The Pet Menagerie

I mentioned how fun the Pet Battle stuff was a while ago, and while it certainly was enjoyable to collect other pets, it kind of took a backseat to everything else I was doing. That probably would have remained the case for a long while had there not been a quest introduced in one of the recent patches that automatically leveled a pet up to level 25 for you. The important part to note about this quest is that you can do it once per character, not once per account. So when my Mage finally hit 100, I was able to level a second pet to 25.

With two level 25 pets, you can trap some of the pets in Draenor (even if you only challenge a single one, extra pets always come to the rescue). A third 20+ pet is enough to begin to do the daily quests in your garrison. There are two different daily quests:

1) One quest, which every character can do, requires you to defeat your garrison's Battle Pet Master. It provides 8 tokens that can be turned in for a variety of pet paraphernalia, including level-up tokens, something that changes your pet's quality to rare, and even dress up costumes.

2) The second quest can only be completed once per account. You must defeat Kura Thunderhoof in a pet battle, which is usually easier than the first quest I mentioned since her pets are only level 23. You are rewarded with 3 level-up tokens and a bag that might contain a rare pet, but usually just has some gold and pocket lint.

Having only 3 level 25 pets, the first quest is sometimes difficult because I can't select pets that have an attack advantage. I am working my way toward other level 25 pets though; the most efficient way to do this (long-term, at least ... certainly slower in the short term) is to spend 2 pet tokens on a bag that contains a level-up token (sometimes two!) for a random pet family rather than 3 tokens on a level-up token that works on any pet. This is slower because it spreads out your levels among a variety of different pets, but in the long run better because you're using your tokens more efficiently. It also saves the rewards from the second quest I mentioned in case you come across a level 1 pet you want to level up quickly (say, a drop from an old dungeon that can be sold for a good amount of money).

Interestingly enough, there are a multitude of Battle Pet Masters all over Draenor that you can fight every day. I stumbled across one while doing the Harrison Jones quests with my mage:

I have no idea how many there are, but if you did all of them every day you could very quickly level up a variety of different pets! And of course, one of the fun things about the menagerie in your garrison is that your own pets hang out there!