ALL NEWB VENO's HERC 1st!

And for the people who don't want to spend hours in TT alone all the time or who are on a PvP server and would rather be able to easily defend themselves while grinding with others?

flynnie wrote: »

Ok, if you are a sell out and are going to buy your legendary pets with zen this wont apply to you...

All other hard working Veno's! That wish to purchase a Herc/Nix using In game money only! I pray you read this! GET HERC 1st! I don't care if you want to PVP people so bad it make your eyes bleed... Get your Herc 1st! For one Dolls Cost money! Good Gear also Costs Money! Pet Food Cost money! Just how are you going to come up with that money? Grind the money with your Nix? Trust me I saved up enough by level 68 and got a NIX.. About a week later I was kicking myself...Grinding with a NIX gets real old real fast. You cannot not take it on HH (Twilight Temple) runs either... And unless you have guildies that will give you all the drops... from a HH run.. HH runs while subs are indeed some what expensive the Drops from HH bosses more than cover one sub costs. 1-1 1-2 1-3 aren't very proficient in the money making.. However 2 and above sure the hell are! Right now my Veno is level 76 Grinding using a nix is ok but I definitely want some variety! Think about it you use Herc to solo HH.. You get drops ranging from 1k (stupid bones) to half a mil almost, per drop! subs cost like what? maybe 50 - 100k? that's an easy 400k Profit on one run.

Sorry if this has been said before but I've been kicking myself ever since I got Nix first -__- Spread the word!b:victory

seems like a rant but on my veno nix is first XD

Not once have I regreted that I got nix and not herc.

I do TTs and sum frost. Honestly its not what I like to do the most..Takes too many hours.. and you can't go afk whenever u like to.

which pet to get is all personal opinion.. no one should do anything because someone else says they should. They both have their advantages and disadvantages ... its pick your poison.

_River - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I got my nix only, have no herc, and I love it. I do FF, TT, RB all without a herc... and I've made it this far not using one so why would I change o.o? Hercs are nice for some venos, but not all. So perhaps this thread is a bit pointless cause its gonna go back to the "why are venos without hercs considered useless..." type argument... *shudders at the thought*

Doubles your damage on bosses (particularly in frost) that's why they're so useful. More than double in lunar, not sure you can even keep something other than a herc up in those ae's. It's the best damage pet you'll get without pulling aggro, and the lowest maintenance.

Anyways, I kind of think a nix is a waste of money because it can't be used in any content worth doing (grinding content is not worth doing, it's filler for when you can't get a squad or subs).

_River - Heavens Tear wrote: »

just having herc keep full aggro (and most every veno I've seen do it is ALWAYS healing, RARELY attacking).

well one aoe will pull mobs off the herc very easy. i guess thats why some just heal. Not me.. .. i like to do the aoes and play with the mobs.

not a very good example, but those mobs come off very easy. LA 77 against 82's with lvl 1 aoes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIqH4QJN9Z4

Yeah - reflect damage seems to draw slightly less aggro than attack damage. Probably an 'attack' generates a little aggro even if it does no damage, the same way skills do, and reflect lacks that.

Certainly having the herc attack each monster in turn is much more reliable than just waiting a bit longer (and having the same amount of damage done by reflection)

It takes a big chunk of juggling to get it right, on anything other than easy monsters (and counter-intuitively, it's easier to hold aggro against harder monsters, because they hit harder and thus reflect more)

Whilst, of course, hard monsters chip away the hercs health that much faster that you need to heal more often...

On a side note, it's funny how ppl just assume that you have hurc. And when you enter bh/tt or other instances and they see you w/o hurc.. So they think you dont have any of the legendaries and poor you, you couldn't get a hurc (=fail veno). Just isn't right..

Old argument, new thread. I have both, obtained by in game coin. I make most of my coin from doing OMA for which I use a variety of pets + merchanting. (Where do you think many of the -6% rings came from?). I strongly prefer pve and Marksman can probably tank about as much as my Herc. That said, I still would rather have a Herc than a Nix if I had to choose. If they fixed the Nix getting stuck in ground issue, it would rock the boat.

_River - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The Kowlin attacks at the same rate as a herc. By asking friends I know with hercs, they told me at level 93 the base phys attack of a herc is ~2.3k. My kowlin at level 91 is ~2.2k. And there is 2 levels difference.

Let's instead refer to well established data from http://www.ecatomb.net/pwi/petstat.php :
Herc atk: 2672
Kowlin : 2218

There is a simple way to ensure a pet doesn't pull aggro-- turn skills off.

No, pets don't get dmg reduction in TT.

I have yet to see a tank be pleased when I use skills in an instance with my pets.

Some are better at holding aggro than others.

The only difference is that you put claw on your herc. Any other herc user who hasn't changed skills would have less DPS than my kowlin. Therefore your argument isn't quite valid.

Claw doesn't make a difference on that.

If you take away claw, many other pets can outdamage a herc.

-wrong when it comes to land pets if skills aren't part of the equation.

@ OP: Eldergoth Marksman first

At lvl 92 I just stumbled on a World Boss (wasn't sure what it was at first). I had my Eldergoth Marksman hit it to see what it was about. It only lightly hit back making me wonder at first if it was even hitting. While holding the heal button down on one computer, I looked it up on the other one. It was Alphaleus -- http://www.pwdatabase.com/mob/19468 . I got my alt out of kitty shop mode and had her come to help. ~4 hours later it was dead at my hands alone... well with the Marksman tanking. I do have protect and claw on it, BUT never saw it's HP go below ~75%. Because of WB stats, I believe Marksmans can tank them sooner and it's been cheaper to put rare skills on them than to buy a Herc. I'd expect prices to go up on rare skills when people catch on though.

_River - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Tweakz, there is no level for those stats on ecatomb. To make the argument fair, you need to make it based on level in game.

"Lvl90 Pet's stat (PWI) " -from the page referenced

With pet skills turned off, I have yet to pull aggro in a dungeon even with the worst of tanks.

Maybe cause the Kowlin sucks?

Yes claw makes a difference. Claw = 30% MORE attack for 1 hour.

Didn't Brael apply the skill to both pets while making her point?

My kowlin can outdamage a herc without claw, of its same level. I retract the statement about other pets. My argument is now only kowlin.

With same skills and level no.

I've asked people based on their levels and that was the information I got. If you care to give me your herc's base phys damage at your level (which is unknown atm), then I will listen to your argument.

Herc @92
Atk 2775

Kowlin @90
Atk: 2218 (just like ecatomb's stated)

The Kowlin is the most useless pet in my bag. The only reason I keep it is because I put Reflect on it. It has lvl 5 bash, lvl 5 Flesh Ream, Lvl 5 Howl, and Lvl 5 Reflect. I'll sell it for 5m which is less than I paid for Reflect scroll alone. Kowlins suck!

The BM is best at interrupting the AOE with their shadowless kick. Smack also seals, but that can act as an interrupt so then the barb tank doesn't need to stop what he's doing to interrupt it.

BM's are nice, but I've yet to find a non fail one so that's not an option for me right now.

The Kowlin attacks at the same rate as a herc. By asking friends I know with hercs, they told me at level 93 the base phys attack of a herc is ~2.3k. My kowlin at level 91 is ~2.2k. And there is 2 levels difference. There is a simple way to ensure a pet doesn't pull aggro-- turn skills off. I have yet to see a tank be pleased when I use skills in an instance with my pets

From the data on ecatomb:
Kowlin 2218 attack .8 attacks/sec
Herc 2672 attack .8 attacks/sec (notice, this lines up exactly with what I said above when I pulled it out of my pet stat window)

Your friend either told you wrong on the herc, or they didn't feed it (the above attack levels are with 501+ loyalty). If you turn skills off, no land pet will beat a herc in damage. With skills a handful of them can, the more DD skills used, the more they win by. It takes atleast two skills though, for any pet to beat a herc, assuming the herc has the skills as well. The issue with adding more skills though is more aggro which is why I picked the four skills I did. That only has two skills being used often, and howl being used occasionally, to indirectly add damage. Two skills is still aggro, but more manageable than four. The reason for claw is because it's lower aggro than another DD skill, and far more damage than any other pet skill. And once again, the reason for not using FR is that the dot is the one thing pet related which is effected by level based mitigation.

The only difference is that you put claw on your herc. Any other herc user who hasn't changed skills would have less DPS than my kowlin. Therefore your argument isn't quite valid. Given that you entered claw into the discussion. If you take away claw, many other pets can outdamage a herc.

Wrong, in my above comparison I gave both pets claw. I used a scorpion (and listed a magmite too for reference) as they come in second and third in attack/sec and with their high damage/.6 attack rate get a huge benefit from skills (which happens to be why they'll beat a herc by a good margin at 3 and 4 dd skills, and a small margin at 2, at 1 skill they won't win).

@Brael:

I use my kowlin on the runewolf boss, the call back is quick and I've rarely had to stow it when I got the timing down of the boss' attack. It still gives great damage and its the only pet I even consider using on that boss. I've yet to have it die from aoe as well. I don't use a pet on thunderclaw, the traps aren't worth it as I'd rather focus more on keeping me and my party alive than have to also worry about my pet.

If you're changing your argument to only a Kowlin this becomes much easier, as the dps sheet I built was designed to take speed to reach a target into account. A Kowlin does have a speed advantage over a herc but also has lower attack, meaning it's behind in pure attack/sec, and falls further behind with skills.

Not using a pet on Thunderclaw just shorts your squad the damage, but not using one is your choice. I move over to a side without people and send my pet, attacking from a 20m range (sucks for amplify, but the most efficient spot I've found given the radius of the circles), meaning there's a 17m distance to travel. A pet generally needs to be moved every 30 seconds or so (a guess on my end, it's about 1/3 of circles, assuming they're 10 seconds each) so there's a distance to target of 20m, melee range of 3m (meaning 17 to travel), and a 30 second duration. With Claw/Howl/Bash/Ele Bash that's:
Herc - 118116 damage
Kowlin - 98056 damage

If it's a circle every 15 seconds (meaning moving it every 45 or so)
Herc - 187596 damage
Kowlin - 155736 damage

So as you can see, the speed advantage won't really make up the huge damage difference between a kowlin and herc. On Asoteric Runewolf, it's 20 seconds to attack, 5 seconds of warning, and 15? seconds of his nuke, making for a 40 sec cycle.

Since you can nuke him from max range while he's doing his AE, backing the pet off means when it goes to attack, it should be facing a 25.5m distance to run, again at a 3m melee range that's a distance of 22.5 to reach the target and then melee until 20 seconds in (16.5 seconds to melee for the Kowlin, 15.9 seconds for the herc).
Herc - 72794 damage
Kowlin - 63448 damage

I could see an argument that you can keep the Kowlin in melee for half a second longer too, however 20.5 seconds in is still 63448 damage so you won't see an actual gain there (the next Kowlin hit would occur at 21 seconds in, followed by 22.2 seconds in, to beat a herc it would need to survive for 5.9 seconds inside the AE, but if it could survive that long... a herc would survive longer killing that argument). Isn't discrete math fun?

2 different levels. No Brael didn't add claw to the kowlin's comparison. Just to the herc's. I've said all I had to say in this thread, I'm done. You can keep putting down my kowlin all you'd like but I'm not gonna read it because I know what it can do and I know what I can do with it.

Prior to this post I didn't compare a Kowlin, I compared a pet that can potentially outdamage a Herc. A Kowlin cannot, under just about any circumstance currently in the game.

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

BM's are nice, but I've yet to find a non fail one so that's not an option for me right now.



From the data on ecatomb:
Kowlin 2218 attack .8 attacks/sec
Herc 2672 attack .8 attacks/sec (notice, this lines up exactly with what I said above when I pulled it out of my pet stat window)

Your friend either told you wrong on the herc, or they didn't feed it (the above attack levels are with 501+ loyalty). If you turn skills off, no land pet will beat a herc in damage. With skills a handful of them can, the more DD skills used, the more they win by. It takes atleast two skills though, for any pet to beat a herc, assuming the herc has the skills as well. The issue with adding more skills though is more aggro which is why I picked the four skills I did. That only has two skills being used often, and howl being used occasionally, to indirectly add damage. Two skills is still aggro, but more manageable than four. The reason for claw is because it's lower aggro than another DD skill, and far more damage than any other pet skill. And once again, the reason for not using FR is that the dot is the one thing pet related which is effected by level based mitigation.



Wrong, in my above comparison I gave both pets claw. I used a scorpion (and listed a magmite too for reference) as they come in second and third in attack/sec and with their high damage/.6 attack rate get a huge benefit from skills (which happens to be why they'll beat a herc by a good margin at 3 and 4 dd skills, and a small margin at 2, at 1 skill they won't win).



If you're changing your argument to only a Kowlin this becomes much easier, as the dps sheet I built was designed to take speed to reach a target into account. A Kowlin does have a speed advantage over a herc but also has lower attack, meaning it's behind in pure attack/sec, and falls further behind with skills.

Not using a pet on Thunderclaw just shorts your squad the damage, but not using one is your choice. I move over to a side without people and send my pet, attacking from a 20m range (sucks for amplify, but the most efficient spot I've found given the radius of the circles), meaning there's a 17m distance to travel. A pet generally needs to be moved every 30 seconds or so (a guess on my end, it's about 1/3 of circles, assuming they're 10 seconds each) so there's a distance to target of 20m, melee range of 3m (meaning 17 to travel), and a 30 second duration. With Claw/Howl/Bash/Ele Bash that's:
Herc - 118116 damage
Kowlin - 98056 damage

If it's a circle every 15 seconds (meaning moving it every 45 or so)
Herc - 187596 damage
Kowlin - 155736 damage

So as you can see, the speed advantage won't really make up the huge damage difference between a kowlin and herc. On Asoteric Runewolf, it's 20 seconds to attack, 5 seconds of warning, and 15? seconds of his nuke, making for a 40 sec cycle.

Since you can nuke him from max range while he's doing his AE, backing the pet off means when it goes to attack, it should be facing a 25.5m distance to run, again at a 3m melee range that's a distance of 22.5 to reach the target and then melee until 20 seconds in (16.5 seconds to melee for the Kowlin, 15.9 seconds for the herc).
Herc - 72794 damage
Kowlin - 63448 damage

I could see an argument that you can keep the Kowlin in melee for half a second longer too, however 20.5 seconds in is still 63448 damage so you won't see an actual gain there (the next Kowlin hit would occur at 21 seconds in, followed by 22.2 seconds in, to beat a herc it would need to survive for 5.9 seconds inside the AE, but if it could survive that long... a herc would survive longer killing that argument). Isn't discrete math fun?



Prior to this post I didn't compare a Kowlin, I compared a pet that can potentially outdamage a Herc. A Kowlin cannot, under just about any circumstance currently in the game.

Saw your fail remark, lmao coming from a veno who uses a herc, its pretty funny, because you have to rely on that thing to get anything done. While a bm can just get up and go, just because you bought the thing with real money, or in game coin, does not mean your better than any other class. Next I for one know that hercs cannot out damage a kowlin, because I seen a kowlin take aggro with a full reflect, aggro skilled herc, made for tanking without batting a eye lash. While you sit there press heal heal and heal, the real venos who are dding, know which pet is increasing their damage output together. Next time instead of saying your pet is all mighty and trying to pick somones info apart, just because you rely on a cashshop item, and cannot even use pets that were made in the game to the full potential does not mean no veno can. So your blacklisted, because as far as I am concerned Veno. You and Tweakz think you know everything about Cash shop/Normal venos, but thats what it is, you Think. ----"And you are Wrong"

Feel free to ask my friend if you want. I'm sure he'd tell you the same thing. He's a level 93 veno, no claw on his herc, and that's the stat he gave me was a little above 2.3k phys attack base. But like I said, whatever, I'm done with this thread.

I don't have my second one with claw yet. Claw also doesn't change the shown attack stat. You have a nix I believe, test it yourself. I also didn't say your friend was necessarily wrong, and the fact that you keep including the word base in there makes me think your friend was quoting you the 100% attack value (150-500 loyalty) rather than the 120% attack value that people typically use. If that's the number you want to use fine, it just means removing 20% attack from my numbers above on both the herc AND kowlin as the number you quoted is 120% attack not 100%.

The one real disadvantage to using a herc over a magmite or scorpion is the cost difference. The herc isn't a more cost effective dps pet, but makes a very very very good one if you're willing to put in the additional effort for it.

Signako, you need some reading comprehension.

Saw your fail remark, lmao coming from a veno who uses a herc, its pretty funny, because you have to rely on that thing to get anything done.

1. I was referring to what I thought clearly meant PLAYERS not classes. I don't think any class fails (though I do think clerics are overrated), however quite a few players do fail.

2. I don't rely on a herc to get anything done. I recognize it as being the best tool available to venos though. Every pet is a tool, different tools are good in different situations. A herc just so happens to be an extremely good tool.

While a bm can just get up and go, just because you bought the thing with real money, or in game coin, does not mean your better than any other class.

3. Where did I say venos are better than any other class? It's true we can solo, but if you've ever looked at my posts rather than just picked a random herc post that mentions another class to troll, I'm pretty consistent with looking at a hercs usefulness in squads, which just so happens to mitigate the value of it's superior tanking.

Next I for one know that hercs cannot out damage a kowlin, because I seen a kowlin take aggro with a full reflect, aggro skilled herc, made for tanking without batting a eye lash.

4. The herc wasn't using aggro skills, or the Kowlin was using multiple skills. Skills=aggro, the greatest weakness of a herc that's set up to tank is that it only has one skill slot available for aggro. Any other pet has a maximum of four available, and will typically have at least two if it's being built to tank. Skills have aggro attached to them, and then have additional aggro attached to them from the damage done. This also happens to be why there's a small difference (but still a difference) between level 1 and level 5 of a skill like Bash. Most of the aggro comes from the skill itself, which doesn't change.

While you sit there press heal heal and heal, the real venos who are dding, know which pet is increasing their damage output together.

5. More proof you haven't read my posts. One of the reasons I focus more on squads is because I absolutely despise the idea of holding a heal button down and only do it when it's necessary (saving a barb charm/repair, on a boss that requires me to chain heal to tank it, or soloing when no squads are around and friends aren't on). I find it fairly ironic that this is what you're using to try and slam me, I've been slammed on this board a few times for recommending TOO MANY skills for arcane venos to buy, including most fox form skills. I'm pretty much the exact opposite of sitting there and chain healing.

Next time instead of saying your pet is all mighty and trying to pick somones info apart, just because you rely on a cashshop item, and cannot even use pets that were made in the game to the full potential does not mean no veno can.

Claw, Howl, 2x dd skill
Eldergoth Marksman - 3939.71 dps (2055.5 melee, 1884.21 skill)
Kowlin - 3626.03 dps (2307.2 melee, 1321.83 skill)

4x dd skill
Marksman - 4505.85 dps (1581 melee, 2924.85 skill)
Kowlin - 3826.05 dps (1774.4 melee, 2051.65 skill)

Look at that, no cash shop item used, and not even using the best dps pet around.

So your blacklisted, because as far as I am concerned Veno. You and Tweakz think you know everything about Cash shop/Normal venos, but thats what it is, you Think. ----"And you are Wrong"

If you don't like my advice fine, that's your choice. It's based on actual math though, plus ingame experience. The blacklist doesn't bother me though, we're not even on the same server.