You can see my pets here, in all their shiny glory! I've hit over 400 pet battle achievement points and just finished up the 15 level 25 achievements. I think I have PvE down pat, so I wanted to share some tips and some of my favorite pets.
First, the tips:
1. I love mechanical pets, because they effectively get 1 extra turn and 20% additional HP due to their racial. They also grind up beasts, which are the second-most common type of wild pet you'll find. However (and this might just be my own experience or a bug), their racial does not activate if they take an extremely strong final hit. If I had to guess, I would say that if the final hit would do more than their remaining health + 20% of their max health, they just die. I've exploited this weakness is several mechanical fights, but it sucks when a trainer does it to you. Again, this could be a bug.
2. A recent change to experience gains made it so that any pet that participates in at least one round of a battle gets full exp. You no longer need to kill off your high-level pets to get the maximum experience for your low level pet.
3. There's no good reason to NOT forfeit a fight. You don't lose exp or anything. When hunting for specific pets/breeds or against trainers, forfeiting is often a good idea.
4. Probably obvious to everyone by now, but most pets have several "breeds" that redistribute their stats to favor a specific category. My first inclination is that attack is best, but that's not always the case!
5. Once you have a couple pets at 25, leveling additional pets becomes SUPER easy. More on that in a bit.
So, I have some pets that are "hard counters" to certain pet families. For example, a snail-type pet is a critter (-33% damage from elementals) with an aquatic attack (Dive; +50% against elementals). This means that against an elemental I can dish out pain without taking more. There are hard-counters that are relatively easy to get for 8 out of 10 pet families. The hardest ones are against Dragonkin (Scourged Whelpling; I swear, this thing doesn't exist) and Beasts (Only the Kite from TCG is a flying with a mechanical ability). My counters are:
-Anti-Critter: Flayer Youngling (Rampage tears critters apart; Reflection is just gravy on top)
-Anti-Mechanical: Amethyst Shale Hatchling (Any Hatchling from Deepholm will work; they have Stone Rush though, which hurts them and can make capture a pain. And it was slightly nerfed recently; 1 round cooldown now).
-Anti-Aquatic: Jade Owl (Feels a little weak, but if Lift-Off hits your enemy will be more than half dead).
-Anti-Elemental: Rapana Whelk (Apparently a Shimmerscale Snail is better, but the Rapana Whelk is level 22-23 when you catch it. These things are BEASTS against elementals. This was my go-to choice for the Pandaren Spirit Trainers, and it could kill them easily... if Dive hit).
-Anti-flying: Celestial Dragon (But a lot of Dragon Whelps work here. Just need a good magic ability)
-Anti-humanoid: Twilight Spiderling (Any spider works; I prefer one with Brittle Webbing to Sticky Webbing because it does more damage, but Leech Life + Webbing is MONEY. Good self-healing and good damage).
-Anti-magic: Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling (Very interesting pet, with a lot of diverse abilities).
-Anti-Undead: Softshell Snapling (Almost any turtle works, but this is also kind of a weak counter: Powerball is a pretty weak move even doing 50% more damage).
Favorite pets: I only have a few that are my favorite pets, and they aren't necessarily hard-counters.
Flayer Youngling is one of my new favorites, and is the best pet for leveling other pets to 25. I HIGHLY recommend getting one (Breed 5, I think, is best; higher speed). He's humanoid, so 4% healing every round. And he wreck critters, which are the most common wild pets. Once you get this to 25, your best leveling spot is the Veiled Stair, right near the Black Market AH. The only pets in this area are level 23-25 critters. The Flayer Youngling, when played right, can effectively solo 3-4 packs of these before needing healing. Rampage will almost always kill a bit in two hits, leaving a third hit for the next critter (which puts it around or under 50% hp). Reflection is simply amazing when used correctly; use it on a pet that doesn't have a non-damage ability (some of the bandicoons in this area have Poison Fang, Counterattack, and Bite... Reflection stops you from taking a few hundred damage, and reflects it back at them). And not only is he great for leveling other pets, but in trainer fights Reflection is just an unfair attack at times. Against the Water Spirit, for example, Reflection allows you to avoid Geyser and Whirlpool, which are almost always set to hit in the same round, AND it will reflect the AoE attack. Awesome pet.
Fluxfire Feline is still my heavy hitter, and is still worth it against legendary pets... even as an uncommon. While he shines best against beasts, it will one-shot any pet with under 1700 hp. The trade-off is obvious: low hp, and loses a lot of usefulness against anything with a one-round avoidance ability, or a 50% damage reduction, or anything faster with Life Off/Dive/Burrow. Oh, and Magic enemies make him rubbish too, due to their racial. Still, that's MAYBE 5-10% of all the fights you'll ever face in PvE. For the rest, he's the one-trick pony or one-shot wonder.
An honorable mention goes to the Sea Pony, which I have nicknamed "Anti-Nishi." This one pet can solo The Pandaren tamer Nishi without any backup; this makes it perfect to score a few thousand exp with a lower-level pet. Nishi's Suhflower will only use two-abilities, and a Sea Pony will outdamage it, can change the weather, can heal, and can take out the back row before the sunflower dies. Almost no risk.
Anyway, that's all of my thoughts for now. The Safari Hat is nice for the exp bonus, and the Pristine Trap seems unnecessary. I have 325 unique pets right now, and I'm debating camping some of the rare ones (Scourged Whelpling, Fel Flame, etc). I haven't tried PvP because people are better than me and losing sucks
How are the pet battles going for everyone else? Edited, Jan 7th 2013 12:54pm by LockeColeMA
(No rares though)