A guide to pets, by Jenosavel and Epinephrine

[Epinephrine]

The Pet Guide – by Jenosavel and Epinephrine

Why consider a pet? What builds can use a pet, and what level of investment is useful? How do you up the effectiveness of a pet? Where do you get a pet?

This guide is an attempt to answer all questions about pets and provide the fullest explanations regarding pets, pet use, and pet attributes. While other guides have been written on the subject they have in the past been full of speculation and not been rigorously tested, as well as lacking in completeness. To ensure the data is correct, nearly every element has been tested and notes on the testing techniques and data are available through the footnotes, so that suspect data/conclusions can be identified. Please bear in mind that guides may become out of date and take into account the publication date of the guide – subsequent patches may well change aspects of the guide.

Rather than wait till the end, we’d like to make some acknowledgments to start with: Thanks to Dragon Incarnate for the original Ultimate Pet Guide, the first work of its kind, and to Valerius for his role in maintaining Dragon Incarnate’s work in the more recently updated pet guide. A big thanks to Daegul Mistweaver for his help with damage values on various foes, which helped kick start the true damage testing; I look forward to your treatise on damage. Of course, the support of our guild (Servants of Fortuna!) through testing has been invaluable, with much time donated to our efforts and help with finding appropriate testing areas. The community has provided insights into many of the issues in this guide, and we of course thank the pet loving community for the time and energy put into pet related posting. Hopefully the new information gleaned from all this testing will be useful, and will settle many debates about pet functionality and usefulness.

We’ll start with the basics:

1) Acquiring a pet: The Charm Animal skill.

To get a pet requires the use of the Charm Animal skill; at most stages of the game this is only possible as a Ranger/* or */Ranger character, as the Charm Animal skill is a ranger skill. In the tutorial stage of the game the quest from Master Ranger Nente grants this skill, both to ranger primaries (R/*) and to those wishing to try ranger skills – as such you can charm a pet without being a ranger or ranger secondary, though only in this beginning stage of the game.

To charm an animal one simply activates the skill while targeting an animal. The animal will close the distance and begin attacking, but you should not move as it will stop the skill from completing.

Some creatures will display a notice that they are not animals; these creatures cannot be charmed. Moss spiders are likely the first “animals” that are met by most rangers that are not “animals”. At least one type of animal has a charm breaking ability – the pre-searing Black Bears have a skill that allows them to interrupt attempts to charm them. While it was once possible to bypass this through careful timing of knockdowns it is no longer possible; the only source of charmable bears is post-searing.

You cannot charm a pet if you already have a pet, and there is no way to release your pet save the dialogue with a tamer. In Tyria, Jarrel is located by Master Ranger Nente in pre-searing, and just outside the gates of Ascalon in post searing. Visiting him and selecting the appropriate option removes your current pet. He will compensate you for your pet with a token amount of 100 gold if your pet was level 20. Similarly, in Cantha, you can rid yourself of a pet by speaking to one of following tamers: Sahnlae (outside Shing Jea Monastery), Chibichi (in Bukdek Byway), Zarek (outside House zu Heltzer) or Callista (outside Breaker Hollow).

You cannot get around the single pet restriction – using Echo while charming a pet will duplicate the Charm Animal skill upon completion of the first Charm Animal, however neither copy of Charm Animal on the skill bar will work to capture a pet, as there is a pet currently charmed.

It is possible to have a pet while not having Charm Animal on your skillbar. Provided you have charmed a pet in pre-searing as a non-ranger primary, using the skill while trying the ranger skills (but not having accepted the ranger as secondary class), you can visit another trainer in an instanced area and try a new secondary (or select a secondary) – all ranger skills will disappear from your skillbar, but your pet will remain so long as you stay in the instance. Even passing to another instanced area will cause the pet to disappear; we can conclude that the existence of a pet is checked for upon entering an instanced zone. Other methods to have a pet without having Charm Animal on your skillbar are to replace Charm Animal when unlocking a skill in an instanced area or through the Ranger path quest in the Crystal Desert. No matter which method is employed to have a pet without Charm Animal present on the skillbar, the pet will vanish on crossing an instance portal.

If you change your secondary, and are no longer a ranger, your pet is still linked to you; if/when you become a secondary ranger again you can simply equip your charm animal skill and you will have your pet back, exactly as it was.

You cannot charm a creature that has already been charmed. There are some areas in the game in which enemies will charm animals to use against you. These animals can’t be charmed back, even after the death of their master.

Once a pet is charmed you can name the pet with the /petname or /namepet command; without any text following the command it simply resets the pet name to the default, which can be handy to check pet evolution, while using /petname YourPetName would result in a pet called YourPetName. Pet names are limited to 12 characters in length.

All the above applies to hero pets as well, with the exception that a hero cannot name their pet at present.

2) Location of pets.

There are several types of animals charmable by a ranger. A list of pets and their locations are found below:

Prophecies pets - These pets are found in the first Guild Wars campaign, set in Tyria

Strider/Moa: These tall birds are found in the area around Ascalon, both pre- (Strider) and post-searing (Moa); they are most likely ratites, resembling the ostrich or real world moa in that they are tall, flightless birds with well developed leg muscles, but larger like Aepyornis maximus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aepyornis), armed with a heavy slashing beak (a distinctly non-ratite feature). Typically several level 1 Striders are found in the area around Ashford in pre-searing, while level 3 Moas are found in the hills around the area and even in mission instances in the early post-searing game (Old Ascalon, Regent River Basin etc…). One particularly fast way to get a Moa is to enter the Fort Ranik mission, as there are Moas patrolling the area where the first Charr are found. Image. (http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9936/imageofmoa0fy.jpg)

Wolf/Snow Wolf/Elder Wolf: The level 2 wolves are found in the area around Ashford Abbey and as well in Regent Valley pre-searing. In post-searing, the level 5 Snow Wolves are found in the north Shiverpeak Mountains (Traveler’s Vale, Iron Horse Mines, Anvil Rock etc…) – the area of Anvil Rock has numerous Snow Wolves, and often one spawns right at the Ice Tooth Cave entrance, making for an easy capture. The Elder Wolf is one of the few pets post-searing that has already evolved and is available at a higher level. It starts at level 15 fully evolved, and is only found in Spearhead pass. Capturing an Elder wolf here may require a bit of luck: they are charmed quickly by the Stone Summit Rangers in the area, and once charmed by a dwarf they aren’t available to you. They sometimes spawn out of range of the dwarves, however, and can be easily acquired after combat in these cases. Wolves howl from time to time, an endearing trait to some, an annoyance to others. Image. (http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2119/imageofwolf2mo.jpg)

Warthog: The Warthog can be found both pre- and post-searing; in pre-searing they are common just north of the wall. Since there is a quest to cross the wall anyway this is as good a time as any to capture a level 2 Warthog. Should you miss that opportunity they are again available post-searing at level 5; however, they aren’t found until the Kryta/Maguuma areas of the game. My favorite place to catch one is just outside The Wilds, as one will frequently spawn by the resurrection shrine and you can thus capture it without facing a single foe. The Warthog makes whuffling noises that are much less intrusive than wolf howls, and is the smallest of the pets. Image. (http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7405/imageofwarthog8se.jpg)

Melandru’s Stalker: Likely the first pet the ranger tames, the Melandru’s Stalker looks rather like a dark panther. It starts at level 5 in both pre- and post-searing, and is found in Regent Valley in pre-searing and in old Ascalon in post searing. Not a particularly noisy animal and of medium size, it is an attractive companion to many.
Image. (http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/5637/imageofstalker9lm.jpg)

Lynx: The lynx is nothing like a true lynx from our world, resembling a mountain lion but clearly an evolutionary step away from other felines – it seems to possess only three claws on its paws. Similar in size and behaviour to the Melandru’s Stalker, it is a less common choice, perhaps due to its colouration. Lynxes are found in Kryta, around Bergen Hot Springs, Beetletun, the Ascalon Settlement and various other areas, and are level 5.
Image. (http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/616/imageoflynx1kr.jpg)

Bear: Bears exist both pre- and post-searing, but the pre-searing bears are charmable only with great difficulty, and exploiting the range limit on the "Breaking Charm" skill. Bears are the largest of the pets available, being bulkier and more imposing that the smaller pets. Found in the southern Shiverpeaks, but as far north as Lornar’s Pass, bears are level 5 in the wild; to catch a bear I typically leave from Port Sledge and simply run east – there is nearly always a bear within a fairly short run.
Image. (http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/1857/imageofbear0ig.jpg)

Dune Lizard: Dune lizards are first (and only) encountered at level 5 in the Crystal Desert. Looking somewhat like a monitor lizard or iguana, they are powerfully built, low bodied lizards with somewhat short tails (for a lizard) and a crest on their heads. Heroes Audience is my favourite settlement from which to capture a Dune Lizard, there is nearly always one wandering near the entry and often within range of your Charm Animal, eliminating any risk from the enemies in the area and allowing solo capture.
Image. (http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/5391/imageofdunelizard7kn.jpg)

Spider: The only charmable type of spider so far in the game is the Black Widow (the Moss Spiders are NOT charmable) – the Black Widows are found only in the Underworld, and are rewards from certain quests. The only animal found at high level other than the Elder Wolf, the Black Widows are always level 20 and evolved when found – it seems to be a random evolution, as Elder, Hearty and Dire Black Widows have all been found from the same spawn point. Unlike the counterpart in our world, the Black Widow is non-venomous, but makes up for it by being the size of a dog.
Image. (http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4695/imageofspider6gt.jpg)

Factions pets - These pets are found in the second Guild Wars campaign, set in Cantha

Black Moa: Much like the Moa and Strider from the Prophecies campaign set in Tyria, the Black Moa is a tall, flightless bird, but with black plumage and spiked collars to distinguish it from the plainer sort. The Black Moa appears following a quest entitled The Beak of Darkness, in Ferndale. So far this is the only known way to get a Black Moa, and it spawns at level 20. Testing by Jenosavel indicates that it is of the Elder/Unevolved variety.

Crane: A more common bird companion is the Crane - found throughout the Pongmei Valley, Zen Daijun, Haiju Lagoon the Arborstone Explorable, the crane is an elegant looking bird, and a surprising choice for an attacking creature. They can be found at level 3 typically, but also as Elder Cranes near the Yeti in the Pongmei Valley area - these unfortunately are difficult to tame, since the Yeti typically get to them first - on some lucky spawns there are sufficient level 3 cranes near the Yeti, and you may arrive and be able to capture an evolved Crane.

Reef Lurker/Blue Lurker: The second arthropod charmable in Guild Wars is the Reef Lurker, a tamable form of crab found in Luxon areas. Reef Lurkers can be found in both a red and blue colour pattern; they are typically level 5, save in the Boreas Seabed mission, in which there are two level 20 Elder Crabs (blue) that can be tamed. Crabs are typically found in Luxon areas.

Tiger: Tigers are found both in a typical orange and black coat pattern as well as in a White Tiger form, white with black stripes. Tigers are either level 3 (orange) or level 5 (white) when found in the wild, and are in many Kurzick areas (Ferndale, Melandru's Hope etc...). Dire tigers can also be found, near the Yeti in Pngmei valley. They are generally charmed already, but a lucky spawn can have level 3 Cranes close to the tigers, in which case a Dire Tiger can be obtained.

Phoenix: The Phoenix is neither an asian inspired Phoenix not the bird of flames from Greek myths, but is a brightly coloured bird of prey it would seem. The Phoenix is only found in the Divine Path, and is level 5 when encountered.

Nightfall pets - These pets are found in the third Guild Wars campaign, set in Elona

Warthog: There is an Impressive Warthog that is not charmable, however there are also Warthogs in other areas, including the Plains of Jarin and Fahranur, the First City. Warthogs are exactly like those found in Tyria.

Flamingo: These pink wading birds are found in the early areas of the campaign, and start at level 3. They can be found in the Churrhir Fields, Plains of Jarin and Issnur Isle. Quite possibly the least threatening pet, unless your foe has a phobia of some sort.

Jahai Rat: These massive rodents are denizens of the Vehtendi Valley and the Mirror of Lyss; they are among the smallest pets in the game, similar in size to the warthog, and begin at level 3. Rumours say that they can inflict disease, at least one person has attempted to investigate this and with over 1000 attacks observed no skill use by the rat, it is likely that this is similar to the rumours of Black Widow pets inflicting poison.

Crocodile: Found in the swampy areas of Istan, the crocodile is a long, powerfully built reptile. Speculation exists suggesting that the crocodile is a replacement for the pygmy hippopotamus which was in the previews. Crocodiles begin at level 5 in the Lahtenda Bog, though the beastmaster Heket employ level 15 Elder crocodiles. It is perhaps possible to charm one of these, I have not yet tried; the simplest way is likely to get another pet to spawn in the area, and have a Beast Sworn Heket charm a jahai rat for exampl, leaving an uncharmed elder crocodile.

Lion: Lions occur as Lionesses as well, the two models differing in the presence of a mane. The lion shares the look of the tiger, lynx and melandru's stalker, and is an imposing beast. A pride of aggressive lions (level 11?) can be found in the Jahai Bluffs, by the great Zehtuka; for the most part they are however found at level 5 throughout Kourna.

Hyena: A fierce carnvore with a particularly powerful bite, the hyena is in reality an intelligent hunter, not just a scavenger. In Guild Wars the hyena has a large hump over its shoulders and spotted flanks, much like the spotted hyena. They can be found in The Alkali Pan and The Ruptured Heart, and start at level 5.

[Epinephrine]

3) Statistics of pets:

All pets share the same base health progression, the same AL progression and the same base damage progression (the word base is used here as the pet evolution can change these figures, and the level of the Beastmastery attribute will change the damage actually dealt much as weapon mastery changes the damage dealt by a weapon, but does not alter its base damage). There are however differences between pet attack speeds, contrary to other published data on pets, and the damage types are here reported correctly, as opposed to the erroneous claims of the Prima guide and other sources.

The base health of all pets is 80+20/level, resulting in the following table of health values.(1) The more recently added pet controls confirms these health levels, though sometimes the display will show 219 health for example rather than 220, only to correct itself later.
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/675/healthtable7eq.png

The base damage range of all pets depends on the pet’s level, and is displayed in the following table - it appears to be roughly linear, with a pet delivering (PetLevel*0.05)*max damage. A level 7 pet for example, delivers 35% of the damage that a level 20 pet would deliver - the numbers don't line up exactly this way, but it is a good estimate, and the likely cause of the variation is that the critical hit rate increases with level. The distribution of damages (at a given level) is also available and is clearly nonlinear, likely due to the nature of critical hits. The notes include the statistical tests.(2)

The newest Prima Guide, for GW:Factions lists all pet damage as a base of 17-28 at level 20, this corresponds to the minimum damages recorded, and certainly matches the drop in probability of attack damages from the recorded damages (this graph (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9522/distributionelder208lr.jpg), which shows 28 as the last commonly occuring damage level). The values of the critical hits then are somewhat surprising, as they are as high as 41 damage, while a 28 maximum damage would in fact result in only 39.59 maximum damage, rounding to 40. Assuming the same maximum critical hit damage calculation as weapons use, to round to a 41 damage one would need to inflict hits of up to 28.64 damage or so; presuming the rounding occurs at the last stage; this would work out to 40.5 damage, which could then round to 41. Testing on the Isle of the Nameless and in the guild scrimmages may shed light on this topic.

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5083/petdamagetable0nb.png

The armour level (AL) of the pets is likewise determined by the pet level. Pet AL progression is listed in this table. The figures for level 1 and 2 pets are not verified, due to the difficulty of testing the AL at such low levels, but are presumed to follow the pattern. You will note that this differs from the assumed change to pet AL – the AL bonus was added to base pet AL, boosting pets of all levels – pets receive 29.3% less damage at any given level since this (very welcomed) patch.(3)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6228/armourtable3go.png

Pets vary in the type of damage delivered. The following table of damage types shows the type of damage associated with each pet. The Prima Guide had a list of damage types which were largely accurate, but incorrect in some cases. The correct types are listed below. The entries that differ from the Prima Guide are followed by in italics. Note that no pet deals blunt damage.(4)

Slashing damage is dealt by
Black Bear
Black Moa Bird
Crab / Reef Lurker (blue)
Crab / Reef Lurker (red)
Crane
Flamingo
Hyena
Jahai Rat
Lion / Lioness
Lynx
Melandru's Stalker
Moa Bird / Strider
Tiger
Warthog
White Tiger
Wolf

Piercing damage is dealt by
Black Widow
Dune Lizard
Crocodile
Phoenix


The most striking difference in pet statistics is in the pet attack speeds. As can be seen, the pets are invariant excepting the type of damage delivered, and it turns out, attack speed. The attack speeds are recorded as such. A note – the Moa/Strider does initially have a higher attack rate than the other pets. This difference in attack speed disappears on leveling, approaching the other pets in speed. The Bear's brutal mauling slows it's attack speed, but does not add any damage.(5)
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/647/attackrate4qe.png

In summary; initially on release of the game claims were made that one type of pet was tougher, another faster and so on, to balance them. Gaile Gray said in an interview:

You’re right in noting that pets do have differences. Some have more armor, some attack faster, some have more health, etc. You will note that the specifics are not really called out in the game. That’s because, to some degree, we leave at least some aspects of the game in undisclosed state so that the community can figure things out.

As we can see however, this was an exaggeration. In reality pets differ very little, with only two types of damage being delivered, with all pets having the same exact AL, health and damage. The attack rate is the sole variable in effectiveness, and isn’t balanced by any compensating factors – a Bear is simply the worst pet due to its slower attack rating. All other pets are equally effective - to mention this again however the Black Widow does not have a poison attack - it is no more effective than any other pet.

[Epinephrine]

4) Pet evolution

Pets undergo evolution up to twice in their existence, to our knowledge. These evolutions occur at ~ level 11 and at ~ level 15. Evolutions can occur after this level, with the first stage evolutions happening right up to the level 14 certainly, and isolated instances of level 20 pet evolution have been reported. The evolutions typically happen immediately upon leveling to 11 and 15 (though as mentioned, they can occur later in some cases). Evolutions are a way for the pet to vary slightly from others of its ilk – it alters the pet statistics slightly. It would seem that the evolutions also are associated with the size changes observed – that pets change sizes with some evolutions is undeniable - a level 20 Hearty Strider is MUCH larger than its level 1 counterpart, but as pets don’t tend to stand still very well it is very hard to come up with exact figures and observations. In this section we will address the process of evolution, facts and fallacies about evolution and finally statistics on evolved pets.

Training Your Pet for a Specific Evolution

Summary
The current, common understanding of pet evolution is that your pet’s state exists on a slider. One side of the slider has the Hearty pet with high defense and low offense. The other side has the Dire pet with high offense and low defense. In the middle lies the balanced pet, the Elder. It is commonly believed that the pet taking damage and being used under a low Beast Mastery stat shifts it towards Hearty, while dishing out damage and being used under a high Beast Mastery stat shifts it towards Dire. These ideas are common knowledge for good reason: they have a lot of truth to them. Since there are numerous posts and articles already written with precise methods that can be used to train up a specific pet evolution, I will only touch on training methods briefly at the end of this section. Instead, I would like to devote this space to shedding some light on why certain training methods work and others do not. Thus, I will focus on individual factors that influence how the pet evolves.

• have the pet deal more damage than you to move it towards Dire
• allow the pet to take a lot of damage to move it towards Hearty
• healing has no direct impact on the pet’s evolution
• damage received is a key factor in determining the pet’s evolution
• use Call of Protection combined with Symbiotic Bond or Otyugh’s Cry to minimize damage taken
• how a build is used can be nearly as important as the build itself, pay attention to how you play!
• a pet that won’t evolve simply means it already has the Elder’s stats, even though it will never have a prefix
• level your pet on enemies that deal direct damage which can be easily prevented
• avoid leveling your pet on enemies that use degen or armor ignoring damage

Damage taken, deaths, or healing?
It is difficult to test whether it is damage taken, damage healed, or deaths sustained that pushes the pet towards Hearty. However, it appears to be damage taken, rather than the other two, which is the key factor. To test this, a pet was raised to level 10 as an Aggressive pet with all variables remaining constant from my previous successful Aggressive pets. This included the pet being forced to deal 100% of the damage dealt to enemies. Then, it was taken outside of the Temple of the Ages and made to stand in poison until it died. Once dead it would be revived, allowed to naturally regen its health, and then killed again the same way. Rinse, repeat. Upon turning level 11, the pet was Playful rather than Aggressive. The same test was repeated with a second pet, only this time the pet was not allowed to regen to its full health before being poisoned again. Although it sustained the same number of deaths, it took considerably less damage. Surprisingly it still came out Aggressive.

With respect to the healing of the pet, a different test needed to be done. This time, the pet was leveled to 11 by the same method as the previous two pets, but was the subject of much healing through Comfort Animal, Predator’s Pounce, and Heal Area. Although the pet was not allowed to take damage it was still healed. The pet came out Aggressive, thus proving that healing alone has no direct impact on the pet’s evolution. Most likely, previous connections between healing and pet evolution where a side effect of a pet taking too much damage.

Damage dealt by the pet?
A factor which has been attributed to a pet moving towards Dire has been a high pet damage output in relation to the damage output of its master. Note the key phrase here: in relation to its master. Using points in Beast Mastery is all well and good when attempting to move a pet towards Dire, but it may not be enough by itself. Theory suggests that the pet must put the player’s damage to shame. Dumping out any points in other weapon attributes is a common way of achieving this. Also, one might simply not attack. The pet will defend its master and itself so long as the attacking foe is not at range, and thus the player does not actually have to attack for the pet to start killing enemies.

While the damage output ratio between the pet and its master is undoubtedly an important factor, it must be noted that it is not the only factor. High damage sustained by the pet can override a high damage output ratio, as was illustrated in my first test where the pet was made to deal 100% of the damage but still came out Playful. In fact we do not know with certainty that it is the ratio of damages; the interaction is difficult to untangle as pet kills, damage and experience rate are all tied together, and damage dealt by the master by definition reduces the damage the pet deals, as the enemies die sooner.

Controlling the damage done to the pet
If damage sustained by the pet is so important in determining its evolution, what are the best ways to mitigate damage? When seeking a Dire pet, as much attention should be paid to this question as to how you will make your pet dish out damage. Since it is damage taken, and not healing or even number of deaths, that seems to push the pet towards Hearty, minimizing the damage that the pet endures is vital. Symbiotic Bond and Call of Protection are therefore immeasurably helpful. Via these two skills you can nearly eliminate all damage dealt to the pet. At extremely low levels, Otyugh’s Cry can be added to the mix to make up for a low natural Armor Level. Since Call of Protection’s effect is linked to Beast Mastery, a high Beast Mastery stat will not only allow your pet to deal better damage, but also minimize the damage it takes. Therefore a high Beast Mastery stat has a dual sided benefit when trying to train a Dire pet.

More than just the build
Another matter I would like to mention is the importance of the play style itself rather than just the build used. It may sound absurd to some, but a Dire pet can still be attained with no points in Beast Mastery and no pet attacks equipped. It is extremely difficult, but has been done. Similarly, a Hearty pet can be attained with full points in Beast Mastery. The key is in the way the player plays, such as whether it is the player or the pet at the forefront of battle. If the player charges in and makes a target of himself, it will push the pet towards a Dire evolution. However, if the player hangs back and sends the pet on ahead, it will push the pet towards a Hearty evolution. This is most likely due to the simple fact that the main target sustains more damage than the one that comes in behind; thus, if the pet is always being sent in ahead it will be targeted more often and will inevitably take more damage, pushing it towards Hearty. While this detail will not make or break your pet’s evolution, it is nonetheless important to take note of. In a situation where the pet is on the brink and you are having difficulty getting it across the line and into the category that you want, a detail such as this may make all the difference.

Unevolved Pets?
One evolution predicament that has, to my knowledge, not been previously explored is that of the unevolved pet. It does occasionally happen that upon reaching level 11, the pet’s base name does not change. This means that even after resetting the pet’s name it has neither the Aggressive nor the Playful prefix. These unevolved pets will not evolve at a later time; they are fixed at the base name for the duration of their lives. They are not secretly one of the evolutions, and instead remain without any of the modifiers associated with the different evolutions. This means that it is the equivalent of an Elder pet, for the Elder pet has no modifiers either. Knowing this, the cause of getting an unevolved pet is as one would expect. If upon hitting level 11 the pet still remains in the middle of the slider instead of to one side or the other, it will remain unevolved. The most common method of keeping the pet balanced through these early levels is to use a build which levels up the pet very quickly without allowing it to deal or receive much damage at all, such as a Necromancer minion-master who happens to bring along a pet. Another means to the unevolved pet is to make the pet deal great amounts of damage and take quite a bit of damage as well. This is more difficult, as it is hard to tell how much damage the pet should take and dish out to be balanced, and it is harder still to keep the ratio right. An example of a possible method would be to level the pet up while keeping its damage taken at nothing and forcing it to deal 100% of the damage. Then, upon each level-up of the pet, take it outside of Augury Rock and let the Hydras kill it once. Another successful method of getting an unevolved pet was to train the pet for 1 level as an Aggressive and 5 levels as a Playful. Another easy way to get an unevolved pet is simply to level the pet while it is dead; a dead pet deals no damage and suffers no damage. The range for experience is apparently unlimited – even if the pet doesn’t show the leveling it will level when you get within range of the pet again, or if you cross an instance portal/map travel.

Aggressive/Playful pets
When the first research was performed on pets they seemed to pretty much always evolve to either one of the extreme evolutions (Dire/Hearty) or remain balanced (Elder/Uneveolved); since that time there have been many game updates, and level 20 pets are being raised without the second evolution step occuring. These animals seem to fixed as Playful or Aggressive at level 20 and don't evolve to Dire/Elder/Hearty.

Choosing which enemies to level on
Most masters of pet evolution will recommend one of two areas in the Prophecies campaign in the entire game when trying to evolve a pet. These are: the Minotaurs outside Ice Tooth Cave and the Mergoyle Wavebreakers outside of Gates of Kryta. These enemies have no mystical qualities about them that make them better for training pets with. What they do offer is an easily controlled environment. Since pet training can be a delicate process with many different factors influencing how the pet evolves, you will want to control as many variables as possible to maximize your success. The enemies are no exception, and choosing an enemy with an easily predicted and countered damage type is very helpful. Warriors and elementalists offer direct damage that can be easily reduced through Symbiotic Bond and Call of Protection. They do not degen or condition your pet, which can wreak havoc with its training. They conveniently have no means to protect themselves against your own condition spreading, and come without friends of other classes to mess you up. Additionally, they are of a low enough level that your own character shouldn’t be in danger of dying from them, yet a high enough level that your pet can still level all the way to 15 on them if you so choose.

You do not need to level your pet in either of these two spots to train the pet you want, although they will make your life easier. If you choose to go elsewhere, remember to avoid enemies with any of the following: degen hexes, degen conditions, blinding, armor-ignoring damage.

Training your pet
It has been brought up recently that the approach to training a pet mentioned in the guide is focused on Tyrian players (hardly surprising, as Cantha hadn't been discovered at the time of the first guide), and many new players may not have access to Tyria (or Prophecies campaign skills). To attempt to help Canthan beastmasters we are trying to determine ways to raise a pet to Dire using Canthan skills (Hearty is easy enough to raise anyway, and once you have an Aggressive pet it can progress to Elder by switching to a less protective style of play)


Sample training builds

Hearty (any campaign)
For Hearty pets, you have the freedom to bring almost any solo build you want. As long as you keep your Beast Mastery low, send your pet in ahead of you, and let it earn some experience while dead, you should be just fine. Of course, going solo is only to increase the rate of experience gain, a Hearty pet can be achieved easily enough in a party setting as well, over a longer period of time.

Ranger/Elementalist vs. Minotaurs
Expertise: 9 + 3 + 1
Wilderness Survival: 8 + 1
Marksmanship: 11 + 1
Earth Magic: 8

Poison Arrow {E}
Penetrating Attack
Dual Shot
Ignite Arrows
Armor of Earth
Troll Unguent
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal

For a Dire pet, we are trying to list the skills/area by campaign; obviously if you have access to both Canthan and Tyrian skills you can combine the two, and select a location from either continent.

Dire (Tyrian skills only)
For training pets towards Dire, Call of Protection is nearly a necessity. Symbiotic Bond and Otyugh’s Cry will be helpful for the same reasons as Call of Protection is; however, all three may not be necessary beyond the early levels of the pet. As for pet attacks, the elite Ferocious Strike is wondrously helpful. The additional energy gained from it will allow you to use pet attacks more frequently. Another pet attack that should be considered is Feral Lunge. This will allow your pet to deal damage against foes whose armor is still too high for it. Also, if you choose to fight foes who are heavy on spell casting, Disrupting Lunge is a good skill to consider. Not only will you deal damage with it, but you can prevent damage as well. Sine the introduction of Faction skills there are several other attacks to consider as well- Enraged Lunge as a damage dealing skill, Poisonous Bite as an additional degeneration tool and so on.

Generally speaking, you should only need one or two slots for self-defense. I suggest that one of these be Troll Unguent. The other may be a stance such as Whirling Defense, or an armor buff such as Armor of Earth or Physical/Elemental Resistance.

Ranger/Mesmer vs. Minotaurs
Beast Mastery: 12 + 3 + 1
Expertise: 12 + 1
Wilderness Survival: 3 + 1

Ferocious Strike {E}
Feral Lunge
Symbiotic Bond
Call of Protection
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal
Troll Unguent
Physical Resistance


Dire (Canthan skills only)
The number of defensive options is drastically reduced for those with only Canthan skills. This makes Dire much more difficult to achieve, as it is vital that the pet not suffer much damage. With Call of Protection, Otyugh's Cry and Symbiotic Bond all being Prophecies skills, and no equivalent skills in Factions we must resort to non-beastmastery skills in order to protect the pet. As such, it may be that only some profession combinations can successfully raise Dire pets solo (or at least with regularity). Primary rangers have the greatest flexibility this way, as they can have whichever secondary is needed, while a necromancer as no choice for example but be a secondary ranger. Blindness and evasion are very solid ways to defend a pet (at least versus melee, which is what concerns us the most), and thus any build that can keep a group of enemies blinded is worth considering; the pet can of course benefit from direct damage reduction, so skills like Shielding Hands or Union come to mind as ways to reduce damage effectively, while skills like Dissonance allow protection by causing misses. It may be that a two-player approach is best for Canthans, but these at least are some ideas of possible skills. For pet based damage the Canthans have several good choices; Poisonous bite, much like Feral Lunge, adds a fair bit of damage even at lower BM levels, and the elite skill Enraged Lunge adds a powerful punch to any primarily BM lineup. In addition, playstyle is of course important - if you can get the attacks to be focussed on yourself your pet is safer, and requires less protection. Hopefully we can post a confrimed Canthan skill list for raising a Dire pet.

Dire (following Nightfall)
The easiest manner yet to level a Dire pet has been with Nightfall. The introduction of heroes makes it very simple, as a hero can serve as a portable resurrection shrine, simply by equipping a resurrection skill and having a Charm Animal for the player (or hero) needing a new Dire pet.

This method, known as "death levelling" involves the pet gaining experience from killing a player, prior to being charmed. Clear the area of any enemies/patrols that might interfere. Position a hero nearby, with no skills excepting a resurrection (not Rebirth) and perhaps a self heal (*not* a heal for other allies) and get the future pet to attack the player. To speed the process of dying, remove any armor that isn't needed, superior runes in low level armor can be used to reduce your health total as well. The animal will repeatedly kill the player, gaining experience with each kill, and since it deals damage but sufferes none is pretty much guaranteed to progress to a Dire pet. Once the pet is sufficiently levelled (you can allow it to reach 20 this way) simply use Charm Animal to capture the pet.

Elder (either campaign)
Elder pets are the balance between aggressive and defensive, and can be obtained by following first one evolutionary path, then following the other. However, since it is much harder to follow the Dire path it is recommended if you desire an Elder pet that you follow first the Dire training until you have an Aggressive pet, then switch to the other style of play. It is faster to raise a pet to 11 than from 11 to 16, and should you allow too much damage to the pet in the first stage you will be able to start afresh.

Unevolved (either campaign)
Unevolved pets are identical to Elder pets - they simply were raised in such a way as to minimise the chance of evolving. One easy way to do this is to solo (or possibly in a small team) a very high level area (preferably a large one) with your pet dead the whole time. A dead pet takes no damage (thus no shift toward Hearty) and deals no damage (thus no shift toward Dire). Such a pet sadly doesn't have an evolution noted, but can be easier to attain than trying to raise an Elder pet.

Evolutions and statistics

Evolutions are more complex than initially thought; while the health information was accurate, rather than a flat damage adjustment it is observed that the bonus in damage varies with the level of the pet in question. The health adjustments for pets are indeed:

+60 health for a Hearty pet
+30 health for a Playful pet
No adjustment for Elder pet
-30 health for an Aggressive pet
-60 health for a Dire pet

As such, the table of pet health levels is as follows(6):
http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/5403/healthevolvedtable6tx.png

As far as damage is concerned, the damage range and average damage shifts with each level, and the damage adjustment doesn’t seem to level off until level 14. As of level 14 it becomes a ~15% bonus/penalty to damage, and this rule is followed right up to level 20. The following table indicates damage ranges and average damages for the various evolutions (7).
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/4378/damageevolvedtable3lr.png
http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/1962/damagegraph8ak.th.jpg (http://img466.imageshack.us/my.php?image=damagegraph8ak.jpg)

As can be seen from the damage ranges and the average damages the effect of evolution isn’t a simple +2 to damage, but is instead approximately a +/-15% at level 20; the table of ratios shows that at low levels of aggressive/playful the damage adjustment is smaller, but grows. While the percentages aren’t exact, given the standard errors the ratios a 5% adjustment for levels 11-13 and 15% for level 14-20 lie within a 95% CI. (8)
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/859/damageratiotable5lo.png

Selecting an Evolution
What evolution should one try to attain? What are the factors to consider?

One such factor is size. Dire and Hearty pets from Tyria or Elona are larger than other pets. This is to our knowledge a purely aesthetic feature, but can help determine the choice for some. If you want a larger pet you should pursue one of these evolutions.

My (and Jenosavel's) opinion early on was that there is little reason to desire an Elder or Hearty pet, and that Dire pets were the way to go. Since health is in fact only a buffer, having a high health will only really serve against spike damage - otherwise if the rate of damage exceeds healing the player or animal will die - damage output was important, and since pets didn't suffer death penalty when we first examined the issue it seemed that for the majority of builds that Dire was the best option.

Since this time things have changed; the damage from pet attack skills have been greatly increased, and new attack skills (such as enraged lunge) have been introduced dealing very large amounts of damage. Since this damage is all "bonus" damage, it is unaffected by the evolution, and in fact in most beastmater build the actual base damage the pet deals is a much smaller portion of the total damage - hence the evolution matters less in terms of the percentage of the damage output accounted for, while health remains a good buffer. When your pet delivers a +80 damage enraged lunge, a few points of damage eaither way on the base damage seem somewhat trivial, while the extra health of a Hearty pet over a Dire pet starts to be a concern (+120 health).

In addition, with pets suffering death penalties in PvP play, and potentially in PvE play in the future, there is now a better reason to avoid a pet's death (in PvP at least). This also thus pushes for Hearty pets.

For PvP play, some builds want the pets to die, to provide corpses for wells, putrid explosions, minions and such. In this case there may be an advantage to a lower health.

In PvE play, some have noted that the enemy AI seems to select weaker targets preferentially; it would seem that having a death penalty or a lower health increases the likelihood of being the target of attacks (along with proximity and various other factors). This tendency has been reported with pets as well, though it is difficult to measure. As such, if one wishes to use a pet as a tank it may be better to use a DIre pet, with less health, since it may gather and hold aggro better. This is directly opposite what the evolution would suggest, which is that for tanking one wants the Hearty pet's larger health pool.

Selecting a pet is thus a complex issue; some may opt for the Elder, simply as a compromise between the extremes, others may value the small amount of extra damage that a Dire pet delivers, and since as yet in PvE there is no death penalty for pets we can simply use comfort animal frequently. It may have a hidden bonus of attracting more aggro, and thus serving as a better tank. Such pets may also fit PvP builds that exploit corpses better.

The Hearty pet however has more support than it once had; the loss of damage is not nearly as problematic with the increased damage output that pets now enjoy, and the extra health is handy. I think it would be fair to say that the hearty pet is the better choice for most all-around purposes, with the Dire being reserved for squeezing that extra bit of damage out of the pet, particularly out of its base attacks.

[Epinephrine]

5) Combat effectiveness

Editing of the skill reviews and descriptions has taken place (from the latest update) but the tables still need to be fixed to display the new damage outputs, I'll work on that tonight
A basic pet thus attacks every ~2.14 seconds for ~24.4 average damage vs. 60 AL at level 12 beastmastery, for 11.4 DPS with no other skills used. Use of Call of Haste increases this to 15.2 DPS, so a pet can with minimal spending prove to be an effective attacker.

Here's a table showing the damage, DPS and DPS under Call of Haste for beastmastery 0-12 for a level 20 pets.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/6854/effectivenesstable0fy.png

For a single skill slot this isn't bad - even with no skills in the pet at a 12 BM it would be slightly better than having a permanent Conjure Phantasm running, draining away health constantly. They have decent health, equivalent to a player of their level, with variations due to their "evolution". How much good can we get out of the pet?

Reasons to consider the pet

Pets add damage even without using energy - that extra ~11 damage a second for no energy is about the cheapest damage you'll ever find; sure, there are signets that do damage, but they can't compare. Pets also draw some fire (sometimes) and provide additional attacks, triggering hit effects for example. Many pet skills can be triggered instantly, and thus are proof against interruption/knockdowns, and can be used even while kiting or casting. If a ranger is using a bow, some of the usefulness of a pet is lost, but pets can be used to perform many of the tasks that a bow might be used for; pets’ attacks can:

• Cripple
• Bleed
• Poison
• Daze
• Skill interrupt + 20 second denial
• Knockdown (vs casters or versus fleeing foes)
• Do additional damage vs enchanted foes
• Do additional damage against foes with conditions
• Do additional damage to foes with health <50%
• Provide energy and adrenaline.

In addition, these attack skills add to the DPS the pet puts out, by varying degrees. The attack burden is an important thing to be concerned with; it is quite easy (especially with the use of skills that speed recharge times) to have an attack burden that exceeds the number of attacks available. When that happens the skills can't be triggered as often as they are ready, and one loses effectiveness. A simple pair of skills like Ferocious Strike and Brutal Strike can be used, with the elite Ferocious Strike supporting the energy cost of the Brutal Strike (with enough expertise), and when the conditions are met this can add nearly 15 DPS to the pet's damage output at 12 Beastmastery, a respectable bit of damage.

Energy Burdens are listed WITHOUT expertise - if you know the amount of reduction you have simply multiply the energy burden by the portion of cost you pay; thus, if you have a 13 expertise and are running Bestial Pounce (cost 5, energy burden 1pip) you only pay 2 energy to activate it, 40% of the cost. Your energy burden would thus be 1 pip*0.4 = 0.4 pips. Attack burdens represent the frequency of attack that can be dedicated to the skill; 1/4 means that 1 out of 4 attacks can use it, and that is how the DPS was calculated.

The skills (bonuses listed are for 0/12/16 Beastmastery)

The Attacks:

Core Attacks

Disrupting Lunge
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +1/+10/+13 damage. If it strikes an enemy who is using a skill, that skill is interrupted and disabled for 20 seconds.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a square with a corner forward over a pale disk. (http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/213/disruptinglunge014xb.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: A utility skill; it is useable frequently, and thus is quite spammable. While you could choose to aim for a given spell (especially vs. long casting opponents) it is cheap enough to run full time vs. faster casters and in fact skill users; that's 12 shots a minute to try to catch a skill or spell being used. Although the damage bonus is lower than some other skills, the 20 second skill knockout and interrupting ability make this a skill to bank on if you desire a suppressive style of play, and with 13+ expertise it's only 1 pip of energy. I have reduced it's rating after the March 2, 2006 update as the difference in damage output has grown considerably between this skill and other skills in the line - reserving this for interruption duty and not making it as resonable an all-around choice.
DPS (12BM) = 2.17
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 3 pips
Rating = ****0


Ferocious Strike {Elite}
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +13/+25/+28 damage, and you gain Adrenaline and 3/9/10 energy.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a square with a side forward over a pale disk. (http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6470/ferociousstrike011ls.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 8 seconds
Analysis: This skill is brilliant, and fully deserving of your elite slot in many cases. It isn't really a highly damaging skill, as can be seen by the low boost to DPS. What this spell does though is ups damage a bit while providing energy and adrenaline - 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. The energy however is quite good; for a non ranger it is a bit limited, as it only gives 1.5 pips of energy gain, though it does damage at the same time, so one can't complain. For a ranger with 13+expertise however it generates 2.625 pips of energy while dealing damage, a respectable gain. I don't know that I can give it a rating of 5, as it is not fully an energy tool, and it is definitely not a damage tool, but it is indispensable for rangers wishing to run beast skills and have energy for other activities.
DPS (12BM) = 3.13; 2.78 under CoH
Attack burden: 1/4; 1/6 under CoH
Energy burden = 1.875 pips
Energy generation = 3.375 pips
Adrenaline gain = 1/8 seconds
Rating = ****0


Maiming Strike
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +5/+17/+21 damage. If it strikes a moving enemy, that enemy becomes Crippled for 3/13/17 seconds.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a square with a corner forward over a pale disk. (http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/2220/maimingstrike011je.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds
Analysis: The change to a 5 second recharge time definitely improves this skill, making it slightly better in terms of re-applying the cripple on a fleeing target; the damage boost to the other skills however has been imrpoved, so this is still distinctly sub-par in terms of damage output. This is a decent alternative to the ranger cripples, being cheaper than a pin down and more easily applied to have continual coverage. As a utility skill I'd give it a 4, but it really needs to be used in conjunction with CoH to ensure being able to get fleeing opponents.
DPS (12BM) = 3.4
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 6 pips
Rating = ****0 in it's role


Melandru's Assault
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +5/+17/+21 damage. If it strikes an enemy with an Enchantment, that enemy and all adjacent enemies take an additional +5/+29/+37 damage.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a triangle with the point backwards over a pale disk. (http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/6371/melandrusassault012dj.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: This skill probably got more of a boost than any other skill in the line from the March 2, 2006 update. The splash damage is still somewhat of a small bonus, as it is very close range (adjacent) and only adds up to 5.8 DPS even then, but at least the main target is taking better damage, with the attack rate doubled - I haven't tested it yet, but judging from the numbers I'd rank this as high as the Brutal Strike now is, mainly due to the prevalence of enchantments. The non-boosted main damage makes me rate it lower though, since paying 10 energy for a +17 damage attack versus paying 5 energy for a +17 damage attack is a no-brainer - predator's Pounce still walks all over this skill.
DPS (12BM) = 3.4 (9.2)
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 6 pips
Rating = ***00


Scavenger Strike
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +10/+22/+26 damage. If it strikes an enemy suffering from a Condition, that enemy takes an additional +1/+12/+16 damage.
Visual: A cloud of sparkles around the pet (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4940/scavengerstrike011qo.jpg) that fall to form a hexagon over a pale disk. (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9434/scavengerstrike022ve.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: If I am reading this correctly, one of the skills actually reduced in potency (at least relatively) with the update. The already weaker cousin of Brutal Strike, the base damage bonus being lowered below that of skills like Feral Lunge and Predator's Pounce has killed this skill's usefulness - sure, it's easier to meet the damage bonus criterion, but the nearly imperceptible boost just isn't worth it. This is the new Melandru's Assault.
DPS (12BM) = 4.4 (6.8)
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 6 pips
Rating = *0000


Prophecies Attacks

Bestial Pounce
Description: Your animal companion attempts a Bestial Pounce that deals +5/+17/+21 damage. If the attack strikes a foe who is casting a spell, that foe is knocked down.
Visual: A cloud of green sparkles in the air around the pet (http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/1070/bestialpounce018ao.jpg) that falls to the ground and forms a pentagon over a pale disk. (http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/1313/bestialpounce027if.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 10 seconds.
Analysis: As seen on the tables, the skill adds very little damage, and is chiefly a utility skill. since the timing of these attacks are essentially at best 1.5 seconds (under CoH, averaging to maybe .75) by the time you see a 1 second spell it is too late to try to interrupt it unless your pet happened to just be winding up. This skill is only thus useful as a chance interrupt vs. fast spells or to purposely take out 2+ second spells. The increase to a 10 second recharge in the March 2, 2006 update is a nice boost, but hardly enough to shift it from it's rather low-priority position in the beast skill line.
DPS (12BM) = ~1.7
Attack burden: 1/5; 1/7 under CoH
Energy burden = 1.5 pips
Rating = **000


Brutal Strike
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +5/+29/+37 damage. If it strikes an enemy whose health is below 50%, that enemy takes an additional +5/+29/+37 damage.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a triangle with the point forward over a pale disk. (http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/8280/brutalstrike012bd.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: This skill is a damage skill, designed to finish an opponent As is noted, it is incredibly energy intensive, demanding 5 pips of energy without expertise, and 2 pips (40%) even with 14 expertise. The March 2, 2006 update significantly boosted the damage of this skill, it now adds a considerable amount of damage, and is the best damage spiker in the line once a player is down on his luck. It is still quite expensive, at 2 pips of energy with 14 expertise, but the 11.6 DPS it can add are substantial.
DPS (12BM) = 5.8 (11.6)
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 6 pips
Rating = ****0


Feral Lunge
Description: If this pet attack hits, it deals +5/+29/+37 damage. If the attack strikes an enemy who is attacking, that enemy suffers from Bleeding for 3/21/26 seconds.
Visual: An upward spiral of green mist that starts out wide (http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/8730/ferallunge016qs.jpg) and tightens in as it rises. (http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/9688/ferallunge024qu.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 10 seconds.
Analysis: Really a damage skill, but also a source of conditions; Feral Lunge is a workhorse skill of the Beastmastery line - the 2.9 DPS is pretty insignificant, but bleeding is an additional 6 DPS, and thus it is actually ranking highly at 8.9 DPS, provided it isn't overlapping bleeding from other sources. It has a comparatively low energy burden, and plenty of time in between lunges to work in other attacks, as it only uses 1/5 (or 1/7) of the pet's attacks. Because of the prevalence of the bleeding condition however I will only rank it a 3.
DPS (12BM) = ~2.9 (8.9)
Attack burden: 1/5; 1/7 under CoH
Energy burden = 1.5 pips
Rating = ***00


Predator's Pounce
Description: If this pet attack hit, it deals +5/+29/+37 damage and your pet gains 5/41/53 health.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a pentagon over a pale disk. (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/2668/predatorspounce016zh.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: The skill adjustments of March 2, 2006 didn't hurt this skill really - it is no longer one of the top damage dealers in the line, but maintains it's effiiency and general usefulness. With a the same base damage output as the high powered Melandru's Assault and Brutal Strike, but instead of a conditional damage bonus a guaranteed heal for the pet, and at half the cost of the higher damage skills it delivers a good solid DPS boost, at the same efficiency rate as the higher damage attacks, with a nice non-conditional pet heal in the deal as well. As a generally useful skill it should easily find it's way onto the skillbar, and with the drop in the (relative) power of Disrupting Lunge I am boosting the rating of Predator's Pounce.
DPS (12BM) = 5.8
Healing (HPS) = 6.83
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 3 pips
Rating = *****


Factions Attacks

Bestial Mauling
Description: Your animal companion attempts a Bestial Mauling that deals +5...17...21 damage. If the attack strikes a knocked-down foe, that foe is Dazed for 5...17...21 seconds.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 20 seconds.
Analysis: A pet attack causing dazed, without needing to interrupt a skill, and at a cost of only 5 energy; not a bad deal. It however has several limitations; a 20 second recharge and low damage bonus makes it only a utility skill, and poor synergies with other ranger skills make the use of a secondary profession knockdown a virtual necessity (since Besital Pounce and Savage Pounce need to interrupt a spell to knock down, and Pounce requires a moving target). The ease with which a ranger can cover with conditions is handy, and I can see this skill being useful in the right build, perhaps coupled with a skill like Gale.
DPS (12BM) = 0.85
Attack burden: 1/10; 1/14 under CoH
Energy burden = 0.75 pips
Rating = TBD


Enraged Lunge {Elite}
Description: Your animal companion attempts an Enraged Lunge that deals +3...19...24 damage (maximum bonus 80) for each recharging Beast Mastery skill.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 5 seconds.
Analysis: This skill never leaves my bar if I am shooting for a damage oriented pet build; it requires a certain investment into pet skills to be effective, but when used it is scarily effective. The skill of choice to deal damage.
DPS (12BM) = Varies with number of recharging pet skills, peaks at 16 DPS
Attack burden: 1/3; 1/4 under CoH
Energy burden = 3 pips
Rating = *****


Poisonous Bite
Description: Your animal companion attempts a Poisonous Bite that Poisons target foe for 5...17...21 seconds.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 7 seconds.
Analysis: I like this skill, it's a decent source of degeneration, and covers conditions nicely; it can be re-applied cheaply and often, but also can be light on energy use as it has a long duration. It however has no damage boost for the attack itself, so once the target is poisoned there is no need to use it again until the condition needs re-application.
DPS (12BM) = 0 (8)
Attack burden: 1/4; 1/6 under CoH
Energy burden = 2.14 pips
Rating = ***00


Pounce
Description: Your animal companion's next attack is a Pounce that deals +5...17...21 damage. If the attack strikes a moving foe, that foe is knocked down.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 20 seconds.
Analysis: A pet knockdown that doesn't need to interrupt an attack - it does however suffer from all the limitations that Maiming strike suffers from, including the tendency to hit the foe when they have stopped to attack or cast a spell rather than when they are actually moving. The synergy with Bestial Mauling is not great, as you also need to have Call of Haste running just to get the pet attacks to be fast enough to actually catch the victim while he/she is still knocked down - and the delay in pet attacks can make it difficult to get the knockdown in the first place. I can't think of often that the knock down would be more valuable than the cripple, but I suppose that some might find this useful, even though it is not much good for DPS.
DPS (12BM) = 0.85
Attack burden: 1/10; 1/14 under CoH
Energy burden = 0.75 pips
Rating = **000


Savage Pounce
Description: Your animal companion attempts a Savage Pounce that deals +5/+17/+21 damage. If the attack strikes a foe who is casting a spell, that foe is knocked down.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 10 seconds.
Analysis: This is a duplicate skill of Bestial Pounce; the skill adds very little damage, and is chiefly a utility skill. Since the timing of these attacks are essentially at best 1.5 seconds (under CoH, averaging to maybe .75) by the time you see a 1 second spell it is too late to try to interrupt it unless your pet happened to just be winding up. This skill is only thus useful as a chance interrupt vs. fast spells or to purposely take out 2+ second spells.
DPS (12BM) = ~1.7
Attack burden: 1/5; 1/7 under CoH
Energy burden = 1.5 pips
Rating = **000

Summary tables of skill effectiveness
http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/6313/petskills1table2ox.png
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1508/petskills2table9zq.png

Pet Skills:

The list of pet skills got a bit of a boost with the introduction of a few nice pet skills in Factions; it now includes two ways to self heal as wellas a speed buff, making for a flexibility that wasn't present before. The elite skill Heal as One can provide a decent amount of healing (granted, at the cost of your elite slot) for both the ranger and his pet, making for a more self sufficiennt build, or saving attribute points as it is no longer necessary to plan other heals.

Core Skills

Call of Haste
Description: For the next 30 seconds, your animal companions have 25% faster attack speed and move 33% faster than normal.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a hexagon over a pale disk. (http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/6760/callofhaste012dl.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 25 seconds.
Analysis: This skill is one of the best for upping pet damage - it boosts the base damage by 33%, as well as making the pet much more capable of dealing with enemies who try to flee.
Energy Burden: 1 pip
Rating: = ***** for an attacking build


Comfort Animal
Description: Heal your animal companion for 20/87/110 points. If your animal companion is dead, it is resurrected at 10%/48%/61% health and all your skills are disabled for 8 seconds.
Visual: Yellow-green bubbles. (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5439/comfortanimal011kc.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: 1 second.
Recharge Time: 1 second.
Analysis: This skill is almost impossible to rate. The healing on it isn't great, but then again it's the only heal in the attribute. The revive is horribly inconvenient, as it shuts down your skills, but has a great range on it. It is one of 2 ways to bring a pet back, and so is vital in PvE pretty much; in PvP it may not matter depending on the format.
Rating: N/A


Prophecies Skills

Call of Protection
Description: For the next 120 seconds, your animal companions have 1/11/15 base damage reduction.
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a triangle over a pale disk. (http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/293/callofprotection012lb.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 115 seconds.
Analysis: This skill can greatly reduce damage to your pet. If using your pet as a tank in PVE this is a great skill.
Energy burden: 0.13 pips
Rating = ***** for a tanking build.


Otyugh's Cry
Description: All animals within 100 feet 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. This skill has a 50% chance to fail with Beast Mastery 4 or less.
Visual: A yellow and green burst. (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6259/otyughscry012tg.jpg)
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 30 seconds.
Analysis: This skill is widely referred to as the worst skill in the game, and for it's listed ability it is roughly that bad. There are no random animals in PvP, making it useless in that venue, and in PvE the most you might have around is ~3, and generally of such low levels that they don't much matter; three level 5 bears attacking the level 24 Avicara band are dead in seconds, so unless you really need corpses and don't like shooting animals it is not worth using for this power. The 20 AL boost seems to affect pets however, making this a "Watch Yourself" cry for pets. It is thus a useful spell, particularly with many pets around, as it helps each of them and thus becomes quite cost effective.
Energy burden: 0.5 pips
Rating: ***00


Revive Animal
Description: Resurrect all nearby allied animal companions. They each come back to life with 50/410/530 health.
Visual: No visual effect.
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: 6 seconds.
Recharge Time: 20 seconds.
Analysis: The only way for anyone but the pet's owner to revive a pet, and it comes back at high health. It has a short range however, which involves being quite close to the downed pet, which reduces it's utility. In certain builds this skill may be wonderful, but outside of saving a slot or so in PvE for a fellow ranger I don't see this skill as very useful.
Rating: **000


Symbiotic Bond
Description: For the next 120/264/312 seconds, your animal companion gains +1/+3/+3? health regeneration, and half of any physical damage dealt to your animal companion is redirected to you.
Visual: An 8 pointed star with a hole in the middle of it around the player's waist. (http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2654/symbioticbond016vk.jpg)
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 55 seconds.
Analysis: This skill was thankfully changed to be a shout rather than a stance - improving it enormously! Now you can actually run a stance as a ranger (or from your secondary) and the bond to your pet can't be disrupted by a wild blow or the like. This only helps vs physical damage according to the description, and I haven't tested it myself. The skill has been given good reviews by rangers using their pet as a tank; in conjunction with the Call of Protection it makes the pets quite durable. The boost to +3 pips of regeneration is generous, I think that this skill could be quite useful for a ranger now. A tip: Balthazar's Spirit will trigger off this damage, as well as off Life Bond damage, so you can in fact get 2 energy per hit your pet suffers while protecting him from 75% of incoming damage.
Energy burden: 0.11 pips
Rating: ***00


Factions Skills

Heal as One {Elite}
Description: If you or your animal companion are below 75% Health, you both gain 25/121/153 Health.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: 1.
Recharge Time: 12 seconds.
Analysis: I'm not that impressed by this skill, though it does allow for some decent healing at high levels of Beastmastery, and can provide a measure of independent play. At maximum effectiveness, used every 13 second it can potentially provide the equivalent of 11.8 or so health per second each; more than a mending but not an overwhelming amount of healing - though it does so without the need to invest in another attribute. To compare, a Troll Unguent is also on a 13 second cycle, and at 10 Wildreness survival provides 160 health per 13 seconds, or 12.3 health per second for the ranger - so by no means is this a major heal, though it does provide health for both the ranger and his pet. As such it has a nice synergy with Symbiotic Bond, which transfers half the damage dealt to the pet to the ranger; provided the ranger staysout oof combat then this heal can be about doubly efficient, since both the pet heal and the ranger heal are addressing an even split of damage. While the health per energy is good, I feel that the skill just doesn't quite rate as high as Enraged Lunge or Ferocious Strike, though I can see how it would be handy in a build using a pet without good self-heals. Throw in the ability to resurrect the pet and I'm sold on it, but since I need to take comfort animal along as well I'm just not blown away.
Energy burden: 1.25 pips
Rating: ***00

Predatory Bond
Description: For 5/17/21 seconds, attacks by your animal companion heal you for 1/25/33 Health.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 10.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 30 seconds.
Analysis: This skill is another self-heal for the beastmaster, but doesn't affect his pet. It allows the equivalent of a powerful Live Vicariously through the pet, getting as much as 33 health back per attack; with a pet using Call of Haste to boost the attack rate this can be as much as 20.6 health per second while it is active, or roughly 14.4 health per second over time. This is thus as effective overall as a strong Troll Unguent, or as the elite skill Heal as One in terms of keeping health up (provided Call of Haste is used, and the pet is actually hitting), and is a very handy skill. It can be used to help oppose health loss from Symbiotic Bond if desired, or as a continual health gain to oppose other damage sources. Given that most beastmasters have Comfort animal for their pets this provides a constant flow of health for the beast master without using his elite slot - I think it is a better skill overall than Heal as One, given its non-elite status.
Energy burden: 1 pip
Rating: ****0

Run as One
Description: For 5...13...16 seconds, you and your pet run 25% faster.
Visual: N/A
Energy Cost: 5.
Casting Time: Instant.
Recharge Time: 30 seconds.
Analysis: The last of the new Faction skills, this is a speed buff for both the ranger and his pet. Given that pets already have 20% faster movement than players it is not nearly as needed for the sole purpose of pet speed boosts, and besides, for that role there is always Call of Haste which provides an attack bonus as well. It can serve as a speed boost for the beastmaster, though primary rangers have the option of taking Dodge for example, since they'll likely have an investment in Expertise. It does allow attacks while speed buffed though, and I could see this being of use to pet-based touch rangers, bunny thumpers or pet-assassin builds, as they all want both the pet and the player to have access to the target. For most pet builds it wouldn't be a top priority, but I can see it as being useful for some.
Energy burden: 0.5 pips
Rating: ***00


Summary: You can spend a lot of energy on a pet, or hardly any at all. The cheapest use for a pet is plainly as a tank - after all, 5 energy for 120 seconds of protection is pretty good, and symbiotic bond on top of that makes for one tough critter. Provided you manage aggro properly you can actually successfully use a pet in this way, and they can be very resilient. This is probably the most economical way to get use out of a pet. On the attack the pet can drain a lot of energy very quickly, even with expertise maxed out; you could conceivably be spending 2.4 pips on a single skill, for a pretty small gain in DPS; they aren't the most efficient critters on the planet as a damage source. If you use pet attacks, try to use the most efficient ones for the job. The Disrupting Lunge is a personal favorite, as it has pretty good odds of catching a few spells over a minute, really hampering any caster you sick your pet on. With Factions the damage capability of pets has been increased, as has the self sufficiency with the ways to self-heal using beastmastery skills - as well as adding some flexibility with new skills like a speed buff, the ability to knock down fleeing opponents and two new condition causing skills.

[Epinephrine]

Use of the pet.

Pets are a bit stupid - while I like them, I find that they really don't listen very well; they have horrible AI and lack any method of control. So, much like playing with a henchman, you have to know the rules of the pet AI to be able to use (or, place yourself around) him properly. I have a long list of changes I would recommend that ANet make to pet AI and pet controls.

Pets will respond to a call to attack, much like a henchman does; they will chase the target quite well; unlike a henchman however, they are pretty single-minded - once on the attack the pet doesn't break off easily. They also do not respond to target calls once engaged, unlike the henchmen. They have a nasty habit of standing around sometimes (if they down a foe for example), and you need to call or attack a player to get their attention back, they don't auto-target seek very well – in addition, they will simply stop attacking after a while if you aren't, making them difficult for a monk to use for example. While it might seem ideal to smite off a pet-tank, you must wand the enemies from time to time if you want your pet to continue attacking, and not run back to pace beside you whuffling or howling. The difficulty in getting a pet to switch targets makes some skills less useful - it's hard to spread bleeding for example, if the pet won't switch off the target for 6 seconds.

Controlling Pet Aggro

Most people will be aware that attacking a target will cause your pet to attack it as well. A less commonly known thing, however, is that any attack directed onto you or your pet will initiate attacks from your pet so long as the attacker is nearby. Otyugh's Cry will not initiate attacks from your pet. Although pets don't often switch targets, when they do, the order of target priority appears to be as follows:

1) the master's attacked target
2) target currently attacking the pet
3) target currently attacking the master
4) weakest enemy group (when multiple groups engaged)
5) weakest enemy monster
6) nearest foe

From time to time, pets appear to disregard this order of priority, and it may be that there is an element of randomization involved when the pet is allowed to choose its own targets. Nonetheless, this general order gives a good idea of how to expect your pet to behave.

Pets also like to cut their masters off, or to get cut off. Unfortunately, the pathing for them seems really lousy, and instead of moving around the player they will often stand behind you until you strafe, and when attacking will position themselves right in front of you, forcing you to go around your pet to get to the target.

Anyone who has ever used a pet will have been infuriated at some point by the pet blocking you in, or blocking you away from your target; this is however a two way street - pets can block in enemies as well, and since once on an enemy they tend to simply attack from their position, it isn't hard to pin a player using pets. As is often the case, positioning is very important in GW, and a pair of warriors with a single pet can quite easily triangle-pin a player. Since your pet takes the easiest route to a target the warriors (or simply offensive players, a ranger can do this as easily) need to overtake the target, letting the pet hold the closest position and taking up spots opposite the pet, 120 degrees apart to form the triangle. This is a good thing to practice in the Team Arenas; using a pet with a cripple you allow the pet to attack and loop around the victim to pin him in place - the pet will close the box and you can now finish your target off without risk of flight.

Packs of pets can also serve to slow warriors down nicely, preventing them getting to your casters; they don't have the sense to stay in a wall formation, but the sheer press of bodies can make travel difficult for many.

Skills and pets.

Obviously enough, healing the pet is helpful, as is killing the pet's attackers or blinding them, but I would like to focus on the skills that are worth using with a pet in the party, that are somehow boosted by the presence of the pet or have a new use as a result of the pet's presence. One of the first things to note is that a pet is not a party member but an ally. As a result, many spells that would at first seem to help the pet don't: Some of these are:

• Divine Healing
• Heal Party
• Aegis
• Martyr
• "Watch Yourself"
• Dark Fury
• Order of Pain
• Order of the Vampire

As all of these provide boosts at a party level they are of no benefit to a pet.

So Ranger skills that are of a benefit to a pet/pet-using team are:
Otyugh's Cry - Otyugh's Cry is obvious, an AL boost for all pets - this tend to help your team out as you will typically (using a pet build) have more pets than your opponent.
Predatory Season - Predatory Season (which I have yet to see played) will provide healing for any creature making attacks, and reduce healing on everyone; Since typically caster based teams do less attacking than melee/pet teams, the melee team derives an advantage by attacking, offsetting to some extent the need for heals. A pet-based team thus nets more health from the ritual than a non-pet-based team does.
Winnowing - Winnowing's advantage is based on numbers - with pets you will most likely have more attackers dealing physical damage, so Winnowing becomes a benefit overall to your party; lots of warriors/rangers dealing physical damage amplifies this effect.
Quickening Zephyr - Ok, an odd one to choose, but I think a valid one. Pets can provide damage without any energy expenditure, and QZ is a restricted energy environment; the less you can spend per point of damage the better, and pets certainly fall in the efficient category, if you aren't spamming Brutal Strike. In addition, the elite skill for a pet is an energy regain tool, and because you can still hit a cost of 3 energy per attack you can deliver the attack every 4 seconds (rather than 8) and up your energy regeneration by a substantial margin; enough to easily balance the QZ if played properly.

Elementalists, as they deal primarily with damage effects and defensive measures, do not have skills that benefit pets in any particular way; It may be worth noting that wards do help pet defenses, but I would hardly consider that a huge advantage.

Monks as well, while able to smite off a pet and use it as a platform for Balthazar's Aura for example, have little synergy with the pet, as their powers tend to be fairly straightforward.

Warrior skills that synergise with pets include
I Will Avenge You - As this skill is based on the deaths of allies, with a larger pool of allies able to die it gains some advantage - many IWAY teams bring pets along as free extra damage, and as sources for a bonus from IWAY.
"Charge" - Since this affects all nearby allies it can speed the pets attacks and improve their mobility.
"Shields Up" - As with Charge, this shout also aids all nearby allies.

Mesmer skills that synergise with pets
Blackout - Since this skill removes access to your skillbar, and your target's access to their skill bar it comes down to who is more effective without skills; long lasting buffs are one way to boost your effectiveness during this time, and warriors for example have more damage dealing ability without access to their skills than a caster would typically; since pets are a source of damage that requires no skill use to deal some damage they can be a helpful addition to a blackout build, adding to the damage the player can deal while skill-less. In addition, some blackout builds use echo and a high level of domination to attain a 6 second blackout, while being able to cast blackout every 5 seconds - in such a build the pet skills can be useable; the 1 second casting time of the blackout is a perfect time to trigger a pet attack and/or refresh a pet call; since these are instant casts and do not interfere in the blackout they add a bit more damage to the build.
Active interruptions - Along the same principle as above, babysitting a player with interrupts requires that you be ready to cast at anytime, and minimizes damage output during this time; a pet is a way of being able to continue to deal damage at a reasonable rate while babysitting the target; since you can still activate pet attacks you could quite conceivably deal 15-20 DPS with your pet, in addition to the 12 DPS or so from your wand.

Necromancers have several skills which work well with pets, despite the Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire not acting as damage boosts.

Corpse exploitation - as the Necromancer uses corpses for many spells, the potential supply of them from pets can be helpful.
Soul Reaping - While not a skill, the pets deaths also trigger soul reaping bonuses.
Death Nova - Pets provide again, additional chances to have deaths, and thus to have effects triggered upon death.
Barbs - Possibly the best of the damage boosting skills with pets around, this curse triggers with each physical damage attack that hits the target, dealing damage that ignores armour to the subject. With a good level of curses and several physical attackers it can deal an impressive amount of discomfort to a single target.
Mark of Pain - Another very effective spell in some situations, Mark of Pain splashes shadow damage to those around the target, again triggered on physical damage. With pets adding to the attacks on the target this can be a great damage source in any tightly packed area.
Rigor Mortis - While this simply prevents attacks from missing, the increase in number of attacks by the party counts as the same sort of synergism that winnowing offers; by ensuring that the attacks are hitting you amplify attack damage, which is high on your team.
Weaken Armor - Since all pets deal physical damage, boosting pet damage output by 41.42% seems like a good bargain. On low armour opponents this boost is larger than Barbs, on warriors Barbs is the better option.

Anti-pet skills

Any group worth their salt will have some ways to cut down on pet effectiveness. Pets are remarkably obtuse, and will continue to attack even when hexed with spells that hurt them on attacks. Obviously damage spells are useful, and anti-melee spells in general, but some anti-pet tactics to note are:

Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Insidious Parasite - pets will continue to attack with any of these on. Particularly annoying is spiteful spirit on a pet, as the one pet can be killing all others and your warriors oblivious to the situation.
Greater Conflagration - Since many of the pet damage boosting effects are based on dealing physical damage, eliminating physical damage defuses these skills.
Healing Seed - While a staple in many monk's books of prayers, the fairly low damage that pets deal per attack (without skill use) is easily countered by a healing seed - moreover, if they are trying to exploit a Mark of Pain the Healing Seed at least attenuates that damage.
Channeling - With the number of opponents around a pet-focused caster there is no better energy source than channeling, which can easily allow 5 cost spells free.
Tainted Flesh - other disease spells are good too - with Martyr unable to pull conditions from allies, only party members, the pets continue to suffer and pass the damage to others, making disease a good way to eliminate pets.
Epidemic - For the same reason as above, spreading degenerative conditions on pets is a good way to kill them off; there is no easy way to remove conditions from numbers of pets at once.
Edge of Extinction - Pets are not human, so this effect can be used to eliminate the pets with no damage to the human members, provided you can afford the risk of having players dieing. Interestingly, a wolf=a bear=a moa bird as far as Edge of Extinction is concerned, they are all the same species, "animal".

Builds

Obviously there are many pet-based builds out there, and they have varying degrees of usefulness in the various settings of PvE and PvP. Basic tanking pets in PvE are simple to set up, so I won't bother detailing those here. A pet build can be for a single player, as a damage extension and source of conditions/shutdown, as part of a subteam, like the 2 warrior/pet setup for pinning a target, or a whole-team mentality, with everyone using what skills they can to benefit the build. Some example builds (these were Random Arena and Team Arena builds) show how one can use a pet to deliver damage and a condition (like cripple) in order to boost the effectiveness of some odd rangers; in both cases the ranger is working up close, and the pet carries his cripple.

Blackout Ranger/Mesmer
This build is meant to provide shutdown on a character through Blackout while providing damage from the ranger/pet. While Warriors also have good damage without skills they suffer from an energy shortage; Mesmers can take warrior secondary to try to run like this, but the 5 pips of energy required to maintain a blackout is pretty tough for them. A ranger was chosen to take advantage of the efficient (energy-wise) pet damage and the reduction in the cost of Blackout due to Expertise. I won't say that these are in anyway "perfect" but they give an idea of how to work a pet into a build.

Ranger/Mesmer
Domination 11
Illusion 10
Expertise 7+2
Beastmastery 7+3

Charm Animal
Maiming Strike
Blackout
Illusionary Weaponry
Lightning Reflexes
Wastrel's Worry
Throw Dirt
Resurrection Signet


Vampiric Touch Ranger/Necromancer
Again, using the Ranger Expertise for reduction of a secondary class skill, this build seeks to take advantage of the fast recharge time of the Vampiric Touch skill, while generating energy to fuel it from the pet's Ferocious Strike. The 13 expertise lowers the cost per Vampiric Touch to a manageable 7 energy, while the pet at 12 Beastmastery generates 7 energy every 8 seconds or so, paying for a good part of the Vampiric Touch costs. It operates at an energy deficit and has very poor damage once the ranger is out of energy, but in TA or RA it can do a lot of damage pretty quickly to a target, through armour, while maintaining health through the steals.

Ranger/Necromancer
Expertise: 10+4
Beast Mastery: 10+2
Blood: 11

Vampiric Touch
Throw Dirt
Touch of Agony
Charm Animal
Call of Haste
Maiming Strike
Ferocious Strike
Resurrection Signet

[Epinephrine]

Footnotes
(1) Pet health was tested in 2 ways – the principal method was timing the death of the pet when standing in poisoned water. This required stopping and restarting the stopwatch for higher level pets, but the results were normalized by testing our own health (a known amount) using the same method, which corrected the data (it was reading off expected values by roughly 4-5 health, but the same bias showed up when timing our own deaths). To confirm the results, the pets were retested by raising them in the poison and timing the period to death with beastmastery 0 and beastmastery 3, using Comfort Animal to raise them to 10% and 20% of their health respectively. While this broadens the timing error by making health disappear much more quickly it eliminated the periods without poison, and hence provided a second measure of pet health, which fortunately coincided with the first.

(2) Pet damage testing was done versus Jade Scarabs in the end (though it was originally being done vs. skeletons for damage type testing reasons – the conversion of damage from AL56 to AL60 was however causing some concern about rounding errors). Testing with spells and with wild blow confirmed that they have an AL of 60; in addition, they are level 20, so the critical hit rates should be normalized for against foes in PvP. The testing was done at 12 Beastmastery, in order to find the pet’s true base damage. You may have noticed that damage ranges were listed that are quite broad – if pets get critical hits they seem to vary in damage – the damage range was thus taken as a whole, and the average damage includes any critical hits that the pet generates. Damage distributions are available for each evolution at each level, to show the pattern of the data. Over 10,000 hits were recorded vs. these enemies to derive these values, so the errors are quite small. The fact that all pets (regardless of type) deal the same amount of damage was confirmed with simple t-tests of differences of means; no pairing failed to reject the null hypothesis that they come from the same distribution. Yes, I know that I could have done an ANOVA if I wanted, but I was analysing as the data came in, and I didn't really feel like doing more.

(3) The AL of pets was more difficult to confirm, but ended up being easy. First we needed to ensure that the pets have a “flat” AL, that is, the same AL vs. all types of damage. To be fair, we only confirmed that physical, fire and cold were the same, using damage from wild blow (a constant), greater conflagration and winter. Damage to the pet can be observed easily through symbiotic bond, so one simply needs to find an enemy that deals known parcels of damage. Once that was confirmed the solo Hydra outside Augury Rock was used, as it will always open with a known amount of damage from a fireball/meteor. Having tested the damage on an AL60 character, we could then quite easily calculate the pet AL at each level.

(4) To test the damage types of the pets we needed to find creatures that responded differently to the various damage types. The Skeleton Rangers outside Bergen Hot Springs were brought to my attention by Daegul Mistweaver, as he had noted that they were vulnerable to blunt damage and resistant to piercing damage. These resistances were confirmed and data was recorded vs. these foes. The skeletons (after some testing) were shown to have an AL of 56, +20 vs. piercing, -20 vs. blunt. All animals tested showed the same damage (t-tests failed to reject differences of means between them) excepting the Dune Lizard and the Black Widow, both of which scored ~30% lower damage. This suggested that either all animals do blunt with the Spider and Lizard dealing slashing, or that all animals dealt slashing excepting the Spider and Lizard, which deal piercing. The exact types were confirmed via use of Greater Conflagration; this did not change the damage dealt by most animals, but increased the damage from the Spider and Dune Lizard to the same range as the other animals. Each pet was at level 20 with 12 Beastmastery; a total of ~2300 attacks were recorded against the skeletons, providing a very clear picture of the damage ranges and distributions should anyone wish them.

(5) The speed results are from two tests, the first was timing 100 strikes - if you allow for a miscount of up to 1 strike in either direction you get an estimate of the error. The error on this testing resulted in a range of ~2.12-2.17 for each pet type (excepting the bear, which was 2.60-2.62); the other test was a count of strikes over 5 minutes, resulting in 141 strikes mostly, but once or twice on a species I'd get 140. 300seconds/141strikes = 2.13; 300seconds/140 strikes=2.14, it has a smaller error due to the longer period, say 2.12-2.15 or so, adding a strike in either direction. That's pretty much the same range. Estimating experimental error and measurement error isn't easy. I suspect we're talking a miscount of +/- 1 though. The bear counted 115 attacks over 300 seconds, so 2.59-2.63 seems like a very safe estimate of its attack speed. Animals were tested at level 5 and level 20, to ensure speed stayed the same. The sole creature that varied was the Moa/Strider, which begins at level 3 with an attack period of ~1.6 seconds, but drops from there, reaching 2.14 seconds by level 17.

(6) See note (1) for details, the testing was reproduced for Hearty and Dire evolution pets.

(7) See note (2) for details, the testing was reproduced for Hearty and Dire evolution pets.

(8) Confidence interval for the ratio of damages is calculated using the standard error of the quotient Q=A/B, where A and B are the mean damages. The standard error of Q is
SEq=Q(SEa^2/A^2+SEa^2/B^2)^0.5

Damage tables

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6618/damagestats11kk.png

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/4954/damagestats22by.png

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/8775/damagestats30wc.png

http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/2375/damagestats49ti.png

Distribution of damage by level (links)
Level 3 (http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/9715/distributionlevel35ku.jpg)
Level 4 (http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3314/distributionlevel45yt.jpg)
Level 5 (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7527/distributionlevel57kt.jpg)
Level 6 (http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2640/distributionlevel60dh.jpg)
Level 7 (http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5224/distributionlevel71hq.jpg)
Level 8 (http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/2484/distributionlevel82al.jpg)
Level 9 (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9861/distributionlevel94gr.jpg)
Level 10 (http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2118/distributionlevel104hm.jpg)
Level 11 (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7633/distributionlevel115yp.jpg)
Level 12 (http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5060/distributionlevel129qj.jpg)
Level 13 (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7382/distributionlevel134nv.jpg)
Level 14 (http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8337/distributionlevel146fn.jpg)
Elder level 15 (http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/4554/distributionelder150sn.jpg)
Elder level 16 (http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/1346/distributionelder167pq.jpg)
Elder level 17 (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4779/distributionelder178ii.jpg)
Elder level 18 (http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/2368/distributionelder180oi.jpg)
Elder level 19 (http://img497.imageshack.us/img497/4516/distributionelder191bv.jpg)
Elder level 20 (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9522/distributionelder208lr.jpg)
Playful level 11 (http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/4886/distributionplayful115nb.jpg)
Playful level 12 (http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/1258/distributionplayful125ik.jpg)
Playful level 13 (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6904/distributionplayful135gm.jpg)
Playful level 14 (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/850/distributionplayful145sn.jpg)
Hearty level 15 (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/3314/distributionhearty151ui.jpg)
Hearty level 16 (http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3473/distributionhearty169gu.jpg)
Hearty level 17 (http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6817/distributionhearty174us.jpg)
Hearty level 18 (http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/6822/distributionhearty183ka.jpg)
Hearty level 19 (http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/4372/distributionhearty193xl.jpg)
Hearty level 20 (http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/4799/distributionhearty203fu.jpg)
Aggressive level 11 (http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/3538/distributionaggressive117da.jpg)
Aggressive level 12 (http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/1478/distributionaggressive127na.jpg)
Aggressive level 13 (http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/4555/distributionaggressive137cg.jpg)
Aggressive level 14 (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/4678/distributionaggressive140jq.jpg)
Dire level 15 (http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1519/distributiondire153tr.jpg)
Dire level 16 (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6370/distributiondire164mg.jpg)
Dire level 17 (http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/9462/distributiondire175tn.jpg)
Dire level 18 (http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/6953/distributiondire183mv.jpg)
Dire level 19 (http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/6312/distributiondire190vr.jpg)
Dire level 20 (http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/3357/distributiondire200op.jpg)

[Epinephrine]

Due to the length I had to break it up into a few replies; hopefully it is not a problem.

[chris_nin00]

Amazing...
I never thought beast master required charts and such :p

I just bring out my warthog and unleash the madness!

Outstanding job... Thumbs up!

[Mercenary662]

so warthogs really dont deal blunt? man....got mine for nothing :(

[Makkert]

There you have it folks. The time invested by Epinephrine and Jenosavel is quite large, be sure to thank them for their hard work.

[Dralspire]

Thanks very much, Jenosavel and Epinephrine. This is excellent work. Time for me to study ... :D

[unienaule]

That's awesome. How long did that take?

[Jenosavel]

We've been testing things for over a month now. Not sure exactly how long, but it has to have been at least before Nov. 10th, since that's when my oldest surviving message regarding this stuff is dated. Maybe Epinephrine remembers better just how long we've been tinkering away.

[mr_boo]

I just want to also formally thank Epi and Jeno for taking the time to create this guide. Personally, I've never really cared for Beast Mastery in the form of Pets, but after reading this guide, and it's pre-cursors threads, I've definitely come around and found new respect for those critters. Thanks again, you two!

[Valerius]

awesome guide guys :)

this puts my guide to shame :P

[Epinephrine]

Nonsense Valerius - you've done a great job keeping the guide running all this time. There were so many unanswered questions though floating around in the various threads though, so a rigorous approach was needed to figure out exact numbers for stuff.

[Dralspire]

I have been thinking about the bear findings all evening (go figure ...). It seems to me that the lower attack speed of the bear might be a payoff for the larger size of the animal. As such, the only reasonable evolution for a bear seems to be the hearty one.

[Epinephrine]

It's really unfortunate that the bear is the least effective attacker - I couldn't figure any way to accurately gauge ability to "body block", so it might have an edge there, but even in AL it is exactly the same - just lower damage over time due to slower attack speed. Gaile is reputed to be a pet lover, perhaps she'll end up reading this and inspire them to balance it a bit.

[Racthoh]

Wow... have to tell my guildies interested in making a pet this guide. Very indepth, nice work. :eek:

[MoldyRiceFrenzy]

wow u spent alot of time on this

[Elrond Afil]

Nice man, good job

[nightrunner]

Awesome analysis. Thanks for contributing to the community :cool:


On a side note, there is a disturbing lack in the variety of GWG's smileys.

[Nessa]

I said it before and i'll say it again... absolutely amazing guys... i hope gaile does read this... even if just to see how much work you put in... maybe varify/clarify a few things (such as bear attacks :) )

again thanx so much fro all the time you put in here wish i coulda helped more aside from a few healing runs....

[NekoZ]

so warthogs really dont deal blunt? man....got mine for nothing :(

Yeah I thought that too..

But really nice guide.

[tuperwho]

Great job guys, but there's 1 point I think should be added and considered: passive pet skills. By this I mean 2 in particular.

1) spiders do not do poison
2) bears do have the brutal mauling skill -- did you factor this into your damage? They may have a slower rate due to the ability to occasionally have a higher damage output.... just a thought

[Epinephrine]

Well, I guess I should add the fact that spider don't do poison in capital letters somewhere :) Under the pet description we did point out that spiders are non-venemous, but I suppose more is needed...

As for the bear - yes, it brutal mauls, but it has no effect. We did a comparison between pets and all pets did the same average damage per stirke - if the brutal Mauling were an effect it would have altered the average - especially as every 4-5th attack is a brutal mauling. Sadly, there is no bonus.

Edit: There, I put it in italics, again - spiders are not poisonous!

[Sol_Silverglade]

It's really unfortunate that the bear is the least effective attacker - I couldn't figure any way to accurately gauge ability to "body block", so it might have an edge there, but even in AL it is exactly the same - just lower damage over time due to slower attack speed. Gaile is reputed to be a pet lover, perhaps she'll end up reading this and inspire them to balance it a bit.

I certainly hope so. I do so love my bear... :)


Great job guys, but there's 1 point I think should be added and considered: passive pet skills. By this I mean 2 in particular.

1) spiders do not do poison
2) bears do have the brutal mauling skill -- did you factor this into your damage? They may have a slower rate due to the ability to occasionally have a higher damage output.... just a thought

The mauling, unfortunately, does absolutely nothing but occasionally slow down the bears attack rate/dps. I suspect it originally did, perhaps a knockdown or bleeding effect, but was dropped in favor of balance, but removing the affect, without the slower skill actually swung balance away from the bear, instead of levelling the field.


And I already commented to both Jen and Epi once, but thanks again for all the work you put into this, it's a great, great resource.

[Swampgirl Inez]

Wow. *grabs the Visine* I'm in for a long, but educational read. Thanks.

[The undead Mesmer]

Lucky that i turned in my hoggy for a spider i really thought they would do Blunt damage :'( why dont they do Blunt damage btw? they use their noses wich looks a bit like a hammer they dont bite xD.

[Swampgirl Inez]

I think it's their tusks that do the damage.

[Pan Sola]

I believe warrior or some other profession has a skill (stance maybe?) that prevents critical hits to deal extra damage. This way by setting up a PvP the pet's max damage and critical hit damage can be separated out.

And they should be separated out because for PvE, you won't always be fighting lv20 mobs, so critical hit probablity changes.

[BurningPants]

In about 10 years, you might look back and say "Why would I ever waste my time like that"

But good work anyway. :)

[Epinephrine]

I believe warrior or some other profession has a skill (stance maybe?) that prevents critical hits to deal extra damage. This way by setting up a PvP the pet's max damage and critical hit damage can be separated out.

And they should be separated out because for PvE, you won't always be fighting lv20 mobs, so critical hit probablity changes.

Interesting idea - I hadn't thought of that. The variable nature of pet "criticals" if they exist (I'm assuming they are the upper tail of the pet damage distributions) made it hard to identify a critical, but I suppose it would be possible to ascertain the true damage range, and a critical hit probability for the BM level/character level. Sounds difficult to test for all levels/levels of BM, but doing it for level 20/12 BM seems feasible, and even choosing a few levels of BM represented might work. Thanks :) The skill is "Balanced Stance" by the way, and it is a warrior tactics stance - with QZ up I could probably manage to keep it up 100% of the time, so it is feasible.

[Yukito Kunisaki]

Good thing you guys have time to do this. I with my real life situations involving a job, my wife, and school, can't do this...

Thanks! ^_^

Now I want to use a Melandru Stalker or Snow Wolf again... ^_^ Probably the wolf... Howling is cute.

[Shwitz]

Many thanks to Epi and Jenosavel for taking the time to do the math and figure all this out. I will most certainly be referring back here whenever I want to whip up a beast mastery build :)

[Banebow]

Now that is what I call a lot of information.

Thanks for taking the time to do this you two, I am sure it will be put to a lot of good use :)

[Dralspire]

I sent Gaile a message about this thread ... :D

[Shwitz]

That's awesome Dralspire, nice job alerting Gaile :)

Maybe bears will get some love in Chapter 2

[Jenosavel]

Thanks for getting some official attention over here, Dralspire! :)

I hope they give our pets some variety now, even if it would invalidate this guide. It would just make my day if they gave bears blunt damage. It's probably just one of my idiosyncrasies, but a bear dealing slashing is kind of irritating. I mean, why would a bear deal slashing? They kill by blunt trauma to the head, being able to fracture the skull of even a big cat such as a tiger or a lion. They certainly don't go for blood.

The warthog could stay slashing though. Those little critters really gore up their opponents with their tusks.

[Falconer]

Nice work Epinephrine. Although a small point on which you contradict yourself. Just because you're using call of haste, doesn't mean that the skill timing is off. It's a shout, it can be used at any time with 0 timing penalty.

If it doesn't go off on that 5th attack which is halfway executed... it'll go off on the 6th. And then the timing of the call is such that it'll happen on the 4th attack ofter that. (eg: averaging out to every 5.5 attacks)

The other bit, is I still find pets a PvE commodity. The requirements to invest to get your pets usable in PvP are just too extreme. If you do invest a lot of points (let alone skills) into the pet... you MUST have some method to ressurect them. That pretty much always works into requiring having comfort animal on the bar as well. The only builds which conciously get a lot of use out of pets currently are the IWAY setups, and those tend not to care about pet rez... and in many cases the pet is brought in one skill slot and no buffs (or even attribute investment), as it's ony there to be a corpse. (spitefull on the pet(s) is actuallly a blessing to these builds as it makes it that much easier to activate IWAY). Many PvE players playing in tombs will intentionally charm a level 5 pet to take in with them, just to ensure it dies as quickly as possible.

Other synergism I think you could have covered is melandrius arrows or apply poison (even with zero wilderness spec) paired with the pet attack +dam if conditioned target. Pet attacks your bow target... your target is poisoned for 4s at least every time your arrow nails it... making it a quick and easy source of +dam. Problem with this is that apply poison used in this manner is you can't use it to spread poison over the other team... the pet will simply run itself ragged with the target switching.

[The Primeval King]

It really is a pity that pets still aren't very good (in my opinion) even with all of those statistics... haha. But still, I admire you for your research.

[Pan Sola]

BTW, Epinephrine, when testing pet damage, make sure the pet owner's level is 20, otherwise SonOfRah's damage equation is a little off.

Specifically, the diminishing return from Beast Mastery (and other weapon attributes) doesn't always start after rank 12. The threshold is actually Level/2+2 (or something that is extremely close to that).

So at level 19, investing in any attribute for 12 rank already gives you diminishing returns (19/2+2 = 11.5 < 12), messing up the Baseline vs AL equality.

You probably do all your testing with lv20 characters anyways, but want to point that out just in case.

[Jenosavel]

I can confirm that we did our damage testing with level 20 characters, so no worries Pan Sola.

[Pan Sola]

I can confirm that we did our damage testing with level 20 characters, so no worries Pan Sola.

Coolness....


OOooo, and, blah, that conclusion was really derived from weapon mastery and automatically assumed to be true for Beastmastery, based on the fact that SonOfRah's damage article reported beastmastery also has a diminishing return after 12.

But it just occured to me that, in the case of pets, the threshold could be dependent on the PET LEVEL instead (or as well).

So, can I make a request for you to test? Testing at 0 BM against someone with 0 AL (and using balanced stance to eliminate critical hit bonus) will always be fine when threshold is concerned (which I just recall is how you guys test, so my earlier warning is really moot anyways). At each pet level, after figuring out pet's base damage, can you also collect damage data with BM from (Pet Level/2) to (Pet Level/2 +4)? Because base damage is already known, you can keep the victim at 0 AL instead of trying to get matching armor to cancel out the BM baseline.

My hunch is, like actual weapons, the diminishing return threshold should only depending on character level. However I'll always have this nagging uncertainty that pet level might also affect the threshold.

Sincere gratitude if you guys can collect those extra data while doing testing in the future.

[Peewee]

gr8 guide overall. one thing on brutal mauling tho. it seems that the attack is simply a animation, but if your getting attacked by one the dmg rate does not decrease. ie dmg RoF does not go down making this pet equal.

looks like you put a lot of work into this guide. proberly should make people pay for it :)

[Epinephrine]

gr8 guide overall. one thing on brutal mauling tho. it seems that the attack is simply a animation, but if your getting attacked by one the dmg rate does not decrease. ie dmg RoF does not go down making this pet equal.

looks like you put a lot of work into this guide. proberly should make people pay for it :)

No, it does reduce the damage. The damage is the same for a brutal mauling attack, but the rate of damage does drop. We tested bears at level 5 and level 20, and in both cases the damage per hit matched that of other creatures, and the rate of attack was an average of 1 hit per 2.6 seconds or so, resulting in a decrease in damage of about 18% (i.e., a bear does 82% of the damage of a simlilarly evolved wolf, for example).

Falconer: You are right, the change of pet attacks to shouts does seem to make it easier to maintain the rate of attack, so the reduction of effectiveness shouldn't tend to happen with the skills. So in fact, you can probably simply multiply the DPS for the attack normally by 1.33 to get the CoH DPS. As for usefulness of pets in PvP - I think pet-based teams can work, but agree that it isn't the easiest thing. I'm hoping to get our guild to run a pet based GvG build (not IWAY) soon, and revive animal can free up some comfort animal slots, making a focal pet rezzer essentially.

[Barinthus]

Wow. Terrific reading!

[Thorinfire]

Crap, I wish I would have read this BEFORE I almost leveled up a new bear pet. Why would Arenanet have one pet that is obviously inferior to the others? And why would the playing feild be level when they said there would be differences? I wonder if this shall be changed in the future?

How hard is it to get that fully evolved to level 15 wolf? Is it a "luck" thing or is there a trick to it?

[Dralspire]

Well, you leave from Copperhammer Mines to The Granite Citadel. On your way, you get into the first boss area. Arriving "in the zone", you can see two elder wolves available for charming:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4152/wolf13oa.th.jpg (http://img341.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wolf13oa.jpg)

In the next screenshot, you will notice that the wolf on the left has been charmed by your opponents:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6162/wolf29rg.th.jpg (http://img341.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wolf29rg.jpg)

Finally, a closeup of the wolf that is still available for charming:

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

So all you got to do is select a green "Elder Wolf" and click "Charm Animal". Good luck.

[Thorinfire]

Thank you very much :D

Now I have to figure out whether I should go with a wolf (second favorite) or just deal with the handicapped bear (first favorite) hoping that we will get an update or a correction in chapter 2.

[Jenosavel]

It really depends on what you plan on using your pet for. The bear is only handicapped if you need it to be dealing damage. If you're using it in PvE for a damage sponge, since pets don't get DP, then the bear is a perfectly fine pet to have.

[Mordakai]

Are the wolves always Elder? No "Dire" or "Hearty"?

[Mordakai]

It really depends on what you plan on using your pet for. The bear is only handicapped if you need it to be dealing damage. If you're using it in PvE for a damage sponge, since pets don't get DP, then the bear is a perfectly fine pet to have.
On a related note, does the size of the pet matter?

Ie, is a larger pet like a bear more likely to be targetted by AI than a Warthog, or does it not make any difference?

[Jenosavel]

Those particular wolves, as seen in the screenshots, are. Unlike the spider, you don't have a chance of a different evolution spawning. If you tame a lower level wolf, though, you'll be able to train it for whatever evolution you want.

[Mordakai]

Those particular wolves, as seen in the screenshots, are. Unlike the spider, you don't have a chance of a different evolution spawning. If you tame a lower level wolf, though, you'll be able to train it for whatever evolution you want.

Thanks, I was wondering if they always spawned that way, or if, like the spider, you could find different evolutions....

Great guide, BTW.

[Dralspire]

It really depends on what you plan on using your pet for. The bear is only handicapped if you need it to be dealing damage. If you're using it in PvE for a damage sponge, since pets don't get DP, then the bear is a perfectly fine pet to have.That is certainly true ... However :D ... even if you use a pet as damage sponge (i.e. hearty), the fact remains that a bear deals damage (regardless of the quantity) approx. 20% slower than its exact evolution counterparts from the other species. Personally, I find that unacceptable. :)

On a related note, I like dire pets lately. It seems to me that pets barely get attacked, and if they do get hammered, their chance of survival without healing is limited anyway.

[Epinephrine]

I too like Dire pets. If you are providing them with healing there is little difference between the health levels, as it's seldom spike-like enough damage to matter, and if you aren't then 60 more health is unlikely to save it. The extra damage is noticable.

[Jenosavel]

I'm going to put it out there that I also like Dire pets the best, though this hasn't always been the case. All but one of my beast-based solo builds unquestionably work better with a Hearty pet than a Dire pet, as the added health buffer of the Hearty gives you more maneuverability. You have a larger window of time to kite and position yourself before you have to be standing still and spamming Comfort Animal.

However, since I've been able to play in a team environment, I've switched to a pet with more offense and haven't looked back. In team scenarios Epinephrine really hit the nail on the head. If you're healing your pet, the healing is either enough or the damage is going to drop your pet regardless of which evolution it is. There doesn't seem to be any middle of the road. Thus, the added damage from an offensive pet is always welcome.

[Fyre Brand]

Wow. What can I say but thanks and I'm absolutely impressed. I appreciate the degree of detail you both went through. You guys ROCK!

[fires Scape]

How does the pet gain exp? Does he gain exp as mcuh as he supposed to (for example a pet of lvl 17 gains 100xp after i kill a level 17 monster) or does it gain exp same as me?

Will a pet get exp from a quest reward? Because I noticed when i first played the game through as a ranger that my pet always had same level as me, and I've did quite a few quests and missions.

[Epinephrine]

The issue of experience is being addressed at the moment, and a running commentary of sorts is available in the Ranger discussion thread, under the title Two Further Pet Questions (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92406).

Essentially (thanks to deolmstead's questions/testing) we know that pets level faster than players do, at least when below the player's level, and that they do not benefit from scrolls. They also do not benefit from quest or mission rewards, only gaining experience through combat. There is no range limit, nor does the pet need to be alive to benefit from the kills. The pet gains experience appropriate to its level, not to the owner's level.

[xcutioner]

It really is a pity that pets still aren't very good (in my opinion) even with all of those statistics... haha. But still, I admire you for your research.
Yes, It's too bad when we take our guilds BM build into TA, winning every round, often times in 60 seconds, and hearing "Wow!".

Those pets are way underpowered ;)

Awesome work guys.

[Jiao Yang]

Hey, if i were to cap a Black widow as an Elder, how could i stop it from evolving into a Hearty etc?:confused:

[Ashleigh McMahon]

Hey, if i were to cap a Black widow as an Elder, how could i stop it from evolving into a Hearty etc?:confused:

You can't. The spawn is random, and once you have captured the spider, it will not change.

It's the same with all other pets. Once it has reached Hearty/Elder/Dire, It cannot undergo another evolution.

Ash.

[Jiao Yang]

ok thanks Ash:D
one more thing..when u find the spiders in UW are they always ALREADY Hearty, Elder or Dire? (I have never got that far in UW)

ty

[Dralspire]

Yes. :)

PS: I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you have never got as far as to the spider, you are in the wrong UW groups. The spiders really spawn quite at the beginning of the Underworld.

[Jiao Yang]

He he,

Sorry forgot to say... i have previously been playing FoW a lot and have only recently (very recently) got involved with UW. Problem is im a W/E and even though i can protect myself pretty well out there, parties always seem to prefer W/Mo :(

PS: i needed to know about spiders as my me/r will soon ascend and a spider is my preferred choice of pet

[Ashleigh McMahon]

ok thanks Ash:D
one more thing..when u find the spiders in UW are they always ALREADY Hearty, Elder or Dire? (I have never got that far in UW)

ty

Yes. They are either hearty, dire or elder. Hearty been the largest.

In my personal experience, dire is the most common.

Ash.

[Jiao Yang]

oh well, i will have to keep trying with my me/r until an Elder one pops up but there will be competition for it :mad: I dont really want a spider thats unbalanced

[Jenosavel]

I don't think you can particularly say that the Hearty or Dire pets are unbalanced. While Elder usually gets dubbed the "balanced" pet, that's only because its stats are in the middle. Instead of saying "balanced" you could also call Elder the "luke-warm" pet or the "middle of the road" pet or the "red-headed middle child" pet. ;) But we like to be nice. My point is, you should chose which evolution you want based on what you will use the pet for, not because its called "balanced." What will you use your pet for? I think it's really worthwhile to pay attention to what Dralspire and Epinephrine said a little earlier about the Dire pet, which usually gets overlooked.

I'm not trying to be a salesperson here and push a certain pet evolution on you. ;) Just felt I had to defend the Dire and Hearty pets, since I almost always prefer one of the extremes to the half-way that the Elder can be.

[Jiao Yang]

A fair point so im sorry i was so harsh. maybe i will refer to Elders as 'The Grape Slightly in the Middle of the Bunch That is slightly Alrightish for Select players but It of course Depends on Personal Opinion'---LONG but concise ;)

I will also consider the Dire as an option.. at level 20 the pet will still keep the AL of 80 so there will probably be no problems :D

[Beqxter]

Thought I'd add a Mo/R build I've found useful for training up a Dire pet. It's easy to train a hearty pet as a monk, since you can just let it die or sit in poison and heal it or go on solo runs, but Dire is always a bit trickier. I suspect this would work just fine for a R/Mo as well.

Anyways, the build is:
Healing: 12
Prot: 9
DF: 8
BM: 12

Brutal Strike
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Call of Protection
Healing Breeze
Life Bond
Balthazars Spirit
Charm Animal

I've been using this build against the lvl10 minos outside Ice Tooth per the guide's suggestion, with great success. Between the life bond and the call of protection, even your level 3 pet can tank with practically no damage, and predators pounce is enough to heal what damage it does take. If you can get a good mob of 5-6 minos on your pet (and not on you), the energy provided by LB+BS lets you spam the pet attacks constantly. The Breeze is just there for those times when you don't manage to get the minotaurs all nice and tidy on your pet, and need to save one or the other of you - the +8 regen is plenty to rescue either you or your pet.

The trickiest part is getting the minos on the pet, and getting the pet to stay attacking the minos and not leave off and walk back to you, bringing along all his new friends. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's pretty simple. When my pet gets to 11, I'll try it out against the desert Minos and Griffons.

[menelik_seth]

Sweet guide :D thanks for the insights. Now that I know that pets actually "evolve" I went back to check my lvl 12 Strider (on my lvl 13 R/N) and found it to be a 'Playful Strider' lol. Cute :D It rarely dies on me, but I tend to spike damage targets before it gets a chance to do much damage.

If I switch up my gameplay, and let my pet do the most damage; is there still a chance for my Strider to go 'Dire', or is it pretty much destined to go 'Hearty'?

This may be OT, but I notice something that makes pets feel "handicaped":

I like to solo pve a lot, most of the time I use a few henchies as attack-dogs: Whenever I setup a mob for attack, I always hit "shift+ctrl+space" which is a target-call without actually attacking. This causes the henchies to attack my target without having to attack myself; hence they get mobbed leaving me free to pick off the weakened targets. Works very well :)

This method does NOT work with pets. I've tried it several times. Hit "shift+ctrl+space" and the pet just stands there. The Pet will only attack the target you actually attack; leaving a chance for you to get mobbed.

I think pets would be more useful if they behaved lik henchies in this regard. The 'Shift+ctrl+space' target button acts like a makeshift "sic em!" shout, which would really help keep the mob-attention on ur pet, and away from you.

If henchies behave this way, why not pets? Seems like the pets got a lil short-changed to me...

[Beqxter]

Interesting development: Using the build I outlined above, my Moa just hit lvl 12 - and evolved to Playful, which caught me quite by surprise. With Life Bond and Call of Protection on, my Pet's health bar was at full almost the entire time - 6 minotaurs at once couldn't touch it, and from level 3 to level 12 it didn't die once. Meanwhile, I wasn't even wanding the targets (except as the initial 'sic 'em!', letting the pet do all the work. This was the most aggressive playstyle I could think of, and yet it came out playful.

Now, true, the pet was getting hit almost the entire time, not me - it just wasn't taking any damage from those hits. Could it be that ANY damage, even 0 damage, counts as a pip on the dire/hearty spectrum? In that case it seems to me I should rather be the one taking all the hits, trying to pull the enemies off the pet rather than the other way around.

Shall I just continue in this vein and develop a hearty pet? I'm concerned that if I change my playstyle now, I'd wind up Elder and I'd rather have Hearty than Elder.

EDIT: Once it hit 12, I decided my pet was too old to play with the Ice Tooth Minos anymore, so I brought it invincimonking with me in the desert against the minos and griffons there. It took a lot of experimentation, but I finally came up with the following build that works:

Heal: 13
Prot: 11
DF: 8
BM: 12

Ferocious Strike / Predators Pounce / Prot Spirit / Breeze / Call of Haste / Balth Spirit / Mending / Charm

Unsurprisingly, almost all the time the monsters completely ignore the pet, just piling on me. If ANYTHING can switch this pet from Hearty to Dire, I expect it's this: It's dealing ALL the damage, and taking NONE. Occasionally, a griffon or mino will get it into its head to attack the pet, and then it's pretty much gg, but it's rare enough not to really be a concern.

This is not going to win any soloing/farming awards - it is unbelievably tedious watching a lvl 12 superchicken take down a lvl 21 griffon, energy management is an issue without Bonettis, and keeping the balance between pet skills and prot spirit is tricky and high-maintenance. I may swap Feral Lunge or Brutal Strike in for Predators Pounce, since if we're in a situation where the pet needs healing there's really not much I can do for it. I'm happy to take any other suggestions people may have to level this pet faster, ideally along a dire path...

Further Edit: Feral Lunge > Predators Pounce. Still tedious, though.

[Epinephrine]

That sounds odd about it going playful - my only thought is that it was taking too much damage in the first few levels (when it was low and was healing itself with predator's pounce). I know that I have run BM 16 call of protection on a pet, but at level 3 the hits are large enough that the pet's health is still going down (from what I remember). I actually tank, letting enemies hit me, to avoid the damage going to the pet, though. Even with 60 AL it isn't too hard, and depending on what class combo you take there are easy ways to further reduce damage. I suspect it was taking too much damage initially - I know for the first few levels if I do minotaurs I either have to take the majority of the damage, or I need to maintain Otyugh's Cry on top of everything.

[Maxiemonster]

Any chance you could tell me how many seconds casting time Brutal Mauling is? :) I think it's 3 seconds, but I'm not that good at both math and counting :o

[nunix]

The mauling, unfortunately, does absolutely nothing but occasionally slow down the bears attack rate/dps. I suspect it originally did, perhaps a knockdown or bleeding effect, but was dropped in favor of balance, but removing the affect, without the slower skill actually swung balance away from the bear, instead of levelling the field.

Yep.

Wayyy back when (I have no idea at what point this changed), the Brutal Mauling did a knockdown effect. In pre-sear, Rangers were always looking for a Warrior to party with, so that they could use one of the hammer skills to interrupt the mauling and complete the charm; otherwise, they'd get knocked down about 3/4 of the way to done, every time.

It really is too bad it was removed. The knockdown could be counted on to happen, but you couldn't predict exactly when, and it could even be interrupted; not the most imbalancing thing ever.

[zugerbreg V.]

what about elementalist/ranger?

[A_Muppet]

That would work perfectly well; so long as you bring high beast mastery and Ferocious lunge (strike?) to regen some energy you should be perectly fine.

[xenoranger]

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/the-pet-guide-id1575.php

Tainted Flesh - other disease spells are good too - with Martyr unable to pull conditions from allies, only party members, the pets continue to suffer and pass the damage to others, making disease a good way to eliminate pets.

Reading this in the Pet Guide, I think about how many times I've used Mend Condition to remove disease from the pets of others as well as party members. I'm not 100% sure this is accurate. Although, I can see where pets are dumb and will return to their master while diseased, but still, if you have Mend Condition (and keep a sharp eye on your or other's pets) you can pretty much negate any disease epidemics.

I was just doing D'lessia and Devinity last night. Despite disease on some pets, I suppressed pretty much all conditions rather quickly using just "Mend Condition" (5, ¼ , 2).

Come to think of it... if you have both Martyr and Mend Condition, you can pull disease off of pets and party. Only downside to Mend Condition is that it doesn't work on the caster.

[Epinephrine]

Well, it is an opinion, but pet-heavy teams present a lot of bodies in close proximity, making disease spread rapidly across them. Given that the most efficient anti-condition skill won't pull it the pets are vulnerable to conditions in general, requiring the use of (relatively) pricy skills to heal them - if you have 4 pets converging on a guy who diseases them with tainted flesh it is pointless to try to pull the disease really - it'll be back on them with their next attack against him, or even from being next to the other diseased pets; even if it were a one time thing, I doubt it is worth 4 spells to cure 4 diseases off the pets. Groups of pets are thus vulnerable to anything which spreads a condition across them quickly - a barbed trap, poison spamming, disease, epidemic... and it is costly to try to patch them up. So, while 4 pets on a guy adds up to some pretty big damage, if you face a condition heavy team you'll find that the pets just aren't efficient enough to heal; they'll all be poisoned, bleeding, diseased and so on, and it just isn't cost effective to try to remove it all. A single pet, sure - but a condition oriented build relies generally on the great efficiency of damage/energy it can put out, and the pets just aren't efficient to heal.

[xenoranger]

Makes sense.

I'm just thinking in terms of a team with few pets.

Honestly, I haven't seen many Beast Master builds that work well for much of anything. It seems that pets are more for show than being a viable resource. It also seems that present more liability b/c you need to heal them or suffer an 8 sec penalty.

[Epinephrine]

Well, I like it when people underestimate the pet charging them. So yeah, don't worry about pets. It's just a giant chicken, so what if it can launch an interrupt every 2 seconds. :D

[xenoranger]

Giant Chicken... I have a lynx on my Mo/R. =p

[xenoranger]

New Question...
Do pets level slower (like your character) when you have Hench or other party member?

[Epinephrine]

Yes, pets level slower in a party. It took approximately twice as many kills to level my pet with Alesia tagging along. My experience is unchanged whether my pet is around, and likewise other players are not affected by the presence of my pet. I have partied with another pet user (Jenosavel) to level pets together, and noticed the approximate doubling of the needed kills to level, but it was approximate - no effect seemed to come from her pet being there.

It would seem that while the humans share the experience, the pet has a share of experience based on the number of humans present, but granted separately.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

from the chart, each level the damage of aggressive/dire, unevolved, playful/hearty's damage keep pulling apart in every level.

Do you think it is possible that each level that increase in damage is saved, and depending on how you use your pet that the new level damager % change would varie one pet from another?

Example: a different lv16 pet would have 14.8% after a certain way of training to accumulate an unknown number, instead of listed in the chart 14.4%.

as if that the player had done 1 damage total until the pet is lv16, the pet out damage the user far from normal and turn into an aggressive version, would this aggressive pet have more damage % per level than a player done 1000 damage until the his/her pet is lv16?

I am leaning more to the "No, to the above", but I don't think it is ever a good idea to denounce any idea, unless proven beyound the shadow of doubt.

[Jenosavel]

Since the way the numbers pull appart is quite consistent with a % modifier (such as damage +/- 15% for the Dire/Hearty evolutions), I would lean towards no to the above question. Also, such a tiny difference as .4% would be next to impossible to test for. I'm not exactly a math wiz -Epinephrine supplied those talents- but I can say that when you're dealing with such a range of values those tiny variations can be attributed to the margin of error. A .4% difference, at most, comes out to be around a .1 difference in damage. Considering nothing else but the fact that the game engine rounds all values, that .1 difference is already questionable.

This isn't to say that the game absolutely does not have such a system in place. If it does, however, I believe it would be of no practical significance.

[Epinephrine]

To follow up with what Jenosavel has said; while the data looks like % damage differences, it might not be; the varying critical hit rate for example, combined with a flat bonus (like the +2 damage spoken of by some) might account for it; certainly it is an interesting question, and the method proposed by Pan Sola to test non-critical damage using Balanced Stance seems like an important next step; hopefully the guild will have time soon to assist in testing that aspect and it may put a nail in the coffin for one model or the other.

[Carinae Dragonblood]

Wow this is an awesome thread, thanks for all the hard work you put into it.

I have a simple question: I am currently N/R. Do you retain your pet if you change secondaries? I know the pet won't be available, but I won't lose it permanantly will I?

[Epinephrine]

Thanks - didn't realise that wasn't covered - yes, your pet is saved for you, when you change classes back it'll be waiting for you. I added that bit to the first page, since it is basic info on pets.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

Hmm, I was able to train a warthog to lv20 8 minutes ago (before making this post). It remained as aggressive (woot! if you need ss, I can post later if people wish to see, or maybe you want to personally see it yourself, then pm me here)

Now... What kind of dmg chart should I use? Is this aggressive warthog as strong as the dire at lv20? (as there are no seperate chart for aggressive and dire at lv20) While aggressive also do not have the -HP as the dire? Doesn't this automatically making the aggressive warthog superior than dire?

There are more things to find out it seems.

[Epinephrine]

That's fascinating - Try resetting your pet's name, see if it changes (/petname)? I don't think I've ever heard of a pet being level 20 and aggressive. I know that the changes can be delayed, but I didn't think they could be that delayed.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

I have rename and delete name many times to check if it were true. It turn out to be true, perhaps a freak of nature, or pure luck =P

When I noticed it was lv18 and still didn't change into dire, that is when I started to make sure (maybe) to continue training it the same way.

[Jenosavel]

I'd be interested in what a health test shows your pet's hp to be. It should be a quick way to see if its stats are behaving as a Dire or Aggressive, and it would be safe to assume its attack would behave similarly. An Aggressive of level 20 should be looking at 450 health, whereas a level 20 Dire would have 420.

If it turns out to be behaving as an Aggressive (which would probably make the most sense) then you'll have to decide if that's what you want from it, since the Aggressive's attack does appear to have a smaller percentage boost over an unevolved's damage than the Dire's does. You'd have a health/attack that lands somewhere between a Dire and an Elder, but whose exact attack values we've never been able to test before (at that level anyway).

[Wanderer of KT]

Awesome guide! Very well done! Thanks for all the hard work guys! :cool:

[semantic]

It seems that they're either tweaking evolution or there have always been more variations along the path. After training up a couple of Hearty pets, I decided to play around with letting a new pet do all the work for me. A few minutes ago the following happened:

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4594/pet1ly.jpg

I was surprised when no evo happened at 11, so I checked here for info (was looking for Valerius' thread and found this one - both are great). It seemed a little strange that evolution was out of the question if it didn't happen at 11. He was still generic at level 12, having been fed on Wavebreakers for several levels. Assuming he would stay generic forever, I became a little less careful with him. I took him up to the Shiverpeaks for a few mino steaks, then to Nebo Terrace where we killed a handful of Mergoyles (and he died for the first time from the Mind Wracks). Then we went to Augury where he leveled to 13 on a Rockshot.

I didn't notice the change right away, but there it is. Now, I realize the Mind Wrack damage must tipped the scales, but such a small amount of damage over the space of 2 encounters doesn't seem like it should have been enough to offset the amount of damage my pet had dished out over the course of 13 levels. And trust me, I wasn't doing any more than a few weak staff attacks now and then. Everything else was Predator's/Disrupting/Brutal. And with CoP running, he wasn't taking any damage other than Deep Freeze. In any case, not nearly enough to compare with the amount he was dealing.

Maybe one of the factors is the amount of damage taken by the owner. As in, a pet has a greater chance of becoming Dire if its owner is consistently getting pummeled for large amounts. The one constant in my pet's training (while trying to minimize his damage taken / maximize his output, etc.) was the fact that the damage I received was minimal. It would make sense as a mechanic as well. If you are doing the tanking, the pet should trade health for damage, and vice versa if the roles are reversed. Perhaps someone has already mentioned that and I missed it.

[nova-exarch]

1st: Excellent job of following up on earlier work and clarifying/debunking so many rumors via all the scientific methodology.

I just spent about 2-3 hours or so reading through every post on first Valerius' thread and then this one. I have to admit though I skipped through a lot of the math, charts and skills/build info as I trust you methodology and I'll worry about builds later. (got to decide on a pet first...)

A few things I wanted to respond to from both threads but I wanted to post here in the newer thread since they're mostly directed at J+E...

---

Did you two (Jen' and Epi') ever do any testing to prove/disprove the experiment seen here (http://38.99.233.252/forum/showpost.php?p=624686&postcount=41)?

I never saw where Shift11 was able to pinpoint the differing amounts of healing needed. He did say he used healing to figure out the amount of life needed to heal the damage from the AE but he never lists the actual number to see if it lines it up with the guestimated %'s.

I guess I'm just wondering if there are any plans to do further AL/Armor Type testing. While it would be difficult, it could show another variation or two between the pets and/or evolutions.

---

I hope they give our pets some variety now, even if it would invalidate this guide. It would just make my day if they gave bears blunt damage. It's probably just one of my idiosyncrasies, but a bear dealing slashing is kind of irritating. I mean, why would a bear deal slashing? They kill by blunt trauma to the head, being able to fracture the skull of even a big cat such as a tiger or a lion. They certainly don't go for blood.

The warthog could stay slashing though. Those little critters really gore up their opponents with their tusks.

A gore is a piercing attack :p :)

I agree 100% on the damage types... The variety of strengths and weaknesses was what made playing a mage in EQ so fun (until the end where all but earth died so fast it rarely mattered what the type was).

In regards to the bear... Have you ever seen a bear's claws? They're easily as wicked as a Tiger's (maybe no so sharp due to the bears habits).

It's just that the bears massive size and power means their big freakin paws slam harder (in most cases, hard enough to send anything else flying) and end up doing more damage than the huge gashes their claws cause. Against other large heavily build opponents though they can inflict some serious gouges! >yikes<

In my perfect world...

Teddies: Primarily Blunt with a random slash here and there
Tweeties: Piercing with a slash here and there (beak and feet)
Puppies: Piercing with maybe a very rare slash (Dog types don't paw swipe)
Kitties: Slashing with a piercing here and there (pretty much opposite of dogs)
Piggies: Piercing and maybe a disease or earth based damage
Spiders: Poison (balance it out however they have to)
Scaleys: Piercing with a slash here and there (tail whip)

For extra flavor give the desert types (lizards, add some lions) fire damage and the icy (wolves and add a cold climate lizard, it's a FANTASY world after all) types cold damage. To balance tweeties, make them attack faster.

All the damage types I've mentioned already exist so it would only be a few coding tweaks here and there.

For some defensive flavor:

Teddies: 2x HP and .5 AL
(very hearty, but big and take full force of every blow)
Tweeties: .5 HP and 2x AL (hit less because they’re quick)
(have you ever tried to catch a bird)
Puppies: 1.25 HP and .75 AL
Kitties: .75HP and 1.25 AL
Piggies: The baseline, fairly hardy and fairly quick
(have you ever tried to catch and hold onto a pig)
Spiders: .5 HP and 2x AL (hard shell)
(once you crack the hard shell they’re not so resilient)
Scaleys: Can see either… 1.25 HP -- .75 AL or 75HP -- 1.25 AL
(really depends on the type of lizard)



Then pet choice would be soooo much more than just cosmetic.

Not too likely for all (or even any) of this to happen but one can hope… right?

---

And lastly...

In about 10 years, you might look back and say "Why would I ever waste my time like that"

But good work anyway.

The critical thinkers of the world will >NEVER< look back upon things we pondered and think "what a waste of time". It would be more like "Why didn't I think of testing this or that!" :rolleyes: :D

[benblohoweak]

semantic, i had the exact same situation as you(except i had a bear). I recommend scrapping that pet if you want dire, and getting call of preotection and symbiotic bond, while you charge into battle, thus makign the enemies target yourself. Hopefully this will get you a dire. But the damage taken is a major factor in deciding it's evolution.

[Jenosavel]

Did you two (Jen' and Epi') ever do any testing to prove/disprove the experiment seen here (http://38.99.233.252/forum/showpost.php?p=624686&postcount=41)?

Yep. We tested the AL of pets via using Symbiotic Bond to determine the exact amount of damage that the pet was taking (whatever gets filtered through to you x 2). Against an elementalist type enemy (such as a Hydra outside of Augury Rock) you can easily determine what its base damage is by what damage it does against yourself (known armor level). Knowing the enemy's base damage and the exact number of the final damage dealt to the pet, you can easily determine their armor level.

In regards to the bear... Have you ever seen a bear's claws? They're easily as wicked as a Tiger's (maybe no so sharp due to the bears habits).

It's just that the bears massive size and power means their big freakin paws slam harder (in most cases, hard enough to send anything else flying) and end up doing more damage than the huge gashes their claws cause. Against other large heavily build opponents though they can inflict some serious gouges! >yikes<

Oh, I know what a bear's claws are like. But the thing is, they don't use their claws as a weapon. ;) In the few recorded cases of a large (brown) bear fighting a large cat (tiger), the tiger's main trouble was litterally a fractured skull. I've also seen recordings of a small bear (not sure what kind, but some type of asian bear) fighting a lioness, and while the bear was bleeding profusely, the lioness didn't have a single scratch. Again, it was blunt trauma that she had to be afraid of. I know it probably makes me seem cruel, but it's more my insatiable curiousity that made me stumble on these things than anything else. I don't go out looking for animal fights, just in case you're starting to get that impresion. ;)

A gore is a piercing attack
In my opinion, a thrusting attack is should do piercing damage and a sweeping attack should do slashing damage. Goring involves wilding swinging of the boar's head, tearing up flesh in the process. No thrusting means I just can't see calling it a piercing attack. It's no more piercing than a cat's claws; less, in fact.

A difference of opinion, I guess.

:D Glad you enjoyed the guide though! And thanks for the wonderful thoughts! Knowing someone took time to consider the stuff makes it all the more worthwhile. :)

EDIT: Typos will be the death of me yet.

[nova-exarch]

Yep. We tested the AL of pets via using Symbiotic Bond... ...you can easily determine their armor level.

Yeah, I read your methodology... I was just curious as to what could have caused the discrepancy Shift11 noticed. :) It may have just been because he was trying to visually read the life scale? /shrug

I don't go out looking for animal fights, just in case you're starting to get that impresion.

It was more funny before the edit. :)

BTW... In my perfect world I listed bears as blunt with an occasional slash. About the only thing that would ever get slashed as opposed to smashed (blunt) would be something as big as or bigger than the bear.

I'll have to take yer word on the boar thing until I see otherwise.

Honestly, so many animal attacks really don't fit into a perfect system anyway... I mean really... Is it the wolf's teeth "piercing" into your thoat or the "slashing" as they jerk them out... either way, yer dead. :rolleyes:

Plus, I'm sure the devs had their reasons for not using certain types of damage for balance purposes. Otherwise it would be bear masters FTW in the undead zones!

[gou]

The original guide here states that degen, conditions and armour ignoring damage sources are to be avoided when going to agressive/dire evolutions.
Point made is pet damage taken is a contributing factor toward playful etc.

Now I am in no position to argue this and my choices may be ill-informed but I trained my new warthog to L-11 agressive effectively and quickly fighting against the grasps, undead rangers (poison) and undead mesmers (fragility) in the Gates of Kryta mission. I chose undead because being r/mo, I cast judges insight on my pet, he now does holy damage and gains 20% armour penetration.
I have enough in smiting to make judges insight last 12 seconds, which is enough time for me to get 4 or 5 pet attacks out (ferrocious twice).
Pet at level 11 and 16 in beastmastery with judges up, pet attacks are slamming the undead for 100+ damage.
I realise this can't last forever, undead being level 13 themselves, but I recommend this method to anyone looking for at least an agressive evolution.

[Epinephrine]

New information; I was able, with the help of a guildmate last night (Thanks Sol!) to capture a bear in pre-searing. So it isn't impossible, just really, really, really, really hard to do.

Oh, it's on my second account, so if you can't find me on as "Andrea Nile", try "Erin de Naal", for those who will be skeptical. I know I would be.

[lyra_song]

New information; I was able, with the help of a guildmate last night (Thanks Sol!) to capture a bear in pre-searing. So it isn't impossible, just really, really, really, really hard to do.

Oh, it's on my second account, so if you can't find me on as "Andrea Nile", try "Erin de Naal", for those who will be skeptical. I know I would be.

OMG you are shitting me? ._.

Pics :D

[konohamaru heaven]

I always thought warthogs were Blunt damage dealers =/

Also I heard that Elder animals since they aren't super easy to get had a +2 damage bonus with no life penalty. Could this in anyway be true? Also I do think some pets do have an innate bonuses as it seems my pet warthog seems to absorb alot more damage than a warrior of the same armor class.

[Epinephrine]

OMG you are shitting me? ._.

Pics :D

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8172/gw4626ah.th.jpg (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw4626ah.jpg)

Unfortunately, I can't prove when I tamed it, but I made the toon today... (he's renamed in this shot, I thought Necessities was catchier) - showing the toon's age.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6075/gw4649aj.th.jpg (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw4649aj.jpg)

And a bitmap of the bottom corner, to defend against those who claim the jpg artifacts around the text are edits...

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6058/464cropped8iu.th.png (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=464cropped8iu.png)

I'd love to show him off to any reliable witness, as this kind of claim is always treated with skepticism.

The method used: We used a bait-monk. My guildmate (Sol, thank you so much for showing me!) made a monk; took about a half hour of trying. He would get the bear's attention and run away from me, and I would try to time my Charm Animal to the moment that they left charm range. Eventually I got one to take, and the bear ran out of range, tried to break the charm but failed. It seems like it's a matter of timing it exactly right, and maybe luck. He said he got his in 5 minutes, the monk/ranger helping him got his in about an hour, so it can be tricky to time. We tried timing it to the brutal mauling, to the attack animation to get him pulled along in mid-swipe, but I think it was just him leaving range as I activated. We used a monk as bait, as most critters seem to prefer beating up monks.

[Sol_Silverglade]

The method used: We used a bait-monk. My guildmate (Sol, thank you so much for showing me!) made a monk; took about a half hour of trying. He would get the bear's attention and run away from me, and I would try to time my Charm Animal to the moment that they left charm range. Eventually I got one to take, and the bear ran out of range, tried to break the charm but failed. It seems like it's a matter of timing it exactly right, and maybe luck. He said he got his in 5 minutes, the monk/ranger helping him got his in about an hour, so it can be tricky to time. We tried timing it to the brutal mauling, to the attack animation to get him pulled along in mid-swipe, but I think it was just him leaving range as I activated. We used a monk as bait, as most critters seem to prefer beating up monks.


Hehe, like I said, I'm just glad it still works, and I'm not crazy :p

Given the difficulties we were having, I really was beginning to think that anet had modified Breaking Charm since last I'd tried.

For the curious, as Epi said, I tamed a presearing bear awhile back (after the patches that prevented hammer/knockdowns from being a viable charm option) in an identical manner.

Last night, the bear just stayed on me, and might have tried to break charm once. When I tamed mine, the bear was chasing monk out of range as I got charm started (since skills will resolve as long as they were initiated in range, even if the target bolts) and by the time the bear realized what I was up to, I was well outside of charmbreaker range. The bear proceeded to spam charmbreaker for several seconds, before the charm resolved, and I had a new pet...

I think I named him Bragging Rights at the time.

Anyway, like epi said, the key is getting your charm initiated just as the bear leaves range, and keep it moving (breaking charm range does appear to be a good bit larger than charm animal, so it does require some work.

Best setup is making sure you have a straight shot to run in.

I posted a screenshot on our guild forums last night that could be a good reference, spatially, if you look at the radar, but I don't have th link immediately available to repost. (If someone else finds it before I'm home from work today, feel free to post)


Finally, I actually had fraps running last night... But after half an hour of trial and error, I think I was worried that stopping for a second would cause the bear to beeline back to epi to break charm xD

....plus I was a little tired ;)


----
Edit: Anyway, as promised, here's the pic:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1199/gw1639gp.th.jpg (http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw1639gp.jpg)

I had started running back to Epi after the capture here - but you can see how the positioning worked out. I bolted directly away from him (it helps to have a straightaway for this - as it minimizes chances of the bear retargeting), angry bear in tow as he started his charm - The bear stayed on me, and was in the end so far out of range that it couldn't break the charm if it wanted to.

[Dralspire]

Congratulations, guys ... that is amazing. You are an inspiration for the beastmaster in me. :D

[Primus]

First off, Awesome guide fellas! :D I lost track of how many times I've come back to look up stats, very good job you guys did.

After reading the entire thread, it seems I'm in a similar situation as Vermilion Okeanos. I have a level 20 Playful stalker right now :confused: ..

Long story short, after trainning a couple of lizards (dire and hearty), then a couple of stalkers (dire and hearty again), I wasn't happy with them.. So seeing as I do piercing I decided on an elder stalker. I started him on mergoyles outside gates of kryta. Using barrage, he had little chance to do any damage at all. After he hit playfull at lvl 12 (late right?), i switched to beast master build, letting him deal 100% of the damage. At level 14 (i think) I moved on to hydras (with the help of a monk of course). He was doing about 98% of the damage here. Level 15, 16, 17... and 20 passed and no evolution.

Here are a couple of screen shots:

http://img415.imageshack.us/img415/3264/gwpet15xu.gif
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8763/gwpet25eb.gif


And yes, I tried renaming him and resetting his name quite a few times, a couple in the second screen shot. What do you guys make of this?

[lyra_song]

My moa is lvl 12 and has no evolution either :|

[konohamaru heaven]

Pets dont only get bigger when they are hearty. They also become larger when they become playful too.

[Ashleigh McMahon]

Pets dont only get bigger when they are hearty. They also become larger when they become playful too.


I can surely back that up.

My level 20 dire moa was basically the same size as a level 3 moa in pre. It was the same with my elder moa. Now I have a hearty moa and it is 2-3x bigger than a level 3 moa.

Ash.

[Alotia Slipfeet]

just a question if i have a playfull pet instead of a aggrasive pet is there still a chance he'll evovle into a dire? im trying him with my lvl 12 char and i have 12 attributes point into beastmaster.

[Epinephrine]

just a question if i have a playfull pet instead of a aggrasive pet is there still a chance he'll evovle into a dire? im trying him with my lvl 12 char and i have 12 attributes point into beastmaster.

Not to my knowledge; I have only heard of playful evolving to Elder, to Hearty and occasionally staying Playful, never to Dire.

[o chief]

Not to my knowledge; I have only heard of playful evolving to Elder, to Hearty and occasionally staying Playful, never to Dire.

ive seen a pet going from playful to dire. i was helping a guildie lvl up his pet which had just turned playful. i was farming griffins/minotaurs whilst he sent his pet in with no BM in to die then rez which he repeated over and over again. from what reading id done i was pretty sure he would end up hearty but to our frustration he ended up dire. so it is possible but im not sure why what we were doing triggered it.

[lilsoulhunter]

Hmmm can one pet evolve 2x like.. from aggresive to hearty?:o

[lilsoulhunter]

Can a Pet Evolve From Aggresive To Hearty or Playful?

[Jenosavel]

My moa is lvl 12 and has no evolution either :|
Usually if a pet doesn't evolve by level 11 it will never evolve. If you were interested in an Elder-type pet, then you're good to go as Unevolved pets are statistically identical to Elder pets. Otherwise you may be out of luck.

The latest I've ever heard of a pet hitting its first evolution was at level 13, and since I've never once see a pet evolve at a different time than 11 and 15 I would have to say that the occurances are rare. It's more likely that if your pet hasn't evolved by 11 it won't evolve. You can always stick it out for a few more levels, though, just to be certain.

Maybe one of the factors is the amount of damage taken by the owner. As in, a pet has a greater chance of becoming Dire if its owner is consistently getting pummeled for large amounts. The one constant in my pet's training (while trying to minimize his damage taken / maximize his output, etc.) was the fact that the damage I received was minimal. It would make sense as a mechanic as well. If you are doing the tanking, the pet should trade health for damage, and vice versa if the roles are reversed. Perhaps someone has already mentioned that and I missed it.
This is entirely possible. As I said in the guide, the player's position on the battle field is indeed important to the evolution process, though not usually more important than other factors. What exactly that importance is, is hard to say. The evolution process is all about subtleties, I fear, so long as we can't see the game's code. Knowing why something works is so terribly much harder than knowing what works. For example, when training a Hearty pet with a warrior it would appear impossible if indeed the player need take a lot of damage. However, simply standing up in front and taking all the aggro (sometimes even sprinting in well ahead of my pet), even though I take 0's or 1's from every hit, still will give me my Hearty pet every time. (note: I'm talking of fighting Minotaurs outside of Ice Tooth Cave)

Pets dont only get bigger when they are hearty. They also become larger when they become playful too.
I can surely back that up.

My level 20 dire moa was basically the same size as a level 3 moa in pre. It was the same with my elder moa. Now I have a hearty moa and it is 2-3x bigger than a level 3 moa.

Ash.
It was already mentioned in the guide as well:
It would seem that the evolutions also are associated with the size changes observed – that pets change sizes at 11 and 15

I would like to clarify further here. Additional information that was left out of the guide due to time not allowing for finishing touches included detailed information on size changes.

It appears there are 3 sizes of pets: small, slightly larger than small, and about 2-3 times the size of small.

Unevolved pets are undoubtedly of the small variety, Playful pets are undoubtedly of the 2nd size, and Hearty pets are undoubtedly of the final size. This much was thoroughly verified.

Aggressive pets are either of the 1st or 2nd sizes, while Dire are either of the 2nd or 3rd. Time did not allow for me to confirm the preliminary observations (as is terribly important when trying to measure the size of these buggers as they meander around).

Elder pets are either of the 1st or 2nd sizes. If Aggressive pets are of size 2, then it is likely that Elder are also as it is unheard of for a pet to get smaller as it goes.

ive seen a pet going from playful to dire. i was helping a guildie lvl up his pet which had just turned playful. i was farming griffins/minotaurs whilst he sent his pet in with no BM in to die then rez which he repeated over and over again. from what reading id done i was pretty sure he would end up hearty but to our frustration he ended up dire. so it is possible but im not sure why what we were doing triggered it.
This is the first time I've heard someone claim such, and due to the vast number of pets Epi and I have cycled through I'm going to have to say that I'm highly skeptical. If this is true, I'm going to have to be a stick in the mud and not believe it until it can be repeated, since it won't help anyone in the mean time.

Hmmm can one pet evolve 2x like.. from aggresive to hearty?
Please read the following:
Pets undergo evolution up to twice in their existence, to our knowledge.

Can a Pet Evolve From Aggresive To Hearty or Playful?
The current, common understanding of pet evolution is that your pet’s state exists on a slider. One side of the slider has the Hearty pet with high defense and low offense. The other side has the Dire pet with high offense and low defense. In the middle lies the balanced pet, the Elder.

The slider:
Dire <- Aggressive <-> Elder/Unevolved <-> Playful -> Hearty

Each time your pet evolves it moves one step in either direction, based on how you've been playing with it. Therefore an Aggressive pet can only go to Dire or Elder, as they are one step away from it. Only a Playful pet could become Hearty, as that is the only evolution within one step from Hearty. Does that help clear things up?

[Pan Sola]

New information; I was able, with the help of a guildmate last night (Thanks Sol!) to capture a bear in pre-searing. So it isn't impossible, just really, really, really, really hard to do.

Oh, it's on my second account, so if you can't find me on as "Andrea Nile", try "Erin de Naal", for those who will be skeptical. I know I would be.

Lovely. You ARE going to keep that character in Pre-Searing forever right? d-:

[Shadwu]

Does pet gain xp when his dead?

[T1Cybernetic]

New information; I was able, with the help of a guildmate last night (Thanks Sol!) to capture a bear in pre-searing. So it isn't impossible, just really, really, really, really hard to do.

Oh, it's on my second account, so if you can't find me on as "Andrea Nile", try "Erin de Naal", for those who will be skeptical. I know I would be.
Been meaning to post for a few days now and i can confirm pinephrine is not "shitting you" :D
you can grab bears with the help of another in pre-searing, it all takes time but it can be done.

With the help of a friend "ty hippy" and a spare half hour we capped one a peice
just to show off really, :p but it was fun running around pre-searing with a team of 4!

"EDIT"
Just wanted to say another ty to gou for helping me get my lizzard to dire after many
many early morning hours and many coffies, carefully leveling it up, :) cheers mate...

[Jenosavel]

Does pet gain xp when his dead?

Since I'd like to believe people aren't just coming in here to ask questions before reading the guide (hint hint), and are just missing things in the sheer immensity of it:
Another easy way to get an unevolved pet is simply to level the pet while it is dead; a dead pet deals no damage and suffers no damage. The range for experience is apparently unlimited – even if the pet doesn’t show the leveling it will level when you get within range of the pet again, or if you cross an instance portal/map travel.
send your pet in ahead of you, and let it earn some experience while dead

[TheMikrobe]

Great guide, good to see some results from controlled testing.

Strider/Moa: ... they are most likely ratites, resembling the ostrich or rhea in that they are tall, flightless birds with well developed leg muscles, but larger like Aepyornis maximus

Moas are moas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa);) They are indeed ratites.

Maiming Strike
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a square with a corner forward over a pale disk.

your image shows a triangle...

Melandru's Assault
Visual: Sparkles on the ground that form a triangle with the point backwards over a pale disk.

your image shows a square...

I recently changed to a warthog pet and I have noticed that attack skill visuals do not appear around it, I assume this is a display bug.

There was something else I was going to comment on but the forum ate my first post and I can't remember what it was... oh, well...

good work, congrat's

[Pan Sola]

Testing Request:

Warthog normal damage against plant, vs Warthog damage converted to cold (Greater Conflagration + Winter) against plant.

Theory: Additional damage type "Biting Damage" that is physical but different from slashing damage (plants are supposed to be weak against slashing).

Details: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Talk:Animal_companion#Pet_Damage_Types

Or if you can find somethig that has high resistence against slashing damage and test it vs fire, that might work even better (in case winter isn't properly converting fire to cold due to ordering issues).

Thanks (-:

[Epinephrine]

Great guide, good to see some results from controlled testing.



Moas are moas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa);) They are indeed ratites.



your image shows a triangle...



your image shows a square...

I recently changed to a warthog pet and I have noticed that attack skill visuals do not appear around it, I assume this is a display bug.

There was something else I was going to comment on but the forum ate my first post and I can't remember what it was... oh, well...

good work, congrat's

Hmm, mis-linked skill photos I guess... I'll take a look.

As a note, an update a while back broke the graphics for the petskills, they're all messed up, with odd lines and such. I reported it and got a standard reply of "we'll look into it" but if your graphics in game are not matching those posted (with the exception of the link pointing to the wrong file) it is because nobody at ANet takes anything to do with pets seriously. The pet warping was brought up months ago, and still hasn't been addressed, the graphic changes are over a month old and haven't been fixed. The GW Support people seem to vary between quite good at their work (GM Jabberwocky, for example) and able to understand the concepts to semi-literate and unable to comprehend a description of a bug, however clear... this type will respond with "we've determined that the skill is acting as intended" or something, when it is clearly completely backwards.

Testing Request:

Warthog normal damage against plant, vs Warthog damage converted to cold (Greater Conflagration + Winter) against plant.

Theory: Additional damage type "Biting Damage" that is physical but different from slashing damage (plants are supposed to be weak against slashing).

Details: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Talk:Animal_companion#Pet_Damage_Types

Or if you can find somethig that has high resistence against slashing damage and test it vs fire, that might work even better (in case winter isn't properly converting fire to cold due to ordering issues).

Thanks (-:

Hmm, without seeing some data I'm not convinced that there's much reason to do more tests, but I could level a warthog quickly on my second account (I'm loathe to delete my painstakingly levelld critters again). There are two major problems with his testing though:

1.) 100 hits is nothing in terms of detecting a difference on such a small range - we used hundreds (well, thousands once you pool them) of hits at level 20 with 12 BM to ensure that the damage ranges were large.

2.) he's using a "+4" shield and a "non +4" shield with 0 tactics - however, the AL bonus from an item varies when you don't meet the requirement. If he had a plain white shield and a purple +4 to blunt shield the ALs will be different anyway, since the higher quality item has a higher default AL. This can be seen easily with foci, use several different foci without meeting the requirements and you'll see that they can vary from +3 energy to +6 energy without meeting the requirement; the same is true for shields, they vary in their base values, and that variance could well account for the difference, particularly as the +4 vs blunt is clearly a special item, while the other may be a low-quality white item.

[SnipiousMax]

Has there been any word on whether or not they're planning to upgrade/revamp the pet system? I really like having a pet, I like using it despite negitive views and unfair stereotypes.... but my beef with pets is that they're all exactly the same. I mean we have four different types of bows. People can choose between a wand/offhand and staff. We have lots of weapon mods. Why can't pets have different attributes? I understand that Anet has a hierarchy of needs/wants/issue to resolve. But I don't see any other attribute of the game as neglected as the pets.

[Chev of Hardass]

I just got my primary PvE characters pet to dire. Thanks for the guide. One note though. I found the Elona Reach mission very good to raise a dire pet. The damage in the first part of it is all physical, and the Minataur tend to only attack the master. I was only able to take on 2 at a time safely, but at level 20 I was getting 100xp per kill and I took my pet there at level 9. So, I suspect it was getting pretty decent xp from the kills.

I don't quite know if the damage is significant over an Eldar Pet, in real life situations, but at level 15, things are looking that way.

Now I wish there was better AI for pets. Specifically for classes that deal Direct damage (Rangers and Warriors). These types of classes seem to work with two styles of pets. Pets that always attack the target that the Master is Dealing damage to, or those that attack the same one to deal some good pressure on one target while the master spreads Poison, for example. I believe that the current AI is one that attempts to do both, but does not do either very well. I would really like to see my pet beside me 100% of the time while I am hacking on targets or fleeing from AoE. I guess there could be balance Issues if the targeting system for pets was too good.

[Jenosavel]

As far as I'm aware there's been no intention of improving the pet system. The only pet-related anything I've heard from ANet in a long time is that we'll get new pets in Factions and the use of pets as fodder for IWAY will soon change. It rankles me that while pets can be a very great addition to a team, they will never see exposure at the top levels of PvP due to failings of their most basic AI (such as pathing... when a pet can't even figure out to walk around a single person to reach a target...).

And I don't think pets being too good if their AI were improved is remotely a problem. If pets became too powerful after AI improvements, they'd tweak the actual skills/stats of pets. I really believe that either ANet's AI department is such a complete failure that it doesn't know how to fix the pet AI, or that ANet really doesn't give one whit about pets. There's constant noise from Gaile that pets will get more attention, but I don't think others within the company are on the same page as her. I don't think its for a lack of trying: she really does seem to have her heart in with us pet rangers. However, despite any talking that takes place nothing happens.

With that cynicism out of my system now, I'd like to mention that I am still holding out hope that the skill balance changes coming soon may include an improvement to pet AI. For the longest time I've been saying that with IWAY all over the place, the time would be great from teams of actual pet rangers to sneak in, but that it simply won't happen under current AI conditions... -_- Watch the response to IWAY be a nerfing of the skill itself rather than addressing the uselessness of the pet's AI or the towering strength of a warrior dominated offense. (Please, please let me be wrong, oh powers that be!)


Oh, and I believe I have a difference of opinion with Epi in regards to the image changes that took place with the last Factions weekend wherein the pet attack animations (or at least the sparkly stuff) where changed. I don't think it was a bug or an unintended side-effect of something else; I'm of the impression that the changes were made to make it easier to visually idenitfy which skills are being used. The majority of the ones that were changed were very similar to others, and trying to pay attention to which direction a sparkly triangle is pointing or if the corner or side of a square is facing forward in the middle of battle probably won't happen. I actually hope the changes stick, as it's quite hard to mistake the new patterns for one another. If someone uses Ferocious Strike now, I'm not going to be able to miss it.

[SnipiousMax]

My personal belief, is that IWAY will be nerfed in the sense that pet's will no longer count as allies when determining the duration/power of IWAY. That would be the easiest fix, and in being the easiest, the most likely.

[Epinephrine]

The only reason I say it's buggy is the fact that it is generally the same number of lines as the original, but with a few angles bent the wrong way - thus a square previously has become a pair of Ls and a triangle has become a squiggle like this /\_, which looks rather like the lines are simply being drawn in the wrong orientation. Since Anet is pretty bad with this type of change and documenting them I doubt we'll get an answer...

[Rask Finn]

Thank you very much for that guide on charming a bear. I found myself a very patient monk, and finally nabbed one after about 30 minutes of trying.

Hopefully this screenshot proves I got it today

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v192/Sectaurs/Sectaurs/Odin.jpg

[Beat_Go_Stick]

Wow....just, wow.

This is an amazing guide. Due to the finding of a perfect zealous bow, I was thinking of starting a Ranger character so I cam looking for Beast Mastery info and found this jem waiting. Excellent job and you have my thanks. I think I'll grab a Dune Lizard as soon as possible :)

[Jenosavel]

Alright, I've finally gotten some screen shots going to help illustrate the differences in pet sizes. There are some further ones I'd like to take, but it's honestly quite tiring to level and relevel pets simply for screen shots. I've done about all of that I can take at the moment.


Using two of my characters as a measuring tape, I took screens of them with both the normal level 3 Moa Bird and the evolution in question. The hard part was to get a screen where the Moa is at a neutral position in regards to the character. It can not be closer to or further from the camera than the character; nor can it be standing on a higher or lower plane from the character. Considering the amount these buggers move around, that's a lot more time consuming than one would think.

Necro with Lvl 3 Moa Bird (http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=regularsizemoa4ni.jpg)
Necro with Lvl 15 Dire Strider (http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image=diresizemoa3si.jpg)
Warrior with Lvl 3 Moa Bird (http://img133.imageshack.us/my.php?image=regularsizemoa020yw.jpg)
Warrior with Lvl 15 Hearty Strider (http://img133.imageshack.us/my.php?image=heartysizemoa3bo.jpg)

Then, overlaying the two images in photoshop, I resized one of them and moved it about until the two images of my character matched up precisely. This creates a ghosted image of the two variations of Moa Bird on top of one another for very easy size comparison.

Necro with ghosted Dire (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=diresizecomparisonghost4oy.jpg)
Warrior with ghosted Hearty (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=heartysizecomparisonghost1gh.jpg)

Lastly, I took the these two ghosted images and once again overlaid them in photoshop. This time I adjusted them so that the level 3 Moas both matched up. Then I drew a red line over the Hearty Moa indicating its size, duplicated it, and dragged it over top of the Dire as well. As you can see, the two are clearly the same size.

Final ghosted image with both Hearty and Dire Striders (http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=masterghost7rg.jpg)

This should settle the question as to whether or not the Hearty pet is larger than the Dire pet. The two are the same size.

As to the confirming that the Playful pet is indeed larger than the normal pet, I have a couple more screen shots. The Warthog, which is best for noticing size variations, can be seen here in poison. Careful to use the same spot so as to avoid varying depths, you can see the size change from normal to Playful, and then again from Playful to Hearty.

The normal Warthog (http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=regularpoisontestwarthog2bj.jpg) is almost completely submerged with only the tip of its tail and the very fringe of its mane showing.

The Playful/Aggressive Warthog (http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=playfulpoisontestwarthog7yx.jpg) shows the tips of its ears and considerably more mane than the normal one.

The Hearty/Dire Warthog (http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=heartypoisontestwarthog0nm.jpg) shows all of its ears and some of its light-colored back as well.

Edit: confirmed my suspicion that Aggressive and Playful pets would be of equal sizes, and thus updated my post accordingly

[Epinephrine]

Editing info to reflect the pet skill changes... will take a few days to get all the charts updated.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

I finally got off my lazy ass to test my lv20 aggressive warthog's hp with poison swamp. The HP turn out to be 450, as an aggressive.

The lv20 aggressive warthog damage range is 18~42. However, I am really not sure of the max damage honestly, the reason due to that if the 42 is critical hit then what the hell is with the 41 and 40 poping out once in awhile (aren't critical always the same?); if 42 is not critical, how can I not see any critical hit out of like couple hundreds hits (don't tell me it is my bad luck again)?

[Jenosavel]

That sounds similar to the results Epinephrine and I had, as you can see when you look at the damage distribution graphs. We've been trying to get together a testing session within our guild to do damage testing vs. a target using Balanced Stance to weed out what is and is not a critical hit. Alas, that hasn't materialized yet and it looks like we may have to end up waiting until intra-guild PvP is implemented (1vs1 would be very nice!).

For whatever reason, the critical hits appear to be all over the place. For example, in the damage distribution chart for the Dire pet (http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/3357/distributiondire200op.jpg), you can see that the bulk of the damage was within the range of 20 through 33. However, there is a spattering of damage beyond that all the way up to 47. What could explain this besides critical hits, I don't know. However, for critical hits to appear in a range doesn't fit with how we know critical hits to work. This, unfortunately, opens up the possibility that critical hits from pets may work differently than critical hits from players. Hopefully further testing will clear things up.

[nova-exarch]

Just a quick input on the AI subject...

Do not confuse pathing with AI.

Pathing is determined by the number of way points programed into the game/map.

You can have a completely amazing pathing routine (part of the AI if you want to think of it like that) and without enough waypoints it will not be able to figure out how to get from point A to point B.

Think of it like you or I trying to go somewhere without any idea of the roads between (kind of like dead reckoning). It would work fine in a non complex environment like a small town or open plains. Now try the same thing in a complex environment like a large city or a hilly and forested area... not so easy.

They could add more waypoints but that slows down the process as there are then too many number to crunch and more stuff for the game to keep in memory.

--

I'm absolutely not defending GW's AI either. It's utter crap as far as pets go.

My laundry list of pet AI issues/wants:

- Pet only attacks what I am currently attacking. If I switch, it switches. Sometimes I want to be able to make the pet stay on what it is on while I attack other mobs.

- Sometimes the pet keeps attacking if I stop, other times it stops when I stop. I'd like it to continue until I tell it to stop or to change targets.

- Pet charges in if I use a normal (bow, wand, staff, etc...) attack. Sometimes I would like to pull mobs to me without it charging in. This is somewhat workable if you use a spell (spells don't make the pet charge in) with the drawback that spells don't have as good a range in most (maybe all) cases.

- I want to be able to tell my pet to wait in a certain spot. And then come to me when/if I call it. Sometimes they just get in the freaking way.

--

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

It's seems to me they either:

1. Didn't look at other successfull games with pets in them. After 5 years of frustration in EQ they finally had a really good set of pet controls in place before I quit playing (like 2 yrs ago).

or...

2. Didn't care to make pets truely useful and just added them for more flavor.

or...

3. It just wasn't worth the coding hours (IE, more important stuff to work on).

- - -

Great work on the size pics!

--

I'll have to try Elona Reach next time I need to train. I spent a long time at the Mergoyles (the first one went playful after I let it take too much damage from the mino's).

Yay pets!

[Linkusmax]

Pets ARE viable in High Level PvP, for example Bring Back The Rifts runs a pet based build in GvG. Not only that my Guild have started tinkering with Pet builds. Even if it is in spired by Rifts tactics. Melee Rangers can cause some major damage when combined with a pet, especially after the recent update.

Not only that but we have a Tombs version of the build which got us to the Halls (couldn't cap though). But we have only run this once so far. But I have noticed Sword and Hammer Rangers with pets showing up in Tombs builds.

[piccolo]

Hi @ all

I've a question. First of all sorry for my bad english.

How do I detect how much hp my pet have? Or how I get the attitude of my pet(agressive, healthy, ...etc.)

Thanks -- piccolo

[Linkusmax]

Im fairly sure thats covered in the guide piccolo but to reiterate. type /petname in chat to reset the pets name and this will tell you its evolution. The only way of telling your pets health is by lookming at its bar in the party window and geussing.

[AeroLion]

Not guessing but once you have what your pets evolution is (hearty, dire, unevolved, etc), you can look at the chart in the second post.

I'll repost it here for convenience.

http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/5403/healthevolvedtable6tx.png

[Linkusmax]

I thought he meant after it had taken some damage. ^_^

[piccolo]

HI,

thanks for your fast reply!
I'll test it when i go home from work.

Greez piccolo

[Leon_Ux-ixen]

I have had my same pet sence level.2 back in Pre. It's name has been the same, is there any way to tell or find out if it has evoled at all?

[Epinephrine]

type /petname

That should reset your pet's name, showing the current evolution.

[O Blue O]

Allright, I caught a Snow wolf. Using my Ranger lvl 17 (my 8th character existing presently)
I jacked up her beast mastery, dropped her marks.
Took the wolf to Ice Tooth Cave.
Used an Icy bow, did 5-7 damage per hit, while the wolf did 35-45 with predators pounce and feral lunge. Using Symbiotic Bond and Mending on the Wolf until symbiotic bond was enough to keep him alive alone.
By lvl 10 the wolf was taking them down FAST, I was SURE it would be agressive, It probably died a total of 4 times, early on. After that it hardly lost any health at all.
At lvl 11 it turned into a Playful Wolf!!
I am aiming to create a Dire...grrr

[Jenosavel]

Symbiotic Bond reduces all damage to your pet by half. However, your pet is still taking half damage. Regardless of whether or not it's staying alive, that amount of damage will make it Hearty.

Try Call of Protection instead and switching out Mending for Otyugh's Cry or Symbiotic. Since you've got Predator's Pounce your pet shouldn't need much other healing.

[O Blue O]

Try Call of Protection instead and switching out Mending for Otyugh's Cry or Symbiotic. Since you've got Predator's Pounce your pet shouldn't need much other healing.

hmm...allrighty I will give that a try, thanks for the response. I am determined and very patient. lol

[burty]

I started out using the build from the main page.
My pet didnt get any aggro when I ran in first.
I was doing minotars in northern shiverpeaks.
So i switched out the pet defence and had 4 attack skills, CoH then physical resistance troll for my defence.
My pet got to lvl 11 quite fast and was aggressive when i got there.
Now im trying to level it in a similar way but its taking ages.
Q1. Does anyone know if i can level it in quicker ways now?
Q2. Now its aggressive does it mean it automatically goes to dire?
Q3. If i take hench or another player to help me (i.e. healer hench) does pet get less exp?
Q4. Could i use something like mark of pain or spiteful spirit from another person and my pet still get exp and head towards dire since it wasnt me that was doing damage ... basically does my pet gain exp from another player killing.

[Jenosavel]

I started out using the build from the main page.
My pet didnt get any aggro when I ran in first.
I was doing minotars in northern shiverpeaks.
So i switched out the pet defence and had 4 attack skills, CoH then physical resistance troll for my defence.
My pet got to lvl 11 quite fast and was aggressive when i got there.
Now im trying to level it in a similar way but its taking ages.
Q1. Does anyone know if i can level it in quicker ways now?
Q2. Now its aggressive does it mean it automatically goes to dire?
Q3. If i take hench or another player to help me (i.e. healer hench) does pet get less exp?
Q4. Could i use something like mark of pain or spiteful spirit from another person and my pet still get exp and head towards dire since it wasnt me that was doing damage ... basically does my pet gain exp from another player killing.

1) You can, but you risk not being able to control the environment as well (opening up the possibility that you'll have to completely restart).
2) At one point, this appeared to be the case. However, it is not so anymore. There have been a lot of pets hitting level 20 while still being aggressive.
3) Yeah, the pet gets less experience if you take more players/henches.
4) Anything you or a party member uses to deal damage is taking away from your pet's own damage and thus influencing its evolution. Steering clear of it all is the only sure way to get your Dire. While it's possible to still get Dire while supplementing your pet's damage, it's a gamble. And gambing could mean restarting the entire process over again.

[Dralspire]

I wanted to throw in an observation here. I have worked on a set of dire pets for my Mo, E, W, and R.

The only character that gave me problems is the E. I came to believe that the E is able to overcast the development stages, thereby moving charmed -> aggressive -> elder despite 12 beast mastery, beast mastery spells only, and stopping his own bow attacks at 0 marksmanship once the pet engaged the opponent.

In so many words, less turned out to be more, and limiting the E from happily casting away rendered better results. :)

[burty]

So can you give any recomendations about best way to make it dire.
The best place to farm ... Ive noticed Elona reach start with minotaurs and Ice Tooth Cave outside (however these are low lvl).
From your above post it give me the impression that a pet could not evolve from a agressive pet. Ie its agresive at lvl 11 then when it hits lvl20 it stays aggressive.
Is this true?

[Jenosavel]

So can you give any recomendations about best way to make it dire.
The best place to farm ... Ive noticed Elona reach start with minotaurs and Ice Tooth Cave outside (however these are low lvl).
From your above post it give me the impression that a pet could not evolve from a agressive pet. Ie its agresive at lvl 11 then when it hits lvl20 it stays aggressive.
Is this true?

The pet most certainly can evolved from Aggressive to Dire. The problem is, it used to be a default thing that if you got your pet as far as Aggressive, it would change to Dire when it hit the right level. That's no longer the case. Now, you have to continue to put in the attack-oriented training even after its Aggressive stage to make it go Dire, otherwise it could possibly just stay at Aggressive. Getting tired of the process near the end, as tends to happen, and trying to cut corners has been keeping several people from getting their Dire pets and ending up with level 20 Aggressives instead.

Ice Tooth Cave is indeed slow leveling, however it is still possible for your pet to reach level 15 using those minotaurs alone. If you prefer the 100% safe but slower more tedious route, then do this.

If that's not satisfactory, some people have been able to use the desert Minotaurs (in Elonas Reach) to finish off their pet's leveling. The nearer you are to level 15 when you make the switch from Mountain Minotaurs to desert Minotaurs, the less likely it is that any mistakes made will adversely affect your pet's evolution. It's up to you to choose when to make the switch.

Of course, once your pet hits Dire you can level wherever your heart desires. Beyond that point it wont matter.

[burty]

So it may hit dire at any level??

[burty]

WOOOT
Dire at lvl 15.
Decided to go for some minos in elona.
Warthog hit lvl 15 and I /petname and it was dire.
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/5972/dire153wp.jpg
Note pet lvl and dire (/petname shown also)
My pet basically never took damage as I tanked everything.

[Jenosavel]

Congrats!

[Age]

What is the best tactic or strategy for capping a bear in preseaering if you are a Warrior and a Ranger?Thanks.

[Linkusmax]

The method used: We used a bait-monk. My guildmate (Sol, thank you so much for showing me!) made a monk; took about a half hour of trying. He would get the bear's attention and run away from me, and I would try to time my Charm Animal to the moment that they left charm range. Eventually I got one to take, and the bear ran out of range, tried to break the charm but failed. It seems like it's a matter of timing it exactly right, and maybe luck. He said he got his in 5 minutes, the monk/ranger helping him got his in about an hour, so it can be tricky to time. We tried timing it to the brutal mauling, to the attack animation to get him pulled along in mid-swipe, but I think it was just him leaving range as I activated. We used a monk as bait, as most critters seem to prefer beating up monks.

There it is Age, you dont have to use a monk its just easier.

[A. Noid]

Just to add a little flavor to the guide- which btw is excellent!
Last night my pet hit 11 and after renaming him to see how I did, to my shagrin he remained unevolved. Oh well. I figured I'd keep him around a couple of more levels to see if he does change.
I logged off last night shortly after he hit 11. Today I log in and what do I see? A Playful pet. Hmmmm. It seems that the programming did not update immediately. Not sure why, but it might help someone else down the road.

-A

[Jenosavel]

Just to add a little flavor to the guide- which btw is excellent!
Last night my pet hit 11 and after renaming him to see how I did, to my shagrin he remained unevolved. Oh well. I figured I'd keep him around a couple of more levels to see if he does change.
I logged off last night shortly after he hit 11. Today I log in and what do I see? A Playful pet. Hmmmm. It seems that the programming did not update immediately. Not sure why, but it might help someone else down the road.

-A

I'm surprised that was missed in the guide. A pet's default name and size do not update automatically upon evolution. They will naturally update upon leaving the instance (entering town or crossing a portal), and the name can be forced to update by typing in /petname.

[Linkusmax]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Linkusmax/Gailespeak.jpg

Pet AI improvements indicated! hurrah!

[Kalki]

Wow excellent guide! Thank you both so very much Jenosavel and Epinephrine. I couldn't have dreamed of a better guide to pets. Now that I understand so well how pets work I'm definitely going to tame new pets for my characters.

I just have 1 question. Which pet type, evolution, and size comes with PvP characters? I would test this myself if I had a character slot left.

[Savio]

When a PvP character puts Charm Animal on their skillbar, they get an Elder Wolf.

[Jeremy_the_beard]

i know it IS possible to get a bear pre searing, im sure of it, but does anyone have a position of a bear were its possible to use it on? i thought i found 1 but turns out i was wrong!

[Kalki]

Gah!

I've tried to create 2 Dire pets for my Ranger starting with level 5 snow wolves and both times I failed. Both pets became Agressive at level 11, and Elder at level 15. I guess I should keep trashing them and trying again. Is there any element of luck involved?

I used the following build on Minotaurs outside Ice Tooth Cave.

Ranger/Mesmer vs. Minotaurs
Beast Mastery: 12 (16 w/h helm and rune)
Expertise: 10 (11 w/h rune)
Wilderness Survival: 10 (11 w/h rune)
Ispiration Magic: 3

Ferocious Strike {E}
Feral Lunge
Disrupting Lunge
Symbiotic Bond
Call of Protection
Disrupting Lunge
Charm Animal
Troll Unguent
Physical Resistance

Both times I attempted to get a Dire pet it didn't die once. In almost every fight I was taking all the damage. I would charge into the groups to keep aggro on me. Most of the time my pet was doing ~20-50 damage per hit. I was timing my pet attack commands well. However I did auto-attack with my bow, which did about 7-10 damage per hit. Next time I try to get a Dire pet I won't attack with my bow at all, and see if that makes a difference.

I'm wondering if the bleeding damage I'm doing with Feral Lunge is getting credited to me or my pet. Also, I'd like to know if there's an element of luck involved.

[Jenosavel]

Not auto-attacking will definitely make a difference. The minotaurs are warriors afterall, and this means that at low levels your pet will have issues penetrating their high armor. The difference between your damage and your pet's can still cause problems because the base damage of your bow is usually high while the base damage from your pet is low due to its low level. You can easily eliminate any trouble this might cause by simply not attacking.

My other suggestion would be to make sure that you run in ahead of your pet and let it attack the enemies in response to you getting hit rather than in response to you auto-attacking. While your build looks sound for Dire training, that nit-picky little positioning detail tends to make more of a difference than people would think.

[JoDiamonds]

The nitpicky details certainly seem important, and many players seem to miss the fact that the amount of damage you do is extremely important. It seems the best route (in my experience) has always been to absolutely minimize the damage you are doing as a player, and to prevent damage to the pet.

I usually choose to do no damage at all (just healing myself and turning off enemy damage; Troll Unguent, Throw Dirt, etc.), and using Call of Protection is required as far as I can tell (or at least makes it much, much easier).

Like everyone else, this is awesome. Thanks for all the help and input on the guide, everyone.

[Kalki]

I finally got a Dire pet on my 3rd attempt following the tips of the 2 posters above. The tip of not having my ranger attack had an additional benefit in regards to the pet aggro hierarchy, which was listed in the guide. Instead of the pet attacking the target I was attacking it would first attack anything attacking it thus lowering it's overall damage taken.

I also levelled a Dire pet on my warrior. I used a build with Healing Signet and Call of Haste in place of Physical Resistance and Troll Unguent. Thanks again and I can't wait to see what changes to pets Factions will bring.

[Ishmaeel]

Thanks all for the outstanding work and contributions.

I recently gave my Lizard to that butcher and got myself a Moa Bird. She's level 19 now and remains unevolved (=elder w/o prefix?). Here's what I did:

Go outside Ice Tooth Cave with barrage, defensive stances, self healing and symbiotic bond. Walk near the minos without attacking - let them charge you. This way, they almost always target you and leave the pet alone. Beat the living tusks out of the minos myself, letting the birdy peck cutely at them with low BM. Use SB when one of the bulls get the idea to attack my precious chicken.

Level 11 : Pet only died once when I got careless and no evo. At that point, I upped the BM a bit and made room for one pet attack as I thought there could be a minimum damage that needs to be done by the pet to evolve. Did not change strategy much. Occasionally I let the bird kill small groups by itself. But overall, bulk of the work was done by me.

Level 15 : No evo still. Named her "Fresh Meat", got her to the Tombs with a B/P party, got her up to level 19 and renamed her "Unevolved".

[Pi_Numurian]

cool ty

[jv35jimbo]

Amazing, a completely, totally awesome guide.
An incredible piece of work. I am most grateful for all the information.

[Makkert]

http://photics.com/2006/04/20/guild-wars-spider-pet-guide/
photics claims the spider is faster in speed then the other pets...


EDIT: pet --> spider to make the sentence logical. brainfart :rolleyes:

[Epinephrine]

His comment refers to the running speed, which I haven't specifically tested, perhaps we'll need to run a few quick tests w.r.t. running speed. I noticed that when Jenosavel and I were using our paired beastmasters that our pets would kill the last target and run back together, exactly in step with one another - a good way to test running speed I suspect - by staying at a long range from the last target you can ensure that the pet returns at its higher speed running rate.

I'm somewhat curious as to how the new pets will behave, but I imagine that they'll be in line with the old. The guide will of course need a bit of re-vamping when Factions comes out, but I've been pretty busy IRL and with preparation for Factions release (as you know Makkert ;)) so haven't been as active on it as I might be.

[zling]

it is an excellent guide on pets which gave me all the information I needed, especially the fact that there is no real difference between the different pets, so my PvE ranger can stay with my melandru's stalker until level 20 and be as effective as all other pets :p
also I wasnt aware of the whole evolution thing as my pet isnt level 11 yet...

however there is something that bothers me about keeping my pet until late game, it seems to require too many skills for not so much efficiency. charm animal is a slot wasted as it does nothing, but is a neccessity as without it you dont have a pet, comfort/revive are pretty neccessary as the pet tends to die rather often, and a pet attack skill and/or other pet affecting skill(such as call haste) so if I want to keep my pet I have to waste 3-4 skill slots on it and due to the horrible AI and low controlability it's effectiveness is in question.

so what do you guys say? is it worth to keep my pet for a PvE ranger primary? or should I stick to my bow skills and stuff, and if I do keep him, should I just use charm animal and comfort/revive or other skills as well and how many points should I invest in beastmastery(if any)?

[GloryFox]

I really want to thank you for doing the work on Pets. This data is eveidince that my Beast Master Build for FOW is not a n00b build. Pets are highly undervaluded. Beast Masters can be as you have shown quite deadly. Thank you again.

QQ
Is there a way ingame to tell what kind of Pet spider I have. I charmed it a long time ago and have no idea if its Elder Hearty or unevolved. Or did I miss somthing on an earlier post.

[GloryFox]

I really want to thank you for doing the work on Pets. This data is eveidince that my Beast Master Build for FOW is not a n00b build. Pets are highly undervaluded. Beast Masters can be as you have shown quite deadly. Thank you again.

QQ
Is there a way ingame to tell what kind of Pet spider I have. I charmed it a long time ago and have no idea if its Elder Hearty or unevolved. Or did I miss somthing on an earlier post.

Nevermind found it! I have a Hearty Black Widow!

[Grubcat]

.

however there is something that bothers me about keeping my pet until late game, it seems to require too many skills for not so much efficiency. charm animal is a slot wasted as it does nothing, but is a neccessity as without it you dont have a pet, comfort/revive are pretty neccessary as the pet tends to die rather often, and a pet attack skill and/or other pet affecting skill(such as call haste) so if I want to keep my pet I have to waste 3-4 skill slots on it and due to the horrible AI and low controlability it's effectiveness is in question.

so what do you guys say? is it worth to keep my pet for a PvE ranger primary? or should I stick to my bow skills and stuff, and if I do keep him, should I just use charm animal and comfort/revive or other skills as well and how many points should I invest in beastmastery(if any)?


I don't claim to be an expert, by any means, but I have just finished the missions with a beastmaster and my hearty lynx and really enjoyed it. You're right, you have to have points in beastmastery and use mostly animal skills. I usually took call of protection, predator's pounce, distracting lunge, comfort animal and charm animal, a heal and a rez. That left room for only one bow skill, so when Miss Kitty dies, I have just one skill to use until she's back up. She doesn't die too often now.

She's a great tank and holds aggro quite well. It takes some practice to learn how to pull a target without the pet charging in, but if you shoot, then run backwards, your pet will follow you, not the arrow. Same way you have to fool the henches, but I find it easier with my cat.

I've found that she will keep attacking an enemy for a certain amount of time, even if I switch targets to spread some poison around. I think I read that it's about every 6 seconds that the pet checks to see what it should be attacking? Usually though, I use a staff for extra energy and pet skills and switch to a bow if I need to.

When I got to the southern Shiverpeaks, Miss Kitty stayed home a lot while I learned to trap and interrupt, because I rarely used those skills earlier in the game.

Reading this excellent guide really helped a lot, though I certainly seem to be in the minority, prefering a hearty pet, rather than a dire one. :)

[zling]

Reading this excellent guide really helped a lot, though I certainly seem to be in the minority, prefering a hearty pet, rather than a dire one. :)
actually I think you're in the majority among pet users. as people usually use pets as "tanks" they'd need the extra life a lot more than the extra damage(as they dont rely on their pet for damage but their own weapon and skills)

[Pan Sola]

http://photics.com/2006/04/20/guild-wars-spider-pet-guide/
photics claims the spider is faster in speed then the other pets...


EDIT: pet --> spider to make the sentence logical. brainfart :rolleyes:

I just followed the link, and I do not see the claim on photics saying spider is faster than other pets...

[Epinephrine]

I just followed the link, and I do not see the claim on photics saying spider is faster than other pets...

It was removed, as was the comment it was replying to.

[legendel]

here's a pic of me and my new pet from factions, a tiger

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2240/tootsandmolly5ei.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Linkusmax]

Heres My Pet Pheonix Krijgsleider, probably not the best light to show off his plumage though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Linkusmax/Pheonix.jpg

[Starsky-sama]

anyone know how much each level of exp is needed.

-it seems like cantha pets take longer to lvl up now...hmmm...

(if it's the same. then it must be just in my head.:D)

[burty]

Anyone know if the black moa is dire ... it dosnt say he is when i capped him

[Valerius]

Anyone know if the black moa is dire ... it dosnt say he is when i capped him

i believe if it doesn't say Dire/Elder/Hearty... then the pet will have the stats of an Elder... my Black Moa has no evolution tag either so iono...

[vncanadian]

wow, many thanks

[Turgon Windwalker]

Good job , i was always wondering about the pet stats !

[Lady Lozza]

lol I've never bothered to look at this before because with my very first ranger I never had her using BM at all. Now my new factions ranger has a very cute, friendly tiger, Mr. Kitty, an I rather like to take him everywhere. The real question is, is a Dire or a Hearty pet of more use to a beast master? I understand the damage output etc. I was just wondering how the defence vs damage measured up, and if anyone had any experience in running both types of pets as a BM.

Good job on the guide!

[Jenosavel]

I'm sure we said it somewhere in this thread, but stuff tends to get lost after the first so many pages...

From my experience, whether or not you have a Hearty pet plays relatively little into whether or not your pet dies. If your pet isn't being focus fired, then whether or not it dies usually depends on if you have a pet defense/heal on your bar. If it is being focus fired, it being Hearty is going to make it last a little bit longer, but not much. Add on top of this that Comfort Animal is such a fast, reliable res and that pets don't take DP, and you really have to ask yourself what the point of a Hearty pet is.

I say Dire all the way.

[Lady Lozza]

:) Thanks Jenosavel, the question is whether or not it is possible to evolve my now Hearty Tiger to a Dire between lvl15 and lv20 :s or would it just be easier to start over?

[Jenosavel]

Hearty's a final evolution, so no you won't be able to make your Hearty Tiger Dire. Furthermore, if you had a Playful pet it would already be too late to get a Dire one later on. You'll need to get Aggressive as your pet's first evolution and then keep on doing what you were doing to get Dire.

[Lady Lozza]

:) kk thanks once again for the info :p time to get a new tiger I think...

[Sagaris]

Ok, question: currently I'm leveling an enemy White Tiger by letting it kill me. It started at lvl 5, now it's lvl 13. But it's still a lvl 13 White Tiger. Does this mean I'm screwed and got a pet that doesn't evolve? Or doesn't the evolution show on enemy pets names?

*edit! YAY! At lvl 15 I charmed it and it was a Dire White Tiger.

[Shadowfox1125]

Just wondering, but how long did that take you, Sagaris...?

[Angelica]

Wow! This is awesome, best guide to pets ever!
Thx very much appreciated. :)

[menelik_seth]

Sagaris, I never thought of letting the pet kill me to evolve before capping. Thanks for sharing that, I'll consider it for my ranger in the future :)

Also, thanks for the insight Jenosavel. I kinda liked my Hearty Moa Bird beause of the size increase; and I thought the extra mana would help. But the way you put it, dire does seem the way to go. I'll start over right away, using the technique Sagaris use...

Pet Rant:

Gosh, I wish they changed the pet behavior so its more like henchies: Attacking called-target :(

My reason (now more than ever):

I created a Rt/R, and decided to level up a pet; just for kicks really. I realized that it wasn't going to work at all because I mostly spend my time in-battle summoning spirits. This means I don't attack, and my pet just sits down and watches the battle...

Occasionally she might attack if I get hammered enough.

I could work around this: Summon spirits, then switch to longbow and hit a target to sic' my pet on em. But it kinda breaks the flow of my build... I just wish pets would behave like henchies, would make em feel more "organic" y'know? Like your actually communicating with the pet...

[inscribed]

Just caught a phoenix, and was leveling it up to be a Dire by farming Minotaurs. I noticed that the minotaurs health bar seems to jump down at irregular intervals that don't coincide with my pet doing damage (for instance, he'd do 8 damage, and I'll see the health bar jump down a good bit more than 8 damage would justify). Now, I know the minotaurs have Endure Pain, and at first attributed the decrease in health to Endure Pain wearing off, but there have been a few times now, that the decrease will happen right after the minotaur uses Endure Pain, not allowing enough time for it to wear off.

So a question for the OP's, have you tested the phoenix at all for special attributes? Not to go starting rumors or anything, but it seemed like the phoenix was either knocking the minotaur out of stance, or causing a deep wound. I have no idea how to go about testing that, but I thought I would pass along the observation.

Of course, it might be something else completely trivial that I was just overlooking. :)

[Thorinfire]

Any ideas for a Ranger/Monk build for leveling a Dire pet?

[Jenosavel]

Just caught a phoenix, and was leveling it up to be a Dire by farming Minotaurs. I noticed that the minotaurs health bar seems to jump down at irregular intervals that don't coincide with my pet doing damage (for instance, he'd do 8 damage, and I'll see the health bar jump down a good bit more than 8 damage would justify). Now, I know the minotaurs have Endure Pain, and at first attributed the decrease in health to Endure Pain wearing off, but there have been a few times now, that the decrease will happen right after the minotaur uses Endure Pain, not allowing enough time for it to wear off.

So a question for the OP's, have you tested the phoenix at all for special attributes? Not to go starting rumors or anything, but it seemed like the phoenix was either knocking the minotaur out of stance, or causing a deep wound. I have no idea how to go about testing that, but I thought I would pass along the observation.

Of course, it might be something else completely trivial that I was just overlooking. :)

We haven't tested the phoenix yet, no. However, Endure Pain isn't a stance so it can't be the phoenix knocking the Minos out of stance. ;) Also, if it were deep wound inflicting, you'd be able to watch the status appear on the Mino (triangle on its health bar) in time with the Phoenix attacks. Thus, I don't think what you were seeing could be either of those things. What it was, I'm not sure.

[T1Cybernetic]

Ok, question: currently I'm leveling an enemy White Tiger by letting it kill me. It started at lvl 5, now it's lvl 13. But it's still a lvl 13 White Tiger. Does this mean I'm screwed and got a pet that doesn't evolve? Or doesn't the evolution show on enemy pets names?

*edit! YAY! At lvl 15 I charmed it and it was a Dire White Tiger.
I thought of doing this for my new factions pet when i get it but how long
would this way actualy take? im in no rush but i dont fancy days and days
of countless deaths, :D...

[Jenosavel]

The pets level up relatively quickly, especially if you equip a -hp item and either remove all your armor or equip a low-armor set filled with Sup Runes (as some farming builds use). It'll take several hours, but definitely not days.

Also, I've now tested at least two Black Moas and both turned out to be Elder. Since I'd previously guessed they would be unevolved (and thus elder), this just adds a little strength to that assumption. I'll keep an eye out for a Dire or Hearty Black Moa, but I'm not expecting to find one.

[Boomer the Gnome]

I can note that Warthogs naturally move 10-25% faster inherently.
Mine is kiting me on a string.. it catches up and drifts back.

[BerryRacer]

First off i would just like to say!! Amazing job i can only guess at how long it must of taken you both to collect up this great stuff!! Thank you for spending your time helping me and so many others in this way!

Secondly though it is probably not worth mentioning, pets can complete bonuses, and i assume missions after a party wipe out. Heres my story> Me and some friends were doing the bonus for the mission in the jungle (forget what its called, i think wilds, anyway though its the cystal running one).

The bonus is you have to kill that white mantle leader guy at the back. So we tried to charge through the big hoard of mantle waiting to run cystals, i came in and some how managed to get past them all and loose aggro. At this stage everyone else had died. However in loosing aggro as i previously said, i got into the bonus bosses range.

Anyway i got killed and the message "Return to outpost showed up". However though just before i had died i must of had call of protection running (as i always run with 16 beast when i use pet) So anyway my bear and this Mantle boss guy fight it out and my bear wins, and ofcourse, even though we are all dead the sword cross thing appears and we get the bonus :D

Anyway just thought i would add that. Really look forward to when (if you should have the spare time, ofcourse) you guys are able to test the new pets!
If you should need any help(should you get to testing), my friends and i would love to help, as we have all manner of pets :D

[Jenosavel]

I can note that Warthogs naturally move 10-25% faster inherently.
Mine is kiting me on a string.. it catches up and drifts back.

All pets inherantly move 25% faster than players. 'Twas in the update notes ages ago.

@BerryRacer thanks! That's an interesting tidbit I would never have guessed.

[Dscrilla]

WOW, Epinephrine that was incredibly thurough and well written. Thanks for the info! Agian this shows the community at Guildwarsguru has the edge.

[Narcism]

If my pet hits level 15 and becomes a Dire Pet, can the leveling from there happen in any area, or do I have to keep with the do-more-damage-then-me mentality?

[Lews]

I think it's still the do more damage then me, Narc, but you'll have to get someone who knows better to find out for sure ;)

[Narcism]

Because I really don't want to make it to Dire pet, then go to tombs to finish leveling it up, and it goes to Elder :/

[Jenosavel]

Once it evolves at 15, it will remain that evolution forever. You don't have to worry about what happens beyond that point affecting your evolution. I usually switch to a Hearty-esque speed oriented build once my pets hit lvl 15 Dire, since what you do with it wont change the evolution beyond that point.

[Dyon Adell]

Amazing guide. The amount of information and knowledge, it's truly respectable!

[Seaman_yemen]

a pure work of art

[Fender]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched the thread and didn't find a quick answer.

About pet criticals. Maybe pet criticals work differently than player criticals. Player criticals are weapon max * 1.41. What if pet criticals are simply the normal random damge * 1.41? From looking at the dire graph, this seams reasonable. The % chance of a hit above 32 is about the same. It looks to me like the normal range for a dire pet is something like 20 - 32, with criticals then ranging from 28 - 42. The overlap accounts for the spike between 28 and 32, then the sharp drop after that.

edit: Also, did pets get another boost or some other change? A guildmate is reporting occasional pet hits of 57 with an elder spider, but not with an elder wolf. The wolf's high range is still in the 40s. I haven't verified this myself.

[Epinephrine]

@Fender

That indeed is the assumption, that the criticals don't function properly (I'll tell you that the same holds true for minions, I submitted data on minions to guildwiki a while back and the distributions are the same as for pets, with the same shape where the critical range/regular range overlap, increasing in the size of the effect as BM/minion level goes up, ppresumably due to increased critical hit chances) or at least function differently.

As to solving it, I am in the process of doing it, based on PanSola's suggestion on page 2 or so of this thread; Factions fever has finally calmed enough that I can scrimmage and determine the true damage ranges of pets, and from that can establish the critical hit rtes and precise evolution bonuses, as well as the effect of BM on evolution bounses and so on. Granted, most of it could be done operating on the hypothesis that the distribution represents a summation of critical and non-critical hits, and by looking at the prevalence of higher critical range attacks and the portion of hits that would make up those hits one could come up with a critical hit rate by BM investment, then work backward to find bonuses - but it would be quite theoretical and prone to errors. PanSola's method of using Balanced Stance is the logical way to do this, and hopefully I'll have the data up this week, solving the question of evolution effect and critical rates most likely.

As for isolated high damage hits from a Spider, that's new to me. If it is consistent it is something to investigate, but I doubt that they've made a sudden balance change. More likely the foes varied? Spiders do piercing damage, wolves do slashing damage and some foes have different AL versus these. At some point one of us will likely re-test the various animals to ensure that the damages haven't changed. I know she's working on the new pets currently, and I've begun doing some training of Factions pets as well to gather data (gogo Dire Crane!)

EDIT: You'll note that the max damage for a BM 12 Elder wolf would be 41 versus AL60, while the spider has done a reported 57; this is a ration of roughly 1.4:1, which is equivalent (within rounding error) to a 20AL difference - precisely the difference used on skeletons for example, to make them vulnerable to blunt and resistant to piercing, and the same as the Weaken Armor and other skills. 20AL seems a pretty standard amount to create a vulnerability, so I would assume that such is the issue.

[T1Cybernetic]

Just curious but,

Has anyone reported a dire pet in pre-searing? i've been thinking
of trying it just for the hell of it, :D when i have time of course, :p...

[Epinephrine]

Yes, it was trivially easy to do before a recent update, so there are many high level Dire pets in pre - I had a level 20 Dire wolf for my level 16 ranger. However, with the change to levelling (untamed animals no longer gain levels when killing a player) it is much harder to do, and I doubt that many (if any)have been raised since then - particularly as you need to keep damage to the pet at a minimum but have none of the skills that are typically used to do so. Good luck if you try it; the pet will need to be killing things that are at least level 9 to get to level 15, which means taking on the Charr bosses without much damage to the pet - a herculean task.

[samurai snack]

Love the guide and glad i learned that bears suck :D(i can rub it in player's faces when they brag about their "rare and strong bear"). this guide has inspired me to become a beastmaster but i really think ANet should make it easier to make a pet become dire, because according to posts from many players, they TRY and to no avail, the dreaded...Playful DUM DUM DUMMM. i want my pet to deal reasonable damage but not die at the first sign of a fully beefed up obsidian flame spike...i want to make it elder but theres that off-chance that it will not take on a second evolution...maybe ill try my best to be a beastmaster and keep my pet alive as well as keeping the pet:player damage ratio more in the pet's favor and if it becomes aggresive, turn it into a meat bag lol, but if it comes out playful(high chance) then i will try tanking instead of the pet...

Wish me luck...

[Deaths Embrace]

yes very awsome guide, but still as always I seem to be the only one that goes for hearty over anything else.I wish that anet would add some way to stable your pet so you could have more then one lol

[kilo1501]

Where do you think would be the best place to level up a dire pet in factions?
I only have factions so I dont have call of protection or symbiotic bond, Are there any other skills that would help guide my pet to dire?

[ChaoticCoyote]

yes very awsome guide, but still as always I seem to be the only one that goes for hearty over anything else.I wish that anet would add some way to stable your pet so you could have more then one lol

I went for hearty with my Dune Lizard, Fluffy. I use him as a meat shield and distraction; with Call of Protection, he can withstand just about anything in the game one-on-one, and he usually survives longer than my Ranger. He doesn't do a lot of damage, but while they bad guys are hitting him, they're ignoring me. ;)

Story: I was in a Rotscale PUG last week, and we got our fannies handed to us by the old monster. Operating on 60% DP, none of us could do anything -- but Fluffy, with 500+ hit points and no DP, just kept on going. When we had it down to just Rotscale, the monks kept healing me and Fluffy, while I maintained Call of Protection and added a little damaged here and there. Yes, my Hearty Dune lizard took down Rotscale, in just over an hour. :)

The guys in the group gave me the Rotwing bow. :D

I'm amazed people hung around for the whole show! Best darned fun I've had in months in this game, and that's saying a lot.

So Hearty isn't necessarily bad.

[Epinephrine]

A very topical question - Jenosavel had just written me this morning about a similar subject.

I haven't scouted Cantha for a spot to do this, but some have been posted by others - typically you want melee opponents, of a reasonable level for your pet. Yetis were one such sugestion. Avoid any enemies that cause conditions or use damaging hexes/spells - they're not easy to protect against.

What's your secondary? I'm assuming ranger primary, though I've trained for non ranger primaries too.

It may be worth using a specific secondary in order to do it, one with which you can substantially limit damage to your pet. Monk would come to mind in fact as the best option, with Ritualist a possible choice as well. Given that you can choose a new secondary quite early in game this is doable. The Monk elite Life Sheath actually prevents damage to the target, which is handy :) Other monk spells can prolong this effect, as can raising the pet's armour value (which obviously reduces damage to the pet). Life Bond in combination with Life Sheath doubles the duration of the Life Sheath. Nothing else can really prevent all damage.

The other thing to remember is that good positioning can make a huge difference, and to get as much attacking on yourself as ppossible. As a warrior secondary you could for example invest in tactics and employ Protector's Stance and recharge it via "On Your Knees!" for example - this would require attacking to build adrenaline, but with no points in a hammer and with flurry for example you'd be unlikely to actually cause much damage - Counter Blow would be enough for a knockdown.

It's an interesting question, as even Otyugh's Cry (used for a 20 AL boost) is a prophecies-only skill. I suspect that Monk secondary will be the best solution, and that Life Sheath is the best way to ensure no damage gets through, combined with ways to stretch that protection (miss rates/blocking and Life Bond).

I'll also mention to Jeno that we need to come up with ways for non ranger-primaries to train Dire pets with Factions-only skills.

[kilo1501]

Does having henchmen on the team affect the amount of exp coming in to your pet?


my secondary is a monk and Great guide btw

[Valerius]

i was wonderin' what type of dmg the Faction pets do... primarily the Phoenix

i'm sorry if i missed the section in the guide... but i just couldn't find the info

[Epinephrine]

Sorry Valerius, we haven't gotten to testing that yet. I'm not even done the game :P I have 5 characters all to about Unwaking Waters now...

[volsungxiii]

Thanks! I always appreciate the time it takes to create guides, especially one of this size. You've answered all my questions about pets, and believe me I had many :D.

[XvArchonvX]

Somehow I have missed this guide up until now, but I must say that this is likely the best community given guide I have ever seen. While I thought beast mastery had been covered pretty well from guides like the one on the main GWGuru page, this truly exceeds it. I commend both of you on your hard work.

[kilo1501]

I think I found a good place to train your pet for cantha born characters.
The minister cho's estate mission mostly has foes that only do close up damage and are mainly lvl 8 which is good for newly captured pets. Though there are some elementalist and some ritualist (5 or 6 out of them all) most of them are warriors but over all It is easy to keep the damage off of your pet in this place.

EDIT: ok I caught a phoenix and leveled it to level 11 and the name didnt change and i thought that it was unevolved(which is good) and then finally i got it to lv 14 and it became playful.... That made me really mad. What is up with that!?

[Juicey Shake]

I used to level pets to 11 off of minotaur and then EoE bomb grawl until it became 20.. at 15 it always became dire..

this worked with a phoenix, too.. now I tried 4 times with a white tiger, every time it became aggressive at 11 and then elder at 15 :\.. finally just went and capped a lvl 15 dire [orange] tiger, but I wanted a white tiger :(, anyone else know how eoe bombing effects pet levelling?

my friend and I sync levelled pets together a long time ago [lynxs], his was playful, mine aggressive.. he'd aggro up a ton of grawl, I'd lay down an EoE, he'd echo cyclone axe and spam until they died and poof, EoE bomb.. mine became dire, his hearty...

does the whirling defense damage not register as me dealing damage?.. if so, why did it not act like that 3, 5 months ago?

[Seiten Taisei]

Heres My Pet Pheonix Krijgsleider, probably not the best light to show off his plumage though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Linkusmax/Pheonix.jpg

It reminds me of a peacock:p

[Seiten Taisei]

Following the Guide and mixing both Tyria and Cantha skills i managed to make my get my White Tiger to evolve to Aggressive to Dire :D.

Congrats on making such a awesome guide. :)

[evox the evil]

that guide was very well put together. two thumbs up! now that i know where to gert a 20 crab, im off to get a lvl 20 pet without the work :D

[narud]

under the spider part you said they are rewards from certain quests. could someone tell me what quests these are.

[Reginald Price]

I really had to laugh... I have used your guide and made several Pets for my R/m, R/m, and one Ele/R. All of which turned out Dire, so i changed one of my other Ele/m into a Ele/r, and decided to get a dire pet for this one too. I did all the above things that made my pet dire for the other characters, got to 11 and he went to aggressive, and then when he got to 15 he went to elder. I just sat there and laughed, because before, I read thru the reports of the others who had done the same thing and thought how could they not get a dire pet, if they just followed the directions. Well, how funny, it doesn't always work, but hey what the heck, it is still the best guide i have read in a long time, and it has worked all but this one time for me, so if you follow the directions and something like this happens, just remember that it does, so just start over and make another. This has still been the best way now that you can get a dire pet. And mine kick butt. Love the dire pets, and how well they do damage. Especially in combo with your skills....

Thanks you guys for a well written guide..:)

[SnipiousMax]

Jeno/Epin, is there a Marksman Guide like this floating around somewhere?

[RuPee]

very nice guide! the excel graphs were awesome. i would have never thought of looking for the standard deviation of pet attacks lol.

after my pet reached aggressive at level 11 with the ice tooth minotaurs . i continued to level up at elona reach minotaurs until it reached dire at level 15 for even faster levelling.

[Shai Lee]

Thank you so much for making this guide and for all the time you've spent in researching pets.

I made a new ranger the other day, and decided that I wanted a dire pet, as opposed to the usual hearty that I end up with. I used the R/Me build that was posted, and leveled my pet up in Ice Tooth and then for a bit in Elona.

Ice Tooth (lvl 11 Agressive) http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/5790/dunelizard11icetootheu0.th.png (http://img263.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dunelizard11icetootheu0.png) Elona (lvl 15 Dire) http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/7749/dunelizard15elonaze7.th.png (http://img325.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dunelizard15elonaze7.png)

I want to be able to raise dire pets for my ranger secondaries as well, and wondered if those builds could be posted, if possible?

Thank you so much.

~:)

[huffpl]

Very Good Guide so Kudos to Janosanel and Epinephrine.

That being said, I dont know if anyone else has mentioned because i didnt read all the post. And I offer my Ingame name (Valas Greywolf) to come and see what im talking about if either of you two would like to see.

I have an unevolved lvl 11 bear ( i know the worst pet to have but i like him). He has a skill called Brutal Mauling that goes off every 4 - 6 secs. Again i offer my name so u can come see for yourself. I appologize if this has already been brought up but i figured for educational purposes you would like to investigate this phenomenon.

PM me any time.

[Makkert]

Very Good Guide so Kudos to Janosanel and Epinephrine.

That being said, I dont know if anyone else has mentioned because i didnt read all the post. And I offer my Ingame name (Valas Greywolf) to come and see what im talking about if either of you two would like to see.

I have an unevolved lvl 11 bear ( i know the worst pet to have but i like him). He has a skill called Brutal Mauling that goes off every 4 - 6 secs. Again i offer my name so u can come see for yourself. I appologize if this has already been brought up but i figured for educational purposes you would like to investigate this phenomenon.

PM me any time.
the Brutal Mauling doesn't do anything as a skill. it was brought up several times before. I seem to recall people mentioning it used to do something, but the effect was removed later by devs.

[leeky baby]

thnaxs guys ino which pet im gunna get now :)

[Ugly_Jim]

To anyone wanting a dire pet quickly, try the pongmei valley trick. I got a level 15 dire tiger in only seven runs from boreas seabed.

[Epinephrine]

I want to be able to raise dire pets for my ranger secondaries as well, and wondered if those builds could be posted, if possible?

Thank you so much.

~:)

Well, the essence is the same; protect pet and allow it to deal damage.

For a monk/ranger it's trivially easy, as you have all the tools to survive built in - as a bonus, symbiotic bond triggers Balthazar's Spirit, as does Life Bond, so you can be cutting damage to the pet by 25%, Call of Protection absorbs the rest, and you gain 2 energy per attack on the pet.

For a mesmer/ranger I used Distortion with Spirit of Failure; this allowed me to tank the minos pretty well while maintaining evasion, and kept my energy up for Ether Feast and so on. Same idea for pet skills, took a while.

For an elementalist you have great armour spells available, so you can get by with those pretty much, and even a small amount of wilderness survival gets enough Troll Unguent to keep your health up.

For a necromancer I'm not sure what the best tactic would be; probably involving Enfeebling Blood and Shadow of Fear, as they reduce incoming damage so much; for a self heal I don't know what the best skill is; maybe even predatory bond with parasitic bonds?

A warrior/ranger has an easy time with tacics providing stances and a self heal, and thick armoor making tankin for your pet a simple matter.

Haven't experimented with assassin/ritualist pet raising at all really. I assume that a ritualist could in fact provide an amazing amount of protection to the pet in the form of spammed Union for example; Another option is to keep all the enemy blinded with skills like Weapon of shadow or Rupture Soul; the protection of Union should add to the Call of Protection, and potentially could absorb pretty much all the damage directed at the pet (with symbitotic bond?). The theory is the same in all cases though; let the pet deal damage, take damage yourself - keeping the pet clear of damage is important.

[Shai]

I'm sorry if this was mentioned earlier, but you can also get a lvl 15 Dire Crab east of Zos Shivros Channel, but its a very hard cap.

[krozz]

I want to be able to raise dire pets for my ranger secondaries as well, and wondered if those builds could be posted, if possible?

Thank you so much.

~:)

I levelled a level 5 Warthog to lvl 15 Dire today using my W/R in Elona Reach under 2 hours by using this build:

15 tactics
12 beastmastery

Bonetti's Defense, Riposte, Deadly Riposte, Gladiator's Defense, Watch yourself, Healing Signet, Charm Animal.

The warthog died twice though. Without 12 BM, my first warthog that was a level 14 Aggressive levelled to an Elder :\

[Gadenp]

Marauder's Shot seems to go well with Enraged Lunge if you have a pet, as it disables all your pet non-attack skills, giving you recharging skills to + dmg with. This seems especially good if most of your pet skills are portection skills with long durations.

Can anyone verify if this is true, I tried to my pet and it seems to work, thus allowing me to bring long duration protection skills.

[Epinephrine]

I know I typically just use Tiger's Fury for that effect; since it disables non-attack skills it is handy, and it boosts DPS for the ranger as well. I assume that Marauder's would likewise be a fine choice.

[ChaoticCoyote]

Marauder's Shot seems to go well with Enraged Lunge if you have a pet, as it disables all your pet non-attack skills, giving you recharging skills to + dmg with. This seems especially good if most of your pet skills are portection skills with long durations.

Can anyone verify if this is true, I tried to my pet and it seems to work, thus allowing me to bring long duration protection skills.

Yes, it works. I always use Marauder's Shot with Enraged Lunge.

I don't use Enraged Lunge often, though. I prefer to have my pet deliver conditions (poison, bleeding) and do spike damage with my bow.

Pets are very effective, even with their current limitations. Having pet controls would lessen frustration; I'd be more than happy to slightly lessen pet damage in exchange for better control of my pet.

[TheRabbitLord]

Amazing forum man. I appreciate the depth of this thing :). Though it was a bit lengthy it helped me and prolly a lot more people with pets!

[Cherno]

I read through about half of the thread before giving up to ask my question. I am assuming the answer is no, but if I have a poison string on my bow (or any other condition string), will Poisonous Bite's (or other condition giving corresponing skill) duration lengthen?

[JoeKnowMo]

I read through about half of the thread before giving up to ask my question. I am assuming the answer is no, but if I have a poison string on my bow (or any other condition string), will Poisonous Bite's (or other condition giving corresponing skill) duration lengthen?

You assumed correctly. The answer is "No."

[October Jade]

There have been a couple of builds posted for the purpose of raising an aggressive/dire pet. Here's mine...it's rather straightforward and hasn't failed me yet in over a dozen attempts.

R/Mo
Beast Mastery 12+1+3
Expertise 10+1
Healing Prayers 8

Ferocious Strike
Poisonous Bite
Call of Protection
Symbiotic Bond
Mending
Charm Animal

I prefer to level pets against the Mergoyle Wavebreakers in Scoundrel's Rise, though location is a matter of taste. Refer back to the original guide for other recommended places.

You'll notice there are only six skills on the bar, and the last two are passive. Simply throw Mending on the pet and yourself before engaging in combat. Additionally, the two shouts have rather long durations (120 and 312 seconds, respectively). If you don't own Factions, Feral Lunge can be used in place of Poisonous Bite. I've also experimented in the past with Disrupting Lunge to interrupt the enemies' Deep Freeze spell, but it isn't necessary by any means.

One more tidbit of information...you must defeat 101 Wavebreakers for a level 5 pet to reach level 11 and an additional 210 to reach level 15.

[Finn]

There have been rumors that one (perhaps more?) of the new nightfall pets have special attacks. I am referring here to the "gnaw of sickness" effect that I have heard the Jahai rats use, albeit very rarely. Can someone confirm/refute this?