Ok, so I am really embarrassed by this but, the pet training and hatching system has me completely baffled.
I have played the game for about half a year, have 2 endgame-geared exalted wizards, and have only given marginal attention to my pets. I have been told that the one factor holding me back from real mastery and the next level of better play is my lack of specialized pets. Seeing the logic in the criticisms I have taken steps to improve my in game situation. So far this is what I have done:
1) Established a Magma Pea garden with 36 peas harvesting at elder in just under 3 days.
2) Established an Energy Set which I use to log out, giving me 151 max energy.
3) Managed to get really, really, really good at the dance game.
So now that I have these tools I do not know what I should do or how I should go about breeding. For example how far should I train a newly hatched pet before hatching again? Do I breed the hatch pet with the one of the adults I used to hatch to isolate a trait? Should I only train a new hatch to adult or should I got to ancient or epic?
I don't understand the general methodology of what I should be doing and how I should be approaching breeding to get a desired set of results. I know there is a degree of luck, but what I am looking for is a general guideline for how I should systematically approach breeding.
I just need all the help I can get because I feel hopelessly out of my depth.
It's great that you have those tools. Gardening for snacks and gold, and mastery of mini-game(s) helps a lot.
There are a few approaches to developing pets, but if you are starting out, I'd suggest heading over to Wizard101Central and checking out the help groups and the Mixing Meetup board. There are a lot of folks offering better pets for hatching than you'd be likely to find randomly in game.
Start with a pet you have that is closest to what you'd want. Even one good talent or one high stat is better than nothing. Find an offered pet with as many of your desired talents as possible. You might get lucky and find your ideal pet offered, but if not, prioritize your "most-wanted" traits and go from there.
Hatch. Train the offspring to adult. Hatch it with a pet that has the same, or more of what you want... etc
After several sequential hatches, you can cautiously level. Whenever you get a talent you don't want, stop training and hatch again. In time you'll have a copy of the 'perfect' pet. Until you have all the talents you want in the gene pool, there's no need to train beyond adult. Level more only when you think you have "the one".
First of all, congratulations on achieving 2 exalted level wizards in such a short time. I feel I have to say that, despite "criticism" you obviously know enough about the game to experience the satisfaction of maximum level, not once, but TWICE, without the benefits of a pet.
Second, it looks like, you have already established a strong foundation on repeatedly hatching, and training pets for the purpose of earning the one that will grant all, or most of the desired traits you seek, based on your school, gear, play style, etc.
I won't tell "how" to farm a pet, I will explain my method, and you take from it what you will.
On an original version of a pet, I immediately research it's talents. I then train it to Adult regardless of what is learned, and hatch it with another pet of greater or equal value. Realize that some traits are lost when hatching, so it is important that you pat attention to the rank of the traits you want in your pet. While we can't see them until they are earned, If you hatch a pet from two parents, and there are no Epic level traits, and you know the one you wanted is Epic, then that pet will never give you the desired trait.
Remember that some abilities are unique to that pet. For example, the Red Ghost has a Death school spell of the same name. That spell will never transfer to another hatched pet, unless, you hatch another Red Ghost. Pet talents, on the other hand, do have the possibility to transfer over to a hatched pet.
I like to have a hatched pet with starting stats (Str., Int., Agi., Will, Pwr) of as close to 250 as possible. I don't like to start out with stats lower than 200, as this will affect my percentages on the desired Talents I'm trying to focus on.
Due to Talents being established upon hatching, I waste my lower value Pet snacks on early training, because I may have to discard the pet.
Main thing is to start thinking about what kind of talents do you want in a pet. Healing, damage, resistance, etc. Also do you want to start out with a "generic" pet you can clone and use on different wizards. Or do you want specialty pets for one wizard. For me it was building a base generic pet then working on the specialty pets.
Only train a pet above adult if you think there is a good chance it has the talents. That may take several hatches according to what you are starting with. When you get a idea of what you want you can request over at the central site pet hatching forum for the talents. Also think about the stats. The higher they are the more damage, resistance, etc. you get from your pet.
A good pet to start with is either a enchanted armament with stackable sharpened blades or one with dragon blade. Even a failed pet can be a big help if passed to any lower level wizards you may have.
