Pets: Cybernetically-Enhanced Companions

LegendaryRarity

"How do you get a pet?"

This has been one of the frequent questions I've seen from new players. Sometimes they mean Team-Ups (this game's version of mercenaries or followers from other ARPGs), but usually they mean the pet pets. This guide will give you an overview of Pets in Marvel Heroes and cover some of the ways to get a pet of your own.

Why get a pet? Pets in this game are more than just cosmetic or vanity, pets also feature a system called Cybernetics which provides Cybernetic Bonuses for your hero and gives you a means to get rid of some unwanted items.

• You can manually feed your pet items by dragging them to the pet, or by using ALT+Right Click. (Don't try to use ALT+Right Click if you have a vendor or crafter open, it will donate the items to them instead of the pet)
  
• If the pet is maxed out for a tier of items, it will convert them to the lower tier. For instance if you have your Rare Cybernetic Bonus unlocked, any Rare items fed to your pet count for the Uncommon Cybernetics. If all the Bonuses are maxed on the pet, the items are converted into credits when fed to it.
• By leveling your Crafter you will unlock recipes that allow you to reset the Bonuses (you will have to refeed the pet the required amount of items to get a new bonus) and even a recipe to Swap the set of Bonuses between pets.
  
• By pressing the J key (default keybinding), it will activate your Cybernetic Vacuum and suck up all the nearby Slot 1-5 items and feed them to your pet.
  
• The Cybernetic Vacuum will not suck up any other items besides Slot 1-5 and can not suck up Cosmics or Uniques.
• If you wish to automate your Cybernetic Vacuum, you can do so in Gameplay Options, and can tune it to different rarities for the slots. Unlike the manual Vacuum, this one can go all the way up to Cosmics.
• The official forums has a post showing the potential Bonuses, compiled by player 'counterintel' and the Marvel Heroes community.
• (If you don't have a pet equipped you can still use the Cyber Vacuum and Auto-Vaporize features, the items will get converted into credits)
• All pets offer the same pool of Bonuses, they only vary by their cosmetics. Headpool and Spider-Ham talk when summoned.
• You do not need to summon your pet to use Cybernetics at all, just equip it for the bonuses/ability to feed.
  

Every player will eventually want at least one pet for the Cybernetic Bonuses, so how do we get them? There are several methods to acquire pets:

Prestige

Marvel Heroes features a Prestige system where you can reset your hero to level 1 and relevel them to 60 in exchange for some perks such as colored names, an extra default costume, and access to a selection of colored Iron Buddy pets. The prestige gourd and the pets can be purchased from Clea, a vendor that can be found in each hub.

You can only use these prestige pets on prestiged heroes that have reached that color of prestige or higher. For example, if you wanted the Purple Iron Buddy, you would have to prestige three times to get the purple name. If you continued to Orange, Red, or Cosmic prestige, you could still use the Purple pet. Non-prestiged heroes can't use these prestige pets at all, so some players will prestige their 'main' hero to get a pet for just them to use.

Fortune Cards

Many of the game's Fortune Cards include pets as one of their rare, random rewards. These cards sometimes contain exclusive pets you can't get anywhere else. With the exception of the Mark I cards, you'll have to pay Gs (the game's real money currency) for these, but sometimes they give out free cards. I've obtained a handful of pets by getting lucky when opening those freebies.

• The Fortune Card bundles occasionally go on sale for up to 50% off, a good time to stock up if you are interested in anything from them.
• Fortune Card Mark I has a low chance of dropping during gameplay.
• Each player can enter a code (2015) on their profile at the official site to get three free Fortune Cards for chances at pets or other goodies.
• Clea sells Fortune Card Mark I for 10 Cube Shards a piece. You can Refresh her stock to buy more each day. Once you hit level 20 you unlock the Green and Red terminals, every 20 hours you can obtain 1 Cube Shard per terminal, for a total of 24 a day.
  

Ye Olde RNG Drops

Like costumes, pets have a low chance to drop in the game, usually from bosses. This drop rate seems to have been severely reduced alongside the Mark I cards at some point, as both used to be much more frequent. I believe the dropped pets are limited to those contained in the Fortune Card Mark I, aka Old Lace, Iron Buddy, and HERBIE.

Gs and Eternity Splinters

You can straight up buy a pet if you so desire, with Gs (real money) or Eternity Splinters (earned by playing the game). Adam Warlock can sell you an Old Lace pet for 350 ES. The Gs store pets include some which are found in the Fortune Cards like Spider-Ham and sometimes Headpool will be on sale. The prices on these are a bit high (comparable to playable heroes'), and splinters are likely better spent on heroes or team-ups.

Cosmic Chaos Event

About once a month they will hold a Cosmic Chaos event for a week. During this event, you can collect Cosmic Worldstones. 2,000 Worldstones will let you buy a Cosmic Doop pet. It's a bit of a grind, but dedicated players can get that many stones in a week. More casual players can of course accumulate the stones over several events.

Genosha Liberation Front

Once you hit level 60 you'll unlock the Genosha Liberation Influence system, similar to Reputation from other games. Earning the Influence is simple, and after a few weeks you'll get to a high enough rank to unlock a pet to purchase for credits.

Login Rewards

Marvel Heroes features a Login Reward system, and eventually you can get two exclusive pets: Great Ultron by logging in for 100 days total, and Celebration HERBIE for 400 total days. They have also given out pets as gifts during certain events or holidays. These special login gifts should be advertised on the forums and the email newsletter.

(Continued below)

LegendaryRarity

Danger Room

We got the Remote Control Blackbird as a Thanksgiving gift last year, it has now been revealed to be one of the rewards you can buy through the new Danger Room game mode. This mode is for level 60s only and has a lot of other stuff you might want to buy, but if you want the Blackbird you will soon be able to farm for it.

Age of Ultron

There is a chance to get the Ultron Silver pet in the loot chest from Ultron's phase of the Age of Ultron game mode.

Achievements

There are a few achievements that reward pets:

• Urban Renewal - Found under the Miscellaneous - Advanced category, this achievement will reward the "Urban Camo" Raptor pet after completing objectives in Midtown and Industry City Patrol modes. This one can be worked on by any level hero. You will need to defeat 1,000 bosses, 100,000 enemies, rescue 1,000 citizens, loot 1,000,000 credits, and complete 100 Legendary Quests and 100 Shared Quests in either Patrol mode.
• Clone Saga 2: Fun For Everyone - Also found in Miscellaneous - Advanced, you can get a Future Foundation Spider-Ham through this achievement. It requires playing the heroes who are also bosses in the game (Doctor Doom, Taskmaster, Loki, Magneto, Juggernaut, Spider-Man, Venom) and defeating the boss version of themselves 117 times each.
• Hackers - Just for completion's sake, this is found under Collection - Item Upgrades and is the final achievement in the chain for maxing out the Cybernetic Bonuses on pets. Max out 25 pets and you will get a Golden HERBIE. (The Starktech Sentinels from the Influence are good to buy to work on this since they can be stored on any hero's pet slot once maxed)
  

I reckon that just about does it for the ways to get pets right now. As you can see there are a variety of methods to get a pet, from flat-out buying them to farming and grinding, even as surprise gifts.

If you are a new player, consider farming the terminals for Cube Shards and buying the Cards from Clea. You can start running for shards as soon as you hit 20 so you can potentially snag a pet pretty early, luck depending. Prestige is also an option, but remember it will be limited to prestiged heroes only. Don't worry about them too much, you'll get one eventually!

Hope you enjoy your pets!