Hey heroes, Kolz here.
Today, I'm going to be walking you through the best pets in Heroes vs. Heroes.
I'm going to do this tier list based on the following methodology
- Which pets provide you the most damage as your main pet
- What their passive abilities do
- And their expeditions bonuses
This guide is mostly focused on hard mode and normal mode because that's what the majority of players play, but I'll give you a couple of tips on nightmare mode.
I am relying on crowdsourced data for damage comparisons and my personal experience of damage and utility for the ones that I own. I own all the pets you can get through basic eggs and enchanted eggs, but none of the special edition ones like Blazetail.
Let's go through them by tier. Or you can find Kolz's full guide to Pets here.
S Tier
1. The Best Pet: Blazetail
If you were lucky during the Lunar event and were able to grab Blazetail, you got the best pet in the game.
Blazetail is the highest DPS pet you can get, hands down. You can use him as a passive until you level him up to be your main. He has tons of damage baked into every ability, and his ultimate just adds even more. If you need maximum DPS for something like boss brawl, or just burning through hard mode, Blazetail is the absolute best.
The trade-off is that there's no utility like slows or stuns in his kit, so he might not be as good for Nightmare Mode or Arena. However, Blazetail's expedition bonus is an 8% decrease in time. Combined with a few Griffins, you can really speed things up on longer runs.
Overall, Blazetail is an S+ pet, out-damaging everyone else.
2. Crystalsaurus (Dino)
Crystalsaurus is a great, S-Tier pet. I got my lucky dino a couple of months ago and just got him to over 300, so I unlocked his ultimate. His passive shoots damage across the entire map and his ability uses a big earth ground pound that damages all enemies. This is huge for a passive pet and also tops the chart for main pet damage, coming in as the second highest among main pets.
As the legendary that comes out of enchanted eggs, I highly suggest investing in enchanted eggs over time. Every event gives you currency tokens, and they usually offer enchanted eggs as one of the options. Even if you can only afford one or two per event, over the course of months, you'll eventually get Crystalsaurus.
His ultimate rains down thunder from the sky, stunning everybody on the map. It's not quite as strong as Hydro Basilisk's ultimate (where you can slow everything), but it's close. Crystalsaurus's expedition bonus is a small chance (.75%) of getting a basic egg, which really doesn't make a big difference. Overall, the main reasons for getting Dino are the high damage and solid ultimate.
3.Hydro Basilisk
Hydro Basilisk is an S+ tier pet for sure. Once you get him, he can be your main for a very long time. I got him back in October when Pets launched, and I literally just switched to Dino recently, so that was five months of Hydro Basilisk as my main.
Its ultimate is fantastic because it makes all your abilities slow the horde. That's awesome for Nightmare Mode, for faction wars, and for pretty much every piece of content. You can slow enemies and safely take them out. Hydro Basilisk is also ranged, so it doesn't have to move around to do damage. It produces "water domain expansions" (basically geysers) in battle, healing you if you stand in them and damaging horde if they stand in them.
He technically has the best passive in the game for a pet at +20% critical hit to your main pet. The only downside is that it's hidden, and you don't see it like Emberpaw's circle of fire. But rest assured, it's boosting your damage.
Once you eventually get Dino, Hydro Basilisk stays amazing as a passive. Overall, Hydro Basilisk is an outstanding pet all around.
4. Pyrokraken
Pyrokraken is an S Minus Tier pet. He's fantastic.
He'll probably be your main pet until you get an epic pet, and then you still use him as your passive once you do have an epic. For a long time, I ran Hydro Basilisk as my main with Pyrokraken and Emberpaw as my passives, and that's a super common setup.
In many tests, Pyrokraken actually does more damage than Griffin.
So if you can swing it, you want to run him over Griffin even after you get an epic. You might do something like Pyrokraken with Emberpaw and Owl as your two passives. If you don't have Owl, you could run a striker, but that's not great. Overall, Pyrokraken by himself is a great pet, well worth leveling and using for a long time.
A Tier Pets
5. Snails
Snails are great, so I'd call them A tier. Even though they are a basic pet, he's what you want to use in Nightmare Mode.
In Nightmare Mode, each snail's passive grants your hero +15% health, and they stack. That means +30% total health from running two passive snails, which is huge in nightmare mode. It multiplies well with armor and items like Life Tome, giving you a massive HP pool.
His expedition bonus is extra coins, which isn't huge, but that doesn't matter much since the health boost is so valuable.
6. Shellshock
Shellshock (a special event pet that came out for Lunar New Year) is fine. He's a melee pet that charges around the battlefield, so he's a bit more mobile. He does more damage than Emberpaw, but nothing insane.
His passive gives little turtle-shell circles around your other pets, which helps them do damage. That's solid if you don't have the other epic pets.
His extra riches expedition bonus isn't amazing, but it's fun to watch him spin around the battlefield. Overall, a collector's item that is decent, but not top tier in the grand scheme of things.
6. Emberpaw
I like Emberpaw a lot. Emberpaw will probably be one of your first rare pets if not your first, and you can make him your main as soon as you get him.
Unfortunately, he's melee, which means he has to walk around the screen to do damage. That slows him down and caps his potential damage, which is why, in testing, he comes in below Pyrokraken for rare pets.
That said, Emberpaw is still very strong and perfectly fine to run early on. He has a very strong passive that adds a circle of fire around a pet, but you have to make sure your pet is in melee range, so it doesn't always work well with ranged pets like Hydro Basilisk or Pyrokraken. However, in something like Nightmare Mode, where enemies get stuck in a horde, Emberpaw does a ton of damage.
If you don't have any better passives (like the ones in S or A tier), it's totally fine to run Emberpaw as a passive. He makes a lot of sense in certain game modes like nightmare mode or boss brawl, where you can keep that passive in constant play.
B Tier Pets
Cycowl
Owl is kind of sad, unfortunately. It's part of the enchanted egg series, but as a main pet, it underperforms Pyrokraken. Psychowl's passive creates random areas of damage, but in my experience, they're small, and you barely ever get horde stuck inside them. So it doesn't do a ton of damage.
Its expedition bonus is extra pet orb currency, which, if you're at the point of having an epic Owl, you probably don't need. You can still use Owl as a passive if you have literally nothing else, but it's not something you'll rely on long-term. Overall, not a great pet.
Storm Griffin
Griffin is also not good, unfortunately. I recently got him and only have him at two stars, so I don't have his ultimate unlocked, but he just doesn't do much damage as a main pet. His passive is a pushback, which can be useful in aspects like arena or nightmare mode, but overall, his damage is lower than Emberpaw's, which is rough for an epic pet.
The only nice thing is that his expedition bonus can reduce your expedition duration, and if you have multiple Griffins, you can stack that effect. But in terms of practical use, Griffin underperforms. Even at level 400, he does less damage than Pyrokraken in a typical run. So, not very good.
C Tier and Below
Cloudhoof
Oof, Cloudhoof was an oof. This is the legendary pet for Christmas time. His name in the pet files is actually Rudolf, which is fitting. But Cloudhoof, unfortunately, just doesn't do any damage and lands in C Tier.
He's below some of the other rare pets in terms of damage, and so that's not great.
The one saving grace is his expedition passive, which is actually one of the stronger ones: it gives you a 0.75% chance of getting a neutral stone on expedition completion. That might sound great, but it's very much like Emberpaw's expedition bonus. After six months of using Emberpaw, I've only gotten maybe two of those stones. The odds of collecting on that 0.75% chance just aren't high.
As for Cloudhoof's passive, it's called "star trail" and apparently adds an aurora-filled light trail to the main pet, enhancing its presence with a radiant shine. I don't think it does damage (and it doesn't say it does), so overall, Cloudhoof is a very cool legendary pet to have, but unfortunately, it's not great for actually using in the game.
Other Pets
The great pets like Elemental Striker, Spring Bloom, and Banaboos are all C tier.
Then there's the pig and the mouse. I don't really ever use them for anything; they're just basic "fill out your collection" pets. They are F tier.
Final Tier Overview
Here's a simplified look at my final tier placement:
- S+ Tier: Blazetail (highest DPS pet in the game)
- S Tier: Crystalsaurus, Hydro Basilisk (best utility, amazing for all modes)
- S- Tier: Pyrokraken (fantastic early game main, then becomes a strong passive)
- A+ Tier: Snail Here for the Nightmare mode with stacking HP passive)
- A Tier: Shellshock (decent damage and a fun passive but rare and not top-tier epic)
- A- Tier: Emberpaw (great early game and a solid fallback passive)
- Below A Tier: Griffin, Cyclowl, Cloudhoof (unfortunately underpowered, with passives that don't pay off enough), plus base fillers like Elemental Striker, Spring Bloom, Banaboos, Pig, Mouse.
Wizhum's Research On Pet Damage
You can find all of Wizhum's research on Discord.
Setup
275HM using Leppy build
Pet with no passives
Ultimate is constantly used if there is one
Rankings
HM pet rankings based on number of kills
Blazetail 3* lvl 400 - 21.03k
Crystalsaur 4* lvl 500 - 16.41k
Basilisk 3* lvl 400 - 14.28k
Pyrokraken 2* lvl 300 - 11.57k
Cloudhoof 3* lvl 400 - 10.49k
Emperpaw 2* lvl 300 - 8.45k
Gryphon 3* lvl 400 - 7.5k
Cyclowl 2* lvl 300 - 7.2k
