fly pets help

If you're going to be more PvE and want something to tank well, the Windwalking Piggy is the air tank. It's low on damage and you might want to level up it's attack skill if you keep it. Or you can just cycle out air pets as you need them. Personally never had a sawfly. I hate bugs (and frogs).

Pinnaer Foxwing, yes. If you're just going to be a lazy bum veno like I was (till I got a Nix) then it's okay if you tame and cycle air pets out.

This is from another newbie...

I started with my fly quite late as well, might even have been early 30s like you did. Currently lvl 43, almost 44, so not that much ahead.

No particular reason for the fly, except that back then everyone was recommending it as "the" air pet. Maybe it's similar to the golem/herc thing --- everyone here goes "herc is great, golem sucks", but in fact, herc is incredibly expensive. And if someone here actually cares about giving real advice (which means assuming that people asking 'which pet should I use' don't have truckloads of money sitting around), the golem pops up again... so basically I wouldn't be surprised if the fly/no-fly thing is pretty much the same.

Thing is, you can level it pretty quickly against monsters of its own level. You can try going for stuff that drops items you need for the various "expansion" quests (hay, fruit, whatever), or just DQ items, although early on it's generally faster to not worry about that and follow the levels (i.e. after the fly levelled up just move to the neighboring monsters with the next higher levels, rather than wasting 3 weeks flying halfway across the world map for a few DQ items. You'll have plenty of oppurtunity for that later on... I just hope one can eventually get something for those dragon orders that makes it worth the grind).

Later on, do try to keep your golem and fly levelled. The fly actually works great on quests, since you can send her in from the air which means a lot less danger for you and no aggro walking through monster hordes to get to your target. No need to bother with air fights unless you need to for a quest.

Same build as yours --- full INT, 50+ stats still unallocated (information conflict concerning vitality, so I kept some stats around until this clears up somehow), random gear of varying levels. So I just love the ability to fly on quests without my golem getting fed up 'cause he can't get to me, and without need to constantly rotate the view around to spot anything respawning too close.

As a side note, keep in mind that the fly is bugged when moving on the ground. Imagine a straight line between you (rather the position of the fly) and the target you are sending it to. If that line intersects with the ground (like a little bump on the way), chances are the fly will get stuck there. This can also happen when the target moves away from the fly and it tries to follow... which means the target will keep hitting your fly with whatever ranged spell it has, and your fly won't strike back.
So, levelling the fly is an opportunity to learn about its quirks :-)

xxxdsmer wrote: »

i think it was the starting lv34 foxwing that i'd captured once to check out, but its faster than the petite sawfly, dosent have as much attack, but i think it has better defense than a petite sawfly, and with a lvl'd bash or other agro skill the lower attack wouldnt be a problem at all (b/c it would hold the agro and u help kill the target)

The foxwings quite honestly aren't very good pets. Their defense stats are not much better than the sawfly (pdef is actually worse), and the attack is significantly worse. I would only recommend getting one if you can't stand the sight of a wasp.

If you want max attack, the petite sawfly is the way to go. But if you want something more balanced, tweakz is right that the mid-level wasps are your best bet. Scroll down to just above Lv70 on this link and you can see the sawfly, two higher level wasps, and the foxwing level 60 stats side by side.

http://perfectworld.clanfree.net/compapet.htm

If you want a quick level 30+ flying pet, it looks like the level 31 wasp hivewarder is a pretty good bet. A little low on hp, but same pdef, better attack, and significantly better mdef than the foxwing. I think the goldenwing emperor tweakz mentions is the lower level version.

At those levels I consider mdef to be more important for air pets than land pets. A lot of air mobs will nuke your pet from a distance while it's fighting something else, and you can't heal without picking up aggro. So it's important for the pet to have good mdef to withstand those nukes until you can target the other mob and order your pet to attack. Frankly, that was the main reason I liked the flying pig before I got the phoenix even though its attack was abysmal. Frequently I could just ignore the extra attacker(s), kill the main target without having to heal the pig, and unsummon it to lose all aggro.

Well, you're right about the nix just dominating. But I'm not sure it's worth taming (well, buying) a nix - there's really not that much in the air, and any old air pet seems to do well enough. I used a foxwing for a good long while - it was good enough. (And good practice for toggling multiple attack skills)

What do I have to look forward to, in the air, after the 69 cultivation bosses?

To be fair, my nix is underlevelled - but I had almost the exact opposite experience.

I could, just about, take the first boss with the nix - but I had to chainheal.

With the herc, I was throwing in ironwoods between the heals and it went down much faster.

(Went back, and with a squad I was throwing in amps too and things were much much faster.)

Getting stuck on little bits of land is just enough of an irritation that I'm not using the nix on land mobs ever again. Which, of course, means it's going to stay under-levelled. Hummm. I think I see my problem.

Gah, I'd forgotten the cyannair. Those were just annoying, far too many hitpoints. I have to fight them again?

But no more aerial bosses? At least some elites? Something 20 levels above me?

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Think you only have to fight cyannairs once, for the last hope(?) quest string.

White Pheasant is a 78 elite, needed for culti. There's some 80+ flying mobs in Burning Heart, plus the level 80(?) mothrans between Village of the Lost and Dreamweaver. Don't know if there's anything higher anywhere.

Thank goodness on the cyannairs. They're not that tough, but bad enough to be annoying. They die as slowly as level 80 stuff.

Well, I can already grind on the 80 flyers, albeit slowly.

Didn't know the pheasant was elite, I'll have to find that once I hit 78, pwdb thinks it's tameable.

I reckon my point stands then - if there's so little that you need to kill in the air, then you might as well treat your air pets like your water pets. Whilst it's nice to have the option to use an air pet on ground mobs, since you can't use it in instances you must have a ground pet already.

Ah well. I'll keep my cuddly little foxwing. And the nix. But I think I regret bothering with the nix, now.

Krisnda - Lost City wrote: »

yes the nix may be the best air pet you can get, but right now its not worth trying to get the 9999 nix feathers to get it (too much moneyb:surrender)

The point was that it's not worth it to invest in a sawfly.

Krisnda - Lost City wrote: »

if its not worth to invest in a sawfly (when your a higher lv) and its too expensive to buy a nix, then...what? XD

Keep in mind that tweakz and I got our phoenixes back when they were like 20 million. Since the nix cost is fixed to gold, while the skill costs are fixed to coin, things have changed substantially.

Back then, putting two skills on your pet and leveling them to 5 could cost you 3-4 million, which was easily 1/6th the cost of a phoenix or herc. So I probably would've agreed with tweakz's advice not to put skills on regular pets back then.

But with gold at 400-600k, a legendary pet is going to cost you 75-110 million. A measly 3-4 million for pet skills is only going to set you back 2%-4% on your legendary pet fund. The time and effort the skills will save you are probably well worth that small hit to your legendary pet fund.