Help me Beastmasters! Dire pet question...

I recently tried to evolve a dire pet using the death leveling method described on gwwiki:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Guide_t...ing_a_Dire_Pet

The problem was I don't think it turned out dire. It doesn't say dire even when it has no name, and it doesn't appear any larger. Does anyone know how I can tell if it is dire?

Assuming its not dire, what is the fastest way to evolve a new dire pet?

Thanks in advance.

Death lvling it.

Find a pet near a res shrine. Attack it once so it attack you. Take off al your armor. Wield a of Vamp weapon. Go afk.

Death leveling it is the more reliable way. If its something like the Phoenix where res shrine isn't an option, the best way I've found is to go to Yohlon Haven in Nightfall and battle the bugs outside.

Bring skills like Call of Protection, Call of Haste, Predatory Bond, Symbiotic Bond and the elite skill Enraged Lunge which can be capped in Nahpui Quarter after that mission in Factions. Just use the first 4 skills and your pet can do around 93 or so damage each time you use Enraged Lunge. Also not only do those skills help power Enraged (which needs recharging BM skills to be effective), those skills help to mitigate almost all damage to the pet. If you stick to battling a single group of 4 enemies at a time, you'll be able to easily keep your pet alive and doing damage. Also equip something with low damage like a staff so your pet does more damage since that seems to be a requirement for dire.

My phoenix gained Aggressive at level 11 and Dire at 15. If you reach either of those levels, just use /petname and it will show whether the pet evolved at all. Also, I'm guessing you're not aware but not all pets actually get bigger as they level and evolve. As far as I know, no pets from Factions ever grow in size, thats limited to Elonian and Tyrian pets.

Edit: Yeah just follow that wiki guide it pretty much has everything you'd want to bring. Following the way I did it, my pet died only twice going from level 5-15 and that was because I aggroed a second group in each of those occasions. It will take some time but if you use the skills I mentioned (or some of the skills mentioned at that site) it will work. Good luck.

I am having the same problem training virtually any pet to Dire. I lvl the pets on the Mergoyles outside of Gates of Kryta. I was 3 for 3 using that method, but the last 3 attempts I ended up with Elder pets. The only difference has been that I am using non-Rangers, and can only get 12 in BM. I use Call of Protection and Oytughs Cry for defense and for offense I use Poisonous Bite, Feral Lunge, and Scavengers strike. I agro all the damage to me and the pet takes very little damage and never dies. What is the problem?

I charmed a lvl 12 Aggresive Lion outside of the Command Post, and still it turned Elder after virtually doing all the damage on the Mergoyles and never dying. Any suggestions?

Here's my method, which works fairly well: Max out beast mastery, and then put the rest into WS or whatever (for a self-heal). I also recommend equiping a weak spear (the one from the Kamadan weapons crafter, for example)

Use [skill]Call of Protection[/skill][skill]Call of Haste[/skill][skill]Symbiotic Bond[/skill], as well as the obvious ([skill]Charm Animal[/skill][skill]Comfort Animal[/skill]). Use the remaining three slots for a self-heal and whatever beast mastery skills you have (pet attacks work well).

Anyway, go out onto Plains of Jarin, and activate those skills I mentioned. Attack targets with your spear once (so your pet attacks), and then stop so the pet does all the fighting. The vast majority of monsters will attack you instead of your pet (for reasons I never did understand). Pretty much any monster level 6 or higher will do, really. Anyway, once your pet reaches level 8, take a little trip to the Desolation (access to wurms is necessary, access to Bone Palace, Lair of the Forgotten, and Wurm Siege help too)...

Anyway, take a hero/hench party to areas of the desolation with large stretches of sand/sulfur (The Alkali Pan works very well for this), get into wurms and kill everything that moves (this is a good time to cap skills and open chests, btw). Repeat until your pet reaches level 11, and see what evolution it is. If it's Aggressive, keep it up until your pet reaches level 15. It should (but won't always) turn out Dire...

EUREKA!

Thanks Ishtar, your skill set was just what the Doctor ordered. If anyone wants to give it a shot, Ishtar's method worked great. I added a few skills I thought would help, and I will list them below. Still used the Mergoyles outside of Gates of Kryta just because that is what I am used to, and it went well. Just be sure to agro them to you and let your pet do the rest. Remember, don't agro any of the Skales. Their Necro spells will cause to much trouble for you and your pet.

Skills used:

Call of Protection
Symbiotic Bond
Predatory Bond (only heal you need)
Otugh's Cry
Call of Haste
Enraged Lunge (90-100+ dmg)
Disrupting Lunge
Charm Animal (of course)

If you have nightfall, and have heroes like Dunkoro with revive skill, you can post him just on the edge of your aggro bubble. de-activate all of his healing skill except restoration, and put him on pacifism. everytime you die, he will raise you. the pet will attack him, but as soon as he starts to run, the pet will come back and attack your revived self. its actually faster than res shrine. ive done 3 diff. pets that way. i also did it with hero pets. just have them run in and charm it when its time.

a good procaution is to keep your party a real good distance away from the future pet.

You can tell the evolution of your pet from its HP pool. At level 20 these are (afaik):
420: dire
450: aggressive
480: elder/none
510: playful
540: hearty

For every level a creature gains 40 HP, a level 18 aggressive pet should have 370 HP.

Before death-leveling became possible a common method was to use either [wiki]Oath Shot[/wiki] (before it's nerf) to refresh [wiki]Whirling Defense[/wiki] or the mesmer skill [wiki]Physical Resistance[/wiki] and pay the Minotaurs outside Ice Tooth cave a visit. Take a crappy melee weapon that does no damage on your ranger and some decent pet-attacks and high beastmastery off course. With heroes, you can just take a prot-healer (set to avoid combat).

Deathleveling with heroes is a breeze, bring charm and a vamp weapon. A hero with a rez skill (and healing disabled), flag it at the edge of aggro, charm the animal but break off the attemp (ESC or walking). Take all armor off, wait, watch TV...