I'm really loving pets/battles in WoD

[Forumchibi]

I don't know about everyone else, but I am having way more fun with pet battles than I seem to be with anything else in WoD so far.

When pet battles first came out, I couldn't really get the hang of them. I've played Pokemon, so I wasn't a stranger to it, but it seemed like a lot of effort for a mini-game at the time. It took a long time to get into it and to raise multiple level 25 pets, but I knew I was never going to be able to do the Celestial Tournament. I think the most infuriating thing was how the bonus exp item (besides the safari hat) could only be bought after you had already won the tournament. And forget doing all those dailies for a tiny chance at getting the right upgrade stone for your pet. Leveling was just not enjoyable for me, it was too much repetitive work.

But the menagerie vendor in the Garrison has made it way more fun for me. It does still take a little bit of work to be able to get them, but it seems so much easier to get into it now. Using just Nether Faerie Dragons, I was able to easily defeat the daily trainers in SMV, Talador, and Arak, giving me a steady 12 tokens per day. I was also able to insert two pets in need of leveling into the SMV daily (beat the first pet, Life Exchange the plushie, beat the third pet when it swaps in, bring in your other pets to mercilessly beat up the plushie), and some of the other ones with a bit more effort... a nice 4000+ exp for that battle per day.

Also, the reduced cooldown on the heal ability and upgraded capture cage while in Draenor thanks to the level 2 menagerie, very awesome.

I was finally able to upgrade a bunch of quest and rare-spawn pets. Went and ran AQ and BWL for some extra pets, bought a Pandaren Water Spirit (naturally, I ended up getting one from the pet bag the very next day after not seeing it for days), and beat my first Celestial Tournament over the weekend to get a Xu-Fu to accompany my monk. Now I've been doing all the pet dailies everyday, leveling all my favorite pets, and putting way more time and effort into it since the expansion started than I am toward gearing for my guild's first raid tonight, LOL.

For the first time, I feel confident and on an equal playing field against the legendaries that I always used to curse at in MoP (though sometimes I still yell at them anyway). Plus I love using the adorable molten corgi as a substitute for the turnip when catching new pets.

(My only rant is that I'm one pet away from catching all the new Draenor ones, except the last one is the rude sporebat in Talador that seems to have a completely random spawn time.)

How does everyone else feel about the pets and pet battles in this expansion? I think it's a little bit of a rough start to get multiple pets to 25 no matter when you play, but I think now is definitely a great time to get into it.

[Rivellana]

I only ever touched them before in order to level maybe 5 or so up to 25 to be able to capture wild pets and just "collect".

A couple of days ago I decided I wanted to get my menagerie open in my garrison so I went and bought a level 25 Chrominius...there were Pandaren Water Spirit on the auction house but none above level 1 so I just bought one and started leveling it. Someone told me the best place to start was visit all of the daily tamers.

I think I'm hooked now. Having so much fun, gotten a few more pets to 25, got my menagerie at level 2, doing daily quests for pet tokens...managed to get up to and through the first set of MoP pet tamers and am having a blast.

I can't wait to get through the rest of the MoP tamers and move to Draenor, and then capture the pets for the little peacock pet. It's so cute, I've wanted it since I first saw it.

Also can't wait to get more level 25 pets and go back and try to do the Celestial tournament!

In the meantime, my husband is cursing me for wanting to pet battle instead of PvP or do heroic dungeons. :P

[Kagejin]

Pet battles were introduced in Pandaria. How did you do them in Cataclysm?

[Forumchibi]

Pet battles were introduced in Pandaria. How did you do them in Cataclysm?

Ohh... I thought it was Cataclysm because my earliest memory of pet battles was fighting things in Westfall near the big tornado thing, and all of the time spent in the classic areas catching and leveling low level pets. My bad! No wonder I didn't like them back then. LOL