What are the different pet name prefixes?

I charmed an elder black widow long ago, and changed its name, after the new update i reset it back and it is a hearty black widow. Can anyone tell me what the different prefixes are and what do they mean?

From one of the faq's on Gamefaqs.com:

Pet Evolutions
==============
Occasionally when a pet levels up, it "evolves", changing its stats slightly.
Evolutions do not change the appearance of a pet, although a pet will change
size corresponding to its level. When a pet evolves, it will gain a prefix to
its name (if you haven't renamed the pet using /petname or /namepet).

Pet Evolution Prefixes
----------------------
* Aggressive = +1 Damage, -30 Health
* Dire - +2 Damage, -60 Health
* Elder - +3? Damage, ?? Health (Unknown)
* Hearty = -2 Damage, +60 Health
* Playful = -1 Damage, +30 Health

Pets typically evolve at around level 10-13 and have a second evolution at
around level 15-17. More evolutions can happen, however, depending on unknown
parameters. Although the "paths" of evolution aren't fully known, a few have
been discovered:
* Pet -> Playful -> Hearty -> Elder
* Pet -> Playful -> Elder (?)
* Pet -> Aggressive -> Dire
* Pet -> Aggressive -> Elder (?)

It is thought that letting the pet take a lot of hits without healing it much
makes the pet into a Hearty or Playful evolution, while letting the pet deal a
lot of damage in combat gives it an Aggressive or Dire evolution. Once on an
evolution "path", you can't go back.

there yah go

Here are the two paths:


Path one:
Dire = +2 Damage, -60 Health
Aggressive = +1 Damage, -30 Health

Path two:
Hearty = -2 Damage, +60 Health
Playful = -1 Damage, +30 Health

Either path can ultimately end with Elder, which is supposedly more damage and some extra life.

Can your pet eventually reach elder form even if it's a level 20 Hearty Bear?

Regards, Ashleigh.

What do UW spiders start as? I thought it was Elder when I got it, but I may be mistaken.

I am under the impression that evolutionary changes only happen at approximately lvl 11 (to Playful/Agressive), and lvl 15 (to Hearty/Elder/Dire). If that were the case, then no, a pet that was already Hearty/Elder/Dire couldn't change again.

From my experiences this has held true. However, I haven't captured a spider, so I can't say if there is some anomaly associated with it.

It generally works in that a play style where you pet doesn't die often and constantly is spaming Pet Attack skills (with good Beastmastery) will lead you towards Agressive and eventually Dire. A play style where your pet dies often, you consistenly have 0 beastmastery, or you consistently out-damage your pet, will lead you towards Playful and eventually Hearty. Once your pet has reached it's first evolution (Playful/Agressive) you must change which play style you're using to get Elder.

I like to think about it in this way as it helps me make sense of what could otherwise be arbitrary numbers: the differences in attack are approximately a 15% boost/cut for the Dire/Hearty pets respectively. Simiarly, the health cut/boost is reminiscent of a Superior Rune's penalty or the Superior Vigor's boost, while in the latter's case it's not an exact match-up. A Superior Vigor gives health 50 whereas the Hearty gains 60 over an Elder. Meanwhile the Dire loses 60 health over the Elder while a Superior rune's penalty is 75. Therefore, while the damage is about on par with a 15% change, the health is skewed for the better. It doesn't quite take the hit of a superior rune, and it gives a better boost than a superior vigor.

So, which is the best pet really depends on what it is you want your pet to do. If you want to use it as a wonderfully reusable tank that doesn't take a death penalty, then you want a Hearty. If you don't care how often it dies, you just want that increase to DPS from the constant attacks, then you definitely want a Dire. The Elder's the middle of the road pet; it's most balanced... I personally would rather have one extreme or the other, but that's probably just me.

once the pet hit level 20... I believe you are done.

elder is +3 dmg and no health modification... that was why everyone was trying to get an elder.

pet seem to envolve into elder by playing completely different from your first prefix. Example : defensively->playful, switch to offensively playful->elder

NOT CONFIRMED: Some says that hearty pet are bigger in size.

I can confirm that; the Hearties are very much so bigger in size. The Elder will remain the same size as when you first tamed it at lvl 5 or so.

Sorry for the double post; however, what I'm about to say next has such a different direction than my previous post, that it deserves one of its own.

It is widely known/accepted that the attack boosting stats for the Dire and Elder pets are +2 and +3 respectively. They're on GameFAQs and in the Prima Guide (or so I hear, I don't have it myself). However, since the update I've been running some numbers of my own and I think those previous values are very much wrong.

I have two characters of the ranger class. One has a lvl 15 Elder Stalker and the other a lvl 15 Dire Stalker. I took the two out to Old Ascalon with only 1 point in beastmastery (I had a rune on my armor and was too lazy to make another armor set just for this test). I repeatedly killed Whiptail Devourers, Plague Devourers, Carrior Devourers, Stone Elementals, and Flash Gargoyles while carefully recording the minimum and maximum damage the pet had done on that enemy. After killing approximately 24 a piece of each of those enemies on each character, defined damage ranges had emerged.

The Dire Stalker consistently did approximately 1.14% damage more than the Elder Stalker. When you're dealing with numbers in the 15-28 range (accepted max damage for pets) that's roughly 3 damage. So, rather than the Elder Stalker doing a flat +3 damage and the Dire doing a flat +2 damage (Or a -1 damage for the Dire if you're comparing the two) as GameFAQs and other respected sources would have you believe, it appears that the Dire Stalker deals ~+3 damage over the Elder Stalker. However, what the numbers can't tell you but I quickly noticed was that the Elder Stalker's damage seemed more stable, while the Dire Stalker's damage quickly, and often, hit both extremes of its range.

I was inspired to run these numbers, since it seemed stupid to take a damage and health penalty for having a Dire pet. ANet never seemed the type of company to make one uber anything, so this imbalance didn't sit well with me.

For those who care about the raw numbers, my final damage ranges for the pets versus different enemies came up as follows:

Dire vs. Whiptail: 12-27
Elder vs. Whiptail: 10-25

Dire vs. Plague: 18-37
Elder vs Plague: 15-33

Dire vs. Carrion: 11-25
Elder vs. Carrion: 10-20

Dire vs. Stone Elemental: 8-17
Elder vs. Stone Elemental: 7-16

Dire vs. Flash Gargoyle: 16-37
Elder vs. Flash Gargoyle: 15-32