What is the best pet on Nightmare?

A lot of players are in the mistaken belief that the Propeller Cat is the best pet to choose from. We will have a closer look on this assumption to hopefully clear some urban myths.

Introduction

Pets are your little companions in Dungeon Defenders. While they are cute and fluffy from Medium to Insane, a few pets evolve to powerful beasts on Nightmare and pet selection becomes very important.

Recently I've seen a lot of players using Propeller Cats on Nightmare difficulty. For sure, Propeller Cats are a good choice for most heroes on Insane or easier difficulties but they are not as powerful as people think on Nightmare. Their usage is limited since your weapon damage will be reduced to 15.5% while other pets are receiving an impressive boost. These changes are dethroning the Propeller Cat to be your default choice on Nightmare.

The Propeller Cat will be used to increase your DPS, so we will have a closer look on DPS pets only. Maybe you are better suited with a Fairy in case you are fighting bosses such as the Old One or you've got low resistances / health on your DPS hero. Also a Genie or Djinnlet would be a better choice if your build isn't fully upgraded yet. There are a few more special cases where a different pet could be more useful but that will not be handled here.

DPS Pets

The agony of choice. There are a lot of attacking pets and I will probably miss a really good one but I'm comparing the most commonly used pets in the past and nowadays. While working on this revision of the guide a new pet, the Parrot, has been added recently. Most likely I'll keep this guide up-to-date if new pets will be added in the future. However, the pets which I've compared now are Cowboy Monkey, Dragon, Mega Chicken, Parrot and Seahorse.

Where can I get a DPS pet from?

Usually pets are earned by reaching a certain Wave of a survival. To unlock survival mode you will have to beat the campaign on a correspond difficulty. If you are struggling and you are out of ideas to tweak your own build for campaign and/or survival then feel free to take a look at the guide below. In case you don't find a survival build, the campaign build is often very equivalent. Most likely you will have to add Reflection Beams and/or Gas Traps. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216908696
Cowboy Monkey
Earned by reaching Wave 25 of a survival on Akatiti. The Cowboy Monkey also heals you even though its heal rate is ridiculous low. You will also get one with lower stats and upgrades from Karathiki on Wave 15.

Dragon
Earned randomly by completing bonus maps. Your best bet is Lab Assault. They will be also rewarded for reaching Wave 15 of The Summit but they will have much lower stats and upgrades.

Mega Chicken
Earned by completing Wave 35 of a survival on Tinkerer's Lab. Usually the best Mega Chickens are earned from Insane difficulty, so don't even try to complete Nightmare difficulty with the purpose of receiving a better Mega Chicken.

Parrot
Earned by reaching Wave 25 of a survival on Buccaneer Bay. This pet is comparable to a Cowboy Monkey, it shares the damage scaling and the range but doesn't heal you like the Cowboy Monkey. A very viable alternative choice to a Cowboy Monkey.

Seahorse
Earned by reaching Wave 20 of a survival on Aquanos. Seahorses rewarded from Insane difficulty can reach stats of Seahorses from Nightmare difficulty but they are rarer.

How to upgrade my DPS pet?

Upgrading a DPS pet follows fix rules which are valid for any kind of DPS pet. Some pets are able to shoot additional projectiles such as a Seahorse but that's the only difference which occurs. The upgrade order doesn't change.

So if you are upgrading a DPS pet which is able to shoot Additional Projectiles (1) be sure to apply an upgrade whenever it lights up to maximize the damage output of your pet. For the pets from this guide, this stat caps at +5 for a Seahorse, +2 for a Dragon and Mega Chicken.

To increase the attack rate of your pet you will have to upgrade Attack Speed Bonus (2) which caps at 6 for every pet. You can upgrade this stat every three upgrade levels.

All upgrades which cannot be applied to Additional Projectiles (1) or Attack Speed Bonus (2) are going straight forward into Base Damage (3). Some pets have an elemental affinity which will be completely ignored by you. Upgrading any other stat than the three above is a frowned upon.

What is the best DPS pet?

Every pet of the five above has its usage and can be a better choice situational. Often I'm using a Cowboy Monkey / Parrot for maps like Volcanic Eruption because of their huge attack range but regularly I'm running around with a Dragon, Mega Chicken or Seahorse. These three pets are known to have an impressive damage output.

Dragon and Seahorse are doing elemental damage so it seems that a Mega Chicken is a better choice. Usually you don't have to worry about because most of the time you stay inside of a Strength Drain Aura which removes elemental immunity from enemies. For beginners it is also much harder to get their hands on a Mega Chicken, so Dragon and Seahorse are a very viable choice. Do not underestimate them, they have a huge damage potential. More details below.

Propeller Cat

Where can I get a Propeller Cat from?

The Propeller Cat is earned by reaching Wave 25 of a survival on Sky City. To unlock survival mode you will have to beat the campaign on a correspond difficulty. If you are struggling and you are out of ideas to tweak your own build for campaign and/or survival then feel free to take a look at this guide. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216908696

How to upgrade my Propeller Cat?

Upgrading a Propeller Cat is fairly simple on a second thought. The goal of using a Propeller Cat is to boost the damage output of yourself and your mates. Therefore the most important stat on a Propeller Cat is Number of Heroes to Boost (1).

A number of +1 means you are just boosting yourself. An upgrade of this stat can be apllied every 30 upgrade levels until you have hit the cap of +4, boosting yourself and three mates. That means Propeller Cats with less than 90 upgrades are not worth looking at.

Boost Intensity (2) is the second most important stat of a Propeller Cat and responsible for the damage increase you and your mates are receiving. The Boost Intensity can be upgraded every three upgrade levels. Depending on the difficulty and your current equipment a Boost Intensity of 50 could be very helpful. Really good Propeller Cats are reaching a Boost Intensity of 178 or higher. Due to its scaling 20 more or less doesn't really matter, don't try too hard.
 
 
A fully upgraded Propeller Cat should have a Boost Range (3) of 60 or more which can be upgraded every five upgrade levels. I think it does not make sense to have high Boost Intensity while your mates have to hug you to receive the boost because of a low Boost Range.
If you are not able to apply an upgrade to one of the three stats then you are going to upgrade Hero Damage. In case Hero Damage caps or is missing on your Propeller Cat you will upgrade Hero Health or Ability 2.

To evaluate a Propeller Cat, checking if it's worth upgrading, you can run some math. As an example we are taking values from the Propeller Cat above.

• Upgraded Number of Heroes to Boost = (Max Levels - Current Level) / 30 + Current NoH
  Upgraded Number of Heroes to Boost = (92 - 1) / 30 + 1 = 4.033 = 4
  
  
• Upgraded Boost Intensity = (Max Levels - Current Level) / 3 - 3 + Current Boost Intensity
  Upgraded Boost Intensity = (92 - 1) / 3 - 3 + 6 = 33.333 = 33
  
  
• Upgraded Boost Range = (Max Levels - Current Level) * 2 / 15 + Current Boost Range
  Upgraded Boost Range = (92 - 1) * 2 / 15 + 34 = 46.133 = 46

When is a Propeller Cat a viable choice?

Basically whenever a Propeller Cat is boosting your pure weapon damage that much that your weapon DPS is higher than the combined DPS using your weapon and an attacking pet. This sounds to be the regular case, especially with the experience collected on other difficulties than Nightmare but very often your pet does a lot more damage than you.

In addition this would require that you hit with every attack. I know, nobody want to hear this but you have for sure, a worse accuracy than your attacking pet and your pet is attacking in all directions not just straight forward. So even though you are doing more damage while using a Propeller Cat you have to choose carefully.

If you are playing with mates then it is recommendable to have always one hero, using a Propeller Cat during boss fights. As a very simplified example... assuming that all heroes have a similar DPS and you as Propeller Cat holder don't do any damage during boss fights, a 2-player team profits by a Boost Intensity of at least 178 (+100% damage). A 3-player team profits already by a Boost Intensity of at least 68 (+50% damage) and the Boost Intensity for a 4-player team would be below 40 (+33% damage). Usually you, as Propeller Cat holder, are fighting bosses so the real values are even lower.

Frowned upon

Since boosts from Propeller Cats doesn't stack, never fight bosses while two or more heroes are using a Propeller Cat. Just one is helpful to increase the DPS of the team, more are pure waste of DPS. An attacking pet, even a bad one, would have been a better choice than another Propeller Cat.

Don't use a Propeller Cat on your Huntress, Monk or Squire and their counterparts. The weapon DPS of these heroes are astronomically low compared to the DPS of a Dragon, Seahorse or Mega Chicken. That's also valid for Jester using weapons from these heroes.

Series EV only profits by using a Propeller Cat and Huntress weapons during activated Proton Blast. While her Proton Blast is deactivated be sure to use a weapon from Apprentice instead of Huntress.

High Striker

It's showtime! With the new improved consistency of the Tavern Dummy all DPS tests should be more accurate than ever before. I have done a lot of DPS tests with 2k and 4k heroes. For a fair comparison I had to convert the results from my own pets to match values from commonly considered high-end pets. This happened with the rule of three.

What is commonly considered to be high-end?

I've asked the community for appropriate values back in the year 2013. Newer pets like the Parrot have been judged by myself. If you believe that a high-end pet spawns with highly different values then please leave a comment to discuss this.

 

DPS pet vs. DPS pet

The results are showing a DPS potential on a single target. Cowboy Monkey and Dragon are doing splash damage to nearby enemies while a Mega Chicken is able to hit multiple enemies at once with its melee attack. This means some pets have an higher DPS potential as long as enemies pile up. Please take a look at the graphics below, we will have to talk about them subsequently.

Hint: Hover a graphic and click MMB (middle mouse button)

Apprentice / Adept                         Barbarian
 
Huntress                                  Jester
 
Monk / Initiate                             Ranger
 
Series EV                                 Squire / Countess
 
I was surprised about a few things. First off, Ranger is the only one who has a different scaling than his counterpart, the Huntress. All other counterparts share the same scaling. While we are exclusively talking about a DPS potential on a single target, it is just impressive how strong a Seahorse performs. It comes down to the fact that a Seahorse would be a better choice for a lot of heroes especially with lower stats.

Also the performance of a Dragon is quite well even on a single target and if we consider its splash damage then a Dragon is a very serious option to choose from. A Parrot seems to be a reskin of a Cowboy Monkey without the ability to heal heroes. So if you weren't lucky on Akatiti in the past you may want to try your luck on Buccaneer Bay.

We also notice that pets are scaling different well on the same hero. A Seahorse on a 2k Huntress has the highest DPS but a Mega Chicken goes ahead on a 4k Huntress. This means pets have not only an offset and scaling depending on the hero class but also their own scaling depending on Hero Damage.

By far the best scaling has the melee attack of a Mega Chicken (e.g. +49.4% on Monk from 2k to 4k). Dragon and Seahorse are still extremely powerful with high stats due to their high offset but both are sharing the worst scaling (e.g. +22.2% on Monk from 2k to 4k). As higher your stats are as higher is the likelihood that a Mega Chicken does more DPS than any other pet.

DPS pet vs. Propeller Cat

To finally clear some urban myths I've done some more DPS tests while using a Propeller Cat. My weapon choice has been inspired by my guide Who is the best DPS hero on Nightmare? to be sure to use the most effective weapons a hero can choose from.

The sword symbolizes your pure weapon DPS without any pet usage. Your combined DPS using Propeller Cat or a certain DPS pet are shown at the other two columns. Also abilities such as Barbarians Hawk Stance has been considered, calculated down and added to your pure weapon DPS. More details about this type of calculations can be found at the linked guide above.
The Propeller Cat has won 7 of 16 duels, it would have been just 4 of 16 if I would have used weapons from Huntress for Jester and Series EV. So in general we can say that an usage of a Propeller Cat isn't recommendable for heroes which are unable to use weapons from Apprentice. The only exception is the Barbarian since he is able to use two weapons simultaneously.

Please note that I haven't used Event Items nor weapons which are dealing elemental damage such as the Bloodshot Staff. This comparison has been done in the "best" possible circumstances. At the end you will have to check it by yourself since small changes of your equipment can lead to complete other results.

Summary

A pretty short summary for people who are in rush...

• Seahorse has an high offset. Especially with lower hero stats, it is often a better choice than a Mega Chicken.
  
  
• Dragon is very equally to a Mega Chicken for heroes with lower stats but not that hard to get like a Mega Chicken.
  
  
• Mega Chickens melee attack has by far the best scaling. As higher your hero stats as higher is the likelihood that your Mega Chicken has the highest DPS from all pets.
  
  
• Propeller Cat is pretty much bound to a weapon from Apprentice otherwise a DPS pet will be a better choice. Exceptions are Barbarian such as Series EV with activated Proton Blast while using a Pawn Shot.
  
  
• Propeller Cats scaling isn't as good as people think. Boost Intensity of 178 results to a damage increase of 100.0% while a Boost Intensity of 204 results to an increase of 110.8%. Don't try too hard to farm a perfect one with a Boost Intensity of 215.
  
  
• Boosts of Propeller Cats doesn't stack. Fight bosses while using only one.
  
  
• Pets, weapons, abilities scale different well. The rules are changing with Hero Damage stat.

That's it!

Final Notes

Thanks to jemmajule for checking the spelling and grammar. You are awesome!



If this guide gave you some assistance then a would be much appreciated :)

In case you are going to vote this guide down for any reasons, it would be nice to contact me first. Probably we can sort out misunderstandings or obscurities to improve the guide.

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Changelog

• 22nd November 2013
  
  • Released the guide
  
  
• 31st December 2015
  
  • Revision II (lots of changes... :) )

[SUICISLIDE]

If I were to go 2 dps pets on my summoner, what would you recommend for the highest damage output?

[heheh balls]

lol imagine not just changing a lv 1 pet into literal god

[Aidyn]

@pew pew pew You say that, but the summoner isn't listed at all...

But my point was more that they complained that no other options were given, when there was literally half the heroes left.

[pew pew pew]

@Aidyn The guide has been written later than all classes were introduced. It's still up to date unless the cdt has changed more game mechanic.

[Aidyn]

@helen apprentice, barbarian, jester, series ev, summoner.... C'mon, there's like 8 classes (12 if you count the counterparts). Although I don't see the summoner benefiting from it directly, and maybe the guide was made before it was introduced.

[Happyness]

cdragon

[Helen 🐾]

"Don't use a Propeller Cat on your Huntress, Monk or Squire and their counterparts. The weapon DPS of these heroes are astronomically low compared to the DPS of a Dragon, Seahorse or Mega Chicken. That's also valid for Jester using weapons from these heroes."

You didn't give us any other option. What hero is left to use the propeller cat? Basically only Barbarian?

[Mko]

You can also get a seahorse from Temple Of Water Survival, wave 35 i think.

[SpееdBяедкея]

monkey is the best. high range aoe and heal

[stealthkiller22]

hmmm guess ill use a mega chicken on a monk