Tank pet advice

Nisia - Heavens Tear · May 2009

I'm lvl 38 and I was wondering what pet would be best as my tank? I'm stilll using my wolf I got at the start, he's lvl 37 and I like him a lot, but we sometimes run into problems if a few mobs start attacking us.
I know people say a golem/magmite (that confused me for a long time, I didn't know what a golem was!) is best, but the limited visibilty really puts me off.
So basically my question is - are there any smaller pets around my level that would make a decent tank? Or should I stick with what I have? I know its all about personal preference but I'd really appreciate some advice.
Thank you in advance!

Vulpes - Dreamweaver · May 2009

Well, first of all, are you leveling your pet's skills? I too have my original wolf (fits the character as a fox veno... just a couple of dogs), but I've invested in increasing the level of his flesh ream to level 3, and added the skill bash up to level 3. Every pt should have those two skills, doubly so if you pvp or TW (flesh ream is broken in those cases).

If you do not want to spend the cash on levelling your pet (gaining level 1 bash alone is 300k), and just want to use the base animal out there, grabbing the highest level magmite is a good choice. The lower level ones have better hit points eventually, but the higher ones get free upgraded skills.

Ultimately, the baby hercules (for pve) and the phoenix (for pvp and flying pve) are the two best pets in the game, but they either cost real money (randomly between $20 - $50 each), or a hercload of in-game cash (30 million is a good benchmark price). If you have the money, those two are definitely the end-all of pets.

Ihazacute - Sanctuary · May 2009

I'm quoting a thread I found HERE

I haven't given her methodology a close look to see if it's exactly right, but I imagine it's close enough that if you aren't worried about the "best" you can at least pick an option that looks fun and is decent. This is obviously in response to "best tank" but she sorted them based on various criteria. Don't take it as gospel, but certainly give her thread a read.

Top 10 overall def :
Baby Hercules
Shaodu Cub
Armored Bear
Astral Beetle (Hept-, Pent-, Quadr-)
Crystalline Magmite
Qingfu (Emerald, Jaden, Verdant)
Tuskmoor (Plainswalker, Riverside, Doft)
Tauroc (Angler, Logger, Stevedore)
Rhinodrake (Billabong, Boondock, Plainswalker)
Frogling

Andromaka - Heavens Tear · May 2009

My advise is: get a lvl 17 volcanic magnite not the crystaline and lvl it up. Crystalines are laking 1 skill. Yes they r lvl 1 skilled pets but have better pdef and hp then the lvl 30 golems.
Also if u can affort to buy a Shaodu cub get it... that will help you solo some mini bosses that are magical and can easy kill your magnite. These 2 pets should be enough against ground mobs/bosses until u get Herc.
If you get troubles with pet agro-ing too many mobs, the problem will be the same no matter what pet u r using ... what u can do is hit each mob at least once and then u can heal ur pet without getting all mobs on you. Or lure mobs if they r too many grouped.

Ratched - Dreamweaver · May 2009

If you can bear your wolf a little longer at level 41 you can tame an Eldgergoth Marksman. It comes with Bash4|Howl1|Pierce1 and has decent stats. It also is able to do damage at a little bit of a range. It is larger than your wolf, but not nearly as bad as the Magmites.

You might also try taming a 36/37 Bug and grind on airborne mobs after questing is complete. I beleive some can be found above the Allies Camp. A Supreme Undine and grinding underwater can be done as well.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Andromaka - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My advise is: get a lvl 17 volcanic magnite not the crystaline and lvl it up. Crystalines are laking 1 skill. Yes they r lvl 1 skilled pets but have better pdef and hp then the lvl 30 golems.
Also if u can affort to buy a Shaodu cub get it... that will help you solo some mini bosses that are magical and can easy kill your magnite. These 2 pets should be enough against ground mobs/bosses until u get Herc.
If you get troubles with pet agro-ing too many mobs, the problem will be the same no matter what pet u r using ... what u can do is hit each mob at least once and then u can heal ur pet without getting all mobs on you. Or lure mobs if they r too many grouped.

On the Golem, depends how you are going to set it up. My Crystaline has 3 attack skills and Threaten, so, getting the Volcanic would actualy cost me money to remove the "extra" skill.
A good alternative to the cub is the antelup pup. It is one of the best damage dealers (6th overall), best pure Mdef in game, decent Pdef, ok HP.

Hasukurobi - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Very soon you will be high enough to capture an Overclocked Mechacrab near the shattered jade shore. I would suggest this. You will not have to train it up like the Golem because it will be your level. It comes with Tough which is VERY useful for taking, has Pierce (which is expensive and useful) and Bash which can hold Aggro. Though I would still buy it Roar.

They are great tanks and I think kind of cute and not the same darned rock every other veno in the entire game who does not have the living blob of mucus has. They also do have a bit better Mag Def than other Phys tanks but your wolf may actually suprise you in being a great Magic Tanker in his own right. My Sharptooth wolf (Wolf Totem Valley version of your wolf) has awesome Magic Def and Pretty solid Phys Def to his name.

FlappingPix - Heavens Tear · May 2009

I've used the crab and find it be a great pet. In some cases much easier to use in FBs where there is less room to move around in the hall way areas. However, pure tank wise its phys def won't match that of the magmite end game. The bonus is a little better damage due to having the pierce skill wich makes the bash skill do even more damage keeping agro pretty well. It ultimately comes down to how much phys def you want to have on your tank (usually more the better) and/or how much you are willing to spend on pet skill upgrades.

Daerys - Sanctuary · May 2009

With the new-ish extra zoom feature the "limited visibility" with a golem is nonexistent. Learn to use the camera and shift-click and it's a breeze. No other tanking pet will serve you better until herc. Some may come close, but you know what they say about close...

FlappingPix - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Daerys - Sanctuary wrote: »

With the new-ish extra zoom feature the "limited visibility" with a golem is nonexistent. Learn to use the camera and shift-click and it's a breeze. No other tanking pet will serve you better until herc. Some may come close, but you know what they say about close...

Yeah I agree the new extra zoom that was added has been very nice. Its helped a lot with my magmite and just found out about the shift click several weeks ago when everyone was crowding the new Watcher of the Earth NPC to get their new genies.

Even so the crab is a nice option for those that don't want to follow the crowd of venos using a magmite, lol, it is fun when people ask where you got a crab. No one really does that with the magmites since they are so common place. In the end though the magmite is a better tank than the crab is based purely on phys def and of course spending a little extra to upgrade bash you got good pet.

HoVulpes - Sanctuary · May 2009

Andromaka - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My advise is: get a lvl 17 volcanic magnite not the crystaline and lvl it up. Crystalines are laking 1 skill.

NOT True. Crystallines has one skill less but they have better phy def than Volcanic. which is more usefull than a skill bout which ur talking bout.
and TIP TO ALL:
if ur high lv and dont have magmite DON't CATCH lv 60 Shikou Valorian in fb59. has nice lv skills but DEF comparing to same lv Crystalline Magmite is MUCH worse.

And to magic Defense pets i would add Guardian Wolf. nice pet

Solandri - Heavens Tear · May 2009

HoVulpes - Sanctuary wrote: »

NOT True. Crystallines has one skill less but they have better phy def than Volcanic. which is more usefull than a skill bout which ur talking bout.

The difference between the stats of the crystalline and volcanic is negligible. It works out to like 0.2%-0.3%. You're never gonna notice that. If I gave you both golems at the same level and somehow hid the names from you, you'd have to collect hundreds of hours of combat data to figure out which was which statistically.

The fact that the volcanic comes with Tough, however, has a very noticeable impact on your early gameplay. The crystalline does come with Bash 2 vs. the volcanic's Bash 1, but Bash 1 should be enough to let it hold aggro until you're in the late 30s.

Back before the herc, when the golem was a pet you'd take with you to the end game, the crystalline made more sense. You were going to upgrade the golem's skills anyway, so might as well get the one with better stats, however marginal the difference. But now that the herc is the end-game pet, just get a volcanic and save 100k which you can apply to your herc fund.

Nisia - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Thanks for all the good advice. I've ended up with a volcanic magmite and its serving me well thus far. I managed to find someone selling a levelled up one very cheap, saving me a lot of time not having to do it myself.
I probably should have said in my original post I only play PvE and I don't have enough money for a herc or a rare pet!

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The difference between the stats of the crystalline and volcanic is negligible. It works out to like 0.2%-0.3%. You're never gonna notice that. If I gave you both golems at the same level and somehow hid the names from you, you'd have to collect hundreds of hours of combat data to figure out which was which statistically.

The fact that the volcanic comes with Tough, however, has a very noticeable impact on your early gameplay. The crystalline does come with Bash 2 vs. the volcanic's Bash 1, but Bash 1 should be enough to let it hold aggro until you're in the late 30s.

Back before the herc, when the golem was a pet you'd take with you to the end game, the crystalline made more sense. You were going to upgrade the golem's skills anyway, so might as well get the one with better stats, however marginal the difference. But now that the herc is the end-game pet, just get a volcanic and save 100k which you can apply to your herc fund.

Unless you party alot and like attack skills, than the Volcanic would cost you more. My Crystaline has 3 attack skills and Threaten, which I find more useful than Tough, since it reduces about the same damage your pet takes, BUT it also reduces the damage a tank would take if you are in party. (Tough increases the pet defense while Threaten reduces the mobs PAtk).
With 3 attack skills on my Golem i can go full nuke and not have to worry about stealing aggro from it.

So in my case, if I had gone with Volcanic, I would had to use a forget scroll to remove tough

Solandri - Heavens Tear · May 2009

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Unless you party alot and like attack skills, than the Volcanic would cost you more. My Crystaline has 3 attack skills and Threaten, which I find more useful than Tough, since it reduces about the same damage your pet takes, BUT it also reduces the damage a tank would take if you are in party. (Tough increases the pet defense while Threaten reduces the mobs PAtk).
With 3 attack skills on my Golem i can go full nuke and not have to worry about stealing aggro from it.

So in my case, if I had gone with Volcanic, I would had to use a forget scroll to remove tough

Actually, that's another reason I recommend a Volcanic - it promotes learning how to play the game well. I'm not disparaging your golem and playstyle. It's a legitimate way to play the game if you're a skilled player who's already learned the ins and outs of playing nice with your pet. Unfortunately most players are rather clueless (by definition we all were when we started playing). Having a pet which is all-offense and just lets you nuke as much as you want promotes behavior which will get you killed later in the game and in groups.

A volcanic has both offensive and defensive skills. The lower offense means you have to learn how to manage your aggro. This creeps up on you gradually as you level and increase your m.atk. You'll have plenty of time to get a feel for when you start to pull aggro, and learn different strategies to avoid it.

The defensive skill means you'll learn not just how to get out of a difficult fight by just killing more quickly, but by killing more strategically. Threaten is a great skill (I use it too), but its utility is different from tough. Threaten works on a single physical attacker. Tough works on multiple attackers, both physical and magical. One of the skills you have to learn at low level is how to handle multi-mob fights, because inevitably you will have wanderers unexpectedly join your well-planned fight. Tough helps you do this, Threaten does not. (I suppose I should also mention that threaten is a 750k skill.)

Having a totally offense-oriented pet results in a player who is a one-trick pony - his approach to getting out of every difficult situation is to kill faster. Like I said, if you're already a veteran and know all the different veno tricks, then it's fine to have a pet build like this. But IMHO it's important for young venos to learn multiple ways to get out of difficult situations. The volcanic's default skillset promotes that, the crystalline's doesn't.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · May 2009

The best way to get out of a tough situation is to not get into one to start with.
That is what using my golem teaches me. Before I attack a mob, I make sure that no wondering mobs are patroling where I am, I have to remember where I killed the last mob and how long ago, then try to forecast where it will be respawning again so I can position myself and my golem. I also need to know the limitations of my golem, like how many mobs can I start with, can I kill mob one fast enough before a new one spawns, etc.

I party alot with other people, specialy a barbs, so my golem, most likely will not be tanking (unless something bad happens), therefore threaten is far more useful for me.

The only 2 pets I have Tough are my turtle (kinda fitting..) and my Orchid Petalli, which I use as a lurer (9.4 m/s and slow 4), since makes my lurer not as "squishy". In the other hand, not very often I send a golem to go lure anything.. I have other pets for that

FlappingPix - Heavens Tear · May 2009

Interesting I hadn't really thought about using tough much even though my crab has it. Would tough give your pet enough added pdef though early on for it be worth while since it works by percentage?

I've only gone the offense route keeping a constant pdef debuf going with pierce and ironwood which works pretty well on single target grinding for the most part. I have a mythical wolfkin I use on certain mobs with increased mag def since it has the mag def debuf skill already added on it making my spells do about normal damage.

Tank pet advice

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