A guide to pets, by Jenosavel and Epinephrine

It really is a pity that pets still aren't very good (in my opinion) even with all of those statistics... haha. But still, I admire you for your research.

BTW, Epinephrine, when testing pet damage, make sure the pet owner's level is 20, otherwise SonOfRah's damage equation is a little off.

Specifically, the diminishing return from Beast Mastery (and other weapon attributes) doesn't always start after rank 12. The threshold is actually Level/2+2 (or something that is extremely close to that).

So at level 19, investing in any attribute for 12 rank already gives you diminishing returns (19/2+2 = 11.5 < 12), messing up the Baseline vs AL equality.

You probably do all your testing with lv20 characters anyways, but want to point that out just in case.

I can confirm that we did our damage testing with level 20 characters, so no worries Pan Sola.

Coolness....


OOooo, and, blah, that conclusion was really derived from weapon mastery and automatically assumed to be true for Beastmastery, based on the fact that SonOfRah's damage article reported beastmastery also has a diminishing return after 12.

But it just occured to me that, in the case of pets, the threshold could be dependent on the PET LEVEL instead (or as well).

So, can I make a request for you to test? Testing at 0 BM against someone with 0 AL (and using balanced stance to eliminate critical hit bonus) will always be fine when threshold is concerned (which I just recall is how you guys test, so my earlier warning is really moot anyways). At each pet level, after figuring out pet's base damage, can you also collect damage data with BM from (Pet Level/2) to (Pet Level/2 +4)? Because base damage is already known, you can keep the victim at 0 AL instead of trying to get matching armor to cancel out the BM baseline.

My hunch is, like actual weapons, the diminishing return threshold should only depending on character level. However I'll always have this nagging uncertainty that pet level might also affect the threshold.

Sincere gratitude if you guys can collect those extra data while doing testing in the future.

gr8 guide overall. one thing on brutal mauling tho. it seems that the attack is simply a animation, but if your getting attacked by one the dmg rate does not decrease. ie dmg RoF does not go down making this pet equal.

looks like you put a lot of work into this guide. proberly should make people pay for it

No, it does reduce the damage. The damage is the same for a brutal mauling attack, but the rate of damage does drop. We tested bears at level 5 and level 20, and in both cases the damage per hit matched that of other creatures, and the rate of attack was an average of 1 hit per 2.6 seconds or so, resulting in a decrease in damage of about 18% (i.e., a bear does 82% of the damage of a simlilarly evolved wolf, for example).

Falconer: You are right, the change of pet attacks to shouts does seem to make it easier to maintain the rate of attack, so the reduction of effectiveness shouldn't tend to happen with the skills. So in fact, you can probably simply multiply the DPS for the attack normally by 1.33 to get the CoH DPS. As for usefulness of pets in PvP - I think pet-based teams can work, but agree that it isn't the easiest thing. I'm hoping to get our guild to run a pet based GvG build (not IWAY) soon, and revive animal can free up some comfort animal slots, making a focal pet rezzer essentially.

Wow. Terrific reading!

Crap, I wish I would have read this BEFORE I almost leveled up a new bear pet. Why would Arenanet have one pet that is obviously inferior to the others? And why would the playing feild be level when they said there would be differences? I wonder if this shall be changed in the future?

How hard is it to get that fully evolved to level 15 wolf? Is it a "luck" thing or is there a trick to it?

Well, you leave from Copperhammer Mines to The Granite Citadel. On your way, you get into the first boss area. Arriving "in the zone", you can see two elder wolves available for charming:



In the next screenshot, you will notice that the wolf on the left has been charmed by your opponents:



Finally, a closeup of the wolf that is still available for charming:



So all you got to do is select a green "Elder Wolf" and click "Charm Animal". Good luck.

Thank you very much

Now I have to figure out whether I should go with a wolf (second favorite) or just deal with the handicapped bear (first favorite) hoping that we will get an update or a correction in chapter 2.

It really depends on what you plan on using your pet for. The bear is only handicapped if you need it to be dealing damage. If you're using it in PvE for a damage sponge, since pets don't get DP, then the bear is a perfectly fine pet to have.

Are the wolves always Elder? No "Dire" or "Hearty"?

On a related note, does the size of the pet matter?

Ie, is a larger pet like a bear more likely to be targetted by AI than a Warthog, or does it not make any difference?

Those particular wolves, as seen in the screenshots, are. Unlike the spider, you don't have a chance of a different evolution spawning. If you tame a lower level wolf, though, you'll be able to train it for whatever evolution you want.

Thanks, I was wondering if they always spawned that way, or if, like the spider, you could find different evolutions....

Great guide, BTW.

That is certainly true ... However ... even if you use a pet as damage sponge (i.e. hearty), the fact remains that a bear deals damage (regardless of the quantity) approx. 20% slower than its exact evolution counterparts from the other species. Personally, I find that unacceptable.

On a related note, I like dire pets lately. It seems to me that pets barely get attacked, and if they do get hammered, their chance of survival without healing is limited anyway.

I too like Dire pets. If you are providing them with healing there is little difference between the health levels, as it's seldom spike-like enough damage to matter, and if you aren't then 60 more health is unlikely to save it. The extra damage is noticable.

I'm going to put it out there that I also like Dire pets the best, though this hasn't always been the case. All but one of my beast-based solo builds unquestionably work better with a Hearty pet than a Dire pet, as the added health buffer of the Hearty gives you more maneuverability. You have a larger window of time to kite and position yourself before you have to be standing still and spamming Comfort Animal.

However, since I've been able to play in a team environment, I've switched to a pet with more offense and haven't looked back. In team scenarios Epinephrine really hit the nail on the head. If you're healing your pet, the healing is either enough or the damage is going to drop your pet regardless of which evolution it is. There doesn't seem to be any middle of the road. Thus, the added damage from an offensive pet is always welcome.

Wow. What can I say but thanks and I'm absolutely impressed. I appreciate the degree of detail you both went through. You guys ROCK!

How does the pet gain exp? Does he gain exp as mcuh as he supposed to (for example a pet of lvl 17 gains 100xp after i kill a level 17 monster) or does it gain exp same as me?

Will a pet get exp from a quest reward? Because I noticed when i first played the game through as a ranger that my pet always had same level as me, and I've did quite a few quests and missions.

The issue of experience is being addressed at the moment, and a running commentary of sorts is available in the Ranger discussion thread, under the title Two Further Pet Questions.

Essentially (thanks to deolmstead's questions/testing) we know that pets level faster than players do, at least when below the player's level, and that they do not benefit from scrolls. They also do not benefit from quest or mission rewards, only gaining experience through combat. There is no range limit, nor does the pet need to be alive to benefit from the kills. The pet gains experience appropriate to its level, not to the owner's level.

Yes, It's too bad when we take our guilds BM build into TA, winning every round, often times in 60 seconds, and hearing "Wow!".

Those pets are way underpowered

Awesome work guys.

Hey, if i were to cap a Black widow as an Elder, how could i stop it from evolving into a Hearty etc?

You can't. The spawn is random, and once you have captured the spider, it will not change.

It's the same with all other pets. Once it has reached Hearty/Elder/Dire, It cannot undergo another evolution.

Ash.

ok thanks Ash
one more thing..when u find the spiders in UW are they always ALREADY Hearty, Elder or Dire? (I have never got that far in UW)

ty

Yes.

PS: I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you have never got as far as to the spider, you are in the wrong UW groups. The spiders really spawn quite at the beginning of the Underworld.

He he,

Sorry forgot to say... i have previously been playing FoW a lot and have only recently (very recently) got involved with UW. Problem is im a W/E and even though i can protect myself pretty well out there, parties always seem to prefer W/Mo

PS: i needed to know about spiders as my me/r will soon ascend and a spider is my preferred choice of pet

Yes. They are either hearty, dire or elder. Hearty been the largest.

In my personal experience, dire is the most common.

Ash.

oh well, i will have to keep trying with my me/r until an Elder one pops up but there will be competition for it I dont really want a spider thats unbalanced

I don't think you can particularly say that the Hearty or Dire pets are unbalanced. While Elder usually gets dubbed the "balanced" pet, that's only because its stats are in the middle. Instead of saying "balanced" you could also call Elder the "luke-warm" pet or the "middle of the road" pet or the "red-headed middle child" pet. But we like to be nice. My point is, you should chose which evolution you want based on what you will use the pet for, not because its called "balanced." What will you use your pet for? I think it's really worthwhile to pay attention to what Dralspire and Epinephrine said a little earlier about the Dire pet, which usually gets overlooked.

I'm not trying to be a salesperson here and push a certain pet evolution on you. Just felt I had to defend the Dire and Hearty pets, since I almost always prefer one of the extremes to the half-way that the Elder can be.

A fair point so im sorry i was so harsh. maybe i will refer to Elders as 'The Grape Slightly in the Middle of the Bunch That is slightly Alrightish for Select players but It of course Depends on Personal Opinion'---LONG but concise

I will also consider the Dire as an option.. at level 20 the pet will still keep the AL of 80 so there will probably be no problems

Thought I'd add a Mo/R build I've found useful for training up a Dire pet. It's easy to train a hearty pet as a monk, since you can just let it die or sit in poison and heal it or go on solo runs, but Dire is always a bit trickier. I suspect this would work just fine for a R/Mo as well.

Anyways, the build is:
Healing: 12
Prot: 9
DF: 8
BM: 12

Brutal Strike
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Call of Protection
Healing Breeze
Life Bond
Balthazars Spirit
Charm Animal

I've been using this build against the lvl10 minos outside Ice Tooth per the guide's suggestion, with great success. Between the life bond and the call of protection, even your level 3 pet can tank with practically no damage, and predators pounce is enough to heal what damage it does take. If you can get a good mob of 5-6 minos on your pet (and not on you), the energy provided by LB+BS lets you spam the pet attacks constantly. The Breeze is just there for those times when you don't manage to get the minotaurs all nice and tidy on your pet, and need to save one or the other of you - the +8 regen is plenty to rescue either you or your pet.

The trickiest part is getting the minos on the pet, and getting the pet to stay attacking the minos and not leave off and walk back to you, bringing along all his new friends. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's pretty simple. When my pet gets to 11, I'll try it out against the desert Minos and Griffons.

Sweet guide thanks for the insights. Now that I know that pets actually "evolve" I went back to check my lvl 12 Strider (on my lvl 13 R/N) and found it to be a 'Playful Strider' lol. Cute It rarely dies on me, but I tend to spike damage targets before it gets a chance to do much damage.

If I switch up my gameplay, and let my pet do the most damage; is there still a chance for my Strider to go 'Dire', or is it pretty much destined to go 'Hearty'?

This may be OT, but I notice something that makes pets feel "handicaped":

I like to solo pve a lot, most of the time I use a few henchies as attack-dogs: Whenever I setup a mob for attack, I always hit "shift+ctrl+space" which is a target-call without actually attacking. This causes the henchies to attack my target without having to attack myself; hence they get mobbed leaving me free to pick off the weakened targets. Works very well

This method does NOT work with pets. I've tried it several times. Hit "shift+ctrl+space" and the pet just stands there. The Pet will only attack the target you actually attack; leaving a chance for you to get mobbed.

I think pets would be more useful if they behaved lik henchies in this regard. The 'Shift+ctrl+space' target button acts like a makeshift "sic em!" shout, which would really help keep the mob-attention on ur pet, and away from you.

If henchies behave this way, why not pets? Seems like the pets got a lil short-changed to me...

Interesting development: Using the build I outlined above, my Moa just hit lvl 12 - and evolved to Playful, which caught me quite by surprise. With Life Bond and Call of Protection on, my Pet's health bar was at full almost the entire time - 6 minotaurs at once couldn't touch it, and from level 3 to level 12 it didn't die once. Meanwhile, I wasn't even wanding the targets (except as the initial 'sic 'em!', letting the pet do all the work. This was the most aggressive playstyle I could think of, and yet it came out playful.

Now, true, the pet was getting hit almost the entire time, not me - it just wasn't taking any damage from those hits. Could it be that ANY damage, even 0 damage, counts as a pip on the dire/hearty spectrum? In that case it seems to me I should rather be the one taking all the hits, trying to pull the enemies off the pet rather than the other way around.

Shall I just continue in this vein and develop a hearty pet? I'm concerned that if I change my playstyle now, I'd wind up Elder and I'd rather have Hearty than Elder.

EDIT: Once it hit 12, I decided my pet was too old to play with the Ice Tooth Minos anymore, so I brought it invincimonking with me in the desert against the minos and griffons there. It took a lot of experimentation, but I finally came up with the following build that works:

Heal: 13
Prot: 11
DF: 8
BM: 12

Ferocious Strike / Predators Pounce / Prot Spirit / Breeze / Call of Haste / Balth Spirit / Mending / Charm

Unsurprisingly, almost all the time the monsters completely ignore the pet, just piling on me. If ANYTHING can switch this pet from Hearty to Dire, I expect it's this: It's dealing ALL the damage, and taking NONE. Occasionally, a griffon or mino will get it into its head to attack the pet, and then it's pretty much gg, but it's rare enough not to really be a concern.

This is not going to win any soloing/farming awards - it is unbelievably tedious watching a lvl 12 superchicken take down a lvl 21 griffon, energy management is an issue without Bonettis, and keeping the balance between pet skills and prot spirit is tricky and high-maintenance. I may swap Feral Lunge or Brutal Strike in for Predators Pounce, since if we're in a situation where the pet needs healing there's really not much I can do for it. I'm happy to take any other suggestions people may have to level this pet faster, ideally along a dire path...

Further Edit: Feral Lunge > Predators Pounce. Still tedious, though.

That sounds odd about it going playful - my only thought is that it was taking too much damage in the first few levels (when it was low and was healing itself with predator's pounce). I know that I have run BM 16 call of protection on a pet, but at level 3 the hits are large enough that the pet's health is still going down (from what I remember). I actually tank, letting enemies hit me, to avoid the damage going to the pet, though. Even with 60 AL it isn't too hard, and depending on what class combo you take there are easy ways to further reduce damage. I suspect it was taking too much damage initially - I know for the first few levels if I do minotaurs I either have to take the majority of the damage, or I need to maintain Otyugh's Cry on top of everything.

Any chance you could tell me how many seconds casting time Brutal Mauling is? I think it's 3 seconds, but I'm not that good at both math and counting

Yep.

Wayyy back when (I have no idea at what point this changed), the Brutal Mauling did a knockdown effect. In pre-sear, Rangers were always looking for a Warrior to party with, so that they could use one of the hammer skills to interrupt the mauling and complete the charm; otherwise, they'd get knocked down about 3/4 of the way to done, every time.

It really is too bad it was removed. The knockdown could be counted on to happen, but you couldn't predict exactly when, and it could even be interrupted; not the most imbalancing thing ever.

what about elementalist/ranger?

That would work perfectly well; so long as you bring high beast mastery and Ferocious lunge (strike?) to regen some energy you should be perectly fine.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ide-id1575.php

Reading this in the Pet Guide, I think about how many times I've used Mend Condition to remove disease from the pets of others as well as party members. I'm not 100% sure this is accurate. Although, I can see where pets are dumb and will return to their master while diseased, but still, if you have Mend Condition (and keep a sharp eye on your or other's pets) you can pretty much negate any disease epidemics.

I was just doing D'lessia and Devinity last night. Despite disease on some pets, I suppressed pretty much all conditions rather quickly using just "Mend Condition" (5, ¼ , 2).

Come to think of it... if you have both Martyr and Mend Condition, you can pull disease off of pets and party. Only downside to Mend Condition is that it doesn't work on the caster.