What do I do with this pet?

[DreadLord Lestat]

I have not messed around with the new pet stuff as of yet. I have trained a few pets to the first level but not sure where to go. I have this cold drake that kind of sucks so I guess it is a good candidate to play around with. If I mess him up, no big loss.



I was thinking either necro or maybe poisoning or something like that? I don't want to add magery because he would just be a mini dragon. Ideas or suggestions welcome!! Help a noob out!!

 

[Pawain]

Use it as a test pet.

Find one with near 120 wrestling and >120 tactics to make a keeper from.

Cold Drake

As with all pets, best is AI/ Chiv. Plus you can add a second special.

 

[SouthPaw]

If you choose poison it won't do any higher than level 2 poisoning. Devs may change that sometime in the future, but who knows.

I have a little experience with necro on a pet. Its just OK.

Most people agree that magery, chiv, and mysticism are better. Chiv is the best single target magic and mysticism has some area spells, plus heal and cure.

Hope that helps.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

Question on resists. I was kind of following the pet training a-z post. I was upgrading the resist when I got onto the 4th one, it set physical back to what it had been. I did this twice so I am guessing there is a limit as to how much certain things can be raised per slot or something? This was taken the 2nd time. I had done physical first but when I entered the fire, it reverted to zero. I removed it and tried again but when I added to plan, it zeroed it out again.

 

[SouthPaw]

Total resist points max is 365, including the resists your pet started with. So you can't always put 80 points into 4 areas and 45 points into the 5th. Unfortunately you cannot move resists down, only up, so you're stuck with that high cold resist the drake started with.

The 1st screen shot shows the original resists as:
65 physical
37 fire
79 cold
49 poison
44 energy

If I were you (for PvM) I'd probably go with :
80 physical
78 fire
79 cold (no change here)
50 poison
78 energy

Or if you plan to use this for PVP:
72 physical
72 fire
79 cold
71 poison
71 energy.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

@DreadLord Lestat With Chiv/AI, these guys hit pretty hard. I have a few I use on a regular basis. If you decide to go that route, which I HIGHLY suggest, you should be able to (off the top of my head) end up with about 600 +/- HP's, 750+/- mana, 20HPR, 13SR, 30MR if you scroll it up with all 120's. If you go with 110's around 700Hp's.

Regarding the HP's, think about what you might use it for before you "set" the resists. If you might use it against anything and everything (all damage type stuff), you might want to "spread out" the resists fairly evenly. So it would be a viable pet against a lot of different stuff. Something along the lines of 80/70/79/66/70.

After you have had some fun with that one, look for one with over capped tactics. I have seen them as high as 125.9. They hit a little harder, AND you don't need to use a 110/115/120 tactics scroll on them! So you save the gold cost/value of the scroll and the points (to use somewhere else).

Lastly, during the last round of applying points, DON'T FORGET TO RAISE THE BASE DAMAGE TO MAX!!! (22) As many pets as I have done, I have forgotten. It REALLY sucks! Trust me on this.

Oh ya, I forgot, the Pet Training Plan SUCKS! I asked one of the devs about why there couldn't be a simple button to "apply" after setting up the plan. The "gist" of the the conversation was, "it just can't be done".

 

[Khaelor]

@DreadLord Lestat With Chiv/AI, these guys hit pretty hard. I have a few I use on a regular basis. If you decide to go that route, which I HIGHLY suggest, you should be able to (off the top of my head) end up with about 600 +/- HP's, 750+/- mana, 20HPR, 13SR, 30MR if you scroll it up with all 120's. If you go with 110's around 700Hp's.

Regarding the HP's, think about what you might use it for before you "set" the resists. If you might use it against anything and everything (all damage type stuff), you might want to "spread out" the resists fairly evenly. So it would be a viable pet against a lot of different stuff. Something along the lines of 80/70/79/66/70.

Chiv/AI is good for the drakes, used to have a couple myself (use wyrms now). Chiv/AI is the highest dps combo we've been able to find so far in game.

As for the resists, I highly agree with Keith. I'm not really a fan of the pet a-z training post. I think the information it gives about resist spread isn't very good. You truly have to think about what you will be fighting before you plan resists. And if it's an all around pet, more evenly split resists is how you want to go.

Edit: And yes, as Keith said, always remember base damage last round. You should train yourself to do it very first thing last round.

 

[Pawain]

I think the information it gives about resist spread isn't very good.

Agree very few mobs do poison damage and fewer do cold damage.

But just in case you are fighting paragon Cus all day. Ramp it up!!

Also thats why you should have Cus in your stable. For the few things that do cold damage.

And a Naj for the few poison damagers.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

Ok I trained him, besides scrolling him and working the skills up, what do I do next?

 

[Khaelor]

Also thats why you should have Cus in your stable. For the few things that do cold damage.

Except those that do cold damage often have high cold resists.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

@DreadLord Lestat You are going to want to raise the STR to 700, put the regens on it (my personal preferences are 20HPR, 13SR, and 30MR) ,and use the other 6 points of resist (maybe in poison). Along with maxing the base damage . Any remaining points you could add some mana and/or a few more HP's.

My opinion is that the regens are very important. Although some say 5 SR is enough, I feel that 13SR seems to be the magic number at which they STAY at 150 stamina.

 

[Khaelor]

Str 700, Int at least 300, I'd lean towards 370.


Mana regen on your animal is extremely important. Because it increases the dps.

Some comments about mana regen:

(the following below assumes 100 med/focus, 154 int)
10 MR (cost 120 points) would add 60 mana per minute
20 MR (cost 240 points) would add 77 mana per minute
30 MR (cost 360 points) would add 95 mana per minute

Going from 154 int to 370 int (cost of 108 points) will give an additional 36 mana per minute

going from 100 med/focus to 120 adds 16 mana per minute (cost of 40 training points)

Total training points of all of those is 508 training points and would give a mana regen of 255 mana per minute (4.25 mana/second) vs the 105 mana per minute (1.76 mana/second) your cold drake has now.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Str 700, Int at least 300, I'd lean towards 370.


Mana regen on your animal is extremely important. Because it increases the dps.

Some comments about mana regen:

(the following below assumes 100 med/focus, 154 int)
10 MR (cost 120 points) would add 60 mana per minute
20 MR (cost 240 points) would add 77 mana per minute
30 MR (cost 360 points) would add 95 mana per minute

Going from 154 int to 370 int (cost of 108 points) will give an additional 36 mana per minute

going from 100 med/focus to 120 adds 16 mana per minute (cost of 40 training points)

Total training points of all of those is 508 training points and would give a mana regen of 255 mana per minute (4.25 mana/second) vs the 105 mana per minute (1.76 mana/second) your cold drake has now.

Good info!

 

[Khaelor]

Ok I trained him, besides scrolling him and working the skills up, what do I do next?

View attachment 82614

Just noticed (darn pincos) you dont have max dex or stam. Stamina you need to have at 150.

Especially since stamina works in increments of 30 to increase swing speed, (150, 120-149, 90-119, 60-89, 30-59, 1-29), you will want 150 stamina (that is also why you want stam regen also, because dipping below 150 will decrease swing speed by .25 second, or a 20% swing speed reduction per minute)

 

[celticus]

I had a decent cold drake, with overcapped Wres/Tact and decent stats. Took it to TC1 and "fully trained it", and discovered it to be squishy, compared to WW, Naja, Cusidhe, and similar stats Frost dragons, and especially the Cusidhe. I gave it to a petstall for $1 just to keep stored, and it vanished..lol.. I dont feell very bad about it it did not have any PS, and the way it performed in TC1 was under par.
It was very tempting to try, since right off the bad I saved on 120 wres etc, Parry/Tact, but performance was a problem, and that could not be explained by just looking at the stats and the mob tested on. Something else is off in them. cold drakes? Khaelor's/ Donavons opinions on this would be appreciated.
There are other people that also have kind of mentioned it also : Squishy. So careful with Scrolls! i would fully test the Drake at TC1 before you put PS or lots of time on it. Just a little look ahead..

There is a reason why some of us are training WW instead, and..if you can get one prepatched WW would be awesome, well worth the few extra mils. I think you can still find some, just gen chat and pet stalls. Some of the new players in need for cash may be selling.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Just noticed (darn pincos) you dont have max dex or stam. Stamina you need to have at 150.

Especially since stamina works in increments of 30 to increase swing speed, (150, 120-149, 90-119, 60-89, 30-59, 1-29), you will want 150 stamina (that is also why you want stam regen also, because dipping below 150 will decrease swing speed by .25 second, or a 20% swing speed reduction per minute)

Good catch!

 

[Pawain]

besides scrolling him

You can find one with >120 tactics pretty easy. There is no reason to spend a lot of scrolls on this one.

 

[railshot]

I had a decent cold drake, with overcapped Wres/Tact and decent stats. Took it to TC1 and "fully trained it", and discovered it to be squishy, compared to WW, Naja, Cusidhe, and similar stats Frost dragons, and especially the Cusidhe. I gave it to a petstall for $1 just to keep stored, and it vanished..lol.. I dont feell very bad about it it did not have any PS, and the way it performed in TC1 was under par.
It was very tempting to try, since right off the bad I saved on 120 wres etc, Parry/Tact, but performance was a problem, and that could not be explained by just looking at the stats and the mob tested on. Something else is off in them. cold drakes? Khaelor's/ Donavons opinions on this would be appreciated.
There are other people that also have kind of mentioned it also : Squishy. So careful with Scrolls! i would fully test the Drake at TC1 before you put PS or lots of time on it. Just a little look ahead..

There is a reason why some of us are training WW instead, and..if you can get one prepatched WW would be awesome, well worth the few extra mils. I think you can still find some, just gen chat and pet stalls. Some of the new players in need for cash may be selling.

I am using my cold drake for one thing only - Belfry, so I did not compare it to Cus or Najas. But I find that with taming mastery it does not need additional healing. Without taming mastery, it has about 50%HP left by the time it gets pushed off the platform. I would not call that squishy.