Curse

Dahl · May 13, 2006, 09:25 AM // 09:25

I'm hearing rumours about how some pets can evolve a third time at level 20, is this true? and how do you make your pet do that?

Dr. Fire · May 13, 2006, 11:58 AM // 11:58

I have heard that it is possible but uncommon. I have had 5 pets and none have evolved again after the lvl 15 evolution. Someone else may be able to tell you for sure.

Dahl · May 14, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48

I'm having pet problems now.
My pet turned level 14 about the same time I turned level 15.
Why is it that I'm halfway between 17 and 18, and my pet is still 14?
Getting angry, i want my hearty status.

EdReed · May 14, 2006, 11:03 PM // 23:03

how do u know if your pet evolves

Jenosavel · May 15, 2006, 12:49 PM // 12:49

EdReed, you might want to take a look here .

There have been isolated rumors of pets evolving a third time, but they've been just that, isolated and without any repeatability to them. I highly suspect that a lot of the third level-up rumors started with someone who captured a Hearty/Dire Black Widow back before pet's evolutions could be seen easily (before you could reset the pet name), as back then it was commonly believed that only Elder Black Widows existed... So then, the update came to reset your pet's name, and suddenly the person's 'Elder' Black Widow was Hearty or Dire.

If your pet is leveling slower than you, it's most likely because you've been doing quests and/or missions. Your pet will only recieve experience from combat, while your character can recieve experience from many different sources. Pets actually level up slightly faster than players iirc; however, the fact that they only take experience from combat will make the leveling process seem much slower.

Dahl · May 16, 2006, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Yeah I figured that out shortly after I posted. I went to cantha and did a bunch of 3k xp quests and got mad cause I levelled twice before my pet levelled once. Then I went back to tyria and played through and he levelled twice before I got half a level, LOL. They even the quests out by making your pet require less XP to level.

I also find that "powerlevelling" your pet will turn him dire, and you need to go through the newb zones to get him to turn hearty.

It also seems as though evolving to hearty makes them grow in physical size.

My wolf's hump rose to my ranger's forearm as unevolved, and reached my NECK as hearty. My friend's monk is about the size of his front leg, it's ridiculous.

Jenosavel · May 16, 2006, 12:05 PM // 12:05

Hearty and Dire pets both are the same gigantic size. Elder, though a final evolution as well, is smaller.

Powerleveling can get you any of the final pet evolutions, depending on how you powerlevel. The evolution is determined by your play style. If you're doing a lot of tanking while your pet kills things, it'll head towards Dire. If your pet is getting thrashed while you kill things, it'll head towards Hearty. Leave the poor thing dead while you powerlevel with your favorite solo build and you'll end up with an unevolved (Elder) pet. It's been said a million times, and is all over the thread I linked to.

No need to rediscover the wheel. Almost any info you could want on how pets work as of Ch1 is in that linked thread from my previous post. Most of the info is universal for all pets and so should remain unchanged with Ch2. Of course, the Ch2 pet specifics need to be looked into yet.

Of course, I say almost because there are two big as of yet uncovered areas. One is just what kinds of critical attacks pets do (see the damage testing that was done to understand why that's questionable), and the other is the exact amount of exp a pet requires to level, though Epinephrine and Beqxter had made steps towards that goal. Therefore, I'm not certain it's that the pet requires less experience to level, or if its that the pet gains more experience than a player does versus a foe of a given level. In the pet experience testing that was done, pets would continue to gain experience and level off of enemies even after a player of equal level would have gotten 0 exp from that level foe. I can't remember exactly (though there is a horribly burried thread about somewhere with the info) how many levels the difference was, but it was probably right around 2 levels. If you see this, Epi, feel free to jump in and correct me.