Common Veno Mistakes

Okay, I know that I said I would stop arguing with you but I just checked newest post and saw that you had recently posted. I just had to see what you said. After reading your post I decided that I needed to reply. As always, read the red text.

The more insulting and condescending, the stupider the replies.
Has it occurred to you that maybe the reason why everyone is being so "insulting and condescending" is because you're provoking such a response from them? Hell, I'll admit that I'm not exactly being friendly in my posts but neither are you (which is why I wanted to stop in the first place). You have dismissed the opinions of everyone who disagrees with you as either irrelevant or lacking substance (even when they are neither). Read your previous posts if you don't believe me. Choosing small parts of posts to quote and comment on so that it seems as if everyone is flaming you doesn't help either.

Claiming that Venos are nothing without Legendary pets,

-Fabricated argument.
7) Over Leveling Skills before getting Legendary Pets
Your own words from your starting post. Also, throughout the topic you've mentioned placing the acquisition of either a herc or phoenix as your first priority. Before you upgrade skills, waste coins upgrading an "inferior" pet, or even refining your gear, you need to get a legendary pet. While you don't specifically state that a veno without either is nothing, it is strongly implied. Dismissing someone's point as unsubstantiated because you're too lazy to read over what you've said is not going make people suddenly become respectful.

since while it can't tank as well as a Herc, my Magmite always keeps aggro

On light hitting mobs/ bosses that a magmite CAN tank. Reflect on Herc helps hold it's aggro on the harder hitting bosses that magmites can't.
Isala admits that a magmite can't tank as well as a herc (and so has everyone else for that matter) and you're saying still saying a herc can tank better than a magmite? Yes, herc is a better tank than a magmite (no matter what level the magmite is). No one is arguing with you there so tossing it back in our faces after we admit it is not making you any friends.

Kowlin and frog are pointless to go to the effort of getting

-Fabricated argument again.
You say yourself that there are better alternatives to the kowlin (which Isala said in the rest of the paragraph that you seem to have forgotten). You also say that kill speed is important (hence the reason for the phoenix) which would logically make the frog (with it's low damage output) a terrible choice.

And I use pots. I'm a hybrid so I can play Catch in FB's.

-Read the first paragraph of the OP?
The paragraph which says that venos are limited by how well they can keep their pets alive? Right there you have every fox form veno (who get close to mobs and attack with their pets) pissed at you. Could be another reason for the insults.

As for Overrefining, and overleveling? There's no such thing. If you're pulling aggro off your pet because of refinement? You've screwed up somewhere. Somewhere big.

Maybe I should trade my herc in for a Magmite, or trade back my weapon and ornaments to I can take the same amount of hits to kill to undo this big mistake!
Ooh, sarcasm. So much fun to use and so effective at pissing off anyone it's directed to. Yeah, an insulting and condescending (hm, where have I heard that before?) comment will only provoke others to do the same. Am I being hypocritical? Yes I am, but the difference is that at least I don't pretend to be confused about why people are angry at me. Does that make me better? No, but at least I can pretend I am.

One last thing before I click the little reply button. Your stubborn refusal to accept the fact that there are other ways of playing isn't making you any friends. I'm not saying to suddenly change you're playing style, whatever works for you is fine, but at the very least admit that others may have a point to some of their arguments.

just wonder if Tweakz ever tried some real hard boss tanking....

not some bosses from TT 1-x, nor Fb 79 - 89

But: Cosmo in 2-2 / 2-3 , or TT 3-1 in squad mode, some of the nasty ones from antiquity ...

Herc isnt the panace

Maybe you should use something else besides your Herc, if you keep pulling aggro from it. There is a fairly small percentage of content in this game where Herc is the only way to do it, but for the fast majority of things, if you keep having issues with Herc not holding aggro, maybe you should use a Mag like Isala's so you can kill faster. (My mag has 3 attack skills and Threaten, never had issues of going nuclear on mobs and mag loose aggro)
Pets are tools, however, just like even though sledge hammers are fun to use, they may not be the best choice of tool when working with glass.....

What will make you a pro is to be able to use the right tool for the right job.

tweakz wrote: »

Let's all ignore how much one has to spend to be able to kill your level mobs in 3 hits instead of 4, and focus on *OMG she's stealing aggro*!

3 Vs 4 hits... Hmmm... Someone can't figure out simple math. Let's calculate, shall we, and I'll use the tons of mobs we have to grind as an example. 1 mob. 3hits/4hits. Not a big difference. 10 mobs. 30hits/40hits. Starting to make a bit of difference there 100 mobs. 300hits/400hit. Are you seeing my point here? No matter what you might think otherwise, a faster kill speed is ALWAYS a good thing.

If I used a Crystalline Magmite, I obviously wouldn't have the problem because I'd be stuck healing it more often. b:chuckle

As I've said, you just don't get the potential of the Magmite, and you never will. Yeah. You'll be tossing a couple more heals at it, but if you've built one properly, it's going to be out DPSing the Herc easily on the right mobs.

I'm not going to pull a Crystalline Magmite out in an FB when I have a Herc available. Herc is faster which usually equates to getting mobs aggro off tabber's faster.
There is not enough words to describe how wrong you are. Herc only has 2 aggro skills. Bash, and Pounce. If say... A wizard crits on a mob, and pulls aggro, your little yellow man isn't getting that back easy. My Magmite, on the other hand, lays down the law, and forces the mob back where it belongs. And, truthfully? Speed doesn't make a difference if you fully play your character. In every single FB I run, I have my corresponding Genie, which comes with the skill to freeze a mob for a couple seconds. I hit that spell at the same time I'm casting Lucky Scarab. The mob stops long enough for my Golem to get his Skills off, and the mob immediately switches gears.

Where the Herc has trouble holding aggro is on ranged mobs or bosses like Stygean Quartermaster which don't get reflect damage.
Last I checked... There were a buttload of kiting mobs. Kiting mobs that LOVE changing aggro because an Archer, or Wizard, or even a Cleric fired an attack at them. See above for how you deal with it.

Obviously, you've put effort into your playing style. Nobody is begrudging you that. But what you're saying is mostly wrong. You focus on one thing, and one thing only. How Uber your Legendary Pets make you. And that makes you just like the countless other Dime a Dozen venos out there. They get the Herc, they get the Nix, and then they stop thinking of ways they can improve themselves. You have potential. Stop cowering in your fortress of Legendary Pets, and take a peek outside. You see all those other Venos having fun, and being good at what they do? They aren't that scary. Learn from them, teach them, don't just ignore them. We all have something to give to each other.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

As we calculated in that loooong thread where we hashed out the numbers, the damage skills are front-loaded because the cooldown timers start off fresh at the start of a fight. A golem using Bash will out-damage a herc using Bash if the fight lasts less than something like 9 to 22 seconds. (The uncertainty is due to nobody knowing exactly how long it takes to fire off a pet skill or how it affects regular attacks.) That did not take reflect damage into account however.

If you use the golem's Bash + Sandblow skills (both do the same nominal damage), I'd venture it'll out-damage a herc using Bash + reflect in most outdoor fights against same-level mobs. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll kill quicker - the extra time to heal between fights will slow down your kills per hour rate compared to a herc. But the mobs should die faster during the fight.

In longer fights in FBs and TT, and especially against high-damage physical mobs, there's no question the herc is better. But against regular outdoor mobs fought one at a time, there's not much difference between using a golem or a herc. Toss in a couple extra damage skills on the golem and I can easily see it out-damaging a herc against most outdoor mobs. That's the biggest weakness to the herc IMHO - you're really constrained to just one optional skill. A lot of times when clearing regular mobs in FBs or TT, I've wished I had my golem out instead of my herc because my golem has Roar to instantly pull aggro off of others.

Just a sidenote about my Golem? It has Bash, Sandblow, Flesh Ream, and Thunderbolt. I trained it to be a DPS tank to make up for its lack of uber tankability. Getting, and Keeping aggro is a piece of cake for it. And, there is honestly a reason I prefer my golem. I'm a hybrid who parties with High-End Mag build Venos. If I'm tanking with my Golem, even though I'm not really attacking very often, the fact that they don't have to heal at all makes fights faster with their extreme DPS, and the fact that they can crit all they want, they're not getting aggro. None of this slowing down attacking so the Herc can keep aggro garbage. They can frontload, and frontload, and frontload. Plus... If the Golem does accidentally die? There's a Herc Right beside it, ready to do the real tanking. I carry oils, because I know that a Golem doesn't have the survivability of a Herc, and sometimes dies.

It's a simple matter of finding something effective. I fight in Fox Form 75% of the time. I have skills that decrease Accuracy. Both mine, and my genie's. Which causes Melee mobs to miss my pet. Which means I heal less, which means that I can cause damage as well, or use Amp. Because, unlike a Herc trying to tank, I can Amp the hell out of anything, a cleric can use Seals, and no matter what, even if the casters crit time, and time again... They aren't getting aggro.

Alphae.
The best debuff/dps tank you can get would be a leveled up scorpion. It has the highest dps of any land pet in game (even higher than Herc). Load it with Pierce, Howl, Threaten and Shrill and you have a very nice dps utility pet.
If you do not feel like leveling another pet to your level, adding Howl and Threaten to the Golem would come in very handy.

tweakz, if only you were not anon-posting we would at least know who to laugh at.

I've been reading through the thread, but at this point it has reached my limit of tolerance for sheer moronic fatheadedness that you so ably demonstrate.

tweakz wrote: »

The way you presented your opinion was inflammatory and lacked substance.

The way you presented your opinion clearly showed a limited knowledge of the spectrum of veno possibilities, and an over-exalted view of the completeness of your knowledge.

These are level 90 stats which have no relevance.

Because you say so? Some of us did reach level 90, and out pets did too, and we know what we are doing, mostly.


I speak from experience with a Herc with lv. 5 bash and a +2, +3 weapon. There are other stats that can influence aggro stealing. You're not taking into account that not all mobs are melee, not all have the same accuracy, and that good ornaments can be a better investment than heavy refines with the same outcome.

I now use a +8 weapon - as long as it was up to +5, it never stole aggro from either my magmite or my herc, both at my level and both with Bash 5. Also, every weapon I have used since level 60 has been at least +5 legendary, so I'm speaking from greater experience than you demonstrate above.

Expressing further depths of your ignorance would entertain me further.


Going from lvl 7 to 10 on wood mastery alone isn't going to get you that one less hit per mob. -It takes a good fortune to do that!

Have you calculated the additional damage of wood mastery? Oh, forget I asked - your doubts about amplify-damage haev already made clear how limited your veno-playing abilities and knowledge are.

What I suggest is that wood mastery can be put off until you have the legendary pets, and can more easily afford it. A nix is going to save you hits per mob, and it isn't going to need decomposing or trading up later.

What I suggest is that you learn to play, rather than pontificate from an anonymous posting account.

Did you do the math? I didn't. I'm going to trust whoever did until I can find time to work it out myself.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The best debuff/dps tank you can get would be a leveled up scorpion. It has the highest dps of any land pet in game (even higher than Herc). Load it with Pierce, Howl, Threaten and Shrill and you have a very nice dps utility pet.

Be aware that all those skills probably generate as much aggro as Bash, Flesh Ream, etc. Because they aren't damage multipliers (Bash does 2x damage, FR does 1x damage + 2x bleed, etc) a scorp with those skills won't be generating as much damage. But it will still generate plenty of aggro due to the skills and its high damage rate. (4 skills in 30 sec = 1 skill per 7.5 sec = pretty much the same as having Bash on, worse if you fire them all at once at the beginning.)

I went with a kowlin as a debuff pet. It was already in my pet bag because of its high speed for pulls. It comes with Pierce and Howl. I dropped Bash for Threaten. It comes with FR 4 which ends up in the default auto skill slot after you drop Bash, and proves to be a nice pulling skill since it does the maximum amount of damage the kowlin is capable of. In the debuffing pet role, I have it use Pierce, Howl, and Threaten. Later in the fight when I'm sure the tank has aggro in hand, I start adding FR for a little extra damage (especially useful against ? bosses where pets do most of the damage).

tweakz wrote: »

I tried making my marksman into a debuffer, but found I wasn't killing regular mobs with pierce, and howl any faster, and in squads the other classes have their own versions of the debuffs. I also got tired of button pressing with the mouse repeatedly. When your pet has only so many times it can hit the mob before you kill it, non hit debuffs can end up getting wasted.

Just use alt-2, alt-3, etc to trigger the pet skills. Unless you're using the mouse for your veno skills too (which I strongly suggest you stop doing), your left hand is already above the 1-6 and F1-F6 keys. Doing an alt-1-6 is trivial.

Also, the point of the debuff pet is to act primarily as a damage multiplier for your party. Pierce helps melee and archer damage, as well as saves you from having to cast Ironwood so often, meaning you'll have more chi to transfer to the tank. Howl increases magic damage. Threaten lowers melee damage to the tank, giving the cleric a break. Shrill interrupts casting (though I've never been quick enough to use it effectively). The damage your pet does is secondary. Also, most of these skills have 30 sec cooldowns, so the loss in pet melee damage is not that much against bosses and in FBs/TTs.

It might be wise to snag up a pet that already comes with debuffs to see if it's useful to you. I don't think it would matter much if you leveled or fed it if all you're using it for is utility.

Yeah, that would be my recommendation too. My kowlin is handy in this role, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I'm debating dropping Threaten for Roar, for the semi-rare instance where a party member pulls aggro off the tank. In the debuff role, your pet is not tanking so its level does not really matter. It won't do as much damage if it's lower level, but the debuffs work just fine.

If I'm wrong about the Scorpion, I'd love to see the contradicting data. If it's significant, I might just raise one up for myself. I'd love to have a faster killing ground pet than the Herc or Marksman. -thanks!

The thing about the level 2 scorp is that it's the best PK pet in the game after the phoenix. I would think you would want to load it up with PK skills, not debuff skills. Unless you plan to level up two scorps... Even if you don't PK, it would be nice to have for the PK-enabled areas like certain Cube rooms.

Alphae - Lost City wrote: »

I want debuff skills on him because I don't want to tank with him. I have a tank, I spent 25 million coins on him :P I want to make him a DPS pet that debuffs while a barb holds aggro--more effective than a herc who has space only for its aggro skill and can't use it when a barb is tanking. I would do armored bear which comes with tough (for aoes) and a debuff (I forget which, pierce or howl), but that's not till 80, so as a fill-in I may use him.

That's actually a really good point. I'm finding my debuffing kowlin dies too easily in AOE attacks. I'm debating converting my cub into a debuff pet since its low damage wouldn't really matter in that role. Demote the kowlin and eldergoth to pure pulling roles.

That's one of the things I like about this game. There are so many options with no one clear "best" answer. You can do things lots of different ways.

tweakz wrote: »

Do you really believe the Frogling is one of the top 10DPS pets or even belongs in a top 10 list for anything? There's something wrong with those lists.

When I picked a pet to make my debuffer, I went through most of the pets on the ecatomb site and the French site and calculated their base DPS (without using Bash or FR, since I wouldn't use those on a debuff pet). The kowlin was near the top at 2218 atk 0.8 atk/sec. The frogling was pretty close at 2104 atk 0.8 atk/sec. If you factor in Bash like that list claims to, it would promote several of the 0.6 atk/sec pets above the 0.8 atk/sec pets, which the list appears to do.

@Solandri
I know the aggro, that is the part where skill comes in, and communication with the tank. If I know the tank is spamming roar like a mad man and other aggro skills, I will use the skills more often than if I know he is a little "light" on aggro skills.
Also, Pierce I use when I know I will be in fox form most of the time. Howl and Threaten is self explanatory, It seems the cooldowns are long enough that is does not out-aggro the tank.
Shrill, that one is tough to use.. I seem to have better luck just leaving it in autocast than trying to time it. The casting time of it always throws me off....
@Tweak
There is a damage calculation post, where the formulas are also listed, so you can verify them math for yourself. The Scorpion has the second highest dps in game (after phoenix), for sure when using one skill. Also the all point of a utility pet is to have the debuffs and still do decent damage, so the scorpion will allow you to put all 4 debuffs and still have very high dps with regular attacks.

If you want to use a herc, remove all its skills and put 4 debuffs, that may also work very well, but it would seem kind of a waste of 200 dollars to get herc just to remove all the skills it comes with and load 4 debuff skills.