Ok..so I decided I was going to try something so I took my shadow tank pet (Regal Cutlass) and reset his points. So far so good, right?

SO...I decided that I was going to allocate two points to strength and a point to dexterity and since I have, at the moment, only three points I figured I would use my gear to buff up his agility.
What is the problem, you might ask?

I stripped Regal of all his gear and reallocated points and because the base attack points is a bit greater than intelligence I figured that when I allocated points on that button that has a strenght and intellect icon that the points would go to strength considering his base stats.

BUT the points were instead allocated to intellect.
Should I have changed his element to earth so the points would go to where I want and THEN go back to Shadow?

I am hesitant to do that as it is quite pricey to reset points AND elements.

If you hover your mouse over the Strength or Intelligence icon on a pet's Abilities page, you'll see that pets attuned to Air, Earth or Water get strength, while pets attuned to Fire, Light or Shadow get intelligence.

That is because the attacks of the first three elements are physical, which requires strength, while the attacks of the other three elements are magical and require intelligence. Having a pet attuned to shadow with strength instead of intelligence would make no sense, so the system is built to help avoid that.

I see.
I am trying to find a way to get my tank to last longer in battle but since I am only at level 62 I don't want to waste all my points on health. Being that my tank is shadow, I also need it to be able to heal itself effectively without relying solely on elixirs to survive.

A tank needs health but at the same time it needs to be able to contribute to the battle other than dodging attacks. So maybe I need to change my tank to one that starts out with higher intelligence so I can dedicate points to other things.

Just gotta keep trying out stuff.

Thanks

For a shadow tank it's definitely a good idea to pick a pet with high intelligence, health and agility. I'd offer one of my extra max stat Ny'Venes, but they're all level 0, 2 or 6 and I doubt you're in the mood to train them all the way up.

Thanks for the offer but I think I am going to have to work on my original tank.

It has the intelligence but I need to give it gear for better agility. I don't know if Dexterity factors in at all with Shadow but apparently not.

It just seems like my shadow tank is doing poorly at healing itself but I think it has to do more with the fact that the expertise level is low and increasing it takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R

Expertise does make a lot of difference. I also have a light cannon, since it's attacks can randomly give a bit of health to the other pets in the party. Also, once the light pet reaches level 65, it can perform a move that heals one pet from your party.

I use a shadow tank myself.

For tanks in general you always want to prefer agility over dexterity. The position that they are in gets hit more often and the agility offers extra mitigation and avoidance. So it's not that dex doesn't factor in at all but that the pros of agility greatly outweigh the pros of extra dexterity for a tank.

The type of gear I would be looking for a shadow tank is the reaver's exotic armor followed by the epic quality reaver's vinethorn armor. You could also substitute in lightbringer's if you have trouble finding the reaver's. I did that for a bracer on my main tank since I still can't find a second reaver's vinethorn for him. Both of these sets of gear are high in intelligence and agility.

This is my main tank. You can see what I did overall for him so far. He's not in my battle party right now cause I'm level raising a friend's tank (also shadow). Krin suggested something a bit different for him as far as proficiencies are concerned but I figured I'd try out this build for now. I can't remember exactly what Krin suggested. I think it was mostly agility and intelligence. If you can catch him in chat you can ask.

The other two pets in my party are light and fire. I'd like to start working on a water tank to experiment with and also level up my air that I like to substitute in for certain fights.

Thanks for the info.

Sadly I have no vinethorn armor which I assume can only be gotten in Lost Grove.

Right now, for my shadow tank, I put my total three points into its intelligence and use armor and accessories to fill in the rest so I am going to have to just wait and go through places like the Dungeon of the Forsaken just to get my pets, especially my tank, up a level or so.

Right now my tank is at 62, my pets can only take one or two battles in Lost Grove before they are knocked out so I will have to forget about the grove for now.

Also..I tried a water tank too and that seems to work pretty well too. At least you get "Frost" granted more frequently than "Siphon" for the shadow.

I had a light healer in my party but after a certain point it seemed like my healer was just not doing much. It's intelligence was 791 but it seemed like its healing was barely doing anything so I swapped it for a fire user which is doing well too.

In my early party formation I had a battler a tank and healer. A problem arose because while my tank had decent agility it contributed next to nothing in battle regardless of the element. My healer was ok but since it was not a fighter it also contributed little to a battle and since the healing was only equal to the damage it dealt, it really became a hindrance so all the fighting landed solely on the shoulders of the fighter and when you are faced with many tough enemies, you need some help.

SO...right now I am training up a water pet that I plan to try and make into a tank. Since I used a philter on it to boost its strength, I plan to allocate at least one point to health so it will eventually be able to contribute meaningfully to a battle.

I'm taking a look at what your team currently has.

Regal Cutlass
I'm sending a reaver's relic and a bracer. Replacing that assassin gear should give your tank a good boost. Before the Lost Grove, my proficiency points were 2 into health and 1 into agility. I don't know if you might end up wanting to try that if things still don't work well.


Sparkwind
Just concentrate on gear strong in strength and dexterity.


Nasubi
I can send at least a couple pyromancer things for him.


I'd still consider keeping a light pet in the armor. The heals really seem to pile up over time to me. I do think it's worthwhile still for leveling both a fire and an air since both have their uses though.

Oh my!

Thank You for your generosity :)

I will equip my party as soon as I can.
Again I truly appreciate your kindness....

Edit:

Sparkwind has high strength and has been indispensable really.
I just outfitted a Light user and might train it in with another party just to get it up a level or two.