Pet Sales

   Lately I have been dabbling with pet sales.  One of the things I like best about selling pets is the deposit on auctioning a caged pet is low, a mere one silver to run a twenty-four hour auction.  It would take me a hundred listings before I even lost a single gold piece.  Pet sales are slow, at least on my server, but I am going to wager most pets, if priced right, should sell within a week or two.  

  This guide assumes that you are a veteran pet battler and that you have the Tamer title.  If you are a complete novice to the world of pet battling, you will not be able to go after the quested pets I mention below, but you will be able to farm the pets from the raids, as well as deal with the vendored pets.

   The first order of business is determining what pets are cageable and where they are obtained from.  The two broad categories of tradeable pets that you will regularly deal with are pets that drop from instances/raids and pets that are purchased from vendors.  Sure there is the Guardian Cub which is a tradeable pet purchased from the pet store, or pets like the feline familiar that are obtained during seasonal events, but raid drops and vendors are the two common sources you will be dealing with on a regular basis.

   So here is a table of easily farmed pets from instances and raids.  A well geared 90 should be able to solo farm for most if not all of these pets.  This list is not all inclusive.  The drop rates on most of these guys is in the neighborhood of 10-15%, so if you regularly farm these instances you should routinely be acquiring pets to sell, especially if you have multiple 90s to farm with.

Lil’ Bad Wolf	Karazhan	1657
Menagerie Custodian	Karazhan	1722
Fiendish Imp	Karazhan	1657
Phoenix Hawk Hatchling	The Eye	1368
Lesser Voidcaller	The Eye	1835
Pocket Reaver	The Eye	2348
Tideskipper	Serpentshrine Caverns	1763
Tainted Waveling	Serpentshrine Caverns	1464

 As I said, the list is not all inclusive, but these are eight tradeable pets that are easily farmed.  You can see that all of them command a decent amount of gold based on their mean auction value (I used mean Alliance value).  To the drop list, you can add doing the four Pandarian Spirit Tamer Quests (adds another four pets for you to possibly obtain) and the three beasts of fable quests (adds another three possible pets to obtain).  These pets also will generally auction for 1000 gold or more.

     The list of vendor pets is huge.  This guide will focus on two of these pets.  It’s just my instinct that these pets have enough of a cool factor and enough obscurity as being obtained from a vendor that they will sell.   The two vendor pets I flip are the Ghostly Skull and the Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot, both of which are purchased from vendors in Dalaran.  To add value to these pets, both of which are of uncommon (green) quality, I use a stone to make them rares.  If you regularly do the beasts of fable and pandaren spirit tamers, you will be swimming in stones.  Count on getting a couple hundred gold for each of these that you auction. 

   You can also try leveling some of the little critters you plan to auction.  There are numerous guides out there that explain how to level a pet to 25 in an hour or so, if you don’t already know how to do this.  You don’t necessarily have to raise your pets to 25 either.

    This week I have made around 10K in pet sales.  I know this hardly makes a goblin extraordinaire, but it’s enough money to make me happy.  Most of what I earn, I simply spend on pets that elude me or that I am too lazy to go out and farm.

  

   Peace. 

Pets: A Brief Update

 So this post I promised I would talk about battle pets.  I should start by saying that collecting extras and selling them has gotten me a nice chunk of gold.  I routinely farm both Kharazhan and Tempest Keep, caging and selling any extra pets I pick up there.  I have also been farming on the Timeless Isle, and have managed to get two extra azure crane chicks and an extra ominous flame.  All have sold, and most I only had to list once.

  

    I have also been busy collecting and leveling, with an eye on the Celestial Tournament.  I came into 5.4 woefully unprepared in the pet department.  I think on release day, I might have had 26 max level pets, most of which were pretty lackluster.

    In the last few days I managed to level ten pets, including the Lesser Voidcaller, Ghostly Skull, Zandalari Kneebiter, and Sunreaver Microsentry.  I spent an hour prowling around Mt. Hyjal before finally finding a rare Nordrasil Wisp.  After acquiring a flawless flying stone, I logged onto a worgen alt and bought a Gilnean Raven, which I immediately upgraded.  At this pace, I am really hoping to be tournament ready by next week, but we shall see.

   The thing is, the tournament, along with Little Tommy Newcomer, need thought out teams that have synergy.  I knew Little Tommy’s pet was Lil’ Oondasta, a beast, so I figured since mechanicals are strong all I would need for the win was a team of three mechanicals.  Things are not that simple.  Due to RNG I was able to win maybe one in four fights with him.  I then checked the forums and found out, yes, I was doing it wrong.  I read some guides, did some thinking, and now generally win every battle vs. Little Tommy on the first go.  Even some of the older pet battle masters are like this.  The other night I was fighting the Pandaren Water Spirit’s team.  I opened with a highland turkey, which is not the pet to open with in this battle.  The turkey has a CC, but no avoidance mechanic, and was destroyed on the third round by the detonation of both the geyser and whirlpool cast by the fish that the spirit opens the battle with.  After losing, I healed and tried again, this time opening with a moth and using cocoon strike to avoid the dangerous geyser/whirlpool combo.  So, even this guy requires a team that has some thought put into it.  I have seen many forum posts where people complain that fights are too hard, or that everything is dependent on RNG.  I disagree with these posts.  My opinion is the great majority of pet battles can be easily won by using very specific teams and using pet abilities in a specific order and way.

   I did try the tournament just to see how it ran and how far I was able to get, fully expecting not to win.  My expectations were met.  I was pitted against Wrathion, Chem Stormstout and Taran Zhu.  I was able to down the first two in battles that were fairly close and got torn apart by Taran Zhu.  I am confident that with the right pets and more forethought before entering again, that the tournament won’t be as hard to win as people are making it out to be.

    The right pet thing can be difficult.  It is a bit of a grind to level pets, especially if you try to level a whole bunch of them in one go.  I tend to focus on one or two or day, on days I have to work my day job, and go into all-out grinding on the days I have all to myself. 

    The whole pet thing renewed my interest in the Brawler’s Guild, since reaching rank 4 allows you to purchase Clock’em, a mechanical pet who could be the Clockwork Gnome’s twin brother.  I stopped doing the brawler’s thing month ago after reaching rank 3.  In two nights, without spending much time, I was able to get through all the third tier bosses and reach rank 4.  Icy Veins has an awesome guide to everything that has to do with the Brawler’s Guild, it is the only source I use.  There is a part of me that wants to call things good now that I have the pet, but the elitist, completionist part of me will probably win out, and see me back brawling in an effort to reach rank 9.

   Perhaps my next post will return to a subject involving guilds, then again perhaps not.  I haven’t exactly made my mind up.  Until then.

   Peace.