I’ve made reference in the past to powerleveling strategy. I’m making this post to outline exactly what that is, because it’s a handy skill to have. This technique is commonly known as a Carry.

Our victim for this post will be Grand Master Tamer Trixxy.

Aw, don’t look so sad, Trixxy.

This strategy is applicable for pretty much any tamer or even for wild pet battles. The lineup will vary, and a lot for some of the later tamers in Pandaria, which need specific combinations in order for this to work. But for right now, I’m going with this lineup:

Stella the Celestial Dragon is a good pick for this basic fight because of her group heal, and because she matches the whole blue vibe Trixxy’s got going. Ishmael is just there in case I get into bigtime trouble, and is also blue. These choices don’t really matter, as nearly any team of 2 level 25 battle pets will be able to dispatch Trixxy fairly handily. And I chose the unnamed Tonk because I just bought him at the Faire like 5 minutes ago. Yes, really. That tonk really screws the whole color trend though. For shame, tonk.

Basically, Blizzard made it so that level 25 battle pets don’t soak any XP. As long as your pet to be carried survives through 1 round of pummelling in the front row, you can send it to the back row, and as long as there aren’t any aoe abilities to wreck its face your carried pet will get as much XP as if it miraculously killed all 3 of the other pets by itself. All you need is 2 level 25 pets who can kill the other pets without a third. This also works for higher pets.

This can get very sketchy in the later battles, but with Trixxy once you have any level 25, even an off-breed, you’ll be able to solo her. And then you wear a handy Safari Hat, your level 1 pet will gain

1898XP and 8 levels. In one fight. Yeah.

Even if your pet isn’t level 1, as long as it’s more than 2 or 3 levels lower than Trixxy’s level 19s, you’ll gain boatloads of XP without much effort at all. This may be more valuable than the contents of the bag you get from doing her daily. I make a point of doing her, Lydia Accoste in Deadwind Pass, Bloodknight Antari in Shadowmoon Valley and Farmer Nishi in Valley Of The Four Winds every day for just this reason. I do others too but these 4 are sure things with nearly any level 25 pet, and very quick fights. They also grant far more XP than if I were to battle a wild pet of the same level… Farmer Nishi is especially notable, since she’s worth a whopping 2-4000 XP depending on the level of your pet, though you may need to go slightly higher level than 1 for your soak pet, since one of her pets will use an AOE on occasion.