Many pets (mostly wild ones) come in variations with the same abilities but different stats (health/power/speed). You might see someone tKe about P/P (double-boosted power) or S/S (double-boosted speed) or B/B (balanced)
There are situations where it’s very important to have the right breed, especilly when following a guide, or the strategy might not work.
So what are sought after breeds? E.g. is an even distribution between health power and speed better than pure power etc? Or is it purely situational?
It’s situational but I think that everyone should have at least three fast rabbits (357 speed.) It’s also a good idea to have one P/P Iron Starlette (341 damage) and one P/S (273 speed.)
I honestly have so many ‘upgrade to blue’ stones right now that I don’t really care. A pet is really only usable if blue- so obviously if I have a chance to catch a blue I generally will.
But, otherwise it doesn’t matter, most I’ll never use or even level to 25- and if I wanna use it, just use a stone on it, no probs.
I’m not really a hardcore pet battler (none of the safari achieves yet) but I do go through phases where I mess with it and go for some. In general I shoot for blue quality if its a wild kind I really like, or I’ll go for a lower rarity if its a unique color like the butterflies on the island south of Zandalar.
I settled for a poor quality one immediately on three distinct occasions though. The cheetah cub because I was determined to catch one without killing the adult cheetah they walk next to, so I had to wait for a leveler to kill one before I could catch the pet.
The giraffe in the barrens because I felt lucky enough in getting one to pop,
And the last one was a random little clefthoof I saw very close to the side of the road while riding through Nagrand (Outland) one day. No other clefthoofs were even in the area and it was so out of place and stuck out so starkly that it echoed finding a real animal in trouble in nature. When I caught it finding out that it was poor quality just rang true–I even already had a blue quality of the same animal but there was no way I was leaving without it. Its still in my journal; named him Shaggy.
Why were you in Ragnaros? We don’t want you blue people 'round these parts
I tend to capture any pet I don’t already have in my journal no matter what its level. Then if I capture a better one, I let the first one go. I’ll also use a stone if that pet doesn’t come in blue, or if I just don’t feel like hunting a blue down.
If I don’t have it I’ll take any rarity. If it’s a wild pet and I have it but not in blue I’ll check in passing to see if it’s blue. I usually won’t bother to fight if it’s just a rarity upgrade but if it’s a breed upgrade I might.
With how stupidly cheap and easy it is to get rare upgrade stones the rarity is fairly meaningless when catching a battle pet. The only thing that matters to me when catching a battle pet is the breed.
Breed is what you should be looking for if you plan to do pet battles. You usually want SS or PP (speed or power) though other combos are sometimes useful. As for rarity, a poor (gray) pet is as good as an uncommon (green) one if you are planning to stone him to rare (blue). If you are doing pet battles you should only be using the rare (blue) ones.
There are number of wild pets that are critical to battling. Emerald Proto Whelp (P/P), Unborn Val’kyr, Scourged Whelpling, Nether Faerie Dragon, Flayer Youngling, moths, Arcane Eye, Electrified Razortooth, a good snake, spider, fox, frog, crab, etc.
Most sought after is usually speed first then power.
I don’t worry too much about rarity if it’s a pet I don’t have at all. If I have one, I’ll only really go for dupes if it’s higher rarity than what I have now - and if it’s a side pet on something I don’t have, I’ll only catch it if it’s rare.
Get the addons called REMATCH and the addon Pet Tracker. Rematch allows you to create teams (seriously useful), show breed, rarity, etc. Pet Tracker also has some very useful options.
As per original topic: I got NO issue taking whatever rarity is present. I got 35 Marked Flawless Battle-Stones presently. Especially if it is a rare spawn type, get my first, and get going. I can fix rarity, that is never a problem.
Breed on the other hand… depending on the pet and it’s purpose, may have to hunt around a bit.
I’ll catch grey ones.