Curse

Linkusmax · Apr 04, 2006, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Pet AI improvements indicated! hurrah!

Kalki · Apr 05, 2006, 04:37 PM // 16:37

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 · Apr 05, 2006, 05:17 PM // 17:17

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

Jeremy_the_beard · Apr 06, 2006, 12:40 PM // 12:40

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 · Apr 09, 2006, 06:11 PM // 18:11

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 · Apr 09, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

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 · Apr 10, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

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 · Apr 14, 2006, 02:05 AM // 02:05

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 · Apr 16, 2006, 10:08 AM // 10:08

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 · Apr 16, 2006, 12:46 PM // 12:46

cool ty

jv35jimbo · Apr 17, 2006, 07:14 PM // 19:14

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

Makkert · Apr 21, 2006, 10:31 AM // 10:31

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

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

Epinephrine · Apr 21, 2006, 01:22 PM // 13:22

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 · Apr 21, 2006, 03:30 PM // 15:30

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

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 · Apr 21, 2006, 03:33 PM // 15:33

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 · Apr 21, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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 · Apr 21, 2006, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

.

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 · Apr 22, 2006, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grubcat

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 · Apr 23, 2006, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

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

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

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

Epinephrine · Apr 23, 2006, 12:03 PM // 12:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pan Sola

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.