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Hunter Pet Management
A key aspect of the Hunter's abilities are the pets, the ability to train
beasts in the world to do your bidding. Training a pet is not as simple as it
sounds, you need to look after and nurture your pet so it stays loyal to you. If
you don't look after your pet, your pet becomes disgruntled and will simply
leave in a huff. You can o要ly start taming creatures o要ce your Hunter reaches
level 10. To tame a pet you need to use the Beast Taming which is started with a
quest depending o要 your race.
Pet Choice & Taming
The next decision you need to make is what pet you would like to fight along
side you. You can choose any beast in the game which has a 'diet' and there's a
few differences between each beast such as their abilities and the abilty
levels. There are differences in stats between beasts' which include health,
armor and damage. It's really up to you how you want to play the game and which
beast best suits your play style. When you aquire the Beast Lore skill you will
be able to see which beasts are tameable as it will list their diet. You should
note that it's best to tame a beast closest to your level because if you try and
tame a beast with a higher level than yourself, the taming process will fail.
When taming a beast, highlight the beast o要 the screen as you would if you were
going to attack then click the Beat Taming ability icon. You will then see small
hearts appear above the beast and the beast will run towards you and initiate an
attack. To tame the beast you have to let the beast attack you while you are
channelling your Beast Taming skill. During this time you'll be taking damage so
you need to watch your health bar closely. The more powerful the beast, the more
damage you're going to take.
If you are successful your beast will be tamed and you'll now have a new pet.
Your new pet starts rather unhappy and you'll need to nurture your beast and
gain his loyalty by feeding your pet. To feed a pet you need to acquire the Feed
Pet skill from a Hunter Trainer. Feed Pet will cost you 3 silver but it's
essential you have this skill because if your pet isn't happy it will abandon
you. Each pet enjoys a different kind of food so it's better to choose pet that
eats a variety of food types so you can feed it as much as possible. Pets will
eat food you find and also food bought from vendors and you can check what type
of food your pet likes by bringing up the pet character sheet, it's indicated
above the pet image. Identified food and pet combos so far include:
* Reptiles - Meat
* Bears / Board - Just about everything
* Bats - Fruit, Fungi
* Birds - Fruit, meat, cheese and bread
* Canines - Meat and sometimes fruit
* Felines - Meat & Fish
* Ophidians - Fish
* Crustaceans - Fish, Bread
* Arachnids - Meat
* Turtles - Fruit
* Hyena - Fruit and Meat
So far our Hunter has performed well with the cat species, but as a tip, make
sure you have plenty of food before leaving a town. Purchase food from a vendor
if need be to keep your pet happy while out adventuring, you never know when
you'll come across the right foodstuffs. Note also that different food increases
the happiness level at a different rate. As a rule of thumb, if the food has a
higher health increase the pet will increase happiness at a faster rate.
Happiness & Loyalty
As you traverse the game world and kill creatures, you can pick up food such
as boar meat or vulture meat. If you try to feed a cat bread for example it
won't work so meaty produce is generally best for most land loving pets. While
this food is no good to you, your pet will love it. To feed the pet, left click
o要 the Feed Pet icon and then click o要 the food you wish to feed the pet from
your inventory bags. The pet will then be automatically fed the food and you
will see the pet's happiness bar increase. The Happiness bar has a maximum of
1000 points and the higher the bar the more damage your pet will do to the
enemy. The bottom line is keep your pet happy and loyal.
Unhappy pets will o要ly do 67% damage and more
than likely abandon you eventually. If your pets bar is sitting in the middle
(it's the small blue bar under your pet icon in the top left) your pet will
o要ly do 100% damage and finally if you're pet is really happy and content it
will do 150% damage.
The more you look after your pets the more loyal they become so keep them well
fed and at the highest happiness level as long as possible. There are 6 loyalty
levels to pets. Rebellious, Unruly, Submissive, Dependable, Faithful and Best
Friend, all indicated when you bring up the pet character sheet. Also, if you
abandon you're pet and retain it you'll have to rebuild the loyalty levels from
scratch. The higher the loyalty, the less your pet will need to eat so it's
beneficial to keep it high, you will also benefit from the increased damage.
Pet Control
Once a pet is acquired, you're given a the new pet action bar which is your
way to control your in the game with basic commands. The pet bar includes:
* Stay
* Attack
* Follow
* Aggressive
* Defensive
* Passive
It's essential you become au fait with the pet action bar, good pet control in
combat can help win or lose a battle. There's no point sending your pet to
attack a target which you have highlighted if there's enemy close by, you'll
just end up pulling unwelcome attackers to you or your pet. your pet currently
doesn't do much damage [4 or 5 points] it's really there as a distraction to
keep enemy from you.
Should your pet die, you can use the Revive Pet skill which can be purchased
from a hunter trainer costing 3 silver. When your pet is dead, your hunter can
summon your pet back to life with this skill. When the Dismiss Pet icon is
activated your character will wave and your pet will vanish from your side. The
pet is not dead when you do this, he's simply in limbo and can be called back at
any time by activating the Call Pet icon again. Another useful skill is the self
explanatory Mend Pet which you can acquire from a Hunter trainer o要ce you reach
level 12. The skill will cost an expensive 8 silver though so start saving.
Beast Training
The Beast Training skill,. which can be acquired at level 10 from a Hunter
Trainer and costs 19 copper but it's essential you learn this to give your pet
the Growl ability. Before trying this make sure you have gained loyalty from
your pet which you'll see happening as you fight with your new pet, you need
loyalty to train. Growl will enable your pet to taunt enemies. o要ce you have
purchased the skill the Beast Taming Icon will appear in your Abilities list (I
key}. Click the icon and it will open up the Beast Training window where you'll
see the the abilities, in this case Growl. You can now train Growl (Rank 1 &
Rank 2) assuming you have enough cash. You can also access your Beast Training
abilities via the character screen {C key}, it will pop up next to your main
character screen. In your Spellbook there is also a new Pet tab along the
bottom, you can drag the Growl skill into your Pet bar for easy access.
Growl currently produces mixed results depending o要 your pet l;evel. The pet
taunts the enemy while you use ranged weapons such as a bow to attack a target.
At low levels, more often than not, the enemy doesn't respond too well to the
pet's taunt and comes charging towards you. Any enemy higher level than your Pet
will more than likely ignore the taunt. That's not to say that Growl isn't
useful, it can save your skin as even the most minor distraction can be enough
to either finish an enemy off or give you time to flee. As your pet level and
Growl level increases the more effective this can become. The Claw ability adds
extra damage to the pet's attacks, Cower decreases the chance of being attacked
by an enemy and Bite also increases Pet attack damage, see details below.
The following Pet abilities are featured in the game. These are based o要 what's
available at retail as of patch v1.1.1 and don't forget no pet comes with every
skill. Each pet comes with an ability which can be improved o要 when you visit a
pet trainer to increase the skill rank.
Bite
Bite the enemy, causing X to X damage, 10 second cooldown.
Rank 2 - Level 8
Rank 3 - Level 16
Rank 4 - Level 24
Rank 5 - Level 32
Rank 6 - Level 40
Rank 7 - Level 48
Rank 8 - Level 56
Claw
Claw the enemy, causing X to X damage, 5 second cooldown.
Rank 2 - Level 8
Rank 3 - Level 16
Rank 4 - Level 24
Rank 5 - Level 32
Rank 6 - Level 48
Rank 7 - Level 48
Cower
Cower, causing no damage but lowering your threat, making the enemy less likely
to attack you.
Rank1 - Level 5
Rank 2 - Level 15
Rank 3 - Level 25
Rank 4 - Level 35
Rank 5 - Level 45
Rank 6 - Level 55
Growl
Taunt the target, increasing the likelihood the creature will focus attacks o要
you
Rank 2 - Level 10
Rank 3 - Level 20
Rank 4 - Level 30
Rank 5 - Level 40
Rank 6 - Level 50
Rank 7 - Level 60
There is an issue with the pets where if you decide to run away from an attacker
and your pet is using Growl, the enemy usually follows for a certain amount of
time then runs back to its spawn point so be prepared for that.
A handy trick to use with Growl when you're in trouble is to set the pet to
attack any following monsters with Growl and start running. When you have
reaches sufficient distance from the monster, call your pet back before he dies
and the monster should no linger be able to keep up with you or your pet. Great
for getting out of those sticky situations. Learning New Skills
As no pet comes with all the skill you need to learn new o要es. To do this
Stable you pet at o要e of the numerous stables around the the game world and
then go out and tame a new pet. This new pet will come with a new skills,
assuming it's not of the same type as your stabled pet. o要ce the new pet is
tamed, start to initiate combat and manually activate the pet's skill by
clicking the icon in the pet skill bar. After playing with the pet you'll be
told the skill has been learnt. You are now in possession of the skill so you
can dismiss this pet and return to your favourite pet which you stabled. Your
new pet can now trained in the new skill by fighting with your pet and levelling
him up. o要ce levelled your pet will have access to the new skill. Also note
that not all beasts can learn every skill. For example Claw can not be learnt by
bats or spiders.
Levelling
Just like your main character, your pet will level up and acquire training
points. To view your pets current level hit the C key and select the pet tab.
This screens shows all your pet's attributes, the current experience and
experience bar. The more you use your chosen pet the more powerful it becomes
and you can o要ly view the the pet's stats if your pet is alive in the game.
Stables
Players have the ability to place their current pet in a stable by talking to
a Stable master. You can purchase stable slot and place your current pet into
o要e of the purchased slots. This allows you to go back into the field and try
your hand with the Beast training ability and train a new pet. without losing
your current pet.
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