Pets... What one??

Okay, i was wondering what pet to get. This will be for my W/R PvE char. I was thinking of Dune lizards in the desert maybe, and call it Diablo or something. Or maybe even one of those wort-hogs in the jungle, and call it Pooh or something. Spider for now might be a bit of a long shot. Any suggestions?

Pick one you find esthetically pleasing. Some players would suggest opting for a pet that uses a different damage type than your primary weapon.

It's all personal choice. I have had all the pets available in game. My final choice was the lizard.

i am also a w/r and i chose a bear because it can help you tank i some times even take it with me on runs to sort of distract and when they hit level 20 they are huge and they are cool next to warrior just my choice lizards are fun to

Any pet can help you tank... just so you know. The only reason the pet gets huge is because it evolved into a Hearty, and Hearties do make nice tanks. If you had a Dire bear, you wouldn't be singing about the bear's tanking ability, I'm quite sure.

To the OP, as was said in other posts, it's really about what you think looks the best and the damage type. The advantage of not doing the same damage type as your pet is that you don't have to worry about both being crippled if someone is defending against that one damage type, but for those cases you have to be a Beast/Marks cross. If you plan on being purely Beast, then you don't even have to worry about doing different damage types.

The only other thing which will really determine how your pet handles is which evolution it becomes. You might want to think about your play style and which evolution would suit you best, so that you can be ready to train it accordingly. The Ultimate Pet Guide will have all of the details you could want to know.

Warthogs are best!

(Warning, no logic was used in the making of this post)

But they are!

(The observant reader may recognise that personal preference has a significant role in pet selection).

So get a Warthog!

(But not my one, he's mine)

Try to get a warthog in pre searing. by the time you get to the forest area, where everyone else gets them, yours should have evolved to be twice the size of normal warthogs.

Bear is best
why?
lvl 20's are huge
and once u are good enuf to pvp... hes a great body blocker...
and if u ever go beast master... their attacks are crazy

My fav pet has to be the Black Widow Spider... I have one with my Ranger which I named Carlotta

Just remember when you switch pets you will have to train the new one...a long process. I gave up a level 20 wolf to get a bear and finally have him up to level 18. Unfortunately after ascension I don't use the pet much, takes up too many skill slots.

Again let me say that pets do not just get huge at level 20, and not all pets will get huge upon their second evolution. Don't believe me? Let me prove it to you. PM me your in-game name, I'll go train a Dire or Elder pet (whichever I feel like at the moment), and I'll show you a level 20 pet that's as small as a level 5 one.

The only reason certain pets get huge is because they became a Hearty evolution. This usually happens at level 15, though I've seen bugs where it didn't. Most people get the Hearty evolution because they either don't have any interest in actually being a beastmaster (and just bring the pet for asthetic reasons), they are unwilling to give up their bow and marksmanship, or they simply don't know how to make their pet do damage.

Take the wolf, take the wolf

It's cool, when he howls.

And i think, if you go for Beastmaster, the Hearty evolution is not the worst, because of the extra HP for your pet. The real damage comes from all the pet attacks.

They do grow in size regardless of their evolution, though hearties grow even larger. As long as you train them from a low enough level; I dont think they grow much if you train from L15..

I thought that too... until I stood a Dire and an Elder pet right besides a level 5 one. I can definitively say that only the Hearty is a different size. Of course they don't grow much after level 15. Level 15 is when they evolve into Hearty.

Well that's why they're hearty...kinda cute though to see a pet that's far bigger than its owner...like the stalkers/moa birds/bears. Some ppl seem to think the bigger the better and I find that amusing...no wonder there are lots of overweight ppl

My Boar evolved from normal to Playful(level11) it got bigger than before and then from playful to Hearty(level15) and it didn't get any bigger than it was before. The logic that a pet becoming bigger because it gets the hearty evolution is flawed.

I *am* a beastmaster and I actively use my pet and pet attacks in conjunction with my other attacks (Hakf my bar are pet skills). So it doesn't just become *hearty* because it doesn't deal damage etc... It becomes Hearty because it's level 15. And I have a pretty good hunch it'll become Dire at level 20 thus becoming bigger than regular pets (Dire = Big) and then Elder at level 25.

Normal-----Playful(lvl11)-----Hearty(lvl15)-----Dire(lvl20)-----Elder(lvl25)

I'll let you in on the results.
Go train your two level 20 pets. Oh! and take screenshots while you're at it. Don't cheat. (No Dune lizards/no Spiders they don't grow)
If you can really prove a corrolation between evolution then I'll be looking for the text saying:
Pet's name has been reset. ---in green on your screenshots before I beleive any of your: you must use pet attacks more often for it to become playful, you must not use pet attacks for him to become hearty etc...that's pet evolution b*llsh*t.
=============
I personnaly like Warthogs
but I like Striders too because they are funny to look at.

umm... no

once u have a Hearty it'll stay as a Hearty... pets evolve into their final evolution at lvl 15 (Hearty/Dire/Elder)

and i can back Jenosavel up on this one... a Hearty pet is far larger then a Dire or Elder

Warthogs, unfortunately are kinda of a double-edged sword, they have a great look and 'feel' like a proper pet rather than the bears/wolves/lizards, etc who just look like they have gotten lost and decided to follow you randomly but they are pathetic dmg dealers, i say this with only a lvl13 one I got in presearing but that is only my point of view. 4, maybe 5 dmg at most. However its worth hanging on to them just for the quality pig noises and response I get from other players. Naming them can be quite fun too, mine is called Sausage and one guy asked if he could eat him or not.....

Lizard FTW.

Mine's named Jim Morrison.

My R/Mo's pet at lvl 20 is still in Aggressive evolution. I think it's cause I missed the proper skill setups during evolution changes...

I think I'll raise another one [oh the humanity!] so I'll get the Elder Evolution. GRR...

They gain exp when dead thank goodness and I go into trapper mode now when I'm raising one to be playful.

What were the level caps for evolutions?

I think it was lvl 11 was the first change, and lvl 15 was the final change?

I like my lizard, he's pretty fast. I want a uw spider, but need to talk my guild into helping me get it. lol

yeah that's correct

it's also really painful to give up a lvl 20 pet, i had to give 2 of them up.
its like losing a child.. ;_;

I currently have the snow wolf. Hes ok but the howling gets annoying. When i get to the desert im going to get a lizard. although i dont like the idea of havign to lvl another pet so i might keep my wolf afterall *shrug* dunno yet

Have you actually played the game? Pets don't level past 20. Neither do players. Unless you are implying that the hidden leveling that players get for skillpoints also happens for pets and alters them, which I doubt.

For the record: spider sucks. It's too small and does not body block worth crap. Just get a bear, as they are better (and use brutal mauling), thus dealing more damage than a spider could.

Yes, I changed from a hearty bear to a spider, and am regretting it. Time to train a new one.

brutal mauling doesn't deal any more extra dmg then one of it's normal attacks... it's just there for looks

There are Elder Wolfs in Southern Shiverpeaks at level 15 if you don't have the time/energy to train a new pet all the way from level 5.

Look for "Thul the Bull", a ranger boss north of Copperhammer Mines (tip:check the map at xennon's elite skill site). I saw two level 15 Elder Wolfs there the other day.

I did not read the whole thread but I got me a black widow.
I had the pre sear lynx for the longest time then got a lizard and then a bear but not I have the black widow.
Pet name: Shelob

I got a Snow Wolf from the Northern Shiverpeaks and I've been using him sorta on/off. Now he's level 15 but how can I tell what he turned into? I gave him a name so I can't tell. Also, is there any way of CHANGING what he turned into or atleast training a new one to become something specific?

Before I begin, thanks to Valerius, Ix Chel, and Epinephrine for backing me up.

Well, Valerius is backing me up on this one. However, since you probably still don't believe me, I will go take those screen shots. However, I do have a life, so leveling up the required number of pets may take a few days.

In conjuction with the rest of your post, this really made me laugh. Thanks, I needed that.

When I leveled up my Dires, over half of my bar was pet skills. When I leveled up my Elders, over half of my bar was pet skills. Guess what? When I leveled up my Hearties, over half of my bar was pet skills. Which skills those happen to be, what kind of Beast Mastery stat is backing them up, what other skills you have on your bar, and how you spent your remaining attribute points all come into play.

Actually, you're right, though you're still misunderstanding things. The pet doesn't become Hearty just because it doesn't deal damage. It becomes Hearty because it doesn't deal considerable damage in comparison to what you're dealing yourself. So you can have half of your bar filled up with Beast Mastery skills, only one Marksmanship attack, and equal attributes of Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, and you'll get a Hearty. Sure your pet is dealing some nice damage, but so are you.

Actually, you've got a bit of a logical fallacy here. It becomes Hearty at level 15, not because it turned level 15. See the difference? Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't mean one caused the other. A pet could also turn Elder or Dire at level 15, which completely shoots your assumption that: because level 15, therefore Hearty.

And you'd be unfortunately disappointed then.

As I said, I'll get you those screen shots proving that Dire pets are the same size as level 5 ones.

As Ix Chel was so kind to point out... pet's can't level beyond 20. Pretty impossible for Elder pets to exist according to your rules. Yet somehow, people have Elder pets. I think you should be able to realize what that means.

I don't know which is worse, that you say it's my b*llsh*t when many people can back me up, or the fact that you completely didn't understand my claims in the first place. You get a Playful pet and a Hearty pet via the same exact play style, dealing more damage yourself than your pet. The only difference between the two types is that the Playful is the level 11 iteration, and the Hearty is the level 15 one.

EDIT:
Use /namepet alone to reset your pet's name and see its evolution. After level 15 you can't change the evolution anymore, but you can get a new pet and try your luck again. Check out the Ultimate Pet Guide thread in the Community Works section of the forums for all the information you could want on that.