Best Pets in Conan Exiles

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Emily Parker

Emily, or Zoe if you’re on her discord, is a Conan Exiles guide contributor and long-term fan. She’s been raiding bases since its release, mixing in some Rust, Archeage, Apex Legends, Hearthstone, Don’t Starve, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Video games have been a core aspect of her life since she was a child with an N64. When she needs a break, she’ll switch genres and start a new kind of adventure, though survival games have always been a favorite.

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Welcome to the Thunderdome! There are all sorts of fauna roaming the Exiled Lands, from toothy crocs to lumbering elephants. I enjoy collecting and raising them all, but there can only be one fierce beast to accompany me to the most challenging dungeons and longest fights. We have no choice but to pit them against each other, panther against kudu, and elephant vs sabretooth. We need to find the best pets in Conan Exiles!

Combat is one thing, but it’s not the only quality you’ll be looking for in a companion. There can be a specific pet you take on long journeys, another to face the fiercest bosses, and another to hunt with friends. Different animal companions suit different purposes, but there are some clear winners in each category.

You may decide one of these strengths is more important to you than others and stick with that pet the entire game. Alternatively, your base surely has room for a couple of different options. You can have a pet for every purpose, and as you don’t have to feed them to keep them alive anymore, there’s really no harm in it. Keep in mind that when animal companions are not traveling with you, they protect your assets back home!

TL:DR: One (or Two) Animal Companions to Rule Them All

There are a couple of stand-out creatures among tameable animals that you surely couldn’t go wrong with. The sabretooth tiger is an all-around champ for PVP and PVE. She’s an absolute damage bomb with a bleed attack, just a cherry on top. She doles out top-tier damage if you raise her with strength in mind.

In addition, and most importantly, her attack patterns are quick and connect often, even in PVP. The bleed attack will keep your opponent from healing for 20 seconds or indefinitely if your tiger applies it again. She is the strongest pet that consistently lands attacks in a PVP setting and is a viable companion in PVE.

If you’re playing single-player or co-op, consider putting the work in to raise a sandreaper queen. Her poison attack can add up to 8 stacks of poison in one correctly placed acid wave. This ticks down up to 64 pts of health per second on your enemies and can actually stack up to 10 if they don’t do something about it. She has high armor and can take a beating by your side. Unfortunately, her slow movements are not great for PVP, and it is very difficult to obtain larvae. Then you’ll only have a 14% chance of crafting a greater sandreaper (the sandreaper queen).

The Fine Print

There are three things I want to get out of the way first. First, currently, a fully-geared thrall will out-match any animal companion in Conan Exiles. There are several advantages to grabbing an animal companion. At the same time, you level, but a thrall is going to be more valuable once you have access to decent gear. If you decide you want to run with an animal companion, it’s because you think they look cool and you’re sick of thralls. If this is your train of thought, it puts you and me on the same page.

Second, because of Conan Exile’s combat companion leveling system, each animal companion of the same species can vary wildly from the next. Depending on how carefully you’ve raised the wolf, there could be a greater hyena that absolutely smashes a greater wolf (typically the stronger of the two). What you feed them, combined with pure luck, determines what stats you will end up with at max level. Similarly, their combat movements mean that different fights will suit different animals best. The number of circumstances you will find yourself in with them is endless.

Lastly, most animal companions have stronger versions with better stats that require more patience to craft than their standard versions. Feeding the baby animal their favorite food in the animal pen will give you a better chance of crafting the greater version of that pet. Still, it will often require several tries before you succeed. Any of the winners in my pet Thunderdome are the greater versions of that species’ animal companion. They have more powerful move sets and better stats, and it wouldn’t make sense to compare the standard versions. However, some of the information may still be applicable.

Best Early Game and New Player Pet: Crocodile

There are a couple of good pets players will have access to early on. While the hyena and shaleback have their benefits, I would argue that the crocodile is the perfect leveling companion early game and for new players. It’s much easier to snatch a crocodile hatchling than a hyena pup. They put down more damage than the lumbering shalebacks.

A croc has high armor and can be a tough tank companion. Additionally, they are the only pet that can stack bleed up to 20 times, giving them a leg up in the damage department. However, a crocodile’s main draw is that they have no physical box to block a new player in a tight spot. Whatever it’s reasoning, you can step straight through your pet crocodile. Even seasoned players get awkwardly trapped by their pets and thralls every once in a while; this can be a fatal mechanic for new players who don’t know the lay of the land.

You will find crocodile hatchlings along the southern river. Look closely around the northern bank in G4, and you should find at least a couple of hatchlings after dispatching the parents. If crocodiles are no longer a challenge for you, try looking around the southern bank of the pond in G4, where the crocodile boss resides. You don’t have to be able to take down the boss, just several crocs at once. The babies here spawn much more reliably. Check out our full guide about Conan Exiles Crocodiles here!

Best Pet For PVP: Sabretooth Tiger

If you’re just looking at stats to pick your battle companion, you’re looking at it all wrong. The most valuable aspects of a pet in Conan Exiles PVP are its ability to land a hit and the debuff it applies. Players won’t waste time attacking your pet, so armor and hit points are not a primary focus. Your pet may also hit like a truck. Still, if its attack animations are easy to dodge, it won’t matter in a PVP scenario. Lastly, strategy always trumps stats in a fight between players: consider your pet’s debuff and your build for the winning combination.

The best all-around pet for PVP is the sabretooth tiger. Any of the big cats work well. They move quickly and land most of their hits on an otherwise preoccupied opponent. In addition, they all apply a bleed that keeps your opponent from healing as long as it’s in effect or up to 20 seconds.

The sabretooth tiger takes the top spot because it often applies its knockdown/bleed attack. It also has the best stats out of the crew, meaning that if it was raised with strength in mind, its base hits will do the most damage. The sabretooth is also a good PVE option and could be your one and only without many ticks in the negative column.

This pet shouldn’t be easy to obtain or feed. You’ll need to head so far north to find a cub that certain considerations will need to be taken for the cold. You can either brew cold-fighting spirits or make enough cold-resistant armor to keep you comfortable in the frozen north. Either way, there’s no way I’d head up there until you’re at least level 40. Sabretooth mothers are nothing to trifle with until you have the levels and the gear.

Once you’ve met the minimums, sabretooth cubs can be found in western D13 and eastern C12 and C11. This is one of those baby animals that often require killing the parents and circling back, so pack for a long stay up in the snow if you want enough cubs to have a shot at a greater sabretooth and the perfect PVP companion. Use shadespiced fatty meat or raw pork for a better chance to craft the greater sabretooth companion in your animal pen.

See also: Conan Exiles Getting Started Guide

Best Pet for PVE Combat: Sandreaper Queen

While a less controversial category than the best PVP pet, your PVE choice is arguably more of a personal one. Each pet has its own strong suits, and how each player attacks the Exiled Lands can vary greatly from another.

A very interesting cuddle bug holds the top spot for best PVE pet: the sandreaper queen. She is an absolute powerhouse that hits like a truck and applies poison regularly. Your sandreaper queen applies up to 10 stacks of poison, which is 80 damage per second on a mob or player without any points in survivability. Her blight spray actually applies up to 8 stacks at once for 64 immediate poison damage. The sandreaper queen is the greater version of a sandreaper, with great armor and health to go along with her dangerous acid attack.

Finding sandreaper larvae and then crafting a queen is an appropriate challenge to go along with her overpowered stats.

You can purchase eggs from an NPC called Ignatius the Greedy and hatch your own larvae. He is located in Flotsam at N7. He is surrounded by hostile Black Hand NPCs, so you’ll need to be at a high enough level to clear the area before you can purchase an egg.

You’ll also need 10 gold coins apiece per egg. Remember, the sandreaper queen is a greater version of a sandreaper pet, so you’ll likely need several eggs. If you’re going this route, you’ll be spending a lot of time at the volcano farming gold before you can purchase enough eggs to guarantee crafting a sandreaper queen.

There is also an underwater temple at the end of the sunken temple dungeon. The sunken temple dungeon must be portaled to by interacting with a small rowboat on the shore in O6. There is an underwater temple that spawns several larvae (baby sandreapers) after the boss in the room has been killed. You will need underwater breathing potions to get to these temples at the end of the dungeon.

After jumping off the island and into the water (you must complete a significant portion of the dungeon), swim among the underwater temples until you find one with noxious gas at the entrance. This temple with baby sandreapers is the most efficient place to grab several at once. They are hostile, but you should be able to collect them like baby animals by aiming your focal point at their mouth.

If you’ve gone the egg route, it will hatch when its timer has expired in your inventory or similar. Be careful; the larvae also have timers outside of the animal pen and will die if left in your inventory too long. Once you’ve hatched your egg and put your larvae in the animal pen, feed it shadespiced rotten meat for a 14% chance of crafting the sandreaper queen. When you’ve got your adult, you’ve got some choices to make in regards to what stat you’d like to increase the most. Their armor already gains by quite a lot every level, so I like to increase strength on my sandreaper queens. All you need is to keep exquisite meat in their inventory to increase strength by 14% every level.

Best Pet for Transport: The Elephant (Mammoth)

Get ready to roam the exiled lands in style, my friend. Taming and raising a mammoth is a real power move for you and your crew. An elephant has the largest inventory in the game at 30 slots. Their massive inventory will lengthen your adventures, and their attack set will send your enemies flying. You can pack an elephant with whatever you like for a base move, pack in troops for an attack, or just take your elephant out into the world to collect any treasure you pass.

Every attack a mammoth has is some form of knockdown. Their attack may be low, but they’ll keep huge swaths of enemies disabled while you figure things out. They have high armor and a high health pool, giving them optimal survivability as a pack animal. A camel is also a good option to carry your things, but they won’t do the damage or survive the Exiled Lands as well as a mammoth will.

You’ll find baby elephants next to their parents in the savannah biome. Specifically, two or three babies spawn where G7 and H7 meet. Once you collect as many baby elephants as you can, haul them back to your animal pen and feed them shadespiced desert berries or shadespiced bark for the best shot at crafting a mammoth.

With these foods, you only have a 12% chance of crafting a mammoth and a 12% chance of crafting a grey elephant; 88% of the time, you will craft a standard elephant. The grey elephant and mammoth have more knockdown attacks than the standard elephant, but for some reason, the grey elephant’s health is the same as a standard elephant. The mammoth has much better health and armor than the standard elephant, so it’ll be the one you’re aiming for.

Once your elephant is an adult, feed it fiber to increase its vitality by 14% every time it levels and make it a tough beast to take down by max level. Once it is max level, you can switch to feeding it golden lotus for the highest health buff at 10pts/second. Golden lotus is a little steep for me, so I like to feed my mammoth seeds at 6pts health/second to keep it on its feet. Check out our full guide on Conan Exiles Elephant here!

Best Pet for Group Play: Wolf

Any pet will be an asset when playing with your friends, but some are a little more manageable than others. While a sandreaper queen may be an absolute monster in open spaces, you’ll quickly find she’s a bit of a burden in crowded situations and dungeon runs.

If you’re looking to stay friends with your friends, consider a pet with a little less of a profile for those crowded raids. The greater wolf is a substantial damage dealer and moves quickly enough to land most of its hits. It has one of the smallest physical boxes of any companion. It will sure to be mostly out of the way in complicated situations.

A wolf’s attack pattern starts with a knockdown that will sprawl several humanoid opponents at once for your party to pick off. It also applies a sunder debuff with every normal attack that can stack up to five times. If you’re in a group, you’re likely going after some heavily armored creatures. Your wolf will slice down their armor and open their health pool up for larger damage chunks from your friends. Talk about a confidence boost!

The only downside to a greater wolf is that they do need a little bit of space to operate the most effectively if tanking. They won’t dodge many hits in caves or bases, but you’re likely to already have a tank signed up and ready to take the lion’s share of the damage in a group setting.

You’ll find wolf cubs in the highlands. They wander around F9 and in the blocks to the north and west of F9. While you can craft the great white wolf from a standard wolf cub, there is also a white cub called the frostwolf cub that gives a higher chance to craft a greater wolf. These frostwolf cubs are harder to come by, and you’ll often have to kill the white alpha wolf at their spawn point and circle back to find the pups. There’s a reliable frostwolf cub spawn at the corner of D9, D10, E9, and E10.

Feed a standard cub exquisite meat for a 20% chance to craft the greater wolf or shadespiced perfect cut of meat for a 30% chance. Frostwolf cubs prefer raw pork (40% chance) or shadespiced fatty meat (50% chance) for their upgraded odds of crafting the greater wolf. Once your greater wolf is fully grown, you’ll want to feed it abysmal flesh as it levels for the most increase in strength. This is the best spec for group play, lending a 14% increase to strength (melee attack) every level.

Best Addition for Base Defense: Corrupted Spiders

While corrupted spiders are not much of a threat on their own, a pack of them controlling the battlefield at your base has some real advantages. The rest of your defense team will do the heavy lifting with physical damage, but a spider’s long-range cripple and acid shot can turn a base raid upside down.

The corrupted spider’s poison will keep your raiders from healing, and its cripple will keep them from leaving. You’ll want to place them atop buildings and pillars, not only for the fear factor but so that they use their ranged attack only and cannot be dispatched without considerable effort. Only the corrupted spider has this ranged attack, so there’s no need to bother with the other spiders.

You’ll purchase spider eggs the same place you purchase sand reaper eggs, at N7 in Flotsam. After you clear the deck, talk to the merchants until you find the one that sells spider eggs. You’ll need quite a few eggs to get a couple of corrupted spiders to station at your base.

Once your egg has hatched, you must put your spiderling in the animal pen. If you feed it shadespiced demon blood, you’ll have a 20% chance of crafting a corrupted spider. It’s not necessary to level a spider all the way to max if you’re using them as archers, but feeding them putrid meat and leveling them a few easy levels will raise their vitality and survivability in the event a raider or the purge reaches them.

Best Pet to Tank: Bear

Bears sure do look cuddly, but it turns out they’re actually very dangerous in Conan Exiles. Greater bears have the highest health pool of any pet and are downright inexpensive to craft and raise. Other pets have higher armor than a bear (though a bear’s armor isn’t too shabby), but a larger health pool makes for a more versatile tank. Bleed and poison can take down a high armor companion, but a large health pool will be effective against any enemy.

A bear’s attack set includes both a knockdown and a cripple debuff. This combination is great for players that need to keep their distance from a mob’s attacks. A bear’s knockdown also has a wide cone of damage, debilitating many enemies at once. This will also keep enemies’ attention on the bear while you pick off-targets in the order you choose.

You’ll find bear cubs in the tundra biome, specifically along with the mountain range in C11 and at the end of the river in C9. Feed your bear cubs honey, or shadespiced honey, for the best chance at raising a greater bear. Once they’re adult bears, try feeding savory fish while you level them. This will increase their vitality by 14% every level, making them a very durable companion.

Both honey and savory fish are inexpensive to produce. Even when your bear is max level, they’re easy to keep fed. Keep cooked shellfish in their inventory for the max healing buff in combat at 10pt/second.

Throw Your Dog a Bone

Any pet in Conan Exiles can turn into a very helpful companion with a little effort and care. Folks swear by a hyena’s crippled effect for kiting other players in PVP or a shaleback’s AOE for taking on multiple enemies at once. These are two of the first pet options you’ll come across. There is no roadmap for Conan Exiles. Just because an animal is hard to acquire doesn’t mean it will outperform another.

I personally roll out every day with my greater panther Lucy. I love the way she looks, she was easy to find and craft, and she moves quickly enough to land most of her hits. Your playstyle is unique to you, and your pet should be too! The most important thing about Conan Exiles’ pet system is that it doesn’t really matter what furry creature you have by your side at the end of the day. Adventure with the pet you like the most! You’re going to die a bunch anyway.

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Recommended Reads:

• Conan Exiles Taming Guide
• Conan Exiles Aloe Guide
• Conan Exiles Bear Cub Guide
• Conan Exiles Sabertooth Cub Guide
• Conan Exiles Lesser Wheel of Pain Guide
• Conan Exiles Horse Guide