Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

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Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » April 26th, 2013, 10:34 am

Since I got asked, and I talk way more than the character limit in mail responses, I figured I'd make a post on how I did things.

For those that don't know, currently I've got every pet available to the US except the Argent Gruntling (and Murky, of course), and I've leveled nearly all of them to max. I've been focused almost exclusively on pets since MoP came out. I did the pet dailies every day, and most days I'd go out and spend a little time doing normal pet battles. I only recently (in the last couple months) started doing raids and non-pet dailies.

Regardless of how you approach it, it will take you quite a while, so be prepared for the long haul if this is something you want to do. That's just the nature of the game, and the fact that there are a LOT of pets. I set goals and approached things systematically.

The best thing for leveling fast is power leveling, meaning, a low level pet in a team with max level pets. This way the low level pet gets all the XP. This was a great change by Blizzard and made things easier for me since I didn't have to run a team with one or more pets committing suicide. :o

If you're just starting out, you want a team to level up to max so you can start doing power leveling. The team I ran was the Emerald Whelpling (my favorite pet in general :D ), Panda Cub and De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion. This may not be optimal, but it worked well enough. The reason being is that most battles out in the world will be with critters or beasts. You can go with your favorite beast, mechanical and one other.

This team was able to win any battle quite handily, and I beat all the tamers up through about halfway through Northrend without any problem. Once you have a couple of max level pets, you can start power-leveling other pets. The first pets I leveled, other than my starting team, were pets I'd want/need for the higher tamer fights. After that, level pets however you like. I leveled favorites, then by groups (source, then family).

There's two ways to power level: Tamer dailies and regular battles.

In either case, you want your leveling pet to be able to take a hit, I found that a pet that was level 5 or higher rarely died in a single hit regardless of where/what I was fighting.

This is also where the goals come into play. Whether I was hunting rare-capture pets, or later battle stones, I kept my goals in mind. The first goal was every pet to level 5, with one caveat: I did not level any battle pet if it wasn't rare. I would either catch it as rare, or stone it, before I leveled it, even if it was one I really liked.

I did most of my goal stuff with regular battles. So, I hunted low level areas and caught rares of every pet I could while swapping in my leveling pet til it reached 5.

The next goal was every pet to 10. Somewhere in this time frame I think I'd captured all battle pets as rares, which made things easier since I could then just fight in high level areas without worry.

My last goal was all pets to 15. Why 15? Because 15 is the highest level any pet can be without losing levels when upgrading, and it's also the level for doing Pandaria tamer fights without much wasted XP. Assuming you have a safari hat, it's 4 tamer fights to 25, so you can level 2.5 pets to 25 every day in Pandaria.

When hunting in an area doing regular battles to level pets, try to do it somewhere that there's easy access to a stable master (for pet heals) unless you have a ton of pet bandages. Also, try to do it somewhere that most (if not all) of the fights will result in the type of stone that you need. Lastly, make sure your team is optimized for the area.

For critter stones I hunted in the Valley with a team of Curious Wolvar Pup and the Gryphon hatchling) since it was mostly critters and aquatic, do this around halfhill. For beast stones, I hunted in Krasarang with the Emerald Whelpling and the Darkmoon Zepplin to counter beasts and flying, I did this around "The incursion". Not sure for horde peeps. For aquatic stones I hunted in the Vale with the Enchanted Broom and Gryphon Hatchling to counter aquatic pets. There's a decent amount of fliers and critters in Mount Hyjal, but the fights there are level 22 or 23, so it may not be optimal if you want the most XP.

If pets were at the current goal level, then I would level the the rest of the way (mostly) with Tamer fights.

Tamer dailies give the most XP, since Blizzard purposefully gave them a multiplier. Additionally, here's also the chance of stones in the tamer daily bags. Personally, to save some time, I only did the dailies with bag rewards and I parked alts and the non-pandaria tamers and did the Pandaria tamers in a nice circuit with minimal travel time between them.

For any particular tamer fight, try to have the pet getting XP be lower level than the tamer's pets, this way you get the multiplier and the XP bonus for being lower level.

Next, be aware of how much XP a tamer fight gives you since don't want to waste XP either. For example, if your pet is more than halfway through 23, the amount of XP you get from a pandaria tamer fight will be more than required to max out. If the pet was 24, I'd do regular fights rather than tamer fights.

Tamers have a predictable move set, so you need a strategy for them so that you can beat them with 2 pets to get XP for the third. I've got strategies that I used, detailed in the next 3 posts. Some of them I lifted from other guides, and some I made on my own. You can make your own strategies too. Focus on their attacks are weak vs you, your attacks strong vs them, or preferably both. You should also consider other things like heals, shields, damage reduction and whatever else.

Lastly, a note about battle stones. My advice is to upgrade favorites, then non-tradeable pets, then tradeable pets. Why? Because you can trade or buy the use of upgrade stones from other people that way. I finished my pet upgrades buying stone uses from other peeps, but you may not have the kind of gold I did at the time.
Last edited by Tiggindy on April 26th, 2013, 7:39 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » April 26th, 2013, 10:39 am

If you've got a combo that you use, feel free to post it, or keep using it. There's certainly other ways you can do this.

Notes: On fights where you're trying to get XP for more than one pet or the pet for XP is the second pet, as long as something happens to that pet (takes damage or is debuffed), then it does not need to take an action and can be swapped after 1 round. If the opponent does not affect your pet (it misses or buffs itself &ct.), then you may need to do a second round where your pet takes an action in order to get XP.

Kalimdor
Trixxy - Winterspring
Slot 1, leveling pet
Slot 2, slightly higher level leveling pet
Slot 3, Emerald Whelpling - Emerald Bite, Emerald Presence, Tranquility

Why? Presence lowers damage, bite does decent damage and high damage vs last pet.

The azure whelpling will be first.
1 round with first pet, swap in the second pet. Follow the second pet rule as noted above. Swap to whelpling. Throw up emerald presence. Use tranquility as necessary, and just bite them down.

Obalis - Uldum
Slot 1 - Some mechanical pet.
Slot 2, Leveling pet
Slot 3, Emerald Whelpling, Emerald bite, Emerald Presence, Tranquility

Why? Mechanical does more vs beast. Dragonkin takes less from flying and magic does more vs flying and shield makes it better.

Pyth will be first. Mechanical kills Pyth. (in the event you stun pyth, he swaps to the moth, which might cause issues). Eats first attack from the moth and probably dies. Swap in leveling pet (standard rule applies), swap in emerald whelpling. Emerald presence first round, tranquility second. Time things so that you are renewing those two when the moth does its cocoon and the round the cocoon would suck an attack. The whelpling should be able to survive the moth with decent health left, and the shield allows you to take low damage vs the scarab while you kill it. Make sure to renew emerald presence when you have 1 round left (so it never falls off), Renew Tranquility when it's gone. Bite them down.

Eastern Kingdoms
Lydia - Deadwind Pass
Slot 1, leveling pet
Slot 2, slightly higher level leveling pet
Slot 3, Leopard Tree Frog, Tongue Lash, healing wave, Swarm of Flies

Why? Aquatic take less from undead and critter attacks do more to undead.

The elemental will be the first pet. 1 round with first pet, swap. Standard second pet rule, then swap to frog. Destroy enemies. Use the heal in the immortal round vs the undead guys.

Outland
Antari - SMV
Slot 1, Clockwork Gnome, Railgun, Blitz, Build Turret
Slot 2, leveling pet
Slot 3, some kind of aquatic pet, or a snail of some kind.

Why? Mecha takes less damage vs magic, human attack does more vs dragon. Aquatic attacks do more vs elemental (and critter takes less damage from elemental if you're using a snail).

The first pet will be his mana wyrm. Drop railgun, use Blitz to kill it because of the extra attack for fast speed. Next is the elemental, kill it with your aquatic or snail (I use the wanderer's festival hatchling, two pump attacks kills the elemental, and I can heal if I want). Keep the elemental or snail in until it dies or the dragon is in danger of dying. Swap in the leveling pet using the standard rule. Swap in the gnome. If the elemental is still up, use railgun to kill it. If not, then use Blitz til the dragon uses his shield, then drop a turret. pass the round he's dodging. Blitz til dead.

Northrend
Major Payne - Icecrown
Slot 1, Rabbit or hare, flurry, dodge, burrow. (one with speed higher than 311)
Slot 2, leveling pet
Slot 3, some kind of snail. Absorb, shell shield, Dive

Why? Attack avoidance and aqua does more vs elemental and critter takes less damage vs elemental.

He's aptly named. This is a luck dependent strategy.

The bear will be first. You want a bunny faster than his pets, but as close to his speed as possible, because higher speed means lower HP and/or power, so you'll do less damage.
bunny vs bear: When the bear does his normal attack, he will do it 3 times in a row. Dodge the first round will negate 2 attacks, burrow on the third round will avoid the third attack, flurry during hibernate. The only variable is when he uses the stun. Unless you have a metric ton of bandages, or want to run to the stable master over and over, do the following.
Round 1, use dodge. If the bear uses stun the first round leave the fight and restart it.
Round 2, use flurry.
Round 3, use burrow.
Round 4-7, flurry. In round 4, note if the bear stunned.
Round 8-10 are a repeat of round 1-3.
Round 11-13, use flurry.
Round 14, Guess, or he's in a pattern.

If the bear used stun on round 4, then you are safe up to round 14 using the above. If the bear did not use stun on round 4, then he hibernated on round 4 and he will most likely use stun on round 7. He should now be in a pattern of stun, attack x3, hibernate. If he did use stun on round 4, the next time he might use stun is round 14. If his health is low enough that he'll die to a round of attacks + burrow damage, then go ahead and repeat round 1-3. If he has enough health that he'll probably survive, then round 14 you'll have to guess whether he'll use stun. If you guess wrong, then the peep has a good chance of killing you. If you guess right, then you're likely to kill the peep.

bunny Vs peep: Some luck here, but not as much with the bear. Because you're faster, his batter will get at most 2 strikes. Use flurry til he does wind up, then dodge. If he uses the wind up while you're dodging, wait til he can use the wind up attack for your burrow. If he doesn't expend the wind up attack while you dodge, burrow when dodge is gone. Do as much damage as you can. If the bunny dies before you've at least made the peep mecha-res, then you've lost the fight. restart it.

Swap in the leveler when the peep or the rabbit dies, standard rule, then swap in the snail.

Shield the first round with the snail. As much as possible, use dive only when the root attack is going to go off so that you're underground when it happens. Other than that, keep using absorb and renew shell shield when it's got one round remaining so it never falls off, and the elemental will not be able to actually kill the snail.
Last edited by Tiggindy on November 1st, 2013, 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » April 26th, 2013, 10:49 am

This is the order I do the Pandaren tamers is this:
1. Aki
2. Thundering Pandaren Spirit (earth tamer)
3. Courageous Yon
4. Burning Pandaren Spirit Tamer (fire tamer)
5. Seeker Zusshi
6. Wastewalker Shu
7. Flowing Pandaren SpiritTamer (water tamer)
8. Mo'ruk
9. Farmer Nishi
10. Hyuna of the Shrines
11. Whispering Pandaren Spirit (air tamer)

It makes a nice loop starting from the Shrine in the Vale. Regular tamers in this post, the spirit tamers will be in the next post.

***Updating for 7.1, since I'm back after a long time away, and finding that things don't work quite the same. Although I don't know if anyone even looks at this anymore. Most of the strategies still work***
I'm also assuming your leveling pets are at least 10.

Aki - Vale of eternal blossoms
Slot 1 - Magical crawdad, Snap, Shell Shield, Wish
Slot 2 - Leveling pet
Slot 3 - A flying pet.

Why? the crawdad kicks butt. Shield makes it immune to damage vs the critter. Wish keeps it healed. Snap does more damage to the critter and better than surge vs the others.

The cricket will be first. First round is wish, then shield then snap until one more snap will kill it, renew shield, snap and the cricket will die. If you've missed, damage the cricket so that the next attack will kill it, renew shield so you have the max for the dragon, and kill the cricket. Next pet is the dragon. First round snap, second round wish, third round snap, renew shield. Snap for 3 rounds, then wish. If the dragon will die in one hit, snap to kill it, it's okay that the shield will fall. If the dragon isn't going to die in one hit, renew shield and kill the dragon. First round vs otter, renew shield (since it will dive and you won't hit it anyway). Do as much as you can vs the otter, but don't kill it. Swap the leveling pet in, standard rules, then swap in your flier to finish the otter.

This tamer is also suitable to jump a level 1 to level 11 (with the safari hat, 10 without the hat) if things go right. During the otter fight, when it gets low it will use survival. Swap in your leveling pet then since the round after it does survival it will dive. Swap the leveler back out when it dives and finish it with the flier.

Courageous Yon - Kun-Lai Summit
Slot 1 - Emerald Whelpling - Emerald Bite, Emerald Presence, Tranquility
Slot 2 - Leveling pet
Slot 3 - Darkmoon Tonk, Missile, Shock and Awe, Ion Cannon

Why? The usual reasons. :lol:

The bird will be first. First round bite, round 2 shield, round 3 tranquility. Bite for 2 rounds, then do tranquility. (changed to reflect dragonkin family change so you don't accidentally kill the bird) If the (weakened) attack won't kill the bird, then attack so that the bird is low enough to die in one attack. If it will kill the bird, refresh tranquility or pass. Shield while the bird launches, uses tranquility. When the damage debuff has one round left, attack so the bird dies. First round vs the rabbit, attack. Round 2, shield, round 3 tranquility. Attack for 2 rounds, traquility, then attack. It's okay if the shield will fall off since the next round the rabbit burrows and you can renew it without damage. Finish off the rabbit. Swap in the leveling pet, for round 1 vs the goat. Swap in the tonk, Shock and Awe then Ion Cannon means goat BBQ.

Seeker Zusshi - Townlong
Slot 1 - Whelk, Absorb, Shell Shield, Dive
Slot 2 - Leveling pet
Slot 3 - Jade owl, slicing wind, adrenalin rush, lift off. Or a moth with cocoon.

Why? Critter takes less from elemental and aquatic does more. Flying attacks do more vs aquatic and magic takes less from aquatic and magic pets have a damage cap.

The elemental will be first. First round dive, round 3 shield. If the dive misses, then dive the next time it is available. You'll want to use absorb until the elemental is dead, renewing the shield as appropriate, so that dive is available vs the snail right off. Vs the snail, first round shield, second round, dive. Absorb and shell shield will negate his absorbs and acid. Dive is the damage dealer. You should be able to kill both, but if not, the second one should be very hurt when your snail dies.
Chances are you'll be swapping in the leveler the first round vs the strider. You'll be swapping it out when it gets hit with sleep. The jade owl will use lift off to avoid a pump attack, and otherwise slicing wind til it dies. You may get a chance to use lift off to negate a sleep attack too. Regardless, the strider should die to the owl.

While the above still works fine, I've been using the strategy from this post because it's quicker.
Slot 1 - Snarly - rip, surge, blood in the water
Slot 2 - leveling pet
Slot 3 - (Vampiric) Bat - Bite, hawkeye, reckless strike.

Why? because it's faster. And if you have the vampiric bat, he takes less if the strider gets off an attack and can self res

Snarly does rip, then blood in the water, then surges til dead. Rip and surge on the snail, then probably dies, but you can try to get another blood off. Swap in the leveler to take a hit, then swap in the bat to bite it to death. Vs the strider, reckless strike, bite, reckless strike and it should be dead.

Wastewalker Shu - Dread Wastes
This strat (blatantly stolen from Rendigar ages ago) :o :lol: requires your pet to be higher level, because it will take damage.
Slot 1: Red Cricket - Skitter, Cocoon Strike, Nature's touch
Slot 2: leveling pet
Slot 3: Tranquil Mechanical Yeti - Metal Fist, Call Lightning, Ion Cannon.

Skitter until 1 round left on whirlpool, then use the cocoon. Follow with nature's touch. Then repeat. Mutilator dies quickly enough. Vs Pounder, skitter until you're below 500, then use nature's touch. Use cocoon the last round of the sandstorm, because he'll rupture the round after it ends. Vs mutilator, swap your leveler in (cricket is still alive!) for a round, then swap in the yeti. Lightning then ion cannon will kill Mutilator. If Lightning misses for some reason, hit him with fist a time or two to be sure ion will kill him.

Mo'Ruk - Krasarang wilds (lifted from the linked post. The old strat still works, this is just faster)
Slot 1 - Zeppelin - rocket, explode, decoy (ability changes)
Slot 2 - Leveler (even a level 1)
Slot 3 - Chrominus - Bite, Howl, Surge of Power

Why? The usual reasons.

Woodcarver will be first. First round, rocket. Second round, decoy. Then rocket til dead. If you missed or it dodged, leave the fight and restart it (to be safe, you can still win but there's a small chance of fail if you missed). Swap in Chrominus, use howl then surge of power. You'll likely die to the turtle, but maybe you can get a howl off. Swap in the Zeppelin when Chrominus dies. Use rocket for damage, decoy to block his headbutt so you don't die. When the turtle is less than 618 health, use explode.

Farmer Nishi - Valley of the four winds
Slot 1 - Leveler
Slot 2 - Mechanical to finish off the grub
Slot 3 - Eternal Strider, water jet, Cleansing Rain, pump.

Why? Aquatic does the most vs elemental.

1st leveler takes an action, swap in the strider. Cleansing rain, pump, water jet, pump and the sunflower dies. Water jet, pump, cleansing rain. The turnip will be back out, so water jet and pump. Use jet again if needed. On the grub, use water jet, then pump til you or it dies. Finish it with your mechanical.

Hyuna of the Shrines - Jade Forest
Slot 1 - Ooze, absorb, corrosion, acidic goo
Slot 2 - Leveler
Slot 3 - Flying pet

Why? Magic is good vs flying, flying is good vs aquatic.

The firefly will be first. Acid goo, corrosion, absorb, absorb. Firefly is dead. First round vs snake, absorb. Second round pass (snake burrows). Round 3, acidic goo. Round 4, try to corrosion if you can (most likely you die). If you don't die, then you'll die the next round. Swap in the leveling pet, standard rules. Swap in your flier to finish the snake and kill the turtle. The turtle will do it's big damage attack, then (because of a change to headbutt) 4 rounds of some combo of shields and a heal, the exception is that if he healed on the first round, he'll do 3 rounds of shields, then heal himself before headbutting. Try to block or avoid the turtle's headbutt and kill it.
Last edited by Tiggindy on November 6th, 2016, 2:59 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » April 26th, 2013, 10:53 am

Spirit Tamer fights. ***Updated for 7.1

Thundering Pandaren Spirit (earth tamer) - Border between the Vale and Kun'Lai
Slot 1 - Leveling pet, needs to have decent health since it will take 1 hit of 550ish damage
Slot 2 - Some kind of rabbit or hare with 300+ speed - Scratch, Dodge, Burrow
Slot 3 - Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling - Breath, bombing run, decoy. or other pet to kill his slime (the slime is now magic rather than critter)

Why? The elemental and rat attack in a set pattern, dodge on a fast pet means you're effectively dodging 2 rounds. burrow means you're dodging one round.

Elemental will be first:
1. leveler gets stunned (elemental does Crystal Prison)
2. leveler passes (elemental does Rupture)
3. swap to rabbit (elemental does Stone Shot)
4. Dodge (You dodge elemental Stone Shot)
5. Flurry (You dodge elemental Stone Shot)
6. Flurry (elemental does Stone Shot)
7. Flurry (elemental does Crystal Prison)
8. Burrow (You avoid elemental Rupture)
9. Burrow attack happens (elemental does Stone Shot)
10. Dodge (You dodge elemental Stone Shot)
11. Flurry (You dodge elemental Stone Shot)
12. Flurry (elemental does Stone Shot)
13. repeats from step 7 til dead

Swap in the dragonling to kill the slime, then swap in the rabbit vs the rat. You should never take damage.
1. no action cause you swapped (rat stoneskins)
2. flurry (rat burrows)
3. dodge (you dodge rat burrow attack)
4. flurry (you dodge rat stone charge)
5. flurry (rat does nothing)
6. burrow (rat stone charge)
7. burrow attack happens (rat stoneskins)
8. repeat from round 2

Burning Pandaren Spirit (fire tamer) - Townlong Steppes
Slot 1 - Pandaren monk or Death talon Whelpguard, or another pet with humanoid attacks
Slot 2 - Leveling pet
Slot 3 - Whelk, Absorb, shell shield, dive

Why? Humanoid is good vs dragon, and critter takes less vs elemental, aquatic does more vs elemental, the shield blocks dots and absorb negates most of the damage.

Crimson (the dragon pet) will be first. Monk, round 1, jab, round 2, focus chi, round 3 fury of 1000 fists. Whelpguard, kill it with humanoid attacks while enjoying taking less damage vs it's big damage flying attacks. Either way, the first pet just kills the tamer's first pet and does as much as it can vs the elemental.
Swap in the leveler, standard rule, then swap in the whelk.
Shield the first round, then dive. Dive when available until it's low, the elemental shouldn't be able to kill you, but you want dive available first round vs the fly so it may be a slow attrition vs the elemental to absorb it to death.
For the firefly, Dive first round, round 3 apply shield. Absorb rounds 4-7, round 8 shield. Repeat the pattern. The shield will make you immune to the swarm attacks, and absorb will slowly kill it while negating the damage you are taking from the dot you got hit with.

Flowing Pandaren Spirit (water tamer) - Dread Wastes
Slot 1 - Iron Starlette, Wind-up, Powerball, Supercharge
Slot 2 - Leveling pet (needs to be able to take multiple tidal waves)
Slot 3 - Snarly, Rip, Surge, Blood in the Water

1. Wind-up
2. Supercharge
3. Wind-up (Marley dies)
4. Wind-up
5. Powerball
6. Supercharge
7. Wind-up (Tiptoe dies)
The starlette will be badly injured, so just powerball to knock down the Spirit's health until the starlette dies. The goal is to die from the whirlpool/geyser damage. Then swap in your leveler for a round, then swap to Snarly for Rip and Blood in the Water to kill the Spirit.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit (air tamer) - Jade Forest
Slot 1 - Emerald Whelpling - Emerald Bite, Emerald Presence, Tranquility
Slot 2 - Leveling pet
Slot 3 - Chrominus - Bite, howl, Surge of Power

Why? all the tamer's pets use flying attacks, and dragonkin take less vs flying.

You can use other dragonkin if you want.

The moth will be first (and is now a flying pet). First round bite, round 2 emerald presence, then tranquility. Then bite, bite, presence, tranquility, bite. First round vs the dragon, renew the shield, then tranquility, then bite 3x and repeat. Do as much as you can to the dragon. When it dies, or your whelpling dies, swap in the leveling pet, standard rules. Then swap in Chrominus. Finish the dragon with bite if necessary, vs the elemental, howl, bite and then surge of power.
Last edited by Tiggindy on November 6th, 2016, 3:21 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Corleggy » April 26th, 2013, 12:17 pm

Very nice post. I tend to only do the pandaria dailies and maybe a couple battles a day, hopefully I'll find some time to go capture all rare quality pets outside of my daily route. :lol:

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Zoros » April 26th, 2013, 1:19 pm

This is very useful and concise information. Thank you for posting it.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Catalytic » April 26th, 2013, 4:18 pm

Tiggindy wrote:My last goal was all pets to 15. Why 15? Because 15 is the highest level any pet can be without losing levels when upgrading, and it's also the level for doing Pandaria tamer fights without much wasted XP. Assuming you have a safari hat, it's 4 tamer fights to 25, so you can level 2.75 pets to 25 every day in Pandaria.
So if I stone an uncommon level 15, it doesn't go to level 14? (Sorry, this is actually a goal I'm working on right now, but I was taking my uncommons to 14, because I thought 15 was the cut-off.)

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » April 26th, 2013, 7:38 pm

Catalytic wrote:So if I stone an uncommon level 15, it doesn't go to level 14?
Correct.
(Sorry, this is actually a goal I'm working on right now, but I was taking my uncommons to 14, because I thought 15 was the cut-off.)
Level 15 is the cutoff. Anything past 15 will lose a level up to 20 IIRC, after 20 they lose 2 levels.

The only time I lost levels upgrading an uncommon was when the person I was paying for the stone used it on their level 2 rather than the level 15 I traded them cause they didn't realize I'd given them a level 15. :roll:
I got some of my gold back, and had to spend a little while getting the level the 2 up to 15.

When upgrading:
1-15 == no level loss
16-20 == one level loss
21-25 == two level loss

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by GormanGhaste » April 27th, 2013, 8:59 am

Thanks for this post! Will help me decide what to level next :)
Mingyao on Madoran

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Catalytic » April 27th, 2013, 2:30 pm

Tiggindy wrote:
Catalytic wrote:So if I stone an uncommon level 15, it doesn't go to level 14?
Correct.
(Sorry, this is actually a goal I'm working on right now, but I was taking my uncommons to 14, because I thought 15 was the cut-off.)
Level 15 is the cutoff. Anything past 15 will lose a level up to 20 IIRC, after 20 they lose 2 levels.

The only time I lost levels upgrading an uncommon was when the person I was paying for the stone used it on their level 2 rather than the level 15 I traded them cause they didn't realize I'd given them a level 15. :roll:
I got some of my gold back, and had to spend a little while getting the level the 2 up to 15.

When upgrading:
1-15 == no level loss
16-20 == one level loss
21-25 == two level loss
Thanks very much. I read the tooltip on the stone you buy with JP (I got my mage to 90,, and went to get her some gear) amd it still made me think 15 would lose levels, so I appreciate you filling me in!

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tria » July 16th, 2013, 1:41 pm

Just want to thank u for this guide. I refer to it all the time. :D :) 8-) :D

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Ravnhawk » July 16th, 2013, 1:54 pm

Just saw this again and yes it has also helped me get thru some of the tougher fights even in 5.3 when I lost my beloved Fluxfire Feline to Blizz meaniness LOL.

Thanks again for the hard work that went into this. There were a couple I couldn't use a leveling pet in to beat them and this guide made those 3 possible.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Catalytic » July 19th, 2013, 1:11 am

Pretty reliable team against Major Payne, if you use a leveler 20+, is Cogblade Raptor and Water Waveling.

Raptor uses Batter, Screech, Exposed Wounds
Water Waveling uses Ice Lance, Frost Shock, Geyser

If your Raptor is S/S, skip Screech, otherwise keep Screech on Payne's pets, so that your Raptor goes first.

Exposed Wounds, then Batter. 2-3 Batter will have the bear down, even if he stuns you. Same thing on the Mech, Exposed Wounds, then Batter until either he dies or your Raptor dies.

When your Raptor is dead, Water Waveling...Frost Shock, Ice Lance. Use Geyser ASAP against the Ele, and then Frost Shock, Ice Lance until your Waveling dies. Swap in leveler to finish.

90% of the time I beat Payne on the first try with this team. I try to use a leveler that is strong against Elementals. About 30% of the time, my Raptor (S/S) takes out his first two pets. The rest of the time, I get a few Batters in on his Mech before the Raptor dies. My worst thing is when it goes very well, I forget to swap my leveler in :oops:

Someone posted this strat on Major Payne's WoWHead page and I have had the best luck with it, Payne hasn't frustrated me since I started using this team.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Chimonks » July 19th, 2013, 6:32 am

^ A rabbit is a lot better instead of the waveling, especially when your raptor gets exposed wounds up on the elemental.
Lash is weak against the rabbit and with dodge you can avoid the stun seeds/wind-ups/shock and awes and burrow for extra damage.

Tried both, and yeah. SS Cogblade and SS grasslands cottontail makes me feel a bit sad for Major Payne.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Mehetabel » July 20th, 2013, 4:14 am

Awesome guide, going to try it later. So far I've only been boosing pets on 3 of the Pandaria pet dailies so this will let me try on the rest :)
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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Aur » July 25th, 2013, 4:54 pm

There is a lot of great advice in this guide. I have strong teams for most of the tamers now, but going to try a few of the suggestions to see if I can get the battles to be more reliable. Thanks for posting, I would hate to see this get buried. :)

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Aquitas » July 28th, 2013, 9:24 pm

This is a great guide thank you. Do you have onr for the BoF?

Aqui

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Corah » August 2nd, 2013, 8:05 pm

Great guide, thanks!

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Tiggindy » August 4th, 2013, 8:39 pm

Aquitas wrote:This is a great guide thank you. Do you have onr for the BoF?

Aqui
Honestly, other than the first round for the achievement after the last big patch, I don't bother with the BoF, but I'll see if I can come up with something.

But the standard rule applies, so stack with ultimates if you can, or just optimal if you can't. An ultimate would be something like the curious wolvar pup vs a critter (that uses critter attacks) since humanoid takes less damage from critter and has beast attacks for strong offense. An optimal is when you only have one thing going for you (them weak vs you or you strong vs them). Also, the BoF give lousy XP, so there's no need to have a leveler in the group. :lol:

With that in mind going in, IIRC the only ones that I had to fight more than once were the fish, the turtle and the bandicoon (because it was late and I was thinking it was a beast rather than a critter :oops: ).
The fish was easily 2 petted the second try with the Gilnean Raven and a Crow, darkness to lower healing, flying attacks to do large damage.
The turtle was super annoying because of the shield and party damage, but I did something weird that worked (barely) with jade owl, gilnean raven and spectral porcupette. Magic for less damage from aquatic, flying for more vs aquatic. The raven for the blind and nocturnal strike. The spectral porcupette because it's magic, and spectral spine for decent damage plus blind chance and spectral strike for high damage to overcome the shield.
For Nitun it took three tries. First round he stomped me because I had the wrong team. Second round it was barely a win for him, and the third time I switched it up and beat him with a fox and 2 spiders. The fox for the 9 round speed boost to let the spiders go first, and the spiders with web/brittle web and spiderling swarm for massive damage.

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Re: Tiggindy's advice for pet leveling

Post by Feymist » August 4th, 2013, 9:24 pm

This really is a great resource, and you're on the same realm as me. Doubtful I'll ever be up in the pet battle stratosphere like you, but it's great to know you're there!

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