What Is A Ward Pet?
The name Ward Pet refers specifically to “Ward” talents. Each school has a corresponding ward talent, usually with the school’s name followed by the word “Ward”. For instance, Fire-Ward or Balance-Ward. These talents all give up to 15% resistance to that specific school. Since these talents give resist, they are most commonly paired with the universal resistance talents, Spell-Proof and Spell-Defying, for a hefty 30% resistance to that particular school. Although these talents are often seen together, a pet does not need the universal resistance talents to be considered a ward pet.
Why Use A Ward Pet?
At first glance, you might think these ward talents are only useful if you intend to play defensive. While that is true, many players will want to take advantage of ward talents, even players who spend their time hitting can make use of ward pets. As long as you know what type of damage you will be taking, using the corresponding ward talent will make you significantly more resilient in battle.
For those players who don’t want to hit as much, it is popular to combine ward talents with other types of talents. For example, certain may-cast talents pair incredibly well, Fairy Friend or Fearless Fortifier to name a couple.
How Do I Make a Ward Pet?
Although the general way you go about making a ward pet is the same as making any other pet, there are some useful tips to keep in mind. The pet you put the ward talents on, can be equally as important as the talents themselves. For offensive ward pets, as I mentioned earlier, the Rain Beetle is a popular base pet. It provides a spell that allows you to remove shields or weaknesses and blade in the same turn. For defensive ward pets, Grimhorns and Flamencos provide very powerful -90% set shields which pair nicely with the extra resistance. Other popular options include the Clockwork Paladin, which gives a minion that has many shields and blades.
Once you pick what base to put the talents on as well as which wards you want, there are some helpful things to look for in the pool. For starters, all ward talents are Ultra-Rare. So when looking for a ward pet, keep an eye out for a lot of Ultra-Rare talents in the pool. Another thing to keep in mind, is ward talents will always be below Spell-Proof in your pool. It’s very common for Spell-Proof to be the very top talent in your pool, although it does not have to be.
Extra Information
You may hear players throw around the term “16 ward” when discussing ward pets. Your first thought might be that they have a ward pet with selfish talents to increase the stats from the talent. However, if the pet’s base stats are high enough, when combining Spell-Proof, Spell-Defying and a ward talent, they will actually add up to 31%, despite still showing 5%, 10% and 15%. This will only be visible on your character sheet, and is only possible when you have both Spell-Proof, Spell-Defying and a Ward talent. This is a picture of my character with the Rain Beetle I mentioned earlier, and as you can see he has 31% Fire, Ice, and Balance resistance despite the pet only showing values that add up to 30%.
For anyone interested in the math behind 16 ward or interested in checking if a pet will be 16 ward before training it, here it is. As long as the decimal values of Spell-Proof, Spell-Defying and the ward talent add together to be 30.5 or greater, the character sheet will round the value up to 31%. For reference, a max stat pet will have the values of 10.24, 5.12 and 15.36, which add to 30.72 and thus round up to 31%.
Conclusion
This concludes the first article of the Fantastic Pets series. Hopefully this helped give you some insight into what wards pets are, why to use them, and how to go about making one yourself.
I’d love to hear about how this guide helped you, as well as what else you want to hear about. I will be covering other major pet types, but if you have a specific type of pet in mind, be sure to leave a comment below.
