User:LexisMikaya/Training Your Pet: A Guide to Leveling Pets

A simple guide to help you, the player, train your companions into your best friend and ally in battle.

What is Pet?

A pet is animal character than can be summoned along side you to help you in battle, heal and mend your wounds, and help get you around faster. All pets have a duration that they can stick around for, but there are times that you will need that extra companion in battle.

Notable Pets to Own

There only a handful of pets that have usefulness in both combat and daily needs. While they are not necessary to own, it helps own one in the case someone needs it, or you need the extra benefit:

• Pets that can Transform: There are several pets that can Transform with you when they are out or summoned. These pets benefits exclusively from Human Characters and will gain a stat boost equivalent to your own. The Borzoi, Greyhound, and the Siberian Husky will transform along side you if you are Paladin. The Bombay, Bengal, and the Siamese will transform along side you if you are a Dark Knight. Elves and Giants do not currently have a pet that transforms along side them.
• Pets with an Area of Effect: When summoned, they will attack all enemies in the area with their special on-summon skill. This can help in a pinch when you are surrounded by enemies.
• Pets that can Fly/Run on land: Helps when you get around faster, cutting time out if you were to walk on foot.
• A Gray Wolf: Keeps sheep at bay for you to gather wool from. This also works on Paper Sheep in Avon.
• A Herb Pet: You can gather herbs off it at a cost of 5MP a herb.
• A Sheep Pet: You can gather wool from it at a cost of 5 MP a wool.
• A Spider Pet: You can gather Cobwebs off it for a cost of 5MP a cobweb.

Setting up Pet Keys

While you can use keyboard and text commands, it is much more effective to spare a few hotkeys for them in order for them to effectively assist you in battle. With the extra 32 slots from the Extra Skill Slots, it should be more than enough to spare at least 6 or so for your pet. What I recommend:

• Windmill: If the pet has windmill, it can very well help you in a pinch, provided they have a target to attack when it comes near.
• Healing: It's just more effect to press this key than type "hl!" or "heal!" This is self preference though.
• First Aid: Same as Healing.
• Rest: This is the best way to stop a pet from doing anything. Again, self preference, but not necessary.
• Smash: For pets to spam smash as their damaging move. Please note that their normals may out damage their own smash, so think about the situation when it comes. Also not all pets have smash readily available.
• Their special attack: This would be for the Dragon Pets, and Other pets with unique skills, such as the Pegasus or Perseus. At high ranks, they can deal massive damage, rivaling your own strength or even higher in some cases. For example, my Pet Perseus can deal 5,000 damage on Critical Hit with Holy Rush against Hardmode mobs in both Taillteann and Tara Shadow Mission. This does not mean it is consistent. I have seen my Perseus hit around 4,000 damage on average with a critical.

Leveling your Pet and Its Stats

This is the most disregarded part of a pet. Since many players have pets with on-summon attacks, it is quite hard to see the usefulness of the pet outside of this aspect. I shall try and thoroughly explain the benefits of a high leveled pet.

Why Should You Level Your Pet?

Almost all pets gets stronger as they level more. Some pets are required to have high levels to benefit from it. Examples include (but not limited to):

• Dragon Pets: Their breath can do a couple Thousand damage or even higher, depending on the breath, and its damage range.
• Pegasus and Perseus: Their Holy Rush can mow down groups of mobs, effectively wiping them out if high damage is done.
• Clover Gnu, Herb Pig, and Clover Pig: These pet loses mana on aging. A high level Gnu can combat its aging loss on mana as its gets older. However, there also other ways to combat this.
• Flamemares: They can easily obtain high combat ranks in a short amount of time. This helps more dealing more damage at such a low level.

As their level grows, so does the stats of the pet. This allows them to last much longer in combat against stronger enemies and will become that second companion for you to rely on when other players are busy with their own troubles.

Rebirthing Pets

Another aspect somewhat forgotten and lost. Rebirthing a pet may sound silly and a waste of NX. However, by rebirthing a pet, they will not only inherit the name, but also gain the skills and its ranks, along with stat bonuses from skills of their previous life as Pet A and are transferred into Pet B. A somewhat common tactic for many overseas players is to get an Imp pet, as they have magic shields, level them up to either cap it or at a suitable level and then rebirth it into a Herb pet that can be gathered from, and level that more for a much higher base mana. Rebirthing pets have the following ups and downs.

Pros

• Gains Skills and its Ranks, including stats from skills, from their previous form.
• Have a much higher base than their previous form.
• Able to use some of the new skills, if possible.

Cons

• Some pets can not use the skills inherited, rendering it useless
• May not always be cost effective, and may cost more NX than its worth.
  • For example, obtaining a Clover Gnu is 6,500 NX. Rebirthing it into a Warp Imp with a Warp Imp Pet card will cost 7,900 NX, and another 6,500 NX for another Clover Gnu card.

Surpassing Skill Ranks

There is a special training kit made specifically for pets. The special Pet Training Kit is a special kit that can increase up to 3 skills by 1 rank higher than it should be normally. However, there is also a chance that it may decrease up to 3 skills by 1 rank. You are guaranteed at least 1 skill will be a rank higher than it should be. Is it really worth it? It depends on what you are truly aiming for. Are you trying to get Rank 5 Windmill for the increased range? Or perhaps you are looking for a better first aid rank. All I can say is good luck. The effects will not stack upon using another Pet Training Kit, so feel free to try, try again, and keep doing so until you find the ranks you find best. Keep in mind that it may be more trouble than its worth.

Leveling Your Pet

Pets have a hard time gaining exp just being summoned along side you, only gaining 25%, or ¼, of the EXP you gain from a kill. Even at a kill of 130,000 EXP, pets will benefit very little when at higher levels. They best way to gain exp on your pet is to simply log into it and play as the pet. There are some downsides into doing so. While the pet does gain a percent bonus on killing monsters, their summon time is consumed. The longer you are logged onto your pet, the less time you have to summon it when you are on a Human, Elf, or Giant character. When leveling your pet, try not to spend too much time on it. Pets can not enter Shadow Mission, Avon's Theater Missions, or role-plays. Pets can only enter dungeons, and any place they where last summoned. Pets can not enter Hardmode Dungeons since it requires a minimum of 250 Total Level, and it can become trouble for pets that are no longer available, if one chooses to push a pet that far.

There will be times that Nexon hosts in-game EXP events which will double, or even triple, EXP gained in combat for a short period of time. Take advantage of them and power level your pet as fast as you can. At higher levels, things begin to become tedious as exp sources no longer give sufficient exp to gain levels quickly.

Areas of Training

One can train pets, while logged in of course, on various ancients. Keep in mind that Ancient Monsters have much higher stats. Pets are also generally weak to begin with. One may ask a friend to carry and kill mobs while setting up a party with the finish rule to anyone and EXP to the finisher only. The following areas, I found, works best for most pets.

• South of the Connous Oasis: You will eventually come across Desert Bears. There are two specific bears you can hunt here, and camping penalty is not much of a problem. The two bears are: White Desert Bear the Holy and Black Desert Bear the Soon to be Extinct. These two bears will give you the most EXP per kill, and since they are spread out enough, you can gain 100% of the exp without Camping penalties. They are also located east of the Fish Mark, but due to their close proximity of the landmark, EXP may be reduced significantly.
• Northern Maiz Prairie: There are "Black-Tailed Mongoose the Angry" located here. They give double the amount of EXP and are relatively easy to hunt. This will carry you a few levels in, but you will need to find stronger mobs as time goes on.
• Bandits: Having a friend pursue bandits, and tagging along will work. Considering they keep finding Veteran and master Bandits, one can hit a high level rather quickly. However, due to how close they spawn within each other, Camping Penalty applies rather quickly. The assisting player must willingly set the EXP rule to All to finish and the party finish to Anyone in order for this method to take full effect. It may be best to collaborate with friends for this method.
• Advanced Level Dungeons: While this one is rather absurd, it is possible to gain several levels due to the length of the dungeon. You will need to be carried by another player, and have the player willingly set the EXP rule to All to finish and the party finish to Anyone. Keep in mind that the player will not benefit at all while the pet will fully benefit. As with the "Bandits" method, it may be best to collaborate with friends for this method.
• Zardine: Every 6:00pm in-game, Black Leopards will spawn, a bit northeast of the letters "ANO" in Raspa Volcano. One of the easier field bosses, it is possible to gain a few levels early on by defeating an entire group. Similar to Bandits, Camping Penalty applies rather quickly due to how close the Leopards spawn in proximity to each other. You may want to bring a friend or two to assist due to the nature of the Leopards.

Regarding Partners

With partners becoming more abundant, It is possible to raise your Partner to be your own personal combat partner. The rules for Pets are the same for Partners, only with one exception. You can only summon them and logging in on them is disabled. To make up for this, you can keep them out for 3 hours (180 minutes). 3 Hours is more than enough time to do many basic tasks in Mabinogi. You can also dress them up and give them weapons to further aid you in combat. Other than that, Partners are no different than pets other than the extra layer of personality, and the ability to give them gear.

Raising Your Partner

Unlike Pets, Partners require far more care. You are expected to to gift them something to raise their affection, which in turn, grants better benefits such as a better chance of repair your items (Up to 99% success rate, depending on personality), receiving free gifts, doing various actions with your partner, and so on. To raise their affection you can:

• Do the various daily quests you can undertake while they are summoned.
  • Keep in mind that you can not unsummon them at any point and time, as doing so will cancel and forfeit the quest.
• Give them a gift.
  • You can simply give them common foods, such as berries, as they will never gain/lose weight.

In Conclusion

Pets are meant to be a lifelong companion in your fantasy life. They will become your best friend and ally when in dire need. May they find a way into your heart as you continue to travel along side them.