Editing Venomancer Tanking (section)

== Basic Pet Tanking ==

You've almost certainly done this already.  Let us recap.

# Send your pet to hit the monster.
# The monster starts hitting your pet.
# Hit the monster yourself.
# The monster keeps hitting your pet.

Simple.  But there are some caveats.

First of all: You have to be careful to not pull the monster off your pet.  The safest way to do this is to ensure that you do less damage to the monster than your pet, although what with skills generating a bit of hate above the damage they do you have a little bit of flexibility on this.
:Any time a monster is about to start an attack, and isn't stunned or whatever, they will pick a new target, if there is one available that they hate more.  You can't do half the damage in one lump and then let your pet do the rest and expect the monster to stay on the pet - it needs to be (roughly) half the damage at any given time.

Secondly: And contradicting the above advice - it's relatively safe to pull a melee monster off your pet, you've got time to run away before you get hit and if you do this just before the monster dies it doesn't really matter ''who'' has aggro.

Thirdly: Your team-mates ''probably'' do more damage than you, and almost certainly do it in larger spikes.  So you need your pet to out-damage ''them''.
:To reiterate, because it is important:  If your teammates haven't teamed with Veno's much before, they may not realise that they need to ''slow down''.  If they act like they do when playing solo, or with a [[Barbarian]] tank, then they ''will'' cause the monster to ignore your pet, and it ''will'' get them killed.

=== Gaining Pet Aggro ===

The first, most important thing here is:
:'''Use high-level damage-dealing skills'''

This splits out into several smaller pieces of advice:
# You have to ''use'' the skills.  Your pet will only auto-attack with the first skill in the list, by default.  Either change the default skill by right clicking, or left-click (or use Alt+2,3,4) to trigger them manually.
# You want to have high level skills on your pet.  This means buying skill books at Mrs (or Mr) Zoologist.
# You want them to be skills which deal damage.  Bash is the most obvious choice, but the set of elemental bashes (Lightning, Sandblow, Toxic Mist etc.) are all just as good.  Flesh-ream and pierce work too.  These are often available cheaply in the auction house, or you can go to the zoologists.

Now, of these skills, Bash (and the bash-like skills) are probably the best to start with.  They have the advantage of having a very short recharge time (short enough that if you put four on a pet then that pet will probably never get a normal attack in).

They also do respectable amounts of damage, which is good in and of itself.

Flesh Ream has the advantage of generating a little bit of aggro when the bleed ticks, which gives you a bit more flexibility.

Pierce doesn't really draw enough aggro to be useful for that purpose.  It can save you casting Ironwood scarab (which tends to draw aggro) though.

As a side tip, if you are lucky enough to have a second [[Venomancer]] pulling for you, then you will want your pet to perform the other important function of a tank - grabbing the monster before it pelts them.  Stand between where they run back to and the monster, send your pet to the attack before the monster arrives (but not so soon that you lure his friends) and generally emulate a real tank as well as you can.

=== Multiple Monsters ===

OK, you remember why you learned [[Venomancer Luring]], right?  Because the monster brought all his friends to come crush you?  That still applies.  And worse.

At first, things start off as you expect.  Your pet attacks something, all his friends turn and start in on your pet.

Next, if you haven't cheated and skipped ahead in this guide, you heal your pet.  And now, all of a sudden, almost every monster turns around and blows you away.

This is because whilst your pet attacking their friend generates a little bit of hate, your healing the pet generates a lot.  (As does attacking the friend yourself, being in the area and breathing too often.)  So they turn on you.

The monster your pet is actually hitting will ''probably'' stay on your pet, at least.

So.  In a situation with a lot of monsters, if you don't want to be stuck with most of them yourself:

# Have your pet hit them all at least once before you throw any heals.
## Or, at least, hit the ranged and magic ones.  Your pet may be able to smack the melee ones before they reach you.
# Don't throw mass amounts of damage onto the ones your pet it not concentrating on.
## This means avoid using your AoE (Area of Effect) skills (Noxious Gas, for example, is a bad idea)
## This ''also'' means avoiding using your DOT (Damage Over Time) skills (such as Blazing Scarab and, again, Noxious Gas).  Because these will keep doing damage even if you have shifted your pet onto a new target.
# If they're close to death, you can just kill them.
# If you start a cast and the pet is about to kill it, switch the pet onto a new target.  Or abort the spell (hit escape).  No sense wasting time.

Remember - monsters have this nasty tendency to wander around and respawn on top of you.  A single-monster situation can easily turn into a multiple-monster situation without warning.

=== Keeping Pet Aggro ===

The simple tip here is:  Your pet mustn't stop attacking.  Or, if they do, so must everyone else.

There's a few reasons your pet might stop attacking:

==== Excuse the first: Pet Death ====

If your pet dies, (or you accidentally unsummon it.  Don't laugh!  It happens!  OK, well, try not to let it happen, but...)  then you may be screwed.  All that [[Aggro]] you took?  You've still got it.  Your new pet has none.

# If you didn't damage the monster yourself (or didn't damage it much), then this is the same as [[Venomancer Luring]].  Get some range, summon a new pet, and go.
# If the monster is close to death, finishing it off may be faster than trying to summon a new pet.
# If you've got friends with you, have them smack it.  Although [[Wizard]]s and [[Cleric]]s are probably in an even worse situation.
# Kite the monster instead of tanking it.  (Kiting, in this case, meaning running screaming for your mummy, whilst throwing spells behind you now and then.)
# Don't forget that you've got the second best set of self-heals in the game.  You can afford to get injured occasionally.
# Last, and least: Have a cleric ready to bring you back to life.

==== Excuse the Second: Switching Targets ====

OK, sometimes you ''need'' to switch the pet onto a different target for a while.  (Because it just popped, because something decided to hit the [[Cleric]], whatever)

This is pretty simple to deal with - just stop hitting the old monster, and start hitting the new one.  Make sure everyone else realizes too.

=== Excuse the Third: Resting ===

OK, not really an excuse this one.  But sometimes your pet may just decide to stop attacking for a while.  The normal cause is lag.

It can ''also'' happen if you are outside and using a flying pet; especially if the target monster moves.  The pet will often get stuck trying to fly through the ground to reach the monster, and stop hitting it.

This can even happen indoors, especially in FB59, if the monster decides to run up (or down) a cliff and your pet can no longer reach him.

All that can be done is to watch out for these, and fix them up when they happen.  If you don't notice, you'll often pull [[Aggro]].

This can actually solve the problem, as long as you only pull a little bit.  The monster moves to attack you, the pet re-acquires it, hits it, the monster switches back to the pet and you're fine.

You can also use the 'follow me' to persuade your pet to move somewhere new, and attack from there.

Unsummoning your pet should be a last resort if you've already damaged the monster yourself.

Lag there isn't much you can do except to hammer the attack and pet heal keys, and hope, and apologize afterwards.

=== Flesh Ream ===

First of all, this isn't the [[Barbarian]] skill of the same name, although it serves a similar purpose.

Flesh-ream does a fairly nice chunk of damage, and causes bleeding, which is damage over time.

This generates a nice chunk of aggro, and can work to your advantage.

For example - if your pet runs in, puts Flesh Ream on one monster and then starts attacking a second then the first monster will keep gaining hate on your pet.  Enough hate that you can probably get in an attack or two before it decides that it hates you more.

Which, if it's not a terribly tough monster (or is earth based, making it wood vulnerable) may be enough to wipe it out.


There is a downside, however:  If the monster can't hate your pet (unsummoned or dead - or even just far enough away) and the bleed ticks, then the monster will hate ''you''.  (This also occurs with poison and burning, from Noxious Gas and Blazing Scarab, those skills generate more aggro than you may expect.)

Not normally a problem, but worth mentioning.  If things go badly wrong, and monsters have Flesh Ream ticking, then things are going to get worse before they get better.

The other disadvantage to flesh-ream is its recharge time.  It just plain takes a long time to come back up compared to Bash.

=== Roar ===

'''Note: This is ''not'' the same as the [[Barbarian]] skill of the same name.  Not even slightly.'''

Frankly, this deserves its own guide, but in short:

Roar makes the monster hate your pet more than anything else in the world.  It clears all of the aggro generated by any previous skill and then adds a small amount to your pet. The monster ''will'' attack your pet next (although if it's already mid-attack it will finish what it's doing first, and if that attack takes long enough, someone else might have hit it enough to make it change target again...)

'''But.'''

Roar doesn't make it hate your pet very ''much'' more than everyone else.  It doesn't take very much effort for you (or others) to pull the monsters off of your pet again, especially since all the aggro your pet has been building up is now suddenly gone.

Higher levels of the skill do draw more aggro, however it is best to treat a monster after a pet-roar as though it was newly pulled.

So, the good part is: (Nearly) Instant effect.  You can grab the boss off of the cleric effortlessly, rather than needing to out-hate them first.  (Which can be tricky if the cleric is chain healing themselves, which, because the boss is eating their face, they may well be.)

Another use for roar is if someone manages to out-damage your pet.  The pet can grab aggro back quickly, allowing them time to realize what they did and slow down.  If they follow up with another huge attack, there's no much you can do, though.
:The sequence would be something like: ''Bash, Normal hit, (archer steals aggro), Roar (pet steals it right back)...''

The bad part is that this isn't very much use for ''holding'' Aggro.  It can in fact hurt your efforts, reducing the hate from previous damage and skills to just the level of the roar.

Use with caution.  This makes a very bad default skill, but a very useful emergency skill.

=== Good Pets to Tank with ===

As I said in the introduction: A tank needs good defense, lots of hitpoints, and a way to keep the monster on them.

Several pets partially meet this description.  One almost completely meets it.  None are as good as a real [[Barbarian]] but here we go anyway.

'''''Magmites / Golems'''''

:These walking lumps of rock, first available at level 18 outside the human FB19, have stupidly high physical defense and hitpoints.

:They also do decent damage, and have a couple of decent aggro generating skills.

:They have the disadvantage of not having a terribly high magic defense (which becomes important later on, as you meet more magic-dealing monsters) and, although not actually vital for tanking, they are so very ''very'' slow that it's worth mentioning as being a problem.

:There's really no reason to ''not'' at least try out a Magmite, but if you're dead set on not using one, then the scorpions and beetles fill a similar role; trading a little bit of defense for better damage.

'''''Antelopes'''''

:First available at 30, from the hills east of shining tide, these pets are often said to be good magic tanks.

:That is, they have a high magic defense.  They also hit pretty hard.

:As an added advantage, they have a self-heal which can give you a bit more room to attack.

:The only real disadvantage is that you don't face a great many magical enemies at that level.

'''''Frog'''''

:The frog is a rare pet, with a lot of magical defense, and a decent physical defense.  It doesn't hit very hard, though.  Nice and fast.

'''''Shadou Cub'''''

:The Shadou Cub is another rare pet, and another decent magical tank, although it's more often used as a puller.  It's more of an all-rounder though, having a decent physical defense.

:It has the advantage of having a suite of decent aggro-generating skills; pounce, bash and flesh-ream.

'''''Baby Hercules'''''

:Legendary pet, from the [[Cash Shop]] (or from other players who bought the bits there)

:This pet gets its own full section later on.  For now it's worth saying that this pet has a stupidly high defense, stupidly high magical defense, more hitpoints than a battleship and the offensive capabilities of a pink blancmange.  (Possibly a poisonous pink blancmange.)

'''''Harpy'''''

:Legendary pet, from the [[Cash Shop]].

: This pet is rather weak in melee range but it can fair pretty well in ranged tanking. The fact that it has a high DPS/damage output will also make it easier for it to hold aggro as well as kill things faster since she's essentially a DD pet and not a tank pet per se.

'''''Direct Damage / DPS Pets'''''

:If the monsters don't hit particularly hard, and most non-boss monsters don't, then a direct damage pet is often a better choice as a tank.

:Doing more damage, it holds aggro better, which means that you can unload your spells more quickly; meaning that the monster dies sooner - which is the object.

:Of course, if the monster does hit hard, then you need to heal more, or put up with having a dead pet.  So this isn't always the right choice.

:A good choice of direct damage pet for this purpose is the Eldergoth (Level 41) because it is useful in other situations, and comes with 'Roar'.

:I don't advise this as a primary tank, but as a secondary ready to go, it has big advantages.

:(The Eldergoth, being a ranged pet, also has some special tricks available)