best Cub skills

Teach it to be all class and roll a psy.

I gues tweakz is trying to say it's a worthless tank ^^'

but anyway.. at least teach it bash.. to keep agro

Why bash? It multiplies on an already low attack while Roar will provide an aggro steal for emergencies and probably help hold it better. Then there's Howl which would help make up for it's low attack.

EDIT: also if anyonehas any adviceon abnormal tank pets that is muchly wanted it's tiresom running around and seeing everyone wit a herc magmite or glacial, so dont list those, only things you dont see muchthanx lol

It's tiresome squadding with another veno that turns a 35m FF run into a 1h one. If a Barb, Cleric or BM came to an FF or any instance so under-equipped they'd probably be turned out. Why we tolerate fail venos, wizards, and archers is beyond me.

Howl is an mdef reducer - meaning that your magic attacks will do more damage whilst its active.

Sold's data shows that you don't suffer an increased amount of hate whilst the debuff is on - so you get to do more damage, at no added risk of losing aggro.

I disagree with tweakz that roar will work for aggro holding. It is indeed perfect for stealing aggro back in emergencies - though pounce is also very good for that. (Not a guaranteed steal, but roar will let the mob complete its attack cycle before switching back, where pounce will interrupt)

The main thing, for holding aggro, is to use all the pet skills, and not just one on auto.
Which leads to a problem.

The cub really doesn't do enough damage. At all. So you're going to want all of the debuff and damage increasers you can get.
But then, it's not atcually a very good tank EITHER - it aint bad, but it's not tops. So ideally you'd want tough and... the enemy attack reducer, whose name I cannot recall right now.
And you want pounce / roar.
And that's more slots than you can fit on one pet.

If you're dead set on using the cub, you probably do want a bash-variant; if only for the aggro, since it cycles more quickly than anything else.
On top of that, I'd keep pounce, obviously, and then... tough and ideally howl - but since the cub comes with pierce already I might just stick with that.

But the cub really won't hold aggro very well against just you. As a squads main tank, you will be hated by every archer and wizard in existence. Heck, you'll have a hard time holding the aggro off of a competent cleric!

And for the same (really really sucky damage) reason, it's not an ideal choice for a dedicated attack pet either, for when you're NOT being the main tank.


So... it's not an ideal choice. If you really want to do it (and the cub IS cute looking) then those are your options.

If you have squads who are willing to dial down the damage dealing, you might want to consider shriek, in place of bash. Because cancels are a very good thing for a tank to have. Though very hard to time correctly, on a pet.

Edit: Threaten. Threaten is the name of the debuff I couldn't remember.

Oh! One final piece of advice - before shelling out great wodges of coin for these skills, pick up the free pets (wolves and grimalks mainly) that have them to see how you like them.

Edit2: And failure is relative. I'm happily tanking lvl95 stuff ten at a time, singletons... I don't think they make anything non-elite that's tough enough. Yes, no other class can do that - but a veno can. And especially as you get to a higher level, squads will begin to expect you to be able to do it.

Saying allll of that - the cub isn't actually a terrible choice. It's not the BEST choice, but it's not terrible. If you're good at everything else (and, for example, keep amplify damage up all the time) then it may be good enough.

CelticOrphan - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Edit2: aplify damage thats a fox form skill i bilieve i dont use foxform

YOU FAIL

Now that I've got your attention?
Drop into foxform.
Fire off one skill (leech is a pretty good choice, as is befuddling mist)
Then fire off amp damage.
Foxform will have recharged, so come back out into arcane - and lay on the smackdown whilst amp is active. Ironwood first is ideal.

You MUST amplify damage, at least on bosses. It is your main reason to exist.

(A similar argument exists for pure-fox veno's - they really must drop into arcane periodically to throw ironwood.)



Ok, on to the rest of your questions - yes, glacial is also a pretty good second-tier pet. Spikier damage is its main advantage over the cub - its main disadvantage is that it is slow. (It also has, I think, slightly less mdef)

What tweakz is oh so elegantly trying to say, is: Get a herc. It's something well worth saving up for. (And it takes a lot of saving - pretty much as much as your skills for level 89)

There's a reason for those cookie-cutter pets: They WORK.

The same reason you see barbarians of a certain level using the zerk-axes, wizards looking for -channel and +crit rings...

There really isn't a great deal of flexibility in top-tier gear in this game.

if the reasons above haven't explained to you why i dont need fox form i dont know what will

Nothing will. Because you are wrong. You don't have to stay in fox form. You have to drop into it periodically to amp. This is not optional. You don't need to attack in fox form, you don't need any dex. Just go fox, cast amp (and may as well cast something else 'cause the recharge on fox is long - a pet heal is perfect, but levelling up one other fox-skill of your choice is a sound idea too) then unfox yourself, and continue.

I don't get strenuous like this very often - almost all my advice is pepperred with caveats and 'maybe' and 'in this situation you might prefer...'
Amplify-Damage really has none of those. The only downsides to it are:
a) Short casting range. If you can't control a bosses AOE then you might have trouble getting into range to use it, and thus might need to forgo it on some bosses.
b) Long casting time. If you are spam-healing your pet and only JUST keeping it alive and have no time to cast anything... Ok. You can't amp, your pet will die whilst you do it.
c) Minor one - dropping to fox costs a PILE of mana (because of the max mp reduce) - so you may not want to spam it immediately after you transfuse. That's just a matter of getting your timing right, though.

It won't save your life - it will make the run 20% faster. It is by far the majority of your damage.
Not using amp is like deciding to not use attack spells, and just use your pet. Yes, you can do it, but there goes half your damage - so why on earth would you want to?


For non-bosses - any pet will do. Indeed, a tank pet may be counterproductive. The wolf lines have some very nice overly-skilled pets; I mainly used a snakevalley (which has flesheream 4!) until around level 50.
So there's my personal advice.

But for bosses, if you want to tank, you have to use the top tier pets. There's just no other effective options.


Purge. People say "Oh, purge is vital" - but there are actually very very few mobs you need it for. Oggo the quillhog king is just about the only one that comes to mind.
It's more of a PVP thing.

If you can steal from your pet then:
a) Make sure you manually trigger all of your pets skills
b) Make sure your pet has four skills
c) Make sure those skills are levelled up.
d) Get a better pet.

Sorry - you really shouldn't be able to steal.
If you can steal, your archer certainly will - and that means that you really can't tank.


If you don't WANT to take the tank-role (and no doubt about it, barbs are MUCH better at it) then you want a direct-damage pet. (Wolves again are good for this, as are the cats)
The downside is, of course, that those pets might accidentally steal aggro.

what is a good unusial tank pet that you know of. and please dont say herc magmites or glacials

Assuming the smartass answer of 'hercules' doesn't help? The next on the list is the armoured bear. Which is a level80 requirement, so not a good option either.
Apart from that - sorry, but nothing. The golems are a BIG chunk above the competition as tanking pets.
the next nearest would be...
Oh! The beetle. If you go to the trouble of levelling up a very low level beetle - then that is actually quite a decent tank. Not as good as the cub, for example, but unusual.

Harder hitting, but less good as a tank, is the scorpion. It's a sliding scale of tradeoff - the scorpions are more usually regarded as direct-damage pets.

There are already so many FAIL venos out there that do not amp, don't have an adequate pet for the job, and or are poorly equipped. If you're too lazy to amp: play another class! When you're excluded for being so fail: don't get so butt hurt. -We warned you!

CelticOrphan - Dreamweaver wrote: »

yes but you see fox form is a waste in my csase it trully is, fox form ay be helpful and it may help my pet a bit, but th efact is i hit ay to hard in human form to even consider trying to fox form then the time of trying to back up form a normal mob or boss and hit so i have a bit to try and get my pet to use roar is annoying, i've done fox form human form mix, it's practicaly impossble to keep all your skills lvled it already is that way with me now, granted i did grind all the way from lvl 34 to 40 then did my t-born quest and got to lvl 45 and then bh to 46 so i missed otu on a lot of quest that i really should do to get more spirit. and money.

herc like i said i will be getting, beetles dont work weird fear of ;em they are kinda gross also so i guess i'll stick with my cub. thanx for your time again.

and again i'm re peating this you dont need fox form to be succseful try going both and it's a lot more work to get the spirit and money to keep the skills you need from both lvled, seriously i have tried it it doesn't work for me. so no to fox form amp damage would be nice but it wot be in my case, i already hit to hard to worry about fox form, plus it's a waste of time. speacialy when i can spam cast venomouse and do twice the damage i wood even wiht skills while waiting to be able to change back to human form and attack with magic.

thanx again i think im all done here lol unless you have more pointers to give me just no more fox form i'm tired of people telling me i need it when i dont, seriously people i dont you haven't seen my veno in action.

Celt

thanx again.

1. shut it up with the I do enough damage in caster I don't need foxform bull****. On bosses it's not your job to DD. No! It's not about you! You heard me! You have wizards and archers for DD'ing. Your role is to make sure they can hit even harder. Meaning: drop into foxform > amp > get out of fox form and use ironwood. then do whatever you want till you can amp again. Noone gives a damn if you do damage or not. You're NOT a DD.

2. you don't have to keep all your skills lvld >_> But at least get fox form, get amp and purge. Later in TT there will be bosses that buff themselves.. and that's highly annoying. ppl will love it if you just purge and amp the boss. again.. it's not about YOUR damage.

3. You don't want to listen. The cub is cute yeh. But it's not a good pet to use as tank. sure there are worse. But there are way better too. If you wanna keep it, sure. But keep that glacial that you have lvld too if you don't plan on getting a herc. If you enjoy questing with your cub, why not? I mean.. I love questing with my froggy xD but don't expect me to lvl up it's skills or to tank offer to tank. since no, it can't keep agro and yeh, it has low defense. the only bosses I tank with my froggy is when helping lower lvld friends with bh39 and some culti quests. But don't expect me to run forward with my frog screaming I will tank bosses. I don't like everyone sitting around because I wanna tank with my frog.

4. please tell the squads you want to join that you don't have fox form and don't have amp and such. I'm sure they'll love a lil veno with an ego as huge as yours that is a complete fail. b:cute
your not a wizzie hun. That fox form is there with a reason.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You MUST amplify damage, at least on bosses. It is your main reason to exist.

(A similar argument exists for pure-fox veno's - they really must drop into arcane periodically to throw ironwood.)

Not really analogous. Amplify damage has a cooldown of 30 seconds, and lasts for a maximum of 20 seconds at level 10 (don't know how long the sage and demon versions last) while ironwood has an 8 second cooldown and lasts for 10 seconds (less time than a double foxform cooldown, which is 12 seconds.) A fox veno trying to keep ironwood active would be spending all her time switching forms (amp plus 3-4 attacks in fox, then ironwood plus one other scarab in human before starting the cycle over.) Putting pierce on your non-tank pet is an alternative that doesn't involve continual switching (with concomitant mana drain and loss of DPS) and provides a slightly lower level debuff that lasts for 9 (I think) seconds with 15 second cooldown, for a similar level of debuff duration as amp.

My Heavy/Arcane veno (currently level 58) mostly goes human for:
1) spam healing
2) splodies (the reverexes and dodos in '39 still deal half my HP when I'm in heavy when they explode.)

CelticOrphan - Dreamweaver wrote: »

okay this has probably been asked a couple times before but i'm too lazy to go and search through all the forum threads and find it, whats the best skills to teach a Shadou cub, espcialy if i wanna make it my tank pet it's just so cute >.< anyways. someone help i dont want to go out waste my money on skills that aren't very good and then also lvl them thanx for your help.

Celt.b:thanks

Hehe, yeah I love that little bear. When I got my shadou cub, I had trouble keeping aggro until I replaced pierce with bash. After that, it worked out pretty well. I would set bash as my default skill and manually use flesh ream as needed. Bash not only adds more aggro, but it adds a bit more damage as well to your cub. Other options would work as well, but at least for me, bash did the trick.

And don't worry about all this talk of fail this and fail that. Playing a game is all about having fun. I had just as much fun before I got my herc as I did after I got my herc. You don't need the best pet tank in the game to have fun.

Okay, seriously. If Celt wants to not use Fox Form, that's her prerogative. It's just a GAME, people. It's about having fun. And if that's how she has fun, then more power to you, Celt.

(That said, don't be offended if squads turn you down. I'm just letting you know, it will happen. I personally wouldn't, but then I'm rather strange. =3)

As for unique pets ... well, Ebony Hellduke is really good, as is Dark Wanderer. Cuddly Pup is also good, and seriously cute as well. And if you still have a problem distinguishing between your pet and another of the same pet, get two, a Pup and a Wanderer / Hellduke. If someone comes in with the same pet, then just switch.

CelticOrphan - Dreamweaver wrote: »

actually i was in TTyesterday when i was lvl 48 and didn't die and there was only me a barb and a cleric, and you want me to not get angry everyone keeps repeating i'm going to be fail. i've yet to be fail i dont die much and you want to know why? cause i dont use fox form like i said before thread is closed. unless you people woill sotp saying i'm going to fail cause obviously i'm not. thank you good day...

one other thing i dont call you guys fail cause you use ox form now do i? everyone has diffrent styles of playing you guys like fox form i dont. you guys i'm guessing like to physical, and one other thing purge is not needed if you have a smart cleric in TT cause yes the bosses can buff and what not but a cleric can d-buff you. theres a reason everyone wants them in a squad as i said before i'm not fail and this charicter will never be if i see i need skils from another then i will add them.

also i'm already strugglying to lvl my human spells why in the world would i add like a whole other 14 skills ontop of that? hmmm good job smart ones. good job.

1. I don't like to physical. I'm a vit/magic build and will soon restat to full magic. I'm lvling amp atm and have purge lvl 10 soul degeneration is something I try to lvl too. I lvl leech whenever I have some spare coin since it's just usefull skill. And I only go physical on increased magic resistance mobs. Why lvl the fox skills if I don't like physical? Because it's usefull in squads.

2. clerics can't remove all positive buffs from a target. Purge is used in TT 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, 3-3 as Toxic mentioned. If you don't purge, because you think it's 'not usefull' you give the cleric and barb huge bills, much more then you will pay just to lvl purge.

3. 14 spells huh? Fox form lvl 1 isn't expensive. you have to learn amp and purge. that's what? 3 skills? which make TT's go so much faster. In that way you can make that money back in no time. Noone will blame you for not learning leech, befuddeling mist or whatever. But amp and purge is what makes a veno wanted in squads.

Believe me, we're not trying to bully or annoy you. everyone can play their char the way they want to. But there are certain things people will expect from you. One of those things is that you can amp and purge bosses to make sure everything goes smoothly and fast.
I hope you'll just listen to our advice, will save you a lot of trouble later on.