How To: Level Battle Pets 1-25 Quickly for Profit

     In my previous post, I mentioned that running old raids was a viable way to earn gold because you can farm up battle pets. If you've tried it chances are you've found a pet or two that are only selling for 200 or 400g on your AH. Well, the pets in question, the ones that Blizzard added for the patch 5.1 achievement Raiding With Leashes and the patch 5.3 achievement Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition are all level 1 pets. Since you can only battle SW rats with them, they're only really viable for that achievement. Easy fix though, just level them up! Level 25 rare pets sell pretty consistently for high prices, in the 3k to 10k range. And if you can level em less than an hour, all the better, right?

Pictured:Chrominius Source:Chromaggus, BWL

Left: Good for achieve 400-1000g. Right: Lvl 20 ability 1-shots any battle pet out there 6,000g

     What I would recommend doing, and have been doing myself recently, has been leveling any duplicate pets up once I'm done with my initial to-do list of crafting, posting, transmog searching, and farming. So let's get down to brass tacks. Here are three great ways to level a pet to 25 in under an hour. (Note: These are all 10-85% faster with the stackable pet battle XP buffs: Safari Hat, Lesser Pet Treat, Pet Treat)

Requirements:
One level 25 pet (type depends on option)
If you do not have a level 25 already, go here or here.

Option 1:Aquatic
Eternal Strider Farming-Vale of Eternal Blossoms

      Eternal Striders in the Vale have two abilities that do no damage. They also come in packs with Golden Civets and Dancing Water Skimmers, both aquatic pets. So, the strategy is to open with your lvl 1. They'll heal (usually) so you can get an ability off without dying. Then, since Flying pets are strong vs aquatic, you switch to a level 25 Flying and finish off the rest. If you use a Crow from the Darkmoon Fair you can Call Darkness and then Nocturnal Strike. The Gilnean Raven is the Poor Man's version and available to anyone who has a Worgen. You can also use any Owl type (Brilliant Kaliri, Miniwing, Hawk Owl, Great Horned Owl, etc.) and usually one-shot a gray quality opponent. I prefer Owls over birds with Slicing Wind because of this; en masse it seems to keeps the total number of rounds fought lower, though I'm willing to be corrected if wrong on this point.

     Without buffs, the 25 doesn't take any XP, and the first fight gets you from lvl 1-6, and the second fight gets you to level 10. From there, each fight earns you about 1 level, and each fight takes about 90 seconds. Go run around and battle Eternal Striders for about 45 minutes total and "tah dah," you got yourself a level 25 pet. If you ever need healing, and your Revive Pets button is on CD, there is a stable master right at Mistfall Village. Ook ook!

Bonus round: As you do this, you'll probably be able to collect a rare Eternal Strider. You can use these (even if they're lvl 22 or 23, just let them die) on the next pet you level to go one shot Farmer Nishi, the Pet Battle Tamer in Valley of the Four Winds (credit for this tip goes to Ajwowgaming on YouTube). Run Water Jet and Pump on the Strider, and after the Terrible Turnip opponent casts his first two damaging spells swap in-and-out your lowbie pet (have him lvl 5 at least), as his only other options after that are heals. Easy 5,000 xp. Your lowbie starts the Strider grind at level 13 or 14 and saves some time on that.

Option 2:Critter
Bandicoot Farming- Valley of the Four Winds

     If you don't have any Flying pets, you probably have a beast or two. Who doesn't? Beast is strong vs critter and Valley has loads of critters that stick together. Head on over to Thunderfoot Ranch in Thunderfoot Feilds, and fight any Bandicoons or Marsh Fiddlers around. They deal a bit of damage, so it's nice to have a healing ability (Spiders work great) or healer pet on your team,  but if you don't, that's ok too. Just head to the Easternmost flightpath, Pang's Footstead, and talk to the stablemaster Little Tib, the boy with the big turtle. He'll heal you right up.
     There are two pets that shine here. Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen can destroy critters with Bite or Spirit Claws, and then Heal to Full with the Prowl+Feed combo. If you haven't done the celestial tournament yet though, (you get a free pet the first completion so pick Xu-Fu), then Feline Familiar is also amazing. Put stoneskin up if you're facing a rare or uncommon pet but otherwise just Onyx Bite and Devour when they're about to die and you'll stay at full health.
     Games with option 2 last about as long as option 1 but you spend a little bit more time running around looking for battles. Just go with whichever pets you have and whatever you have more fun with. After all, leveling is a grind.

Option 3:Tamers 

      If grinding out the same critters over and over isn't your thing, then you can level up with the Pandaria Grand Master Pet Tamers. You can only fight these once per day, but they give great XP. At this point, things get a little out of my league though. I would hate to explain something that I am not an expert in yet, but you can do some cool stuff if you have a level 25 pet of every type. 

1-25 in 9 Pet Battles!

1-25 in 4 Pet Battles!!!

How to Beat Any Pandaria Tamer - w/Videos (Choose your Own Path)

      These guys know their stuff, and the general idea is that if you have the team for it and know the strategy, you can rake in some serious XP and level a pet super quick. The drawbacks are that the battles take a few more rounds, you run the risk of wasting time by losing, and that the flight time factors in. Both of those websites are definitely bookmark-worthy though.

(Edit: Strapped for time? Here's a fun idea. Go to the AH and buy 3-5 underpriced rares. Go out to either the critters or the aquatics, and fight two or three battles with each of the pets, getting each one to level 10. Crate the pets, fly to a mailbox, and post each one on the AH for 500 or 1000g more than you bought them for, whatever is reasonable for that pet. Easy peasy 2k-5k gold in about 15-20 minutes of work.)

Finally, back on the goldmaking front, it may also be worth noting that there is a market for level 24 pets. While everyone always wants to avoid leveling pets starting at lvl 1, if you buy something on the AH at 25 already, you don't get credit towards the Pro Pet Mob achievement. So, if you stopping your levelling in the Vale or the Valley at 24, you might open up your market to the handful of people who care about that achievement, while still retaining everyone willing to purchase a level 25 pet for 5,000g.

Now, a quick word to any realists/naysayers out there. Are there better ways to make gold? Sure, and by all means do those first. Heck, you could make a million gold in 3 months by just mining for 3 hours every day. But here's the thing, battle pets are surprisingly fun. For anyone who is still complaining that it's just like Pokemon, maybe you should question why Pokemon was fun enough to be the #5 top selling game of all time (ahead of Super Mario 3, Zelda, CoD, Halo,...). More to the point of goldmaking though, you get flawless Battlestones pretty often. Upgrade a green-only pet to rare quality and there ya go, free 1k-10k, depending on the pet. You learn which pets are good vs which, and that help you identify your personal AH market. You can then navigate cross-realm trading better if you choose, and isolate your searches on those pets that would actually sell. In short, it's super fun and opens up a new way to make gold. That's all.

Hope y'all enjoyed my guide for this market that Blizz has been feeding so much recently, and I'm glad to finally be on board. Let's do this! Until next time remember to

Bash. Scratch. Lift-off. Search. Craft. Post.

Every Day.