Advanced Pet Mgmt questions....

beloria

I'm a lvl 52 veno on a Lost City. Because I'm poor AND cheap I intend to go with my Vol Mag, Petite Sawfly, and Eldergoth Marksman as long term pets.

My long range plan is not to actively pvp until late 7x or 8x. Up to this point all my efforts have gone into levelling and raising my caster and fox skills. At what point does it become more important to level/add pet skills? All my pets have only the skills they began with at their starting levels. I'm assuming I would be adding skills to the tank pet(s) first.

At post time I have a little over 1 mill in coin in the bank and roughly 100k I run around with for skill up/repair/etc.

I prefer not to use zen except for things that are impossible(relatively anyway) to get without it and certainly couldn't afford the Heroic pets that way.

Lastly (at least until I think of more...b:laugh) are those pets viable in late game or are venos forced to get the epic pets to be competitive in late game PW?

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

beloria wrote: »

I'm a lvl 52 veno on a Lost City. Because I'm poor AND cheap I intend to go with my Vol Mag, Petite Sawfly, and Eldergoth Marksman as long term pets.

My long range plan is not to actively pvp until late 7x or 8x. Up to this point all my efforts have gone into levelling and raising my caster and fox skills. At what point does it become more important to level/add pet skills? All my pets have only the skills they began with at their starting levels. I'm assuming I would be adding skills to the tank pet(s) first.

At post time I have a little over 1 mill in coin in the bank and roughly 100k I run around with for skill up/repair/etc.

I prefer not to use zen except for things that are impossible(relatively anyway) to get without it and certainly couldn't afford the Heroic pets that way.

Lastly (at least until I think of more...b:laugh) are those pets viable in late game or are venos forced to get the epic pets to be competitive in late game PW?

I would recommend a Glacial Walker instead of VMag, it has more HP and Mdef, and just about the same atck and pdef, and equaly slow, making it a better choice, if you plan on keeping it as a physical tank/

Kalee - Lost City

Yea , i would have to a agree that using a glacier walker would be better but if ur high lvl there's no point in changing now. They have similar stats just a few different, it would be a waste of time to start lvling a glacier walker from its original lvl. Whilst ur lvl 52, i think u should stick with the magmite but if u r wanting to get a glacier it's fine too. As for the skills u should look towards lvling Sand Bash for ur magmite if ur looking for it to tank monsters, it helps to hold agro.

beloria

Thanks to both for your input...I think the stats are similar enough that I'll try to make the vol mag work.
My question about pet skills is not so much which ones as when to buy them. Do I hold off on my veno skills now and upgrade the pets?..Is gear more important at my level for example, or is the tanking stuff far enough in the future that keeping the pets at/near my level is fine for 5/10 levels without adding/upgrading their skills?...those type of things.

drjiggle

You could go either way on the magmite vs. walker issue at this point. At your level it really wouldn't take you that long to level up a walker in Room 4 if you chose to do so, but honestly the stat difference isn't that big an issue. If the walker can kill something, so can the magmite. If the magmite is going to die, so will the walker.

I would level up the skills on an as needed basis. If you're stealing aggro, improve one of his aggro skills (Bash, Sandblow, etc.). If you want to start running TT solo mode and you think he needs some buffs, add Tough and/or Threaten (for example). But don't do it just because you've reached some level milestone and you think you're supposed to. Do it because you need to. Even if you think you'll never get a herc or a phoenix (I did), you might change your mind later (I did), and then whatever you put into skills for your magmite and sawfly is mostly wasted, other than the fact that it gives you some immediate benefit by making levelling easier while you use them.

I personally prefer Thunderbolt (metal damage) over Sandblow (earth damage) if you're going to put an elemental bash skill on your pet. Sandblow is weak against the mobs you're strongest against (earth), so it's going to help less than any other elemental skill for holding aggro. Thunderbolt is strong against the mobs you're weakest against (wood), so it's going to help you kill those faster.

tweakz

beloria wrote: »

I think the stats are similar enough that I'll try to make the vol mag work.

I would not, especially at your level. A Dark Wanderer is at least faster. You should be able to swiftly level up a Glacial Walker and or Dark Wanderer.

My question about pet skills is not so much which ones as when to buy them.

Skills like Howl, Bash, etc can help you grind faster, but if you're leveling by dailies: don't bother. Your Volcanic Magmite isn't worth investing in skills on, and if you're set on PvP, I'd reconsider getting a Nix. They're not that hard to get. You can blow 4m+ on skills per pet or apply that coin toward a legendary pet.

Do I hold off on my veno skills now and upgrade the pets?

Pets can easily be made obsolete. If your account is ****: you can lose your pets / skills, but you can't lose your personal skills. No pet skill compares to amp, sage ironwood, purge, noxious gas, etc, and no pet is equipped to do all tasks. For example, I have the rare skills claw, protect, and strong on 3 different pets because they all are suitable for various tasks but my skills can be used with any of the 4 pets I have those skills on.

..Is gear more important at my level for example, or is the tanking stuff far enough in the future that keeping the pets at/near my level is fine for 5/10 levels without adding/upgrading their skills?...those type of things.

I think it's around level 70 or 80 that you start needing better gear for things like TT. I'm pure mag and found that ornaments with +pdef were sufficient. Now I have up to +5 refines, and perfect garnet or better imbues (level 90+) to do the things I want, but could also have gone with TT90 gears (I chose +m/s and -ch instead).

Consider how much you'll be spending on pet skills for pets that would be made obsolete, your 89+ skills when you could farm them with a Herc, and skills that won't enable you to do what you could with legendary pets. I think you should re-evaluate getting legendary pets as they are cheaper than some of the 89+ skills I have. The longer you put it off or change your mind: the harder it's going to be to get done (wasted coin on alternatives, much more time spent leveling them).

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Around level 50 you'll probably want to add another bash variant to your pets to maintain aggro.

That's... you know, I've not bought any other pet skills at all?