One of the biggest new features for the new World of Warcraft expansion that looked as if it could have gone the way of the dance studio, aerial combat, or path of the titans has finally made its way into the beta. Players can now test out pet battles, using most of their existing non-combat pets as new “battle pets”. There are trainers who will train you in the ways of the Pet Battle for characters as low as level 5, and they can immediately embark on a “epic questline” to challenge and defeat the pet battle masters around the world. Pets are account-wide, meaning the pets you train on your main will be available on all of your alts at their current level.
I wasn’t able to test it very well, as the game crashes every time I try to engage in a pet battle, but some of the video footage out there looks pretty darn good (video via wowcrendor):
Blizzard posted the official preview on their site, along with an FAQ on the forums. Click here for the site preview and check out the FAQ below:
Pet Battles FAQ
We are super excited to have pet battles live on the beta servers with the new patch today! Before you dive in, we wanted to give a bit of an update on exactly where we are and what you can expect.
First off, this is certainly a beta. Nothing you play is by any means final, try to keep that in mind. Overall though, the feature is mostly implemented and we need your feedback to help us polish it up! A few of the things you can try out in the beta:
- Fight pets around the world in solo, 2v2 and 3v3 battles
- Capture pets in the world of varying quality and strength
- Duel and queue for PvP battles against other players
- Interact on an epic questline to defeat Master Pet Tamers across all of Azeroth
- Buy and sell pets on the AH (not all pets are tradable)
- Earn a wide assortment of Pet Battle achievements and associated rewards
- Browse the new Pet Journal and manage your pets
- Use your pets across any character on your Battle.net account (Battle Pet achievements are account-wide)
Now, we also have a number of bugs and things that are just not finished. You are going to want to post about these things and that’s fine, but here are the ones that we want you to know about beforehand:
- Pets are currently healing to full health after a battle. This is a known bug and we are hoping to hotfix it tonight.
- Pre-existing pets have no stats. Any pets that you acquire new are fine. This is also a bug that we hope to hotfix tonight.
- In certain cases, starting a pet battle with a creature in the world will report an error about the pet being currently in battle, or that the account is locked. Both of these are hopefully on the hotfix list for tonight.
- Some pets will be missing abilites, ability FX or animations.
- The questline is very much WIP. You can get started on it, but we are certainly still implementing it.
- We are tuning the XP curve so any feedback on this is appreciated.
- Spawn rates on pets in the world are WIP. Feedback on this is appreciated as well.
- We have an issue where players are sometimes losing a battle slot. A relog should fix the problem. We are working on it.
- I will update this post as we get more info.
And finally, an FAQ about how most of the basics in the system work.
Battle Pet Trainers
- These NPCs teach players Battle Pet Training, granting the ability to fight and capture pets. The training comes with a pet heal/rez spell and the ability to track pets in the world. These trainers can be found in all the racial start zones as well as Orgrimmar and Stormwind. The guards in the capitals can direct you to them as well. Note that this training is account-wide, so you only need to learn it on one character.
- Pet Battle Training requires level 5 and 100g.
Master Pet Tamers
- These are NPCs for the battle pet questline. You can fight these characters in a pet battle for increased XP, achievements and rewards. Defeating the Grand Master on each continent will unlock daily quests (via an achievement) for all of the other Tamers on that same continent.
Accound-Wide Pets
- Pets are now account-wide. This means that any pet you have on one character will be shared with all of the others on your Battle.net account. Earn level 6 with Grunty on character A? Log in character B and that level 6 Grunty will be there waiting for you.
- If you have multiple versions of the same pet on multiple characters on your account, they will be merged into one. We will place any extras in your bags or mail them to you if you are out of space.
Pet Journal
- Players can have up to 500 total pets and up to 3 versions of the same pet.
- Pets can be named, released, marked as favorite or put in a cage for trading/selling from the journal.
- Filters allow you to sort your collection by family, source, collected/not collected or favorites.
- Source info shows you where to obtain a pet and small lore blurb about it.
- Abilites loadouts for your pets are set in the journal. This becomes available on pets at level 10.
- View stats on your pets. Stats include Health, Speed, Power and Quality.
Pet Quality
- Pets that are captured in the world have varying levels of quality, just like an item would. The quality stat is randomly determined every time a pet spawns. Higher quality pets get a larger stat allotment each time you level. Be on the lookout for Rares!
Pets on the AH
- Most pets can be bought and sold from the AH. A new section is on the AH specifically for this.
- Pets that are sold on the AH retain their stats and levels. Pets that can’t be traded will display a warning in their info text as well as having the “Put in Cage” option disabled.
Battles
- PvE battles take place in two ways: against NPC trainers and against pets that you can fight in the world. Pet tracking will let you find pets in the world that you can fight and capture. Keep an eye out!
- PvP battles also have two varieties. You can choose to duel another player or you can queue up and be matched against another player of similar skill. Note that you do not earn XP for duels.
- Pets heal a portion of their health after every fight. The amount healed is 50% of the damage that they took during the fight. You can also full heal all of the pets in your journal with the Revive Battle Pets spell (10m cooldown)
- If one of your pets die in battle you can resurrect it using the Revive Battle Pets spell (10m cooldown) or just find a friendly, neighborhood Stable Master
Capturing
- Pets are caught via PvE battles in the world. Any pet you can fight, you can catch. In order to catch a pet, you need to get it to low health and use your trap ability. Traps upgrade via specific achievements, improving your chance to catch higher level pets.
- You can catch up to three of the same type of pet.
Thanks for trying out the feature and make sure to post your feedback here in the forum!