The Terrible Turnip is a pet collector's best friend

If you're on a quest to catch all of the wild pets Azeroth has to offer, there's one pet you'll want to add to your arsenal as soon as possible: the Terrible Turnip. Why? Two words, my friends: Weakening Blow.

Weakening Blow is an Elemental ability unique to the Terrible Turnip. It is, perhaps, the most powerful tool in a pet collector's arsenal. Weakening Blow cannot reduce an enemy's health below 1. That means, if you're using your Terrible Turnip, you'll never again accidentally kill that rare-quality Nether Faerie Dragon you've been spending hours attempting to find.

It also means you don't need to continuously level mid-range pets to prevent your level 25s from insta-gibbing critters in old world zones, should you need to go back and find something you missed. The Terrible Turnip, even at level 25, will never kill those low level critters. In the world of pet collecting, nothing is more essential to your toolkit than Weakening Blow.

Unfortunately, whether or not you can get your hands on the Terrible Turnip is a matter of luck. It isn't a pet you can catch out in the wild and it isn't a pet you can acquire via boss drops or a trip to a vendor. The Terrible Turnip can only be acquired via your player farm in the Valley of the Four Winds. Any time you harvest one of your crops (and as far as we know, it's any crop), you have a small chance to loot an Ominous Seed. Plant that seed, and the next day you'll find a fully grown Terrible Turnip, ripe for the picking. There is no level or reputation requirement for acquiring this pet beyond access to your farm in Pandaria.

The only advice we can give you as far as acquiring this pet is if you haven't begun your farm yet, do so as soon as possible. Opening the farm feature up for your level 85 alts is quite easy, too: complete the Pandaria introductory quests, then run straight for Halfhill. There are no other requirements. With pets being an account-wide feature now, there's no reason not to maximize your chances with additional croppage each day. If you managed to level 10 characters to max level in Cataclysm, why not put them to use?

In theory, it is possible to get one of these guys on the auction house. The Terrible Turnip can be caged and traded or sold. Everybody is going to want one of these, however, so if any go to market at all, competition will be fierce until deeper into the expansion.

Is the Terrible Turnip viable for pet battling beyond collecting wild pets? Let's look at its abilities:

• Slot 1 Weakening Blow or Tidal Wave

• Slot 2 Leech Seed or Inspiring Song

• Slot 3 Sunlight or Sons of the Root

The Terrible Turnip possesses an odd collection of healing and battlefield manipulation abilities. While Sons of the Root has the potential to be crazy-powerful and Inspiring Song allows you to refresh your benched pets, the turnip isn't exactly a competitive powerhouse. Especially considering it's an Elemental pet. Aquatic pets already seem to see heavy use thanks to their powerful healing and defensive capabilities -- throwing an Elemental into the meat grinder will only end in sadness. Surely there's a way to make it work, there are no truly terrible pets, but you may be better off with something else in your PvP lineup.

The Turnip's strength absolutely lies in its wild pet catching capabilities. In addition to Weakening Blow, it also possesses Sunlight, which increases all pets' max health, not their current health. Wowhead user Nulgar explains the benefit of that effect:

If you're in possession of a Terrible Turnip and haven't used it, you should get on that -- you'll need to level it up from level 1. If you don't have one yet ... good luck?

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.