Emerald Proto-Whelp — Pet of the Month: March 2017

If you're gearing up for the upcoming Pet Battle Dungeon in Patch 7.2, you might want to consider bringing along this little critter. It's a strong battler and will surely be an important asset on your team. This month we're featuring the Emerald Proto-Whelp!

Collecting the Emerald Proto-Whelp
The Emerald Proto-Whelp is a wild pet that can be found at The Savage Thicket in northern Sholazar Basin, Northrend.

This pet spawns as level 21 to 22, and comes in three breeds (all three are variants of the Power breed).

It should be noted that patience might be necessary to find your very own perfect proto-whelp pet.

The Emerald Proto-Whelp is usually seen near or around its larger (red) proto-drake cousins, but defeating these mobs do not seem to affect the wild pet spawns.

Previously, players could use the custom group finder tool to "hop servers" in an attempt to find proto-whelp spawns, however this isn't as viable now. This method only works if your group leader is also in the same zone (Sholazar Basin) as you are.

Although collecting the Emerald Proto-Whelp can take some time, it's definitely worth the wait. This pet is a battling 'beast' ...but not literally!

Battling with the Emerald Proto-Whelp
The Emerald Proto-Whelp is a versatile battler with really good sustain. Its sustain comes from several defensive abilities, which make up the majority of its kit.

It has two heals to work with. Ancient Blessing (example pictured left) restores a chunk of health instantly and buffs the entire team with a larger HP pool. Emerald Dream puts the Whelp to sleep for a couple turns and restores HP a bit at a time through those turns. You can select both of these abilities if you’d like, but the other options in those slots are what makes the Emerald Proto-Whelp a good pick.

Sharing the slot with Ancient Blessing is Emerald Presence, a per-hit shield which may prove invaluable against certain encounters. Instead of Emerald Dream you could choose Proto-Strike, which provides a full dodge for one turn and then deals big dragon damage.

You might think the versatility ends there, but the Emerald Proto-Whelp also deals two types of damage, which is excellent in countering different opponent types. Breath and Emerald Bite deal identical damage values otherwise, making this a choice based solely on counters — or maybe on flair.

Battling Discussion on the Emerald Proto-Whelp

Pet of the Month is co-written by Liopleurodon, an experienced pet battler and long-time WoW player. She maintains her own Pet Battle blog and is a Pet Battle columnist on the fansite Blizzard Watch.