Pets are obtained by charming them using the charm animal skill. Once Charm Animal has been activated the target animal becomes hostile and at that point you need to ensure that you are sufficiently high level to withstand the attack and that your party members do not kill the animal (I’d advise against taking hench for this task). Once charmed the pet stays with its master whenever charm animal is on the masters skill bar.

 

There are many misconceptions concerning pets but simple studies have shown that all pets do the same damage and you can check this out for yourself in the battle isles. The choice of the pet is mainly a matter of what you want to look at/listen to while playing. While the damage, armour and health is all the same the difference lies in appearance and damage type. The Spider is a favourite among many players simply because of its position as a status symbol among the community as it is known that you’ve ‘capped’ it from the Underworld.

 

The charmable pets are:

Wolf – slashing damage– found in Pre-sear (level 2) Strider – piercing damage - found in Pre-sear Ascalon (level 2) Moa Bird – slashing damage – found in Ascalon (level 3) Warthog – blunt damage – found in Maguuma Jungle (level 5) Pre-sear (level 3) Melandrus Stalker - slashing damage – found in Ascalon both Pre and post – (level 5) Snow Wolf – slashing damage – found in Shiverpeaks (level 5) Lynx – slashing damage – found in Kryta (level 5) Dune Lizard – piercing damage – found in the Crystal Desert (level 5) Black Bear – slashing damage – found in the southern shiverpeaks (level 5) Black Widow Spider – piercing damage – found in the Underworld (level 20)

 

Pet Levelling

Pets change as they level up. For starters their damage range increases to reach 14-26 at level 20. The pets armour level increases by 4 armour per level to a total of 80AL at level 20. At level 20 the pets have the same health as a player who has not had their health altered by runes/weapon modifications, 510.

 

Pets gain xp just like players in the team however it is determined by their level and not their masters. So you may be a level 20 but your pet a level 10 and the pet will still gain experience while you are not against a low level foe. The fact that some players may find disturbing is that pets also gain xp while they are dead.

 

Pet Evolutions

At around level 10-13 and then again between levels 15-17 the pets “evolve”. The mechanics of this evolution are difficult to establish however it is believed that pets are affected by the amount of damage they inflict/have inflicted upon them with damage dealers following an aggressive or dire path while the “meatshields” are believed to tend toward playful or hearty evolutions. It is also believed that all pets can evolve to Elder pets from either a playful or aggressive evolution.

 

The whole point of these evolutions is to customize your pet to its use. So if it’s been used for damage and becomes a dire pet then it will have -60hp and deal +2 damage while a hearty pet which has taken damage will have an additional 60hp and deal -2 damage while the Elder pet retains the normal damage and health amounts.

 

Changing your pets name

You can change the name of your pet using the /petname command. So if I wanted to name my pet bear “Morty” I’d type /petname Morty. To change the name again or remove the name just type /petname with either no name or a new one typed. This can be handy for checking the evolution of your pet while training for a specific purpose.

 

Reviving a Fallen Pet

Pets can not be brought back to life through the use of a resurrection signet or a hard res skill like resurrect or rebirth. At this time there are only two skills available for the raising of a fallen pet and these are Comfort Animal (which also acts to heal) and Revive Animal which works on all animals within a short range.