Undead Whispers

The name of my new Pankration pet. Although merely a hologram created from a Soul Reflector, I still consider Whispers to be my third pet, and for those of you who always wanted a holographic pet of your own, look no further!

How to Play Pankration














Step 1: Purchase a Soultrapper (camera) and some Soul Plates (film) from the Colosseum NPC, and take snapshots of your favorite pet. Essentially, you will want as many pictures as possible, but make sure you can turn them into Soul Reflectors first.




Step 2: Turn a Soul Plate into a Soul Reflector. There is only a chance that the plate's skill/ability/job trait/etc. will transfer onto your Soul Reflector at this time, but you can also receive a random stat or two instead (like above).





Step 3: Add skills to your Soul Reflector by turning in additional plates. After your first plate, any additional stats/skills/abilities/etc. cost Feral Points (FPs), so they can only be added if your pet has enough FPs.





Step 4: Level up your pet's skills and job traits, if applicable. For my pet, I found "Draining Attack" to be fairly disappointing at 20 damage a hit, so I ended up replacing it with "Instant Haste."















Step 5: Finalize your pet's temperament. Essentially, temperament dictates your pet's fighting style, and the more discipline it has, the more readily your pet's temperament can change. There are two broad categories for temperament:

A) Wild vs Tame

1. Don't think, kill!
2. Less thinking, more striking!
3. Watch your opponent, then attack!
4. Think, and think again!
5. You're on your own!

B) Aggressive vs Defensive

1. Show no mercy!!!
2. Give 'em a little more bite!
3. Back off a bit!
4. Guard! Block! Parry! Hold!

The following summarizes the major fighting styles, taken from a post on Blue Gartr:

Side-Stepper: When attacked with a spell or WS, your pet will maneuver to its opponent's side and inflict critical damage.
Temperament: Extremely Tame / Somewhat Aggressive.
Achieved by: Using the "Think, and think again!" command a lot for category A, and "Back off a bit!" or "Give 'em a little more bite!" for category B.
Notes: Mage pets do not side-step very well, and AoE WSs cannot be side-stepped (e.g. "Whirl Claws").

Chicken Fighter: Your pet will flee from enemy WSs.
Temperament: Extremely Tame / Somewhat Defensive.
Achieved by: Using the "Think, and think again!" command for category A, and "Back off a bit!" or "Give 'em a little more bite!" for category B.
Notes: Mage pets will not flee.

Stunners: Your pet will stun enemy spells and WSs.
Temperament: Somewhat Tame / Extremely Defensive.
Achieved by: Using the "Think, and think again!" command a lot for category A, and "Guard! Block! Parry! Hold!" for category B.
Notes: Some moves are difficult to "Stun" in time (e.g. "Whirl Claws"), and if your pet does not have any "Stun" abilities, it will try to perform a defensive ability instead (e.g. "Scissor Guard").

Sleep-Nuker: Your pet will cast "Sleep" on its opponent between offensive spells.
Temperament: Somewhat Tame / Somewhat Aggressive.
Achieved by: Using the "Think, and think again!" command for category A, and "Back off a bit!" or "Give 'em a little more bite!" for category B.
Notes: Undead and Dark Elementals are immune to Dark-based "Sleep" moves.

As you might have guessed (above), Whispers was designed to be a side-stepper.

Although Whispers likes to cast magic as a DRK, he can still side-step at times, and if he launches a WS during a side-step, the WS deals bonus damage on its target.







Above, Whispers side-steps Klotz's "Ectosmash" and retaliates with one of his own. As a result, my pet took much less damage for side-stepping and inflicted much more damage in return.


















If you are wondering what the "Magic Resistance" bonus does, I would say it reduced the spells above by about 80-100 damage, relative to other pets, so Whispers can certainly terrorize a mage or two.















You will often see a mage pet as your server's pit champion. Generally, mage pets possess numerous buffs and fight as Sleep-nukers, which makes them extremely difficult to defeat without specialized pet builds. In addition, I often see Chigoes and Coeurls (relying on their Evasion and/or "En-spell" effects) or Mimics (relying on their heavy Defense) as Asura's pit champions.





So why bother with Pankration? More than anything, it can be a fun experience, but if your pet does become the pit champion, you earn Jettons for every consecutive win (even if you are not present). Unfortunately, Whispers only lasted five rounds as the pit champion (above), but with any luck, he will dominate the ring more often.