Venomancer: Pet Skills

SoulSlap - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So first off this is for non-cash shoppers. To me this game is leisure and I dont intend to spend any money on the game.

Don't knock Cash Shoper's opinions, many of them are actually some very experienced and knowledgeable players and not necessarily out of touch or unsympathetic to the circumstances of f2p players. On the subject of rare skills in particular it is mostly wealthy well established players that can speak with some authority.

I have been searching the forums but have not found answers to a few questions.

I really hope not to come accross as mean but you should try the stickys on the forum. http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1281761

I have a Glacial Walker and have been reviewing the skills available in Arch:

Lvl--skill name

---

description

---

cooldown

---

Interpretation
5----Bash

---

Phys + 200% of Pet's base physical damage--- 8

---

hit harder
5----Flesh Ream----Phys 200% of Pet's base physical damage over 9 seconds---15----hit harder
5----Fireball

---

Fire 200% of Pet's base physical damage---- 8---element hit
5----Icicle

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Water 200% of Pet's base physical damage

---

8---element hit
5----Toxic Mist

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Wood 200% of Pet's base physical damage--- 8---element hit
5----Thunderbolt----Metal 200% of Pet's base physical damage----8----element hit
5----Sandblow----Earth 200% of Pet's base physical damage----8---element hit
5----Roar----attract enemy's attacks----15--single target
5----Howl----decreasing enemy's Magic Defense by 36% for 15 secs---30---lose aggro
5---Pierce

---

decrease enemy's Phys Def by 36% for 15 secs---30---lose aggro
5---Threaten----decrease enemy's Phys Att by 36% for 15 secs---30-lose aggro
5----Shriek----100% chance to interrupt channeling----10---def ++
5----Slow----Decrease enemy speed by 50% for 6 secs----10---atk ++
5---Tough---Reduce damage taken by 50% for 15 secs---60----take less dam
5---Boost--Recover 12% of Maximum HP----10---cure

This list of yours does show that you're an enthusiast, and I hope not to discourage you but really I've got to point out to the Wiki as another very useful resource. http://pwi-wiki.perfectworld.com/index.php/Pet_Skills

The database of pet skills on http://www.ecatomb.net/pwi/petskill.php gives the illusion that one can get Protect and Reflect pet skill scrolls. That's a bit unfair, Ecatomb is a wonderful resource and I don't think it means to be misleading. However, according to this database http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/items/11713 the Reflect, and numerous others, were only available during the "Temple of the Dragon" which I presume stopped sometime last year. Desdi covered that already.

This puts a lot of very nice veno pet skills off the market. Here is the list:
skill name

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description

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cooldown

---

Interpretation
Bloodthirst----Drain enemy life equal to 25% of Pet's HP

---

30

---

cure
Consume

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Drain Mana from the enemy equal to 25% of Pet's HP

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30

---

cure
Sacrifice

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Lose 75% of current HP to inflict 400% of Pet's base physical damage to an enemy----30----hit harder
Penetrate

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Phys hit, inflicts 800 damage

---

30

---

hit harder
Reflect

---

Reflect 70% of melee damage taken for 1 hour

---

3

---

take less phy dam
Claw

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Increase Pet's base physical damage by 30% for 1 hour

---

3

---

hit harder
Protect

---

Increase Pet's Magic Defense by 150% for 1 hour

---

3----take less mag dam
Strong

---

Increase Pet's Physical Defense by 150% for 1 hour----3----take less phy dam

Now thats out of the way, my question is directed towards venos who have used thee above skills on a regular and have an idea of their effective/ineffectiveness in battle. Keeping in mind that a veno wants her tank to hold aggro, and I have thoughts of tanking a few of my own TT runs for 79 gear drops, so holding aggro from others would be useful too.

Elaborating on geochris' excelent response, rare pet skills are not really an option to legendary pets in terms of cost. Pretty much if you can afford them you very likely can afford a herc or a nix too, and given the advantages legendaries get in terms of base stats this is usually considered the most sensible choice. The rare pet skills are usually something best left to endgame venos, generally they are employed for enhancing the capabilities of some top tier pets (such as the Marksman or the Hatchling) or by venos, like myself, who opt out of acquiring a herc for other than financial considerations. I do have some experience with this having skilled my tabby and shaodu with some of the rare skills, and while this certainly helps benchmark their performance to competitive standards it does in no way make the more commonly available pets on par with legendaries. Further, adding Bash really is the best you can do in terms of improving aggro for your pet, although just keeping your main damage skill up to level should be the minimum for competent gameplay. Certainly I would advice you not to touch the Walker's original skill set, it really is pretty awesome.

Tough, especially if leveled, will provide you with an excellent defensive skill, and while in strict terms it won't improve your tanking capabilities, it will allow you a greater chance to use offensive skills given it reduces the need for spam healing when soloing, as well as allowing your pet to better take on multiples when doing squadwork. Boost is worthless, it is a very common mistake for beginers to see it as something useful but there is no redeeming quality for this skill, its effect is simply too negligible to make any significant impact and even if it did allow you to skip a heal every now and then it simply doesn't compare to damage reduction effects such as Tough or Threaten. Slow is marginally useful but its aplications are pretty much restricted to PvP. For PvE the best use for it was when luring fast mobs, but this was back when pulling was a veno specialty and before ranged pets became the standard. Roar is generally considered one of the better pet skills although it may not seem so at first, in very simple terms it gives you an option when you do lose aggro from your pet, but used properly it even finds place in squadwork and is the one skill that can make all the difference in between a close call and a full wipe. As for the damage skills, ideally Bash and Ream should be the better choices, as this allow you to better diversify your damage output by making pets full phys damage dealers. Ream as a second skill is also much easier to operate given it's longer cooldown. However the differences in between these skills and and elemental bashes such as Icicle is near minimal. Three damage skills for a high damage output pet like the Walker is certainly not bad at all, although really two should be sufficient and it's always nice to have some debuffs or utility skills on your pet. In endgame terms the current gear power creep makes pets holding aggro a moot issue (which may or may not change with the upcoming expansion) so long term there's not much point in skilling to increase the hate your pet generates.

With no future plans of getting a herc, I was wondering is it worth it to spend the coin to change the walker skills to the following, total of 1,500,000.

The walker comes with:
Flesh Ream
Icicle --> bash 300k
Roar --> boost 300k
Tough --> Slow 900k

The Herc comes with:
Pounce lvl1
Strong lvl1
Protect lvl1
Reflect lvl1

Ive heard rumors of new pets coming out, will they be coming with the option to buy these other decent skills in Arch?

We don't yet know whether rare skills will be made more easily available with the pet upgrade, although at the moment there's nothing to indicate it will so it seems unlikely. Even if it does chances are they would be acquired through supply tokens, like all other pet upgrades, and that their cost would be more substantial than that of skills you can acquire through the Zookeeper npc at Archo. http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1529051 Feel free to join the discussion... Which I think at the moment centers around poo flinging monkeys...b:surrender