shaman duo

[Troxx]

Str buffs are most important on level appropriate content where your pet level is closer to and below the level. On green content/farm content the pet so out-classes what you’re killing you won’t see the same degree of jump.

“Level appropriate” here can even be defined as xp giving green cons in KC with a 60 max summon water pet. The differences in a zone like KC are most pronounced when fighting Warlords/Bodyguards/pit trash. In higher level areas like Kael arena, SG, Seb, and DN the benefits are more universally obvious.

Cheers and happy hunting.

(Ps: shamans can actually test this out easily over time especially at 60 because they can self buff their 55 pet)

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Snaggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Do have any parsed information? Not trying to pull an evidence-request but just have always understood normal stat buffs do very little for npc dps. Hence why cripple in general is meh outside bored shamans during HoT raids.

I might carry a Frost Giant beard though with my mage and give it a whirl.

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes and no.

Yes: I have parsed long series of fights with and without str, str/focus stack and just plain old mage buffs on same pet same content. The difference was obvious and proportionally large to the degree of the buff. It won’t make them hit for higher dmg like players but it skews the average hit up fairly stoutly improving dps by widely parseable margins over time.

No: I have no idea which fights those were and where to dig them up. Also no, the difference was so big that I don’t care to repeat them hehe. Take or leave my experience without provision of hard proof. It makes a big difference. I always ask for str (and attack buff str of nature) whenever they are available from whatever source is highest.

Also pro tip: npcs benefit more from ac buffs than players. They have no hard/softcaps. If your pet is tanking, it’s worth grabbing them as they are available.

Troxx is correct here from my experience as well. STR and AC buffs are great on pets. On harder fights I will usually apply those, unless the mob does a lot of dispel. I don't know what the HP ratio is for STA on pets, but I will put that on too because it's free with my thurg BP. DEX doesn't matter on Shaman pets since they cannot wield procable weapons. I don't really know if AGI does anything on a pet. There's technically no reason not to use it on the off chance it does something, but you could probably skip it if you're worried about time/mana.

Cripple is meh in normal content because the mana cost is too high for what you get in return. Typically putting that 225 mana towards damage will kill the mob faster, which also translates to taking less damage. If cripple only cost like 50 mana, it would probably get used more on normal content. But the spell slot usage is still a problem, especially on a Shaman since we are hurting for spell slots.

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't really know if AGI does anything on a pet. There's technically no reason not to use it on the off chance it does something, but you could probably skip it if you're worried about time/mana.

Insofar as agility raises ac I strongly suspect it does help. To what degree I don’t know, it’s probably minimal. Whether it helps with avoidance I honestly have no clue. I don’t have any parses aiming to evaluate the benefit of agility. Defensive parses are inherently a lot more difficult to reliably obtain, gather enough data for, and interpret … so I never bothered to even try.

When I solo with my shaman using pet to tank I load it up with str/focus, agility, and any other ac/hp buffs available along with haste. I also skip dex, no benefit there. A fully buffed shaman pet is a lot more capable than an only-hasted pet that goes well beyond the benefits of the extra 405hp from focus.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Insofar as agility raises ac I strongly suspect it does help. To what degree I don’t know, it’s probably minimal. Whether it helps with avoidance I honestly have no clue. I don’t have any parses aiming to evaluate the benefit of agility. Defensive parses are inherently a lot more difficult to reliably obtain, gather enough data for, and interpret … so I never bothered to even try.

When I solo with my shaman using pet to tank I load it up with str/focus, agility, and any other ac/hp buffs available along with haste. I also skip dex, no benefit there. A fully buffed shaman pet is a lot more capable than an only-hasted pet that goes well beyond the benefits of the extra 405hp from focus.

Agreed! A fully buffed Shaman pet is really nice.

[Troxx]

Also agree that cripple makes a difference. It’s a big difference but as DSM points out … the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze on non-raid target. Mana cost for relative return on trivial xp garbage … it’s a waste. Even on harder xp group targets and named the fights are short enough that mana is best spent elsewhere.

How much damage you do to a mob and it does to you is a dynamic of its level/attack/ac and your level/skills/ac/attack. Anything you can do to alter that dynamic and balance will have real in game results.

As DSM said, if it was like a 50hp a 1 sec cast spell I would cast it on all mobs after slow at any level of content.

[Toxigen]

stuff like gwurms its good

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

stuff like gwurms its good

Agreed, GWurms are worth crippling. Anything that is double attacking for 500+ damage per hit is a tough cookie.

[7thGate]

I kind of like this conversation, actually, when its talking about the actual mechanics.

Most of my experience duoing with a shaman has been on Puppet Show. My experience has also been that cripple is fairly high impact, but only worth it on stuff like puppet show because you are fighting a single target for a very long time.

There's a couple techniques I've used there depending on Shaman gear. Safest is to have me tank, shaman logs out/in after debuffing and gently DoTs and we just grind it out. Can do that with a naked Torp Shaman. Slow, but not dangerous. Really well geared Shaman that can tank, torp, spam DoTs while I backstab is just awesome, and I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount that can be added on fights where the DoTs are allowed to tick. There's fights like this one where the shaman pulled 55 DPS with DoTs, melee and pets while we shared tanking.

/GU Tribunal Puppet in 252s, 21793 @86 | Jayya 18185 | Jenekab 2439 | Jallai 1169

They have approx 32K HP, so can back out the shaman contribution that way. Here's an example where I did the same fight with a shaman that didn't DPS at all:

/GU Tribunal Puppet in 471s, 32207 @68 | Jayya 31475 | Riddian 732

One thing I would really like to see parses on at some point is the impact of Avatar on charmed pet DPS, because I suspect its actually a sneaky way a shaman can have a much higher group DPS impact that they would appear on a 2 ench charm pet group since it adds their contribution to other players. I push for Avataring pets on Vindi kills, but I don't have enough samples and didn't track who got what for what fight, and then there's charmed pet breaks and stuff that makes it too hard to compare.

Like, I have Yetarr doing 682 dps vs. Vindi, but he's a big enough pain to get over there and Dictate that I have only a few samples (actually, only 1, which is confusing since I'm almost positive we've used him three times, and I know for sure there should be a low man parse to go with 1 or 2 full raid kills. Maybe I was out of parser range for that one.) He was definitely Avatar'ed, but how much DPS came from that?

I've got Bvellos parses all over the place from 80 (charm breaks + no haste?) to 250 (Avatar, Haste, Torch, no charm breaks, muzzle?) to a ton at the 180 range (normal haste/torch?). But I don't have a break down of when he got Avatar and when he didn't. Are the 205-220ish ones RNG or Avatar pushing things up?

I also really wonder if NPCs STR cap. We had a scout giant with torch+Avatar+Focus+Manicial+SoN+WR+Muzzle kill his enchanter through Rune and Bedlam in 9 seconds once. I wonder if any of that STR did anything. The fight was too chaotic when the drop on Sontalak occurred to tell what actually happened when we used him, but the giant pack whacked him down fast to 90% before the first fear went out and everything fell apart.

[Snaggles]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Str buffs are most important on level appropriate content where your pet level is closer to and below the level. On green content/farm content the pet so out-classes what you’re killing you won’t see the same degree of jump.

“Level appropriate” here can even be defined as xp giving green cons in KC with a 60 max summon water pet. The differences in a zone like KC are most pronounced when fighting Warlords/Bodyguards/pit trash. In higher level areas like Kael arena, SG, Seb, and DN the benefits are more universally obvious.

Cheers and happy hunting.

(Ps: shamans can actually test this out easily over time especially at 60 because they can self buff their 55 pet)

Shady Swashbuckler is a lvl 45 merchant with pretty high AC. Here is just a short run. Two fights each, combined and averaged (one pair of unbuffed, one pair buffed).

Only Celerity: 2 fights @ 834 seconds. 10,766 damage to Shady Swashbuckler (lvl 45 merchant)
Konekn (52 hitting lvl 55 pet) = 12dps. Max hit 36; average hit 20


Maniacal Strength, Focus, & Celerity: 2 fights @ 853 seconds. 10,566 damage to Shady Swashbuckler (lvl 45 merchant)
Konekn (52 hitting lvl 55 pet) = 12dps. Max hit 38; average hit 21

Id parse for longer than that but 31 minutes doing this is watching paint dry...

[7thGate]

Originally Posted by Snaggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Shady Swashbuckler is a lvl 45 merchant with pretty high AC. Here is just a short run. Two fights each, combined and averaged (one pair of unbuffed, one pair buffed).

Only Celerity: 2 fights @ 834 seconds. 10,766 damage to Shady Swashbuckler (lvl 45 merchant)
Konekn (52 hitting lvl 55 pet) = 12dps. Max hit 36; average hit 20


Maniacal Strength, Focus, & Celerity: 2 fights @ 853 seconds. 10,566 damage to Shady Swashbuckler (lvl 45 merchant)
Konekn (52 hitting lvl 55 pet) = 12dps. Max hit 38; average hit 21

Id parse for longer than that but 31 minutes doing this is watching paint dry...

Would you be willing to repeat this with Avatar?