Mists of Pandaria: Pet Battles
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 19th 2012 at 3:01AM
Each pet that you own can learn up to six abilities, but only three of them can be used in the turn-based battle, so you need to carefully assign which you plan to use. Pet Battles will have a queue system just like dungeons and Battlegrounds, with one small difference: you will never see the name of the player you're facing off against. Blizzard wanted to minimize the "shame of defeat" that tends to be a barrier to entry in PvP -- nobody likes feeling bad when they lose. You will never know who you've lost to, and they can't trash talk you during or afterwards. While your statistics page will keep track of your number of wins, it will not track your losses.
Filed under: Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Skarlette Mar 19th 2012 3:09AM
" We watched a pet battle showdown between Illidan Stormrage and the Lich King"
The mental image of that is making me giggle like a madwoman. What pets did each use?
KataSamoes Mar 19th 2012 3:22AM
Yes, this! I want to know..despite the awesome imagery. XD
Pyromelter Mar 19th 2012 4:18AM
Can we get a mini-LK and a mini-Illy pet to fight as pets? :D (Of course as a mage i'd be using Lil' KT but having illidan and the lk would be fun too).
Khoonda Mar 19th 2012 10:05AM
Arthas used his Frotwyrm whelp "Lord Snuggles"
illidan used his mini fel reaver "Colonel Sprockets"
devilsei Mar 19th 2012 12:05PM
You know what the best image of that is though?
Illidan Stormrage is the Ash Ketchum to Lich King's Gary.
Can you just imagine Illidan running about with a mini-pet on his shoulder and an odd pokeball-styled hat on his head, singing the original theme?
Or Lich King going around with his own personal squad of Valk'yr Cheerleaders to cheer him on at every gym battle he does?
SR Mar 20th 2012 1:36AM
Khoonda, I can't upvote your comment enough for the giggles you've brought me.
Xabidar Mar 19th 2012 3:09AM
Awesome! I was worried that this would be cut. :)
James Mar 19th 2012 3:10AM
Can't wait... I'm gonna be the very best, like no one ever was
Jamie Mar 19th 2012 3:21AM
I wonder if Breanni will be the Elite Four champion?
KataSamoes Mar 19th 2012 3:23AM
Win!
Abbadon Mar 19th 2012 4:03AM
Just like most kids' sports these days, of course you win! Medals and trophies for all participants!!
Bah... only tracking wins is pure crap.
They won't even be able to provide a win percentage because that would in turn reveal how man losses you've had. I don't care if I (or another player) has 2k wins if it took us 5k battles to get there... 200 wins out of 250 battles is much more impressive and revealing about ones skills.
I'm an older player and I'm not even that competitive, but not keeping track of losses makes me feel like they're intentionally marketing Pet Battles to small children and pre-adolescents to spare their feelings. At the very least, they should have given us the option to choose how our records or kept.
And... The article mentions the queue system. Does this mean I can't challenge my friends and guildmates to a pet battle? Again, this was something I think a lot of players were looking forward to. If we can't directly compete, this is another strike against something I was actually somewhat excited about.
Pyromelter Mar 19th 2012 4:21AM
Seems to be a lot of unanswered questions here, I'm betting someone will get a Pet Battle FAQ up at some point, if not now then in the next month.... I think the point of this article was just to show that Pet Battles are in the game and implemented for Mists, while the details aren't quite worked out yet on things like naming, wins/losses, challenges, training pets, gaining pets through the battle system, catching pets in the wild, etc.
jimmybh Mar 19th 2012 4:45AM
On the idea of "no shame" I can see not publicly sharing win/loss numbers, but I'd be highly disappointed if I wasn't able to see my own personally. I have a 32% win rating in BGs, but I don't care, I'm just happy to know my numbers.
Also, I feel like we should have a title or something that references Breanni.
Dementron Mar 19th 2012 4:56AM
@Abbadon
There's a queue system for dungeons too, but that doesn't stop you from running them with your friends.
RuzGofDI Mar 19th 2012 3:12AM
"you will never see the name of the player you're facing off against." What about the name of the pet used? I vaguely remember from them saying at Blizzcon that players would be able to rename their pets. Will people we battle be able to see those name changes?
Dementron Mar 19th 2012 5:11AM
I really hope so. I think I'll have a lot of fun coming up with interesting names for my pets, and I'd like to see what other people name theirs. Plus, I think it would be interesting, even if you don't know who the player is, to come across pets and teams that you recognize from previous battles.
RuzGofDI Mar 19th 2012 10:46AM
@Dementron: Well, I was more thinking along the lines of battle strategy use for names.
I've seen Hunters in arenas that have named their pets the same as themeselves to cause confusion in Arena pvp.
And since this article does is make sure that Pet Battles haven't gone the way of dance studios and path of the titans, it doesn't clear up mechancially how the battle actually will work.
So I'm still thinking in terms of the first big pet battling game, where you don't see what's coming until it's on the field, and you can try to trick people into giving you the a type advantage by naming something strong against one type as something that would that would be weak against it.
TL/DR: Until we know more about WoW Pet Battles mechanically, I'm worried about "Garrosh is sending out Charmander? I'll use Squirtle! Wait, he named his Pikachu 'Charmander'?! FFFFUUUU...!"
Snuzzle Mar 23rd 2012 8:00AM
I think they said there wouldn't be any real "rock/paper/scissors" type pets like Pokemon. No Charmander slaughtering Bulbasaur.
Vorken Mar 19th 2012 3:17AM
Any word on whether trained pets are still able to be sold across players?
And I appreciate blizzards kindness here...but hiding losses seems a little extreme, everyone should be able to see progress in performance.
gregstroup78 Mar 19th 2012 3:24AM
What about the "discover pets in the wild to round out your roster." that was stated in the FAQ?