I remember back when I made my pet cuck on THJ (3rd char) the AAs that really helped huge in the beginning was the pet ones that made the mage pet tanky, there were other ones too related to pets. Like others mentioned that had them do more damage. I also used my first character SHD/ROG/SHM to farm all his shit for him I needed.
Now my pet cuck was parked in DN at 55 and I was doing the AFK pet guard here BS for AA. And I remember I could not do that until I got those AA. The mage pet would just fold until I got like 100 or so AA into pet AA. The palladius axe of slaughter is key as well. But if youre SSF, youre not getting that for a while, lol. I dont even think I saw that listed in Bazaar even once on this server. That weapon is rare from Vulak, and you cant even equip it to level it up so you either have to drop it legendary or IDK, lol. Maybe you could flip your bard into pally for a while and level it up and then switch back? IDK, this server is different, everyone is all rushing into time and forgoing the velious and luckin shit. so items like that are rare as fuck. BAck on THJ palladius was sold all the time since it was BIS for cucks so vulaak was farmed all the time for those items even into Luclin and POP. this server also has way less people too. I think THJ at its peak had what, 5K-6K people? This one has like 500 at most so trading econ is just not there.
Pet cuck was cool and all but they were highly gear dependent. You also needed your epic which made the pet OP. The item from Luclin that made pet higher level, tons of augs that helped defense, like the block ones from sleeper farm...etc... Also the spell and heal dmg had to be near max for the later raids into luclin and POP. IMO its great for a 2nd or 3rd character, but as a first, and SSF, which even makes it worse, you got some farming to do my bro. What helped too was the pre nerf Bard dmg reduction songs, but then they nerfed and it got way weaker.