My currently grinding Death Knight has had the pleasure of stomping his way through level 86 to his current halfway point in 88, all just by doing Pet Battles.  Even at a real casual, non-stressful pace I’ve managed to… well, not dread the leveling experience.  Call it burnout, call it Post Traumatic Leveling Disorder, but Pet Battles has been just what the doctor ordered.

Or Nurse, as the case may be.

As my Death Knight closed in on level 89, I started to wonder if maybe I should start questing in Dread Wastes once I crested.  Thankfully for blog content, I decided to weigh the pros and cons of leveling via Pet Battles rather than by traditional questing.

XP

Con: At lv 88, quests give around 196,000 xp.  Pet Battle victories net you roughly 145,000 to 165,000, depending on the level of the pets you are fighting.  Basic math tells you that 196k is more than 165k.  If you’re blankly staring at the screen, just trust me on this.

Pro: Depending on where you are picking your battles, Pet Battles can bring in more XP per hour than questing, if you can knock them off back to back.  Zhu’s Watch in Krasarang Wild is a great spot with plenty of battle pets roaming around, if you’re sick of fighting the ones in the Vale of Eternal Blossom.

Loot

Con: Well, any loot you get from Pet Battles is going to be something for buffing your pet.    You can level from 85 to 90 by running Pet Battles until your eyes bleed, but at the end of the day you’re still going to be wearing the same level 85 gear you started with in Pandaria.  Quests give you gear you’ll be able to use to get into dungeons.

Pro: There is an entire section of Achievement Points dedicated to Pet Battles.  Most of them really aren’t that hard to get, and if you’re levelling up through Pet Battles you’ll probably get a great deal of them by default.  While you might not get gear from unlocking these achievements, you will get some titles as well as more pets (the Celestial Dragon is BEAST MODE for Pet Battles.)

Gold

Con: You don’t make any gold by winning Pet Battles.  You get gold rewards by completing quests, and if you get a quest reward that you don’t really need, you can sell it and double dip into the gold pool.

Pro: You can make gold by buying level one blue pets off the auction house on the cheap, then selling them for a hefty profit once you level them to 20 (or 25 if you feel ambitious).  I would suggest stopping before 25 because you might get some people who want the achievement for getting a certain family of pet to 25.  I’ve bought pets for 300gp and sold them for 3000gp.

Intangibles

Con: Well there’s a few things here where Pet Battles might come up short.  You’ll have zero rep at level 90, locking you out of valor and justice gear.  But that won’t matter since you won’t have any justice points due to lack of running dungeons on the way to 90.  Good luck getting into heroics having never set foot in the regular dungeons to start with.  And aside from a handful of zones, you really won’t see much of Pandaria since you’ll only be grinding in a couple of spots on the entire continent.

Pro: The reason I decided to level through Pet Battles is because I’d already run the quests a few times and wanted something different.  I’m not suggesting you level this way on your Main.  This is more for the person who wants to level their alt a different way, a little more casually while still progressing in levels.  You can start a battle, toss a load of wet laundry in the dryer, and finish the battle.  Nice and painless.

Conclusion

I’m certainly not saying that Pet Battles is the best way to level.  Questing is still king, since it provides everything you need as you level – you learn your class through combat, you get experience, gold, and gear.  You gain rep with various factions, some of which you might actually need.   But if you’re rather dive into a swimming pool filled with syringes rather than play with yaks one more time, Pet Battles are definitely a great way to level up.

No. Just no.