Glacial Walker Skills

Phillio - Archosaur

I have a walker leveled up to 49. It has the standard tough, roar, icicle deal.

I'm also planning (or rather working on) to get a baby herc. Won't throw away the walker, but keep it as backup should for some reason the herc get killed. Summoning the walker will be quicker as a replacement in an emergency. I know it's a lot of work grinding to keep both pets up to level, not to mention I've got a Bloody Goldwing that needs a couple of levels up but nobody said it would be easy

Question is, is it worth the coin and trouble to replace the walker's skills with reflect, strong and something else?

What is the best combo on a walker like this for pVe?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

thx. b:thanks

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

If you're going to skill up a walker as an emergency backup for a herc and are willing to pay for legendary skills to do so, I'd go with Strong, Protect, Tough and Threaten. Forget Reflect, it isn't a survival skill. If you're in a faction with a base, I'd go with the base scroll versions of Protect and Strong if the vault is high enough level (3 for the protection scroll, forget if it's 5 or 6 for the strong scroll.)

MANray_ - Sanctuary

As a general rule a back up should have better defensive stats than your main, this is because unless your first pet has gone down due to a mistake the replacement needs the extra toughness to survive whatever required you to summon it in the first place. This is why my advice is to go with a higher attack, better dps for main and higher tanking prowess for a back up. A Walker, even skilled with rare skills, is simply not going to handle the same jobs as a Herc and at higher levels you'll get survival skills (Bramble Hood, Feral) that will make it more convenient to just res the Herc rather than risk a second mishap with a weaker alternative. My opinion is it would work better for you to skill the Walker as an attack pet, using Claw and Bash, and perhaps give it one or two survival skills such as Blessing and Strong. That way you get a better damage dealer to handle most jobs and can summon the Herc when things go south, yes the herc starts slow because it has to buff itself.

While there are a few better damage dealers available, the Walker does get ressilience as an advantage over even pets such as the Derjan's hatchling so you may keep using it as a good all rounder even if you later on decide to get a higher dps pet for the more specialized DD role. Having said that I wouldn't exactly recommend that you invest on rare skills until you've reached endgame levels and can better judge for yourself whether it is in fact worth it or not. The skill set I usually recommend for a Walker is to simply add Bash, which gives you two damage/aggro skills, one defense/survival and Roar, which is simply amazing for a back up as frequently you'll need a good fast way to get a boss/mob off you once you've summoned your second pet. For an attack pet, in case you decide this is how you want to pair it with the Herc, my recomendations is to go with two damage skills plus Howl and Threaten. This gives you the two better debuffs you can arguably get on a pet, Howl will certainly add to your overall dps, and Threaten doubles as a defensive skill.

Last, in case you want the absolute best, and money really is no objection, the only good back up for a Herc is another Herc. It does seem terribly impractical in my opinion, as you should eventually develop the survival skills to resist through ressing a downed pet, but there really is no such thing as back up for a legendary pet. If the Herc cannot take the punishment nothing else will.

Phillio - Archosaur

Makes a lot of sense. I had realized it would take me a while to get the skills so I thought I'd start saving early
I'm going to take your advice, and add bash to the walker. It will take me a while to get enough coin for the rest so in that time I might change my mind on what to get. Thanks to the sale on battlepet packs and a bit of luck with tokens the herc is within sight, but has to be leveled up naturally.

Thanks! The amount of good info on this forum keeps amazing me.