Is there any point to water pet pre 50?

[Troxx]

Early in the game:

All pets have comparable melee (fire melee damage is lower though)
-Earth has highest hp and casts a damage-less nuke
-Water has 2nd highest hp and casts a nuke ... paired with higher melee dps it will out dps the others
-Air has the 3rd highest hp and casts a damage-less stun ... no more or less dps than earth
-Fire has the lowest hp and the weakest damage output (no kick/bash) but casts a pretty good nuke on top of an overpowered self damage shield. Not tanking it's dps is worse than the water and maybe as good as air/earth (not sure if parsed). While tanking it will run circles in damage output over the other pets.

Early on?
Water will do the most dps in a group. It's a nice mix of dps and survivability
Earth is the tankiest
Air is meh unless you need stun ... and even then meh
Fire is not great for groups, it has low HP but is excellent for soloing

At high levels water gets backstab, air gets a nuke component to stun, earth tanks like a beast.

When in doubt, all the specifics can be found here:

http://wiki.project1999.com/Pet_Guide

[azeth]

as soon as you can chain pet, chain pet with fire to Dyzzils Deafening Decoy. Then chain with that to 60.

end.

[mr_jon3s]

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

Early in the game:

All pets have comparable melee (fire melee damage is lower though)
-Earth has highest hp and casts a damage-less nuke
-Water has 2nd highest hp and casts a nuke ... paired with higher melee dps it will out dps the others
-Air has the 3rd highest hp and casts a damage-less stun ... no more or less dps than earth
-Fire has the lowest hp and the weakest damage output (no kick/bash) but casts a pretty good nuke on top of an overpowered self damage shield. Not tanking it's dps is worse than the water and maybe as good as air/earth (not sure if parsed). While tanking it will run circles in damage output over the other pets.

Early on?
Water will do the most dps in a group. It's a nice mix of dps and survivability
Earth is the tankiest
Air is meh unless you need stun ... and even then meh
Fire is not great for groups, it has low HP but is excellent for soloing

At high levels water gets backstab, air gets a nuke component to stun, earth tanks like a beast.

When in doubt, all the specifics can be found here:

http://wiki.project1999.com/Pet_Guide

Don't forget high level air pet has a monk like kick that hits for high damage. Fire pet is just trash after the 49 one.

[Troxx]

A common misconception is that the monk pets (air or skeleton for necro) is imbued with tanking bonuses via evasion like the monk class.

This assumption is patently false but was widely believed on live EQ servers up to 2015.

I parsed it extensively on live. The avoidance on the pets of various summon types is identical. Earth on live does have the highest innate ac and fire the lowest, but their mitigation was shockingly similar, especially if given gear or ac buffed.

From a tanking perspective, the only practical difference between the pet types is the HP pool (which is substantial).

I figure p99 is similar to live. Unless the devs specifically coded difference in the per pet summon per level_summon (I bet they didn't), the air pet is not going to avoid better.

The air pet WILL stun the mob from time to time which WILL result in fewer melee rounds from the opponent.

But air pet does not avoid (dodge/parry/block/whatever) better.

This is and was easily parsed on live and could be here as well. On live it was really easy to parse because you could turn off all filters, engage with pet, pet back off and hold and let the mercenary (or 2-3) heal the pet for hours. Repeat the process with all 4 pet archetypes and it was shocking to see that they all mitigated about the same, and avoided about the same.

Pets behave like npcs ... it's why they benefit from given gear and buffs so much more than players. There are no hard or soft caps for shit like ac.

EDIT: project99 may function very differently than live eq with pet aas. It was found that WHAT made pets such overpowered tanks was the interaction of their base stats as summoned, amplified by gear given and buffs, and turbo-amplified by the pet defensive/avoidance lines of aa's that made pets tank like monsters. Up until I parsed it (in 2015) and posted a bunch of shit on SoE live forums (yeah that guy was me for any that played at the time) - a group focused pet would mitigate/tank circles around raid geared warriors cycling their disciplines. It was ultimately determined (and later fixed/nerfed) that the breakdown in the system was the aa lines for bolstering pets.

It is possible that aa's are responsible for all pets avoiding the same on live in 2015, but I doubt it.

All said, easy to parse for a mage who wanted to actually figure out how it works server-side here.

[Thugnuts]

Assuming you have focus items:

- Water pet is best solo pet until middle levels, imo. Great dps, very good survivability. IIRC, they also regenerate their hit points faster than the other pets.

- When you hit mid levels and chain casting pets becomes viable mana-wise, switch to fire pet and chain them. Just make sure you give each pet enough time to DS itself.

- From 49+, Earth pet for soloing is my favorite. The fire pets after 49 are shite. The survivability of the earth pet is awesome at high levels, the damage shields you have by then are cheap on mana, and they hit hard. Use a burnt wood staff for late 40's and early 50's, maybe dump one of your high damage regular nukes as well, and you get full xp.

- For grouping 50+, I use earth if my pet will need to take some hits. If I'm in a group with various meat shields taking all the damage, I use the water pet and position him behind mobs so that he can backstab.

[mr_jon3s]

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

Assuming you have focus items:

- Water pet is best solo pet until middle levels, imo. Great dps, very good survivability. IIRC, they also regenerate their hit points faster than the other pets.

As someone who played a mage I feel fire was the best solo leveling pet. The DS counts as neutral damage which means you could get away with nuking less to do the required 51% damage to the mob to get full exp.

[Baler]

I used earth pet buffed up till level 24, switched to fire pet chaining and never looked back. I didn't have the focus items for 50's pets so I just chained Monster Summoning II. At 56 Dyzil's Deafening Decoy is legit for soloing. Otherwise in a group I'd use a 54 Water Pet for it's back stab.

The way I look at mage is you can Plvl yourself. Why give away exp?
Find an enchanter who is willing to hit you with clarity while you both solo in nearby but separate locations. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Edit: Earth pet is the only way for the magicians to root (without 1 charge clickies)

[iruinedyourday]

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

All of the magician's pets fill a certain role. They are the extension of his powers that he does not personally get himself. Learn to manipulate these roles properly and you will unlock the mages true potential.

I got a good laugh outa this

[Baler]

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

I got a good laugh outa this

Pay no attention to this bard.
He is borderline ignore list. Since I first joined the community.

[iruinedyourday]

7k posts and you're borderline, I'd say you made the decision long ago.