Improved familiar questions

[Bazaku Ambrosuis]

Hello everyone, I'm playing a campaign like a witch, I just reached level 5 and I do not decide what feat to take.
The idea of ​​the witch is to use spells like obscuring mist or stiking clod on my enemies, while my party has a blind fight. Now, I was thinking of taking a family member to help me locate enemies in the fog (i know i still cant use hexes cause i dont see them but some areas would work i think) and, in the process, help us to locate invisible foes. The issue is that I do not decide if it is worth taking the feat or not.
(We play with the manuals core, advanced and ultimate magic).
A small earth elemental could locate them with tremorsense, go, flank and do some damage but it would not help me to see invisible flyers. Also has earth glide if things are going bad for him to escape. The thing is i dont know how he would scale later in higuer levels,his attacks may be worth nothing later.
The other option is a pseudodragon, at level 7. It has blindsense that is better, poison (I do not know if it is allowed to milk your familiar to use it in some weapon) and it can be used for scouting.
 What do you think is better? Wait for level 7 and take the pseudodragon, go for the ground elemental or just use the feat on a new hex?
 I know I can take the feat, use the elemental now and then change it for the pseudodragon, but it would be a cost of gold for only two levels, plus a witch changing family so often is rare.

Thanks!

[Dave Justus]

Personally, while I think improved familiar can be great for some characters, I would never recommend it for a witch. Your familiar is too important to risk in in combat, I'd keep it a regular familiar and keep it as protected as possible.

[christian kramer]

I agree with Dave here. The most milage you'll get out of the Improved familiar is with its "safe" utilities such as using wands or going invisible and scouting, especially since an improved familiar cannot take on the mauler archetype. I don't know enough as to recommend replacement feats.

Can you not summon small elementals with Summon Monster II?

[Bazaku Ambrosuis]

Okey, no familiar then. At least not a combat one. Maybe at 7 i will think about a scout one.
Thanks!

[lemeres]

Aether elementals (since the improved familiar list says 'any type', you can take advantage of bestiary growth) are good for scouting, and they are highly survivable.

They are constantly invisible (slightly less stealth bonus than usual, but it ignores a lot of common anti invisibility techniques), flight, and blindsense.

...of course, if you could spend another 2nd level spell slot, you could just cast a summoning spell for the same general result. Summoned elementals are great scouts when you only need them for a few turns- no one really cares if they get killed.

[Gisher]

Bazaku Ambrosuis wrote:

Okey, no familiar then. At least not a combat one. Maybe at 7 i will think about a scout one.

Thanks!

If you want to stick with a standard familiar, keep in mind that the bat does have blindsense (though only to 20' as opposed to the 60' range for the pseudodragon).

[Ravingdork]

My players use Fogcutting Lenses to see and annihilate enemies inside crippling cloud spells in our Skull and Shackles campaign.

It is amazingly effective, turning 95% of encounters into an absolute cakewalk.

[Melkiador]

At later levels, the Duplicate Familiar spell can be pretty good for letting the witch get some "safe" mileage out of her familiar.

Also, the small aether elemental makes a great improved familiar, getting useful invisibility. And it can be quite strong depending on how your group rules this familiar ability to work:
"Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher." With the aether elemental having abilities like, "The aether elemental can throw a creature or object that weighs at most 50 pounds per Hit Die the elemental possesses." or "An aether elemental can attempt a ranged combat maneuver check, as per telekinesis, with a CMB equal to its Hit Dice + its Dexterity modifier.".