My assessment of pet's + areas of improvement

[Deadly Serious]

Got bored ^^ feel free to give me your opinion as I've certainly not tested every pet thoroughly or even at all [bcolor=rgb(16, 16, 16)][/bcolor]

Short tier List

• League of their own! - Cu Sidhe (remove bleed), Lesser Hiryu, Hiryu, Najasaurus, Serpentine Dragon (must be magery), Unicorn (magery), Giant Beetle, Fire Beetle

• Worthy! - Lion(healing only), Sabre-tooth tiger(healing only), Dragon Turtle Hatchling (remove bleed), Nightmare, White Wyrm, Dread Spider (debatable! paper hp start), Ossein Ram (necro), Greater Dragon (4 slot with overcapped skills GL!), Frost Dragon (high rating), Dimetrosaur (pvp/spawn clear), Tsuki wolf (190 dex, pvp spec, must be necro), Frost Mite, Stone Slith (remove bleed), Wild Tiger (remove bleed), Reptalon (remove paralyze), Rune Beetle

* - add bladeweave, pet will drop bleed in time (this is based off Cu Sidhe building only, no testing done on other pet's!, do not risk a well stat'd pet based off this information only test yourself first!), also keep bleed if you want but mana sink in PvM * - Theory, should remove like the bleed


Other creatures

- Creatures who are in desperate need of a -1 slot vairant (example nightmare 3 slot roughly 500 STR, 2 slot viarant 280ish STR)

• Bake Kitsune, Cold Drake, Dragon, Greater Dragon (better than current system), Shadow Wyrm, Phoenix, Triceratops

- Creatures who don't make sense and need reworking (example - why would you get a Ki-Rin over a 2 slot nightmare/unicorn and why would you value overcapped STR vs a complete kit)

• Ki Rin, Stygian Drake, Dragon Wolf, Platinum/Crimson Drake, Skree

Other nuisances/Areas of improvement

• Dragon Breath is a pain on most creatures who start with it by default, if you want that move to do high damage it requires you to focus the pet into as much HP as possible. Rework or reduce mana cost (or zero)
• Bleed AI destroys a pet's mana, regardless of it's potential in pvp in pvm the pet will continually try to bleed it's target if it is not bled (Take a Cu to trog cave where they bandage themselves, the Cu's mana will sink). substantially reduce the mana cost of "pet bleed", differentiate it from a player's bleed like what dev's have done with frienzied whirlwind. (pet version no slow)
• Magery/Necromancy training cost is too high, to train a creature who doesn't know these abilities will cost you (including scrolls) 1800 points! Improve AI significantly and/or make either one cost 500-800 points.
• Better natural mana regen on some pets, this needs to be addressed if this is the case but so far I believe it to be skills like Bleed's AI sinking the mana pool.
• Mountable vs unmountable, Lesser Hiryu is high above a lot of pet's with amazing training potential and not only that it's mountable, at least the giant/fire beetle has an excuse as neither can learn a magic ability besides poisoning. Unmountable 5 slot pets should be superior to mountable ones but this is certainly not the case with the exception of Najasarus (poison immune, resist spells) and Serpentine dragon (overcapped magery, gargoyle's best pvp pet).
• Pet movement speed is limited by Dexterity and only the Tssuki wolf/rune beetle and maybe 1 or 2 others have movement that is viable outside of PvM. Should probably limit every pet to 150 and after nerfing animal taming mastery consume damage should probably give Berserk a great buff + improving the pet's movement speed considerably.
• Limited choices for bushido/ninjitsu/necromancy pet's, needs improving!
• Pointless skills, cold wind and steal life to name a few, needs improving!
• Lacking unique skills, rage/rune corruption/healing/poison immunity and that's about it. I can think of an easy way to get the Plat/Crimson/Stygian drake wagon rolling and that's by giving them a great unique ability! Change Ki-Rin's ability the Unicorn can't stop laughing at it!

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

How do you remove bleed from a Cu?

 

[Deadly Serious]

@Keith of Sonoma give it bladeweave, the skill also has the added benefit of you being able to give your pet fient/frienzied whirlwind/talon strike/nerve strike for free!

Bladeweave is far from being a good damage move tho but it certainly saves on mana costs.

 

[Khaelor]

If you don't think Cold Drakes are good, only thing i can think of is you are specing them wrong or training very low rating ones.

 

[Deadly Serious]

@Khaelor overcapped tactics (125), not sure how great an application 5 extra points would be. 100 less health than a Cu, 50 STR more, dragon breath and no unique ability or magic ability, also 50% physical/cold which is ok but being overcapped in the worst resist doesn't help. Dragon Breath relies on high HP, so you'd sink at the very least 900 points of HP into it (495 max hp > 795), give it resists and you've already spent 1200 points.

If a White Wyrm didn't have Magery a cold drake would only be slightly better than it.

 

[Khaelor]

Is this just theory crafting from you? Or have you actually tried Cold Drakes with many specs? We've trained and leveled least 10 cold drakes, same spec as many "worthy" pets choices, and they are not laggers by any means. Also CU's are overcapped in "the worst resist" also, again, resist comes in ranges, you can find lower cold resist Cold drakes also.

High tactics and Wrestling is also saving 300-400 points, 40 million in scroll cost, Near str cap 200ish points saved over a CU.

 

[Deadly Serious]

So what you are saying is your very happy with it being a 3 slot pet and you wouldn't care for a 2 slot variant with 400 odd STR instead of 600?

 

[Ford Taunus]

League of their own! - Lesser Hiryu, Najasaurus, Serpentine Dragon (must be magery), Unicorn (magery), Giant Beetle, Fire Beetle

This kind thread I have tried to found on forums .

So... if I want tame my first "new pet" and train it just for common runs (Perlesses and champpions) which one of those list you will choose? I have thought Najasaurus but is wiser to choose some other pet?

 

[Basara]

As for Dimetrosaurs, most of my friends swear by them for all large spawns, not just pvp. We routinely do tram-ruleset spawns, trying to get volume II & III masteries for other characters (as the players don't PvP due to connection speeds and lack of income, the Fel boost means nothing if the raiders get the loot 100% of the time).

They especially work well at the turtle spawn itself. Some of the spawns (the ones with high-end types immune to poison), not so much.

 

[Deadly Serious]

This kind thread I have tried to found on forums .

So... if I want tame my first "new pet" and train it just for common runs (Perlesses and champpions) which one of those list you will choose? I have thought Najasaurus but is wiser to choose some other pet?

Lesser Hiryu, peerless's are fairly simple bosses so more damage from pet the better and if you teach the Hiryuu Chiv + AI it should be fun!

As for Dimetrosaurs, most of my friends swear by them for all large spawns, not just pvp. We routinely do tram-ruleset spawns, trying to get volume II & III masteries for other characters (as the players don't PvP due to connection speeds and lack of income, the Fel boost means nothing if the raiders get the loot 100% of the time).

They especially work well at the turtle spawn itself. Some of the spawns (the ones with high-end types immune to poison), not so much.

Poison breath is good spawn clear ofc!

 

[Ford Taunus]

Lesser Hiryu, peerless's are fairly simple bosses so more damage from pet the better and if you teach the Hiryuu Chiv + AI it should be fun!

Nice thanks. COuld you give advice how I should imbue/train it.. so I dont need start over. Chiv and AI but how about stats, recits etc?

 

[Deadly Serious]

When imbuing a pet there is only 1 thing you need to watch out for, stats and HP because these can potentially cause your pet to jump in slots. Maxing resists is safe, stamina is safe, HPR/SR/MR safe, skills are fairly safe depending on pet (a pet that already has magery/eval int in his kit and you decide to give him chiv points could cause issues) and raising skill caps are safe. HP/STR/INT need to be raised carefully, I have no experience with raising a Lesser Hiryu yet so you may want to ask someone with experience on this pet.

 

[Pawain]

Nice thanks. COuld you give advice how I should imbue/train it.. so I dont need start over. Chiv and AI but how about stats, recits etc?

If you have others that do them with you, One of them having a dimetrosaur is really nice with its mortal strike and poisoning to keep the prey from healing.

Otherwise the lesser has many good options.

They are supposed to be fixing the slot jumping right now on TC.

I have 4 fully trained, I haven't had one jump yet. I don't skill them while training.

 

[fusionx86]

Speaking of Dragon Breath, is there any other skill that can overwrite/remove it? I'm training a nightmare nox mage and it won't have a ton of HP so DB is crap.

 

[Deadly Serious]

Unfortunately it's impossible, as I said a bit of mana reduction and I don't think it will be too detrimental but....

I want them to improve cooking / alchemy / tinkering. Alchemist makes an induced coma pot, cook combines it with a tasty slab of meat and you are performing pet brain surgery with tinkering+veterinary! Although I feel tinkering would be pushed to it's limits somewhat...

 

[Deadly Serious]

after training a lesser Hiryu myself (wanted to see how good bushido is for survival, I don't run Vet just peace) I moved Cu Sidhe to one of the top pets. If you remove Bleed it really does sort out it's mana problems and I thought the hiryu would have more HP/STR at slot 3 but Cu is pretty much even on it.

There are 2 choices really when it comes to magical creature choice:
Lesser Hiryu - Better pvp pet with dismount, Bushdio+Armor Ignore should make for a good all round pet in terms of damage and safety.
Cu Sidhe - Healing is super great for the toughest of PvM situations, Bladeweave + Frenzied Whilrwind (good AoE and single target)/Fient (super safe pvm)/Talon Strike (good damage increase)/Nerve Strike (if you want to force it pvp) and then pick your magic, Chiv (+talon strike makes sense to me!) or Discordance pvm or Mysticism + Nerve Strike could be pretty decent pvp (you could choose mysticism pvm for even more safety).

-edit - Hiryu vs Lesser Hiryu, no real difference again unless you don't care for strength in a pet. (example spellcasting Hiryu). So Hiryu vs Lesser is more or less the same. Gonna look at Reptalon next to see stats/slots.


I need info for if anyone can provide:

Do all pets lose their "hidden abilities" once they improve a slot? (example - Giant Beetle backpack).
The pet's I want info for are Unicorn and does it lose poison immunity when uprgraded and Deathwatch Beetle does it remove it's poison spit (it doesn't show poison spit in lore but it still uses it when tamed but I haven't upgraded it, also if anyone's curious deathwatch beetle cannot learn bushido/ninjitsu)

edit - ok Ki-Rin doesn't lose it's hidden ability to call down lighting when it's rider is low on HP on upgrade, so I have to assume that Unicorn keeps it's poison immunity and ability to cure it's master of poison once every hour.

 

[Swordsman]

after training a lesser Hiryu myself (wanted to see how good bushido is for survival, I don't run Vet just peace) I moved Cu Sidhe to one of the top pets. If you remove Bleed it really does sort out it's mana problems and I thought the hiryu would have more HP/STR at slot 3 but Cu is pretty much even on it.

There are 2 choices really when it comes to magical creature choice:
Lesser Hiryu - Better pvp pet with dismount, Bushdio+Armor Ignore should make for a good all round pet in terms of damage and safety.
Cu Sidhe - Healing is super great for the toughest of PvM situations, Bladeweave + Frenzied Whilrwind (good AoE and single target)/Fient (super safe pvm)/Talon Strike (good damage increase)/Nerve Strike (if you want to force it pvp) and then pick your magic, Chiv (+talon strike makes sense to me!) or Discordance pvm or Mysticism + Nerve Strike could be pretty decent pvp (you could choose mysticism pvm for even more safety).


I need info for if anyone can provide:

Do all pets lose their "hidden abilities" once they improve a slot? (example - Giant Beetle backpack).
The pet's I want info for are Unicorn and does it lose poison immunity when uprgraded and Deathwatch Beetle does it remove it's poison spit (it doesn't show poison spit in lore but it still uses it when tamed but I haven't upgraded it, also if anyone's curious deathwatch beetle cannot learn bushido/ninjitsu)

edit - ok Ki-Rin doesn't lose it's hidden ability to call down lighting when it's rider is low on HP on upgrade, so I have to assume that Unicorn keeps it's poison immunity and ability to cure it's master of poison once every hour.

The 5 slot giant beetle still has the backpack. My str 670 beetle can load 1600 stone of goods, I ride on it and run without fatigue.

 

[Deadly Serious]

Oh! dunno where I read up on that then, I guess all pets are fine being upgraded even fire beetle still being able to smelt then I guess

 

[Khaelor]

Which of the pets that you wrote an assessment for have you trained yourself and what specs?

 

[Deadly Serious]

trained to 5 slot with no scrolls : White Wyrm, Stygian Drake, Platinum Drake, Cold Drake, Dragon Wolf, lesser hiryu
combat scrolls : Cu Sidhe, Nightmare, Fire Beetle, Tsukki Wolf
combat+magic : cu sidhe (discord), NIghtmare (mage+eval)
(no chiv/necro/bushido pet over 100 yet, i'm impressed with chiv thus far and looking to combo it with talon strike on a cu)

My main pet is my Nightmare (gm poisoning with magery 112 eval 120, mage mastery nuke is impressive can't wait for 120 magery!, 700 health+700 int/450 str hpr20 mpr 30), I'm busy training my friends Tssuki wolf atm my mate is 100%+ sdi mage so the Tssuki has necro(corpse), inferno(more minus fire resist), bladewave+dismount (bladeweave cheap move to prioritise mana spend on necro + pet doesn't use dismount at all in pvm good side use in Fel).

Kind of a broad question, look if Cold drake had overcapped STR with that 125 tactics it would get my respect does make me question how good the master skill onslaught would be tho under 125 tactics but then I'm thinking about how good a GD 4 slot with over capped wrestling/tactics or even magery 125 (dunno if you can give a GD a combat magic ability tho!).

 

[celticus]

Thank you for the post Deadly:
Im a little behind in keeping up with changes.
Can you please explain how masteries apply to pets? Like combat masteries, and how about the tamer's SDI-->does that reflect the pet's SDI also?
thanks

 

[celticus]

By the way: According to what we are reading here a massive nerf may be coming up with next pub, for Bush and Ninja skills and will likely not be able to raise to GM or above. I hope devs change their mind and hope this is not true.