Deep-Dive Guide: Leveling your alts with Dalaran Pet Trainers

A few people have asked me about how I level up my alts with pet battles. I’ve never written a guide because I find it very straight forward, but I guess after 9,000+ pet battles it might not be so straight forward to someone else. I do also have a complete guide on pet flipping, so be sure to check that out if it’s something you’re interested in. Both your character and the carry pet (the one that isn’t 25) will earn experience.

Addons I use: Rematch, tdBattlePetScript

Preparation: Rematch is a pet battle UI overhaul. I create teams, and import strategies that are listed in xu-fu. If you log in with your battlenet account you can even import your own pets so that xu-fu will populate strategies with pets you own.

tdBattlePetScript is a script that lets me bind a key to my pet battle moves so that I don’t have to memorize the strategy. I typically bind it to ‘A’ – so instead of hitting the numbers to perform a pet battle move, I hit ‘A’ over and over.

DISCLAIMER: leveling via pet battles is VERY slow! This is NOT meant to be a fast method of leveling. It is meant to be relaxing, for those who have multiple alts and are bored, or as a semi-afk method of leveling that requires zero attention. You will earn roughly 2% exp per fight for most fights. Most fights take between 1-2 minutes. You do not need pet week up to do any of this.

Step 1: You will need to be able to get to Dalaran. Level 10+ characters can do this through chromie, but if you’re below level 10 you’ll want to bother a mage to put you there, or if you’re a recruit a friend account you can summon your alt (as long as you’re below level 50). Then bind yourself to one of the Inns in the zone. Once you’re there you’ll want to go in behind the Magus Commerce Exchange, between the violet citadel. You’ll see a little pet battle area with an arena type thing. Another disclaimer: There is NOT always a trainer up!! You’ll have to check daily to see if one is there. Only the trainers are repeatable.

Step 2: Figure out a strategy for whichever trainer is up. Normally you can just go to xu-fu and do a search on the top right hand corner for the name of whoever is up. The trainers are: Amalia, Bodhi, Sir Galveston, and Tiffany Nelson. There are a few other NPC who might be up but these fights are not repeatable. I am not going to get into what pets you need for what fights, that is something you’ll have to figure out. Use the site, it’s very straight forward and there are multiple strategies for each trainer. There are other NPC in other locations that you can use too, but these are the ones I use. I also stock up on bandages with my charms from mission tables so that I don’t have to leave or wait for mend. If you’re lucky and Amalia is up, her strategy doesn’t use bandages and you can complete it to your hearts content. I love those days.

Step 3: The actual fight. The way xu-fu works is on the left side of the strategy you’ll see “rematch string” click that and it copies to your clipboard. Then in game, right click on your rematch tab where you’re going to make your groups (open the pet window, and bottom right you’ll see teams listed), and import the team. Then back on the xu-fu site, below the rematch string you’ll see TD Script. Click this, and head back in game. Back on your team, right click the actual team listed (where you can see the name of the NPC and the team you’re using) and select ‘write script’ – then paste that script in there. When you start up the fight, you’ll have a key bound (mine is A, I’m not sure any more if that’s default) and to move through the battle you’ll just have to press that one key. It is NOT automatic, you MUST enter a key press.

These scripts are not 100% – sometimes RNG is harsh and you’ll still end up losing, but MOST of the time they’re pretty OK. You’ll want to pay attention to make sure you’re using pets that are meant for those battles, sometimes you need special stats, or a minimum amount of health on the pets, or a specific breed in order to win. This is all explained on the xu-fu site.

Step 4: Profit. That’s all there is to it, very simple. It does take a bit to set it all up, but once you’re done, you’re done. I have hundreds of teams created and my tabs represent each expansion, so I never have to think about what pets to use or what strategy is going to work (unless Blizzard nerfs something, which does happen. If you find your pet battle strategy is no longer working, check out the site and see what has changed). If you’re as bored of Shadowlands as I am, and you want to profit with leveling up some pets AND some characters at the same time, then this method might just be for you.

Or not, that’s OK too. I know it’s pretty niche.