Intel increases mana regen minimally. Put the str to 700 and the rest in Mana.
INT is better than Mana. Max Mana doesn't matter that much in a boss fight, your pet will blow through all it's Mana then be left working on fumes. Higher INT helps it regen Mana faster so that it can more frequently use spells/specials once it reaches that point in the boss fight where it's mana dumped. Plus it very slightly increases spell damage. If the pet has Magery Mastery, INT suddenly becomes a lot more valuable due to Mind Blast.
But yeah, STR > DEX > INT for raw stats, and for derived stats it's Stam > Health > Mana.
And I always had the silly notion that Shadow Dragons would totally rock! And they suck if they were maybe a 3 slot pet they might get ok but I rather doubt it.
Yeah, Shadow Wyrms have 29-35 Base Damage and up to 1,030 STR (INSANE). They can hit hard, when they land a hit. Problem is, they max out at GM Wrestling (and so have a hard time hitting any current boss), max out at 125 Stamina (and so don't hit the swing cap for pets), and their Corpse Skin casting messes with their own melee damage output. Plus, they have no MR or Specials like AI. Once they piss away their Mana from casting, it takes a long time to regain it.
If pets that tame out at 5 Slots could get just even 500 Training Points, it would go a long way to making them viable. As is, a pet with Chiv or Wrestling Mastery will out damage any 5 slot upon tame pet.
Then I see a couple of people trying to fight a vesper frost dragon with a CU, a frost dragon and frost mite and me killing a frost 4x faster with a fire beetle or fire steed. That is where a lot of folks miss the boat, picking the wrong pet for the job......... And don't get me wrong I use some low hp pets that hold up very well, Ossein Ram with necro and life leech for example. only 550HP but can stand there and take a beating with the best of them.
Yep, i see this all the time. People using a Cu for absolutely everything, even against stuff that's highly resistant to Cold/Energy. Cus are going to break their teeth fighting the Nightmare Fairy coming in the October update, that thing has 85+ Cold/Energy Resists. Cu Sidhes naturally excel at tanking due to their innate Healing, so i specialized my Cu Sidhe even further as a tank by giving him Feint. Only pet i've seen that can reasonably tank Exodus with some healing from me. The Saurosaurus is another amazing Tank, due to it's up to 85 Physical/90 Fire Resist and Life Leech, not that great at dishing out damage though.
A Fire Beetle/Frost Mite with Rune Corruption+AI is great at dishing out damage, especially in a group setting due to Rune Corruption causing an entire group to deal more damage to the victim, so great for guild hunts. Plus if someone Corpse Skins the victim, the Fire Beetle will dish out even more damage. The 100% Elemental Crimson/Platinum Drakes can also be great for dishing out damage, since you can choose the Drake that corresponds to the target's weakest Resist, plus they can learn Chiv (which is what allows the Fire/Cold Drake to compete with the Fire Beetle/Frost Mite in terms of individual damage output). The Dread Spider has the highest AoE capability of any pet i've seen so far with Poison Breath and Necromage, but they're a bit of a glass cannon with between 300-400 Health. Gotta keep up the bandies on them, unless they're taking Physical Damage and you have Consume Damage running.