Guild Wars Guru

Evolving Pets

1 pages • Page 1
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Cahalith
Academy Page
• #1
Hi! I've started running a Warrior/Ranger with a pet, and I figured I'd get some advice on pet evolution. Among my group of friends, my Warrior is our sole tank, and I spend most of my time making sure the mobs are engaging me and not beating on my little caster friends. I thought having a pet would help out, but I can't decide what's better: finding a way to turn my pet into a second tank to absorb damage, or having my pet do damage for me since I don't get to do as much as I'd like? Since there are experienced Rangers in this forum, I figured I could get advice on which way a pet is more beneficial. Also, how do you gain a specific pet evolution? Can someone point me to tips?
L33TNeMiSiS
L33TNeMiSiS
Academy Page
• #2
Something that you might find of intrest is:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10203229

If memory server correctly ... the kinda pet you get through evolution is dependant on what you have him currently doing.

Not sure on the titles but basically its a trade off between health and damage:

If you pet is currently doing allot of damage and not really taking hits he will evolve into a pet with high damage and little health(incomparason).

An article on the wiki page that explains: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Animal_companion
wilebill
wilebill
Desert Nomad
• #3
Just my two cents, if you mean PvE with hench or hench and heroes, I have had very good luck with Hearty. Pet is no good if it doesn't stay alive.

The base damage of the pet is what you can increase with evolution to Dire, but the real damage is done by pet skills anyway.
Epinephrine
Epinephrine
Master of Beasts
• #4
Agreed. I used to be a proponent of Dire pets, since the difference in DPS was meaningful. Now I tend to take Hearty pets.

A Dire pet deals ~4 DPS more than a Hearty pet, at full BM. When pet skills added only 2-3 DPS per skill this amounted to a free pet skill.

Now, with a skill like Feral Aggression adding 10 DPS at 12 BM, or Enraged Lunge putting out +16 DPS, the argument for having 420 health on a pet rather than 540 is harder to make; sure, you squeeze a bit more damage out, but at what cost? If the pet dies, or if you are wasting energy keeping the pet up rather than inflicting damage with that energy you have lost out in the equation.
Wyrmdog
Wyrmdog
Academy Page
• #5
So...is the best method of getting a Hearty pet to just equip no attack skills for them and use them as normal? Or do I need to get it killed a lot?
SpriteSODA
SpriteSODA
Academy Page
• #6
i find it best to death level your pet before charming it. take 1 mesmer hero, preferably Gwen cus she's hot, give her 12+1+3 on fast casting, remove all of her skills in skillbar except Ressurect. set her up on Avoid Combat. go alone with her and find an animal you fancy in a deserted area. remove all clothing and let it kill you. once you die, gwen will instantly rez you, and the animal will kill you again. he will start to chase gwen but she will run away, rez you, and he will come back to you, cus you have DP and therefore less HP. after the animal gets to like lvl 12 add more clothing so it wont kill you in 1 hit. go eat and watch TV for like an hour an a half, then come back to find a level 20 animal. all you gotta do now is to charm it easily. good luck.
Epinephrine
Epinephrine
Master of Beasts
• #7
SpriteSODA's advice will not get a Hearty pet. To get a Hearty pet, the pet must take damage.

Easiest way to get a Hearty pet is just to bring it along while playing, use comfort animal to revive it. If it levels too much while dead it can end up unevolved.
l
lordpwn
Krytan Explorer
• #8
I evolved my heroes' pets to hearty lvl 20s just by making them take the pets along when I went LB+SS farming. Of course the pets died the instant the party got the wurms but the pets seem to get experience even when they are dead. Every one of them evolved into hearty - I guess because they didn't deal ANY damage at all while leveling up.
Diddy bow
Diddy bow
Furnace Stoker
• #9
Hearty is easy enough, just go through the game as you would with charm animal and it will get experience and be hearty (mos health)

Death leveling is the best way for a Dire pet for damage. Just take it to a shrine and let it kill you untill it is a high level. At least 15
iridescentfyre
iridescentfyre
Desert Nomad
• #10
Quote: Originally Posted by SpriteSODA preferably Gwen cus she's hot Quote: Originally Posted by SpriteSODA go alone with her and find an animal you fancy in a deserted area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpriteSODA
remove all clothing Hottest post I've read all day.
Age
Age
Hall Hero
• #11
I would like to know how I got a hearty wolf instead of a dire which is what I wanted.What did I do wrong lvled it in Sprearhead Park?
C
Chthon
Grotto Attendant
• #12
Dire and Hearty are relatively easy to get, but I'd like to see someone post a reliable method of getting Elder.
bilateralrope
bilateralrope
Desert Nomad
• #13
Quote: Originally Posted by Epinephrine
SpriteSODA's advice will not get a Hearty pet. To get a Hearty pet, the pet must take damage.

Easiest way to get a Hearty pet is just to bring it along while playing, use comfort animal to revive it. If it levels too much while dead it can end up unevolved. As I understand it if you deal more damage than your pet, you get hearty. If your pet deals more damage, you get dire.

So for a dire pet I use the death leveling method before charming it. For a hearty pet I take the pet along with me while running non-bm builds, and since they do level while dead I don't bring any res for it.
Wulfgast
Wulfgast
Frost Gate Guardian
• #14
Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon
Dire and Hearty are relatively easy to get, but I'd like to see someone post a reliable method of getting Elder. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the most reliable way to get Elder is to level your pet to 15 without either you or your pet dealing or taking any damage. If you have a really strong hero setup, I suppose this is possible, but it could be pretty daunting. I'm thinking of trying it soon, though.

Now, here's the question: could it be better to have an Elder for PvE, rather than Hearty or Dire, simply because it's more well-rounded?
Div
Div
I like yumy food!
• #15
Quote: Originally Posted by Cahalith
Among my group of friends, my Warrior is our sole tank, and I spend most of my time making sure the mobs are engaging me and not beating on my little caster friends. I thought having a pet would help out Having a pet actually messes up the aggro. To aggro properly, make sure no one else is in your aggro bubble, and run up to the mob. Once all the mobs are attacking you, the team can move in.

If you really want a pet that'll draw aggro, get a dire. It has the lowest HP so monsters will target it more.
C
Chthon
Grotto Attendant
• #16
Quote: Originally Posted by Wulfgast Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the most reliable way to get Elder is to level your pet to 15 without either you or your pet dealing or taking any damage. If you have a really strong hero setup, I suppose this is possible, but it could be pretty daunting. I'm thinking of trying it soon, though. I've heard that too. Seems to me that just sending in the heroes would probably not get you any xp though. I've also heard that life-steal is not counted as damage for purposes of evolution, so you could maybe do it as a touchie. But I don't have the faintest clue how you and the pet could avoid damage entirely during the process.

Please post your results if you try it.

Quote:
Now, here's the question: could it be better to have an Elder for PvE, rather than Hearty or Dire, simply because it's more well-rounded? I'm not sure. That's why I want to try it. I've never liked dire; and I like it even less now that (1) we have skills that provide pretty ample damage without having to pay hp to get it, and (2) the dreaded possibility of pet-DP in PvE continues to loom. I tend to use hearty, and I tend to be pretty happy with it. But I would like to try a little bit more base damage from elder and see if it's worth the smaller life penalty. To do a really clean comparison, I need to swap my ranger from his current hearty to an elder, hence my request for a reliable way to do so.
lennymon
lennymon
Forge Runner
• #17
Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon
Dire and Hearty are relatively easy to get, but I'd like to see someone post a reliable method of getting Elder. easy, death level to 12th ... then charm and equip 0 BM drag it along and make it tank dollars to donuts it will go elder at level 15 every time.
Age
Age
Hall Hero
• #18
Quote: Originally Posted by bilateralrope
As I understand it if you deal more damage than your pet, you get hearty. If your pet deals more damage, you get dire.

So for a dire pet I use the death leveling method before charming it. For a hearty pet I take the pet along with me while running non-bm builds, and since they do level while dead I don't bring any res for it. I guess that is what I did wrong I did more damage than the pet could of put lower points in Marks.
C
Chthon
Grotto Attendant
• #19
Quote: Originally Posted by lennymon
easy, death level to 12th ... then charm and equip 0 BM drag it along and make it tank dollars to donuts it will go elder at level 15 every time. Tried this out (with minor variations) and it worked. If other folks can repeat this, I'd call it a guaranteed way to get an elder pet

Here's exactly what I did: Got myself a new rainbow phoenix. Since it couldn't be death leveled, I fed it minos and bugs with a bonder hero and call of protection up all the time, along with enraged lunge, etc. for massive pet damage. Leveled it to 11 this way and it turned aggressive. Continued this way till it hit 12. Except for 1 time when I accidentally got it poisoned and bleeding, it never lost a single point of HP during this phase. Then I changed gears: set myself up as splinter/barrage and drug him along at 6 BM (6 to shorten the skill disable and allow me to rez him w/ enough life to not die immediately). Did Cathedral of Flames and wandered around Silent Surf for a bit and he turned elder for me.
xvix83
xvix83
Lion's Arch Merchant
• #20
Quote: Originally Posted by xvix83
i'll tell u how i lvl my pet from 5-20 in 20mins, well since ur a ranger, i think you know the margonite farm using EoE and splinter/barrage...if u dont, find in farming page...

do that farm and try to get all the experience from the dead margonites by not running too fast when they die then your pet will lvl VERY fast, weather its dead or not, if its range, it will get the experience..thus, u can put it on heel or not, depends if u wanna kill ur precious pet

Cheers! well, since i just posted it on the other thread, no harm posting it here =)