Elder pets: a bounty of sorts

I don't say level 12 because of any theory or anything, just that I've always used mino's till 12th then moved to gyala for my dire training. As such when I wanted elder, I just changed up my second program and most likely 11th will work as well. I just haven't tested it. Never been a fan of poisonous bit myself, but anything would work there is my guess. I just use pred because its cheap and relatively spammable.

Even if you don't see the logic, if a pet doesn't evolve at lvl 11 I don't think it can evolve into an elder. I, atleast have never managed it.

I basically followed lennymon's advice and got an elder rainbow phoenix on my first attempt awhile ago.

For levels 5 to 12 I used:
16 BM, 13 Exp, Rest WS
[skill]enraged lunge[/skill][skill]brutal strike[/skill][skill]Otyugh's Cry[/skill][skill]Call of Protection[/skill][skill]comfort animal[/skill][skill]charm animal[/skill][skill]Troll Unguent[/skill]
Plus
[skill]Life Barrier[/skill][skill]life bond[/skill][skill]Balthazar's Spirit[/skill][skill]Blessed Signet[/skill][skill]mantra of inscriptions[/skill][skill]shield of absorption[/skill]
on the minos outside Ice Tooth, the minos at Elona Reach, and the bugs outside Yohlon Haven. (In retrospect, the bugs were not worth it at all.)

(I swapped [skill]symbiotic bond[/skill] for [skill]troll unguent[/skill] after I realized that, for some odd reason, symbiotic bond always applied before the monk's bonds and CoP, regardless of their relative locations in the stack. So the pet was taking 0 damage, and the monk was taking 0 damage, but I was taking damage through the symbiotic bond, even though the monk's bonds and CoP had a lot more room to negate damage down to zero.)

For 12 to 15, I played normally. I think I did Cathedral of flames as a splinter/volley/broadhead and a bit of barrage/pet in tombs. I think I had 6 or 8 in BM to get a slightly better rez.

Pet turned aggressive at 11 and elder at 15.

Okay, finished another cycle. It took longer to write this up than anticipated; football kinda got in the way. Still no desired results though.

The Poisonous Bite is there because I usually fight the Snow Wurms outside Boreal Station, and I need a degen condition to prevent them from regaining health underground. They are a bunch of pushovers, really...the xp accumulates more quickly than any other place I've found.

I trained with the full BM bar up to level 12 as prescribed, then did a few ToPK runs to finish up (went to level 16 just to be sure). It remains Aggressive, as did the last half dozen animals.

I guess we can conclude that your Anvil Rock method is different/better than mine. Looks like I'll be doing all the testing there from now on.

@Chthon: From what I read, the HoM phoenixes were irregular until recently. The Dire prefix was allegedly unattainable, so people ended up with Elders instead.

edit: spelling

I actually tested to level 10 on ice tooth minos today, finishing up in gyala (carefully and with slight modifications to the build). He got agressive at level 11, then I trained him on level 30 HM snow worms. He died a LOT. I ressed at least once every two worms so he could keep taking damage. Then I brought him along on a Sacnoth Valley vanquish run. Voila.
I've had VERY odd results in the past starting straight off on stuff over 10 levels higher than the pet and found through repeated testing it results in retarded (as in messed up/late) or no evolution. I've also had wierd results with counting degen as pet 'damage', that's why I don't trust it for training.
I have made since the latest rainbow phoenix fix 2 dires, and 3 Elders (on purpose). It's fine now. This is a result of today.

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Thanks for the further information; I appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I'm at my parents' house until the weekend due to holiday stuff, so I don't have access to GW. Hopefully on Sunday I can at last put an end to this pursuit and make handouts where necessary. It's somewhat depressing knowing that all this time it was a matter of "Ur doin it wrong."

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well if you like alligators and/or you're lazy...there is a group of elder 15s outside umbral grotto ready to be tamed.

Having problems getting mine elder -_- when you say you lvl it to 12 I'm assuming that you stop the process right when it lvls. then flip the procedure.

11-12 seems fine, but yeah you just want as much as possible of the time after first evolution to have the pet getting mauled and you dealing the damage. It seems silly but do the first evolution on the level 10-15s, anything without degen or spike damage. Level 10 minotaurs outside of ice tooth in northern shivers or the level 14 mergoyle waveriders outside of gates of kryta are both ideal. Ive been able to get proper evolution also by starting on those and moving to the outcasts at level 10 to speed it up. The ones which are fighting the luxon guards just inside gyala hatchery explorable (use the luxons as meat shields, only send in the pet when there is a clear advantage on 'your side'). If you use the 'speed up' area, dont bring symbiotic bond as you may just kill yourself if things go pear shaped.

Just spent the last hour to hour and a half leveling a new pet. Joined a basic ss/lb farm group at Remains of Shalahja. What I got was a pet with no evolution. It appears that this is an easy and very effective/quick way to get an elder.

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