Best garrison buildings for pet battlers

With Warlords of Draenor only 4 days away it is time to talk to you about the garrison and how to optimize it if you are a pet battlers.

As you know, you only get to pick 3 small buildings, 2 medium buildings and 2 larger buildings and already now I can tell you that this will cost some heartache if you like me want to get all pets available in the game.

But before we get to that let us have a look at which small buildings to pick if you are a serious pet battler.

Small Buildings
There aren't any small buildings which directly gives you new pets however I very much recommend getting the Engineering Works. If you do not have engineering on your character, picking this building will give you access to the crafted engineering pets of WoD. This means you can get your
very own Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar, Mechanical Scorpid and Mechanical Axebeak.
You will not be able to create the Blingtron 5000 with the Engineering Works, however you will be able to get it faster and as such get your hand on Sky-Bo earlier.

Other than the Engineering Works it doesn't really matter which building you pick for the small lots,
however if you are a tailor I would recommend getting the Tailoring Emporium.The reason? The Elekk Plushie.
While you will not be able to create the Elekk Plushie if you do not have tailoring, getting the Tailoring Emporium will help you get it faster if you do. It currently requires 50 Hexweave Cloth and  10 Sorcerous Earth to create and the work orders of the Tailoring Emporium will help you get there much faster.

So those are the small buildings to consider if you want to build the best pet battle garrison. Now let's move on to where the tough choices lie at the medium buildings.

Medium Buildings
You only have 2 plots for medium buildings and that is where the trouble starts, because there are 3 that grants you vanity pets.

First up is the Inn. If you create an Inn you will get access to daily dungeon quests from random people dropping by. One of these quests is given by Mylune and is called For the Birds. It requires you to go into the Everbloom dungeon and pick up a Peachick from a nest. This will get you, your own little Everbloom Peachick.

If you are horde, the second choice is the Trading Post. Getting this to level 2 will unlock access to
the Laughing Skull faction and getting revered with them will give you the option to purchase a Bone Wasp. If you are a Alliance you will not get a vanity pet option from the Sha'tari defense so you actually have the space for all the medium buildings you would want to pick as a pet battler.

The last building you want to get is the Barn. Once you get the barn to level 3(which requires you to get the master trapper achievement by placing 125 work orders) a glass of warm milk will spawn and this will teach you the Pygmy Cow.

So 3 buildings and 2 plots, hmmm. Provided your main character is horde, the smartest thing would probably be to get the Inn and the Trading post on your main and then get the stable on an alt character.

Large Buidings
You can have 2 Large Buildings and there are none that provide you with any vanity pets. However there are still some that could provide some benefits to pet battlers.

The Mage Tower gives you access to portals so you can travel to other areas of Draenor faster. In theory this would make doing tamer dailies easier so it might be a good choice to make.

The Stables are another potential choice. At level 2 you no longer get dazed when riding mounts in Draenor and at level 3 you get a 20% increase in mount speed while in Draenor. Both things should help you get around to daily tamers and if you get the building leveled fast enough, it could also be helpful when doing the 500 pet battles needed to get the Menagerie to level 3.

Others
Other than these there is of course the Pet Menagerie which is a no brainer both because it has it's own slot that doesn't compete with any other building and because at level 3 the Pet Battle daily (opened up by the quest Pets vs Pest) starts grating a Big Bag of Pet Supplies, which has a chance to contain on of 7 different vanity pets: Albino Chimaeraling, Firewing, Ghastly Kid, Puddle Terror, Sun Sproutling, Sunfire Kaliri and Weebomination.

So what are you waiting for? Go build that Garrison and let me know which buildings you ended up choosing.

New Vanity Pets from Pet Battles

The easiest way to get a lot of new vanity pets from WoD is probably going to be getting them from Pet Battles. Most of the other new battle pets will require achievements or questing to be done, but as soon as you have access to all the zones you should be fine to get all all those that are trapped in pet battles.

There are currently 26 new pets from battles and if you want to prepare so you know which zones they are located in you can check this list.
The pets with a * next to them are available in multiple zones. 

Gorgrond  Amberbarb Wasp                                                      Axebeak Hatchling Junglebeak Mudback Calf Parched Lizard Twilight Wasp* Wood Wasp Frostfire Ridge Frostfur Rat Frostshell Pincher Icespine Hatchling Ironclaw Scuttler Twilight Wasp* Shadowmoon Valley Moonshell Crab Mossbite Skitterer Royal Moth* Waterfly* Zangar Crawler

Spires of Arak Bloodsting Wasp  Golden Dawnfeather Mud Jumper* Swamplighter Firefly Thicket Skitterer Talador Brilliant Bloodfeather Flat-Tooth Calf Kelp Scuttler Mud Jumper* Royal Moth* Shadow Sporebat Waterfly* Nagrand Leatherhide Runt Mud Jumper*

Have fun catching them all! :) 

Do you remember your first vanity pet?

Do you remember which of your many vanity pets was the very first you got? I was trying to figure that out today and I realized that I couldn't recall it.
Unfortunately I expect that not even Blizzard can track the exact truth, since creation dates probably got wiped when the pet journal was introduced, but I thought that perhaps looking at the list would jug my memory, so I opened the pet journal to give it a go.

First I unticked all pet gained through pet battling. Having played since 2005 I was certain that my first pet would not be amongst those. I also unticked Blizzard store pets and pets gained from the trading card game as I didn't start getting pets from those until the summer of 2008.

This left me with quite a long list still. Scanning through it I narrowed it down to 3 pets.

The mechanical chicken is the one I think is most likely.
You get it from the quest An OOX of Your Own which opens up after you have done the escort quest for 3 mechanical chickens in 3 different zones. 
I am pretty sure I did this on my very first character, which means I should have gotten this pet at some point during 2005. 

The question is whether I completed the quest chain before or after May 2005 because if it was after, that leaves room for my guess number 2.

Speedy is one out of 4 different pets you can get from the original Children's week quest line. 
The other choices are Mr. Wiggles, Scooter the Snail and Whiskers. I am 100% certain that I chose Speedy as my number one, I vividly remember having a hard time picking between him and Mr. Wiggles and ending up with him as my choice. I don't remember if this happened in 2005 or if it wasn't until 2006 that I realized this quest line was available. Looking through the list though I have discovered that I am still to pick up Whiskers and that I have 2 Speedy's which is a bit silly, but at least I know which reward to pick next year! 

The Winter Reindeer along with the Tiny Snowman and Father Winter's Helper is another good guess. The pets were introduced to Winter Veil in 2005 and you could get them from opening the presents under the tree. 
I know that I have done this every year since the beginning so the question is just whether or not I received one of the 2 above pets before getting either of these 3 Winter Veil ones. 
Sadly I can't remember, but all of these 3 pets required a snowball to summon back before they were put into the pet journal, so even if one of them were my first pet, it hasn't seen much use as snowballs were rare except for during the holiday. 

Given that my first character was an Undead, it would actually have made a lot of sense if my first vanity pet had been the Undercity Cockroach. But it wasn't. In fact I didn't get any cockroach until I wanted to test out the Apocalypse ability when fighting Dos-Ryga. 
Why you ask? Well I think they are ugly and disgusting, even in pixel form, but the main reason back in the early days of WoW was that even 50 silver was quite a big deal. Remember this was back when a slow mount cost 40G and the fast one 600G. Not many people could afford the latter, but I got mine the moment I turned 60. One of the reasons I could afford that was because I didn't spend money on anything that wasn't absolutely necessary and that is how I know for a fact that my first vanity pet must have been from a quest or an event.
So this is my guesses for my first vanity pet. Do you remember which one was your first?

Pet battle challenge of the month - November 2013

The challenge of November is all about themed pet battle teams.
Pet battling is not all about winning, it is about winning while looking cool and nothing says cool like an awesome themed oet battle team.

This month I challenge you to put together a pet battling team that has a clear theme to it.
It can be a theme based on the names you have given your pets, it can be a team that only uses a particular familie of pets or it can be another thematic focus.
The most important thing is that the theme is clear to the opponent.

Prizes
As last month there will be two different prizes one for people on the EU servers and one for people on all the other servers.
For the EU servers you can choose between a green level 25 Azure Crane Chick or a level 1 Phoenix Hawk Hatchling.
If you are not on the EU servers you can win a Medal of Honor Steam Key.

How it works
Create an awesome looking themed pet battle team, then test it out in battle. Make sure it can at least win once in a while. In the comment section below describe your team and the theme. If possible link to a screenshot of the team in action although this is not required to enter the competition.

How do I win?
The competition ends at midnight CEST on the 31st of October and once it has ended I will pick a random submission.

Once the competition is over the winning team will be announced here and provided I have access to the pets used in the winning team I will also make a video showcasing the team in action. If you enter the competition, please make sure you check back here so we can arrange handing over the price.

Top 3 Undead Battle Pets

Undead vanity pets are great for pet battling. Their racial is awesome and they usually have good abilities. Furthermore they are a great counter to the Anubisath Idol and the  Kun-Lai Runt, which seems to be a staple in 50% of all Pet Battle Teams.

Unborn Val'kyr

Pic © Blizzard

This undead pet is awesome because of its versitility. With shadowslash, curse of doom and unholy ascension it is great for killing off elites in PVE. And with the fix to Haunt in patch 5.4 it is now a stable in many PVP teams. Haunt + Curse of Doom allows you to do a lot of damage, while being untouchable  yourself.
The Unborn Val'kyr also gets extra points for one of the coolest idle animations. Kill off a normal critter and standby while your Val'kyr brings it back to life.

Mr. Bigglesworth

Pic © Blizzard

A pet with very high survivability in pet fights. With Ice Barrier it can block off two enemy attacks, while Ice Tomb will keep the anemy pet frozen and on top do a good amount of damage.
Also with a speed of 325, Mr. Bigglesworth is faster than most other pets which is both good for his pounce ability and gives you and overall advantage. Faster is almost always better. 



Giant Bone Spider

Pic © Blizzard

Even though the swapping spells were nerfed in patch 5.4 they are still a great way to control the fight. A lot of teams are dependant on set moves to work out and you can really mess up an opponents tactics by swapping out their pet. On top of that the combination of dotting up an enemy pet and then swapping it out so it can't retaliate is very powerful.




Worthy mention

Pic © Blizzard

The Creepy Crate is a great undead battle pet as well it has Cure of Doom and Agony which makes it a great dot pet. It also have Bonestorm, which is great for Taran Zhu in the Celestial Tournament, but also works great against other opponents as long as they have at least one humanoid in the team.
If Death Grip and Devour swapped place, this would be in the top three, but even as it is, it deserves a mention!

This is my top 3 of the best Undead Battle Pets. What is yours?

Pet battle challenge of the month - October 2013

When I finished the achievement "No Time To Heal" I was a bit sad. While I was thrilled to complete it, I was also aware that it was one of the only really challenging achievements for pet battlers in the game.
Since then I have tried to set myself challenges when doing pet battles and I have had a blast.
As I know I am not the only one liking a challenge I figured I would include you guys. And to make it more fun I will make it a monthly competition complete with prizes!

Prize
The idea for prizes was to give away different vanity pets, however since the servers are divided based on region it is only possible for me to offer vanity pets to people on the EU servers. For people in other regions I will instead try and come up with other prizes (although it may not always be possible.)

For this first challenge the prize I the EU server price is a shiny Azure Crane Chick leveled to 25. It is P/P and it is unfortunately green as I didn't have a stone, but at least you will only have to redo 2 levels at max.
If you are not on the EU servers you can win a Mirror's Edge Steam Key. (If you are on the EU servers and prefer the game key rather than the vanity pet, then we can talk about that as well. :))


The challenge:
Win 3 PVP matches in a row with an all Aquatic Team.

How it works
To enter the competition  take a screenshot of the all Aquatic Team that you have managed to win 3 pvp battles in a row with. Please make sure that the abilities you use are clearly visible. Once you have the screenshot upload it somewhere and throw a link in the comment section below or link it to me on Twitter. Also include a line or two about how you play the team to win. Alternatively, please write up the names and abilities of the pets in the comment section below along with a short description of how you play the team. You are also welcome to include breeds, but it is not a requirement.

Of course I have no way of knowing whether or not you actually managed to beat 3 enemies in a row with your all Aquatic pet, but I trust you guys and also, where is the fun in cheating? ;)

How do I win?
The competition ends at midnight CEST on the 31st of October and once it has ended I will pick a random submission.

Once the competition is over the winning team will be announced here and provided I have access to the pets used in the winning team I will also make a video showcasing the team in action. If you enter the competition, please make sure you check back here so we can arrange handing over the price.

Please share this blog with your friends and make sure you subscribe here and to my Youtube channel to participate in future competitions and to get more ideas for pet battle PVP and PVE strategies.

Pierre and Rascal-Bot cageable

In a recent hotfix Blizzard changed the vanity pets Pierre and Rascal-Bot from requiring a character on your account to have engineering. Now the two vanity pets can be caged and sold on the auction house.

Before patch 5.4 I was leveling engineering on one of my characters solely to get access to these two pets and to be able to more easily have a chance of Lil' Bling. When I saw the hotfixed I stopped my leveling. I have very limited playtime and I figured it would be faster short term to just farm gold and buy the two pets.

At first I was a bit sad that they changed it, as it is kinda nice that somethings are unique to each profession, but after thinking it through I actually like the change. I think it is neat for engineers to be able to earn a bit of money on their profession and for myself, it makes things so much easier as I don't have to farm all the materials to level yet another profession.

Now I am just waiting, checking the auction house from time to time to see if one of these pets will pop up. I've already seen multiple Lil' Blings on the AH for about 10k gold, but I think they will fall in price pretty quickly so currently I am saving my money for Pierre or Rascal Bot.

Also to those who are worried about the rarity of the engineering pets. With the required materials, I am pretty certain that these pets will stay rare for a long time. What are your thoughts on Blizzard making these two pets cageable?

Recommended pet list for Celestial Tournament stage 2

Following up on my list of pets you should farm for the first stage of the Celestial Tournament, here is a list of battle pets to collect for stage 2.
(Please note that this will be completed once I have refined strategies for all 4 Celestials)

You can also check out the fights on my Youtube channel MestMistel


Chi-Chi, Hatchling of Chi-Ji
Unborn Val'Kyr (or any pet with Curse of Doom)
Pandarian Water Spirit
Alpine Fox Kit

Yu'la, Broodling of Yu'lon
Unborn Val'Kyr
Chrominus
Lil' Deathwing

If you want to use the Val'Kyr for both fights then start with Chi-Chi as it will be undamaged afther that fight.

Zao, Calfling of Niuzao
Wild Jade Hatchling (use Lightning Storm)
Zandalari Footslasher
Clockwork Gnome
Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen
Wild Jade Hatchling
Chicken (or any other high speed flying pet with Flock)
Darkmoon Zeppelin

Chen Stormstout Pet Battle Strategy

Chen Stormstout challenges us to pet battles in the Celestial Tournament. His team is not the hardest of the new opponents and with the right team you should get him down every time.

Here I will give you a quick guide to the fight as well as an idea of how to kill him as easily as possible.

Please keep in mind that the pets suggested here can often be swapped with other pets of the same family or with the same type of attacks so if you do not have the exact pets available to you, do not despair.

Opponents Team

Brewly
Brew Bolt- strong vs Elementals, weak vs Magic- Damage Ability
Barrel Toss - strong vs Critter, weak vs Flying- Reduces hit chance by 100% for 1 round
Inebriate - strong vs Mechanical weak vs Critter- Damage Ability that continues for 3 rounds

Chirps
Flank - strong vs Undead weak vs Humanoid - Damage Ability, hits 1-3 times
Lullaby - strong vs Undead weak vs Humanoid - Makes the target fall asleep for 2 rounds
Locust Swarm - strong vs Undead weak vs Humanoid - Damage Ability

Tonsa
Bite - strong vs Critter weak vs Flying - Damage Ability
Headbutt - strong vs Critter weak vs Flying - Damage Ability and 25% chance of stun
Chew  - strong vs Undead weak vs Humanoid - Deals damage the turn after used.

Your Team 

Clockwork Gnome 
Metal Fist, Repair, Turret 
Silkbead Snail
Absorb, Acidic Goo, Dive

Zandalari Anklerender

Hunting Party, Primal Cry, Devour

Strategy

Tonsa is Chens starting pet. Start out with Clockworm Gnome and pop his turret, depending on your health hit Metal fist or Repair. Proceed until you kill Tonsa.  Next up is Chirps. He will likely put your Gnome to sleep in the first round so go ahead and swap in the Anklerender. Use Primal Cry and then hunting party to finish off Chirps.
For Brewly you will use the Silkbead snail use Acidic Goo and follow by Dive. Spam Absorb until Brewly is dead.

To counter Inebriate you can also use a pet with Laser or With a buff to hit instead of the Silkbead Snail. Give it a try as one strategy might feel better than the other to you.
Good luck! :)

Below you can check out the whole fight and strategy in action.

Little Tommy Newcomer (Lil' Oondasta) Pet Battle FAQ and Strategy

In patch 5.4 you will find Little Tommy Newcomer on the Timeless Isle. He is located at The Celestial Court right next to Master Li. He offers a daily quest where you have to beat his Lil' Oondasta in pet battles in exchange for 500 Timeless Coins.
The pet hits crazy hard, however the fight is relatively simple with the right team.

Opponent Team

Lil' Oondasta 
Spiritfire Beam - strong vs Flying weak vs Mechanical - Damage ability, hits backline pets as well.

Frill Blast - strong vs Flying weak vs Mechanical - Damage ability, swaps in highest HP pet.
Crush - strong vs Dragonkin weak vs Beasts - Damage ability

Your Team

Wild Jade Hatchling
Tail Sweep, Call Lightning, Lift-Off
Clockwork Gnome 
Metal Fist, Repair, Turret
Clockwork Rocket Bot 
Batter, Toxic Smoke, Launch Rocket

Strategy 

Start with the Wild Jade Hatchling and use Call Lightning to change the weather into Lightning Storm. Lil' Oondasta will likely use Frill Blast here and your Rocket Bot will be swapped in. Use Batter until your bot dies. If your Wild Jade Hatchling survived the Frill Blast it has likely gotten killed by the Spiritfire Beam so use your Clockwork Gnome to finish off Oondasta. Start off with a Turret and then spam Metal Fist until you win. 

If you are unlucky you may have to redo the fight, but so far I have found that this strategy is a fairly easy way to beat Little Tommy Newcomer. 
A video will be up soon showing the fight (I accidentally handed it in today before recording. Duh! ;) )

Recommended pet list for Celestial Tournament stage 1

I was asked to provide a full list of all battle pets used to beat the Celestial Tournament. Hopefully this list will come in handy for people farming vanity pets for the tough fights in the tournament.

Before going on to the list I want to stress that if possible you should have 2 or even 3 of all the battle pets listed here as even with the best strategies you are bound to lose a fight in the CT once in a while and you want to make certain that loosing a fight doesn't mean you have to start over completely.

You can see all the strategies and fights on my Youtube channel MestMistel, but now on to the list. 

Also find a list of the pets for stage 2 here.

Taran Zhu

Creepy Crate
Maggot
Stitched Pup

Chen Stormstout

Clockwork Gnome
Silkbead Snail
Zandalari Anklerender

Wise Mari

Westfall Chicken
Mountain Panda
Hyjal Bear Cub

Wrathion

Brown Marmot
Porcupette
Little Fawn

Dr Ion Goldbloom

Fledgling Buzzard
Azure Drake
Lesser Voidcaller

Lorewalker Cho

Clockwork Gnome
Stitched Pub
Netherspace Abyssal

Sully McLeary

Frog
Fledgling Buzzard x2

Shademaster Kyrin

Giant Bone Spider
Clockwork Gnome
Crimson Lasher

Blingtron 4000

Pygmy Direhorn
Corehound Pup
Fridgid Frostling

Hopefully this list will come in handy when preparing for the tournament. Good Luck! :)

Taran Zhu Pet Battle FAQ and Strategy

Taran Zhu is probably the hardest fight in the first stage of the Celestial Tournament. The two other opponents for the week is Chen Stormstout and Wrathion, the black prince


Taran Zhu is Shado-Pan and has sworn to protect Pandaria and now he is doing that in Pet Battles as well with his team of deadly Mini Pandarian Monks. 
This is a team full of ninja moves and karate kicks.

Team

Bolo
Punch - strong vs Dragonkin, weak vs Beast - Damage Ability
Blinding Powder - strong vs Dragonkin, weak vs Beast - Reduces hit chance by 100% for 1 round
Rampage - strong vs Critter weak vs Flying - Damage Ability that continues for 3 rounds

Li
Triple Snap - strong vs Critter weak vs Flying - Damage Ability, hits 1-3 times
Bandage - strong vs Dragonkin, weak vs Beast - Healing Ability
Spin Kick - strong vs Dragonkin, weak vs Beast - Damage Ability that interrupts if user goes first

Yen
Comeback - strong vs Undead weak vs Humanoids - Damage Ability, deals more damage if user has lower health than target
Blackout Kick - strong vs Dragonkin, weak vs Beast- Stuns for 1 round
Feign Death - strong vs Critter weak vs Flying - Avoid enemy attack, then swap out with highest health pet

Strategy

Taran Zhu will start the fight with Yen. The key is to avoid taking too much damage from his comeback ability. 
Because the team has so many abilities that will prevent you from doing damage and due to the healing abilities (both from XXX bandage and from all 3 pets being humanoids) it is important to get a lot of damage in, preferably without Taran Zhu being able to retaliate.
That is why the best team for beating him looks like this:

Creepy Crate
Using Agony, Curse of Doom and Bonestorm.
All these are strong against humanoids and Bonestorm will be able to hurt the backline pets without them having the option to retaliate or more importantly heal up.
You should get at least 2 x Bonestorm in and COD + Agony will finish up Yen leaving you to deal with the 2 others.
The benefits of using Curse of Doom is that the ability deals a lot of damage in one go, meaning Yen will probably not benefit from his Comeback ability before it is too late. 
If you do not have the Creepy Crate then Fozziled Hatchling can also be used for the Bonestorm ability.

Maggot x2
The important ability here is Consume as it is an undead ability it will deal a lot of damage to Taran Zhus humanoid panda monks and because the Maggot is a beast, their attacks will not be strong against your pet.
Consume combined with burrow should get you through this fight. For the 3 ability I would take Acidic Goo. Even though it is week against humanoids, it still adds more damage to your following attacks.
If you do not have a Maggot you can use Larva, Mr. Grubbs, Jungle Grub, Imperial Silkworm, Festering Maggot, Devouring Maggot or Wild Silkworm instead. 

The Celestial Tournament FAQ

Become the Pet Battle Champion

In patch 5.4 the Celestial Tournament will be introduced. In this article I will have a look at the tournament, how to participate and how to beat it. 

 

What is the Celestial Tournament?

The Celestial Tournament is a challenge for advanced Pet Battle players. There are two stages of the Tournament.

• Stage 1 where you fight 3 different opponents with 3 pets each.
• Stage 2 where you fight each of the celestial pets. One legendary pet per battle

You can not heal your pets while you are doing a tournament which means you will need to win your fights the first time you try them and you will have to do 7 fights all in all before you are done with the tournament.

How do you get to the Celestial Tournament?

The tournament is located at the Timeless Isle. When patch 5.4 hits the live servers you will automatically get the quest A Flash of Bronze when you enter your factions shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The quest chain will lead you to the isle and give you a flight path that can be used in the future. If you do not want to do the quest you can also fly from the south eastern point of The Jade Forest. You should be able to get there before you get fatiqued.
Once on the island you speak to Master Li who is located at the Celestial Court to get invited to a scenario that is the Celestial Tournament.

How do I win the Celestial Tournament?
In order to win the CT you will need to clear both stage 1 and stage 2 of the tournament. In stage one you will have to fight 3 different opponents. These opponents rotate on a regular (possibly weekly) basis.
In stage 2 you have to defeat all 4 legendary celestial battle pets. These fights are really tough and require good strategies and a great lineup for your teams.

Which Opponent are there at the Celestial Tournament?

This is a list of the opponents at the Celestial Tournament and strategies on how to defeat them.

Stage 1 Opponents: 
(Specific articles for each opponent is under construction, but for now click the link for a video walkthrough.)
Wrathion, The Black Prince
Chen Stormstout
Taran Zhu
Wise Mari
Dr. Ion Goldbloom
Loremaster Cho
Sully "The Pickle McLeary
Shademaster Kyrin
Blingtron 4000


The 4 Celestials:
(Guides will be up soon)

Chi-Chi, hatchling of Chi-Ji
Yu'la, broodling of Yu'Lon
Zao, Calfling of Niuzao
Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen