Aerythlea
Community Manager
5 years ago
Pet Battle Changes in Beta
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 effectSeveral additions to suite of Heals that will have increased effects based on your pet’s healthAura 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 OffCrow and Gilnean Raven: -200 power, +200 speedCyclone: damage changed from 7 to 3-7Haunt: 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!
Aerythlea
Community Manager
5 years ago
Pet Battle Changes in Beta
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).