5.2 PTR: Three New Pets and Official Patch Notes

UPDATE: We've added a summary of the official 5.2 patch notes.

Blizzard recently announced that the 5.2 PTR will be open for player testing in January of 2013, however datamining has already started on the latest PTR build. [source]

Three new possible pets have popped up!

• Gusting Grimoire (Bind on Pick Up)
• Living Sandling
• Red Panda (Bind on Pick Up)

WoW Insider speculates that the Gusting Grimoire will be the common pet loot from the upcoming TCG expansion deck, Timewalkers: Betrayal of the Guardian. This might very well be the "Floating Spellbook" that many online card vendors are advertising as one of the loot cards from this deck.

The Red Panda was originally datamined from the 5.1 PTR and was the reward for an achievement to defeat 8 legendary pets. Unfortunately this companion and the achievement never made it into the 5.1 live release, but thankfully has reappeared in 5.2!

Official 5.2 Patch Notes
Here is an abridged version of the 5.2 PTR patch notes. You can view the full list of notes here.

• Battle Pet Bandages are BoA and can stack to 25.
• You have a chance to receive a Battle-Stone from a PVP Pet Battle.
• Existing non-wild pets that changed colors each time they're summoned will be able to swap colors again. There will be a few new color-changers too.
• Players that are max level will have a chance to receive a Lesser Charm of Good Fortune from a successful Pet Battle with an opponent withing 5 levels of their highest level pet on their team. Higher level pets have a higher chance of yielding a charm.
• For those not level capped, winning a Pet Battle against a pet team that's within 5 levels of a player's highest level pet on their team will award player experience.
• Forfeiting a battle will not cause the pet to despawn, but will cause damage to the fleeing pet team.
• Pets will once again respawn should a player disconnect during a battle.
• However, any pet that was defeated during that battle will not respawn.
• "Elite Battle Pets" have a chance to spawn in the wild. Rather than a team of three, a player's pet team will face off against one elite pet! These new encounters will be part of a quest, and completing it will reward the Red Panda.

We'll soon find out about these pets and more once the 5.2 PTR is ready for testing. Stay tuned!