I just kept my SS Albino for variation.

[Rendigar]

I was actually originally "attacked" if you will, for removing the vampiric batling FROM the guide that I rewrote in spite of the fact that nobody can ever get it again. The pet I replaced it with did just as well, in the end, but still some were annoyed (oddly, none of them had picked up the guide and rewritten it themselves). I stuck to my guns and the guide is still quite useful (and in the process of being updated, pending approval for how to post it).

So you're more likely to not see the pets that cost real-world money (or can no longer be acquired) used in most guides because the idea is to make guides usable to the masses, and not for the elite/wealthy/haves. Nothing against those that have them (I have a goodly number of them), it's just no fun finding a great guide only to realize if you never bought the WoW Collector's Edition, attended the 3rd Blizzcon, or won the lottery you can't follow it.

Unfortunately that leaves those people who did get all these kinds of pets to experiment on their own, returning to your question as to how to make them useful. Which is hard because many of those pets have extremely unique moves or move sets, so they don't just cookie-cutter replace any other pet.

[Lolfixheal]

More information is always better than less I find. If I was in your boat being 'attacked' in that way I'd tell people to fuck off. Not the best move I know but you can't cater to every noob and scrub. Who are they in the first place to criticize work done for them for free?! It's like getting free dinner being a guest at someone elses house and dishing the food all night long at the table. Jesus manners people.

Back on the topic:

Theres quite a handful of pets I dont know how one can sort based purely on 1:1 moveset.

1: Darkmoon Rabbit example with generic Rabbit. Same moveset but switchout on Flurry to Huge Teeth. If you need flurry on a rabbit moveset you cant use this one.
2: Darkmoon Rabbit example again. If it did have Flurry it still wouldnt be the generic moveset due to Vicious Streak rather than Adrenaline Rush. 2 different abiltiies basicly-almost doing the same.
3: Dont have an example on top of my head but a scenario where you would have 2 abilties doing the same but with 2 different names.
4: Same moveset but different layout. Technically it would be counted as a different moveset as you cant do some combos on both. Example; Hyacinth Macaw + Imperial Eagle Chick.
5: Rabid Nut Varmint 5000 + Tiny Harvester. Only Demolish/Rabid Strike being different.
6: Exact or simliar movest yet different racial. example: Huge Toad, Lifelike Toad.

God my brain was wrapped up around all this shizzle when I started up in pet collecting, hunting right rares, found out about breeds. Stop progress, restart, hunt right breeds, then preferably as rare if not stone. Some breed choices are based on above examples as I know I would have that moveset (if not matching, close to it) in another breed on another pet.

[Papazol]

3: Dont have an example on top of my head but a scenario where you would have 2 abilties doing the same but with 2 different names.

[pet]Mini Tyrael[/pet] and [pet]Peddlefeet[/pet] have almost same abilities with different names.