*Updated* Ultimate Pet Guide [Archive] - Guild Wars Forums

Valerius

Oct 09, 2005, 12:22 PM

Ultimate Pet Guide - V2.0

-- :: BEASTMASTERY :: --

At 0 BeastMastery (BM), your pet does 35% damage and at 12 BM it does 100% damage. Weapon masteries after 12 have diminished power increases. It's really just not worth the trouble, the expense and the drain on your HP to go up to 16 on weapon mastery attributes. BeastMastery seems to follow the pattern, so you should be good at 12 BM, unless you want to crank the most out of your pet heals and attack skills.

Attribute Level --------- Pet Damage Increase

0 --------- 35.60%
1 --------- 38.60%
2 --------- 42.00%
3 --------- 45.90%
4 --------- 50.00%
5 --------- 54.50%
6 --------- 59.50%
7 --------- 64.80%
8 --------- 70.70%
9 --------- 77.10%
10 -------- 84.10%
11 -------- 91.70%
12 -------- 100.00%
13 -------- 104.00%
14 -------- 107.00%
15 -------- 109.00%
16 -------- 110.00%

*Pet damage is tied to your level of Beast Mastery. The higher your attribute level is the greater damage your pet does.*

Base Damage:

Level 5 Pet = In Testing
Level 10 Pet = In Testing
Level 15 Pet = In Testing
Level 20 Pet = In Testing

All pets have the same base damage

Armor Levels:

Level 1 Pet = AL 4
Level 2 Pet = AL 8
Level 3 Pet = AL 12
Level 4 Pet = AL 16
Level 5 Pet = AL 20
Level 6 Pet = AL 24
Level 7 Pet = AL 28
Level 8 Pet = AL 32
Level 9 Pet = AL 36
Level 10 Pet = AL 40
Level 11 Pet = AL 44
Level 12 Pet = AL 48
Level 13 Pet = AL 52
Level 14 Pet = AL 56
Level 15 Pet = AL 60
Level 16 Pet = AL 64
Level 17 Pet = AL 68
Level 18 Pet = AL 72
Level 19 Pet = AL 76
Level 20 Pet = AL 80

All pets have the same AL and Health

-- :: Inherit Names :: --

Inherit Names and what they do are still widely debated. There are many theories on what each evolution gives. This seems to be the common theory.

Aggressive --> Dire or Elder
Playful --> Hearty or Elder

Aggressive = +1 Damage / -30 Health
Dire = +2 Damage / -60 Health

Playful = -1 Damage / +30 Health
Hearty = -2 Damage / +60 Health

Elder = +/- 0 Damage / +/- 0 Health

Evolutions

Pets will evolve into either the Aggressive or Playful evolution at level 11. They will then proceed to evolve into either the Dire, Hearty or Elder evolution at level 15.

Playful --> Hearty

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should have 0 points into BeastMastery. Just equip Charm Animal and let your pet tag along while you level it with whatever build you are using. Even while your pet is dead, it will still be gaining experience points. A Hearty pet is much larger then an Elder or Dire.

Aggressive --> Dire

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should be focusing on BeastMastery. Put atleast 9 points into BM and equip your skill bar with BM skills. Your pet should be doing most of the damage and killing and try not to let your pet die too often.

Playful --> Elder or Aggressive --> Elder

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should play one style until your pet evolves at level 11 and then play the other style until it evolves at level 15.

-- :: Misc :: --

- To change your pets name, type in : /namepet <insertnamehere>
- To reset your pets name, type in : /namepet
- Pets do not receive a Death Penalty when they die
- Jarrel the Tamer is located just outside of Old Ascalon, if you wish to tame another pet and already have one, you may give your current pet to him. Once you release your pet, you will not be able to get it back. If you give up a level 20 pet, he will give you an additional 100 gold!

---------------------------------

If I have made any mistakes, please let me know. Thx :)

---------------------------------

-- :: Credits :: --

I'd like to thank the following for sharing their knowledge on pets and for doing tests to make sure the information we have is accurate.

- Dragon Incarnate
- Jenosavel
- Epinephrine
- shifteleven

Valerius

Oct 09, 2005, 12:23 PM

Available Pets:

----------------------------------

Black Bear

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/Bear.jpg

- Slashing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Shiverpeaks

----------------------------------

Black Widow Spider

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/BlackWidow.jpg

- Piercing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Found in the UnderWorld after setting the reaper free at the monument near the tortured spirit village

----------------------------------

Dune Lizard

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/DuneLizard.jpg

- Piercing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Crystal Desert

----------------------------------

Lynx

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/Lynx.jpg

- Slashing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Kryta

Valerius

Oct 09, 2005, 12:24 PM

Melandru Stalker

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/MelandruStalker.jpg

- Slashing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Reagent Valley
- Post-Searing - Found in Old Ascalon near Gate Guard Hollis (entrance to the Breach).

----------------------------------

Moa Bird

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/MoaBird.jpg

- Piercing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Ascalon Fields

----------------------------------

Snow Wolf

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/SnowWolf.jpg

- Slashing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Not Available
- Post-Searing - Shiverpeaks

----------------------------------

Strider

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/Strider.jpg

- Piercing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Ascalon Fields
- Post-Searing - Not Available

*The Strider will evolve into a Moa Bird at level 3*

Valerius

Oct 09, 2005, 12:24 PM

Warthog

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/Warthog.jpg

- Blunt Damage
- Pre-Searing - Northernlands
- Post-Searing - Maguuma Jungle

----------------------------------

Wolf

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Valerius001/Wolf.jpg

- Slashing Damage
- Pre-Searing - Ascalon Fields and Reagent Valley
- Post-Searing - Not Available

Aniewiel

Oct 09, 2005, 01:01 PM

In case anyone wonders, Valerius has permission to make multiple posts since the images were "unpostable" in a single post. :)

Jenosavel

Oct 09, 2005, 02:07 PM

I know it is documented everywhere that the attack bonus for the Dire pet is +2 and the attack bonus for the Elder pet is +3. However, I've done my own testing of the relative damage between an Elder and Dire since the update making their damage visible, and those values are very clearly incorrect. I took a level 15 Dire and a level 15 Elder out into Old Ascalon and let them beat up on 5 different varieties of enemies while only having 1 point in Beastmastery (I had a rune and didn't feel like making new armor just for the test). I carefully documented the damage range reached on each foe killed until each of the pets had killed 24 of each type of enemy I was dealing with. By that point, definite damage ranges had emerged, and the Dire undoubtedly has higher attack than the Elder by approximately 1.142%. 1.142% of 15-28 comes out to be approximately a +3 attack bonus.

I didn't come up with exact damage values for the Dire or the Elder because my purpose was only to test the preconcieved notion that the Elder is better on all counts than the Dire pet. Nothing else ArenaNet has done has created one uber anything, and as such I didn't believe pets would be subject to such imbalance. My test fulfilled its purpose and illustrated that while the Dire pet's health may be significantly reduced in comparison to the Elder, it has an attack boost to counteract that.

Mercury Angel

Oct 09, 2005, 02:21 PM

Ok, I'm confused as to why you, or the original topic, decided to call 'damage at attribute 0' base damage, and then also say that damage at attribute 0 is only 35.6% of base damage, while attribute 12 is 100%.

Either attribute 12 is the base damage, or attribute 0 is, it can't be both ways. However you choose to arrange it, BOTH sets of data have to use the same base, not 2 different ones.

So, (assuming that at attribute 12 that damage is 17-28) either the percentages should be as follows, and the base damage numbers should remain the same;

0 --------- 100%
1 --------- 108.80%
2 --------- 117.60%
3 --------- 128.52%
4 --------- 140.00%
5 --------- 152.60%
6 --------- 166.60%
7 --------- 181.44%
8 --------- 197.96%
9 --------- 215.88%
10 -------- 235.48%
11 -------- 256.76%
12 -------- 280.00%
13 -------- 290.12%
14 -------- 299.60%
15 -------- 305.20%
16 -------- 308.00%

Or the percentages should remain the same and the base damages should be listed as (Numbers derived from original numbers /.356);

Level 1 Pet = 8-14
Level 2 Pet = 11-17
Level 3 Pet = 14-22
Level 5+ Pet = 17-28

If the math is done correctly. Regardless, I know at 12 beast mastery that my pet isn't dealing 6-10 damage, so something is wrong from the original post, even if only labels were written poorly.

Vermilion Okeanos

Oct 10, 2005, 05:06 AM

I have been wondering about dire as well... it made no sense that with -60 hp one would still be bad in damage comparing to an elder, which didn't make alot of sense. Was the attack speed different by any chance?

And also... from my own experience with Otyr's cry, that thing does NOT effect your own pet but only the pet in the wild. My thought was, if the pet was not made to target the thing, obviously the pet is pretty much uneffected by the skill, therefore I didn't push on with the test. If someone want to test if the armor still do add on, feel free to do so =P

Jenosavel

Oct 10, 2005, 05:27 AM

I wasn't testing for attack speed, so I couldn't say definitively on that. It has appeared to be the case in the past, however, that varying attack speeds between pet types were aesthetic, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was no real difference in attack speed here either.

Also, I haven't exactly tested Otyugh's Cry, but from my casual observation (as 90% of my time in-game is spent soloing with my pet) its armor buff does apply to your pet. The difference in health loss is quite easy to pick out when there are 3 griffons beating on your pet at once.

It is unfortunately true, however, that Otyugh's Cry doesn't make your pet attack your targetted enemy. I think it's important to note that it doesn't make the animals in the area attack your target either though. It makes them aggressive towards your target, which is a small but prominent difference. This just means that they won't mingle happily, not that they will rush in to kill that particular enemy. Usually the level 5 critter will wander around until it notices the group to which your targetted foe belongs (this is usually instant unless your positioning is interesting, the short range makes it hard to hit both an enemy and a nearby critter without the two being on top of one another, but I have seen it happen), at which point it will then rush to the closest enemy of that group and start attacking. The enemy the animal attacks and the one you cast Otyugh's Cry on are rarely the same one. The restriction seems to be based around the group rather than the individual enemy. Since your pet already is aggressive towards enemy type monsters, it's no surprise that Otyugh's Cry doesn't propell it into action.

Personally, I would like to see a couple of things. 1) I would like Otyugh's Cry to become enemy specific rather than enemy group specific. 2) If no other pet control commands are on the way, I'd like to see Otyugh's Cry work as a means to send your pet into battle ahead of you. 3) In order for the above to function, Otyugh's Cry would have to see an increase in range. Having to move into aggro range to cast it won't help you send your pet into the action first.

EDIT: With regards to the pet evolution paths, the Hearty pet can still be gotten instead of the Elder with 12 points in Beastmastery. I'd like someone to verify my observations, but it seems that the problem occurs when one puts equal focus on Marksmanship and Beastmastery (12 points in each, skills from both lines being used). I think this is important to note, since a 50/50 Marks/Beast build that uses the remaining points in Expertise seems to be common. Few people are willing to give up their bow, and during the training phase of one's pet this can cause an evolution you don't want.

SnipiousMax

Oct 12, 2005, 12:16 AM

I thought the more damage dealt by your pet the more likely to turn Aggresive/Dire, and the more damage taken the more likely to turn playful/hearty.

Valerius

Oct 12, 2005, 01:36 AM

well... yeah... i already have that listed in my post

Makkert

Oct 12, 2005, 02:23 AM

Isn't the wolf available post searing at Nothern Shiverpeaks? Like just outside Ice Cave?

Valerius

Oct 12, 2005, 02:32 AM

that would be a Snow Wolf

The_Nightbreed

Oct 12, 2005, 07:22 AM

I Just wanted to mention the fact that pets evolve at Level 20 Also. I tamed a Elder Black widow and now that u can reset pet name to see its evolution, I found that mine has evoled in a Hearty Black Widow.

PS. U can See the Pets name Before you Tame it (hold alt or high light target), SO yes I know it was a Elder Black widow when I Charmed it. And Yes it turned into A Hearty Black Widow

Valerius

Oct 12, 2005, 02:26 PM

pets should not evolve again after level 15. i solo a lot with my pet and it has not changed from it's Hearty stage. my guess is you got a Hearty Black Widow before the recent update ( the one where you can now reset your pets name to default ) and you had already named your pet so you couldn't tell which evolution stage it was at? iono...

Jenosavel

Oct 12, 2005, 05:13 PM

I'm going to back Valerius up on this one. I've soloed with my pet for a tremendous number of hours and it's never budged from Hearty.

I find it unlikely, but not impossible, that someone tamed an Elder Widow before naming their pet. From my experiences, people always jump to name their Melandru's Stalker as soon as they first get it in Pre-sear. Only later do they wonder what evolution it might be at. Of course, up until the recent patch, if you'd named your Stalker in the beginning, you wouldn't actually have any idea what evolution your spider was at when you tamed it. It would have kept the name from your previous pet.

I'm not saying that this is what happened here -afterall, by now you could have tamed one after the patch- but I think it's quite likely.

Elenof Greenstone

Oct 13, 2005, 05:53 AM

I followed the rules to getting a elder black widow spider, but on finding it it was dire, and not elder. any1 else have this experience. And will it evr become elder? I still kinda like it cos it is even more rare.:)

Valerius

Oct 13, 2005, 06:49 AM

when the Black Widow Spider spawns from the statue after completing w/e quest... it can spawn as either Dire/Hearty/Elder

i myself have a Dire Black Widow Spider and no... it won't evolve into an Elder

Frostty1

Oct 14, 2005, 12:43 AM

Level 20 Pet = AL 80 *Pets gain +20 AL (60+20) and run 20% faster at Level 20.*
A Pets run speed is not tied to its’ level. As of the August 25 Update, the base run speed was increased by 20%.

From: http://www.guildwars.com/news/gameupdates.html
“Pets: Increased pets' run speed by 20%; increased pets' armor to 80 at level 20”

Epinephrine

Oct 14, 2005, 07:15 AM

A Pets run speed is not tied to its’ level. As of the August 25 Update, the base run speed was increased by 20%.

From: http://www.guildwars.com/news/gameupdates.html
“Pets: Increased pets' run speed by 20%; increased pets' armor to 80 at level 20”

I somehow doubt that a +20 bonus is granted at lvl 20. I would think this implies that they now gain 4 AL per level rather than 3.

Valerius

Oct 14, 2005, 10:34 AM

A Pets run speed is not tied to its’ level. As of the August 25 Update, the base run speed was increased by 20%.

thx man... i ll change that right now

I somehow doubt that a +20 bonus is granted at lvl 20. I would think this implies that they now gain 4 AL per level rather than 3.

mmk... that would make a lot more sense... and that's what another player was saying to me ingame... i ll change that too

Jenosavel

Oct 14, 2005, 10:39 AM

I somehow doubt that a +20 bonus is granted at lvl 20. I would think this implies that they now gain 4 AL per level rather than 3.

I agree that this makes a lot more sense than one giant boost at level 20 and no buffs at all up until that point. If the original post up there's going to have AL per level listed, it should probably be changed to the increments of 4.

Sniperz53

Oct 19, 2005, 10:58 AM

http://guildwarsrealm.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=67#289

You should take some information form that page ther to add to it!

Valerius

Oct 19, 2005, 03:39 PM

ugh... most of that info in that thread is wrong soo...

Mordakai

Oct 20, 2005, 09:39 AM

So, do Elder Pets get no damage modifier, or +3 damage as stated on previous thread?

Jenosavel

Oct 20, 2005, 10:16 AM

That's a good question which I'm not sure anyone can answer directly. To my knowledge, no real test of pet attack values have been done yet. Only recently has there been the patch making the damage visible and thus somewhat testable. It's still quite hard to control all variables and thus do such a test with any accuracy. However, it's possible to test the relative damage between the pets rather easily. Those tests have shown that the Dire pet does more damage than the Elder (see my above post (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=566303&postcount=6) for the details). Therefore, if the Elder did indeed have a +3 damage, the Dire would need to have a damage boost greater than 3, instead of only 2.

Mordakai

Oct 20, 2005, 10:23 AM

Barinthus

Oct 21, 2005, 12:50 AM

So are you saying there's no difference between pets except for the type of damage they do?

ZennZero

Oct 21, 2005, 11:47 AM

So are you saying there's no difference between pets except for the type of damage they do?

You got it. Well other than asthetic differences, of course. Also, the bear will use its "brutal mauling" special attack, but it does not appear to do more damage than its regular attack. Also, there was a rumor that the spider had a small chance of inflicting poison, but I believe that has been disproven.

Ashleigh McMahon

Oct 23, 2005, 03:28 AM

You got it. Well other than asthetic differences, of course. Also, the bear will use its "brutal mauling" special attack, but it does not appear to do more damage than its regular attack. Also, there was a rumor that the spider had a small chance of inflicting poison, but I believe that has been disproven.

Rumours have also been made of the dune lizard using the skill " Final Thrust".

I have a dune lizard, and I have never noticed any difference in it's attack methods.

Jenosavel

Oct 26, 2005, 06:35 PM

I just thought everyone would like to know that the pets respawning has been fixed! Pets now will ressurect with the party at a res shrine, and if they were still left alive when the party respawns, the pet will teleport to the res shrine with whatever hp it had left.

Let me be the first to say a heartfelt, "Thank you ANet!"

Walt

Oct 26, 2005, 10:50 PM

I believe "Brutal Mauling" knocks down.

And previously, you could capture a bear pre-searing. It required two people, and a very specific set of skills, but it was possible. Not sure about now (rumours of it being "fixed"). Linkity link link (http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12694&highlight=bear+pre-searing).

Valerius

Oct 26, 2005, 11:02 PM

- Brutal Mauling does not KD

- u can no longer Charm Pre-Searing Black Bears... ANeT made that change a couple updates ago

Funki

Oct 27, 2005, 11:27 AM

just wondering..... can i get the snow wolf in the northern or southern shiverpeaks? :o

and anyone know a place where they "always" are?

Epinephrine

Oct 27, 2005, 11:40 AM

just wondering..... can i get the snow wolf in the northern or southern shiverpeaks? :o

and anyone know a place where they "always" are?

You can find them in both; the easiest place is probably right outside Yak's Bend; if you want a head start on training them though, go to Copperhammer Mines and head north toward where Thull the Bull spawns; there are wild Elder wolves there (level 15) and they can be charmed.

Talin Verderben

Oct 27, 2005, 12:47 PM

What about the Bear? I have seen them in the Southerns Shiverpeaks, but dont remember seeing them up north.

I hope they are up north, I have a long way to go with my new char otherwise!

Epinephrine

Oct 27, 2005, 01:05 PM

To my knowledge they are only south, but can be reached through Beacon's Perch by going south briefly - you would need an escort most likely (unless you are exceptionally tough, the enemies are level 22-24...), but there are bears in the area.

Talin Verderben

Oct 28, 2005, 12:47 PM

Thanks! I will keep that in mind and go Bear hunting once I reach there!

The_Nightbreed

Oct 28, 2005, 09:24 PM

na, My Black Widow was a Elder when i tamed it and of course since i named it i wasnt able to check its evolution till update. but once update came out i checked and found that it is now a Hearty Black Widow. I also Have a Dire Black Widow with my Ranger, I can set both the Hearty and the Dire at 12 to compare and I see no dmg diffrence between the two.

AeroLion

Oct 28, 2005, 10:10 PM

Nightbreed, you are most certainly wrong. I suggest you do some more testing because there is certainly a difference in attack damage between Dire and Elder.

shifteleven

Oct 29, 2005, 08:16 AM

Well, not that it's anything new, but I can confirm that the Hearty/Dire/Elder evolutions DO make a difference in the health total of your pet.

A group of guildies and I took 3 level 20 pets into the desert, all of us spec'ed to 12 BM, one Elder Black Widow, one Hearty Black Widow, and one Dire Black Widow. We sic'ed all three of them on a Sand Drake, who proceeded to use Aftershock. A fixed-damage point blank AE makes a great health test for pets, and we found:

The Dire Pet lost roughly 20% of his hitpoint total.
The Elder Pet lost roughly 18% of his hitpoint total.
The Hearty Pet lost roughly 5-8% of his hitpoint total.

It was easy for us to run this test several times, just zoning in and out (the Sand Drake is the first creature just outside Elona Reach). Every time we got these exact same results....The Hearty Pet REALLY seemed to take the beating, even better than we had expected. We did not use any spells, calls, pet attacks, etc, and didn't bring any henchman...so we're certain that all three pets were subjected to the exact same amount of damage at the exact same time.

I'm speculating that perhaps the Hearty pet has a higher armor rating, because it makes no sense that an Aftershock would deal 20% damage to a Dire, and only 5-8% to a Hearty, even with the difference of 120 hitpoints between them. However, we didn't have any way to determine exactly how much damage, or exactly what % of their current health was lost, so the test is plenty flawed.

More tests to come in the near future, I'd love to find the exact hitpoint totals of each pet evolution. If anyone has any ideas or advice as to how to better test the pet evolution differences, post or PM me and let me know :) IGN: Aubree Wild.

-------------------

Edit: Tested the Aftershock damage against different Armor Ratings. The Aftershock *should* have dealt 74 damage to each pet, if it were true that they all have the same armor rating. And if their hitpoint totals were as speculated, we should have seen:

The Dire Pet lost 16.8% of his hitpoint total.
The Elder Pet lost roughly 14.8% of his hitpoint total.
The Hearty Pet lost roughly 13.2% of his hitpoint total.

But the hearty pet didn't lose anywhere near that amount of health, and the Dire lost significantly more than 17%. When the aftershock hit, the dire and elder pets were always VERY close in health, only 2-3% difference tops. The Hearty was always extremely far from each of them. The spread in the hitpoint totals of the pets was far more than 4%, which the math would suggest.

I think this further proves that the pets may have different armor ratings, and possibly not different hitpoint totals. I'll try to run a test using healing spells after the aftershock to see exactly how much healing it takes to repair the damage after the aftershock, and therefore see how much each pet is really taking >_>

Jenosavel

Oct 29, 2005, 10:10 AM

If anyone has any ideas or advice as to how to better test the pet evolution differences, post or PM me and let me know :)

I believe the hit point tests were calucated by timing how long a full-health pet could stand in poison before dying. The very steady and predictable damage from poison, when combined with a reliable timing method and multiple tries, will give very accurate results for pet HP.

While the idea that the different evolutions may have diffferent armor ratings is interesting and should definitely be explored, I don't think throwing out the idea of differing HP levels is appropriate. The poison example completely ignores any armor, and the pets have been seen to last for differing lengths of time.

I will note, however, that I haven't used the poison method myself. I've merely read others' accounts of it.

shifteleven

Oct 29, 2005, 11:40 AM

Thanks Jenosavel, I appreciate the idea! Poison tests would be a great idea to calculate hitpoints.

I think this further proves that the pets may have different armor ratings, and possibly not different hitpoint totals.

I don't intend to throw out the idea of pets having different hitpoint totals, though I will do some poison tests and try to estimate their hitpoint totals on my own, since I take everything I read around here with a grain of salt ;)

However, like I said, the damage on the hearty seemed to be far less than it should have been, even with the increased hitpoint total, leading me to believe that armor rating may vary between pets.

----------------------

Edit: First poison test done, and I can confirm that the Elder Black Widow has exactly 500 health. I need to wait for my buddies with Hearty and Dire spiders to log on, I'll edit this message when I get a chance to test them >_>

Valerius

Oct 29, 2005, 01:01 PM

yeah... poison is how the tests were done in the past

look forward to seeing ur results... thx :D

Mercury Angel

Oct 29, 2005, 03:27 PM

Why not a set percentage sacrafice and Grenth's Balance?

Let's say for the sake of example that-

You have 480 health.
Base pet health is also 480.

Hearty pet has 540 health
Dire pet has 420 health.

You sacrafice 17% to one of the many 17% sacs. You now have 399 health.

You use Grenth's Balance on Hearty pet;
It takes 71 damage, you are healed for 70, both of you have 469 health.

Now, assume we didn't know the initial Hearty pet's health, so we take your current health, add the damage dealt to the Hearty pet, 71, and we get 540.

Then to Dire;

yadda yadda, 399 health for you.
Grenth's Balance-
11 damage ,10 healing for you, both of you have 409 health.

Add the damage dealt to Dire pet to your current health, and we get 420.

In case the pets have less health than how much you sacrafice to, it may be best to use a more expensive sacrafice, such as Verata's Aura for 33%.

shifteleven

Oct 29, 2005, 05:17 PM

Alright, poison tests were done, and I can confirm exactly what was already posted here:

Dire Black Widow: 440 Health. (Averaged 55 seconds to die in poison)
Elder Black Widow: 500 Health. (Averaged 63 seconds to die in poison)
Hearty Black Widow: 560 Health. (Averaged 70 seconds to die in poison)

I'm going to use this information to test the pets for possible AL differences, since I don't think this has been explored yet.

Edit: Media Reign tested the pet ALs by sic'ing them on Sand Drakes outside Elona Reach. After the Aftershock, we'd use Comfort Animal, Orision of Healing, etc - until we pinpointed the amount of damage each pet took (and thus the healing needed to reach full). We concluded that:

Elder Black Widow takes exactly 74 damage from Aftershock. (80 AL)
Dire Black Widow takes exactly 74 damage from Aftershock. (80 AL)
Hearty Black Widow takes exactly 74 damage from Aftershock. (80 AL)

I determined that 80 AL was required to take 74 damage from the aftershock by running an Elementalist (60 AL) with Armor of Mist at +20 AL. She took 74 damage each time.

Sooooo we still have yet to disprove any of what's in this thread, just providing some further evidence. Damage tests to come.

Storm Chaser

Oct 29, 2005, 07:09 PM

wow...with so much information about pets and updates and stuff you would think that Anet would actually try to make them effective in battle other than tanking. or maybe im just being a negative nancy.

mrxbryan

Oct 29, 2005, 07:14 PM

do u guys think a ranger with a pet with 2nd profession elements is good? since the bow is pretty much useless? if so how should i distribute my points?

shifteleven

Oct 30, 2005, 05:06 PM

do u guys think a ranger with a pet with 2nd profession elements is good? since the bow is pretty much useless? if so how should i distribute my points?

What you've said here is half wrong and half right. The bow is an extremely useful tool for a pet-reliant build, because it is often beneficial to be able to sic your pet on a target from a great distance. Also, the steady damage from having a high marksmanship score can compliment the pet damage very well. However, if you'd like to run an Elementalist secondary, you could certainly make that work. The low-cost pet elite "Ferocious Strike" would make an excellent source of both damage and energy for you, which would be essential as a R/E due to your fairly low energy cap. You'll want to avoid exhaustion, so I'd recommend the Air or Water lines for your Elementalist spells. Some quick ideas for you would be to try running a high Beastmastery/Air build with a combo of pet attacks, call of haste, and some lightning spikes. An even better idea would be to go with a 4-attribute build balanced between Expertise, Water Magic, Beast Mastery, and Marksmanship and use those lovely snare hexes, along with the aforementioned Elite pet attack...making your arrows unavoidable, your pet inescapable, and your energy quite manageable.

Not that those builds are terribly viable as I've posted them, but that should get you started in the right direction.

Align

Nov 01, 2005, 05:04 AM

You'd only gain 7 or 8 energy with each ferocius strike though. Ele spell cost isn't reduced by Expertise, so energy gained is gone after one or two spells have been cast... unlike non-spell skills, of which you'd be able to use three or five before you've used up the energy you gained.

AlphaSt0rm

Nov 01, 2005, 10:28 PM

Is it just me or is it not possible to cap the Elder Wolves? I approach them and they are green but by the time I get closer their name changes to "Pet - Elder Wolf" I assume the Stone Summit charms them. Is there anyway to get to them before the Stone Summit? And Black Bears are on the way to the Elder Wolves.

shifteleven

Nov 02, 2005, 05:30 AM

You'd only gain 7 or 8 energy with each ferocius strike though.

Actually, you should gain ~9 energy per Ferocious Strike (at 12 Beastmastery), and each strike should cost you 3 energy. Assuming that you use it every time it refreshes (every 8 seconds), that's 6 energy every 8 seconds, which comes to about 2.25 energy every 3 seconds....i.e. about 2 arrows of energy regen.

Ele spell cost isn't reduced by Expertise, so energy gained is gone after one or two spells have been cast... unlike non-spell skills, of which you'd be able to use three or five before you've used up the energy you gained.

Any secondary other than warrior is going to cause this problem. Keep in mind that Rangers and Warriors are the only two classes that heavily use "skills", "attack skills", "shouts", "preparations", and "traps", which are the only things reduced by expertise. There are some odds and ends among other classes, such as some Necro touches and the like, but honestly you're dealing with spells 99% of the time among non-ranger/warriors.

This is obviously not the *best* route to go, but he did ask for a ranger pet user / ele secondary build. If he just wanted to make a Ranger/Ele, I'd have told him to go with something like Marksman's Wager perhaps.

Align

Nov 03, 2005, 09:35 AM

I was assuming 16 BM, net gain would be 7 or 8 depending on expertise level...
I just don't think FS is a very good idea unless you're going to be a 'rangerist'.

shifteleven

Nov 03, 2005, 11:07 AM

I only suggested FS because as a Ranger Beastmaster who intends to use a secondary profession (he wanted to mix in Elementalist skills), his attributes would very likely be stretched thin. At best, if he focused on ONE element, he'd have to stretch his attributes between that element, expertise, beastmastery, and marksmanship (if he decided to use a bow). Since he is primarily a pet user, his beastmastery would likely the be his highest attribute, making the Elite pet attack a viable means of dealing damage and gaining energy for his build.

kawaii_bat

Nov 03, 2005, 11:07 AM

Just yesterday I played the Riverside mission with a bunch of people.
Two of use where lvl 17 rangers, me R/N and R/Mo another.

Both of us had Boars and both where at level 16.
I though is was funny and everyone was pretty happy because we had 3 tanks with the warrior and them there.

When we got to the poisoned water section of the mission, I noticed her boar was taking damage faster than mine from the poison.

She noticed it too.
_Both me and her reset our /petnames to see if one was playful or hearty.
_Both our boars where Hearty Warthogs......Wierd.......

Not all pets have the same health it seems.
Could their health be affected by Beastmastery as well?
I didn't ask her how much points in BM she put but I had 11 and I really used my boar alot in my build.

Do any of you have any clue as to why my boar has more health than hers?

No: My boar did not have mending or any enchantments on it.
No: There where not spirits summoned that could have augmented their healths.
No: I did not use any regen ability on my pet and neither had she.

Epinephrine

Nov 04, 2005, 12:27 PM

Level 1 Pet = 8-14
Level 2 Pet = 11-17
Level 3 Pet = 14-22
Level 5+ Pet = 17-28
The damage values listed are incorrect. I will finish with my testing then post corrected values. As an example, the damage for a lvl 14 pet is 13-21, based on 400 consecutive recorded strikes with a 0 BM pet vs. a cooperative 0 armour opponent. The distribution of values was approximately uniform, a chi-square test failed to detect any significant deviation from a uniform distribtuion. I'll do some testing on various pet levels and report them, but clearly the figures listed are incorrect. Once I have tested at most pet levels with a large pool of hits per level I'll post some more precise results.

Mercury Angel

Nov 04, 2005, 02:35 PM

Epinephrine

Nov 04, 2005, 03:16 PM

As to the damage range of pets, who knows. If they can have varying healths with no discernable differences, perhaps the same holds true for damage.

Possibly, but I doubt it - pets across my accounts seem all to hit for pretty much the same damage, so I assume that there is little to no variation between similarly evolved pets. Those numbers were pasted into a post about pets ages ago, most likely copied from a source like the Prima guide, and have not been tested in the least, thus the runs of hundred of strikes I am recording. Regardless, by not only posting results bu the manner in which they are gathered it will be more obvious if errors are made in testing, and the data can be viewed in the context of the testing process.

shifteleven

Nov 04, 2005, 06:42 PM

Penguins Will Fly

Nov 05, 2005, 08:52 AM

Several possible causes for this...

1. One of your pets was Agressive at level 11, then evolved to Hearty at level 16. This would leave them at 500 hitpoints, while the Playful > Hearty one would have the full 560 hitpoints.

2. Your pets accrued Death Penalty, yeah, pets get DP, but are always rezzed.

Hope that explains it for ya.

From the way I understand it, when a pet evolves into aggresive at 11 it cannot evolve into hearty afterwards. It can only go to either dire or elder depending on how you train it. Likewise, if it evolved into playful at first it can only evolve into hearty or elder later on.

I think the best explanation as to what happened would be one of them had more death penalty than the other. Or it could have been that the guy had just named his to hearty when it was really a dire or elder... because he liked the sound of hearty or something :)

Jenosavel

Nov 05, 2005, 03:10 PM

From the way I understand it, when a pet evolves into aggresive at 11 it cannot evolve into hearty afterwards. It can only go to either dire or elder depending on how you train it. Likewise, if it evolved into playful at first it can only evolve into hearty or elder later on.

I think the best explanation as to what happened would be one of them had more death penalty than the other. Or it could have been that the guy had just named his to hearty when it was really a dire or elder... because he liked the sound of hearty or something :)

You would be correct about the paths. A Playful pet cannot evolve into a Dire later, nor can an Aggressive turn Hearty. That, obviously, is not a possible explanation.

Also, I'd like to add in a correction to the above couple of posts in saying that pets do not take a death penalty, so that also is not a valid explanation. As anyone who has tested pet's health via poison can attest to, no matter how many times your pet dies, its health remains stable. The only decreases you will see fit well within a margin of error and become quite obvious when you repeatedly kill the pet. When I ran my own test, I killed the pet 18 times consecutively and the recorded time to death varied from 73.5 seconds down to 67.78 seconds with an average resting at 69.8 seconds.

I'm not sure what could have caused the health difference between the two boars. Are you certain the difference wasn't just a misperception? For instance, are you certain that the difference wasn't due to something like outside damage on one pet in addition to the poison, the use of Comfort Animal, Pretator's Pounce, Symbiotic Bond, or other things which would make one pet appear to be taking damage faster than the other? Hearty pets lose health extremely slowly in the poison, as you can tell from a level 20 one needing a full 70 seconds to die. It's quite difficult to simply eye up how fast their health is dropping, and if indeed you're certain the two pets had different levels of health, then some carefully controlled and documented information would be appreciated.

Epinephrine

Nov 07, 2005, 10:11 AM

I have finished testing the lower pet levels from 2-8 (I haven't found a level 1 animal to test), but testing is slow - I'll try to do some mid-level pet testing soon, and will release all data once complete.

Most interesting so far is that the distributions of attack damage have not been uniform at the lower levels; they have with only 1 exception been rejected from uniformity using a chi-squre test (and the p-values are as small as 1E-07!). I suspect that they are originally from a uniform distribution at higher levels, but that the transformation and rounding to calclate the lower level damage results in tails on most lower level damage ranges.

Pet damage thus far is not a step function at certain spaced out levels, but progresses smoothly upward with pet level.

My testing so far is being done with 0 beast mastery vs 0 armor, as this gives identical results to 12 beastmastery and 60 armour (See the combat mechanics guide if explanation is needed) and is easily done, any class can take off all armour.

Sarus

Nov 07, 2005, 04:59 PM

Nice guide except for one thing which bugged me:

It's really just not worth the trouble, the expense and the drain on your HP to go up to 16 on weapon mastery attributes
That's completely wrong as having 16 in a weapon attribute (swords, hammer or axe) IS in fact very much worth it.

Darksun

Nov 11, 2005, 02:36 PM

You got it. Well other than asthetic differences, of course. Also, the bear will use its "brutal mauling" special attack, but it does not appear to do more damage than its regular attack. Also, there was a rumor that the spider had a small chance of inflicting poison, but I believe that has been disproven.

You have got to kidding.. Thats it pretty retarded. I guess it takes care of have an 'Uber Pet' but GW is very good at balancing. It seems like they could have made: movement speed, attack speed, AL, DL, & Damage Type all different and yet balanced. Wow.. that really takes a lot away from pets.

JMFD

Nov 11, 2005, 06:28 PM

I'd just like to reiterate I've had an Elder Black Widow go to a Hearty Black Widow too.. odd!

Jenosavel

Nov 11, 2005, 09:53 PM

I'd just like to reiterate I've had an Elder Black Widow go to a Hearty Black Widow too.. odd!

As was asked before, when you captured the Elder Black Widow, were you able to verify that what you were capturing was in fact an Elder Black Widow (as in, was it unnamed or did you reset the name to verify what it was when you first captured it)?

I've seen many people believe that the only spider to be caught in the Underworld is an Elder Black Widow, and thus they capture a Hearty and when later they realize what it is, they're amazed at how it "evolved"... I'd just like to clarify whether or not this is a possibility in your scenario.

JMFD

Nov 12, 2005, 08:56 AM

The spider I caught came out of the chest was as an enemy "Elder Black Widow", I have seen ones emerge as Dire and Hearty from there too. At the time, my pet was named so I can't confirm if it was randomly changed when it became my pet. I recently unnammed my pet to find it was miraculously now a hearty Black Widow.

Mercenary662

Nov 12, 2005, 11:25 AM

could anyone tell me the difference in dmg or w/e between blunt, slashing, and peircing?

Vermilion Okeanos

Nov 12, 2005, 12:14 PM

could anyone tell me the difference in dmg or w/e between blunt, slashing, and peircing?
There are no differences. UNLESS, the reciever got a mod on his/her equip that defend against one of them (example: necro armor-> piercing armor), while some monsters in PvE are naturally built to be weaker against some dmg (example: [not verified] skeleton recieve more damage from blunt, and less from pierce)

Mercenary662

Nov 12, 2005, 01:59 PM

ok thx

Epinephrine

Nov 12, 2005, 06:05 PM

Mercenary662

Nov 12, 2005, 06:15 PM

ya sry, i found it a while after i said thx

jimmyhats

Nov 14, 2005, 04:11 AM

ive found this thread to be incredibly helpful. jsut wanted to thank everyone who actually bothered to put this much research into pets xD

Mercenary662

Nov 14, 2005, 03:51 PM

ya it is great but...

i made another ranger a day ago, just to be a beast master. i charmed a warthog and got it to lvl 5 before i left pre-ascalon. I put most of my point into BM and had a minor BM and a BM helm. I also put my skill list as 6/8 of it are BM skills. My pet didnt take dmg or die very much, he mostly did dmg...but..when he got to lvl 11...he became playful, and i was trying to get aggresive, did i do something wrong? or did i just do the exact opposite of what i was supposed to do?

Pr1nc355SaRa

Nov 14, 2005, 04:25 PM

so would the normal wolf be a 'cool' pet cuz you can only get it in pre? or does everyone still love those spiders...?

Epinephrine

Nov 14, 2005, 04:54 PM

Evolution is poorly understood... there are still many questions about pet evolution - the number of pet deaths is a factor it seems, as is damage output, but it's really tough to figure out. You could try again, charm a new Warthog in Kryta and repeat?

Ollj

Nov 17, 2005, 05:03 AM

Attribute Level --------- Pet Damage Increase...
looks pretty much like the regular damage modifier:
=damage modifier for ANY classes right hand weapon depending on the classes weapons attribute.

=100*2^((5*[weapon attribute]-60)/40) if [weapon attribute]<13
=100*2^((5*[weapon attribute]-60-([weapon attribute]-12)*2,5)/50) if [weapon attribute] > 12

Attri pet base
0 35,6 35,36
1 38,6 38,56
2 42 42,04
3 45,9 45,85
4 50 50
5 54,5 54,53
6 59,5 59,46
7 64,8 64,84
8 70,7 70,71
9 77,1 77,11
10 84,1 84,09
11 91,7 91,7
12 100 100
13 104 103,53
14 107 107,18
15 109 110,96
16 110 114,87

in case your numbers are approximated and "pets" are just a "weapon" that havs beast mastery as "weapon attribute" those numbers may be more accurate.

Brutaniu Mason

Nov 17, 2005, 02:26 PM

I think I saw someone with a drake type pet that I've never seen before...can anyone confirm if there is a Drake pet available, where it would be, starting lvl..etc?

Valerius

Nov 17, 2005, 02:37 PM

there is no Drake pet in the game... u prolly just saw a Hearty Dune Lizard...

Brutaniu Mason

Nov 19, 2005, 03:05 PM

Alright thanks, probably right. Does anyone know if a Strider pet gets much bigger than a Moa bird, or are they around the same size. I kind of want a really BIG Hearty pet for kicks and giggles when I'm bored. I think a really huge bird would be hilarious following me around. Not that I could get a Strider anymore (only in pre-searing), but I may not do it if Strider's get a lot bigger. The biggest pet I'd assume would be a lvl 20 Hearty Black Bear? Can anyone show me exactly how big these guys get with a screen or in-game to show?

Also are we sure about this being the best way to make a Hearty pet? (capped Moa bird at lvl 3) And then let it die, 0 pts into BM, and run around getting exp? Does the dead pet have to be in a certain range to keep getting exp or what. I heard they'll even get experience from mission completions and such. I already completed my missions/bonuses so I'm assuming they can't get that even if they could, but it'd be nice to know for future reference. Thanks in advance for handling my questions, this thread alone has already taught me a ton.

Jenosavel

Nov 19, 2005, 11:55 PM

First, there appears to be absolutely no difference between a Strider and a Moa Bird. When you level a Strider to level 3, its default names changes to Moa Bird.

While I don't know the range on dead pets getting experience (though to be safe, I'd keep comfort animal along and let it catch up to you periodically), I'm pretty certain that they only gain experience from combat. Thus, they won't gain experience from mission/quest completions.

Shifty Geezer

Nov 22, 2005, 11:21 AM

Have they changed pet growth? When I had my Necro/Ranger with her Stalker, it grew whenever it levelled. I've now got a lvl 20 Ele/Ranger having changed profession and grabbed a Dune Lizard. At level 15 lizard I went back to the dunes and it was no bigger. I then got rid of that and grabbed a Moa, and it doesn't appear to be getting larger.

I've also tried to get it Playful. I want a big pet. At level 11 (farming experience by soloing outisde Ventari's Refuge) with 0 Beast Mastery skill and nothing but the occassional ressurrection it was just a Moa with no Playful prefix. I typed in /petname to reset that just in case and it became an Aggressive Moa!

Ronin NihiL

Nov 22, 2005, 12:34 PM

Is there any spell or something that increses your attack or strenght (primary Ranger) when your animal companion dies ? One friend told me that there is .... ?
so ... what's that?

shifteleven

Nov 22, 2005, 12:52 PM

Is there any spell or something that increses your attack or strenght (primary Ranger) when your animal companion dies ? One friend told me that there is .... ?
so ... what's that?

"I Will Avenge You!" is a Warrior shout that gives you a hefty chunk of regen, +33% attack speed, and 10 seconds duration per dead ally nearby (which includes dead pets). I'm sure your friend was referring to this spell.

Ronin NihiL

Nov 22, 2005, 02:44 PM

nope ... he told me about ranger skill ... he said that he heard it from one guy who is in OnLY-Ranger guild ...
but maybe we heard it all wrong :)
10X anyway :)

Ronin NihiL

Nov 26, 2005, 12:30 PM

and what does that IWAY means ?

Shen Xi

Nov 26, 2005, 12:37 PM

and what does that IWAY means ?

for god's sake man, look two posts above you >.<

Align

Nov 26, 2005, 02:37 PM

I wouldn't trust a guy who spells "thanks" with two numbers and a letter to actually read...
Dammit, I wish there was some way to keep a pet attacking while you stay away without attacking.

Sum1

Nov 26, 2005, 03:44 PM

Ultimate Pet Guide - V2.0

-- :: BEASTMASTERY :: --

At 0 BeastMastery (BM), your pet does 35% damage and at 12 BM it does 100% damage. Weapon masteries after 12 have diminished power increases. It's really just not worth the trouble, the expense and the drain on your HP to go up to 16 on weapon mastery attributes. BeastMastery seems to follow the pattern, so you should be good at 12 BM, unless you want to crank the most out of your pet heals and attack skills.

Attribute Level --------- Pet Damage Increase

0 --------- 35.60%
1 --------- 38.60%
2 --------- 42.00%
3 --------- 45.90%
4 --------- 50.00%
5 --------- 54.50%
6 --------- 59.50%
7 --------- 64.80%
8 --------- 70.70%
9 --------- 77.10%
10 -------- 84.10%
11 -------- 91.70%
12 -------- 100.00%
13 -------- 104.00%
14 -------- 107.00%
15 -------- 109.00%
16 -------- 110.00%

*Pet damage is tied to your level of Beast Mastery. The higher your attribute level is the greater damage your pet does.*

Base Damage:

Level 5 Pet = In Testing
Level 10 Pet = In Testing
Level 15 Pet = In Testing
Level 20 Pet = In Testing

All pets have the same base damage

Armor Levels:

Level 1 Pet = AL 4
Level 2 Pet = AL 8
Level 3 Pet = AL 12
Level 4 Pet = AL 16
Level 5 Pet = AL 20
Level 6 Pet = AL 24
Level 7 Pet = AL 28
Level 8 Pet = AL 32
Level 9 Pet = AL 36
Level 10 Pet = AL 40
Level 11 Pet = AL 44
Level 12 Pet = AL 48
Level 13 Pet = AL 52
Level 14 Pet = AL 56
Level 15 Pet = AL 60
Level 16 Pet = AL 64
Level 17 Pet = AL 68
Level 18 Pet = AL 72
Level 19 Pet = AL 76
Level 20 Pet = AL 80

All pets have the same AL and Health

-- :: Inherit Names :: --

Inherit Names and what they do are still widely debated. There are many theories on what each evolution gives. This seems to be the common theory.

Aggressive --> Dire or Elder
Playful --> Hearty or Elder

Aggressive = +1 Damage / -30 Health
Dire = +2 Damage / -60 Health

Playful = -1 Damage / +30 Health
Hearty = -2 Damage / +60 Health

Elder = +/- 0 Damage / +/- 0 Health

Evolutions

Pets will evolve into either the Aggressive or Playful evolution at level 11. They will then proceed to evolve into either the Dire, Hearty or Elder evolution at level 15.

Playful --> Hearty

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should have 0 points into BeastMastery. Just equip Charm Animal and let your pet tag along while you level it with whatever build you are using. Even while your pet is dead, it will still be gaining experience points. A Hearty pet is much larger then an Elder or Dire.

Aggressive --> Dire

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should be focusing on BeastMastery. Put atleast 9 points into BM and equip your skill bar with BM skills. Your pet should be doing most of the damage and killing and try not to let your pet die too often.

Playful --> Elder or Aggressive --> Elder

To make your pet follow this evolution path, you should play one style until your pet evolves at level 11 and then play the other style until it evolves at level 15.

-- :: Misc :: --

- To change your pets name, type in : /namepet <insertnamehere>
- To reset your pets name, type in : /namepet
- Pets do not receive a Death Penalty when they die
- Jarrel the Tamer is located just outside of Old Ascalon, if you wish to tame another pet and already have one, you may sell your current pet to him. Once you sell your pet, you will not be able to get it back.

---------------------------------

If I have made any mistakes, please let me know. Thx :)

---------------------------------

-- :: Credits :: --

I'd like to thank the following for sharing their knowledge on pets and for doing tests to make sure the information we have is accurate.

- Dragon Incarnate
- Jenosavel
- Epinephrine
- shifteleven
very small thing (it bothers me) you dont sell your pet to Jarrel- you give it to him-if he did buy them though it would be a new way to farm (pointless unless its over 150g):eek:

Align

Nov 26, 2005, 04:30 PM

If it's "exotic" you get some money for your pet.

Commander Fox

Nov 26, 2005, 04:46 PM

What does he consider exotic, and how much money does he give you?

Jenosavel

Nov 26, 2005, 05:48 PM

From my experiences, I got 100 gold any time I gave him a level 20 pet, and no gold for anything with fewer levels than that. ...which means it is very not worth it from a farming perspective.

Commander Fox

Nov 26, 2005, 06:58 PM

I see.
Ill, go make some checks try to get a pet from about averywhere see what he gives me

Valerius

Nov 26, 2005, 10:02 PM

yeah srry about that... the only times i've ever given up a pet was when it was already lvl 20 so i just assumed...

i'll edit the original post...

Maxiemonster

Nov 27, 2005, 12:10 AM

Nice tip for rangers that want to use a pet:
If you're still in Pre-Searing and if you want a high lvl pet early on, let yourself be followed by several Wolfs and walk to a nearby respawn spot, eventually they'll lvl, if they're the desired lvl, charm them, and you have a nice high lvl pet early on, very handy for Rangers!

Align

Nov 27, 2005, 02:01 PM

Help! I've been levelling my wolf in the desert, nothing but pet skills in the bar(except Essence Bond), yet it's still Aggressive (at L20) rather than Dire :/

Dralspire

Nov 27, 2005, 03:14 PM

In a nutshell, you are screwed. Go level to 15 outsides Gates of Kryta (the area is called Scoundrel's Rise) killing Mergoyles with the same approach (beast mastery 12, your other weapon attribute at 0). If you see Zombies outsides Gates of Kryta, go turn in the letter before you work with your pet. Do not fight Bog Scales.

purecash123

Nov 27, 2005, 04:26 PM

Well based on reading how to make my pet Elder status, I failed.
I did what was noted, lvl'ed him up to lvl 11 by putting my BM at 12, bringing lots of BM skills and let him kill all the minotaurs outside ice tooth cave. He became aggressive. Then, I set BM at 0 and only brought charm animal. I went and farmed hydras all day till lvl 15. Why is my pet dire??

Dralspire

Nov 27, 2005, 04:46 PM

[I know this is really hard to believe, but I tried to be brief.] :)

This post is the result of a couple of weeks of me exclusively working with bears (yay bears), and the method has been tried and tested with four different primary professions for a total of 7 characters that I definitely know of. So if you want an elder pet, this is the way to do it in one run:

(1) If you have a pet, go to post-searing Ascalon City. Equip the spell Charm Animal and leave the city for Old Ascalon. Type "/petname" in Guild Wars chat and hit return. A message confirming the reset of your petname will be displayed in the chat window. Meet Jarrel the Tamer on the right side and turn in your pet.

(2) Go and charm the pet of your desire. Click here for a list of available pets and details on where to find them (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67761#post566079). Please do not give it a name yet, and return to the guild hall immediately after charming the pet. The pet should not have any combat exposure at this point. Ideally, go without henchmen.

(3) In the guild hall, remove the spell Charm Animal from your skill bar. Go and visit the town Thirsty River in the desert.

(4) Leave Thirsty River for The Scar and kill Dune Burrowers until you have five Dune Burrower jaws.

(5) Visit Sir Pohl Sanbert (please refer to this post (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=167465&postcount=184)) and exchange the five Dune Burrower jaws for the Ascalon bow that he offers. Return to Ascalon City and visit the weaponsmith Sedgwick. Customize your Ascalon bow for 10 gold.

Regardless of whether Ranger is your primary or secondary profession, you will need the following spells:

Minimum requirements:
Beast Mastery - Feral Lunge, Call of Protection
Marksmanship - Hunter Shot

Ideally available spells:
Beast Mastery - Feral Lunge, Call of Protection, Call of Haste, Ferocious Strike (elite)
Marksmanship - Hunter Shot, Penetrating Attack, Power Shot, Precision Shot, Barrage (elite)

Before you run of buying spells, be smart about it. A warrior will only be able to use the minimum requirements because of the low energy and low energy regeneration. Classes with more energy can have more spells available, but will be fine with the specified minimum. In case of doubt, ask.

(6) Go acquire the spells that you need. To that end, first check your quest log for quests that give the spells for free. If that is not an option, you may always buy all spells in Ember Light Camp.

(7) Travel to the outpost Gates of Kryta north of Lion's Arch. Equip the Acalon bow that you obtained from Sir Pohl Sanbert. Assign the following attributes to your character: 12 beast mastery, 3 marksmanship. It is essential that you do not alter these values. Equip Charm Animal, only your beast mastery spells (no marksmanship spells), and if you need Troll Unguent (assign any remaining attribute points to Wilderness Survival in that case).

(8) Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise.

Please note: All pet training is done alone and without henchmen.

When you look for enemies in Scoundrel's Rise, you see groups of Mergoyle Wavebreakers.

NOTE: If you see anything else, especially Zombies, return to Gates of Kryta, remove Charm Animal from your skillbar, take henchies, and venture through Scoundrel's Rise to deliver a letter. If you need more details, ask me.

During this first stage of your pet evolution, your pet is doing most of the damage. You are doing some minor damage with your bow. Keep call of protection running at all times. It lasts about 2 minutes each, just remember to recast once it runs out. Press C-Space to target and attack the closest enemy, then at least keep casting Feral Lunge as often as possible. If you have other beast mastery spells, cast those whenever your energy allows you to do that after casting the two spells from the minor requirements detailed above. C-Space a new target after killing a target, and rest up in between groups if possible.

You want to avoid your pet dieing. If a situation occurs that it gets tricky, hit G and press the Guild Hall button to leave the area. Return and continue as described.

You progress along a narrow walkway, killing 3 or 4 groups of Mergoyles in the process.

Once the walkway opens up into the beach, you may fight 2 or 3 more groups of Mergoyles.

Avoid Bog Scales at all cost. In case of doubt, map-travel back to Gates of Kryta and start again.

As you fight these groups of Mergoyles with the beast mastery spells, your pet will gain levels (check your party window).

(9) When your pet hits level 11, return to Gates of Kryta by means of map travel. Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise. The name of your pet in the party window will read "Aggressive XXX" (with XXX being the type of pet you chose).

This completes stage 1 of your pet training.

If this is not the case, we need to talk and correct something you did.

(10) The second stage: Return to Gates of Kryta by means of map travel. Assign the attributes 0 beast mastery and 12 marksmanship. Remove all beast mastery spells except Charm Animal from your skill bar. Place your marksmanship spells in your skill bar.

(11) Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise. Attack the Mergoyles with your bow and cast the marksmanship spell Hunter Shot as often as possible. Cast any other Marksmanship spells detailed above as often as possible after that.

Again, do not fight Bog Scales. Rather leave to the guild hall or map-travel back to Gates of Kryta.

As you fight the Mergoyles, your pet will gain levels.

(12) When your pet hits level 15, return to Gates of Kryta by means of map travel. Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise. The name of your pet in the party window will read "Elder XXX" (with XXX being the type of pet you chose). Congratulations.

(13) Third stage: Map-travel to Camp Rankor, take a group of henchies, and go kill enemies north until your pet reaches level 20. Once your pet has become a level 15 elder, it cannot evolve into any other type. As such, you may use any weapons/attribute combinations that you like.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I am more than happy to share my experience.

Last but not least ... my bears ... :D

http://img433.imageshack.us/img433/7628/elders1hx.th.jpg (http://img433.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elders1hx.jpg)

Credits: My results would not have been possible without studying numerous beast mastery threads with hundreds and hundreds of replies. While I can't name every single contributor, this is really a group achievement.

purecash123

Nov 27, 2005, 06:36 PM

First of all,Thx for posting this clearly and for all the work that was put into this.
Ok, I just have some things that I need to share from reading your post...
I'm trying get an Elder bear ("yay bears" :D ) with my warrior. I see in many of step you require for one to travel to the guild hall.
return to the guild hall immediately after charming the pet. The pet should not have any combat exposure at this point. Ideally, go without henchmen.
Are you saying to gvg with it or just dont't bring hench while taming one?
NOTE: If you see anything else, especially Zombies, return to Gates of Kryta, remove Charm Animal from your skillbar, take henchies, and venture through Scoundrel's Rise to deliver a letter. If you need more details, ask me.
Well, my warrior has all quests complete other than the new ones( FA, Defend x Outpost) so I shouldn't encounter a problem there.

Btw, getting those required skills with the required attributes, training in Scoundrel's Rise with wavebreakers, getting the collector's long bow, does this sequence trigger the pet's evolution stages? Just curious.

I'm gonna test this out tomorrow. Bears ftw! :cool:

Dralspire

Nov 27, 2005, 07:22 PM

Are you saying to gvg with it or just dont't bring hench while taming one?This comment does not relate to GvG or the henchmen. First of all, all charming/training should be done alone and without henchmen. When I say go back to the guild hall, what I really mean is this: Returning to the guild hall is the quickest way to leave a given situation. All you do is press G, hit the Guild Hall button, and you are out. It's faster than map travel. The reason for me saying that is that you are looking to control the environment your bear faces when training. In so many words, you want to make sure whom your bear fights while training, how much damage he takes, and you want to keep him from dieing. So throughout the entire training, if his health gets too low, rather than letting him die, and rather than healing him with Comfort Animal, you return to the guild hall (if possible, don't get excited if he dies once, this has not actually affected the outcome - no guarantees with 100 deaths though :D ). This is also why you don't take henchmen, you don't want them fighting or killing your bear during charming.

Btw, getting those required skills with the required attributes, training in Scoundrel's Rise with wavebreakers, getting the collector's long bow, does this sequence trigger the pet's evolution stages?There are a couple questions in there. First of all, you need some marksmanship skills and some beast mastery skills. I recommended the low energy ones because they work fine regardless of your character's energy level.

The attributes are essential. If you read about training pets, you are aware of the sliding scale concept. Your pet either moves in the direction of extra damage/lower health or in the direction of extra health/lower damage. Elder pets obviously sit in the center of that scale.

A lot of discussion has focused on doing a 50%/50% development, assuming that you have to move "the slide" back to the center. I don't believe that. I actually think that reaching elder status requires a pet to taste both sides, so rather than just getting back to the center, you have to exceed the second stage of the training to obtain your elder pet. This is why the attribute ratios for stage 1 and stage 2 differ.

Limiting your training field to wavebreakers has two advantages. (1) You face only one type of enemy in single (or funky aggros of two) groups of three. (2) Mergoyles have such a level that your pet can easily kill the three Mergoyles without dieing and without needing healing. This is also true for your character in Droknar armor.

The collector bow is recommended for two reasons. (1) Its damage output is reasonably close to your pet. I hope you don't mind if I get into all the specifics, but as the entire formula used for deriving the attribute ratios depends on the damage output ratio of the pet (fixed) and the bow, changing the bow affects the outcome of the training. I'm sorry to say that I haven't tested the range of valid bow parameters that create a successful outcome, so that is why I recommend the bow.

Additional food for thought on the bow: The discussion threads on beast mastery have always assumed that the received damage / deaths of your pet during training affect its evolution. Personally, I think this is an unfounded analysis, but if it were to turn out a vital aspect, it certainly helps to keep as many variables constant as possible.

I hope this provides some answers rather than create more confusion ... :) ... good questions though, just keep them coming.

purecash123

Nov 27, 2005, 07:38 PM

I hope this provides some answers rather than create more confusion ...:) ... good questions though, just keep them coming.
I think I'm set for now, I was just curious on getting that exact bow for the build and the exact skills for the evolution stages to occur properly. I could get the collector's shortbow for faster dmg thou...
Thx for all your help.
Let me get started on this right now ;)

Dralspire

Nov 27, 2005, 08:30 PM

Be careful about that shortbow idea. Of course it may work. However, remember that a longbow has a rate of fire that is 20% slower than a shortbow. As such, increasing your rate of fire may affect the outcome of your pet training in a manner that you might not like.

Longasc

Nov 28, 2005, 12:59 AM

I think there is a certain fixation on Scoundrels Rise.

Why always Scoundrel's Rise. Only use it if you want to get an aggressive/dire pet.

If you want to level up for Elder or - in my case - Hearty, try farming the Gates of Kryta mission. TOink as tank and level your pet at the large undead spawn there (Barrage and Judge's Insight work very well there)

Heal your pet with BM set to 8-10 a few times in the beginning - this counts as "healing".

Then use Oink, go down the path where tons of undead spawn.

Barrage-Spam them to dead. Use a Scroll of Hunter's Insight - you will get more than 300, so it pays off.

Then finish all the undead... You will level even faster than with Mergoyles and you can even get lower runes and some mediocre drops or if you are lucky a max damage dead bow.

Your pet will level up like crazy. 2x levelup in a single run, if you only do the very first part of the farming spot in the Gates of Kryta mission.

Longasc

Nov 28, 2005, 01:04 AM

The thing is, I got hearty pets with 10 Beast Mastery.

I just used Comfort Animal a lot BEFORE fighting and simply let it die. So you can make sure that your pet got

- a lot of healing (it counts, even if it was already at 100% health)
- did next to no damage compared to you (Barrage the Undead with Judge's and you see what real damage is, hehe)

Zero BM has the right thought behind it, the pet does little damage. But they do anyways, while having high BM actually enables you to HEAL your pet a lot. Then outdamage it by far, voila -> playful, hearty path.

Getting an aggressive/dire pet is tricker: Then you must stand back and let your pet fight and dish out more damage than you.

If it gets a lot of healing is NOT so important as the fact that it must do the bulk of the damage.

I trained a pet in Elona (Minotaurs) once, and had a monk protect and heal the poor Level 10 Stalker, and guess what, in spite of getting tons of healing, it did more damage than either of us and went aggressive.

BBoy_Manchild

Nov 28, 2005, 01:44 AM

i did some testing with pet damage and it seems whoever said elder has +3 damage is lying, dire does more damage then elder

FFF_WarRaven

Nov 28, 2005, 02:24 AM

What about spiders? I have seen ss of people with large spiders, i myself just aquired a "hearty-blackwidow", i have heard different stories about the uw spiders, such as only 1 person can get a spider per run no matter how many quests are done, or if you finishe all the quests from each grenth there's a spider at each one, and each one is different.

My spider right now when i captured it was already a lvl 20, i had just changed to a ranger secondary, and bought no skills.

Anything on this?Just wondering if the spiders get larger or not, cause it's already a lvl 20.

:::End Transmission:::

Dralspire

Nov 28, 2005, 02:38 AM

... Anything on this? ... Not really. As you said yourself, the spider in the underworld spawns at level 20, so there is no actual need for training your pet. It arbitrarily spawns as dire/elder/hearty, and it's basically a take-it-or-leave-it pet. If you don't like the type that spawned, you have to try for another spawn. :)

As you restore the individual monuments, each ghost gives you a quest (e.g. defend the good villagers, ice king etc.). A box spawns upon completion of the respective quest, and a spider pops out upon opening each of those boxes. For obvious reasons, most spider groups only aim for the village.

http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/4927/eeno3qj.th.jpg (http://img470.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eeno3qj.jpg)

FFF_WarRaven

Nov 28, 2005, 02:41 AM

ahh ok gotcha..makes sence.Thanks.

:::End Transmission:::

Barazur

Nov 28, 2005, 07:26 AM

Not really. As you said yourself, the spider in the underworld spawns at level 20, so there is no actual need for training your pet. It arbitrarily spawns as dire/elder/hearty, and it's basically a take-it-or-leave-it pet. If you don't like the type that spawned, you have to try for another spawn. :)

Question: If u changed your pet name and you reset it can u see which type of spider pet you got? For istance, i dont remember which was mine :cool:

Align

Nov 28, 2005, 07:56 AM

Yes.
This post is too short.

coolporsche911

Nov 28, 2005, 05:06 PM

when is post searing? well actually...what is searing?is it a mission or something?can someone tell me because i want to find a lizard and i can only find one post-searing.

DurinVIII

Nov 28, 2005, 05:51 PM

I have a lvl16 Hearty Stalker now, it became a playful at lvl 10 without using skills and points in BM. Then I started using skills and putting points in BM. It then became Hearty at lvl 15. If I understood the guide right, it won't evolve when it reaches lvl20, so there's no chance that I can make it a Elder?

Dralspire

Nov 28, 2005, 06:01 PM

when is post searing? well actually...what is searing? ...Considering the amount of time you have spent in the game so far, I recommend playing the game until your character reaches approximately level 15. At that point, many of your questions will have answered themselves.

... so there's no chance that I can make it a Elder?That is correct, there is no chance your pet will turn from a hearty into an elder pet.

DurinVIII

Nov 28, 2005, 06:09 PM

Well then...no more spending points in BM:p

Dralspire

Nov 28, 2005, 06:19 PM

Well then...no more spending points in BM:pChin up, DurinVIII, I spent approx. 65 hours in the game just training numerous bears into hearty/dire bears until I managed to get my first elder bear. :D

purecash123

Nov 28, 2005, 07:31 PM

Again...... I ....failed :(
Hmmm...what could have I done wrong...
BM at 12 and marks at 3 = aggressive bear
BM at 0 and marks at 12 = dire bear

He didn't die once. I did most of the dmg in the 2nd stage. The only things that I think I might have altered is my warr runes with 1 in str, 1 in tactics. Also, I used the leftover pts to add 12 in wilderness for troll unguent in both stages. Oh, how bout the bog scales, you said to avoid them, why? Did you state that because it can kill my pet easily or can that be something that alters the result?

Jenosavel

Nov 28, 2005, 08:04 PM

If your pet never died during either stage, that is most likely your problem. If I'm not mistaken, you should expect the pet to take heavy damage and thus possibly die in the second stage. This can become a problem for warriors, as rushing in first (as comes naturally when wielding a melee weapon) will usually cause enemies to target you instead of your pet. The pet needs to take a beating during the second stage or you won't be able to swing it back across the center. Try equipping a bow and using it to send your pet in ahead of you. Then switch to your weapon of choice and clean up while your pet gets thrashed.

Also, during the second stage if the pet dies don't be afraid to let it gain experience while dead. There can be quite a bit of distance between you and your dead pet and it will still gain experience; however, I do believe there is a limit on it. What that might be, I haven't yet taken the time to test.

From my experiences, the bog scales are best avoided because they create variables which aren't easily controlled. The indirect damage from their hexes can cause havoc with the first stage, where you want to limit the amount of damage your pet is taking.

FFF_WarRaven

Nov 28, 2005, 08:15 PM

As you restore the individual monuments, each ghost gives you a quest (e.g. defend the good villagers, ice king etc.). A box spawns upon completion of the respective quest, and a spider pops out upon opening each of those boxes. For obvious reasons, most spider groups only aim for the village.

http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/4927/eeno3qj.th.jpg (http://img470.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eeno3qj.jpg)

So am i to assume that there are spiders of a larger size deeper into the uw quests?

For some reason i could have sworn i seen someone with a spider that looked similar to thoses armored ones in fow, but it could have been a photochop, or i could be just confused.

My current spider is kind neat tho, if i catch someone from behind he jumps on their back and bite their neck lol.

Also, and i only ask this because sooo many people say different things, and i donot know what to believe, tho i know my hearty black widow doesn't, yet i have seen a few things that make me wonder; Do spiders use poison? I have yet to see my pet acctually poison anything, but i have seen a few times a sort of poisonious gas circle around him for a quick second, and yes im sure it wasn't a spell or skill from an enemy, believe me i looked close lol. Then again maybe my want for a large poisonious spider is over powering my visual perception lol.

:::End Transmission:::

purecash123

Nov 28, 2005, 08:16 PM

Also, during the second stage if the pet dies don't be afraid to let it gain experience while dead. There can be quite a bit of distance between you and your dead pet and it will still gain experience; however, I do believe there is a limit on it. What that might be, I haven't yet taken the time to test.

I strongly believe range doesn't matter as in my first run to get an elder bear, i farmed hydras outside Augury Rock and he wasn't in range most of the time. However, in order for the pet to receive full experience after you leave its range, just return to the range. My bear was at lvl 14, killed hydras near The Scar, went back to its range, lvl 16 instant lvl up while dead :D

Epinephrine

Nov 28, 2005, 08:29 PM

Do spiders use poison?
No

I have yet to see my pet acctually poison anything, but i have seen a few times a sort of poisonious gas circle around him for a quick second, and yes im sure it wasn't a spell or skill from an enemy, believe me i looked close lol.

Activating pet attacks (skills) makes a green (ranger color) glow around them sometimes.

Then again maybe my want for a large poisonious spider is over powering my visual perception lol.

:::End Transmission:::

I suspect that's it :)

Mercenary662

Nov 28, 2005, 09:52 PM

when is post searing? well actually...what is searing?is it a mission or something?can someone tell me because i want to find a lizard and i can only find one post-searing.

searing is the term i guess, for when ascalon is attacked by the charr, they summon meteors upon ascalon and destroys most of it. You can get a lizard in the desert, you should be around level 15-20 when u get there, GL.

BBoy_Manchild

Nov 29, 2005, 12:01 AM

Chin up, DurinVIII, I spent approx. 65 hours in the game just training numerous bears into hearty/dire bears until I managed to get my first elder bear. :D
i got elder bear my first try... which made me mad cause i wanted hearty

Makkert

Nov 29, 2005, 01:20 AM

i got elder bear my first try... which made me mad cause i wanted hearty

linky for advise (http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/sounds/daf/try_again.mp3)

purecash123

Nov 29, 2005, 08:58 PM

Well, with an unorthodox method, I trained an elder bear w00t! :)
Here's what I did in a brief manner

Carry charm animal and tame a pet of your choice.
Travel to Ice Tooth Cave. Bring at least these BM skills and attributes, being: BM at 12, wilderness at 12
Train your pet against minotaurs. Let him kill do the dmg while you protect him with BM skills. Remember to watch your pet's hp and avoid his death.
When pet reaches lvl 11, it should be "Aggressive" when you reset name.
Now travel to Ventari's Refuge. This is the skill set I used but the only thing required is charm animal & comfort animal with a BM at 0 : Penetrating Blow, Eviscerate, Excutioner's Strike, Sprint, Frenzy, Flurry, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal.
This time, purposely call a target so your pet can attack it. Let it die. Now as an axe warr, take down your foes while avoiding your own death. Then, rez the pet. Remember to take breaks to regen heatlh as I didn't being any healing skills. Also, remember to use comfort animal to heal, too. Somebody in this post said healing promotes the playful stage so I think this is what triggered the elder status.
When pet reaches lvl 15, it should be "Elder" when you reset name.
Rejoice :D

Now, you should just be able to bring him along in full party hench groups till lvl 20.
Anything that doesn't sound real clear plz inform me and I'll rephrase it.
Thx to Dralspire for the inspiration
yay bears :D

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6223/gw2802ao.png

Dralspire

Nov 29, 2005, 09:08 PM

http://www.smileyworld.com/dictionary/images/smileys/MoodExpressions/congratulate.gif Yay, purecash, congratulations ... http://www.smileyworld.com/dictionary/images/smileys/MoodHands/party.gif

Myth

Dec 01, 2005, 12:07 AM

Does the pet continue to grow in size after it reaches lvl 20?
If not, how do you make your pet grown in size? I have a lvl 20 bear that is a little bigger than the norm, but i was wondering if there is anything you can do to make them grow faster in shorter periods of time ect.

Peewee

Dec 01, 2005, 10:20 AM

i have a lvl 20 dire black widow spider. i wanted an elder spider becuase of the added boost in health and attack. will my current spider ever take the leap to elder, or will i have to ditch it and go back down UW if i want an elder, which is basically nightmare situacion ( i got lucky, went with a trapper team, persuaded them to do the quests, and then they all forgot to bring the charm animal skill)

Valerius

Dec 01, 2005, 10:46 AM

i wanted an elder spider becuase of the added boost in health and attack.
- while Elders have more HP then Dires... Dires do more Dmg

will my current spider ever take the leap to elder
- nope... Dire/Hearty/Elder is the final evolution

will i have to ditch it and go back down UW if i want an elder
- yep... srry man...

CKaz

Dec 01, 2005, 11:47 AM

I'm getting re-caught up with the updates, good good stuff..
But as I understand it now we've backed away from Black Spider = more dps?

Is this attributed to a patch, out of whack due to possibly damage type involved (piercing tested vs another type)..?

Just wondering, was guessing for the best option I'd head out to UW, but reading this I might just make the most aesthetically pleasing one to me :)

edit - so to summarize the prefix stuff:
Getting a pet at level 11+, Aggressive vs Playful has been determined
Getting a pet at level 15+, Dire/Elder/Hearty has been determined

thus if I have it right, just like Black Spiders, Dune Lizards are decided for you (lvl15)

thanks
CKaz

Dralspire

Dec 01, 2005, 12:05 PM

... now we've backed away from Black Spider = more dps? Is this attributed to a patch, out of whack due to possibly damage type involved (piercing tested vs another type)..? ...

edit - so to summarize the prefix stuff:
Getting a pet at level 11+, Aggressive vs Playful has been determined
Getting a pet at level 15+, Dire/Elder/Hearty has been determined

thus if I have it right, just like Black Spiders, Dune Lizards are decided for you (lvl15) ...Regarding the damage, we backed away from the concept of the spider being stronger because the display of the damage values made a more thorough analysis possible.

Prefixes: Your pet will evolve twice, once from pet to playful/aggressive pet (between level 10 - 15) and one more time from playful/aggressive pet to dire/elder/hearty pet (between level 15 - supposedly all the way to 19/20). Once the pet reaches the end evolution dire/elder/hearty, it will no longer evolve.

As such, the only pets that are decided for you are the ones with the final dire/elder/hearty prefixes, i.e. (1) the underworld spiders and (2) the level 15 elder wolves south of The Granite Citadel.

FFF_WarRaven

Dec 01, 2005, 01:14 PM

Regarding spiders, and poison, some people have mention they do and some mention they don't, me and another guildie have both gotten the first hearty uw black widows. So we went out to test, now we know the spiders do not poison BUT, we have seen the poison mist effect travel around the spiders body and even trail behind him, were guess the spider "lengths poison duration on foe". While it does make sence we haven't tested enough to know for sure, but it seems likely. Unless the misty poison effect is due to a certain skill, tho all we have been using is feral lunge and call of haste and predators pounce.

Does this make sence to any one else, any other observations?

Edit: Just read this:

Activating pet attacks (skills) makes a green (ranger color) glow around them sometimes.

I myself have only seen this with the spider, haven't seen this with a bear, wolf, or a lizard.

Dunno i'm still unsure...this is the type of stuff that upsets me, the devs haven't given much in the way of explaining these types of things, seems sort of a copout to having to print more than they want lol, then again it's cool to discover a lot of this for ourselves, still it would be nice to have some explainations, because in the end you can only assume so much, and even with extensive testing, can we ever truly be sure of what we see? especially with all the constant changes, incuding some they don't ever mention or post about.

:::End Transmission:::

Darksun

Dec 01, 2005, 02:27 PM

it's true.. Feral Lunge makes green particles (gas? maybe he farts?) when you activate it.. My Cat & Lizard both do this..

jibikao

Dec 01, 2005, 04:20 PM

There are no differences. UNLESS, the reciever got a mod on his/her equip that defend against one of them (example: necro armor-> piercing armor), while some monsters in PvE are naturally built to be weaker against some dmg (example: [not verified] skeleton recieve more damage from blunt, and less from pierce)

This has been verified? So Shield Up and Necro's Armor can indeed reduce Moa Bird's damage since it's piercing?? Oh, that sucks!!! I love Moa Bird! lol

So, of all the pets, isn't Warthog the best since it does "blunt" damage? I mean has that been tested?

One last question. Spider is NOT superior than other pets right? I believe all pets are the same except for damage type and evolution.

ancient_chozo

Dec 02, 2005, 03:43 AM

*The Moa Bird will evolve into a Strider at level 3*

I just started a new PvE ranger and charmed a strider in pre-searing Ascalon. I quested for a little while, then I noticed that I no longer had a strider; it had become a moa bird. I don't know at what level this occured, but I guess the evolution in the above quote can also go the opposite way (so maybe it's also at level 3).

Jenosavel

Dec 02, 2005, 07:59 AM

Erm, Chozo you're right. I don't know where Valerius got that from, since you can't tame a Moa Bird except at level 3... How would it evolve into something else at level 3 if it's already at level 3? I suspect that was a typo, and he just switched around what he was meaning to say.

Edit: @ WarRaven The spider does not poison enemies, this I can attest to. All pets, with the exception of the warthog (to my great annoyance), will get a green aura around them directly after using a pet attack. The pattern of the aura is different for each attack. Such as an upward spiral around the pet for Feral Lunge, but a pale disc on the ground with a square of sparkles for Ferocious strike (or was that Predator's Pounce? I always get those two confused, can never remember which one's sparkles make a square and which make a hexagon).

If indeed you are seeing the poison aura around your pet, it means your pet was poisoned, not that it poisoned someone else. The condition auras only appear around someone who was just afflicted with that condition, and only for the first second or two. If enemies don't get a poison aura when they poison you, and you don't get a poison aura when you poison them, why do people continue to believe that if they see a poison aura around a spider, it means the spider is poisoning someone?

Valerius

Dec 02, 2005, 10:13 AM

yeah srry bout' that... typo :(

updated :D

CKaz

Dec 02, 2005, 10:23 AM

Regarding the damage, we backed away from the concept of the spider being stronger because the display of the damage values made a more thorough analysis possible.

Prefixes: Your pet will evolve twice, once from pet to playful/aggressive pet (between level 10 - 15) and one more time from playful/aggressive pet to dire/elder/hearty pet (between level 15 - supposedly all the way to 19/20). Once the pet reaches the end evolution dire/elder/hearty, it will no longer evolve.

As such, the only pets that are decided for you are the ones with the final dire/elder/hearty prefixes, i.e. (1) the underworld spiders and (2) the level 15 elder wolves south of The Granite Citadel.

Ah ok, so it's since been confirmed spiders do the same damage as anything else, well more importanly, same DPS? Any variance in attack speeds?

For prefixes I think I got off-track as the guide seemed to mention set levels, so you're saying pets 'out in the field, un-set' follow what you suggest above? From the guide-
Evolutions
Pets will evolve into either the Aggressive or Playful evolution at level 11. They will then proceed to evolve into either the Dire, Hearty or Elder evolution at level 15.

So it sounds like if I grabbed a level 15 lizard, from what you're saying I'd get to playful/aggressive before it reached level 16, and then could evolve any time again after than until 20? Just want to make sure I have you right.

thanks!
CKaz

Dralspire

Dec 02, 2005, 11:13 AM

So it sounds like if I grabbed a level 15 lizard, from what you're saying I'd get to playful/aggressive before it reached level 16, and then could evolve any time again after than until 20?To be honest, I am not aware of a level 15 lizard being available for charming at all. At least I am sure that I have never seen one. If the pet is level 15 (or level 20 in case of the underworld spider), it should have its final prefix (dire/elder/hearty) even before charming. Here is the elder wolf south of The Granite Citadel before charming:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6482/wolf30vk.th.jpg (http://img341.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wolf30vk.jpg)

So to answer your question, I simply don't know. :D

Epinephrine

Dec 02, 2005, 11:19 AM

Pets evolve at 11 and at 15. All pets deal the same damage. To our knowledge, if your pet does not evolve at 11 it will not evolve, period. If it did evolve at 11 it should subsequently evolve at 15. No further evolutions have ever been reliably reported, though some individuals claim that pets have evolved at level 20 from hearty to elder for example - this might be possible but I have yet to observe any such change. The fallacious argument that it must only happen at 11 and 15 because that is what has been observed is known as induction by enumeration and is a non-logical way to come to a conclusion. All examples of pet evolution I have observed (and at this point I have trained up nearly every sort of pet to level 20 a few times) have happened at exactly level 11 and 15, but that doesn't mean it can't happen at other times. Anyone who claims that is guilty either of using non-logical induction or having peeked at source code.

I have experimented with levelling animals prior to them being charmed (this is possible) and they undergo evolutions even without being pets. I have evolved a pet to a dire evolution before charming it - it did not show its evolution before charming it, but when charmed it was a Dire pet. Evolution of animals happens thus even without the pet being tamed. If you did find a level 15 typeless Dune lizard it would not evolve according to everything we know thus far, it would simply remain typeless to level 20.

Jenosavel

Dec 02, 2005, 11:33 AM

Just so people know, this is Feral Lunge, not poison.

ancient_chozo

Dec 02, 2005, 06:10 PM

FFF_WarRaven

Dec 02, 2005, 08:36 PM

yeah i've done a bit more playing around with it, you guys are right thanks for the info.

:::End Transmission:::

Jenosavel

Dec 02, 2005, 10:55 PM

Well, in that case, then, I'd like to add that Striders don't always evolve into Moa Birds at level three. Right now, I have a level 18 Hearty Strider on my N/R.

No, the Strider does evolve to Moa at level 3 regardless. It will, however, turn back into a Strider when it evolves. Thus, the only way to have a level 11+ Moa is to have your pet not evolve.

Level 1 - Strider
Level 3 - Moa Bird
Level 11 - Playful/Aggressive Strider
Level 15 - Hearty/Elder/Dire Strider

They're all the same pet.

Yamat

Dec 03, 2005, 09:47 PM

(10) The second stage: Return to Gates of Kryta by means of map travel. Assign the attributes 0 beast mastery and 12 marksmanship. Remove all beast mastery spells except Charm Animal from your skill bar. Place your marksmanship spells in your skill bar.

(11) Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise. Attack the Mergoyles with your bow and cast the marksmanship spell Hunter Shot as often as possible. Cast any other Marksmanship spells detailed above as often as possible after that.

(12) When your pet hits level 15, return to Gates of Kryta by means of map travel. Leave Gates of Kryta for Scoundrel's Rise. The name of your pet in the party window will read "Elder XXX" (with XXX being the type of pet you chose). Congratulations.

Ok, so I've got mine to L11 Aggressive... does it matter if the pet dies in the second stage to L15? Are you still trying to minimize deaths, or is it all about the fact the pet is doing hardly any damage (while you attemtpt to maximize your own)?

Great thread BTW... Kudos to all those who spent hours testing!

EDIT: ignore me... my pet never even came close to dying... my arrows were doing 120+ dmg per hit. One Elder Warthog FTW!! :)

Agrestis

Dec 04, 2005, 02:47 PM

Hey, anyone know any definate addrenaline gain for ferousios strike?
Oh and the warthog does produce the attack effects(im pretty sure) i'll try and send a screenie of mine doing so.

Jenosavel

Dec 04, 2005, 06:25 PM

the adrenaline gain isn't huge; it work to a strike every 8 second or so, which is the equivalent of 16% gain in adrenaline if you were attacking the whole time at normal rates.

-Pet skills and use of pets V.1 (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73304)

Peewee

Dec 05, 2005, 07:22 AM

[QUOTE=Valerius]- while Elders have more HP then Dires... Dires do more Dmg
...[/QUOTE

according to my sources elders do +3dmg, +90health
playful are -1dmg +30health
hearty are -2dmg +60health
aggresive, or whateve it is (never seen one) +1dmg -30 health
dire +2dmg -60 health

clearly elder trumps elders on both dmg and health. the evolution i think is playful, hearty, elder, or aggresive, dire, elder.

finally, dam!

Epinephrine

Dec 05, 2005, 08:10 AM

- while Elders have more HP then Dires... Dires do more Dmg
...

according to my sources elders do +3dmg, +90health
playful are -1dmg +30health
hearty are -2dmg +60health
aggresive, or whateve it is (never seen one) +1dmg -30 health
dire +2dmg -60 health

clearly elder trumps elders on both dmg and health. the evolution i think is playful, hearty, elder, or aggresive, dire, elder.

finally, dam!

This is all wrong. Your source is wrong. Elder has no bonus to damage and unmodified health. This has been tested a great deal.

CKaz

Dec 05, 2005, 12:57 PM

Evolution of animals happens thus even without the pet being tamed. If you did find a level 15 typeless Dune lizard it would not evolve according to everything we know thus far, it would simply remain typeless to level 20.

That's what I was looking for - so likely every Dune lizard I'd go after would have a type - even its final type. So rather than rearing a Dune Lizard find out what you got and keep heading to the tamer and heading back out until you get the one you do want - thanks!

To be honest, I am not aware of a level 15 lizard being available for charming at all.

Unless I've played one too many hours of GW all Dune Lizards are level 15.

Epinephrine

Dec 05, 2005, 01:39 PM

That's what I was looking for - so likely every Dune lizard I'd go after would have a type - even its final type. So rather than rearing a Dune Lizard find out what you got and keep heading to the tamer and heading back out until you get the one you do want - thanks!

Unless I've played one too many hours of GW all Dune Lizards are level 15.

No, that's not it at all. Firstly, I have never seen a level 15 Dune Lizard in the wild - they are level 5, unless a patch changed that in the past week or so (haven't been to the desert in a few days). So you won't find a level 15 in the wild. You might be able to level one, by dragging hostile enemies over, using Otyugh's Cry, healing it carefully with Heal Area (you can't target them with heals, as they aren't "allies", even under Otyugh's) and eventually it would level up.

Most pets develop a type by the time they hit 11, and then settle into a final type at level 15. You can raise typeless pets, but it doesn't tend to happen with normal play. The "type" is NOT predetermined, it is determined by your playstyle.

Jenosavel

Dec 05, 2005, 03:42 PM

I just tamed/trained a Dune Lizard two days ago, and they were all still sitting at level 5 in the wild then.

jibikao

Dec 05, 2005, 05:04 PM

Hey, anyone know any definate addrenaline gain for ferousios strike?
Oh and the warthog does produce the attack effects(im pretty sure) i'll try and send a screenie of mine doing so.

The adrenline gain from Ferocious Strike is 1 I believe. I've tried a few times and I don't notice any difference with lvl 16 beast mastery, unless they've changed it?

I've been using Elder Warthog for a while now. I don't notice any attack effects. They don't really make noise when they attack, which I dislike. I do enjoy the uniqueness though. hehe

I just trained an Elder Strider. It was actually a Moa Bird but it turned into Strider. I wonder why they created two names for the same pet??

nine6nine

Dec 06, 2005, 12:02 PM

all this evoling sounds like pokemon and thanks now im going to underworld to cap a spider

jibikao

Dec 08, 2005, 11:26 PM

Ok, I was doing pvp and I think Spider does posion now. I told him it's Feral Lunge but he said the spider does poison.

I really want to find out this answer. Can somebody please confirm for me? If Spider does poison, then I want to get one just for the little advantage.

I think all pets should have some sort of "special ability" like Spider. I know Spider is special since you can only get it in Underworld but if only Spider has special ability, then it will create IMBALANCE in Beast Master, which I thought A.Net doesn't want.

Hopefully they can either get rid of poison effect or add a special ability for each pet. :)

Savio

Dec 08, 2005, 11:44 PM

It's not poison. Read A guide to pets (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89491) by Epinephrine and Jenosavel.

MaglorD

Dec 08, 2005, 11:44 PM

jibikao

Dec 09, 2005, 09:45 AM

It's not poison. Read A guide to pets (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89491) by Epinephrine and Jenosavel.

I've been using beast mastery for 5 months now and I "believed" that Spider does not poison but there are just so many people telling me Spider does poison. I don't have time to go to Underworld to charm a spider mainly because I am a loner. I can't solo Underworld with my pet. lol I died in 10s.

If Spider indeed does not poison, why do people say that? Many Rangers spam poison arrows and Feral Lunge. I told them that the "green smoke" graphic is from feral lunge but they claimed that it's not.

Ok, I am very tired of people spreading false rumors then. Have you tried a spider before? Does it poison or not? I just need some answers from those who do have spiders and know about beast mastery.

I remember I got into a fight once in PvP because another ranger used Spider and I used Warthog and his team won (random) and said "Spider owns Pig everyday". I told him that all the pets are the same except for evolution and damage type and he called me "Noob" for it. I was insulted of course. lol I prefer warthog over spider but if spider does has poison effect, then I may want to charm it one day.

Valerius

Dec 09, 2005, 10:21 AM

Does it poison or not? I just need some answers from those who do have spiders and know about beast mastery.

Black Widow Spiders DO NOT poison... for the 100th time...

Dralspire

Dec 09, 2005, 10:30 AM

Black Widow Spiders DO NOT poison... for the 101st time...

... and for effect :D

jibikao

Dec 09, 2005, 02:51 PM

Thanks guy. That's all I need. I just need 100th and 101th time to make sure that spider doesn't poison. Why did people spread this non-sense rumor!!!!! I almost bought into it last night. lol

Makkert

Dec 09, 2005, 04:53 PM

Thanks guy. That's all I need. I just need 100th and 101th time to make sure that spider doesn't poison. Why did people spread this non-sense rumor!!!!! I almost bought into it last night. lol
Ah...the mother of all questions! :D

I think the reason has to be found in careless observations. There is also a very stubborn rumor on minions degenerating faster when you heal them (NOT true!).
I expect this rumor was born after someone healed his minions over and over, and saw that he couldn't keep up with the healing. From this, he made the conclusion the reason was that he healed them. After all, undead minions and healing? That doesn't make sense in a rpg way. :rolleyes:
Fact is that the degen is cumulative, but not affected by healing. Wether or not healing is applied is irrelevant. The initial observation was incorrect, and people recognised something in the (wrong) assesment of the case: 'Like omg. My minions seem to die faster to when I heal them! This must be true!'.

I expect the same happend here. They saw a green glow around the spider from a petskill. Black Widows poison, that makes sense in a rpg way. :rolleyes:
And then the false assumption spreads. Like poison, ironicly.

~ makkert

Pan Sola

Dec 09, 2005, 10:11 PM

If I have made any mistakes, please let me know. Thx :)

---------------------------------

-- :: Credits :: --

I'd like to thank the following for sharing their knowledge on pets and for doing tests to make sure the information we have is accurate.

- Dragon Incarnate
- Jenosavel
- Epinephrine
- shifteleven

Just want to bring up that according to Jenosavel and Epinephrine's latest research, pet armor goes by 3*Level+20, not 4*Level as the OP as this guide currently indicate. And since this one is called the "*Updated* Ultimate Pet Guide" and still on page 1 of the forums, while their guide is just "a guide to pets", new people coming here might decide this guide is more authoritative than the other one, and insist/convince all their friends that pet armor is 4*level.

Just want to bring that to your attention (-:

Pan Sola

Dec 09, 2005, 10:22 PM

Another correction:
Weapon masteries after 12 have diminished power increases.

This is only correct at Level 20. Research over at GuildWiki currently indicates the threshold of 12 is actually:
Level/2 +2

Thus, if a character is at level 19, weapon mastery after 11 (well, 11.5 to be exact) has diminished returns.

To calculate the actual percentage relative to Level 20 rank 12, use the following rules for Baseline:

For every rank under the threshold, +5
For every rank above the threshold, +2

Then to figure out the fractional power relative to Level 20 rank 12, use the follwing formula:

2^((Baseline - 60)/40)

of course, now you no longer have a pretty table, so the other alternative is to keep your table, but say it is only fully accurate at Level 20.

jibikao

Dec 10, 2005, 01:55 PM

Ah...the mother of all questions! :D

I think the reason has to be found in careless observations. There is also a very stubborn rumor on minions degenerating faster when you heal them (NOT true!).
I expect this rumor was born after someone healed his minions over and over, and saw that he couldn't keep up with the healing. From this, he made the conclusion the reason was that he healed them. After all, undead minions and healing? That doesn't make sense in a rpg way. :rolleyes:
Fact is that the degen is cumulative, but not affected by healing. Wether or not healing is applied is irrelevant. The initial observation was incorrect, and people recognised something in the (wrong) assesment of the case: 'Like omg. My minions seem to die faster to when I heal them! This must be true!'.

I expect the same happend here. They saw a green glow around the spider from a petskill. Black Widows poison, that makes sense in a rpg way. :rolleyes:
And then the false assumption spreads. Like poison, ironicly.

~ makkert

And the spider doesn't have higher dmg right? lol Just want to make sure. I keep hearing people say spider does a bit more dmg. I think that's because when they did the testing, it was Dire spider, since Elder has proven to give no damage/health bonus/penalty.

Jenosavel

Dec 10, 2005, 02:13 PM

Read the newest guide (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89491). All information in it was rigorously and carefully tested. It says all pets deal the same damage per strike, and this includes the spider. If you manage to read the whole thing, I doubt you will have many questions left, and I can guarantee you won't have such basic ones.

This thread may be called the "ultimate" pet guide, but I can assure you that the guide I linked to has much more thorough information. It also includes all methods used in testing, for those skeptical of the results.

Peewee

Dec 11, 2005, 04:56 PM

This is all wrong. Your source is wrong. Elder has no bonus to damage and unmodified health. This has been tested a great deal.

thank u for clearing this up. but, then what ur saying is that elder is useless, no boost to health or attack, just back to plain old pet. however i am prepared to beleive, and tbh that suits me more. much prefer extra dmg over a pet which is better at sitting there and not dieing as quickly :)

AeroLion

Dec 11, 2005, 07:09 PM

It's not a "plain old pet"; you have elder that has less of an attack than dire but more HP than dire and also more attack than hearty but less HP.

So, for attack: dire>elder>hearty
For HP: hearty>elder>dire

It's like rock/paper/scissors. The evolutions aren't inherantly better or worse.

glasseye

Dec 11, 2005, 11:02 PM

I'm going to have to disagree that pets dont go through evolutions at level 20. I capped a Dire Black Widow on my Necro/Ranger and used to take it with me on quests and missions but put no points in beast mastery and no other BM skills besides Charm Animal. Just wanted to show it off. After a few weeks, the spider evolved from a Dire to a Hearty. After a couple days I was curious why it evolved since no one knew for sure what caused pets to evolve. I figured that it became a Hearty because I never used any attack skills. So I put some points into BM, (only about 9 or 10) and started bringing pet attack skills. I made sure to use the pet attack skills during each fight. After spending some time questing with the pet attack skills my spider eventually evolved back to Dire. Alot of you say that this can't happen, but in my own personal experience it can and did to me.

Epinephrine

Dec 11, 2005, 11:08 PM

Ednemak

Dec 12, 2005, 06:37 PM

I've seen Dire Wolves in the wild before, how come no guide tells you about those?

Ill find one after I finish my homework

Beqxter

Dec 12, 2005, 07:49 PM

I've never seen a Dire Wolf in the wild. Either they are Elder and south of Granite Citadel (there are a couple near Thul the Bull), or they are just generic snow wolves. If you have a screenshot that can prove me wrong, I'd love to see it.

Pan Sola

Dec 13, 2005, 12:45 AM

That's interesting - I've heard other people talk about similar things, with spiders. Never witnessed it, but it is possible that they might change I guess. Spiders may be the most likely pet to have a change, as you don't have 20 levels of accumulated tendencies. If that were the case though any dire pet should be able to change into a hearty, just by allowing it to die like crazy.

It is worth looking at certainly, I've never seen it happen, but that doesn't mean it can't.

Maybe it still happens at every 5 "levels"? Just that most people don't alter their play-style that much after pet is lv20, AND it's harder to farm exp points at lv20 (since quests and missions don't give pet exp).

To complicate things even more, character "level ups" beyond lv20 used to take progressive more exp points to acheive. While later updates has made the requirement flat (so easier to gain skill point for PvP unlocking purposes), it could be possible that pet "level ups" are still progressively harder after lv20.

It'll take quite a lot of patience and time to test this out indeed!

Ralphie

Dec 16, 2005, 09:48 AM

My pet is level 11 but it didn't evole, how's that possible? :s (I did reset the name)

Epinephrine

Dec 16, 2005, 10:08 AM

My pet is level 11 but it didn't evole, how's that possible? :s (I did reset the name)

Did it level when dead a lot? Did it not get involved in combat really? Did you speed level it?

A pet needs to do things to "earn" and evolution. Merely being on the bar doesn't guarantee anything. SInce it seems to move toward aggressive by dealing damage, and toward playful by taking damage it is important that it do these things. If you want playful/hearty let it run into combat and take damage frequently - even dying. If you want it to go aggressive you should tank, soaking the damage yourself while allowing it to kill your enemies (not necessary, but a good way to ensure it suffers minimal damage while dealing a lot).

Lower level opponents give it more damage dealing opportunities as it levels - the damage/experience ratio is better vs lower level foes, so it has a chance to accumulate more damage dealt and/or received vs foes that are lower level than vs high level foes.

Ralphie

Dec 16, 2005, 04:37 PM

now it has evolved but at level 13, little weird..

Maxiemonster

Dec 16, 2005, 04:56 PM

My pet is lvl 15 now, but still Playful, maybe they changed it in the last update.

Ralphie

Dec 17, 2005, 06:09 AM

although the first evolution was at level 13, the second evolution was a normal one at level 15 (turned into an elder :))

Jiao Yang

Dec 18, 2005, 05:29 AM

If I were to cap a black widow as an Elder, how could i stop it from changing to hearty etc. when it evolves???:confused:

EDIT: nvm now i found answer on different thread!

Zazoo

Dec 27, 2005, 06:17 AM

The Wolf And Snow wolf are identicle in appearance.

TopGun

Feb 01, 2006, 04:25 PM

May Bone Animations be charmed?

Dralspire

Feb 01, 2006, 04:56 PM

Do you really mean to tell me that you were unable to find post 2 of this thread (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=566079&postcount=2), starting with the heading "Available Pets:"? The answer to your question is 'No'.

TopGun

Feb 01, 2006, 08:03 PM

Was hoping that nobody had tried yet ;) Sorry boss.

ralfsmith

Feb 02, 2006, 12:22 PM

Oh its very interesting. Could you provide me more information ?

johntvery@operamail.com

johntvery@hotmail.com

LouAl

Feb 08, 2006, 06:13 PM

Great guide to petting. It gave me the idea to grow myself a hard-hitting dire lizard.

My only issue with the guide is this: How long did it take you to get your pet from level 5 (or so) to level 15 fighting ONLY the mergoyles? Good crap it took me forever just to get to lvl 11. It felt like I was never going to get 15.

So, here are my suggestions for those of you wanting a good high lvl pet (dire, hearty, or elder). Keep in mind that Valerius' guide is greatand this is not a replacement, just an additional resource, and I understand why Valerius wanted to have as few variables as possible. Again, great job to Valerius.

*Disclaimer* This stuff may not work for elder or hearty but it does for dire... still it is worth a try

For Elder pet

It may be easier to do the hearty 'path' first (up to lvl 11) and then the aggressive 'path' (up to lvl 15). My reasoning for this is that at lvl 6 a pet has a hard time killing anything, but at lvl 12 it is much easier so you are playing to the strengths of the natural progression.

Start in Gates of Kryta and do what Valerius says about the Hearty Path.

After the evolution to hearty, start the Aggressive Path.

When your pet is somewhere between lvl 11-13 you should begin fighting somewhere other than outside Gates of Kryta and continue this until it is at lvl 15. Your pet is stronger now and can more easily take out the rockshot devourers outside Augury Rock, and eventually groups of minotaurs. Be sure to bring Symbiotic bond Call of Protection, and something to heal yourself.

For Dire pet

Start in Gates of Kryta and kill the Mergoyles. Let your pet do all the dmg (I was using a wand that did about 6 dmg per hit). At approximately lvl 12 switch to rockshot/minotaur hunting outside Augury Rock. As with elder, make sure to bring something to heal yourself AND Symbiotic bond AND Call of Protection.

For Hearty Pet
Go where ever you want. As long as you do the most dmg you should be fine.

Evolution side notes:

I don't think that healing/death has anything to do with your pet's evolution. I healed my pet MANY times and it died MANY times (I was testing this part of the evolution assumption), and it still evolved Aggressive then Dire just like I wanted it to evolve.

I think the evolution is based primarily on dmg output (possibly ratios). I used the same wand, which did about 4-9 dmg, while my lizard did anywhere up to 70+ per hit (with skills) on mergoyles and 50+ against Minos and rockshots.

I also let my pet take A LOT of dmg because my character is a mesmer and can't take any. I just used the call of prot and symbiotic bond (for the hlth regen and half dmg to me) and then just healed myself as much as possible.

Other side notes:

You may want to stick with mergoyles and that is ok, just realize that it will take a LONG time to lvl your pet. At lvl 20 my character still gets 100 xp from the rockshots and minotaurs, my pet got even more than that. It only took me a few trips out hunting to get my pet from lvl 12 to lvl 15.

Lizards do start at lvl 5.

My lizard is named Lizzy and now follows me everywhere.

honnaja

Feb 13, 2006, 10:18 AM

Like at least one other person here I believe that an Elder Black Widow CAN evolve into a Hearty Black Widow. I'm sure this is what happened to mine. I refrained from naming pets for a long time because I wanted to see their evolutions, so I didn't just 'assume' it was an Elder widow.
I will try and verify this some day and report my findings.

If you have a real pet and treat it wonderfully it will behave differently than if you treat it badly: it will 'evolve' into a different personality of animal. I don't see why this should be beyond possibility in GW..(yes, of course it's a game and not reality, but it's coded by humans :D ).
An Elder pet has a certain amount of health and a hearty has 60 more, by findings. A hearty is this way because it needs to be: you've not looked after it that well so it adapts to better look after itself. Following this idea, it should be possible for an Elder to turn into a Hearty if you're not the most 'affectionate' master..

I now have yet another thing on my GW 'to do' list.. meh

:p

jawapet

Mar 03, 2006, 09:58 AM

Im sorry im a little ticked...
I have followed ur guide to the letter as far as how to train a dire pet. I started with a 10 bm all bm skills except troll ungent and then let the animal rush a murder everything as i sat back and kept him from dieing. He did nt die once and at lvl 11 he was playful. I tired again more aggressive bm skills for attack boosted my bm to 13. Let him murder everything he did not die once and at lvl 11 he was playful. On my third one i bossted bm to 16 nothing but attacks skills for pet except troll ungent. He devoured everything I didn't even get the chance to fight complete massacre to all the enemies, he did not die once and he became playful. What am i doing wrong that i am not getting an aggressive pet?

Fear Thorin

Mar 03, 2006, 12:08 PM

Ok so i was wrong u cant charm em i thought you could because they were green but ya, try and charm but when you do it says not an animal that brings up an interesting question then on how u can charm the uw spider but not the pre searing one.... pre searing ( cant because not animal) after searing uw spider sure will just call it an animal *wink*wink*

I have Searched Everywhere And So Far All I Can Find Are Some Rumors About the Real Reason You Cant Tame A Moss Spider Is beacause Of One Crucial Point That I Believe No One Person Has Thought Of And If they Have Im Sorry, I Believe You Cant Tame The Pre-searing Moss Spiders Because Of The Simple fact that you havent Acended yet lol, Happy hunting

--Your Friendly Neighborhood Retard

nova-exarch

Mar 05, 2006, 07:24 PM

What am i doing wrong that i am not getting an aggressive pet?

It's not just about dying. To be aggressive/dire it can not take a lot of damage either.

Just use the protective skills...

Call of Protection - Shout
For 120 seconds, your animal companions have a 1-11 base damage reduction.

and...

Symbiotic Bond - Shout
For 120-264 seconds, your animal companion gains +1-3 Health regeneration, and half of any physical damage dealt to your animal companion is redirected to you.

and if you like (it helps alot at low lvls)...

Otyugh's Cry - Shout
All animals in the area become hostile to your target and gain +20 armor for 30 seconds. Otyugh's Cry cannot turn charmed animals against their masters or their master's allies. (50% chance of failure with Beast Mastery 4 or less.)

...to keep it from taking so much damage.

Let the pet do the majority of the damage (I let mine do like 80% or more just to be sure) and it should be smooth sailing. :) :) :)

Align

Mar 19, 2006, 05:29 AM

My Wolf evolved to Aggressive like I wanted it to, but then it didn't evolve to either Dire or Elder at L20. What gives? Suits me just fine, but I didn't think it was possible. Was trying for Dire.
Started as a L5 Snow Wolf from the N. Shiverpeaks, by the way.

Jenosavel

Mar 19, 2006, 08:59 AM

Align, it was discussed briefly in the other pet guide thread (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89491). While this used to be unheard of, it suddenly started happening. There hasn't yet been any testing done on what exactly causes it to happen, however the people reporting that it happened to their pets admited to getting loose with their pet training towards level 15. Allowing some things to slip prior to the second stage may not move your pet far enough towards Dire to actually achieve Dire, and thus you're stuck at Aggressive.

The level 20 Aggressive was tested to have 450 hp at level 20, which is right in line with where you would expect it to be. Therefore, while no damage tests have been done with the level 20 Aggressive, it's safe to assume that its damage will be approximately 17-41 +5%. The modifier, unfortunately, would only be +5% rather than the Dire's +15% modifier.

In other words, for 30 extra health, you lose +10% damage. It's up to you whether or not that's an acceptable trade-off. If it's not, then all I can suggest for your next time around is to be more vigilant in where and how you level your pet. Things that could previously slip under the radar are now causing people trouble. If you haven't taken a look at the other pet guide, you'll want to read its section on evolution (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=752788&postcount=3) and take those things to heart.