The Pet Corner

[HotSnack]

Here are some pet stats I just recorded in this month's BWE, the numbers were gained from my monk char (starter armour: +5 AR, and starter bow: 3-5) as he roamed around finding tamable animals.

The attack stat represents how much damage the animal was inflicting on my monk (from a mean average of 10 values).
the defence stat represents how much damage my monk inflicted on the animals (again, on an average of 10).
ROA means Rate of Attack.

What we can tell from this data is not alot really, since all the animals in the wild start at different levels, making it hard to deduce if they're any differences between them at all, but hopefully this should at least get the ball rolling on having a collection of useful information about pets.

Melandru's Stalker (lvl 3)

ROA
Approx. 2 secs

Attack
6.7

Defence
3.8

Strider (lvl1)

ROA
approx. 2 secs

Attack
4.6

Defence
3.8

Warthog (lvl 2)

ROA
Approx. 2 secs

Attack
5

Defence
4.3

Anyone who has encountered or used pets please do reply with your own observations, or the location of a another tamable animal you saw (shame that spiders, bears and rabbits aren't tamable).

Edit: If this is in the wrong thread, the please move it.

[MoldyRiceFrenzy]

Uhh well there are mao birds... they die fast though sorta but were the only thing i could find because i accidently gave my cat thingy to the stupid tamer guy ...

[Rushing Wind]

How much does he buy pets for anyway? Or does it depend on the type of pet you've got?

[Aria]

The last time I checked, you give your pets to him for free.

Those sneaky merchants..

[Lunarhound]

If he paid you for them, you could just keep charming them and selling them to him.

[Xapti]

Yeah but lets say at 1g a pop, you certainly wouldn't be making good money from it...

Also could have it so he pays more the higherlevel it is. Problem with that though is tht some creatures start off at like level 13-15 or something already, so they'd only be valueable for higher levels than that.

[Lunarhound]

I beg to differ. The cats aren't far from the guy at all, and at one gold a piece, it wouldn't take very long for your typical grind-monkey, used to exploiting things like this for hours on end, to build up a stash of gold that would be pretty large for a newbie. Rather than hunt monsters and buy/sell items in Old Ascalon for money, as is probably intended, they'll simply sit around selling stalkers for free cash. This would not only kill all real trade among newbies in Old Ascalon, it would force all newbies to exploit the selling of animals in the same way if they wanted to be able to keep up with everyone else.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

ok guys... that is off topic... (man... money lovers...)

I also compare the pet before...

I agree with most of the stat up there... now the wolf and the bird... oh yea, and lynx

I would say wolf have the most balance stat but sacrifising some RoA (barely noticable?), while the bird have low hp with high RoA. The lynx however, I think they each have their own stat as time play out.

oh and the defense thing... I wonder is it they got more hp or really more def? because I remember a lightning drake would hit me for 70-103 with lightning orb when i have aeromancer armor on at max, that would cut my hp by about 1/5... but when the same lightning orb hit my warthog... it did barely 1/6 or less without any buff... I was like "wow, how much hp does it got?" lightning dmg also have 25% armor penetration... so thats really something to test out the next time i have a chance.

also one more thing... my warthog have trouble keeping up with the group while the wolf seem to be fine, so I think moving speed should also be tested. (i believe i have never see a stalker having trouble keeping up, i guess it live up its name )

[Dovi the Monk]

i found moa birds to be pretty slow though, they had pretty good damage output i guess but they did die farely fast. in one group my moa bird got left behind i think, he just dissapeared, and he wasnt dead. He got left in the dust or soemthin, i got to the mission slower then everyone else and used a few sprints with my warrior/ranger and nexxt thing u know ive caught up but my moa bird was nowhere in sight, and my team kept goin, so i just kept goin with them and thought my moa bird would catch up eventually cause we would be fighting ppl.

[HotSnack]

After so long I'm a bit surpirsed this topic has actually recieved some responses. While pets aren't that popular as they don't give you teh win, it's good to know there are still others interested in them anyway.

Btw Vermilion, I also believe the warthog has the highest tanking abilities of all the pets, but I'm not sure if it's because they recieve a higher AR, HP pool, or a bit of both.

[Shrapnel_Magnet]

Originally Posted by Lunarhound

I beg to differ. The cats aren't far from the guy at all, and at one gold a piece, it wouldn't take very long for your typical grind-monkey, used to exploiting things like this for hours on end, to build up a stash of gold that would be pretty large for a newbie. Rather than hunt monsters and buy/sell items in Old Ascalon for money, as is probably intended, they'll simply sit around selling stalkers for free cash. This would not only kill all real trade among newbies in Old Ascalon, it would force all newbies to exploit the selling of animals in the same way if they wanted to be able to keep up with everyone else.

I have to disagree... sure it could be exploited, but if you walk outside of the Post-Searing Ascalon and just kill the Stone Elementals, they drop AT LEAST 1 lodestone everytime, which sells for one gold. And you can also find Stone Elemental Variations in the Pre-Searing... I made some easy cash to buy a decent bow really quick by killing the elementals, warping to town, then killing elementals... for like 15 minutes, I'd have at least 50 gold.

Not that the selling of animals wouldn't be just another way of making money worthless, I'm just saying that it wouldn't be the easiest.

[Dovi the Monk]

lol
thats the same thing i did when i need money for my armor
i needed like 20 gold so i just went out there and killed 20 of them, got my 20 gold and bought the once lvl 10 armor for my monk. although i think this was actually i faster way of getting gold then chamring and selling the animals...

[I_Hate_You]

Originally Posted by Lunarhound

I beg to differ. The cats aren't far from the guy at all, and at one gold a piece, it wouldn't take very long for your typical grind-monkey, used to exploiting things like this for hours on end, to build up a stash of gold that would be pretty large for a newbie. Rather than hunt monsters and buy/sell items in Old Ascalon for money, as is probably intended, they'll simply sit around selling stalkers for free cash. This would not only kill all real trade among newbies in Old Ascalon, it would force all newbies to exploit the selling of animals in the same way if they wanted to be able to keep up with everyone else.

Exploited yeah, duh. However forcing everyone else to do it no, it might make some other people have enough money to actually pay for the exponentially increasing money sinks if the person decided they wanted to buy stuff

[Halfy]

I became a proponent for pets after I teamed up with several rangers on a mission and just about everyone brought one. There was no need for warriors there that we could tell, we breezed right through most enemies.

Now I know pets aren't popular in GvG, but come one there is a whole skill set in beast mastery devoted almost entirely to them. There has to be a way to make them an effective tactic. I think people have overlooked a valuable resource. What I would like to know is their damage output at their top level.

[Zaklex]

My Moa bird is now at lvl 16, it does act as a tank and has been used as such on missions were we didn't have a warrior. Don't know the damage output except that my character(a lvl 16 ra/mo) + the bird and monk hench can easily take down a lightning drake(I know, so what, big deal, who cares). I'll try to get it up to lvl 20 in the March BWE and do a damage output study. As for effectiveness in GvG, bringing only 1 pet probably doesn't effect a battle, however I would say if you have more than one they could possible provide an added advantage(that's just a guess).

[Vermilion Okeanos]

My warthog's dmg at lv20 with call of brutality on beast mastery 10 is around 1 lightning strike of 13 air magic per hit. If you add strength of honor + call of haste along with call of brutality... it is quite a sight...

[HotSnack]

Also to add in, supposedly the more points you put into beastmastery itself, the higher the attack and defence of your pet (sort of like weapon masteries then).

However, I've tried comparing the damage of a pet with 0 points in beastmastery, with one that had 7 points of beastmastery and still saw no real difference in damage (I never checked for defence).

The problem with pets in GvG though is the lack of control of your pets. All they do is attack, reducing them to the poor man's warrior. I think people will only start to take beastmastery seriously if there will be calls that will actually have good synergy with the ranger's other skills. For instance, Call of Disruption would have been an interesting skill to augment the anti-caster ranger's own abilities, but the pitiful chance of an actual disruption combined with all pet's slow RoA makes this one to pass over pretty quickly.

Maybe add calls that increase pet damage when attacking a bleeding opponent, calls that give a chance to knockdown on hitting moving opponents, just anything to make players sit up and think how they can actually incorporate pets into their own play style, rather than all these calls such as - Call of B, this is just like call of A, only instead of set damage infliction/reduction it gives armour penetration/increased regen to increase/decrease the damage inflicted/received.

[Dovi the Monk]

[COLOR=DarkGreen]ya the pets just go crazy in any battle, although i find sometimes they are helpful for disruption, i mean maybe once the pet reaches lvl 20, itll be like hving a lvl 10 inexperienced warrior into battle with you.

although they could just maybe give the pets commands or soemthin to make them more controllable. Maybe like defend(attack anything attacking your owner), follow(attack anything attacking your owner or anything he is attacking), and finally wild or somethin(what they do now).[/COLOR]

[Dreamsmith]

Originally Posted by Bahala

How much does he buy pets for anyway? Or does it depend on the type of pet you've got?

Uh, he provides the service of finding a good new home for your old pet, and he does this for free. You're lucky he doesn't charge you for this service.

[Halfy]

I wouldn't see the point of changing a whole lot. It takes time to get your pet up to max with you. Better to decide early and take him/her with you on the journey to lvl 20.

I realize there are pet differences but marginal at best to the present date. Time will tell if ArenaNet tweaks the pets according to the suggestions made.

[HotSnack]

Originally Posted by Halfy

I wouldn't see the point of changing a whole lot. It takes time to get your pet up to max with you. Better to decide early and take him/her with you on the journey to lvl 20.

I realize there are pet differences but marginal at best to the present date. Time will tell if ArenaNet tweaks the pets according to the suggestions made.

Don't take it the wrong way, I didn't do this research so I could deduce which is teh uber pet.

I did it due to my love of knowing the numbers in games, plus the lack of information on pets on all the fansites I've visisted.

[thegriffgeeks]

Originally Posted by Halfy

I became a proponent for pets after I teamed up with several rangers on a mission and just about everyone brought one. There was no need for warriors there that we could tell, we breezed right through most enemies.

The pet made a huge difference for me....especially noticeable in pre-searing when i was out and about by myself. Also when in the Academy playing w/ a team of NPCs.

Problem is that the thing fights other non-threatening animals constantly...

[William of Orange]

Pets are nice if you're just out wandering by yourself earlier on in the game (i.e. Pre-Searing Ascalon). When I did the mission to tame the Melandru's Stalker, I just kept him with me because it was handy in dealing some extra damage, and who can resist something with a name like Melandru?

It is annoying sometimes that you can't really control them, especially if a Moa bird comes into range and you can't stop them from ripping on each other. Every now and then I try to disengage an enemy (or Moa) and my Melandru keeps on attacking, so I'm forced to decide between letting him die or going back and trying to fend off enemies on my own...

[Zaklex]

I found that lingering near an enemy your pet attacks or is attacked by tends to make it stick around and not follow you. In explorable areas where my Moa was following, if it did get attacked or stopped to attack something, I found that if I kept on going, eventually it would disengage and catch up to me.

[Kaiwyn]

It really would be nice if you could control the animal with a Follow (follow but don't fight) or defend (fight) like they have for the henchmen in NWN. I don't know if I even want to get an animal. The last one I had was forever getting itself ripped up and killed, battling where it shouldn't. I am trying to keep myself alive so I finally just let the thing keep dying. It took too much of my resources constantly healing it. I don't see much of an advantage to keeping one around.