Orna, Aethric - Pet Class Progression Full Guide - Deep Dive - Beginner Guide Series

Pet-Class Progression Guide: Orna and Hero of Aethric

This guide follows the pet-focused class path from Tier 7 to Tier 10. The core playstyle is to strengthen and protect your pet, letting it deal most of the damage while you stay alive—often behind Ward.

Pet Power and Action Rate

• Pet power rises with your character level and is boosted by pet-class passives and pet-focused specializations.
• For a dedicated pet build, pair a class with a Valhalla passive and the Beastmaster or Tamer specialization. Their pet-power bonuses stack, substantially increasing your pet’s strength.
• Action rate determines how often pets use their attacks, spells, healing, buffs, debuffs, or protection abilities. Bonuses to action rate apply across categories, though the game does not display every chance clearly.
• Pets choose individual skills separately and may skip abilities that are unnecessary. For example, a healing pet generally won’t heal you at full health.
• The guide recommends Ulysses Sword’s Orna Pet Stats spreadsheet for comparing pet power and action rates under different class, specialization, level, equipment, and battle conditions.

Class and Pet Progression

Tier 7: Dragon Knight + Beastmaster

Dragon Knight is the first dedicated pet class. It can equip both Warrior and Mage gear. Its Valhalla passive is modest on its own, but combines with Beastmaster to unlock much more pet power.

Playstyle and Skills

• Focus on buffs, survival, and letting the pet attack.
• Lunge is especially useful: its critical-hit chance helps restore health and mana, supporting long fights and dungeons.
• Useful buffs include Wyvern Speed II, Golem’s Fortitude, and the Druid skill Mimic’s Mischief. An Ankou’s Ring can prevent the curse from Mimic’s Mischief.
• Pick up Barrier II from Adept for defense and resistance buffs, and Wisp Heal to clear certain status effects.
• Swordplay can provide temporary buffs to both you and your pet.

Pets

• War Horse: Strong for raids. Its multi-hit attacks can deal heavy damage, and Onslaught can lower enemy defense. Its action rate is relatively low, but its attacks can hit hard.
• Dark Dragon: A common, accessible pet with a much higher chance to act and a mix of attack and magic spells. Excellent for PvP, dungeons, and general farming, but its dark damage makes it unsuitable against enemies immune to dark damage, including Balor Elite.
• Twilight Wisp: A defensive option with healing that can be troublesome in PvP and useful in territory control.

Tier 8: Freyr + Beastmaster

Freyr improves the pet bonuses and remains able to wear Warrior and Mage equipment. Lunge is still valuable, and the playstyle continues to emphasize buffs, Ward, and pet damage.

Pets

• Big Cactus: A burst-damage choice. Its Arrow Storm skills can deliver enormous multi-hit damage, especially against enemies whose defense has been reduced, but it acts less consistently.
• Triton: The recommended first Tier 8 pet. It combines attacks, spells, and healing, making it a dependable choice for dungeons, PvP, and world farming.

Tier 9: Bahamut + Tamer

Bahamut and Tamer make pet builds especially powerful. Their pet-power and action-rate bonuses stack, while Bahamut remains able to equip Warrior and Mage gear. This is a strong tier for raiding, PvP, and general progression.

Playstyle and Skills

• Continue to prioritize buffs, Ward, and survival. Lunge remains useful for sustaining health and mana.
• Common setup skills include Golem’s Fortitude, Barrier II, Mimic’s Mischief, Wyvern Speed II, and Ward of Mithril. Fortify III can help extend Ward turns.
• Wisp Heal is useful when using pets that inflict status effects on their owner.
• The Nidhogg pet’s dragon damage can be inconvenient against Bahamut opponents, so keep another source of damage available.

Pets

• Crimson Gazer: A powerful, high-action-rate pet whose unstable spells deliver damage that would take a player multiple turns to cast. It excels at world farming and can quickly clear many enemies. Its spells may inflict status effects on you, however, making it awkward for raids. Wisp Heal can clear some effects; Panaceas may be needed if you are frozen or paralyzed.
• Nidhogg: A rare pet with consistent damage, recommended for raiding Apollyon and other suitable targets. Its dragon damage is less effective against enemies resistant to that element, and it lacks Crimson Gazer’s burst, but it avoids Crimson Gazer’s self-inflicted status problems.

Tier 10: Beowulf + Tamer

Beowulf offers strong pet bonuses and access to Warrior, Mage, and Thief gear, but has much less HP than many other Tier 10 classes. Its strength lies in its pets, its flexible equipment options, and its ability to complete endgame content—not in being a conventional damage-dealing class.

Key Mechanics and Tactics

• Valhalla Dissonance boosts pet power and action rate; its pet-power bonus grows as Beowulf’s health falls. This encourages “redlining,” or fighting at very low health, but requires careful protection.
• Use Divine Bastion or Divine Bastion II for full Ward absorption, allowing you to survive at low HP more safely. Ward skills such as Ward of Orna/Ortnite and Ward-turn maintenance are important.
• Valhalla Protection provides a chance to block incoming damage. Its protection chance can stack with a pet’s protection bonus.
• Lunge remains useful well into endgame.
• Beowulf’s four battle stances trade large bonuses in one area for severe penalties elsewhere:
  • Gate of Kara: Raises defense, greatly lowers magic and resistance.
  • Gate of Ear: Raises resistance, greatly lowers attack and defense.
  • Gate of Gunnr: Raises attack, greatly lowers magic and resistance.
  • Gate of Snotra: Raises magic, greatly lowers attack and defense.
• Choose a gate to match your pet and the enemy. For example, use Snotra with magic-damage pets; Gunnr is unsuitable for a magic pet such as Crimson Gazer.
• The Tier 9 Deific Channel skill is useful in raids: after setting up buffs and reaching low health, it can be used to increase pet damage.

Pets

• Fjalar: A reliable raiding pet with multi-hit attacks and no damage-over-time effect or self-healing ability to interfere with redlining. A straightforward option for maximizing Valhalla Dissonance.
• Anubis: A rare, powerful magic pet with high-penetration spells, making it useful in PvP and against defensive opponents. It can spam Forbid; casting Forbid yourself can prevent the pet from repeatedly using it. Anubis also works well against Morrigan. Snotra can help against her magic damage, while Kara can be used to counter her Great Plague.
• Chimera: A strong attack pet with high-penetration skills and Berserk, which boosts its damage. Its Berserk damage-over-time effect makes low-HP play riskier, and its dragon attacks are resisted by Morrigan; Fjalar is generally smoother for that raid.
• Event pets: Fey Chimera and Mightiest Mimic can be excellent alternatives, particularly for PvP. Crimson Gazer and Nidhogg also remain useful for Tier 10 world farming and dungeons.

Equipment and Itemization

Survivability and Ward are the main priorities; pet damage usually matters more than personal damage. Pet-boosting accessories and Fey Dragon gear can further increase pet strength or action rate.

Tier 7

• Crystals from Enlightened Prince can help buff without lowering your stats, supporting skills such as Golem’s Fortitude and Mimic’s Mischief.
• Reaper’s Robe from Ankou increases Orns gained from kills; leveling it to 10 gives the bonus regardless of quality.
• Consider Yeti Overcoat for balanced defensive stats, and use the best available helmet, boots, and legs.
• Arena shields offer Ward and defensive options. Ankou’s Ring helps prevent curse and sleep, while Ring of Annwn protects against four basic elemental status effects.
• Dragoon Charms boost pet power and action rate. Quality does not change their pet bonuses.
• Fey Dragon gear adds pet action rate and can make pets act much more often.

Tier 8

• Start building a Ward set. Aegis gear from Heimdall is a useful weapon option because of its Ward, and shields such as Northern Shield or Bone Shield can add more.
• Mix available Northern, Fallen King Arthur, and other defensive gear as needed.
• Lost Helmet and Reaper’s Robe improve Orn gains for farming.
• Cursed Monster Tomes can boost experience for world farming and dungeons, if you can manage the reduced stats.
• Dragoon Charms and Fey Dragon gear remain viable for improving pet action rates.

Tier 9

• Continue farming Apollyon for Ward gear; Bahamut’s ability to wear both Warrior and Mage equipment widens the pool of usable drops.
• Fey Yeti Coat is a useful source of HP.
• A Fallen Shield from Mammon offers high Ward and curse immunity, potentially freeing an accessory slot.
• For farming, use Reaper’s Robe, Lost Helmet, and experience-boosting accessories such as Band of Gods. The guide recommends completing the main story for a Band of Gods and notes that dungeon rewards may provide another.
• Abyssal Axe is a key Ward weapon for combat. Demeter’s Halberd can be useful for a raid-focused setup with adornments that lower enemy defenses.

Tier 10

• Complete the Boar NPC’s quest for the Old Nothren Crown. Keep the quest reward: it is valuable even at common quality and can be upgraded for additional Ward and protection against attack and magic reductions.
• Apollyon gear remains useful for Ward. Prioritize a strong Abyssal Axe and, if available, an Arisen Shield from Arisen Mammon; a good Fallen Shield remains viable.
• For farming, keep using experience- and Orn-boosting equipment such as Venom, Arisen Witch’s Staff, Reaper’s Robe, Lost Helmet, and Band of Gods, as appropriate.
• Freyr’s Charms increase pet power and action rate. Fey Chimera gear can add pet power, though it lacks Ward, so it is mainly for experimenting or maximizing pet stats.

Featured Gamer and Source

• Gamer/creator: Shabbash
• Source: The Orna Pet Stats spreadsheet by Ulysses Sword, used in the guide to compare pet power and action rates.