hello all!  I am fairly new to the shard, and not quite understanding some of the concepts of the pets (or much of anything for that matter; I havent played this game in well over 10 years.)  I have been able to scoot my way to a majority of 100.0's on most skills, and did the donation and got a few 120 scrolls.  Currently I run with a cu sidhe with ~1300 hp, and I have fine with content around destard level 1 difficulty, but I can't seem to get a grasp on any of the custom / real content.  I am also not understanding how one acquires evo pets (or if they're even worth pursuing as a "tank").  I can't seem to peacemake a greater dragon, or find reliable jewelry that offers peacemake. Does anyone have any tips / tricks / guides on where to go from here?  I tried pursuing the astral daemon stuff, but the imps wreck me and my pet.  I am kind of in a rut on what to do, because a few of the quests seem bugged / missing monster spawns (hare krishna, for example.)


Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Welcome to the Shard Ghost Dance! 

This is just a matter of opinion, but for me, "End Game" pets are really not using pets at all.  Don't get me wrong, I do, on occasion use pets for things like Treasure Maps while wearing a luck suit, or face planting one specific Champ to bide time and allow friends to do the lions share of damage, but these instances are pretty rare for me.  Pets are great for starting out, and allow you to take on some otherwise impossible content at your current gear level (I'm not saying I geared to the teeth...I really am not).

But to try to give you some perspective, I'll do what I can to help you out.

Evo Dragons: 

I'd say they ARE worth it, but some may disagree.  Don't plan on them taking down the more dangerous dragons out there, or standing up to a pack of Minotaur, but they do have really nice utility.  They will heal themselves (although not much) via the active skill Spirit Speak, are totally immune to poison, and have decent HP pools and damage.  Additionally, they are easy to control and do not require additional skill beyond 120 Lore/Taming to use reliably.  With proper skills in either magery or veterinary, they should make short work of the Deamons that drop the Astro Bones.

They are not without their problems though, Evo Dragons are HUGE...their size prevent you from seeing much of what is going on directly under them, cover up things you may be trying to use (Treasure Chests, Rune Books, bodies, etc.)  They do not have pack instinct, and raising one from an egg can be time consuming, and they are not breedable. These are a 3 slot pet, so don't plan on having too many of them at one time.

Ancient Fire Steeds:

These tough steeds make up part of the pack I use (3 AFS and 2 Royal Steeds), in my opinion they are the best tameable creature on our Shard.  They do considerable damage on their own, have a decent HP pool, and use a Fire Breath attack to take down monsters running away.  Most importantly though, they have a pack instinct (Deamon), that when put together, can bring down some nasty guys pretty fast.  Think of them as a Fire Steed on steroids.  They can also be bred, high generation AFS are nothing to sneeze at when it comes to tank/damage potential.

These too are not without their faults, they take up quite a few control slots, they are a 3 slot pet, they are also difficult to control, and may require swapping out some jewelry or clothing to control them reliably (I have no problem with them if my Lore is around 135).

 
The role of a bard is a hard one, but for starting out, really well worth it.  I can confirm that Peacemaking, Musicianship and Discordance jewelry exists...I find that crap all the time, but to make a viable "build" of it, you are going to need to stack it to at least 160 using jewelry and magical clothing.  Disco is still pretty impressive, and certainly worth having a suit of it for using on tough game.  For me, a Paragon Tyrant Magi Dragon can take several minutes, more time than I care to take exposed in a PvP hotspot, but after being Disco'd they go down in a flash.

A nice place for jewelry early on is the Mushroom Cave in Ilsh.  Go through the cave, past the Ancient Dragon, and bear to the right, you will see a circle of mushrooms, stand in the center and you will be whisked away to the Twisted Weald.  Leave the Saytr alone, and just head through the sandy maze, once there, take your time, and kill everything in the area.  It may be tricky at first, but the loot tables on those spiders are some of the best for jewelry.

Hope this helps, and g'luck out there.

I'd like to chime in with:


  Keep improving your skills past GM. Legendary (120) skills count for a lot on Evolution. I noticed I was able to hold my own in areas, that dropped me low before I raised my skills to 120. Even having skills at 110 is a big boost to game play, and these days getting these PS from vendors is relatively cheap.

 Make sure to use gear which suits you. If you are casting a lot of [Magery, Necromancy, or Druid] spells than having LRC is probably a must have. Which means the Deamon gear is probably something to gather together. If you are running around with a pet and pelting monsters with arrows, then you probably want to stack archery, and have the best to hit chance you can. There is more to this combo, but all in good time. I am always up for a chat about game play when I am only, PM me if you like.


  In My Opinion, the biggest mistake that new-- and veteran players-- make these days is depending to heavily on pets or scripts to do the work for them. Death isn't the enemy, it's a reminder that some practice is required, and this includes tactics. No, I'm not talking about the skill tactics, rather the ability to adapt  to a situation, and overcome it. Where you fins yourself now Ghostdance, is your next quest. How will you find a way to defeat the obstacles which you've have come across. The best answer is up to you... just go get it.



  --Sturger--

I guess beyond the organic material and landing the bio book / tool, is there anything "difficult" I am required to kill in order to proceed with evo pets? I guess the wiki isn't making a ton of sense to me other than how to get the book / tool (BODs.)

Ah, we had our wires crossed, you're talking about Bio Pets.  I thought you were talking about the Evo Dragon.

Bio Pets are a pretty big undertaking, requiring lots of skill in Tinkering, and LOTS of Luck.  Here is the wiki page on the Bio Pets:  http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/Bio_Engineering

I had been talking about the Evo Dragon, here is the wiki page on that:  http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/Evolution_Dragons

Personally, I don't believe that the Bio Pets are worth it anymore.  To even begin crafting them, you are required to have very high luck to have any success at getting a decent DNA mix (2.5k luck I would call the bare minimum), not to mention the investment in Tinkering.  On top of this, there are only specific monsters that you can even sample that will reap beneficial DNA results (capped Str, Dex, Int, etc.). 

As far as "difficult" to kill in order to proceed with Bio Pets...yes.  You need to kill yourself, again and again and again, if you fail at extracting DNA from a sample, you instantly die.  There was a time that Bio Pets would rival some donation only pets, but I don't see that as the case anymore.

fair enough.  A few questions:  1) is the stygian dragon harder than the colored dragons (required to collect skulls), and 2) is the drop rate nominal on styg drag or is it actually rare drop?  I ask because I struggle to even get near the colored dragons

All Dragons with red colored names are pretty equal with one another in difficulty: Very NASTY, but satisfying when you accomplish the feat. They do have differences, in mechanics tho.


The  Evo egg that drops off the Stygian is an ultra rare. It is easier to gather the colored skulls for the turn in to get the egg instead.


The task to earn the Egg is pretty difficult & the chance of a skull dropping isnt 100% (seems more like 10% to me).  I like to earn things for meyself. There have been times, I end up having the gold to just outright buy it from players/vendors before I actually earn the item, so I pick it up that way.


My #1 recommendation for anyone who comes to Evo: Get all your skills to gm, then get 120 in those you use all the time. It wont be too much fun until you get that at the minimum.


When I bard, I 160 music, discord & provo(or peace instead).


*hugs*


Sage

if only 120 scrolls were cheap   and I am not familiar at all with the champ system unfortunately


Champ info on the wiki
http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/Champion_Spawns

Don't get discouraged, you are attempting to solo the the most difficult content your first week here. You have to work up to defeating the top monsters.  There is a definite progression to success and every monster has a weakness.

Work on your skills and gear, obtain and breed top pets, make friends.  All the top items are available in game through loot, auctions, trading, etc so try and locate all of these items and get groups together to learn how to defeat each challenge

This game is meant to be a marathon rather than a sprint.  Slow down and enjoy all of the new aspects of the game!

hello all!  I am fairly new to the shard, and not quite understanding some of the concepts of the pets (or much of anything for that matter; I havent played this game in well over 10 years.)  I have been able to scoot my way to a majority of 100.0's on most skills, and did the donation and got a few 120 scrolls.  Currently I run with a cu sidhe with ~1300 hp, and I have fine with content around destard level 1 difficulty, but I can't seem to get a grasp on any of the custom / real content.  I am also not understanding how one acquires evo pets (or if they're even worth pursuing as a "tank").  I can't seem to peacemake a greater dragon, or find reliable jewelry that offers peacemake. Does anyone have any tips / tricks / guides on where to go from here?  I tried pursuing the astral daemon stuff, but the imps wreck me and my pet.  I am kind of in a rut on what to do, because a few of the quests seem bugged / missing monster spawns (hare krishna, for example.)


Any help is appreciated, thanks!