Hercules vs Blazin Phoenix

Herc can tank in Instances, Nix can't. Food for Herc and Nix last I checked was 9 tokens for 25 Perfect cookies b:bye

They will eat other types of food. o.o
Meats (venison, martin nest, etc) for herc and fodder (hay and.. I don't know what else lol) for the nix. If you've got a tome you don't have to worry about feeding them once they're full. It's probably cheaper to buy the cookies than the above listed foods but you might get them as drops or see someone practically giving them away, so it wouldn't hurt to look.

Unless you plan to play by yourself a lot, I'd say get a nix instead of a herc. If you're going to go with squads and whatnot, herc won't keep aggro anyway.

I got my nix first, and I got a tome so I don't feed it often. It's also not really better to buy the other foods for them because of how much people charge for it. You would have to grind forever to get decent drops on them, which would be counter productive if you don't have a tome. So yeah, only real option is cookies.
It's still nice to have the herc for instances even in squads, especially if the tank ends up a fail and boss is coming at you. I use my cuddly pup in instances lately(same level as me with lvl 5 bash and flesh ream) more than my tanking pet, but that's cause I make sure to get a squad that knows what they are doing.

Nix... idk if mine has a problem, but lets put it this way : His favorite pass time is eating pop corn while hiding in SZ or staying at 60m altitude and watching me get turned into road kill (in fox form trying to amp/purge) by a lvl 100 sin with +12 r9.

So no, nix isn't worth it for what it does and the crazy cost.

Herc... not worth it either. I overpowered my little tabby for 75m, about 150m less (gold at 1.2m X 190g average for packs) than a herc. She's a great tank and is surprisingly close to a herc. Here's a comparison chart:

Herc (lvl 99 buffed [Strong, Protect]

Tabby Plumdrop (lvl 99 buffed [Strong, Protect, Blessing of the Pack])

Physical Defense: 24630 (86%) / 17714 (81%)

Magical Defense: 19703 (83%) / 19323 (82%)

Health Points: 4540 / 3539 (original HP -> 2722)

Note: Notice that I added Blessing of the Pack on Aly for additional HP. If you want to OP a pet, I suggest you use one with more defense and mostly more HP (ie: Armored Bear, Shaodu Cub, walking rock things). That way, you won't need Blessing of the Pack to compensate on the lower HP and you can add skills for agro instead.

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Yes... I copied one of my previous posts because I was too lazy to write it all again. b:surrender

I dont agree with the whole 'get a dd' pet for squads. Imagine you're level 100 and you have some super powered scorpion; you're squadded with a 100 sin, 100 barb and 100 seeker for example. (or all 100+ sins for nirvana)

I guarantee you that your pet damage output, no matter what pet you have is totally insignificant compared to those other DDers in your squad.

As far as I can tell the ONLY reason people take a veno in high level squads if for the bramble buff, amplify damage and purify on the bosses. Having said that I can keep aggro on some of the fc bosses sometimes and that saves the barb some repairs no doubt.

My take on it all is this:

If you PVP or do everything in squads - nix - no argument there from anyone I'd say. As aforesaid, in high level squads your pet is irrelevant. Nix for PVP.

If you PVE/solo instance - herc OR a tanking pet. But the big benefits of the herc are strong and reflect. Reflect allows you to keep aggro on multiple mobs which is a life saver. Strong allows your herc to take a belting. I solo a lot of tt squad instances with a herc - no doubt you could do a lot with a tanking pet with those skills added, which would be much cheaper, but they just arent as good as a herc for that purpose.

If you like doing both but can only afford one - get the herc and level/add correct skills to a petite sawfly for PVE.

Was able to get Herc for less than 100mill coins... Nix is in the long term objectives for when I've got all my gears and have bound them for PvP and such and I don't doubt it will be less expensive, more likely cheaper with the recent pack sale. Against almost any lvl [?] boss If there's no demon sin in squad I can quite happily suggest the barb to go human form so Herc can tank and it holds aggro beautifully and survives easily enough too which means unless the Boss is AoEing you've got extra damage coming in from the barb and the cleric. It's been more than once a Clerics been pretty happy about not having to spam heals on the tank all the time.

A lot of people suggest getting the rare pet skill scrolls like protect/strong/bless/etc but with the time it takes to actually find one of those it's more often than not, easier just to get a Herc. My two cents.. lol

Can you afford both at once? Get both. If not, follow these steps.

Get herc. Remove its Pounce and replace it with BASH, upgrade BASH as max as possible.
Using the Hercules: Whenever you summon your hercules to a Solo stuff, do not forget to buff him up. get some pet cookies with Tokens to fill its loyalty to max and have some to refil it whenever he dies. Get your mystical tome equiped to avoid having to feed him :S
Against mobs, you will send hercules to 1 mob in the group and make sure hercules uses bash on that mob, then switch target to another mob and make sure Hercules at least hits everyone once. Once hercules hitted everyone, you will be able to safely heal him. Start bashing everyone in sequence to increase overall aggro. if you're doing this right you'll be able to safely cast Noxious Gas or Parasitic nova to quicken mobs death.
Against the boss, set hercules default skill to Bash (if you havent yet) and send him. Hercules will handle it nicely and you will be able to attack from times to times. When attacking, you might prefer to use Ironwood scarab to reduce enemies defense.
Against mobs, have 2 sparks? Parasitic nova (make sure your pet has good agro on them all)
Against bosses, have 2 sparks? Do spark burst+ and iron wood, it worths more.
Hercules resistance will also allow you to turn to fox form and amplify damage against bosses.


Soloing TT:
1) Get a Ultimate substance and go solo TT in single mode. 2) Get all the stuff bosses will drop and make money from that. 3) With the money you got, you must buy another substance and repeat steps 2 and 3... Infinitely if you want to. Profit Profit Profit $.$

With the profit youll do soloing TT, buy a Blazing Phoenix, teach it Flesh Ream. Maximize flesh ream, get r9 gear and go PWN arses on the TW b:victory

Edit: Do not forget to stow and call hercules back before pulling at bh and such, his deflection may draw EVERYONE's aggro to your ***.