Best pet for veno

Brael - Dreamweaver

WaffleChan - Sanctuary wrote: »

lol where the hell are you leveling? try these: http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/mob/11164

even if they are wood, they die pretty damn fast, and have way less hp than almost every other 95+ mob. great money and exp, if you have a phoenix you should be able to drop a group of them faster than those dumb clerics who think their aoe'ing of them is fast.

I gave those spiders a try. After a couple of failed attempts using AE's and trying it more of a cleric style solo I just went for single kills, as the dots ended up stacking too high for me to handle when ae'ing (a group of 20 I killed for example, I ended up with 1125 every 3 sec in poison damage, that's too much of a genie/potion drain. So, given that I went and killed for an hour (final time ended up being 60:03). I ended up with 310 kills sticking mainly to single nukes unless there were adds around a spider, then I used noxious, and one or two novas (saved most chi for sparks).

The results were, 184935 exp, 472331 coin, 1 common topaz (14.3k value), and 17 glaze (38.7k-55.3k after AH fees, depending on if it sells at bid or buy price), can call it 534k total, and that's after repairs. There was also a cost of 2 tree of protection and 1 second wind but no potions used which comes to I think 1600 stamina, which has a market value of 6400 coin.

Lythiaana - Dreamweaver

Is the Death Knight good as a pet overall, or is it just for show? I was thinking about getting a death knight when I reached lvl 70 but I have no idea if it is worth it or not. I currently have a Volcanic Magmite, Snow Hare, Foxwing Supreme, Death Dancer, and an Antelope for fun. any suggestions?

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

Lythiaana - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Is the Death Knight good as a pet overall, or is it just for show? I was thinking about getting a death knight when I reached lvl 70 but I have no idea if it is worth it or not. I currently have a Volcanic Magmite, Snow Hare, Foxwing Supreme, Death Dancer, and an Antelope for fun. any suggestions?

In my opinion they are good for show, or as a lurer, since they are resonably fast. They also come with threaten, which is a nice touch.

As for stats, if I recall correctly, they have low defenses, low hp and okish attack. And they are even bigger than a VMag. However, they do look cool :P

Lythiaana - Dreamweaver

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

In my opinion they are good for show, or as a lurer, since they are resonably fast. They also come with threaten, which is a nice touch.

As for stats, if I recall correctly, they have low defenses, low hp and okish attack attack. And they are even bigger than a VMag. However, they do look cool :P

That's nice. Probably won't use it to grind much though xD. Still having trouble leveling up my Vmite. I might just switch my antelope for the Death Knight then. b:shocked

Brael - Dreamweaver

They're fragile, I forget their attack but I don't think that impressed me either. The one good thing they have in their favor is speed, but it's not a significant difference as a puller from an eldergoth marksman, or if you want a disposable lure pet a petali works well too, and you can train them at/around level 70 as well.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

Would an Antelope Pup be sufficient for grinding physical mobs as well as magic mobs? My Eldergoth Marksman doesn't suffer too much against physical mobs, and it has a worse physical defense stat than an Antelope Pup. Although, It may have a different growth curve; The antelope definitely has higher physical defense than the marksman at level 90.

I was also thinking about vipents...I know they have pretty poor defense all around, but...are they useful for anything other than looking strange?

Lythiaana - Dreamweaver

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Would an Antelope Pup be sufficient for grinding physical mobs as well as magic mobs? My Eldergoth Marksman doesn't suffer too much against physical mobs, and it has a worse physical defense stat than an Antelope Pup. Although, It may have a different growth curve; The antelope definitely has higher physical defense than the marksman at level 90.

I was also thinking about vipents...I know they have pretty poor defense all around, but...are they useful for anything other than looking strange?

I doubt there would be much of a problem using it as a pdef attacker. I used my soulchaser antelope for a while, and at that level, it's stats are weaker than the antelope pup. I used it against alot of p.def mobs at the similar level, and it did alright. Held aggro pretty well too b:victory

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

I'm just a bit concerned about sinking millions of coins into skills for a pet which doesn't turn out suitable for its intended use. Like the Antelope Pup. I don't like having multiple pets suited to a single purpose, so I only want one grinding pet. Something well rounded, but with good DPS. A pet to grind with after all my other pets are leveled up.

The antelopes have great DPS, and great magic defense. But low HP and physical defense worries me a bit.

tweakz

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

They're fragile, I forget their attack but I don't think that impressed me either. The one good thing they have in their favor is speed, but it's not a significant difference as a puller from an eldergoth marksman, or if you want a disposable lure pet a petali works well too, and you can train them at/around level 70 as well.

I used to recommend petalis for luring until I realized cactopods could do better. I prefer to keep a leveled Marksman though.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'm just a bit concerned about sinking millions of coins into skills for a pet which doesn't turn out suitable for its intended use. Like the Antelope Pup. I don't like having multiple pets suited to a single purpose, so I only want one grinding pet. Something well rounded, but with good DPS. A pet to grind with after all my other pets are leveled up.

The antelopes have great DPS, and great magic defense. But low HP and physical defense worries me a bit.

Sinking millions of coins into skills for pets is part of why I caution people against using magmites / sawflies which become almost worthless when you do obtain legendary pets. The legendary pets are still easily obtainable. Going the popular route just sets you back.

To me, play style is irrelevant. I get bored of doing the same thing over and over. Not all mobs are the same, so it's not a bad idea to have multiple grind pets with alternative uses. My Scorpion has claw, so it's not a bad choice for those mobs with the mean face (reduced dmg from all but pets). My Eldergoth Marksman use to be a decent grinder for mag mobs until I replaced Howl with Strong. I don't know why the antelopes are so popular when a Carapest Terror seems like a better choice which comes with slow which makes it a decent debuff lure pet.

WaffleChan - Sanctuary

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I gave those spiders a try. After a couple of failed attempts using AE's and trying it more of a cleric style solo I just went for single kills, as the dots ended up stacking too high for me to handle when ae'ing (a group of 20 I killed for example, I ended up with 1125 every 3 sec in poison damage, that's too much of a genie/potion drain. So, given that I went and killed for an hour (final time ended up being 60:03). I ended up with 310 kills sticking mainly to single nukes unless there were adds around a spider, then I used noxious, and one or two novas (saved most chi for sparks).

The results were, 184935 exp, 472331 coin, 1 common topaz (14.3k value), and 17 glaze (38.7k-55.3k after AH fees, depending on if it sells at bid or buy price), can call it 534k total, and that's after repairs. There was also a cost of 2 tree of protection and 1 second wind but no potions used which comes to I think 1600 stamina, which has a market value of 6400 coin.

Well, since you have access to the credit card free gold offers, I might recommending going with a charm. I have been able to level there for for an hour on an eso and only have the charm go off oncem or not even at all. It helps to A. Extreme Poison the Inc life/def mobs, and B. triple spark often. It acts as a cheap purify, and makes your exp output way higher. Also it helps if you stick the the spawn next to the tree north of Watcher of Chasm's spawn, they have a nice space in between spawn points, yet keep a good number there.

One last question, why are you taking all the poison damage, you should let phoenix keep the aggro, and when multpiles grab aggression, have phoenix hit them and just spam poison on it while then moving to a single target to take out dually.

Save up and get sage venomous too, youll nearly always have enough chi to spam 3x sparks like I stated. I only AOE'd after a 3x spark since it'd burn a ton of their hp :P.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I try to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible, often grabbing aggro from 2-3 mobs at once. So I'd like a pet with high survivability, and relatively high DPS.

Speed is also a factor, though, anything over 7.5 m/s is fine.

And before anyone says that legendary pets are the best option...I don't believe it, and have no intention of getting a legendary pet.

I'm sorry - but that style is very much the herc style. (Especially grabbing aggro on lots of things at once, since the herdc has reflect) So if not the herc, then anything else that works kinda like one.
Magmites and antelopes have been mentioned, you could also consider the bears (shadau and armoured) which have more rounded defence and very decent hitpoints.
Don't the beetles also have decent defences? That's worth a try.


And tweakz - I think the 'popular option' is to buy a herc, often at low level with actual cash. Those horrible yellow blobs are everywhere.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'm sorry - but that style is very much the herc style. (Especially grabbing aggro on lots of things at once, since the herdc has reflect) So if not the herc, then anything else that works kinda like one.
Magmites and antelopes have been mentioned, you could also consider the bears (shadau and armoured) which have more rounded defence and very decent hitpoints.
Don't the beetles also have decent defences? That's worth a try.


And tweakz - I think the 'popular option' is to buy a herc, often at low level with actual cash. Those horrible yellow blobs are everywhere.

Hercs are terrible at holding aggro, unless you go replacing their skills, which is pointless. I have a Shadou Cub, but his DPS, like the beetles, is very poor.

Most of the time, I kill one mob at a time, then quickly move to the next. Sometimes 2-3 mobs are too close together to be aggroed individually, so I grab them all.

ELVI$ - Dreamweaver

The 49 Lunar Lupin and its maxed Howl skill make it a very valuable debuff pet for use in squads against any bosses. As a grind pet it suffered from lack of aggro holding until I added Bash and used that as the default attack. The Lupin's 30% mag attack increase is like having a Jones Blessing all the time and adding tough helps it survive lures in TT. Also best looking wolf in game!

Another fine pet was the 61 Sower of the Flame (blue chicken) from FB59 as it comes with howl and bash and only needed tough to do boss lures. It is a bit of a clone of the Lupin but it is nice to grind with more than one pet and not have a huge difference in performance. Also nice to have it there in case lure goes bad and pet dies so you have backup debuffer ready. Umm best looking chicken in game?

I have a C Mag that could solo Farren at 58 when I was 60 and since then I have added Blessing for HP and Threaten to lower physical attacks on it and Tough. If I were to continue with him I would substitute Shriek skill for Threaten to cancel boss mag attacks to cover his poor mag defenses.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Hercs are terrible at holding aggro, unless you go replacing their skills, which is pointless. I have a Shadou Cub, but his DPS, like the beetles, is very poor.

Most of the time, I kill one mob at a time, then quickly move to the next. Sometimes 2-3 mobs are too close together to be aggroed individually, so I grab them all.

Oh, I agree that the herc is bad at holding aggro. But the "Grab every monster, nuke them to death either one at a time or with aoe" is the thing that the herc does.

I'm afraid you're pretty much just trying to find the tradeoff between damage and defence. There's pets all along the spectrum, but nothing that has max of both.

Ah. There's the nix. But you don't use the 'grab everything kill it one at a time' strategy then, it's more of a "Grab the first one, grab the second one, ok now I'll start nuking... ah, interrupted because it died, ok, the other one... oh, it's dead too. Huh." strategy, then.

Up to you really. I mostly use the herc because I've got it, I'm lazy and I need to keep it at max xp anyway. It holds aggro well enough, and can just keep reflecting five or six mobs whilst I polish off one.

You already discarded my favoured middle-ground of the wovles (which I will admit are somewhat fragile), so I was suggesting more on the defensive end.
If you want something more offence oriented, what about the grimalks, or the kowlin?

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

I discarded the wolves, not because they're fragile (they're not), but because their DPS is roughly the same as a Shadou Cub, which I already have.

Shadou Cub (lvl 90) 1888 Atk@0.8 = 1510.4 DPS

Guardian Wolf (lvl 90) 1960 Atk@0.8 = 1568 DPS

Brael - Dreamweaver

WaffleChan - Sanctuary wrote: »

Well, since you have access to the credit card free gold offers, I might recommending going with a charm. I have been able to level there for for an hour on an eso and only have the charm go off oncem or not even at all. It helps to A. Extreme Poison the Inc life/def mobs, and B. triple spark often. It acts as a cheap purify, and makes your exp output way higher. Also it helps if you stick the the spawn next to the tree north of Watcher of Chasm's spawn, they have a nice space in between spawn points, yet keep a good number there.

One last question, why are you taking all the poison damage, you should let phoenix keep the aggro, and when multpiles grab aggression, have phoenix hit them and just spam poison on it while then moving to a single target to take out dually.

Save up and get sage venomous too, youll nearly always have enough chi to spam 3x sparks like I stated. I only AOE'd after a 3x spark since it'd burn a ton of their hp :P.

When I started killing one at a time the nix took almost all of the damage. When I took the damage it was from trying it cleric style, that doesn't work for a veno since the poison stacks too high, it might have had something to do with me grabbing about 20, or it might have had something to do with my reluctance to spam HP food (which would have let me do that type of pull, I just didn't want to do that to survive it). A charm wouldn't change that, 1125 every 3 sec with 3313 hp means I fall just short of being able to have a charm tick non stop to prevent the poison damage. Given the time it takes to pull and have mobs respawn though, I don't think that method would be worthwhile anyways. The biggest problem is in minimizing my downtime right now (time I'm doing 0 damage moving from mob to mob), killing one at a time with a nix kills them fast enough.

Anyways, I did that spot at the tree north of the chasm guy, but what I found was that I ran out of mobs which led to me having to run off and get mobs in other spots, that added more downtime than anything. I was going to try a 1 hour run today staying by that tree to see if it's better to just wait on respawn. If it's better, I expect the exp over an hour to go up about 15% or so and the coin to go up by about 5% (assuming what I got before was a standard drop). This is because my exp per kill came in well below average.

When it comes to sage venomous, I refuse to pay the 5 million someone is asking in AH. Everyone else seems to refuse to pay it too considering it's been in there for almost two weeks now. I run Brimstone solo almost daily (some wined, some unwined), given the amount of coin I can get in an hour from those spiders, I'll probably start doing more wined runs of Brimstone than unwined. Sooner or later I'll get venomous, I'm farming brimstone to get my friends molds/books they want anyways so I don't see the point in buying it.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

Well, I give up. Maybe I'm too picky, but this whole pet system is inherently flawed. So flawed, that the debate essentially boils down to..."should you get a Hercules first? Or a Phoenix? because those are the only pets worth having".

With current gold prices, I absolutely will not get a Phoenix or Hercules. Their awesome stats and skills simply cannot make up their absolutely unrealistic coin cost.

And before you go saying, "they pay for themselves"...They don't. Sure I could solo TT in squad mode and get loads of awesome mat drops. But, spending several hours alone in TT, isn't my idea of an enjoyable experience. I can't even stand solo mode, and that only takes me 20-30 minutes.

Or you might say,"you can grind fast with the nix". Well sure, but making 50-60 million coins through grinding alone, even with a Phoenix, would take ages. Besides, there's nothing stopping you from grinding with a cheaper (read: free) common pet.

So quit rubbing your legendary pets in my face, and telling me how easy they are to get. 60 mil is 60 mil, and it's much better spent (read: invested) in better gear, and better skills. I will continue using my common pets until those almighty legendary pets become more "affordable", which will most likely never happen.

WaffleChan - Sanctuary

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

When I started killing one at a time the nix took almost all of the damage. When I took the damage it was from trying it cleric style, that doesn't work for a veno since the poison stacks too high, it might have had something to do with me grabbing about 20, or it might have had something to do with my reluctance to spam HP food (which would have let me do that type of pull, I just didn't want to do that to survive it). A charm wouldn't change that, 1125 every 3 sec with 3313 hp means I fall just short of being able to have a charm tick non stop to prevent the poison damage. Given the time it takes to pull and have mobs respawn though, I don't think that method would be worthwhile anyways. The biggest problem is in minimizing my downtime right now (time I'm doing 0 damage moving from mob to mob), killing one at a time with a nix kills them fast enough.

Anyways, I did that spot at the tree north of the chasm guy, but what I found was that I ran out of mobs which led to me having to run off and get mobs in other spots, that added more downtime than anything. I was going to try a 1 hour run today staying by that tree to see if it's better to just wait on respawn. If it's better, I expect the exp over an hour to go up about 15% or so and the coin to go up by about 5% (assuming what I got before was a standard drop). This is because my exp per kill came in well below average.

When it comes to sage venomous, I refuse to pay the 5 million someone is asking in AH. Everyone else seems to refuse to pay it too considering it's been in there for almost two weeks now. I run Brimstone solo almost daily (some wined, some unwined), given the amount of coin I can get in an hour from those spiders, I'll probably start doing more wined runs of Brimstone than unwined. Sooner or later I'll get venomous, I'm farming brimstone to get my friends molds/books they want anyways so I don't see the point in buying it.

If youre having too much downtime, wandering from that tree the middle area in a round circle usually helped me too. I also notice a huge difference in our hp @_@. I have almost twice yours @___@;. (lol vitarcane)

Also how high is your matk/what weapon are you using? I personally never had much trouble with those spiders, and got a level every 5 days there from 89-94. Made a fat wallet there too.

tweakz

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Well, I give up. Maybe I'm too picky, but this whole pet system is inherently flawed. So flawed, that the debate essentially boils down to..."should you get a Hercules first? Or a Phoenix? because those are the only pets worth having".

No, there are other pets worth having such as a ranged pet, an Armored Bear, a Plumpfish, and a Scorpion.

With current gold prices, I absolutely will not get a Phoenix or Hercules. Their awesome stats and skills simply cannot make up their absolutely unrealistic coin cost.

And you will not get decent armor, and you will not get decent skills and you will not get to do some of the funner things in the game because when you hit level 90 the cost of those things are beyond what a legendary pet costs.

And before you go saying, "they pay for themselves"...They don't. Sure I could solo TT in squad mode and get loads of awesome mat drops. But, spending several hours alone in TT, isn't my idea of an enjoyable experience. I can't even stand solo mode, and that only takes me 20-30 minutes.

People also go to work and work for over demanding bosses in poor conditions so they can afford to pay for the pets with cash. This game gives you the opportunity to bypass that system. It sounds to me like the game's draw isn't worth the effort on your part.

Or you might say,"you can grind fast with the nix". Well sure, but making 50-60 million coins through grinding alone, even with a Phoenix, would take ages.

I work full time and have time to get that in less than a month. People expect too much from this game. They want easy xp even if it means doing boring redundant things that set them behind on coin to xp ratio. Then they want easy coin. What it boils down to pan handling.

Besides, there's nothing stopping you from grinding with a cheaper (read: free) common pet.

I have both legendary pets and often grind with a common pet.

So quit rubbing your legendary pets in my face, and telling me how easy they are to get.

It's a valid response to someone that keeps rubbing their laziness in our face.

60 mil is 60 mil, and it's much better spent (read: invested) in better gear, and better skills.

Says the person without. I fooled myself into that **** to before I got them. It only deterred me.

I will continue using my common pets until those almighty legendary pets become more "affordable", which will most likely never happen.

Battle pet packs go on sale quite often. When buying SoF, and PF: the price is set by you.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

tweakz...kindly take your bias elsewhere. It stinks.

tweakz

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

tweakz...kindly take your bias elsewhere. It stinks.

Kindly eat **** and live.

iceknave

There's a ton of choices for common pets if you want to use a common pet for grinding. Just have to play around and find what works best for you.

In any case, you don't need to level up the pet skills if you're poor (and/or rather spend the coin on something else), since the bulk of your damage output will come from your nukes. I grind with my eldergoth pretty much all the time and just use Roar to help keep aggro (and it only needs to keep it for a few seconds before the monster's dead) if playing in human form and when I switch over to fox form, I grind with a shaodu cub, simply because I'm nuts and like the look (yeah, I know, an eldergoth or a mag would be better dps, but eh, fox form is more for fun right now, so it's more fun to have a small pet whacking away with me than a big fat pet that blocks the way and doesn't look as nice, and no, my shaodu cub is not checking out my ****, ).

You can also put multiple attack skills on one pet and use that to hold aggro for pretty cheap.

Ie, just stick Bash + 3 elemental skills and there you go, you have a solid skill based dps pet that can hold aggro if you cycle through all the skills before nuking. Hell, even bash + 1 elemental skill should be enough to hold aggro even if they're still at level 1!

Kittennice - Heavens Tear

A centipod/lyxnus/wolf and ogre thing are fast common pets. ^^

As for hp wise, I go towards the ogre/wolf/lyxnus more though the centi is the fastest.

But just experiment and find whatever pet works for ya.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Tweakz - you started that long post well, then you turned to troll. Please stop that.

Legendary pets: Yes, they are just that much better than most of the pets out there. No, they're not the be-all and end-all.

Yes, money is easier to get than you think. Heck, even TT-solo runs can make a profit. (Well, not usually TT11)

But you're asking "Ok, what common pet is at least as good a defence as the best pdef defence pet and also hits as hard and fast as the best attack pet" and the answer is, um, none of them do that. We're overpowered enough already!

Pick a pet. Adjust your style to it, rather than the other way around. Or save up and be a heavy+arcane fox-veno and tank the mobs yourself. But that's even more expensive than saving up for a herc.

WaffleChan - Sanctuary

Squeakytoy, youre being kind of unreasonable. I mean youre looking for a herc/phoenix substitute in normal pets? It aint gunna happen. Theres nothing that could ever replace legendary pets. All this talk about never being able to afford one is ludicrous as well. Youd be surprised how many kids have gone out and earned the coin to buy one. I started saving when I was level 18, got my herc by 67. RB gamma in my 70s paid for a phoenix in 2 weeks. Dont act so helpless, and get out there and try!

Brael - Dreamweaver

WaffleChan - Sanctuary wrote: »

If youre having too much downtime, wandering from that tree the middle area in a round circle usually helped me too. I also notice a huge difference in our hp @_@. I have almost twice yours @___@;. (lol vitarcane)

Also how high is your matk/what weapon are you using? I personally never had much trouble with those spiders, and got a level every 5 days there from 89-94. Made a fat wallet there too.

HP will jump up at 95, I have heavenrage boots and a helm of holy vengeance, level 14 items to refine will be useful. My magic attack currently is 5408-6804, I'm still using my level 80 weapon, need 3 more dust of devil to upgrade to the level 90 gold weapon.

The spiders aren't giving me problems or anything, they're just not quite as good as you were stating. I gave frostwurm tombs a shot too, but the kill rate was about 10% lower than spiders for less exp per kill (465 vs 506) so I stopped at 20 min when I had a good idea of the kill speed.

Here's another hour on spiders:
364 mobs, 195196 exp (536/kill, 6% over base), 409687 coin.

The exp over time is certainly higher than other spots I've found but I'm less than impressed with the per mob results though it's still better.

How many hours a day did you play when grinding 89-94 on them? I'm coming up with 57 hours of grinding to do 93 with these rates (plus probably 2 hours in running around repairing, selling, etc), for 5 days that's just under 12 hours a day.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

But you're asking "Ok, what common pet is at least as good a defence as the best pdef defence pet and also hits as hard and fast as the best attack pet" and the answer is, um, none of them do that. We're overpowered enough already!

That's not what I'm asking at all.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver

WaffleChan - Sanctuary wrote: »

Squeakytoy, youre being kind of unreasonable. I mean youre looking for a herc/phoenix substitute in normal pets? It aint gunna happen. Theres nothing that could ever replace legendary pets. All this talk about never being able to afford one is ludicrous as well. Youd be surprised how many kids have gone out and earned the coin to buy one. I started saving when I was level 18, got my herc by 67. RB gamma in my 70s paid for a phoenix in 2 weeks. Dont act so helpless, and get out there and try!

That's not what I've been looking for. But thank you fo reinforcing my belief that nearly everyone thinks herc/nix are the end-all and be-all of the pet world.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Well sorry - but the herc IS the best at defending, and the nix IS all-round the best stats.

Other pets are great! I've got lots of non-legendaries and love them to bits.

If you'd explain what you want in a pet, then we'll be happy to suggest ones.

But so far your wish list has been "Like the cubs, but hits harder" and "Like the antelopes, but with more defence" as well as "Able to hold aggro on a whole bunch of mobs and not die"

And no, no common pet does that. The herc doesn't do it terribly well, even.
Edit: It does the 'not die' bit well, the aggro bit much less so.


Edit2:
Seeking back to your question about vipents. I can't say I've used them long, but their speed and bit wasn't particularly impressive and they died way too easily.
The antelope I found was nice damage output, but was far too fragile to be relied upon.
The shadou cub is indeed pretty good for damage (though not tops) whilst being pretty good for defence. It's well rounded - it may well be the best that you can do for the playstyle you are suggesting.

If you can suggest what you would like it to do better we can maybe suggest something? But you'll almost certainly have to forgo something else...

Edit3:
Oh! If you can wait a few levels, the armoured bear is pretty much the same as the cub, except a bit faster stronger and more defensive and just generally better all around. Is that an option for you?

Kittennice - Heavens Tear

I think we should look at how many common pets have been tried before jumping into conclusions^^