WoW: A Beginner's Guide to Pet Battles

Personally, I love the pet battle system of WoW. It's very simple (especially if you've played Pokemon), but I want to write something productive for once, and I figure this will be useful. I'm thinking of writing a pet leveling guide as well.

To begin with, you can learn the Pet Battle skill from a Pet Battle Trainer. I haven't really searched for them, but I know there's at least one in Stormwind (up by the portals and the Dragon Turtle mount vendor), and one in Azuremyst (Azure Watch). For Horde, I know that there's at least one in Orgrimmar. I would assume they're in other starting areas as well.
Anyway, the price is pretty steep for newer players, at 100G. The nice thing, however, is that once you buy it, all the other characters on your account have it, regardless of race or faction. Once you hit level 5, you can do pet battles!
Pet Battle Trainers sell some basic pets that you can buy to start your collection. If you don't already have a pet, you can pick this one up.

I'm afraid I can only write the alliance side of training and such, because I really only play alliance. After I'm done, I can possibly mess around with my horde alts to find out more for that side of things...

I'm just going to assume here that you're starting in Stormwind, for simplicity's sake. There should be a squirrel or something wandering around near the trainer, and if not, there's tons  of Stormwind Rats within the city walls.

Both of these pets are Critters. Like Pokemon, there is a weakness-resistance system. It's slightly more complicated though...

Critters are weak against Humanoids and good against Undead.
Beasts are weak against Flying and good against Critters.
Flying is weak against Dragonkin and good against Aquatic.
Aquatic is weak against Magic and good against Elemental.
Mechanical is weak against Elemental and good against Beasts.
Humanoids are weak against Beasts and good against Dragonkin.
Undead are weak against Aquatic and good against Humanoids.
Elementals are weak against Critters and good against Mechanical.
Magic is weak against Mechanical and good against Flying.

Okay, honestly, these types make no sense, really. For example, Elementals being weak to Critters. You'd really think they'd be weak to Aquatic. Or Critters being good against Undead. As such, it's a bit confusing.
Early on, you'll most likely be running into mainly Critters. As such, Beasts are very useful. These are generally pets like cats and dogs.

When you first start, you'll only be able to use one pet in battle. As you level, however, you'll be able to use up to three. You'll also be able to catch new pets.

When you catch pets, you'll notice that there are five different qualities to pets. Poor, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and No Quality. Poor is the worst, Rare is the best. These affect your pets stats as they level up. Rare pets will naturally have higher stats than any other quality of pets. Only pets that you catch in the wild will have qualities. Pets that are drops or bought will not. Also, you cannot sell caught pets, but you can sell dropped or bought pets by caging them.

Your pets have three stats: Health, Power, and Speed. Health is obviously your pet's HP. If it drops to zero, your pet will have to be revived before it can be used again. Power affects how much attack your pets can do. The higher your speed, the more likely it is that you attack first in a battle.

Let's start by facing a nearby pet.

Pet battles can only be initiated with pets that have this green pawprint over their heads. You can also adjust your settings so these pawprints appear on your minimap, to make it even easier to find battles. To fight an enemy, simply right click it. Always check what level your enemy is! My Fawn, for example, is only level 1. Luckily, so is this Rabbit. If it wasn't, however, I would probably want to send out a different pet.

This is the HP meters. You'll notice that on the left, is your pets. You can see all of your pet's HP bars at once.

Here is your battle actionbar. 1, 2, and 3 are your attacks. Because my Fawn is only level 1, it only has one attack available to it. As it levels up, I will gain access to my other three attacks. 4 is your Switch Pet option. Because I have this highlighted, my other pets popped up onto the screen. If I so wished, I could have clicked on my White Kitten or Whithers to switch them with my Fawn. 5 is Capture. When you first begin battling, you do not have this unlocked. Once you level up a pet some, you'll gain access to it, however. In order to capture a pet, their HP must be weakened. If the Capture fails, there is a 20% increase in the capture working on your next try. You can only capture three of each pet before you have to release one.
The final button is Retreat. This makes you leave the battle with no experience gained.

When the Capture button lights up, you can attempt a catch. Pictured above is a successful catch.

When you complete a battle, regardless of whether you killed or caught the pet, the pets that participated in the battle gain experience  (I believe you get more experience for killing the pet? Don't quote me on that though).

Finally, if you caught a pet, it will show up on your screen to tell you the quality. As you can see, the rabbit I caught is Poor quality...

I hope this guide was helpful! I'm going to develop a guide to leveling your pets as well!