Differences between pets and some questions on skills

[gdavge2003]

Well, for the moment, I'm a 43-ish sorcerer with a red pixie, focusing on magical branch, since I have very nice cards given to me by a DM friend, as well as a nice r3 staff (saves me the trouble of buying when I hit r3). I have all r3 equipment ready (except that dang cape...).

Unfortunately, I'm in my busiest school year of my high school life, and I barely have any time left to play, let along actually spending time in a town shouting for a DP. As such, I thought I would do some straight solo-farming until Summer comes along, which is in... approximately 4/5 months, lol .

Thanks to the great pet map I found in some other thread, I realized that for 4x/5x, pixies are a great source of exp and farming. Unfortunately, a magic sorc w/ a r pixie can't exactly farm them. So I was thinking of buying a melee (yeti, skele, etc.) pet and switch over to the dirk branch. So my first question is:
1) Will switching now (w/o a re-JP potion, not going to spend that much money) be bad for me at this moment? I don't want to be some 6x sorc still trying to reach JP level 50.

Also, can someone give me a difference between pets, their pros/cons and stuff? What are the differences in terms of tanking/attacking between a yeti, skeleton, or orc? How about kentauros, hawkman, or sala (although I prolly won't go for these)

[ultimatemx]

Your first question, no changing now won't really hurt that much, just max out your weaponry passive and evasion passive and don't really bother with dark strike and charge stab, you'll barely use them. Concentration and Deep Evasion do come in handy but you don't have to spend much in them JP wise.

For low level melee farming on a Sorc, your best choice is probably an Orc or a Yeti, and with the event happening after the patch Yeti's will become even easier to come by. A Skelly for low level farming isn't really that great, they are about as squishy as you are so you can't rely on them to tank they way you can with a Yeti or an Orc.
As for Kentaurous, Hawkman and Salamanders, simply take the last paragraph, and replace Orc with Kentaurous, Yeti with Hawk and Skelly with Salamander. In other words for the moment since they have the same skills as those pets, you should look at them as simply overpriced orcs, yetis and skellies. If you can't afford one, or can't get a card to drop or tame, don't fret, you get the same value out of any of the other pets.

[gdavge2003]

Event? You mean the opening of the auction house?

[orcslayer2040]

Event? You mean the opening of the auction house?

Crimson is referring to the new event, which I think is coming next patch. One of the prizes is an untamed yeti card. Check the community center for more info.

[ichat3]

Actually with the introduction of the luna stone you could keep along the magic path while going for a melee pet. However since you're only interested in farming, a dirk and shield could work since the shield would boost your defense with a 21% block rate. You could however try an axe since a dirk at lower levels of summoner weapon mastery (and no double impact) provides piss poor damage (dps) and charge stab and dark strike work best with higher damage weapons. However don't put too much emphasis on darkstrike and charge stab because they are pretty weak anyway.

As for pet choice, it seems you have access to the ex commons but actually I will tell you to get a good defensive base first.

Vitality rings and stones, and get a level 40 tortus for the vit increase when belted. a good +2 or higher pass damage card when you get pass damage won't hurt.

As for farming, your red pix is even squishier than you so I understand why you don't want to farm with it. In terms of a good melee pet a tortus is actually very good defensively and offensively in addition to a it targetable defensive buff. The orc is also an excellent choice however look over in the guides section of the forums and look for ZooZoos/Cammys guide on building a defensive orc. The orc has a targetable def + offensive buff and is much more potent than the tortus in the damage department. A Yeti gets a lot of Hp later in the game and becomes very good at taking damage later on. A skell is a favorite pet of mine but at lower levels it will be difficult to tank with so ignore for now! (though I actually levelled my sorc with my skell but I like to challenge myself, besides I had a tortus too, lol).

Two pets you have not mentioned are the blue pixie and the siren. The siren is one of the most awesome pets in this game, however like the other evasion pets you have to be very careful levelling them and certainly farming with a low level siren given the sorcs inept pet healing ability is risky. The other is the blue pixy! you get uber healing and if you equip it with a 2h axe, decent damage but not as much as the more melee oriented pets but certainly more survivability because of the heals.

My suggestion for pet! get an orc now and try trading it for siren later. also raise a second tortus since the combination of orc and turtle buffs would substantially raise your survivability.

[gdavge2003]

Thanks for the suggestions. I actually have a b. pixie, but I never thought about using it as a damage dealer. I've always used it as a healer just in DPs, and when I solo, I have my r. pixie out.

I didn't mention the siren, because I didn't know much about them. From what I heard, their strengths lie in their debuff/curse skills, so I thought they wouldn't really be as good as the other pets.

Thanks for the tortus belt idea. I guess I'll level a tortus up to 40 and then belt it on, then hopefully by then I'll get an orc/yeti.

[ichat3]

My +10 siren is level 84. It is a nice DD pet in that you can equip your siren with a long bow and use the skill whip. The problem with whip is that it can fail since it has a cast time.

[gdavge2003]

Huzzah. Some guy was selling a yeti for 12.5 mil ("buy now") and grabbed it... Now I'm debt 5 mil to a friend lol

Anyways, a yeti isn't an orc, but it does more dmg than I do w/ melee, so it's all swell.

I run around doing this: chip, attack along w/ yeti. Every so often, bring out b. pixie, heal, then recall. Hunting r pixies at the moment. Will move onto b pixies ones I hit 5x.

I just have a quick question on armor set up. For melee sorcs, I should add str and vit stones right?

What if I switch periodically back to staff/magic w/ my r pixie? Should I then just add str/int stones?

How much help does vit stones help anyways? Like, how much +hp, +pdef?

Thanks for the help

[orcslayer2040]

1 vit = 30 hp and 2 pdef

[123135120]

hmm i dont know if its bad, but i made my sorc a bit of both. it gives me some options on what to be later on. atm i found it better to use staff (with rp) in different circumstances, like farming and attacking big bosses like ofo. for dps its alot less stressful with a tanking pet + dirk. when i want to deal major dmg, i try to dual summon my tort (tank) and rp (nuker) on mobs.

[gdavge2003]

hmm i dont know if its bad, but i made my sorc a bit of both. it gives me some options on what to be later on. atm i found it better to use staff (with rp) in different circumstances, like farming and attacking big bosses like ofo. for dps its alot less stressful with a tanking pet + dirk. when i want to deal major dmg, i try to dual summon my tort (tank) and rp (nuker) on mobs.

O_O How do you farm Ofo?

I know what you mean. It's great to pull out a dirk and attack along with everyone else in DPs, especially when only force chips are used.

It's fast and easy to farm melee mobs with rpix and magic.

The problem is, if you're a little of both, what stones do you use? Str + Int?