Battle pet

Battle pets are versions of companions that can battle other battle pets in teams of up to 3 listed in the Pet Journal as part of the Pet Battle System.

Battle pet details[]

As of Beta build 15851:^[1]

Account-Wide Pets[]

Pets (companions) are now account-wide. This means that any pet you have on one character will be shared with all of the others on your Battle.net account. Earn level 6 with Grunty on character A? Log in character B and that level 6 Grunty will be there waiting for you.If you have multiple versions of the same pet on multiple characters on your account, they will be merged into one. We will place any extras in your bags or mail them to you if you are out of space.

Capturing[]

Main article: Pet capture

Pets are caught via PvE battles in the world. Most pets that you can fight, you can catch. In order to catch a pet, you need to get it to low health and use your trap ability. Traps upgrade via specific achievements, improving your chance to catch higher level pets.
You can catch up to three of the same type of pet.
Your pet must reach level 3 to activate the Trap ability.

Pet quality[]

This section concerns content that is potentially inaccurate.

Pets that are captured in the world have varying levels of quality, just like an item would. The quality stat is randomly determined every time a pet spawns. Higher quality pets have higher stats. Be on the lookout for Rares!
Current available qualities for player owned pets:
- Poor
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
Additional available qualities for NPC pets:
- Epic is only available as NPC battle pets.
  - Epic was considered as an upgrade for player pets, but was removed in Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Inlinegfx/img_link_data.json' not found. Alpha.^[2]
- Legendary is only available as NPC battle pets.

Pets on the AH[]

Most pets can be bought and sold from the AH. A new section is on the AH specifically for this.
Pets that are sold on the AH retain their stats and levels.
Pets that can't be traded will display a warning in their info text as well as having the “Put in Cage” option disabled.

Battle pet characteristics[]

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From the official Mists of Pandaria site:^[3]

Battle pet characteristics window numbered

Name

Naming your pets helps you keep track of them, and it also gives them a little bit of personality.

Level

As your pets fight and win battles, they will gain experience and level up their level.

Stats

Each pet has 4 stats - Health, Power, Speed, and Quality. Health, Power and Speed increase as your pets level up. Quality designates the overall strength of your pet's stats and will vary on every pet that you catch.

Battle pet characteristics window unnumbered

Abilities

Your pets can learn new abilities when they hit specific levels. You will be able to choose between several different active abilities for each pet.

Family

Pets are grouped into common categories called families. Families include Critter, Dragonkin, Mechanical, Magical, and there are many more. Each pet ability also corresponds to a specific pet family; Deep Breath for example is a Dragonkin-type ability, and Lift-Off is a Flying-type ability. Family determines a pet's strength and weakness against other families. Each family also has a unique passive bonus.

Other details[]

Name limitations

Some names will be blocked for violating a naming policy which seems to differ from the character naming policy, but the details are not clear. The restrictions may the same as combat pets.^[4]
There is a limit on how long your battle pet name can be.^{[citation needed]}

Favorites

Battle pets can be tagged as "favorites" for sorting and filtering purposes.

Level

Max level is 25.
With enough battle pet XP gain, a pet can jump as many levels up as there needs to be accumulated to reach that level.

Breeds

Many pets have different "breeds" which change the balance of the various stats available.
- These breeds are usually identified by the first letter of the stat "H" for health, "P" for power, "S" for speed, and "B" for balance between one or all the stats.
- The breed usually is given in two parts separated by a slash "/", so "H/P" would indicate increased health and power, while "B/B" means balanced between all stats.

Abilities gained by level

New abilities are gained at level 2, 4, 5, 10, and 20. So a level 20 pet should have 6 abilities to choose from in 3 pairs, so only 3 are usable during battle.

Battle pet family overview[]

edit Battle pet family overview

Battle pets will fall into one of 10 possible pet families. Each pet family has its own strengths and weaknesses when up against certain other battle pet families.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

Note on battle pet attacks

Attacks each have their own "family", which may not match the family of the pet, and may be from a variety of different families on one pet. For example, a Harpy Youngling is a Humanoid pet whose attacks are all of the Flying family type, meaning it will take extra damage () from Undead attacks and less () from Critter attacks (because its family is Humanoid), but will do extra damage () to Aquatic creatures and less () to Dragonkin, rather than more to Dragonkin and less to Beast (because its attacks are Flying type rather than Humanoid).

Families

Aquatic^[8] - Aquatic attacks deal bonus damage to Elemental companions and less damage to Magic companions.
Beast - Beast attacks deal bonus damage to Critter companions and less damage to Flying companions.
Critter - Critter attacks deal bonus damage to Undead companions and less damage to Humanoid companions.
Dragonkin^[8] - Dragonkin attacks deal bonus damage to Magic companions and less damage to Undead companions.
Elemental - Elemental attacks do more damage to Mechanical companions and less to Critter companions.
Flying - Flying attacks deal bonus damage to Aquatic companions and less damage to Dragonkin companions.
Humanoid - Humanoid attacks do more damage to Dragonkin and less to Beast companions.
Magic^[9] (not Mystical,^[10] or Mythical^[7]) - Magical attacks deal bonus damage to Flying and less damage to Mechanical companions.
Mechanical - Mechanical attacks deal bonus damage to Beast companions and less damage to Elemental companions.
Undead - Undead attacks do more damage to Humanoid companions and less to Aquatic companions.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The diagrams below show in a variety of ways how families are strong or weak against each other. The two left diagrams show what family is strong against another by having a red arrow point ( Strength) to the family that takes extra damage and a gray arrow ( Weakness) pointing to the family that takes less damage.

The right side diagram shows this in a different form, the large icon shows how it is affected by other families. The upper left is a family that attacks it strongly ( Weakness defending), the upper right is a family that it attacks strongly ( Strength attacking), the lower left is a family that attacks it weakly ( Strength defending), and the lower right is a family that it attacks weakly ( Weakness attacking).

Battle Pet Families, by strong attack — Battle Pet Families, arranged by boosted attack

Battle Pet Family Chart — Battle Pet Family traits and Attack and Defense strengths and weaknesses

Battle Pet Families, Weak Attack circle — Battle Pet Families, arranged by weakened attack

Graphics courtesy of Nightsmaiden.

Battle pet passive abilities[]

edit Battle pet family passives

Each battle pet of particular family/type share a specific passive ability:^[8]^[11]

Aquatic: [Aquatic]^ω ϖ - Harmful damage over time effects are reduced by 50% on Aquatic pets.

Additional Damage Taken: 50% from

Flying abilities