Guide for Vah Shir Beastlords

Warder and Spells Strategy (level 15)

As you reach 15, a new set of spells is available to you - return to your guild and get them. As well as any old spells from level 9 that you haven't yet purchased, you will want Spirit of Khaliz, Spirit of Lightning, Blast of Frost, Sicken, Scale Skin, Strengthen, and Fleeting Fury; the others are less useful. You won't be able to find Sense Animals, which is available from Ranger/Druid guilds, but fortunately also from Gadallion, one of the gypsies in Oasis; this is a very useful spell, but only really in outdoor zones when you are farming pelts! You don't really need Sense Animals; when you tell your warder to guard, he will automatically turn to face the closest mob. Note that you can buy a stack of snake scales from Ragnar's shop to power Scale Skin. It is now going to be worth your while practicing casting to max your skills; use the lowest level spell in each group that you can cast, and cast on a corpse - it is worth finding one just to practice on. Use at least a full charge of mana at each level; improving skills will reduce fizzles, and make you more effective.

To attack using your new spells, make sure first that your pet (level 16, and yellow to you!) has Spirit of Khaliz, Spirit of Lightning, and Inner Fire; Strengthen may or may not have a beneficial effect. You should have Inner Fire, possibly Scale Skin, and Strengthen. Cast Fleeting Fury on your pet immediately before pulling, or while the mob is incoming; Fleeting Fury has the effect of making your pet proc more often. Pull using Sicken, and step back to cast Blast of Frost a few times once your pet is taking the mobs aggro. This hardly makes much difference at this stage, but will be extremely good practice for later levels, as well as keep your evocation skill up. If you let your pet do much tanking for you, and this is an excellent idea at levels 15 and 16, keep a close eye on health, and be prepared to heal if necessary.

In an outdoor zone with roaming mobs, it is generally acceptable to run up to a mob and start fighting, expecting your pet to join in, or even to tell your pet to attack while you hold back for a last minute cast of Fleeting Fury, or to place a dot. However, in some zones this will leave you in the path of roaming mobs, and so is not good practice. For static mobs, and dungeons, this will get you killed quickly. Instead, find a good spot free of mobs and wanderers not too far from those you want to hunt, and tell your pet to guard a few feet back from where you want to fight. This is because your pet will rush forward when you take damage, if you are close enough. It will take a little practice to find out what distances work best. Pull with Sicken if possible; this does very minor damage, but the disease counter hinders normal regeneration while it is active (I believe).

If you find that your pet doesn't return to his guard spot, here's a tip from the EQBeastlord forums; tell him to sit first, then to guard. After that, he will almost always return to the same spot.

When both you and your pet are in melee range, mobs will only attack you (this applies to any player). I have only ever seen pets take aggro when a mage pet is fighting alongside our pet (this may apply to necromancer pets as well, but I haven't had the opportunity to find out). Unless you are below the magic 20 - 30% hit points level, or have done something else to increase aggro, aggro will normally stay with your pet as you move back. During the course of a fight, manage the damage that both you and your pet are taking by moving in and out of melee range. Back off and heal yourself at a suitable level - depending on mana and other factors, I may set this at anywhere from 60 - 80% in good circumstances, or 40% in an emergency. Your pet will take a lot more damage when you aren't in melee, so if your pet is below 40%, heal your pet first. The pet heal spell is fast and heals for a reasonable amount (almost 30% for the level 16 pet), and has the added bonus of curing disease.

If you are fighting in Paludal, many mobs are positioned just outside the assist radius of each other, but are otherwise very tightly positioned. This means that if you pull them back to a safe spot, you will usually aggro several at a time, and will be in danger of getting adds from respawning. So instead, it can be a good idea to fight the mob in place; this applies to everywhere in Paludal apart from the bandit camps and fiends. Because most mobs don't run (exception: glowing muck diggers), by standing almost on top of the mob before causing aggro, it will be effectively locked in place when combat starts, and won't get any assists - for most spawn locations.