The Best Pets in Darkest Dungeon II

Are you curious about the best pets to have in Darkest Dungeon II? Pets can grant you additional benefits depending on the type of stagecoach items you have equipped. These benefits can be a game-changer in completing an expedition. However, it’s important to note that you can only obtain pets at the first inn; once equipped, they cannot be removed. To help you make a wise choice, we’ve ranked all the Darkest Dungeon II pets from least to most effective.

All Darkest Dungeon II Pets Ranked From Worst to Best

All Darkest Dungeon II pets ranked from Worst to Best based on my 45 hours of gameplay. They are ranked on their usefulness for the buff they provide and the required stagecoach item category that you must equip to achieve the buff.

10. Larval Carrion Eater

This is one of the trickiest pets to utilize because you take valuable actions away from a character to kill a corpse. Remember that the Hero that lands the killing blow receives the heal and buffs. In addition, abilities and combat items that clear corpses do not count toward the killing blow.

The Larval Carrion Eater provides the following buffs:

• Gain on Killing Blow: Corpse: Heal 30%, Block, Crit

9. Hatchling Crocodilian

The Hatchling Crocodilian is great when you are using heroes that move around a lot like The Jester and The Highwayman. However, the -1 Speed can be detrimental and you will need to use items to negate that loss so it doesn’t impact you deep into an expedition.

The Hatchling Crocodilian provides the following buffs:

• When Moving: +3% DMG (1 Battle), -1 Speed (1 Battle) (20%)

8. Unnatural Owlet

The Unnatural Owlet pet is beneficial when running a team composition that uses many Debuff combat skills. This provides you with Resistance Piercing, which is your ability to Debuff an enemy. However, stacking Tinker’s Gear items is challenging and makes this pet less valuable than others on this list.

The Unnatural Owlet provides the following buffs:

• +5% RES Piercing per Tinker’s Gear item Equipped
• Increased chance of producing items from Stagecoach items

7. Pygmy Pliskin

The Pygmy Pliskin buffs healing combat skills and provides healing while driving your stagecoach. You are likely running one healer in your team, so this isn’t the worst pet in the game. However, only half of the Medical Gear items are worth purchasing, and the persistent effect is so low you’d be better off finding other sources of healing.

The Pygmy Pliskan provides the following buffs:

• +10% Healing Received from Skills per Medical Gear item equipped
• Random Hero After Each Location: Heal 10%

6. Mucilaginous Slime

The Mucilaginous Slime provides your heroes with increased Debuff resistance, which comes in handy when you don’t want to manage your heroes’ relationships or use the combat skills of heroes that constantly debuff your team. However, the Road Gear items aren’t the best making this pet less valuable than others.

The Mucilaginous Slime provides the following buffs:

• +5% RES per Road Gear item equipped
• Increased chance of looting Items from road debris

5. Reanimated Rabbit

The Reanimated Rabbit is very strong but requires a proper setup to have the space needed to stack enough food items to make this pet viable. Specifically, you must find the Griddle, Ice Box, and Barrels items. However, if done correctly, the buffs you get from this pet are pretty insane.

The Reanimated Rabbit provides the follow buffs:

• +1 per Food Gear item equipped
• +1 Max per 4 Food items in inventory

4. Crimson Tick

The Blood item generated by the Crimson Tick provides your character with a speed, strength, and crit token for the cost of stress. In addition, this item makes damage dealers like Hellion, Occultist, Jester, or Leper one-shot enemies when used. Whether the RNG gods favor you, you can expect three to five The Blood item drops per expedition.

The Crimson Tick provides the following buff:

• Gain On Killing Blow: Chance to produce The Blood (5%)

3. Orphan Wolf Cub

The Orphan Wolf Club is beneficial because it provides your heroes with resistance for one of the game mechanics that can stop an expedition in its tracks: the Stress mechanic. You will also get a persistent effect towards the positive relationship chance, which I found helps surprisingly more than I thought it would. In addition, the Luxury Gear is some of the best stagecoach items in the game.

The Orphan Wolf Club provides the following buffs:

• +5% Stress RES per Luxury Gear item equipped
• +10% Positive Relationship Chance

Related: How to Improve Relationships in Darkest Dungeon II

2. Shrieker Chick

You can find Scouting Gear from the Hoarder or Provisioner, making it one of the most accessible Stagecoach item sets to stack. The +2 to the quantity of Baubles looted adds up very quickly and is one of the most valuable resources in the game. The additional stacked crit is a bonus that can help you slay an enemy or cast a heal spell for a significant amount.

The Shriker Chick provides the following buffs:

• +2% Crit per Scouting Gear item equipped
• +2 quantity of looted BAUBLES

1. Shambler’s Spawn

The Shambler’s Spawn is the best pet in the game because it allows your entire team to use Cultist Trinkets without needing them to equip a Dark Impulse, which takes up a valuable slot. This far outweighs the loss of Location and Route Scouting because Cultist Trinkets can be insanely powerful.

The Shambler’s Spawn pet provides the following buff:

• 200% Cultist Encounters Location Scouting
• -100% Location Scouting
• -100% Route Scouting

Note from the author: I created this guide while playing Darkest Dungeon II on my PC through Steam.