A guide to pets, by Jenosavel and Epinephrine

Well, it is an opinion, but pet-heavy teams present a lot of bodies in close proximity, making disease spread rapidly across them. Given that the most efficient anti-condition skill won't pull it the pets are vulnerable to conditions in general, requiring the use of (relatively) pricy skills to heal them - if you have 4 pets converging on a guy who diseases them with tainted flesh it is pointless to try to pull the disease really - it'll be back on them with their next attack against him, or even from being next to the other diseased pets; even if it were a one time thing, I doubt it is worth 4 spells to cure 4 diseases off the pets. Groups of pets are thus vulnerable to anything which spreads a condition across them quickly - a barbed trap, poison spamming, disease, epidemic... and it is costly to try to patch them up. So, while 4 pets on a guy adds up to some pretty big damage, if you face a condition heavy team you'll find that the pets just aren't efficient enough to heal; they'll all be poisoned, bleeding, diseased and so on, and it just isn't cost effective to try to remove it all. A single pet, sure - but a condition oriented build relies generally on the great efficiency of damage/energy it can put out, and the pets just aren't efficient to heal.

Makes sense.

I'm just thinking in terms of a team with few pets.

Honestly, I haven't seen many Beast Master builds that work well for much of anything. It seems that pets are more for show than being a viable resource. It also seems that present more liability b/c you need to heal them or suffer an 8 sec penalty.

Well, I like it when people underestimate the pet charging them. So yeah, don't worry about pets. It's just a giant chicken, so what if it can launch an interrupt every 2 seconds.

Giant Chicken... I have a lynx on my Mo/R. =p

New Question...
Do pets level slower (like your character) when you have Hench or other party member?

Yes, pets level slower in a party. It took approximately twice as many kills to level my pet with Alesia tagging along. My experience is unchanged whether my pet is around, and likewise other players are not affected by the presence of my pet. I have partied with another pet user (Jenosavel) to level pets together, and noticed the approximate doubling of the needed kills to level, but it was approximate - no effect seemed to come from her pet being there.

It would seem that while the humans share the experience, the pet has a share of experience based on the number of humans present, but granted separately.

from the chart, each level the damage of aggressive/dire, unevolved, playful/hearty's damage keep pulling apart in every level.

Do you think it is possible that each level that increase in damage is saved, and depending on how you use your pet that the new level damager % change would varie one pet from another?

Example: a different lv16 pet would have 14.8% after a certain way of training to accumulate an unknown number, instead of listed in the chart 14.4%.

as if that the player had done 1 damage total until the pet is lv16, the pet out damage the user far from normal and turn into an aggressive version, would this aggressive pet have more damage % per level than a player done 1000 damage until the his/her pet is lv16?

I am leaning more to the "No, to the above", but I don't think it is ever a good idea to denounce any idea, unless proven beyound the shadow of doubt.

Since the way the numbers pull appart is quite consistent with a % modifier (such as damage +/- 15% for the Dire/Hearty evolutions), I would lean towards no to the above question. Also, such a tiny difference as .4% would be next to impossible to test for. I'm not exactly a math wiz -Epinephrine supplied those talents- but I can say that when you're dealing with such a range of values those tiny variations can be attributed to the margin of error. A .4% difference, at most, comes out to be around a .1 difference in damage. Considering nothing else but the fact that the game engine rounds all values, that .1 difference is already questionable.

This isn't to say that the game absolutely does not have such a system in place. If it does, however, I believe it would be of no practical significance.

To follow up with what Jenosavel has said; while the data looks like % damage differences, it might not be; the varying critical hit rate for example, combined with a flat bonus (like the +2 damage spoken of by some) might account for it; certainly it is an interesting question, and the method proposed by Pan Sola to test non-critical damage using Balanced Stance seems like an important next step; hopefully the guild will have time soon to assist in testing that aspect and it may put a nail in the coffin for one model or the other.

Wow this is an awesome thread, thanks for all the hard work you put into it.

I have a simple question: I am currently N/R. Do you retain your pet if you change secondaries? I know the pet won't be available, but I won't lose it permanantly will I?

Thanks - didn't realise that wasn't covered - yes, your pet is saved for you, when you change classes back it'll be waiting for you. I added that bit to the first page, since it is basic info on pets.

Hmm, I was able to train a warthog to lv20 8 minutes ago (before making this post). It remained as aggressive (woot! if you need ss, I can post later if people wish to see, or maybe you want to personally see it yourself, then pm me here)

Now... What kind of dmg chart should I use? Is this aggressive warthog as strong as the dire at lv20? (as there are no seperate chart for aggressive and dire at lv20) While aggressive also do not have the -HP as the dire? Doesn't this automatically making the aggressive warthog superior than dire?

There are more things to find out it seems.

That's fascinating - Try resetting your pet's name, see if it changes (/petname)? I don't think I've ever heard of a pet being level 20 and aggressive. I know that the changes can be delayed, but I didn't think they could be that delayed.

I have rename and delete name many times to check if it were true. It turn out to be true, perhaps a freak of nature, or pure luck =P

When I noticed it was lv18 and still didn't change into dire, that is when I started to make sure (maybe) to continue training it the same way.

I'd be interested in what a health test shows your pet's hp to be. It should be a quick way to see if its stats are behaving as a Dire or Aggressive, and it would be safe to assume its attack would behave similarly. An Aggressive of level 20 should be looking at 450 health, whereas a level 20 Dire would have 420.

If it turns out to be behaving as an Aggressive (which would probably make the most sense) then you'll have to decide if that's what you want from it, since the Aggressive's attack does appear to have a smaller percentage boost over an unevolved's damage than the Dire's does. You'd have a health/attack that lands somewhere between a Dire and an Elder, but whose exact attack values we've never been able to test before (at that level anyway).

Awesome guide! Very well done! Thanks for all the hard work guys!

It seems that they're either tweaking evolution or there have always been more variations along the path. After training up a couple of Hearty pets, I decided to play around with letting a new pet do all the work for me. A few minutes ago the following happened:



I was surprised when no evo happened at 11, so I checked here for info (was looking for Valerius' thread and found this one - both are great). It seemed a little strange that evolution was out of the question if it didn't happen at 11. He was still generic at level 12, having been fed on Wavebreakers for several levels. Assuming he would stay generic forever, I became a little less careful with him. I took him up to the Shiverpeaks for a few mino steaks, then to Nebo Terrace where we killed a handful of Mergoyles (and he died for the first time from the Mind Wracks). Then we went to Augury where he leveled to 13 on a Rockshot.

I didn't notice the change right away, but there it is. Now, I realize the Mind Wrack damage must tipped the scales, but such a small amount of damage over the space of 2 encounters doesn't seem like it should have been enough to offset the amount of damage my pet had dished out over the course of 13 levels. And trust me, I wasn't doing any more than a few weak staff attacks now and then. Everything else was Predator's/Disrupting/Brutal. And with CoP running, he wasn't taking any damage other than Deep Freeze. In any case, not nearly enough to compare with the amount he was dealing.

Maybe one of the factors is the amount of damage taken by the owner. As in, a pet has a greater chance of becoming Dire if its owner is consistently getting pummeled for large amounts. The one constant in my pet's training (while trying to minimize his damage taken / maximize his output, etc.) was the fact that the damage I received was minimal. It would make sense as a mechanic as well. If you are doing the tanking, the pet should trade health for damage, and vice versa if the roles are reversed. Perhaps someone has already mentioned that and I missed it.

1st: Excellent job of following up on earlier work and clarifying/debunking so many rumors via all the scientific methodology.

I just spent about 2-3 hours or so reading through every post on first Valerius' thread and then this one. I have to admit though I skipped through a lot of the math, charts and skills/build info as I trust you methodology and I'll worry about builds later. (got to decide on a pet first...)

A few things I wanted to respond to from both threads but I wanted to post here in the newer thread since they're mostly directed at J+E...

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Did you two (Jen' and Epi') ever do any testing to prove/disprove the experiment seen here?

I never saw where Shift11 was able to pinpoint the differing amounts of healing needed. He did say he used healing to figure out the amount of life needed to heal the damage from the AE but he never lists the actual number to see if it lines it up with the guestimated %'s.

I guess I'm just wondering if there are any plans to do further AL/Armor Type testing. While it would be difficult, it could show another variation or two between the pets and/or evolutions.

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A gore is a piercing attack

I agree 100% on the damage types... The variety of strengths and weaknesses was what made playing a mage in EQ so fun (until the end where all but earth died so fast it rarely mattered what the type was).

In regards to the bear... Have you ever seen a bear's claws? They're easily as wicked as a Tiger's (maybe no so sharp due to the bears habits).

It's just that the bears massive size and power means their big freakin paws slam harder (in most cases, hard enough to send anything else flying) and end up doing more damage than the huge gashes their claws cause. Against other large heavily build opponents though they can inflict some serious gouges! >yikes<

In my perfect world...

Teddies: Primarily Blunt with a random slash here and there
Tweeties: Piercing with a slash here and there (beak and feet)
Puppies: Piercing with maybe a very rare slash (Dog types don't paw swipe)
Kitties: Slashing with a piercing here and there (pretty much opposite of dogs)
Piggies: Piercing and maybe a disease or earth based damage
Spiders: Poison (balance it out however they have to)
Scaleys: Piercing with a slash here and there (tail whip)

For extra flavor give the desert types (lizards, add some lions) fire damage and the icy (wolves and add a cold climate lizard, it's a FANTASY world after all) types cold damage. To balance tweeties, make them attack faster.

All the damage types I've mentioned already exist so it would only be a few coding tweaks here and there.

For some defensive flavor:

Teddies: 2x HP and .5 AL
(very hearty, but big and take full force of every blow)
Tweeties: .5 HP and 2x AL (hit less because they’re quick)
(have you ever tried to catch a bird)
Puppies: 1.25 HP and .75 AL
Kitties: .75HP and 1.25 AL
Piggies: The baseline, fairly hardy and fairly quick
(have you ever tried to catch and hold onto a pig)
Spiders: .5 HP and 2x AL (hard shell)
(once you crack the hard shell they’re not so resilient)
Scaleys: Can see either… 1.25 HP -- .75 AL or 75HP -- 1.25 AL
(really depends on the type of lizard)



Then pet choice would be soooo much more than just cosmetic.

Not too likely for all (or even any) of this to happen but one can hope… right?

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And lastly...

The critical thinkers of the world will >NEVER< look back upon things we pondered and think "what a waste of time". It would be more like "Why didn't I think of testing this or that!"

semantic, i had the exact same situation as you(except i had a bear). I recommend scrapping that pet if you want dire, and getting call of preotection and symbiotic bond, while you charge into battle, thus makign the enemies target yourself. Hopefully this will get you a dire. But the damage taken is a major factor in deciding it's evolution.

Yep. We tested the AL of pets via using Symbiotic Bond to determine the exact amount of damage that the pet was taking (whatever gets filtered through to you x 2). Against an elementalist type enemy (such as a Hydra outside of Augury Rock) you can easily determine what its base damage is by what damage it does against yourself (known armor level). Knowing the enemy's base damage and the exact number of the final damage dealt to the pet, you can easily determine their armor level.

Oh, I know what a bear's claws are like. But the thing is, they don't use their claws as a weapon. In the few recorded cases of a large (brown) bear fighting a large cat (tiger), the tiger's main trouble was litterally a fractured skull. I've also seen recordings of a small bear (not sure what kind, but some type of asian bear) fighting a lioness, and while the bear was bleeding profusely, the lioness didn't have a single scratch. Again, it was blunt trauma that she had to be afraid of. I know it probably makes me seem cruel, but it's more my insatiable curiousity that made me stumble on these things than anything else. I don't go out looking for animal fights, just in case you're starting to get that impresion.

In my opinion, a thrusting attack is should do piercing damage and a sweeping attack should do slashing damage. Goring involves wilding swinging of the boar's head, tearing up flesh in the process. No thrusting means I just can't see calling it a piercing attack. It's no more piercing than a cat's claws; less, in fact.

A difference of opinion, I guess.

Glad you enjoyed the guide though! And thanks for the wonderful thoughts! Knowing someone took time to consider the stuff makes it all the more worthwhile.

EDIT: Typos will be the death of me yet.

Yeah, I read your methodology... I was just curious as to what could have caused the discrepancy Shift11 noticed. It may have just been because he was trying to visually read the life scale? /shrug

It was more funny before the edit.

BTW... In my perfect world I listed bears as blunt with an occasional slash. About the only thing that would ever get slashed as opposed to smashed (blunt) would be something as big as or bigger than the bear.

I'll have to take yer word on the boar thing until I see otherwise.

Honestly, so many animal attacks really don't fit into a perfect system anyway... I mean really... Is it the wolf's teeth "piercing" into your thoat or the "slashing" as they jerk them out... either way, yer dead.

Plus, I'm sure the devs had their reasons for not using certain types of damage for balance purposes. Otherwise it would be bear masters FTW in the undead zones!

The original guide here states that degen, conditions and armour ignoring damage sources are to be avoided when going to agressive/dire evolutions.
Point made is pet damage taken is a contributing factor toward playful etc.

Now I am in no position to argue this and my choices may be ill-informed but I trained my new warthog to L-11 agressive effectively and quickly fighting against the grasps, undead rangers (poison) and undead mesmers (fragility) in the Gates of Kryta mission. I chose undead because being r/mo, I cast judges insight on my pet, he now does holy damage and gains 20% armour penetration.
I have enough in smiting to make judges insight last 12 seconds, which is enough time for me to get 4 or 5 pet attacks out (ferrocious twice).
Pet at level 11 and 16 in beastmastery with judges up, pet attacks are slamming the undead for 100+ damage.
I realise this can't last forever, undead being level 13 themselves, but I recommend this method to anyone looking for at least an agressive evolution.

New information; I was able, with the help of a guildmate last night (Thanks Sol!) to capture a bear in pre-searing. So it isn't impossible, just really, really, really, really hard to do.

Oh, it's on my second account, so if you can't find me on as "Andrea Nile", try "Erin de Naal", for those who will be skeptical. I know I would be.

OMG you are shitting me? ._.

Pics

I always thought warthogs were Blunt damage dealers =/

Also I heard that Elder animals since they aren't super easy to get had a +2 damage bonus with no life penalty. Could this in anyway be true? Also I do think some pets do have an innate bonuses as it seems my pet warthog seems to absorb alot more damage than a warrior of the same armor class.

Unfortunately, I can't prove when I tamed it, but I made the toon today... (he's renamed in this shot, I thought Necessities was catchier) - showing the toon's age.



And a bitmap of the bottom corner, to defend against those who claim the jpg artifacts around the text are edits...



I'd love to show him off to any reliable witness, as this kind of claim is always treated with skepticism.

The method used: We used a bait-monk. My guildmate (Sol, thank you so much for showing me!) made a monk; took about a half hour of trying. He would get the bear's attention and run away from me, and I would try to time my Charm Animal to the moment that they left charm range. Eventually I got one to take, and the bear ran out of range, tried to break the charm but failed. It seems like it's a matter of timing it exactly right, and maybe luck. He said he got his in 5 minutes, the monk/ranger helping him got his in about an hour, so it can be tricky to time. We tried timing it to the brutal mauling, to the attack animation to get him pulled along in mid-swipe, but I think it was just him leaving range as I activated. We used a monk as bait, as most critters seem to prefer beating up monks.

Hehe, like I said, I'm just glad it still works, and I'm not crazy

Given the difficulties we were having, I really was beginning to think that anet had modified Breaking Charm since last I'd tried.

For the curious, as Epi said, I tamed a presearing bear awhile back (after the patches that prevented hammer/knockdowns from being a viable charm option) in an identical manner.

Last night, the bear just stayed on me, and might have tried to break charm once. When I tamed mine, the bear was chasing monk out of range as I got charm started (since skills will resolve as long as they were initiated in range, even if the target bolts) and by the time the bear realized what I was up to, I was well outside of charmbreaker range. The bear proceeded to spam charmbreaker for several seconds, before the charm resolved, and I had a new pet...

I think I named him Bragging Rights at the time.

Anyway, like epi said, the key is getting your charm initiated just as the bear leaves range, and keep it moving (breaking charm range does appear to be a good bit larger than charm animal, so it does require some work.

Best setup is making sure you have a straight shot to run in.

I posted a screenshot on our guild forums last night that could be a good reference, spatially, if you look at the radar, but I don't have th link immediately available to repost. (If someone else finds it before I'm home from work today, feel free to post)


Finally, I actually had fraps running last night... But after half an hour of trial and error, I think I was worried that stopping for a second would cause the bear to beeline back to epi to break charm xD

....plus I was a little tired


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Edit: Anyway, as promised, here's the pic:



I had started running back to Epi after the capture here - but you can see how the positioning worked out. I bolted directly away from him (it helps to have a straightaway for this - as it minimizes chances of the bear retargeting), angry bear in tow as he started his charm - The bear stayed on me, and was in the end so far out of range that it couldn't break the charm if it wanted to.

Congratulations, guys ... that is amazing. You are an inspiration for the beastmaster in me.

First off, Awesome guide fellas! I lost track of how many times I've come back to look up stats, very good job you guys did.

After reading the entire thread, it seems I'm in a similar situation as Vermilion Okeanos. I have a level 20 Playful stalker right now ..

Long story short, after trainning a couple of lizards (dire and hearty), then a couple of stalkers (dire and hearty again), I wasn't happy with them.. So seeing as I do piercing I decided on an elder stalker. I started him on mergoyles outside gates of kryta. Using barrage, he had little chance to do any damage at all. After he hit playfull at lvl 12 (late right?), i switched to beast master build, letting him deal 100% of the damage. At level 14 (i think) I moved on to hydras (with the help of a monk of course). He was doing about 98% of the damage here. Level 15, 16, 17... and 20 passed and no evolution.

Here are a couple of screen shots:

http://img415.imageshack.us/img415/3264/gwpet15xu.gif
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8763/gwpet25eb.gif


And yes, I tried renaming him and resetting his name quite a few times, a couple in the second screen shot. What do you guys make of this?

My moa is lvl 12 and has no evolution either :|

Pets dont only get bigger when they are hearty. They also become larger when they become playful too.

I can surely back that up.

My level 20 dire moa was basically the same size as a level 3 moa in pre. It was the same with my elder moa. Now I have a hearty moa and it is 2-3x bigger than a level 3 moa.

Ash.

just a question if i have a playfull pet instead of a aggrasive pet is there still a chance he'll evovle into a dire? im trying him with my lvl 12 char and i have 12 attributes point into beastmaster.

Not to my knowledge; I have only heard of playful evolving to Elder, to Hearty and occasionally staying Playful, never to Dire.

ive seen a pet going from playful to dire. i was helping a guildie lvl up his pet which had just turned playful. i was farming griffins/minotaurs whilst he sent his pet in with no BM in to die then rez which he repeated over and over again. from what reading id done i was pretty sure he would end up hearty but to our frustration he ended up dire. so it is possible but im not sure why what we were doing triggered it.

Hmmm can one pet evolve 2x like.. from aggresive to hearty?

Can a Pet Evolve From Aggresive To Hearty or Playful?

Usually if a pet doesn't evolve by level 11 it will never evolve. If you were interested in an Elder-type pet, then you're good to go as Unevolved pets are statistically identical to Elder pets. Otherwise you may be out of luck.

The latest I've ever heard of a pet hitting its first evolution was at level 13, and since I've never once see a pet evolve at a different time than 11 and 15 I would have to say that the occurances are rare. It's more likely that if your pet hasn't evolved by 11 it won't evolve. You can always stick it out for a few more levels, though, just to be certain.

This is entirely possible. As I said in the guide, the player's position on the battle field is indeed important to the evolution process, though not usually more important than other factors. What exactly that importance is, is hard to say. The evolution process is all about subtleties, I fear, so long as we can't see the game's code. Knowing why something works is so terribly much harder than knowing what works. For example, when training a Hearty pet with a warrior it would appear impossible if indeed the player need take a lot of damage. However, simply standing up in front and taking all the aggro (sometimes even sprinting in well ahead of my pet), even though I take 0's or 1's from every hit, still will give me my Hearty pet every time. (note: I'm talking of fighting Minotaurs outside of Ice Tooth Cave)

It was already mentioned in the guide as well:
I would like to clarify further here. Additional information that was left out of the guide due to time not allowing for finishing touches included detailed information on size changes.

It appears there are 3 sizes of pets: small, slightly larger than small, and about 2-3 times the size of small.

Unevolved pets are undoubtedly of the small variety, Playful pets are undoubtedly of the 2nd size, and Hearty pets are undoubtedly of the final size. This much was thoroughly verified.

Aggressive pets are either of the 1st or 2nd sizes, while Dire are either of the 2nd or 3rd. Time did not allow for me to confirm the preliminary observations (as is terribly important when trying to measure the size of these buggers as they meander around).

Elder pets are either of the 1st or 2nd sizes. If Aggressive pets are of size 2, then it is likely that Elder are also as it is unheard of for a pet to get smaller as it goes.

This is the first time I've heard someone claim such, and due to the vast number of pets Epi and I have cycled through I'm going to have to say that I'm highly skeptical. If this is true, I'm going to have to be a stick in the mud and not believe it until it can be repeated, since it won't help anyone in the mean time.

Please read the following:
The slider:
Dire <- Aggressive <-> Elder/Unevolved <-> Playful -> Hearty

Each time your pet evolves it moves one step in either direction, based on how you've been playing with it. Therefore an Aggressive pet can only go to Dire or Elder, as they are one step away from it. Only a Playful pet could become Hearty, as that is the only evolution within one step from Hearty. Does that help clear things up?

Lovely. You ARE going to keep that character in Pre-Searing forever right? d-:

Does pet gain xp when his dead?