Getting Started on Pet Battling

1. Unlocking pet battles

To take your first steps into the world of pet battling, you first have to learn the Pet Battle skill on your account. You can do this easily at Audrey Burnhep in Stormwind or at Varzok in Orgrimmar. You should also do the first quests in the quest chain to enable and learn the basics – tracking, healing, capturing.

2. The first level 25 battle pet

Pet battles, whether PvE or PvP, are most exciting and entertaining in the level 25 bracket.

Having a level 25 pet brings many advantages. You can learn new pets of this level at any time (like from the auction house) and you can also catch high-level pets in addition to very quickly leveling weaker pets, as your stronger ones can carry them.

There are various ways to get your first pet to level 25. Each has its pros and cons, and which you choose is a matter of taste.

Here are the methods:

2.1 The classic way

The classic way might be the slowest, but it gently introduces you to pet battles and teaches you many basics you’ll need later.

The journey begins at the trainers who unlocked pet battles for you (Audrey Burnhep in Stormwind or at Varzok in Orgrimmar).

Once you have learned the Pet Battle talent, they will give you a quest chain, which leads you to multiple trainers to beat them one after another.

Catching and fighting some of the wild pets on your way will strengthen your team so it can withstand the increasingly powerful opponents in the high-level areas and finally reach level 25.

At the end of the quest and achievement chain in Pandaria, you obtain the Safari Hat, which you can use at any time to increase the pet battle experience you gain by 10%.

Even though you may choose the pets you like on this journey, there are some that bring specific advantages.

Some suggestions for good beginner pets:

Many of the pets you encounter in the wilderness and those of the first trainers are Critters or Beasts. If you use pets with Beast attacks – strong against Critters – or Mechanical attacks – strong against Beasts – you will have an advantage.

Your pets of choice should have the highest quality (rare or blue), since those are stronger. You can upgrade pets of lesser than rare quality with Battle-Stones but you probably won’t have those at the beginning.

Of course it will also come in handy when your first pets are some that are useful later on.

Have a look at the Most Used Pets.

Some examples:

• Darkmoon Zeppelin

• Darkmoon Tonk

• Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling

• Lil' Bling

• Clockwork Gnome

• Anubisath Idol

• Feline Familiar (or other cats)

• Chrominius

2.2 Shortcut

It is possible to speed the classic method up a bit by catching particularly strong pets and thus “skip” some levels.

Here is a video that shows how this shortcut can look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6qPDLTTc34

However in doing so, you miss the purpose of the classic method, which is the cautious approach and familiarising with the mechanics. You will also skip quests for the Taming the World achievement.

3. And after that…?

Once you have your first level 25 pet, you can learn and catch new pets of every level at any time.

Often you can find very cheap high-level pets in the auction house to quickly expand your collection.

If you want to level more pets quickly, you should get some of the pets that are required for powerleveling: Guide: Powerleveling.

If you have a certain goal, you can use the ready-checker of the respective page to check which pets you still need and have to level up.

Have fun!