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Comment by Sipder2

How to defeat Retinus the Seeker with two pets lvl 25 and Shadowbarb Hatchling lvl 1:

Pets used:
Slot 1: Unborn Val'kyr. Skills: Shadow Slash, Curse of Doom, Unholy Ascension.
Slot 2: Fel Flame. Skills: Flame Breath, Scorched Earth, Conflagrate.
Slot 3: Shadowbarb Hatchling

Fight:

round 1: Curse of Doom
round 2: Shadow Slash
round 3: Unholy Ascension
round 4: Scorched Earth
round 5: Conflagrate
round 6: Flame Breath
round 7: Flame Breath
round 8: Scorched Earth

Video guide https://youtu.be/OtMrqkf1gOw

Comment by lokl08

If you are like me and can't be hassled for long with this for the mount dailies, look no further.
After been trying with many tactics mentioned on Retinus the Seeker page, I just went with having 2 level 1 dragonkin pets with strong attack against magic, like tail sweep. Works like a charm, should be down before 2nd pet is down.

Edit! At a glance, this should also be doable and better with any mechanical/elemental pets with dragonkin abilities in their first slot. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling is an obvious contender.

Comment by Ro4ch

Is tis quest mandatory? Or if I don't do it the next day I will have a different one?

i hate this kind of quest

Comment by nikaetd14

I just beat him twice with 3 level 1 battle pets and did not get credit for the quest... what am i missing?

Comment by Calacia

So I did the quest where you have to use your Shadowbarb Hatchling.

I used:

Unborn Val'kyr - Shadow Shock, Curse of Doom, Unholy Ascension
Baa'l - Shadowflame, Murder the Innocent, Scorched Earth
Shadowbarb Hatchling - Shadow Talon, Void Cyclone, Void Tremors

Turn 1 Unborn Val'kyr - Shadow Shock
Turn 2 Curse of Doom
Turn 3 Shadow Shock
Val'kyr rebirth
Turn 4 Unholy Ascension
Val'kyr Died
Turn 5 Baa'l - Murder the Innocent
Turn 6 Scorched Earth
Turn 7 Shadowflame
Baa'l died
Turn 8 Shadow Talon
Turn 9 Shadow Talon
Mob died

Went very smoothly for me. Hope this helps someone. If you don't have Baa'l.....I recommend him. :D He was a fun hunt too!

Comment by Naas

For the people who have never done pet battles (like me), don't have high level pets, and are tired of seeing strategies that use hardcore battle pets like the Unborn Val'kyr:

My shadowbarb pet had reached level 2 from the previous battle, so the "fight with all level 1 pets" strategy failed because the boss was now much stronger and wiped my piddling level 1s all over the floor.

What finally worked for me:

First, I leveled up my other pets to match my level 2 Shadowbarb pet by fighting some level 1 pets in the starting areas. This raised their stats and gave them their second ability.

My lineup:

1. Shadowbarb Hatchling
Send him out first so that he dies and does not earn XP, because we don't want him leveling anymore to make life even harder for the next pet battle quests.

2. Lil' Deathwing (Cataclysm collector's edition pet)
Start with his DoT (Call Darkness), then spam his Shadowflame attack until he dies.

3. Ikky (Burning Crusade quest pet)
Start with his Black Claw DoT, then spam his Savage Talon attack to victory!

Ikky should be easily obtainable via a quest chain in BC. And if you don't have Lil' Deathwing, maybe try other Dragonkins, which have strong attacks against Magic, or try pets that have a DoT abilities (I saw someone mention Infected Squirrel).

Good luck to my fellow pet battle carebears!

Comment by kazuza

My Setup...

Shadowbarb lvl1
Blood Boil lvl1
Lil' Nefarian lvl1 (strong attack against magic)

Did at first attempt!

Comment by PashanVaine

I was able to complete this quest with a little bit of work and a few Battle Pet Bandages.
I did not read this guide until after I raised my Shadowbarb Hatchling's level to 14. I am not good at pet battles, and I just collect pets.
I used Unborn Val'kyr, Sprite Darter Hatchling and Shadowbarb Hatchling- all level 25.
I played around with timing and moves until I got it done.
Sprite Darter Hatchling's Life Exchange made all the difference.

Comment by Tequima

Note that you don't have to use the Shadowbarb Hatchling, just have it in the team. I used:

These level 1 pets finished off Retinus before I needed the Hatchling. Naxxy has the same Plaguebreath attack as the Whelpling and can be purchased from the Auction House (cheapest after the Hallow's End event, when it can be purchased for 150 Tricky Treat)

Comment by xb3au

Dragonkin with breath against Retinus. All level 1 pets. Win!

Comment by Brotinn

I personally don't care for the battle pet system, so I don't have very many powerful pets, and the ones I do have are only level 1.
You can do this with just level 1 pets, so you don't have to worry about leveling your Shadowbarb Hatchling to 25 or spending any pet tokens that you may or may not have. The boss's power will scale down to match your current lineup (if you pop in higher level pets, it will scale to that level).

This was my lineup:
Lil' Nefarian (from the 15th Anniversary Gift)
Lil' Tarecgosa (if you're exalted with a guild, you can buy this for 1500 gold from a Guild Vendor)
Shadowbarb Hatchling

I only had to use my first 2 pets, spamming their attacks, as they're strong against magic. My first pet died in the process, but my second was able to finish the job. It was fairly quick and easy.

Hopefully this works for others who don't have a bunch of powerful pets at their disposal and were dreading doing this like I was, haha.

Comment by priestguy

Defeat Retinus using this 5-6 round strategy

User Kureaa's 2 pet strategy works great here. Add your shadowbarb hatchling as your 3rd pet.

1) Ikky
2) Fel Flame
3) Shadowbarb Hatchling

Ikky: Black Claw => Flock
Fel Flame: Scorched earth => Flame Breath => Flame Breath

Your shadowbarb hatchling can be any level and is not required to enter the fight.

Comment by Serenadas

I read all comments on here.
So I knew I should kill Shadowbarb first, so he wont gain XP and wont level up.

So I won this combo:
1. Shadowbarb
2. Lil' Nefarian
3. Ikky

I had Nefarian, Blood Boil and Ikky 1st lvl in my pet list.
So I flew out of Orgrimmar and on the river shore I found 1-2 lvl snakes and leveled my pets to 2nd lvl.
In the fight with Retinus I didn't thought about strategy, was just pressing buttons one by one.
Tried combo with Blood Boil - lost.
So I made as I said above: Shadowbarb died as intended, Lil Nefarian paid his duty and died too. Ikky just finished and won.

Comment by scotl

I didn't have Fel Flame, but a combination of the other strategies worked for me.

Pets used:
Slot 1: Unborn Val'kyr. Skills: Shadow Slash, Curse of Doom, Unholy Ascension
Slot 2: Ikky Skills: Any, Black Claw, Flock
Slot 3: Shadowbarb Hatchling

round 1: Curse of Doom
round 2: Shadow Slash
round 3: Unholy Ascension
round 4: Black Claw
round 5: Flock

My Ikky nearly killed Retinus on the 2nd flock. I may have been lucky because Ikky didn't die and got off a 3rd round flock. Even if he had died, Retinus had very little life left and 1 more hit from Shadowbarb Hatchling would have finished him.

Comment by kabookiejoe

How I beat this guy

Ikky
Onyxian Whelping or any pet with tail sweep
Shadowbarb Hatchling

Ikky - Blackclaw, Flock (Ikky dies)

Onyxian Whelpiing - Tail Sweep, Tail Sweep

Dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-VXdVf6XIw

Comment by CodeCaster

Completely new to pet battling.
Went to Orgrimmar, asked a guard for pet battle trainer's location, Trained it. Got the quest.
Got a random pet and battled snakes in front of Orgrimmar to get it to level 5 and open my pet battle slots.
Once done, Equipped two dragonkin pets(level 1), along with shadowbarb and went in battle.
Smashed 1 until battle was won!

Comment by Muttie

I just completed using:

1. Slot: Ikky - Black Claw, Flock - Ikky dies.
2. Slot: Pandaria Mechanical Dragonling - Breath times 3, Game over.
3. Slot: Shadow Barb Hatchling - not used.
They were all lvl 25.

EasyPeasyLemonSquezy :)

Comment by Lilly

I had already started leveling up my Shadowbarb Hatchling, so I had to think of another strategy.

Ikky (level 13) - Black Claw, then Flock until Ikky died
Fire Beetle (level 15) - Used Scorched Earth First, then Burn
Shadowbarb Hatchling (level 15) - never had to call in, because the Fire Beetle finished it off

I tried so many combinations, this is the set up I used when I finally beat it. To me, the Fire Beetle was the key. Scorched Earth hits it hard.

Comment by andrewpj

I have just done this with a level 1 Thunderscale Whelpling and a level 1 Stormborne Whelpling, both using tailsweep.

Comment by scarabei007

It's been three months i'm doing these stupid dailys to get this stupid mount (i havent been doing them every single day) and i still get these stupid pet battles in which i get shot down in three attacks, &*!@s sake blizzard, ^&*!s sake...... no words no words. Now i have to go somewhere search for pets and level up more pets just to finish these quests

Comment by greencatspryte

My hatchling was still level 1 when we fought this pet battle, I had Stormborne Whelpling and Lil'Nefarian both at level 1, so went in with those as they vs magic. The great thing about going with pets at the Level of your hatchling is that the opponent goes down to that level too. Much easier than using your 25s i.e. as Venshera said earlier, these battles scale (you need to use rares).

Comment by Zehlia

Since I forgot that the battles were scaled (and I leveled my Hatchling to 25), I had to come up some more brainpower.
So after some puzzeling, I came up with this:

1. Slot: Ikky - Black Claw, Flock (till it dies)
2. Slot: Baa'l - Scorched Earth, Shadowflame
3. Slot: Shadow Barb Hatchling - not used.
They were all lvl 25.

Comment by Vesuvius79

I used all level 1 pets as this makes the fight scale down to a level 1 battle and everyone has just one ability.

I used 2 pets that had a good first ability against magic pets (Shadowbarb Hatchling was in slot 3 for the quest). My first pet died but Retinus the Seeker died to my second pet and the battle was very easy, quest complete.

Comment by Syiranya

I had the problem that another poster had here: my Shadowbarb got a level and was skewing the lvl 1 strat because it was level two and my other level ones were just not surviving.

But I was able to make this work - probably with some lucky crits, but this was my set up that worked and saved some headache.

1. Shadowbarb - lvl 2 (its abilities don't matter)
2. Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling - lvl 25 (Breath, Bombing Run, Decoy)
3. Iron Starlette - lvl 25 (Wind Up, Powerball, Supercharge)

- Send the Shadowbarb out to its death so it doesn't get any more levels.
- Mech Dragonling - use Decoy when threatened with Void Crash to prevent more damage - otherwise Breath it until Mech Dragonling dies.
- Iron Starlette comes out like a champion - Wind Up, Supercharge, Wind Up (did a fair bit of damage, but with the elite status, not sure how much that was negated from the legendary elite ability) It seemed to work though as after that it was just two Wind Ups and the thing was dead.

Once again, might have gotten lucky with the crits but I was pulling out my hair trying to get my poor dragons with tail sweep to do some damage but the level skewing around wasn't allowing me to make it work. It'd get close enough but the legendary would just outlive all of them.

Hope it helps!

Comment by Kitariel

For some reason I cant add the shadowbarb hatchling to my pet collection.

Comment by Caldori

I used these at lv 25. my theory in using boneshard it to get mileage out of the dots he applies and combo that with black claw and flock double damage. this combo has killed every single boss fight in BFA so far. I definitely recommend it if you don't have the meta pets as this combo is very easily bought on the AH for cheap. I usually throw in a Zandalari Kneebiter|Molten Corgi|lil'Bling at the end to pump damage or stall so the combo dots can tick out.

Boneshard: Chop|Blistering Cold|Ice Spike
Ikky: Quills|Black Claw|Flock
Shadowbarb Hatchling: doesn't matter

1-Boneshard-Blistering Cold
2-Boneshard-Chop
3-Swap to Shadowbarb Hatchling (to eat the Void Bolt stun)
4-Swap to Ikky (cause your stunned)
5-Ikky-Blackclaw
6-Ikky-Flock
7-Ikky-Flock(continuation)
8-Dead Boss

Comment by Tigerus

I've made a mistake and leveled up Shadowbarb Hatchling to lvl 2, so team of level 1 pets does not work for me.

To defeat Retinus the Seeker I used:
1. Shadowbarb Hatchling, lvl 2 - to not level up it again
2. Blightbreath, lvl 2 - I've noticed undead pets work awesome because of their racial where you have 2 additional turns to attack
3. Bronze Proto-welp, lvl 2 - both Tail Sweep is doing great job and at this poing Retinous should be below 50% hp, so Dragonkin racial should be on which means additional 50% damage!

Comment by threninduil

I too max leveled the Shadowbarb Hatchling to max and here is how I defeated Retinus.

First Slot: Ikky - Black Claw, Flock - repeat Flock until Ikky dies
Second Slot: Lil Dragonwing - Elementium Bolt, Shadowflame
Third Slot: Shadowbarb Hatchling - I never had to use this pet. The Elementium Bolt did the work.

All of the above pets were max level.

Comment by burningglove

I don't have many pets, and my Shadowbarb Hatchling was at level 2, so I had to resort to using the level 25s that I do have. I used:

Darkmoon Tonk: Missile - Shock and Awe - Ion Cannon --then SWAP
Nether Faerie Dragon - Moonfire - Arcane Blast - Life Exchange

When my dragon died I switched back in the Tonk and killed it.

Comment by nosfreeze

I defeated Retinus really easy, using two lvl1 Corrupted Blood pets, plus my Shadowbarb Drone. My 1st Corrupted Blood basically soloed him. Its the pet that drops from Spine of Deathwing in DS.

Comment by NiceneWrA

i *hated* this. i hated it so much. tried a dozen combos of pets w/my level 2 shadowbarb, to no avail. ended up going with 2 mechanical pets - lvl 2 clockwork rocket bot, lvl 1 G0-R41-0N Ultratonk - to get the extra hits in after deaths. what a pain of a fight.

Comment by CedricDur

I never had an interest in pet battles so I haven't even unlocked the third pet slot. I had a level 3 pet from when I did try pet battles and it really skewed the fight. Fortunately the comments made me realize using a higher level pet was -not- helping.

Following the suggestion from below I went in with just Lil Nefarian at level one and the Shadowbarb pet and it was an insta win even with just two pets.

Comment by Aestua

Random observation - I actually never had to do this quest on the way to getting the mount. I'm not sure why but my GUESS is that, because I'm DF max level (70 as of this writing), I was able to generate a lot more experience in the 'fight with your Shadowbarb out for 10 minutes' quests (only needed to do two of those). I also maxed out my Shadowbarb's level after failing the first such pet battle quest - figured if it could help out it would make the difference for a bad RNG run.

I also never got the quests A Shocking Technique, The Mantids' Mettle, or A Bloody Treat along the way.

So in case anyone else runs into this 'nice to have' problem but wonders why the quest isn't showing up/showing as complete, perhaps these are your circumstances too. Good luck!

Links

Someone His Own Size

Defeat Retinus the Seeker in a pet battle with your Shadowbarb Hatchling in your party.

	Retinus the Seeker defeated (1)

Description

While fighting alongside you no doubt provides excellent training for our hatchling, sometimes it is better to have him fight on his own against enemies his own size. I know of one such opponent nearby, observing the Amathet near the Obelisk of the Stars. You should seek it out.

Completion

Rewards

You will receive:

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

900 reputation with Aqir Hatchling

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(58859))

Guides

Raising the Shadowbarb Drone - Mount, Pet and Toy Information Visions of N'zoth Legendary Pet Battle Strategies