Pet Battle Updates in Beta

Updated May 24 here

Hello!

We're currently hard at work implementing Battle for Azeroth’s pet battle content, and we'd like to start talking about some of the changes you’ll be seeing in the Beta.

Pet Battle World Quests will soon begin showing up on both of the new continents. Similar to Legion, they will count towards your zone’s emissary, but this time around, the level of the pets opposing you will scale to the highest level pet on your team. This will allow a player with a team of only level 1 pets to take on the World Quest and get some battle pet experience. Please give them a shot with pets of all levels, and let us know how that goes for you.

We will be introducing a new currency in Battle for Azeroth that can be used to purchase a variety of things, so there's no need to hold on to those Pet Charms that are burning a hole in your pocket.

Several new pet battle mechanics are coming to Battle for Azeroth. Some of these will appear on enemy pets, and some on yours. A few examples include:

A powerful spell that summons a random Weather effect

Several additions to suite of Heals that will have increased effects based on your pet’s health

Aura effects that heal your pet (or damage the enemy pet) based on the last hit dealt

In addition to new pets and abilities, we’re making a few targeted changes to a few pets and abilities that are seen frequently:

Bone Serpent: swapped positions of Call Darkness and Lift Off

Crow and Gilnean Raven: -200 power, +200 speed

Cyclone: damage changed from 7 to 3-7

Haunt: returns the pet at 50% health when sacrificed instead of 100%.

Teroclaw Hatchling: Dodge and Nature's Ward now occupy the same tier (as do Hawk Eye and Ravage).

Please feel free to let us know how the changes play for you.

Thank you!

04/25/2018 04:03 PMPosted by Inic

will current pet upgrade tokens still work on BFA pets?

Yes.

04/25/2018 04:32 PMPosted by Tipsylass

...

You have no idea how happy this makes me.

So i can just level pets in Elwynn Forest now?

To clarify, the trainers you will battle for Battle for Azeroth World Quests will scale to the level of the highest level pet on your current pet team, allowing you to complete the World Quest with low-level pets.

While we may expand this system to other trainers and battles (a few already use it, like Crysa), we don't plan to expand it to wild pets at this time.

No plans currently to expand the cap, are you finding that you're out of pet space?

We're looking into the difficulty of getting the 1500 pets item in a BfA world.

We’d like to take a moment to discuss Battle Pet philosophies as they pertain to current nerfs, future buffs, and Master Trainers.

We like adding new Battle Pets in expansion packs with powerful abilities. Along with this, we generally “retire” pets that have seen many days of spotlight in both PvP and PvE. Recently you have seen this with the Bone Serpent and friends.

By doing so, we hope to keep both the PvE and PvP meta-games fresh, interesting, and involving player-driven strategies. We don’t intend to increase the level cap or rarity of pets, so this approach allows us to update both past and future content, unlocking new strategies for players that intend to collect them all. It’s analogous to Hearthstone moving some cards to Wild – it allows for the new expansion, and its abilities, to shine, without an ever-increasing power level for all pets that ultimately becomes unsustainable.

Ultimately, this empowers the player that has the largest collection – and this is what Pet Battles is all about. If you have a large stable, you will find that previously-underpowered things bubble up to the surface when other things sink, and your ability to collect them all will ultimately best allow you to weather the storm of change.

If you find that any older content becomes very difficult as a result of these changes, we’d like to hear from you – new combos should allow you to overcome older challenges, but we have a LOT of Trainers in WoW, so you never know when one may surprise you (or us).

Update--

You'll notice in today's new Beta update that battle pet currency has changed. Here are the main changes:

• Pet Charms will be named Shiny Pet Charms. Shiny Pet Charms continue to be acquired by doing pre-BFA battle pet content.
• A new currency has been added -- Polished Pet Charms. These are acquired by doing BFA content, such as Pet Battle World Quests.
• Vendors that sell battle pet items that are always useful have had their wares changed to require new Polished Pet Charms as currency. For example, the vendor Serr’ah in Dalaran now wants the new Polished Pet Charms. Similar vendors who sell such items have had their costs adjusted as well.
• Vendors that sell things like unique pets or toys that have always required Shiny Pet Charms will still require Shiny Pet Charms. For example, Giada Goldleash in Dalaran will still sell all of her pets and toys for Shiny Pet Charms.
• The Pocket Pet Portal item, which was an achievement reward for completing 30 of the Pet Battle World Quests on the Broken Isles, will be added to a vendor with a Polished Pet Charm cost. This is to avoid players feeling obligated to farm previous expansion’s world quests. You can do current content to catch yourself up. This is coming in a future Beta build.
• Ultimate Battle-Training Stones are going to have their cost increased from 45 to 60 Pet Charms.

What this means for you: always-useful items will eventually move to the new currency, so you don't feel obligated to do older content. If you still need pets from older content, they are purchasable with that content's charms.

Spend those charms!

There will not be a conversion, nor will you lose them.