April 15, 2015 March 10, 2019

Pirate101: What is the Perfect Pet?

Article #2 in our Ideal Pet Odyssey Series

NOTE: updated 8/7/2015 to reflect the latest release, including four new grants (relentless, burst fire, witch hunter and accurate) and rainbow blessing.

Many thanks to Leah, who practically co-wrote this article, and Eric, who provided valuable input from his PvP experience.

What are the most helpful talents and powers on Pirate101 pets? We couldn’t really start the journey for an ideal Pirate101 Pet until we answered this question. Well I guess we could have, but I wanted to be a little more goal driven than Forrest Gump…

While we appreciate that there will be many different opinions, this article provides our perspective and the rationale for it, in three sections:

Talents
Powers
Which Pet

Our primary focus is on pets for PvP, although many of the recommendations here can be helpful for PvE too.

Talents

We prefer two types of talents: “Grants” and “Significant” ones:

“Grants” Talents

“Grants” talents provide the talent to our pirate instead of the pet. Our highest priority ones provide talents that we can’t train nor can we easily get them from gear (depending on the class of the Pirate):

Grants Blade Storm
Grants Burst Fire
Grants Elusive
Grants Relentless
Grants Tough 2

Our secondary priority “grants” talents include:

Grants Dodgy 2
Grants Turn the Tide 1

Lastly, our other helpful “grants” talents are:

Grants Accurate 1
Grants Witch Hunter

All of these talents tend to be helpful with questing, in addition to PvP.

“Significant” Talents

“Significant” talents are talents that have the highest likelihood of significantly affecting the outcome of a battle (versus if a pet did not have the talent). Our main ones would be:

Scent 2

We’ll mention a few more for the sake of completeness, although their impact isn’t as significant as Scent 2:

Charming Gaze 2 (PvE only)
Merciless 2
Scent 1
Webs 1

It’s important to note that the “grants” talents are class-specific. For example, a level 65 Buccaneer will not get any benefit from Grants Blade Storm since they already have Blade Storm 3, which is the current maximum benefit.

Our recommendations by class are listed below, listed in order of importance (although there is some internal disagreement on the order for some of them, particularly Scent 2):

Top Pet Talents for a Buccaneer

Grants Elusive
Grants Relentless
Scent 2
Grants Burst Fire (if using combo weapon strategy)
Grants Turn the Tide (if not using Dragon Axe of Doom)
Grants Dodgy 2
Grants Accurate 1
Webs 1

Top Pet Talents for a Musketeer

Grants Burst Fire
Grants Relentless (if using combo weapon strategy)
Scent 2
Grants Turn the Tide 1
Grants Tough 2
Grants Dodgy 2
Grants Accurate 1
Webs 1

Top Pet Talents for a Privateer

Grants Relentless (if melee)
Grants Blade Storm (if melee)
Grants Burst Fire (if combo weapon strategy)
Scent 2
Grants Turn the Tide 1
Grants Dodgy 2
Webs 1

Top Pet Talents for a Swashbuckler

Grants Elusive
Grants Relentless
Grants Blade Storm
Scent 2
Grants Burst Fire (if combo weapon strategy)
Grants Tough 2
Grants Turn the Tide 1
Grants Accurate 1
Webs 1

Top Pet Talents for a Witchdoctor

Grants Elusive
Scent 2
Grants Tough 2
Grants Dodgy 2
Grants Witch Hunter
Grants Accurate 1
Webs 1

Powers

Most of our preferred Powers grant the power to the Pirate instead of the pet. By having your pet provide these powers, you have more options to mix and match gear with other powers to suit your PvP strategy.

However, there are a few powers that can significantly influence the outcome of a match if your pet casts them. They may not cast them very often though, so they’re more of a high risk / high rewards kinda thing. Do ya feel lucky punk?

We settled on four “tiers” to these powers:

Tier 1 Powers

Brutal Charge (for melee Pirates, including Swashbuckler, melee Privateer and Buccaneer)
Kraken’s Lament
Rally
Time Warp

For melee Pirates, Brutal Charge is at the top of the list with its accuracy debuff. Cloud Spirit is also tier 1 because agility-based companions are the most common in PvP, and because top-level gear has only the 3 turn agility buff (and we typically prefer the 5 turn buffs for PvP).

As mentioned above, Rainbow Blessing and Time Warp can make a major impact but may not be cast very often. So they are considered tier 1 if you think the reward is worth the risk.

I know, I know — where are the heals? We had a lot of internal debate about them. While we agree that they are the most universally helpful powers, we felt like the tier 1 powers provide more benefit in the right circumstances.

Tier 2 Powers

Regroup
Rainbow Blessing
Cloud Spirit
Soulreaver
Shark’s Fury (for Buccaneers and strength-based companions)

Pets are the only way a non-Privateer can get Regroup. It’s helpful for any class, although it provides more value for questing and team PvP than for solo PvP. Rally, Kraken’s Lament (for its damage reduction) and Soulreaver (for its unlimited attack range) also are helpful for any class. Lastly, Shark’s Fury is a helpful 5 turn buff for a Buccaneer and/or a mostly strength-based team.

Tier 3 Powers

Backstab (for melee class)
Wind Spirit (for agility-based companion strategy)
Kraken’s Coils (for Buccaneer)

Our tier 3 powers provide powers that can be useful, although not as much as the Tier 1 & 2 powers.

Tier 4 Powers

Mutineer’s Grasp
Jobu’s Kiss
Steadying Speech (for Privateer or Witchdoctor)
Calm the Troops (for Privateer or Witchdoctor)

We honestly just don’t get too excited for the Tier 4 Powers, although we do admit they can be helpful. We do get excited for Choco-Tacos at midnight though…

We put the willpower buffs in tier 4 since most PvP and PvE strategies do not include Will-based companions.

Which Pet?

On the one hand, which pet you choose doesn’t really matter much. They don’t give special powers/talents automatically (like Wizard101), so you can choose whatever you like. For some reason I prefer the Heck Kitty, even though I’m not a cat lover in real life.

On the other hand, if you want to be strategic about it, there are three things you can consider, listed below. I’m currently thinking if you truly don’t care then the Tiger Shark may be the most helpful pet, as it is helpful in all three areas (although I haven’t been able to confirm their resale value yet).

1. Love those Bananas!

Your primary snack for pet training will be Banana Burgers and Sandwiches, since they are the highest level you can buy with gold. These are main course snacks from Monquista. If you find a pet that loves these snacks, it will give you an additional 8 XP from each training. At a minimum, if a pet likes either a main course or one from Monquista, you’ll get an extra 4 XP each training.

The following pets are known to go bananas for those banana snacks:

Hammerhead Shark
Lion Fish
Maraca Rattler
Roundup Rattler
Tiger Shark

2. Resale Value

You’ll need to mass produce pets in order to get close to an ideal one since the odds are low for each one (Henry Ford would be proud of you). Some pets sell for significantly more gold (I’m told that the Sabertooth Bunny sells for over 3,000 gold), so selling your epic fails can save you some Moo Manchu Tower runs. Unfortunately my Heck Kitties only sell for 150 gold a pop, so I’ve asked Moo for a frequent visitors program.

Thanks to Angus and Sierra for mentioning some of the pets that sell for higher amounts of gold, such as the Fandago or Silver Buffaloon too. Let us know if you know of any other good ones!

3. Swimming and Flying

Swimming and flying pets have more opportunity to reach the enemy, since the can swim under some obstacles or fly over open spaces. This can be especially helpful for a pet with Charming Gaze.

Too bad they haven’t introduced a “left shark” pet yet, I might have to give up my kitties for it.