New best pet to use tokens on

[Vorthod]

So the new batch of pets showed up while I was in the middle of my second UAC, so I wasn't really able to get them. I'm about to finish that challenge and get the pet token for it so I was wondering which pet I should end up spending it on. I know people used to recommend getting the robot due to the high growth, but now it looks to me like the FSM is the best option. Does anyone have any input so far or is it still too early for many people to have that pet?

[Fel]

Robot isn't so much for his high growth as it is for his +100% stats given in growth campaigns, which is a campaign you are pretty much always running in normal circumstances.

FSM definitely is really high value, so much so that it's weird it doesn't have a high investment specific unlock condition like the book.

Panda's 300% on food campaigns can really be good given how much food you need with the recent changes, and if you didn't get him already the Pumkin is also great to have as it is more or less your only source for chocolates (outside of the few you get from CBCs).

I'd say it depends on your preferences, but FSM really seems to stand a whole level above the rest even just with the double GP earnings in GP campaigns.

[Vorthod]

Thanks. That's exactly the kind of analysis I wanted.

I horde so much food from BP that I have been able to feed all my pets in the UAC without doing any food campaigns, so I don't think I need the panda. For similar reasons, I don't think I need the pumpkin (though I would absolutely have a different opinion if I didn't have a fridge). The robot does look more appealing now that you've pointed out the growth boost, but I think I will still end up grabbing the FSM since I'm really excited to get pets that affect my god's stuff directly. That being said, I still have a few more days to change my mind, so who knows.

[muljostpho]

Do you have the gold dragon? Have to connect your save to kongregate and then you have to either import your score from Idle Cooking Emperor or spend a token on it to unlock it. But it's a good pet to have because all of your pets gain extra growth every time you feed the gold dragon.

As a neat trick, the math on it works out that feeding the gold dragon 1 chocolate at the same time that you feed all your other pets mighty food gets you the same amount of growth as if you had fed all of your pets chocolate. That's pretty much where chocolate fits into things after you have the fridge available to stockpile mighty food. Gold dragon eats all the chocolate to maximize the free growth that all the other pets gain.

FSM doubling GP campaign output is definitely a good one to have as well, though. I hear that CBCs in particular have seen a nice boost from the extra GP income that FSM can bring into them.

Edit: Pretty sure I saw Ryu mention that he would be letting the Halloween event return, so you should be able to get the Pumpkin without using a token on it.

[Vorthod]

The golden dragon can be unlocked with miscellaneous effort, so I don't consider it a good target for a limited resource like pet tokens. That being said, I already beat Hell in ICE, so my god has a golden dragon pet sitting around in my little zoo.

[roku750]

I think robot is still better than FSM unless you're planning CBCs/UBCs soon or possibly some challenge that benefits considerably from a bit of extra divinity such as 1KBHCs. Almost all of FSM's starting growth is in mystic making it extrememly slow to level despite its growth and surprisingly bad at most things (aside from its gp/div specialties) before significant growth is added to it to re-balance its stats. For example, I got whale at the same time and whale gets considerably higher stats from its growth despite having about half as much growth as FSM. Imho robot's +100% growth is just too good to pass up unless you're doing very specific challenges. Growth is just far more useful then the few extra GP FSM can bring imho, especially with pet dungeons coming soonish.

Edit: Including some screenshots to show just how far behind FSM is in stats after the same amount of training as another more balanced pet with far less growth:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/959722478135315843/495E0DC5584B7D67208DD9F8883739AAABBA751E/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/959722478135315626/A9FCE712530223A280A89B80DD546D098E48FE93/

Edit2: Just to be clear, I think FSM's still good due to its unique abilities -- I just think robot's the better choice.

[Vorthod]

Well thankfully I ended up getting a pet token from the 50 lucky draws I stacked up from the UAC, so I am just going to get both FSM and the robot.

[Kalaf]

Resurrect!

With the addition of Otter, who has higher base growth (placing it in growth campaign tier) and +75% bonus in growth campaigns, as well as giving mats when fed, does it place it higher than robot in terms of first pet token pet?

[Fel]

Well, since that thread was made things changed quite a bit with dungeons being added and quite a lot of easily unlocked pets being thrown at us as well.

Pets that are very easy to evolve might get you a lot more than pets with good campaign bonuses.
Even if adventurer classes don't give super high bonuses right away, they offer those bonuses no matter the campaign, making it a lot more flexible, and dungeon classes allow you to get GP, pet stones and dungeon materials from clearing events, which tends to amount to quite a bit when you make a dungeon team for one of the elemental dungeons that have good events to clear.

[Tigerus]

Now FSM is still the best pet, as it boosts divinity gains. Then you should consider which class would be usefull for you in dungeons and which pet you can evolve. And at last place should be bonus to campaigns or other special abilities like chocolate for pumpkin.

[muljostpho]

Yeah, there's a lot that we can consider with the pets and which is "best" now.

Looking at all pets in general, not just token pets:
* FSM boosts divgen output and doubles GP camp results.
* Gold Dragon gets you extra growth for all pets each time you feed it.
* Pandora's Box builds up a multiplier (scaled with its growth and the number of times it has been fed in the current rebirth) that applies to all results in any campaign you put it into. It has no campaign bonuses of its own though, only that results multiplier.
* Nightmare in the GP camp uncaps the results for each pet in that camp (which is good if you'll be sending them out on long runs), although it has a penalty reducing all results from other pets in any camp it's in. Nightmare actually has ridiculously good campaign bonuses on itself though. (200% in all of them!)
* The ITRTG Book grants you double attack power and nullifies all critical hits from enemy gods.
* Pumpkin can find chocolate in the food camp.
* Otter finds crafting materials for you each time you feed it.
* Chocolate Bear builds up time when it eats chocolate or goes on a food camp and it uses up that time in other campaigns for an additional 50% bonus in them.
* Ghost has unique behavior in dungeons. (Won't attack, but it debuffs enemies.)
* Elephant has a unique bonus in dungeons. (Burn effect damages enemies who have attacked it.)
* Lucky Coin is not tokenable and requires the highest P.Baal target of any of the P.Baal pets so far, but that one has a unique bonus in dungeons. (Chance for extra damage when it attacks.)
* A total of 11 pets have evolve conditions that only require a relatively small amount of tier 1 materials (all others need a lot of tier 2 materials). These are Frog, Mouse, Bee, Cupid, Egg, Mole, Squirrel, Question, Rabbit, Camel, and Crab. Noteworthy details among these 11 pets are that 1) Frog gets a bonus as Supporter, 2) Bee and Question each get a bonus as Alchemist, and 3) Crab gets a bonus as Blacksmith (Easy early options for those classes while others with the same class bonus will take a lot longer to get evolved.)
* Traps and events inside the dungeons can call for the presence of certain classes or elements in the team of pets that are in there, or the traps / events may require that certain items are brought in for the team to use. This will have a big impact on shaping what sort of pets you'll want to place on your dungeon teams since clearing the dungeon events successfully can lead to finding extra crafting materials / GP / pet stones.

Random off-topic thought: Pandora's Box is at P.Baal 66 and Lucky Coin is at P.Baal 77. I wonder if maybe when he gets around to adding a pet for P.Baal 88 if that could be a Delorean and have some sort of time travel themed special ability? However that could work... Chance that it can repeat its turn in a round of dungeon combat, maybe? Or maybe something like a random chance to revive fallen allies without needing to use a phoenix down? (ie it went back in time and prevented it from happening)