Raising Affinity on the Pets - whats your experience?

[Valdaglerion]

<p>Curious to know how many pets others have fully mastered to completion of the 16 available. Has anyone finished them all yet?</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Curious to know how many pets others have fully mastered to completion of the 16 available. Has anyone finished them all yet?</p></blockquote><p>I currently have 7 (Level 6) of 13 that I can obtain at level 39.</p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>I have 7 at level 6 also. Was curious how people were doing on the leveling.</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have 7 at level 6 also. Was curious how people were doing on the leveling.</p></blockquote><p>Well since I'm on Nagafen its probably a little different than most other's but, I normally do these steps:</p><ol><li>Range pull.</li><li>Send pet to attack.</li><li>Wait for Weakness to pop.</li><li>Kill mob.</li><li>After combat, cast Frigid Fortification.</li><li>Repeat steps 1-5.</li></ol><p>Seems to be working great for me.</p>

[Sedory]

<p>It seems to me that Spirit stance gets more affinity.  I run mine in Spirit and the wife in Feral.. she's doing sick dps, but I checked our pet affinity and mine is much higher.  Mine is nearly 6 and her's is 2, but I know we're both using affinities.</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Sedory wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It seems to me that Spirit stance gets more affinity.  I run mine in Spirit and the wife in Feral.. she's doing sick dps, but I checked our pet affinity and mine is much higher.  Mine is nearly 6 and her's is 2, but I know we're both using affinities.</p></blockquote><p>Her DPS is the reason why its not gaining affinity faster. If you use an advantage and it kills the mob (Like most the time in Feral Stance) you will gain no affinity from the mob.</p>

[Jiwi]

<p>Has anyone found out if the amount of affinity per kill is a static value?  If I kill a green mob or if I kill a orange 3^ heroic is the amount of affinity the same?</p><p>I have 2 at GM L6, but this 3rd one is a crawl.</p><p>Thanks!</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Slowdethh@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Has anyone found out if the amount of affinity per kill is a static value?  If I kill a green mob or if I kill a orange 3^ heroic is the amount of affinity the same?</p><p>I have 2 at GM L6, but this 3rd one is a crawl.</p><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p>Seems to be based on the warder family more-so than the mobs you kill. I've killed Green, Blue, White, Yellow, and Orange and some families have taken longer than others.</p><p>Feline has taken the shortest amount for me and its almost Level 6. Amphibian ironically took the longest.</p>

[Jiwi]

<p>I agree with you that the feline leveled at an appropriate rate.  I'm training a reptile right now and it is painfully slow.</p><p>Thanks for the response!</p>

[Sleap]

<p>I solo'd with my BL from lvl 30-35 on one pet (while gaining affinity) and my warder never progressed. It wasn't untill lvl 50 that i was told of a BL specific quest in Butcherblock Mountaints. After doing that quest and getting a grandmastered pet instantly, only then were my warders progressing like they were suppose to. So far I only have 1 grandmastered pet.</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Slowdethh@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I agree with you that the feline leveled at an appropriate rate.  I'm training a reptile right now and it is painfully slow.</p><p>Thanks for the response!</p></blockquote><p>I had a really hard time training that particular pet too however, I think the Amphibian pet took longer because of the amount of times it actually attacks. It has a longer auto attack rate than the other pets but, hits slightly harder than all other pets.</p>

[Xiggy]

<p>I have 4 maxxed. Currently working on a wolf. I use spirit stance as well. One thing I noticed, was even on double  exp weekend, your affinity wasn't doubled. I got 20+ AA's and only 2 pet lvls. I have no idea if affinity is based on mob lvl or not. It feels (this isnt a fact) like, you get 1 affinity point per process pet kill. So killing hi lvl heroic only helps in that the fight lasts long enough to get a process or 2 off.</p><p>Another trick I use, is I assist my pet and wait for a process. That way I kill the mobs he has processed a weakness on, and not ones he hasnt procced on. This is true when I am attacking groups of 3+ mobs. It takes a long time to lvl the various pets. I just finished a bovid pet ram. (He seemed to take forever because of his constant bahing was incrediably annoying)</p>

[Chunkaliscious]

<p>For me the Bovid (baby deer) was the longest so far to grind up.  The bleating noise it makes when it attacks probably didnt help either.  I have all the defensive ones and 3 of the offensive ones finished.  It feels like the defensive ones took longer over all, probably because of their low attack rates.  Spiritual stance and the ward weakness have been key for me so far.</p><p>The biggest issue I am finding now is new or different places to grind in.  I am hitting a combination of Kaladim, Tombs of Night, Nek Castle, Ruins of Varsoon, Cove of Decay, and Conemned Catacombs.  Anyone have any other good zones to grind in?</p>

[ShadowMunkie]

<p><cite>Chunkaliscious wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For me the Bovid (baby deer) was the longest so far to grind up.  The bleating noise it makes when it attacks probably didnt help either.  I have all the defensive ones and 3 of the offensive ones finished.  It feels like the defensive ones took longer over all, probably because of their low attack rates.  Spiritual stance and the ward weakness have been key for me so far.</p><p>The biggest issue I am finding now is new or different places to grind in.  I am hitting a combination of Kaladim, Tombs of Night, Nek Castle, Ruins of Varsoon, Cove of Decay, and Conemned Catacombs.  Anyone have any other good zones to grind in?</p></blockquote><p>Ironically, I have used Thundering Steppes to level most of mine or right around DFC, since there is TONS of multi mob encounters. Healing mercenary works wonders for those examples.</p>

[Jaylo]

<p>I've maxed all 17 of the warders, the 12 regulars, 4 exotics and the AoD CE War Boar, which is otherwise identical to the regular boar.</p><p>I found the fastest way to level them was to mentor down and go somewhere where you get a large number of green/blue multi-mob encounters.  Spiritual stance, with the pet defending you, let the pet proc weakness, fire off an advantage which will turn on autoattack and 1 shot the mob, then move on to the next.</p><p>Still took a good bit of time, but far faster than any other method I tried.</p>

[wullailhuit]

<p><cite>Coppan@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I solo'd with my BL from lvl 30-35 on one pet (while gaining affinity) and my warder never progressed. It wasn't untill lvl 50 that i was told of a BL specific quest in Butcherblock Mountaints. After doing that quest and getting a grandmastered pet instantly, only then were my warders progressing like they were suppose to. So far I only have 1 grandmastered pet.</p></blockquote><p>You really need to have saved that potion , that is used to GM your one pet that will want to use most of the time and you can only get a single GM pet.</p><p>I managed to get my warders to level after level 30 without using the potion. , even though it was slow going.</p>

[Mystfit]

<p><cite>Senkai@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chunkaliscious wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For me the Bovid (baby deer) was the longest so far to grind up.  The bleating noise it makes when it attacks probably didnt help either.  I have all the defensive ones and 3 of the offensive ones finished.  It feels like the defensive ones took longer over all, probably because of their low attack rates.  Spiritual stance and the ward weakness have been key for me so far.</p><p>The biggest issue I am finding now is new or different places to grind in.  I am hitting a combination of Kaladim, Tombs of Night, Nek Castle, Ruins of Varsoon, Cove of Decay, and Conemned Catacombs.  Anyone have any other good zones to grind in?</p></blockquote><p>Ironically, I have used Thundering Steppes to level most of mine or right around DFC, since there is TONS of multi mob encounters. Healing mercenary works wonders for those examples.</p></blockquote><p>Go right off the LS docks and at the end of the beach is a bunch of fire crabs. The repop rate on them is pretty good!</p>

[Jaylo]

<p><cite>Wullailduo@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Coppan@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I solo'd with my BL from lvl 30-35 on one pet (while gaining affinity) and my warder never progressed. It wasn't untill lvl 50 that i was told of a BL specific quest in Butcherblock Mountaints. After doing that quest and getting a grandmastered pet instantly, only then were my warders progressing like they were suppose to. So far I only have 1 grandmastered pet.</p></blockquote><p>You really need to have saved that potion , that is used to GM your one pet that will want to use most of the time and you can only get a single GM pet.</p><p>I managed to get my warders to level after level 30 without using the potion. , even though it was slow going.</p></blockquote><p>You can Primal every single warder you have, which is the level after Grandmaster.  All that potion does is let you max one warder out without all the work.  It's best used on a warder you haven't already invested a lot of time in.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Auto attack rate has absolutely nothing to do with affinity gains.  Inspect your pet.  Weakness can ONLY proc on the use of a Combat Art by the pet, and even then it's got a limit on it, which AA's can help with.</p>

[laments]

<p>I have 12 GM pets now ( I only play at a casual pace ) easiest way to level warders is hit/chrono to L60 and then go to the second level in Clefts ,using Spirit stance and spamming Frigid freeze on multiple mobs do this as you move around in the zone and voila! your pet will level very fast and you will gain several AA points in the process also if you want to learn transmuting at the same time its a great place for drops so combining all this it doesn't seem to be the grind it could be.</p>

[Lempo]

<p>At this point I have very limited playtime on mine, what I have noticed about affinity is puzzling.</p><p>If I attack multiple mobs by pulling with my pet and weakness procs and hit a primal on the first mob then I swap targets to mob 2 and order my pet to attack wait for a weakness to proc and hit a primal then kill them both my affinity is only increased for one of the kills. These are not linked mobs and if a weakness procs on the original mob and I get a primal in before the mob is down it will give affinity. I do not think that this should work this way.</p><p>I also have not been able to tell, because other than the yellow text there is no indication of affinity gain, if you use multiple primals on a mob is your affinity gain greater or the same as if you used only one, and if you use savagery based attacks does this give bonus affinity? If not those things need to be looked into, playing the class more effectively and using your pet to it's fullest should by default give better rewards for affinity.</p>

[Xenxex]

<p>I maxed all mine just a few days after AoD release. The quickest method is to do maulics and spam your spiritual wards and let your pet do all the work. This is more effective if you have up mercs and can box so they your mana does not deplete over time. The method if dont correctly can get you a GM pet in as little as 45ish mins or so with an avg of possibly an hour. Im sure someone will naysay and say its impossible, but try it. I  chrono'd down to 30 the first time i did it, then 25 the next time. Some say you could do it lower but i found 25 to be a good level.</p>

[DataOutlaw]

<p>I play for fun trying to make the most of what I have ant my level but without making any effort to powerlevel or have the best of everything. I have set my balance between leveling and AA experience a lot more heavily on the AA side (going up to 100% AA at times) not because I wanted to maximize my AAs but becasue I wanted to enjoy more of the quest lines available at the same level. Regardless at level 55 I also have 99 AA. I have leveled exclusively solo and exclusively using the feral stance so far.</p><p>All that being said I now have two pets at level 3 (Master). My bear pet (my first tame of a polar bear) is my defensive Warder that I use when tackling heroic ancounters and I am even quite good at taking down ^^^ heroic named mobs with him. My rat pet (I am quite fond of the Badger I tamed in Antonica) is my offensive warder that I use for general levelling. </p><p>Upping affinity on the bear has been easy but that is because my targets don't generally die after one hit by the bear so I have time to wait for the weakness icon and quickly land a DoT advantage before they die. Upping affinity on the badger has not been as easy since he tends to take down targets after one hit. I think because I used the badger more ofen it has evened out with the Bear.</p><p>On both pets though the level increases for the pet have come after completing a Heroic encounter or named MoB. So I suspect there is an affinity bonus for taking down heroic as opposed to solo and even more bonus for a named. </p>

[Muffyn]

<p><cite>Wullailduo@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Coppan@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I solo'd with my BL from lvl 30-35 on one pet (while gaining affinity) and my warder never progressed. It wasn't untill lvl 50 that i was told of a BL specific quest in Butcherblock Mountaints. After doing that quest and getting a grandmastered pet instantly, only then were my warders progressing like they were suppose to. So far I only have 1 grandmastered pet.</p></blockquote><p>You really need to have saved that<span style="font-size: medium;"><strong> potion</strong> </span>, that is used to GM your one pet that will want to use most of the time and you can only get a single GM pet.</p><p>I managed to get my warders to level after level 30 without using the potion. , even though it was slow going.</p></blockquote><p>What potion? Where do I get it. I just hit 80 and have two 6 pets, and two others at level 4. rest are untouched. I personally love my Gorilla and the SoL Lion.  I am about to respec my AA so I can get the exotics and I would love to know how to get this potion so I can use it on one of the new pets I am about to get.</p><p>Thanks,</p><p>  -</p>