Advanced Pets: What you need to know

Ahoy! In case you haven't heard, Pirate101 has released the kraken and opened the doors to the long-awaited Test Realm, not to Book 15 (although they assure us that the book will be coming soon!) but to Advanced Pets, Advanced Companion, Gameplay Improvements and much, much more!

I'll be taking you through Advanced Pets and Advanced Companions in upcoming posts, but today, I'm going to focus on Advanced Pets as I have noticed a couple people have had a bit of difficulty fully grasping what the pets actually do, so I'm here to hopefully help y'all out and point you in the right direction. So, without further ado, let's get started!

What do Advanced Pets Do?

If you thought that before this update your pets were  not helpful enough, well, this update will remove that feeling and make them the best that they can be! 

Firstly, get yourself on over to the Circus Maximus, if you 

haven't already, go speak to Mickey Dougan, the Town Crier standing outside of Avery's Office and accept the quest "Silly Pet Games" which sends you on a journey to obtain a new Egg and  explore the splendor and beauty that is Bestia and even a cool new Puppet Show!

Now, let's get down to business. Pets can now learn more Epic Talents and Powers through Pet Training. These Powers and Talents can be used to help you and your pet in battle and help your pet in the new Pet PvP arena in the Circus Maximus where your pet can battle it out against other's pets and become the best beast of Bestia!

Training your Pet

So, now you've got your pet, how do you unlock those epics/talents and powers? Pet Training of course! This isn't any old Pet Training where you play mini-games, no sir, you can sit back and quest or farm while your pet is out Hay-Bailing or Crane Meditating. Let me run you through the process.

You can open up the Pet menu by pressing the "I" key or going to your backpack and selecting the pet tab at the bottom, just underneath companions. 

Now, select a pet (you can still train Level 65 Pets) and click on the "Train" button and this menu will pop up, you can choose from a variety of training activities from each of the worlds currently in game:

Each world activity is unlocked at a specific Pet level, and as you level up the time it takes for specific activities to finish increases. Aquilan Training activities currently are the best source of pet experience and Guile, Guts and Grit in game at this time and the longest, so be prepared for a long wait. Here's a couple Aquilan training activities;

As you can see only two of these pet training activities are available for me right now, this can be for two reasons; your pet is not a high enough level yet or you do not have the sufficient pet gear. What's pet gear I hear you asking? Well, it's gear that pets have to have to be able to take place in an activity, it's not gear you can see, but it's absolutely essential to pet training. Luckily, the gear cards tell you where you can get a piece of it from, so you know where to go looking so you can complete the activity. Gear can also be bought from the Crown Shop and Vendors in Circus Maximus.

Now you've got all the necessary gear, let's begin a training activity.

There are two types of training activities; 

1) That boosts your pet's Agility, Strength, Will, Health and Experience to help your pet in battle.

2) That boosts your pet's Power, Guts, Guile and Grit, to help your pet in Pet PvP.

When you complete the training activities that boost your pet's Experience and Stats you will be allowed to feed your pet a pet snack, you can obtain snacks from Pet Vendors in Circus Maximus or through the Crown Shop.

When you complete a training activity that boosts your pets Guts, Guile, Grit and Power your pet will not be hungry and you will not be allowed to feed your pet any snacks, therefore choosing these training activities do not contribute to the experience of your pet but they do contribute to what effects Cheering will do to your pet in pet PvP.

When you choose a training activity, you can choose to wait out the timer or skip the time for an amount of crowns, be warned, the amount of crowns required to end a training activity  increases as the timer increases. 

Your Pet will gain different Epic/Talents and Powers at certain Levels, here's a basic Chart for the current standings:

Level 1 - Hatchling - No Epic or Power

Level 10 - Baby - 1 Talent

Level 20 - Teen - 1 Power

Level 30 - Adult - 1 Talent (Adult unlocks the ability to Pet Morph - New Guide Coming Soon)

Level 40 - Ancient - 1 Power

Level 50 - Epic - 1 Talent

Level 60 - Mega - 1 Power

Also, every time you unlock a world activity, you get a neat little postcard from the world itself;

Pet PvP

Now, once you're happy with your pet's Epics/Talents and Powers, speak to Decius Duelmaster on the main podium in the Circus Maximus to join a Pet PvP game!

When you first start out, you will only be allowed to play 1 pet for a PvP match, once you start playing more, you unlock badges, and allow yourself to put more pets into a Pet PvP battle (max 4 pets). 

Once you get into a battle, you'll have about 10 seconds to see who you are up against, the best way to do this is to hover over the opponent's pet in the upper right hand corner

Now, the main thing you want to keep an eye on in battle is your pet's "Cheer-O-Meter", when you are able to cheer, you need to press that button as soon as you can, because if you cheer enough times, you can actually unlock you pet's powers and use those powers on your enemy's pet(s). 

This is how cheer works, the amount of times you can press the cheer button at the start of the battle (and during until you run out) is determined by the amount of Power your pet has. The maximum amount of power your pet can have is 180, every 18 "points" of power grants you an automatic cheer in battle, so if you have 180 power, you can automatically press cheer 10 times without waiting for the "Cheer-O-Meter" to fill up again. This is what the "10" means next to the Power sign on the Ostrich's stat board in the picture above. 

If you have 1 point of cheer, you will need to wait for the "Cheer-O-Meter" to fill up again, it can be filled up by time and when your pet attacks. 

Tip: Press the cheer button when it is "Greener" to get the most of the cheer.

Once you have pressed the cheer button enough times, the Action Meter (the blue "pipe" on the right hand side of the pet's stat board) will fill up and you will be able to choose one of the powers your pet already has trained and use it on the opposing side. Once you choose the power, the power's effects will not take place until the following round, so there is no guarantee the power will work because the opponent may be able to kill your pet before the pet can use the power. 

Here are two of my pets, the one on the left has Max Power, which means it can use the Cheer Button automatically 10 times in a fight. The one on the right has 103 Power which means it will be able to us the Cheer Button automatically 5 times in a fight. 

Additionally, you'll also want to know what each stat grants your pet, so you know what to improve for battles;

Agility - The higher the Agility, the more damage your pet will do in battle.

Strength - The higher the Strength, the more damage your pet will do in battle.

Will - The higher the Will, the more damage your pet will do in battle.

Health - This stat will show you how much of your pets maximum health you have unlocked, the bigger the health, the longer a pet will be able to spar for.

Power -  Power tells you how many times you can automatically cheer in a battle, and can also increase the damage your pet's powers can deal on an enemy pet.

Grit - Pets with more grit will get more benefits from cheering when their health is low (red).

Guts - Pets with more  Guts will get more benefits from cheering when their heal is high (green).

Guiles - Pets with more Guiles will get more benefits from cheering when their health is in mid-range (yellow).

Once you win (or lose) a match, you'll be notified of your standing, and receive some goodies as well.

                    

You can also unlock badges, these tell you how many pet fights you have been in!

Hopefully I have answered your questions (and more), if you have any more, do let us know in the comments!

In the next post, I'll be exploring the actual process of Pet Training, and how to get the most of your pet.