Wednesday (30 Jan) - Mesmerized by Pet Battles

Wednesday (30 Jan) - Mesmerized by Pet Battles

I must admit that playing pet battles has become a guilty pleasure. The latest thrill is catching wild pets. Until recently I was focused on raising the level of the pets I already had, and the best way to do that is to kill the opponent pets. However, it is also possible to capture a wild pet and add it to my collection. I didn't really know what I was doing at first, and I captured some high level pets that in reality weren't very useful.

Pets are classified by their quality. The worst pets are rated as Poor quality. Next is Common, then Uncommon, and then Rare. Pets that are rated Poor may have a high level but also have very poor combat stats compared to higher quality pets. Since it is very time consuming to level pets, it's usually best to stick with only the Rare quality pets.

It was only recently, though, that I discovered that wild pets revealed their quality level when combat is started. So now I knew whether to try to kill the wild pet or, if it showed as rare quality, to try and capture it.

After learning that, I also released back into the wild those pets I'd captured before that were Poor quality. They just weren't very good.

One of the best pets for pet battles is the rare Strand Crawler. This pet is a random drop through the Fishing profession, so not only is it rare quality, it is also somewhat rare to have. My Strand Crawler has been lovingly leveled up to 14 so far, my highest level pet.

The next best thing to a Strand Crawler is the more easily attained Strand Crab. This is a wild pet that lives along shorelines. For my purposes, I went to the Swamp of Sorrows, where level 13-15 Strand Crabs could be found. Strand crabs are almost as tough as the crawler, so killing these is a chancy thing. Capturing one is even harder to do. Now, add the additional challenge of trying to find and capture a rare Strand Crab, and that is a tough challenge indeed.

One small advantage is that I can start a battle against a crab, note what it's quality is, and then determine whether to continue the fight. There is an option to Forfeit a battle at any time. Since my goal was to find and capture a rare Strand Crab, I used the Forfeit each time I took on a strand crab that was not a rare. It took some time, but I did eventually come across a rare, level 14 Strand Crab. The battle was ferocious, with three rounds. I captured the strand crab in the first round, but I would lose that capture if I failed to win all three rounds. Two of my pets died during that battle, and the last one - my Strand Crawler - was down to only 5% health when it won the final round. So now I've added a level 14 rare Strand Crab to my team.

I have captured two other rare wild pets so far. I have a level 13 Gold Beetle. Unfortunately, it's ability set was not very powerful, and so the beetle will not likely see much action.

Ability sets are designed based on the type of creature it is, but the selection of those abilities within the type are somewhat random. My poor beetle just got a bad set.

The other wild pet rare I captured is a level 12 Bat. That may sound a bit boring, but I like my Bat. It does very high damage, so I can use it to do some big early damage, or save it for a late in the fight kill shot. Combined with my very hard to kill crabs, the Bat gives me some potent offensive power when I need it.

I also have two captured pets that are at Uncommon quality. There is a Parrot and a Rattlesnake, both level 14. While they are not as powerful as the rares, they do serve a purpose.

Pets take damage during pet battles, and they regenerate health very, very slowly. So, after a battle of two, I will have damaged pets. There is a "heal everybody" button that is handy to have, but it can only be used once every eight minutes. Eight minutes is a looong time when waiting around for a pet battle. So I mix and match pets, using my parrot and rattlesnake as fill ins so I can play more pet battles while waiting on the cooldown of my main pets.

I also slip in the parrot and rattlesnake when leveling lower level pets so that I can send them in against higher level wild pets and level faster. For example, I am leveling two rares that I had to start at level 1 with. They are both very powerful, so I want to get them into the higher levels as soon as I can. One is Spirit of Competition, a dragon that was only available during the Olympics - sometime in 2006? Can't recall. Anyway, you can't get it anymore, so it's not only rare quality, it's rare, period. This pet has very good offense and healing ability, which makes it extra special. Mine is level 12. Another special dragon that I like is 'Lil Deathwing, which is now at level 11.

The highest level a pet can attain right now is level 25. I still have a good ways to go before any of my pets reach that max level. I have to ensure that I have not just one, but at least three of near equal level, since most pet battles above level ten are three round battles.