Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Tuesday (26 Feb) - An Army of Children

Tuesday (26 Feb) - An Army of Children

On Monday Fist's team of battle pets took on the six Pandaren Master Tamers. These six Tamers are all that stand in the way of reaching the biggest, baddest Tamer of them all, Grand Master Tamer Aki.

The six Tamers proved challenging for my first run through, and I had to make as many as three attempts on some of them before they went down. The team persevered, though, and late in the afternoon Fist brought her best to face Aki.

I don't recall what set of pets I started with, but they weren't ready for the Lightning Storm that hammered the team for nearly the entire fight. Another stunning discovery was that Aki's three pets were all Legendary! That is a level above Rare. Aki won that battle. Bloodied but determined, the new line up was Bad Kitty (my big gun mechanical cat), Peddlefeet (some humanity and staying power), and the Effervescent Glowfly. It was a brutal battle. Aki kept moving his pets in and out, with the team trying to keep up. Bad Kitty did his job, taking out one of the legendaries, and stepped back to lick his wounds. Peddlefeet engaged and did his best, staying alive a long time but finally failing. Glowfly finished the job on Aki's #2 pet, but could only graze the third and final pet before he fell. The contest came back to Bad Kitty, badly damaged and in poor health. Bad Kitty wasn't likely to survive a full three round wind up for a kill, but her opponent was still in good shape and I had no choice but to go for the big hit. Bad Kitty died after two rounds. The mechanical cat can resurrect once, however, and did. Was the resurrected health enough to survive one more round? Aki's pet struck, and Bad Kitty was still standing at 90 health. Bad Kitty got the full three round wind up, executed the attack, and Aki's final pet died. Fist's team had won.

The Tamer quests are done. There are still the dailies to defeat the Grand Master Tamers if I want to do them. In addition, Fist's team now has the coveted Safari Hat, the prize for completing all the quests, which increases pet experience gains by 10%.

There's one more thing, but I need to whisper it. I still have duplicate battle pet quests for Outland and Northrend. I don't know how long this will last, but I'll keep doing them as long as I keep getting pet supply goodie bags. Don't tell Blizzard.

Fist's team took a break after the Tamers and decided to help out with the kids.

Fist wanted a better accounting of her battle pets. More specifically, she wanted to measure low level pets (rare quality only) to determine which should get priority for leveling. As it turns out, there were a lot more of them than I could have imagined. It is difficult to compare pets of different levels by just looking at them. There is also the Pet Breed website which can display every combination of stats and abilities a pet can have at any level. However, I didn't really glom onto that until I was halfway done. Besides, what fun would it be just reading data on a website? It was more fun to take every rare pet below level 6 and get them all to that level. Yes, all of them. That added up to 18 different, rare, level 6 battle pets. Below is the results. Using the pet breed website, I was also able to add all my level 25 pets and their stats as they were at level 6. The indented/Bold pets are level 25s using their stats at level 6.

Top Health Pets
   548 - Shimmershell Snail (Critter)
529 - Irradiated Roach
   509 - Lost of Lordaeron (Undead)
   509 - Strand Crawler (Aquatic)
   486 - Softshell Snapling (Aquatic)
486 - Mr. Grubbs
486 - Singing Sunflower
486 - Turquoise Turtle

Top Power Pets
90 - Lil' Ragnaros
   86 - Lil' Deathwing (Dragonkin)
82 - Twilight Spider
78 - Snow Cub
78 - Stinker
77 - Fluxfire Feline
   77 - Fluxfire Feline (Mechanical)
   77 - Core Hound Pup (Elemental)
   77 - Perky Pug (Critter)

Top Speed Pets
   82 - Cat (Beast)
   78 - Peddlefeet (Humanoid)
   78 - Alpine Foxling (Beast)
   73 - Dancing water Skimmer (Aquatic)
   73- Eternal Strider (Aquatic)
73 - Little Fawn
70 - Cinder Kitten

Below are the Level 25 Pets that did not crack any of the Top categories. This does not mean they are bad pets, just that they have no single stat that is outstanding.

Arcane Eye (Magic)
Effervescent Glowfly (Flying)
Highlands Turkey (Flying)
Infinite Whelpling (Dragonkin)
Spirit of Competition (Dragonkin)

Now that I've spent some time on the pet breed website, I know I can do a similar comparison showing what a lower level pets' stats will be for any level up to the max 25. That should help me decide which pets to focus on. Then again, maybe cuteness counts for even more. Cinder Kitten is the obvious choice in the "I'm really cute" category, but then saw the Brilliant Kaliri. She is such a beautiful bird, a pet I had forgotten I even had. Cat and bird. I wonder how that will turn out.

By the way, I had heard of the pet battles tab in the Auction House. Fist took a look at it for the first time on Monday. Oh my. Happy is going to have to hide his gold.

Final Note:

Late Tuesday night the pet battle teams of Sin and Fist went at it again. The results were slightly different from the last time the two teams met, when Fist's team went 4-2. Sin ran the table this time, slamming Fist's team and winning all six battles. Fist has her work cut out for her.

Sin then gave Fist the final whammy. She wasn't done with the Tamers. There is another four still to conquer, called the Spirit Tamers. Never heard of 'em, didn't want to hear of them, but now I've got to go after them. As soon as I figure out who and where they are.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Sunday (24 Feb) - Cata Falls

Sunday (24 Feb) - Cata Falls

Fist's pet battle team lined up and defeated all three Tamers in the Cata quest. The Grand Master tamer should go down soon.

In the meantime Fist was a very busy girl. When she wrapped up the Tamer defeat in the Highlands, she decided to stick around and pick up some more pets. There are several interesting ones in that zone.

In addition, there were some other pets that were patiently, or not so patiently, waiting for chance at level 25.

Here are the new additions to the battle pet family of level 25s:

Cat (beast) - Leveled from 20 to 25; very good speed and some nice abilities, although a bit squishy.

Dancing Water Skimmer (aquatic) - Needed just two levels to get to 25, this is a near duplicate of the Eternal Strider, which I also like a lot.

Highlands Turkey (flying) - This is a new one from the Highlands, and I really love this fellow.

The following are newly added to the stable:

Twilight Fiendling (magic) - This is a tough one to get, and I was not able to snare a rare. I have a level 22 white/common, and a level 21 poor quality that has a better set of stats. Fist may have to hang around the Highlands a bit more to come up with a better choice. I might use a flawless battle stone on one of them if I get impatient. I wonder if it's better to use a stone on the poor one with the better stats or the white one already at a higher level?

Wild Hammer Griffin Hatchling (flying) - I could not snare a rare for this one, either, but I did get a green/uncommon one at level 22. This one was nasty to battle against. Again, this was from the Highlands zone so maybe I'll get a shot at a rare.

Twilight Spider (22), Has potential.

Highlands Skunk (21), another interesting pet I may level up.

I really wanted a Highland Mouseling, too, but never found a rare or even a green that I wanted to keep.

I also accidentally killed three rares I was trying to capture. Sometimes those pets don't know their own strength. Another one killed by accident was a green Fiendling with great stats. That hurt.

I wish flawless battle stones could be viewed across every toon. I'm losing track of who has what stones. I think I have at least five of varying types out there somewhere.

Update: I did the quest line for Uldum to get the Portal from Org, and then faced off against Cata's Grand Master Tamer Obalis. Took him out on the first try, and then beat him a second time as the daily. I used a level 22 Sandy Petrel (a seagull) in the team, too. I thought the bird might leap two levels, but it was only one, to level 23.

Oh, and in Uldum I snared a level 21 rare Tol'vir Scarab. This is my first pet with the ability called Apocalypse. It takes twenty rounds to light it off, but it kills all - ALL - of the opponents pets when it strikes.

Monday is a busy day in game as well, more about that in the next entry.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Saturday (23 Feb) - Fist Fixes Things, Sort Of

Saturday (23 Feb) - Fist Fixes Things, Sort Of

Before the fixing, though, Fist and Sin brought their arsenal of battle pets to Halfill in the Valley of the Four Winds on Saturday.

Sin has accumulated more level 25s than Fist, and introduced some cool new pets to challenge Fist's team. The Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot did some awesome damage, and he also surprised Fist's team when he resurrected after being killed, with a large reserve of health that allowed the Bot to keep fighting.

Sin's Creepy Crate was pretty creepy. The Crate's Creep of Doom one shot a pet of Fist's in stunning fashion. Among Sin's favorites, the Fel Flame and Pandaren Fire Spirit were tough to battle.

Fist's team began with her favorite big hitters, Fluxfire Feline and Lil' Deathwing, backed by the high health Softshell Snapling. Fist's favorite team, though, is loaded with Aquatics with good healing and/or high health with a big bang type attack: the aforementioned Softshell Snapling, the  Strand Crawler, and the fast Eternal Strider. Fist wants to add a Dancing Water Skimmer, Spiny Terrapin, and Emerald Turtle to the list of Aquatics she wants to get to 25.

The series of pet battles were pretty exciting for Fist's team, particularly since her team had been slaughtered in prior battles. The two teams fought to a 2-2 tie in wins. The rubber match went to Fist as well. Sin wanted a chance to get even, and one more battle went down to final wire, with two barely alive pets hammering each other. Fist was lucky to win that one as well, finishing with a 4-2 record on the night.

Fist added two more level 25 rares on Sunday morning: Perky Pug (Critter) and Infinite Whelpling (Dragonkin). Both looked very good in the computer competition, but how they fare against a live opponent or Tamer remains to be seen.

In terms of total numbers, here is a pet comparison between Fist and Sin:

Total Pets (total level 25 pets)
Sin - 175 out of 359 with 175 unique pets (23)
Fist - 198 out of 373 with 136 unique pets (15)

In other pet battle news, the problem with the Tamers has still not been fixed. I reported the problem on 12 Feb, 11 days ago as of Saturday. The next maintenance day on Tuesday would make it two seeks since I reported the problem. It's starting to look like patch 5.2 might be my next best bet for a fix, but the patch notes do not mention fixing the Tamer issue. I have not heard of anyone else having the problem I'm having, and found no mention of it in the Bug Fix forum. If it is only me, I wonder if it will ever be fixed.

On Saturday I decided to retrace pet Tamer quests and see I could jolt the process back into alignment. Note that I have completed the Kalimdor and Outland quests, plus the Master Tamers that follow those quests, which is verified in my Achievements. Also note that these Tamer quests are meant to be completed only once, and the fact that I could get them more than once is a bug in and of itself. I also checked with the Horde Pet npc, Varzok, and he did not offer any quests (he is the npc that gives out the pet quests).

Step 1 - I logged every character in game on both accounts, one after the other. With each account, I checked the Tamer quests to see if there was anything different about them. The bottom line - they all showed the same thing. There were three quests, a Kalimdor one that showed one Tamer killed, an Outland one with no Tamers killed, and the problematic Northrend which I could not finish and couldn't abandon.

Step 2 - The Northrend and Kalimdor quests could not be abandoned, but the Outland one could be. I removed it, since I had already completed the quest.

Step 3 - Since the Kalimdor quest was still hanging, I went through and completed the quest a second time, as well as killing the Master Tamer for it. I got credit with quest completions and even got my goody bags from the quests (Fist was delighted to get a Flawless Dragonkin Stone from it - which I used on my Infinite Whelpling). Varzok still offered no quest after completing the Kalimdor quest again (supposedly he would have offered Outland).

Step 4 - Since Varzok wasn't offering any new quests, I sent Sista to see the Alliance Pet battle npc, Audrey Burnhep, to find out what she offered. She offered Outland and Northrend. I added them to the quest log. Now there were two duplicate Northrend quests, the bugged one and the new one. 

Step 5 - I don't have an alliance toon at a high enough level to do the Northrend quests, but since the Alliance npc was nice enough to give me that second Northrend quest, I sent Fist try to do the new Northrend quest to see if that untangled things.

And oboy did it! Fist did Okrut first. Fist's team knocked him off on the first try, and I was stunned to get a congratulation on completing the Northrend quests! The defeat of one Tamer somehow caused the bugged Northrend quest to complete itself. And I still have the other Northrend quest with one tamer defeated. How weird is that?

Step 6 - Now I had to see if the master Tamer quest was available, and yes, Fist picked up the quest and Master Tamer Payne was waiting for Fist when she arrived at the Argent Grounds in Icecrown, Northrend. On the first attempt, Fist followed the rules, using the proper pets for each of Payne's three pets. It was a disaster, and the team was badly defeated. So I then switched to another set of pets I thought could overcome a miss-matched combination. That, too, failed, but it was closer, and Fluxfire Feline earned a chance to stay in for the third fight. For attempt #3 Fist started with the expected Effervescent Glowfly, followed with Lil' Deathwing, and ended with the Fluxfire. Master Tamer Payne went down.

Step 7 - Fist went back to the Org Pet npc, Varzok, and it was nice to see that he offered the next quest in the series, this one for Cataclysm. It appears that Fist is back on track in his trek to complete all of the Tamer quests.

Step ? - Fist's quest log not only shows the Cata quest and the duplicate Northrend one - Outland once again shows up. It seems I can do these Tamer quests endlessly. I'm not going to risk messing things up, though. I will follow the expected quest thread to completion: Cata, then Pandaria. After that, if the pet battle gods want to keep giving me the quests over and over, I'll be happy to accept any new flawless stones they want to give me.  :)

PS - I'm not going to say anything to Blizzard. Let's see how long it takes them to get back to me.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Thursday (21 Feb) - The Thunder King

Thursday (21 Feb) - The Thunder King

Patch 5.2 is due to arrive in the next two weeks, barring unforeseen issues. Blizzard promised that new content would be delivered more often and in greater depth in between major expansions. Patch 5.2, named "The Thunder King" is a patch almost worthy of it's own expansion.

In Mists of Pandaria, the Horde and Alliance races battled the new race of Pandaren and each other. In The Thunder King, the Pandaren nemesis, the Mogu (who once reigned over the Pandaren) come to the fore as well. Lei Shen is the Mogu Thunder King.

A new zone called the Isle of Thunder offers new quests for those following the lore or various quest threads still in progress. The quests take players to the Thunder King's palace and offers more pve faction grinds, more pvp, more dailies, more single person scenarios and single person loot runs (new), and I'm if I look hard enough I'm sure I'll find a kitchen sink to throw in there as well.

Patch 5.2 also adds a new, four wing raid called Throne of Thunder.The new raid has a stunning thirteen bosses, quite large for a patch addition. More interesting than the new raid is what is happening with the "old"ones; ie, the ones that came with the MoP 5.0 release. More on that later down the page.

There's plenty to like and/or complain about for all. Even Fist can look forward to becoming his own farm boss, and many farming functions have been simplified.

Patch changes to Pet battles have been discussed previously, but have become very specific instead of general. The sense that I have is that they have made pet battles harder, with many, many nerfs to abilities. I'm sure they worked to make balanced changes, but my take is that the many nerfs are going to mean the battles will take longer to complete. Getting pets to level 25 is going to take longer.

I did manage to find one nice change. Pets are "bind on account" and so all pets are shared among every character. However, pet bandages were not shared across all characters, so one character might have won ten bandages, while another might have none. Pet bandages will be changed to bind on account, so all characters can share the bandages, regardless of who got them. For some reason they did not apply this same logic to battle stones, which are still awarded to just one character, instead of account bound to all.

In the weird and unnecessary category, there is a "fix" to complaints that when abandoning/fleeing a pet battle, the targeted wild pet would despawn, meaning that other players nearby lost a chance to battle it. Pets will no longer desapwn when a fight is abandoned, but it will cause damage to the team. I'm not much of a fan of this particular change. When I am hunting a rare in a group of wild pets, it's easy to check them down until I get the rare I want. Since those unwanted pets won't despawn under this new rule, it will be harder to keep track, and I may have to simply kill them, which means other players still won't have access to them.

For players who have reached the pinnacle of pet battles, new "elite battle pets" are being added. All three pets on a team will battle a single elite battle pet. It's not clear whether elite battle pets can be captured, or whether they are only the means to acquire a new Panda pet. Lots of new grinding for pet battle aficionados.

Back to the raiding, well ... Oh my. In the I can't believe this category, Looking For Raid has gotten even easier! Now, each time a raid group fails to down a boss - fails! - all members get a 5% buff to health, DPS, and healing against that boss. That 5% buff stacks up to TEN times, giving the worst raid group in history a 50% buff to ensure that they complete the content. The LFR is now simply one more required grind for raiders. No actual talent required. Not sure even that will encourage raiders, the loot satchels have been stuffed even fuller, including, for the first time, actual weapons and gear normally earned only through boss kills.

Meanwhile, following past practice, the now dated MoP 5.0 raids are getting a 10% nerf and bonus loot rolls are being "greatly" increased.

I guess that if Wild really cared, he could rather easily gain the minimum gear level to get into the LFR and ... never mind.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Tuesday (19 Feb) - The 2013 Season Play Along

Tuesday (19 Feb) - The 2013 Season Play Along

The 2013 Major League Baseball Season is almost upon us. The San Diego Padres did not have a particularly good season in 2012 (76-86), but we fans will  ignore that. Everything always looks so much better during Spring Training. The team played very well in the last month of the season, so all hopes are based on that one month of success.

There are some positives. Chase Headley had a career year in 2012, finishing fourth in the MVP awards and winning both the Gold Glove and Silver Batter awards for third basemen.  Being arbitration eligible, he signed a one year deal for something over $8M. We'll love him while he's here, which may not be beyond the end of this coming season.

The Padres moved the fences in for this season, hoping that the shorter porch in rightfield and bringing in distant fences in left and right center will favor guys like Headley, Cameron Maybin, and Carlos Quentin.

We also have a monster hitting AAA minor league third baseman, Jedd Gyorko,  trying to learn secondbase so we can take advantage of his bat. They want him to make the Bigs right now. His stats for 2012 AAA: 92 games, 24 HRs, .325 BA, .377 OBP.

Then there is Yasmani Grandal, who hit .297 with 8 HRs in 192 ABs at the tail end of the 2012 season as well as impressing the team with his fielding behind the plate. He was all but anointed as the starting catcher for 2013 - until he popped positive on a drug test and is serving a 50 game suspension.

I don't want to talk about pitching, which until last season had been the one major positive. The pitching crashed and burned in 2012. In 2013 the Padres brought 57 pitchers to Spring Training. Our two best pitchers are still recovering from injuries and won't start the season. What's left looks absolutely delicious - to opposing hitters. All winter we were told that the team must find a front line starting pitcher. The closest they got was 36 year old has been Freddie Garcia, who is a non-roster invitee. He hasn't had a season with an ERA under 4.00 since 2005. He gave up 18 HRs in barely a 100 IPs in 2012. I bet he wishes we hadn't moved those fences in.

I dream of a productive lineup with Headley, Quentin, and Maybin filling the 3-4-5 spots. If I suspend reality a little further, I can imagine the "never lived up to his potential" Evereth Cabrera as our sterling shortstop and base stealer based on a few weeks when he actually looked pretty good. He did lead the National League in steals with 44, so I'll cut him a break.

The rest of the lineup looks very suspiciously like last season's lineup. That's because it is. The team was sold last year to a group headed by the O'Mally's, of former Dodger ownership fame. They were quiet as mouses over the winter, and declared they liked the last month of the season so much they were happy to bring back the same crew.

Randy Hundley will start at catcher, because of Grandal's suspension, and because Hundley was given a big contract last season. He promptly forgot how to hit, spending most of the season in the minors or the disabled list.

Maybin will try again to live up to his impressive talents despite five years of mostly mediocrity with the Padres. He has a nice contract, too. The guy has the physical talent to be a 40-40 man, but so far his only real value is that he plays centerfield pretty well.

Chris Denorfia and Will Venable will once again platoon in the outfield. They are okay, but the early promise they showed back in 2005 has settled into journeyman status.

A youngster who played well in 2012 was Yonder Alonso. Alonso won the firstbase job in his second year with the Padres and played 155 games. His hit .273 with just 9 HRs, but he also ripped 39 doubles. He bats left-handed, and could show more power in 2013.

Another youngster with "hope" tatooed on him is Jesus Guzman. He hit .312 in 2011 (76 games) but unraveled in 2012 (120 games, .247). He hits the ball hard, but the question is whether he can get the bat on the ball.

I'm going to try something new this year. In addition to following the real season of the Padres, I'm going to be playing along with Strat-o-Matic as well. SOM is a baseball simulation game that I have played for a very long time. My intent is to use the actual lineups and starting pitching of the Padres and their opponent's for each game of the season, and play the two teams the day after each real game is played. I will be using the player stats for 2012, obviously. I will also make some exceptions to that rule if circumstances warrant. For example, I might have to go to an earlier year to find an appropriate player card for a pitcher who was injured most of the 2012 season but who is back and in the rotation for 2013. I will, of course, be reporting the results of each real game and it's SOM twin.

I think it will be fun! Oh, and we will be in Peoria, AZ, on 16 March for a spring training game against the Diamondbacks.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Monday (18 Feb) - The Last Spark, the Final Chord

Monday (18 Feb) - The Last Spark, the Final Chord

I have been playing World of Warcraft since it was released in 2005. I am now in my ninth year playing this game.

Raiding has always been the biggest draw for me, and my support group for raiding has been my "cabal" of long time friends. The core cabal has inexorably shrunk over the years and expansions, but there are still a good handful of players that know and have raided with Wildshard.

I was introduced to plaver-vs-player (pvp) by good friends who convinced me to give it a try and a patiently taught me what it was all about. The peak of my pvp play was the Hunter Fortress team of twinked out hunters that was a huge amount of fun.

Most recently I have been enjoying the Pokemon style pet battles, as anyone who has read my blog recently know is just about all I do in game anymore.

One thread that has been consistent from very early on is the character Happyface. Through thick and thin, Happy has always been there, almost literally every single day, working the Auction House so that the rest of my toons could buy the things they needed.

Now, the thought of raiding no longer entices me to play. I could complain that the cabal is barely breathing, and that raid leader/guild leader Bloodknuckle is again dealing with real life and not daily entreating Wild to return to the raid. As good a friend as Bloodknuckle is, I just haven't felt like raiding. If I had to point to one thing, it was the Looking For Raid (LFR) addition that did me in. LFR is great for a lot of things, and frankly it helped Wild immensely when ramping up to tackle the next raid. Unfortunately, it also seems to have killed any desire to raid, having seen the bosses in the LFR a hundred times already. Raiding no longer felt fresh and new to me.

Pvp is fun with friends, and still is. But it isn't really my thing on anything but a very casual basis. As something to do now and then, I still like it, but pvp alone doesn't hold much lasting interest.

I even took a look at the new Brawler arena - by accident. I was looking for a pet I could purchase there, but when I checked the prize NPC in the brawler area I learned I had to reach rank 4 brawler before I could get it. I watched players engage in five battles, and all of them lost their matches against the level 90+ elite opponents they faced. It was kind of fun to watch, but Brawling is really not much of a draw for me, either.

I still enjoy collecting wild pets and doing pet battles. I have a baker's dozen of level 25 pets now, and at least one pet in each of the ten types. I expect I'll keep playing pet battles for a while longer, even though the Tamer quests are currently broken for me, for how long I don't know. I did get a response back from the game CEO, Mike Morhaime (or whoever checks his mail for him), thanking me for my support over the years and promising to look into it.

At my worst level of frustration, I considered suspending my accounts, at least for awhile, to see whether I would miss the game. For the moment, at least, I've decided not to do that. What I have decided to do, though, is not to renew my subscription. I pay six months at a time.

It was most annoying, then, when I tried to do that online and could not. I could cancel my subscription, and I could change the terms, but I could not simply turn off the recurring payments while playing out the time I had already paid for. So I called Blizzard, and of course the accounts office doesn't open for business until ten. So I had a couple more hours to kill.

It's now 10:30am and I called Blizzard a second time. I got a very straight, though automated, answer - we're busy, don't call us again. Well, it was couched a little more nicely than that, but that was the gist. No human person would be answering the phone. Ever. I did figure it out, though. In the online forums under Customer Support, I found a thread that had my answer. If I want to end recurring account payments, I had to cancel my subscription. The remaining time that I had already paid for was still valid, so I can continue to play until that time runs out. Happy's account is paid until 7/31/2013, and Wild's account is paid up to 8/8/2013. It costs me $25.98/mos to play this game. I canceled both accounts, but I still have five months of playing time to decide whether to renew.

I also plan to spend more time writing my novel, which I have gotten behind on. For those who are following the novel progress, I'll have an update out shortly.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Friday (15 Feb) - Breeding Battle Pets

Friday (15 Feb) - Breeding Battle Pets

Ok, so one does not really breed battle pets. However, pets are defined by their breed. The term "breed" is not the same as the term "type." The type of pet is based on one of the ten types (Dragonkin, Undead, Magic, etc). The breed of pet is defined by a combination of three factors: health, power, and speed. Most wild pets have a range of breeds. If the same wild pet is captured more than once, their breed could be very different. As a general rule, the pet journal can contain up to three of the same pet. In some cases it's obvious which pet is better to use, but many times breeds are selected based on the current situation. For one battle, high health may work best, while in another, speed might be needed.

When conducting pet battles it might seem a no brainer that every time a rare pet appears, it should be captured and compared to others like it. There is a reason why this is not always the best approach. Capturing a pet creates less experience than killing a pet. If the purpose of the battle is to level up a pet, then opponent pets should be killed, not captured. My strategy on this has been to kill opponent pets (since I am still primarily leveling pets) - unless I come across a rare that I do not already have in my pet journal, or is a different breed of a favorite pet that I hope to improve on. In that case I will try to capture it.

One thing I didn't know is that pets have ID numbers. I also didn't know that pets come in male and female. Male breeds have IDs in the range of 3-12. Female breeds have IDs of 13-22. Note the similarity: 3 and 13, 12 and 22; ie, add ten to the male ID and you have the female ID. Gender does not affect a pet in any way. However, a third thing I didn't know is that pets may in fact be able to breed with each other at some future point, and then gender will matter. For the purists out there, getting male and female versions of pets should be considered.

In typical Blizz fashion, no where in the information about a pet does it show what it's ID is. For that, an addon is needed. I chose to use Battle Pet BreedID, which takes the breed ID, converts it into a more meaningful system, and displays it in several places, including the pet journal and in battle. The max number of breed combinations is ten. The more powerful breeds tend to be those which max out one factor, and the least powerful breeds are those that are more balanced (ie, the factors are spread across all three, with none dominating). That seems counter-intuitive to me, thinking that balance would be best, but that is not how it works.

Rating the Level 25 Rare Pets: Simplistically, I rank my pets in three categories (single, dual, and balanced) and four breeds (H=health, S=speed, P=power, B=balanced). Note that "balance" is not really a breed, but it indicates that the numbers have been spread across multiple factors):

Single Factor Breeds
Alpine Foxling (S/S)
Lil' Deathwing (P/P)
Peddlefeet (S/S)
Shimmershell Snail (H/H)
Strand Crawler (H/H)

Dual Factor Breeds
Arcane Eye (P/S)
Core Hound Pup (H/P)
Eternal Strider (P/S)
Fluxfire Feline (P/S)
Spirit of Competition (H/P)

Balanced Breeds
Effervescent Glowfly (H/B)

The most disappointing finding in this so far is that my Moonkin Hatchling has now been maligned because it scored a B/B. This is the absolute worst combination possible. The better news is that both Frosty and Deathly Skull, pets I am leveling for the Undead type, are rated H/H.

Then again, neither Frosty nor Deathly Skull were impressing me, so I got it in my head to find some other Undead type pet to try out. I decided to haunt Tirisfal Glades for a rare Lost of Lordaeron. I call it the white ghost. When I got to Tirisfal Glades, there were many of these ghosts around the Undercity and the nearby small town of Brill. Lost of Lordaeron are level 1-2 pets. I killed dozens of low quality ghosts. When I finally got a rare one, the breed was B/B, which was not as strong as I wanted. I held on to it, but hoped for a better one. Rares were supposed to be very hard to come by, but in a little over an hour I found four rares. Unfortunately, they were all B/B types. I persevered, though, and eventually got the top breed of Lost of Lordaeron, a rare level 2 H/H. And on Friday night, I got him to level 25.

I now have at least one rare level 25 for all ten pet types.

While running Lost of Lordaeron through the leveling process, I fought against a number of wild Softshell Snaplings. They are very tough. I had a level 22 rare, as well as a level 22 Spiny Terrapin, which has exactly the same breed and abilities. My Snapling is now level 24, and should join the list of level 25s pretty soon. Hmm, what should I go after next?

Friday, February 15, 2013

Wednesday (13 Feb) - Raising the Little Ones

Wednesday (13 Feb) - Raising the Little Ones

[Note: Hmm, it seems I forgot to post this earlier.]

Tuesday night the Sin and Wild families did some pet battle dueling. Using our stables of level 25 battle pets, we competed against each other in three-on-three pet battles on the field in Pandaria. It was both an eye opening and humbling performance as Sin's pets won several victories in a row.

There are three key elements to winning a pet battle: (1) have a powerful pet, of course; (2) get the right matchup so that your pet's best abilities are Strong against the opponent, and your opponent's abilities are Weak against you; (3) and finally, plan your strategy and your moves so that your best attacks connect (offense) and your opponent's best attacks fail (defense).

The best way to achieve the above is to learn every pet type ability and which types are strong and weak against each other. There are ten pet types with Strong and Weak tendencies, and each type also has a unique ability that has a heavy affect on the outcome as well when used properly. Pets can use three different abilities during a battle, out of a choice of six. That is another important decision that depends on all those other factors. It's simple game to play, but the strategy is actually quite complex. Competing against the computer is child's play compared to a real opponent.

The Wild family did improve (largely by learning from Sin), won a few battles, and became a bit more competitive.  There were some down-to-the-wire fights that were also pretty exciting. I believe we played more than a dozen battles.

On the not so good front, I've been stuck in Northrend trying to finish the Tamer quest there. The last Tamer is Gutretch, and it's been glitched. I finally sent in a ticket to get it fixed, and I got back an email saying it had been fixed. Will have to check that out.

Update: Talking with a GM right now (Wednesday). So far he has reset Gutretch four times and still hasn't fixed the problem.

Update 2: It's getting worse. All of my battle pet quests are gooned up, and the GM can't reset or even force them to be abandoned. It stems from when I was given the Kalimdor quest twice, when the quest should only have been offered once.

Update 3: After some more testing, the GM finally gave up. The problem is being turned over to the developers, with a "who knows" how long that will take to resolve. I then got the standard, well "is there anything else I can help you with?" So I asked for a flawless battle stone for the aggravation. His first response was "Aim high" with a smile. Then he said that his overseer keeps a tight grip on those. I pressed the issue, respectfully, and he wouldn't budge. He tried to get out of it by saying he did not have the option to provide it.

Update 4: I was denied a stone. To be fair, he did offer game time to compensate for the lost time. A couple of bucks doesn't really compensate for the time lost. In the end, I told him to "Just fix it."

Update 5: I've sent an email directly to the CEO of Blizzard.

I wasn't in much of a mood for more pet battles. I still need to level my Moonkin Hatchling (level 23) and Alpine Foxling (23). Among the little ones I need to level is my new Peddlefeet. I was surprised and excited yesterday morning when Happy opened the mail. Sin had sent a Truesilver Shafted Arrow, which is used to learn and summon a pet called Peddlefeet. This is a rare pet only available during the "Love is in the Air" week of Valentine's. Peddlefeet is one of the hardest hitting battle pets in the game. He'll probably be nerfed when patch 5.2 comes, but until then I intend to get him to level 25 and do some real damage. Many, many thanks for sending him to me!!!!

Update on leveling:
Alpine Foxling - from level 23 to 25 (Beast)
Effervescent Glowfly - from level 22 to 25 (Flying)
Peddlefeet - from level 1 to 25 (Humanoid)

I now have 11 level 25s. I have a level 25 for nine of the ten types. The one type I'm missing is Undead. I initially began leveling the Ghostly Skull, getting him up to level 15, but I haven't been too impressed, particularly with a terrible third level ability that makes the pet stun itself. I also have Frosty (level 11) to consider.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Weekend (10 Feb) - Awash in Pets

Weekend (10 Feb) - Awash in Pets

The Wild Family now has 164 companion pets. Of those 164 pets, 109 of them are unique, one-of-a-kind pets. That may sound like a lot, but I am still very short of collecting every pet in the game - by 400. So, the Wild Family may be awash in pets, but there's still a tsunami of pets out there I don't have yet. I'm not really a collector, though. I generally only capture rare level pets, killing lesser quality pets for leveling even if I don't have one captured yet.

I've made some progress in killing Tamers this weekend. I'm now in Northrend, and have downed all but the last Tamer, Okrut Dragonwaste. Made four attempts on him so far, and haven't really gotten close to besting him. Despite shifting my level 25s around to maximize matchups, I just don't have the right types to beat this guy. I will be doing some research to see what the right makeup of my team should be. Even after I down Okrut, there is still the Grand Master Tamer of Northrend to defeat, an even bigger challenge. Then the Cata Tamers and Cata Grand Master will be tackled next.

Here's the latest update:
The Level 25s
25 - Strand Crawler (Aquatic)
25 - Spirit of Competition (Dragonkin)
25 - 'Lil Deathwing (Dragonkin)
25 - Fluxfire Feline (Mechanical)
25 - Eternal Strider (Aquatic)

The Eternal Strider has a little story behind him. I camped the area in Pandaria's Vale of Eternal Blossoms where the striders are, and spent over an hour farming them for a rare. I finally got lucky and got a rare in a three pet battle. Unfortunately, I had an overpowered team and accidentally killed it! My rare was gone. After getting over the disappointment, I came back later in the day and spent another hour plus farming them and this time, when I got a rare, I successfully captured it at level 23. Many battles later, the Eternal Strider reached level 25 and is a powerful addition to the team.

The Up and Comers (For each pet type)
24 - Golden Civet Kitten (Aquatic)
    This looks a little like a groundhog, and does a decent job in routine matches, but doesn't really stand up to the tougher Tamers. It's also an Aquatic, and I have two of those already at 25. He'll likely reach 25 just by inertia, but I doubt he'll see action against any Grand Masters.

23 - Arcane Eye (Magic)
    The Eye was captured at level 17, and I've been working to level him for several days now. He's a hit or miss type. When he hits, it's beautiful to see, but he dies fast so when he misses, it's over. I also have a second rare Arcane Eye at level 16.

22 - Alpine Foxling (Beast)
    I have several choices for my Beast type, but this newly captured pet gave me a hell of a battle and I like his speed and multiple attacks. I have a level 20 Cat that also has a shot at representing the Beast type.

22 - Effervescent Glowfly (Flying)
    I captured this one just because I could, but he's worked out well in normal battles and is my highest level Flying type. I'll keep looking for something better.

22 - Malayan Quillrat Pup (Critter)
    He's the best I have available, but I'm not that excited about him. This is my least favorite type of pet as far as pet battles go, and I haven't much liked any of them. I'm considering a level 17 Rabbit, which is fast and has two good defensive moves, but there are several kinds of rabbits with similar abilities and I'll need to look into that further. I do plan to pick up a Shimmershell Snail, but it can only be captured at level 3-6 so it will take a little time to level.

15 - Core Hound Pup (Elemental)
    My poor core hound seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. He's quite good and my highest level Elemental, so I have GOT to get him some work! In the wings and also due for some leveling are the Crimson Lasher (8) and Dark Phoenix Hatchling (7).

11 - Moonkin Hatchling (Humanoid)
    He got off to a fast start and then ... no action. He's all I got in this type, though.

10 - Frosty (Undead)
    As one can see, I didn't exactly make a plan to level up at least one of each type. Frosty is good, but young. There is also a very nice level 10 Ghostly Skull with exactly the same specs as Frosty. Frosty has more attacks, while the Skull can heal.

Hope the Sin/Dead family doesn't mind, but I am going to give a comparison of pets between the Sin/Dead and Wild families for each type of pet. I thought that might be interesting to see. Rare quality only, unless there is none.

Humanoid
Dead: 20 - Peddlefeet (Common) - no rare or uncommon
Wild: 11 - Moonkin Hatchling

Dragonkin
Dead: 25 - Spirit of Competition
Wild: 25 - Spirit of Competition and 'Lil Deathwing

Flying
Dead: 21 - Dragonbone Hatchling
Wild: 22 - Effervescent Glowfly

Undead
Dead: 12 - Infected Fawn
Wild: 10 - Frosty and Ghostly Skull

Critter
Dead: 25 - Shimmershell Snail
Wild: 23 - Prairie Mouse

Magic
Dead: 16 - Arcane Eye
Wild: 23 - Arcane Eye

Elemental
Dead: 21 - Pandaren Fire Spirit
Wild: 15 - Core Hound Pup

Beast
Dead: 17 - Adder
Wild: 23 - Jumping Spider

Aquatic
Dead: 25 - Eternal Strider and Strand Crawler
Wild: 25 - Eternal Strider and Strand Crawler

Mechanical
Dead: 25 - Fluxfire Feline (Uncommon) (highest rare is level 4)
Wild: 25 - Fluxfire Feline

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Friday (8 Feb) - New Pets!

Friday (8 Feb) - New Pets!

When Fist decided to try some pet battles in Pandaria, she had no idea how many new pets there were available! Fist has only begun to scratch the surface, but here is a quick list of the new pets that have been added to the collection.

23 - Bandicoon (rare): I like it, but it hasn't held up very well so far
23 - Golden Civet Kitten (rare) - eh, not that impressed
23 - Jumping Spider (rare) - another eh.
23 - Bandicoon (Uncommon) - eh.
22 - Eternal Strider (Uncommon) - I'd like to catch a rare, because I'm told this is a very solid pet. The Strider hasn't seen combat yet.
22 - Malayan Quillrat (Uncommon): Looks like a porcupine, hasn't really impressed me.
22 - Malayan Quillrat Pup (rare): Same as above, but as a rare it looks a little more deadly. Will give it a test run.
21 - Bandicoon Kit (Uncommon): Eh.
21 - Softshell Snapling (Uncommon): I like this one! I want a rare.
21 - Masked Tanuki (Uncommon) - eh.

And, as of late Friday night, here are my best pets:

The Main Team (all rares, with type in parentheses)
25 - Strand Crawler (aquatic)
25 - Spirit of Competition (dragonkin)
25 - 'Lil Deathwing (dragonkin)
25 - Fluxfire Feline (Mechanical)

Second String -
23 - Golden Civet Kitten (rare) - fodder
23 - Jumping Spider (rare) - fodder
22 - Eternal Strider (Uncommon) - grooming, hope to upgrade to rare
22 - Malayan Quillrat Pup (rare) - has potential
18 - Arcane Eye (rare, magic) - grooming this one to be in main team

I'll be pushing to capture a rare Eternal Strider instead of leveling the one I have. I'll be leveling the Arcane Eye as often as I can.

Most of my pet battle time will likely be leveling up more useful pets at lower levels. Also, I still need to put toons in place to do the quests and dailies for Northrend, Cata, and, finally, Pandaria. Since I am barely beating the Outland Grand Master now, I may need a different makeup of pets to beat the even harder ones that follow.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Thursday (7 Feb) - Taming the Tamers

Thursday (7 Feb) - Taming the Tamers

Some of the pet battle veil of confusion has finally lifted, like the dispersion of the mists when Pandaria was discovered. Many thanks for all the help in getting it figured out. The final bit of information to complete the puzzle was a simple one, despite the overall complexity of the process that was far from necessary.

I'm going to use the Kalimdor zone as the example, but the same process is used for each of the other major zones (Eastern Continent, Outland, Northrend, Cata, and Pandaria), all of which are obviously associated with vanilla WoW and the expansions.

When starting to do pet battles, an account wide quest appears to defeat a set of five Tamers. "Account-wide" means that the quest appears in the quest log of every character, from level 90 Fist down to the lowest level, and includes both Horde and Alliance toons. Once those five Tamers are defeated, a new quest appears to defeat the Master Tamer. When the Master Tamer is defeated, that same Master Tamer offers a new Daily quest to defeat him. At some point in that process the Tamer becomes a Grand Master Tamer. So far I had only killed and gotten the daily for two zones: Kalimdor and Eastern Continent. Once the daily is available there the account-wide quests no longer appear in the quest log. The Grand Master Tamers are always found at the same spot, though.

I was warned that the Grand Master Tamer in Outland was very tough. On Wednesday I tried twice to kill him and failed. I worked on getting my three best pets into higher levels and tried again on Thursday night. On my first try I again failed. I switched around the order on the second attempt, since my best pet, Strand Crawler, had failed miserably in his battle. On that second attempt I started with the Strand Crawler, and he managed to kill his opponent, but also died in the attempt. For the second round I brought out Spirit of Competition and his powerful dragon breath and healing. He needed it all against an inferno creature that dealt as much fire damage as Spirit. Spirit won it, with 5% health left. For round three it was up to the Fluxfire Feline. She was pitted against the monster that had killed my Strand Crawler in the first fight without hardly taking any damage, and I was very worried. The Fluxfire has to build up it's attack over three rounds before it can attack. It set off Supercharge, then took heavy damage. It added the wind-up, took even more damage, and then struck on the third pass. The attack failed, doing no damage. That was very bad. It was obvious that I wouldn't get three more passes for another shot, so I dropped Supercharge off the list and just went with wind up. After surviving two more attacks, and with under 10% health, Fluxfire launched another attack, and this time the strike hit, doing more than 1,000 points of damage and killing the opponent with one shot.

I had my first Grand Master Kill in Outland. I also earned my first max level 25 pet!

Here are the latest levels: (Wednesday/Thursday)

The Main Team
24/25 - Strand Crawler
22/24 - Spirit of Competition
20/23 - Fluxfire Feline

The Primary Backups
20/21 - 'Lil Deathwing
19/20 - Cat
18/20 - Strand Crab

Up and comers
19 - Clefthoof Runt
19 - Fledgling Nether Ray
18 - Rat
17 - Arcane Eye (this is my best "Magic" type pet, and I need to start getting that one leveled up)

My luck with earning stones has gone bad. I have not gotten a single stone since I upgraded the Ghostly Skull to rare. I have two stones for Critters, but I don't have any critters I want to upgrade. I think I'll go to Darkshore and pick up the Shimmershell Snail that Sin's team has. That one looks pretty nice, and it's a critter, so I can instantly get one to rare. Too bad they start at such a low level, though (3-6). Oh well, a grindin' we will go.

But wait! On Friday morning Fist tried her hand at pet battles around Halfhill in Pandaria. She captured a Malayan Quillrat (level 22, 1275 health, 209 damage, and 235 speed) and a Bandicoon (level 23, 1204/221/276). Both are critters. Both are green/Uncommon quality so I could upgrade both to rare if I wanted to. I wonder if those two are good enough to use my stones on?

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Tuesday (5 Feb) - The Crazy Quilt of Tamers

Tuesday (5 Feb) - The Crazy Quilt of Tamers

One would think there would be a definitive source where all pet battle Tamers are located and how to best complete quests and dailies that are associated with them. From my perspective, the process is a complete mess. There are sources that address parts of the issues, but no definitive source. Frankly, I don't understand the process well enough to build that definitive source myself, although I have tried when the frustration spills over.

Part of it must stem from some kind of bug in the process. On Monday I received another set of quests for the Kalimdor and Eastern Continent Tamers. Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought those quests could only be done once, and after that I only had to do the Master Tamer Daily for each of those zones. So, I'm confused, and a little daunted if I'm supposed to do sets of quests every day.

Based on my inexpert knowledge, I should be able to do all of the following quests every day:

Zone Kalimdor - 5 battles plus the Master Tamer
Zone Eastern Continent - ditto
Zone Outlands - Ditto
Zone Northrend - Ditto
Zone Cata - Ditto
Zone Pandaria - Ditto

That adds up to 36 battles. Is it easy to get to all those Tamers? No, they are scattered all over the world. Well, are they at least placed near Flight Paths? Nope. Is there a guide that lays out the best order to minimize travel time? Nope. It takes, literally, hours of traveling around to get to battles that take less than two minutes. I would seriously consider placing a toon at each Tamer location, but I would run out of toons before I could finish three zones. I am tempted to try that in the first two zones, but finding a way to get some of those lower level toons to some of those Tamer spots would be a challenge. I'm open to other ideas to cut down on the time it takes just to get to the darn Tamers.

I have a little bit of a break right now because my pets aren't high enough level to start on the Outlands and later battles. I made two attempts on the Outlands Master Tamer, but his pet team is level 23, and I don't have any pets higher than level 21. We lost.

To make things more confusing, I ran across a set of pet battle quests that started at level 1 that are different than the other sets of five that start at level 7 or so. Should I be doing those, too? Would that add another 36 battles to the list? I don't know.

Winning a set of five battles and beating the Master Tamer gets a goodies package reward. It's mostly junk, but sometimes it has a stone, which can be used to upgrade pets, as well as even rarer enhancements.

Sin and family have been doing their best to educate me, but I wonder if I have this right, or if I'm still doing something wrong.

Update - Ok, so I got it straight from the expert: I'm to do only the Master Tamer Dailies, not the sets. The sets only need to be done once, to open up the Master, and are not required after that. I still don't know why the Tamer quests still pop up in the quest log.

Later - I visited new zones in Tanaris and in Outland, where I captured a number of interesting pets. See below.

Progress Report (Tuesday morning/Afternoon/Evening):
21/23/24 - Strand Crawler
21/22/22 - Spirit of Competition
19/20/20 - Fluxfire Feline
19/19/20 - 'Lil Deathwing
00/00/19 - Cat (captured)
00/00/19 - Clefthoof Runt (captured)
00/00/18 - Rat (captured)
17/18/18 - Strand Crab
17/17 - Rabid Nut Varmint
17/17 - Stripe-Tailed Scorpid, and several other 17s

Lower Levels:
12/14/15 - Core Hound Pup
00/00/14 - Infinite Whelpling (captured)
00/00/13 - Desert Spider (captured)
12/12/12 - Snake
9/11/11 - Moonkin Hatchling
10/10/11 - Strand Crawler
8/10/10 - Frosty
5/10/10 - Ghostly Skull
7/8/8 - Crimson Lasher
7/7/7 - Dark Phoenix Hatchling
5/5/5 - Armadillo Pup
5/5/5 - Stinker

I discovered a new issue in regard to pet types. I have no magic or humanoid pet types. For now, I am leveling my Moonkin Hatchling (humanoid) but will likely wait to capture a higher level pet in those types in order to have at least one of each available. All of the other pet types are represented in my collection.

On Tuesday afternoon I completed the Outlands series of quests and defeated the Master Tamer. I'm almost ready to take on the Northrend Tamers.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Monday (4 Feb) - A Failing Pot of Gold

Monday (4 Feb) - A Failing Pot of Gold

Happy has always been able to make gold on the Auction House. As long as someone was selling something, and someone was buying, Happy could make a profit off of it. There are other "professional" Auctioneers out there, like Happy, but very few with the staying power that Happy has had over the years.

For many months, now, Happy's main competition is another goblin I'll call Hobbs. For awhile Happy believed that this guy had acquired huge stocks of enchanting mats and would, eventually, run out of them. Happy and he constantly underbid each other, both of us looking for those sales. However, as the Auction House economy began breaking down following the latest expansion, Hobbs continued to post large quantities of goods at ever shrinking prices.

Happy now believes that Hobbs farms all or most of his goods, a time consuming process that Happy cannot match. Since Hobbs spends only time on acquiring goods to sell, he can measure his profit at whatever he values his time, which apparently he values very little given how low he bids. Happy might post stock for an item at 15 gold, only to see Hobbs underbid it, not at, say, 14 gold, but at 9 gold. That kind of bidding makes Happy grind his teeth. As the activity on the AH continues to slow down, Happy has had to take many of his own goods off the market because Hobbs seems determined to deeply underbid Happy and drive the prices down. Happy has always been able to counter such efforts by grabbing up heavily discounted goods and forcing the prices back up again. This works well in a market where there is active buying and selling. The market is moribund, however, on life support, and prices are stagnant. When the price falls, it stays fallen. There is no buy low and sell high, because there is only low, and lower.

Since Happy is mostly out of work, he has taken on the task of another cleanup of the bank. With so few of the normal things selling, the bank has become somewhat choked with unwanted stuff. Happy cleared out a bunch of decaying consumables, smelly fish, old armor kits, etc, in preparation for storing more of the vegetables Fist is growing, and doing some MoP level fishing, both of which have some slight market value that Happy wants to exploit. That means continuing his real, dig in the earth gardening, and farming fish in Pandaria.

Now, this may get Fist in trouble with the pet battle crowd, which wants every minute of game time devoted to leveling an endless parade of pets. My interest in pet battles waxes and wanes almost minute by minute, from excitement at getting another pet to level 20+ to despair at the stupidly arranged process of reaching far flung Tamers.

Happy has also resurrected another idea, which is to use enchanting mats that have become near worthless on the AH to make enchants that might sell better on the AH than the mats themselves. Wild was put to work making some test enchants to see how they do. Wild was originally convinced to sneak into Pandaria and travel - at great risk to himself - to Halfhill, where he now resides. Only there can he craft Imperial Silk, used by the tailoring profession. Wild was recently accused of having descended from the high of an elite raider to the low of common laborer, but Wild doesn't seem to mind. At least as long as he has his hammock.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Weekend 2 (3 Feb) - Pet Battle Grinding and More (Yawn) Grinding

Weekend 2 (3 Feb) - Pet Battle Grinding and More (Yawn) Grinding

The grind is getting to me. On Saturday I did 12 Tamer quests. On Sunday I realized that I had only done the second half set of quests. Instead of another 10+2, there were actually 20+4, or something like that. What I had missed on Saturday was the low level grind (around level 3-10). I guess I could skip those, but each group gives a package of goodies, so it would be hard to turn down those easy low level battles.

I am also facing a problem with my mid-level pets. I have really good pets in the 17+ range, and some good up and comers in the 5-12 range. Between level 11-16, though, they are all captured pets and so far have not shown me much. The Bat (13) that I had hopes for faired very poorly against the Tamers even at the 10-12 level.

Sunday's effort gave me a half dozen packages of goodies, but none of them dropped anything useful other than a few bandages. I am still holding two stones that will upgrade Critter type pets to a rare. I haven't found any pet worthy of using one of them, though.

Here is the latest leveling update:

21 - Strand Crawler. Very powerful, I should get this dude to 25.

20 - Spirit of Competition. Very good as well.

18 - Fluxfire Feline. One shot three Tamer pets in a single battle. But, she dies more often than any other pet, even though she can resurrect.

17 - 'Lil Deathwing. Turning into a pretty good fighter.

17 - Strand Crab. Very solid backup for Strand Crawler. Used as safety net for lower level pet battles.

17 - Rabid Nut Varmit. Captured two of these rares, hoping they would be a potent addition. Fast, can resurrect, but not powerful, the jury is still out.

13-15 - This is full of garbage rares with little redeeming value: Tainted Cockroach (15), Tainted Moth (15), Parrot (14), Rattlesnake (14), Tainted Cockroach (14), Bat (13), Gold Beetle (13), Mouse (13). I'll keep them for my collection, but they don't get any combat action. 

12 and under - Here are some up and comers I have high hopes for: Core Hound Pup (12), Strand Crawler #2 (10), Frosty (8), Crimson Lasher (7), Dark Phoenix Hatchling (7), Mr. Grubbs (6), Armadillo Pup (5), Ghostly Skull (5).

The Armadillo Pup is another tanking pet, but without the crawler's healing. The weird thing about this pet is that it displays as an Uncommon green, but it's really a rare. The Pup will get a chance to prove itself.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Weekend (2 Feb) - The Pet Battles Obsession Continues

Weekend (2 Feb) - The Pet Battles Obsession Continues

I love my battle pets. They try so hard and they never give up. I don't like to see them die, so I try to save them by swapping in some other pet if they get into too much trouble. Even dying, though, is only temporary. They'll be back for more as soon as the healing cooldown ticks past it's eight minute wait.

The giant in my stable is still the Strand Crawler. The crab is now level 18 and quite difficult to defeat. I use him at the start of almost every high end battle, and when victory is assured I let lower level pets take a turn to finish off the last opponent to get experience. That is how it works. The big guns soften up the competition while the lower levels get credit for the kills, which help speed up the leveling.

I'm told that the best leveling strategy is to kill the Tamers, which are special quests with tough pets to defeat. The problem is that the Tamers are scattered all over the world with no clear idea where to find them. It's pretty frustrating, to tell the truth.

Anyway, my personal Top Four on my team is:

18 - Strand Crawler
16 - Spirit of Competition
16 - Strand Crab
15 - 'Lil Deathwing

I have some rare pets which I've captured at level 15 - a Tainted Moth and a Tainted Cockroach. They're not all that powerful, though, and are used mostly as fodder to save the health of better pets.

At the lower level of competition I have some other favorites that I need to find time to level.

12 - Bat. A captured wild pet, I'm grooming this one because it can heal itself. Spirit and Deathwing have been hogging the experience, but I do need to test this bat to see if he's worth spending time on.

9 - Fluxfire Feline (FFF). This is a mechanical cat that is quite powerful. As mentioned in an earlier post, this is a very hard to get pet that took me hours of effort to acquire as a level 1. I was hoping to catch a rare one, but I had to settle for a lesser uncommon one. Well, I had some amazing luck on Saturday morning. Winning battles sometimes drop goodies that can be used to improve your pets. In this case, a [Flawless Battle Stone] dropped. This special stone can be used to upgrade the quality of ANY pet to rare quality. Yes, I used the stone to upgrade my uncommon FFF to rare quality. I am going to put my FFF on the fast track for leveling.

8 - Core Hound Pup. I've been neglecting this poor fellow; however, I'll combine him with the FFF to help with leveling them both.

Finally, I have a several low level pets (level 3-6) that I also want to groom. In particular there is the Ghostly Skull (level 3) that can be bought in Dalaran. I had a stone that would upgrade it to rare, and it is supposed to be quite deadly - once I give it some leveling time.

The rest of the low levels in my stables (that I want to level) are: A second Strand Crawler (8), Crimson Lasher (6), Dark Phoenix Hatchling (6), Frosty (6), and Mr. Grubbs (6).

One last note. There is an option to name your pet. The name has to be unique (when I tested it with a low level pet I kept getting - cannot use, name reserved). I finally got a name accepted. My concern was that the new name would replace the pet's title, but it doesn't. The new name appears at the top, with the original name underneath. So, if I want to name my Fluxfire Feline "Bad Kitty" I can do that and still see the Fluxfire Feline name beneath it. Bad Kitty likes her new name.

Update on Tamers: If I had bothered to read the quests I had received, I would have figured out where the Tamers were. Now that I can at least see what zone they are in, I will be able to go after them.

Part 2 - My pets have been very busy, and the Tamers are beginning to take my pets seriously, as well.

Here are my new rankings as of Saturday night:

20 - Strand Crawler
19 - Spirit of Competition
17 - Fluxfire Feline (Bad Kitty)
17 - Strand Crab
16 - 'Lil Deathwing

I figured out how to locate and engage the Tamers. I defeated all five Tamers on the continent of Kalimdor, then defeated the five Tamers on the Eastern Continent. Two Master Tamers, one for each continent, then became available. Those two were a bit tougher battles, but my team of pets hung in and defeated them. With all of that done, the Master Tamers were available a second time, now as a Daily quest. Their pets perished a second time.

Of course, it's still not over. Pet battle quests are now available in Outlands. Looks like I'll need to park somebody there to do the quests.

So, what did I learn from all these battles? Here goes:

1 - As hard as it was to acquire and level my Bad Kitty, and as much as I love that mechanical cat, unfortunately it is a glass cannon. Yes, when it works it is a devastating attacker. However, it takes three rounds of winding up that big gun, during which the pet is taking heavy damage. On that third round, though, if the attack hits it pretty much kills in one shot. The problem is that it misses about a third of the time, leaving an opponent still at full health and my Bad Kitty looking pretty tattered. What makes this situation even sadder is that I captured another Fluxfire Feline, a level 1 of course, but of rare quality. So now I have two rare FFFs, just when I started wondering whether Bad Kitty was really worth the effort.

2 - My level 20 Strand Crawler will reach 21 in another battle or two. It's just about impossible to kill, since it has a shell for additional defense and can heal itself. During the Master Tamer fights, though, at least two of the six pets the Crawler faced had special attacks that nullified those advantages. The Crawler survived, but it was a wake up call that there are meaner things out there to watch out for.