Getting started with pet battles in Warlords of Draenor
Though the basic battle pet system hasn't changed, if you're a pet collector heading into Warlords of Draenor you'll find plenty of new pets to collect, six new tamers to beat, daily battles at your garrison's menagerie, new achievements, and a new pet-centric currency. So where's a potential pet tamer to begin? We'll walk you through all of the pat battling Warlords has to offer.
Find and fight Draenor's pet tamers
There are six new tamers to battle in Draenor, one for every zone (excepting Tanaan and Ashran). You can fight each tamer once a day in exchange for 4 Pet Charms, which you can use to buy pet-centric gear at your garrison. In addition to fun toys like costumes and pet treats, you can buy bandages, and battle-stones. Amongst that gear, of the most interest to pet levelers will be: Marked Flawless Battle-Stones for 15 charms, Flawless Battle-Training Stones for 3 charms, and Mystery Bags which a random family battle-training stone for 2 charms.
Here's who you'll need to fight (and where you'll need to go) for your pet charms:
Cymre Brightblade, Gorgrond (51, 71): Strategy
Tarr the Terrible, Nagrand (56, 10): Strategy
With the right team, many of these can be taken down with just two pets, letting you carry a third pet to level it up. If you're at a loss on how to win these fights, the links above will help you get them down and start raking in the pet charms.
Unlocking your garrison's menagerie
The pet menagerie is the last of the neutral buildings to unlock in your garrison, but pet battlers will want to get to work on it as soon as possible. At level 1, it allows your pets to wander your garrison (a cute cosmetic addition) and has a daily pet battle opportunity. At level 2, it increases your trap chance and reduces the cooldown of your Revive Battle Pets ability (while in Draenor), both of which will be helpful as you work on catching all the pets the continent has to offer. At level 3 -- which you'll unlock when you get the Draenic Pet Battler achievement -- you get a new daily which has unique pet rewards
Sounds great, right? But unfortunately if you haven't been working on your battle pet game before now it will definitely prove a challenge. To start, you'll have to be level 100 and have upgraded your garrison to level 3 to start work on it at all, but once you've overcome that, the real challenge kicks in (at least for battle pet newbies). Before building your menagerie, you'll have to complete the Pets Versus Pests quest, where you do three pet battles around your garrison. If you have the right pets at level 25, this won't be hard -- but if you don't, it's going to take you some time to level up your pets into a proper army.
Here's who you'll have to defeat three level 25 pets:
Carrotus Maximus, an elemental pet: Strategy
Since each of these pets fight solo, you can mostly rely on putting together a team of three pets from families they're weak against and have a good chance for victory -- even if you don't have the ideal team-up to beat them. (Personally, I recommend moths against Carrotus -- their ability to avoid his healing attack worked wonders!)
Unfortunately, if you struggle to beat this trio, you can only expect harder fights to appear in your menagerie afterwards. If you keep struggling, work on leveling your pets, beating the tamers, and collecting new pets to give yourself a better chance!
Just because you don't know everything there is to know about World of Warcraft doesn't mean you can't play your A-game. Visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to everything you need to get started as a new (or returning) player, with new sections on garrisons and what to do at level 100.
