Killer Instinct: The Beastmaster Compendium

Everyone has different uses for pets, but I specifically remember soloing with Vickie and doing Decimation > Sweeping Gouge > Decimation > Decimation. When Sweeping Gouge was down, I used Smash Axe instead. Apex mobs died from that chain generally.

Niche but its also haste that cant be wrote over by slow

Two great examples of situational uses!

I think the point remains that I don't see Vickie as a "go to" pet, as was the original prompt. More for niche situations. As a default situation, you're usually able to cap haste just fine without her, and you have better def- options.

But yeah, lots of pets have some specific situational use, have a move that works well as SC given your other weapons, etc. I definitely think that kind of esoteric stuff is part of what's so fun about BST.

To be fair, I don't think most of the pets on your list would be considered "go to pets" either. You could reasonably argue that for endgame, you're only ever really asked to bring arthur or the leech for tp drainkiss. I don't know of anyone who's asked to bring along Patrick or Patrice for anything nowadays, though they serve a pretty cool role in their respective rights. The OP also listing Randy wouldn't make my list of "go to pets" either, since I haven't pulled him out for anything in years in a group.

I think we are talking about situational uses at this point, so the pets mentioned could be considered for that use.

You could also reasonably argue that for endgame, you're rarely ever asked to bring BST. And yes, if you are, it's probably one of two niches:
1) Arthur (most likely for HP down on Odyssey NMs, but Def- is also the most practical party contribution for most group situations with mobs that live for any decent length of time)
2) Leech - for very specific TP denial strategies

However, I suspect a lot of BST players are like me in that they may use the job more in situations outside of typical endgame party content.

In my most commonly used tier, I only included three other pets aside from the aforementioned slug and leech:
- Bouncing Bertha is still my most commonly used pet overall, as I do a decent amount of Mythic stuff and Omen on BST. Bertha's pretty solid as a general DD pet too.
- Gaston is in my list mainly due to that being my go-to in Dyna. YMMV, but that's a significant enough use to make my list.
- Zhivago is maybe one that I sometimes use just because I want to mix things up a bit, but it has good abilities and SC utility. I find it useful for stuff like Apex mobs.

I kinda see Randy being somewhat worthwhile to note just due to cost. Cheap NPC jugs always have a place, I'm not using Call Beast on something like a Swooping Zhivago jug, so if Bestial Loyalty timer's down it's generally gonna be either Arthur or Randy. And sometimes Randy is preferable if not getting much out of Arthur in places where mobs die fast regardless of whether you tag them with defense down.

That's about where I draw my line between more common use cases, and the more niche next tier down where I stick pets like lizard, slime, hippogryph, crab, maybe sheep - which have legitimate occasional uses. Anything beyond that is quite rare for me to pull out, aside from just wanting to mess around for some variety.

Cricket I think is the most damaging phys AOE in the game, but for anything that matters you have to forego regular buffs and use pet ones instead which means they don't play well with others. Shame.

Do a pet Dynamis Jeuno sometime though, hella fun and you get to see big numbers. One BST with Arthur, another BST with Bertha, a GEO and COR...

I actually sort of enjoy doing Einherjar on BST, of course with Bouncing Bertha. My dream is to get a lucky Einherjar run where the boss spawns on first wave, and kill EVERYTHING in the zone with a single Tegmina Buffet.

My record is two moves.