Getting Pet Battles Back

Gameplay Pet Battles
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I reached out to the dev I was giving feedback to for pet battles to see what else we could do. To get this out of the way first, I noted that we hadn’t gotten a response on the forums despite the tremendous thread from Aranesh, and this was what they said:

”I wouldn’t expect a response on the forum. If my suspicions are correct, then with the feedback it could be a long while until we hear anything. I guarantee you people have seen it though.”

We’ve been seen, but we’re unlikely to get a response. I think most of us who’ve been around for a while probably already knew this, though I will admit to disappointment for everyone here and myself that such an outpouring doesn’t even warrant a passing comment.

They, of course, couldn’t make any promises on what direction we should go from here, but that we’re generally headed the correct way. That said, we should buckle up for a long road.

“I can’t promise what will or won’t be effective (unfortunately that’s far above my head), but I will say you are all doing the right things. The other spot to take to is Reddit. Essentially the more noise that’s made the more likely something will shift. Granted it will not be a quick change if there is one, and for that I am sorry.”

What does that mean from here?

We need to continue being loud, making comments, and most importantly: linking everything together.

“I will say that as devs we do frequent the forums, Reddit and WoWhead (as well as YouTube). If there are articles on WoWhead, and Reddit subs, they all help. It especially helps if forums link other posts, videos etc. as it isn’t always easy for us to find everything when we’re making a case for something. The more things we can bring to our leadership to prove a point, the more likely they are to change.”

It’s why I made a separate post from Aranesh’s, since it’s such a huge(!) thread already, I wanted to make one where we can gather links to everything we’ve done so far in one place, as well as for anything for the future.

You’ll have to forgive me on non-forum links–I lost permission at some point due to a Blizzard error, iirc, and I can’t be bothered, especially now, to get the permission back.

First up, Aranesh’s thread:

I’ve personally made three videos on this:

My initial video before Kaivax’s Blue post on the beta/PTR forums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66ypM4bM5k

My response video after Kaivax’s post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faahMBZ_Kok

And my response video to Hazelnutty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqQxV1ENu5w

The third video is not quite as relevant as the first two, but it does tie-in.

And while I don’t agree with most of Hazel’s video, her reach is far greater than mine, as is her connection to Blizzard staff. I am not suggesting or condoning harassment of Hazel, and please don’t do that, but her video is far more likely to pop up first in a search. So perhaps leave a comment similar to ones you’ve left here about how the changes made you feel. That way if someone reads the comments, they’ll see them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt0mznl_Fww

We’ve also had a decently large (and shockingly mostly good?) thread on Reddit here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1ri6v7s/surely_i_cant_be_the_only_one_whos_been_feeling/

If you’ve made a thread on the forums, or a comment you want to link here, or there’s something I’ve missed, feel free to put it here.

It may not happen fast, or at all, but I figure we should try, right?

~ DragonsAfterDark

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Ugh, this is Blizzard comms in a nutshell.

Thank you for pursuing this and bringing us a plan of action.

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Talk about an absolutely braindead way to do business. “Oh, we’ve seen it, but the peasants don’t deserve a response.”

S-Tier way to handle your customers, my dudes.

I adore you and all you’ve done for pets, Amayita. You’re a shining gem, and I mean that. Here’s to hoping something changes in future expansions.

Edited to add:

After watching your video responses on this topic (very much appreciated. Thank you), I feel like I should reiterate my initial metaphor from back when they first announced this in like…what was it, October 2025?

They gave their rationale as a reduction in player interest or low player engagement in pet battling.

My response to that was to say, of course there has been less player engagement because we haven’t seen any REAL added content for pet battles since BfA. There have been no new pet dungeons, very few unique pet models added, even fewer unique abilities added, and outside of the magnificent secret they did with the bike during the last expansion, we get very little gameplay that integrates or incentivizes participation in pet battling.

(not to mention the YEARS people have been asking for much-needed updates to the PvP queuing system that doesn’t work well enough to bother with it for the achievements or pet week bonuses)

My metaphor was:

They installed a beautiful community swimming pool.
People flocked to the pool and a lot of them came every day.
One day, they came and drained all of the water out of the pool. They let dirt settle in the bottom without removing it, and they let weeds grow all over everything.
People complained, but they still came in small groups to use the space for barbecues on occasion, but then one day people showed up to find they’d taken a backhoe and removed the pool entirely.

When the community said, “Dude, why’d you take out the pool,” they said, “Well, nobody was using it anymore.”

That’s what they did to battle pets, and they did it largely because somebody up there is making decisions who doesn’t play this part of the game and has a spreadsheet with metrics on it that don’t actually apply to WoW or its pet system.

This is why they think we would be just as happy with 18 colors of the same model.
This is why they think it’s only about collecting.
This is why they think it’s fine to just click on one and get rid of trapping altogether.

They honestly thought it was still a perfectly good swimming pool and nobody wanted to swim anymore.

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It’s discouraging…but I’m not giving up the fight!

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Battle pets are one of the main reasons I play WOW. It wasn’t necessary to make them more important to the game but was it really necessary to destroy the whole dynamic. I’m so disappointed I knew that this was coming from other forums but it’s even worse than I had imagined. It could still be repaired. Pet battlers and collectors may not be the biggest part of the community but we are rapid in our hobby and I believe deserve some consideration.

I’ve been playing this game and paying to play this game since it came out. I’m not going to add up how much I’ve paid Blizzard over the many years. I ‘m sure I’m not the most important part of their business plan. Disappointing to learn players like myself don’t figure at all.

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X (Twitter) is going to be more adversarial, but I did make a post there about the dev’s response.

https://x.com/DragonsADark/status/2028680996946583832?s=20

My goal right now is to be annoyingly persistent. I want to try and make it so they can’t ignore us.

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I do not pet battle but I support everyone who does

Hopefully they throw something your way

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Aranesh’s thread on the EU forums. It’s locked now, but it’s here for whatever dev goes through here so they know how our EU friends feel, too.

Another couple of Reddit threads:


https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1rjmdxm/regarding_pet_battles_in_midnight/


https://www.reddit.com/r/PetBattles/comments/1rcw8st/i_wrote_a_21page_structural_review_of_the_pet/
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That thread was locked on 22 JAN 2026, so no new replies can be made on it.

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Oof, yeah I heard that happens on the EU forums quite a bit. I updated the post above–thanks for letting me know!

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You’re welcome.

Yeah, the vast majority of posts in the EU Pet Battles forum are all locked currently.

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I was on Twitter for years, and then my dad died. The amount of unbelievable negative and inhuman bovine excrement people said to me about it was…Yeah, I deleted my account.

Having said that, if you’re in a good space to use it as a platform, thank you for doing that. I’m sorry that I can’t go and engage with it to help you, but I’m grateful to you for braving the tweet streets.

I am absolutely down to help on reddit, though. /fist bump

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This is a very good thread and I sincerely hope Blizz sees us. Midnight’s ONLY major disappointment for me has been the lack of pet battles. I pet battle every day. I don’t have one of the biggest collections, nor is every pet of mine level 25, or rare quality - but they’re a precious part of my WoW day-to-day, and seeing them gutted so is painful.

Eversong is a beautiful zone and would make a wonderfully scenic backdrop for pet battles, and many of the critters running around would make great battling companions.

I hope we can change their minds. I hope this is just a temporary shift in resources and they can put them back.

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So, I just received a quest on Discord to play WoW Midnight for 15 minutes, for a reward - and I did indeed get a reward. A new pet! Razeshi C…

…Except this pet is fully capable of doing Pet Battles. Just an oddity, but throwing my support to this and hoping it gets traction!

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/fistbump
Much appreciated! I’d never ask anyone to go to platforms they don’t like, or ones that make them uncomfortable.

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Fishmonger May pet is currently available from a Twitch promotion and it can battle. Instead of earlier Twitch pets which just involved being logged onto it for a while, this one you need to buy two subscriptions for the streamers. Only $4.99 each, but still, pay Real Money.

And Trolli gummies promotion too, need to show proof of purchase for a battle-capable pet.

So they’re still giving up pets that can battle, but not for free.

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I wondered about the Twitch pet. I don’t intend to pay real money for pets if they’re not going to make new content, though.

There’s also currently a Discord quest to play for 15 minutes with the Discord client open that awards the Razeshi C pet. That one also has a moveset and can be battled. I got that last night because I typically play WoW with the Discord client open anyway.

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Another Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1rjr5mr/a_little_sad_about_pet_battles_gone/
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I have an extremely busy few weeks so trust that I do see everything you wrote and jt has my support I just cant act a lot but this section REALLY bothers me.

They made a post on the forums asking for the feedback? It really was just for show. “They saw it” ok??? that means nothing to me. Acknowledge it besties!!!

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Thanks DragonsAfterDark for trying to keep this feature alive.

I really wish this was happier news, but hopefully they’ll reverse course eventually if we’re loud enough. It’s really a shame as in an otherwise enjoyable expansion the number of peaceful/companion pets in Midnight and complete lack of battles has felt REALLY bad.

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