Pets — Your Companion

What is the Companion System?

Pets are not decoration. Each companion is a combat partner with its own role, its own experience and its own growth, tied to your character. A character can own one companion per role and bring one of them on each hunt.

While a companion is out it takes the place of a familiar or vocation summon. It follows you through the world and comes back after you log in. If it is defeated it is not lost: it returns after a short cooldown with its level and experience intact.

Availability: companions are being tested on the Public Test. How players will earn their first companion has not been announced yet.

Three roles

Every companion represents one role. Pick the one that fits the way you play.

Each role has its own companion line, from a first form to an evolved and an ascended one: Damage grows from Ember Whelp, Healer from Arcane Sprite and Protector from Stone Cub.

Pet XP and levels

Your companion earns its own experience while you hunt together. It has to be active and close to you, and you have to be fighting; being in the same party is not enough. Pet XP is separate from your own EXP and never changes it.

Each level makes the companion sturdier and more effective, with diminishing returns, so progress is a long-term goal rather than a quick race. Elite Monsters and bosses are worth extra companion XP.

Care and limits

Companions have real health and can be defeated. They recover when out of combat. After a defeat the companion needs a short cooldown before you can call it again, and for a few seconds no companion can be called.

Evolution: Base, Evolved, Ascended

Companions grow through three stages — Base, Evolved and Ascended — each with a new look. Evolution follows companion progression: it is about growth, not about spending.

Evolution is being tested on the Public Test. The new looks are visible with the current official client; older clients show the basic look. Details may still change.

1. BaseWhere every companion begins: Ember Whelp, Arcane Sprite, Stone Cub.
2. EvolvedThe first milestone of a long partnership: Ember Drake, Arcane Spirit, Stone Guardian.
3. AscendedThe highest stage of the companion’s growth, for companions that have gone a long way.

Talents and Mastery

Each role has its own talent branches and, for companions that have grown far, mastery. Both are part of the companion window in the current client and are still being tested, so how they work may change.

Choosing your active companion

Only one companion is active at a time. Manage your companions in the My Pets window of the current official client; chat commands also work.

• !pet list — see your companions
• !pet summon damage, healer or protector — call a companion
• !pet dismiss — send the companion away