Dazzling Dolores and Trusts

[Mithlas]

Does anyone else notice that her Vampiric ability seems to do more damage to trusts and pets than to players??

It seems it will do more damage to my pet with max -DT gear than to me with minimum -DT gear as BST. Maybe I'm being paranoid. @_@

[Nyarlko]

Does anyone else notice that her Vampiric ability seems to do more damage to trusts and pets than to players??

It seems it will do more damage to my pet with max -DT gear than to me with minimum -DT gear as BST. Maybe I'm being paranoid. @_@

That might have to do with your pet choice due to monster correlation effects. :x
Since Malboros are plant family mobs, you'd want to avoid using beast family jugs and use vermin (strong vs plants) or lizard (neutral vs plants) instead if you are worried about the incoming damage. If you use a vermin jug, then don't forget to pop Killer Instinct as well. ^^ 10% extra damage and -DT for party members (incl. trusts) as long as the correlation is in your favor.

Certain NQ jugs also have level caps lower than 119, so you might want to verify that your pet of choice is not one of them. Pet & trust level is also affected by your mainhand weapon's ilvl, so if you are swapping in Charmer's during macros for instance, it would cause all pet/trusts to drop 20 levels until you get a 119 back in there.

As far as trusts go.. they are intentionally intended to NOT be as strong as players in clvl content that is 120+. Devs fully intended for Reisenjima NMs to be group-play, not solo-play so even the T1s can be rather challenging without a few non-AI party members ^^;;

[Mithlas]

Hm it may be the level disparity that she does so much damage to Trusts. Usually August can handle the T1s just fine - just vampiric Leash is a killer.
And I made sure to not use beast family mobs!

The rest of her skills are fine, it's just that Vampiric Leash seems to hit harder than her other moves - particularly spike damage on trust and pets. It's weird.

[Nyarlko]

It's actually specifically noted on the bg-wiki page that V.Lash can do 2k+ dmg to August lol

Have you tried using Amchuchu? She is my go-to trust tank in 99% of my solo adventures ^^ So long as she survives the first 30sec or so, she reliably puts out better results for me than August. Although, tbh, I normally avoid trying to solo Malboro's and look for at least a duo/trio instead due to all the annoying mechanics inherent with the family. Teaming up with a GEO and/or PLD would probably do wonders for your win/loss record

Make sure you are also avoiding anything containing earth damage since that heals it and any healing done will cause it to level up. This includes Darkness SC for example.