Since the new expansion will increase our Pet AA's - Companion's Aegis, Fortification, and DA, how will you use our pets in groups and raids? I've always just used the pet as a weak dps helper, but it really feels that the devs want us to use them as tanks. Companion's Aegis has a 30 sec refresh for a 12 hit shield absorbing 50k damage per hit. Companion's Fortification has a 15 min timer for some great AC, Avoidance, Health increases as well as protection from enemy damage shields (for pet offhand), and 25% melee and spell absorption up to 425k Companion's Int DA has a 15 min timer for a 10 min ability that provides HP regen, invulnerability, but no attack if health goes below 20% Thanks, I'm interested in your ideas.
I use mine as a dot, one more trick in my bag for pulling mobs, and an emergency meat shield in case of a mez until it is curednor wears off.
Same way I always have: as something I rarely use. In raid and group settings, I haven't found much benefit to dealing with the hassle of managing a pet. When soloing, sure, I'll pop it up if I'm going to be spending much time at whatever I'm doing.
Eh it's a free 10k dps or so in exchange for leaving pet hold on and making a pet attack hotkey, I've done worse things to increase kill speed but more importantly it lets you use the aviak petamorph wand to have an 8 foot tall freedom eagle at your side
He has a few uses, though they require you to be quite proactive. And the main benefit in almost every scenario is that he is allowing you to do things a tiny bit faster. for example: He can be used to pull. When I do a clear of Plane of Fire raid for aug drops, and we are zerging through the zone, and we're in combat with a mob, but i want to pull the next one.. But the next mob is out of my line of sight.. you can use an eye of zomm clicky, and use the eye to get a view on the mob u want to target without having to stop fighting. Once targeted, you can then send your pet in to attack. As soon as that mob appears on the hatelist, you can /pet back off (with gpet hold on) or use summon companion. Then it will pull that next mob in for you. Alternatively, you could deal with that same scenario by having your pet taunt the mob that u were tanking, then run off and grab the next mob, then once back in camp u can taunt back off your pet. Another example of using a pet to pull (there are a few ways), would be in this video at 4:27 pretend that the mob i marked to pull was a named, and that the mobs around him were immune to snare for example. Now i used projection for this split, but i could have sacrificed my pet instead if proj was down. The trick in that particular pull, was to cast one AE aggro (that way the mobs dont all go for your pet, proj or your pet with /taunt on will be able to rip aggro on just the one mob u want. then u corral the others away from it, and right as the pet dies (or is about to, you can fd fade and hate step over to the namer). Pulls like that are kinda technical and knowing how to do them isn't important for most of your everquesting, but they have their niche. I recall years ago when i was group geared, and getting adds, setting my pet to meet adds with invulnerability running, to CC them for a short time. (doesn't work anymore if pet is invul). You could speedbump sacrifice him to buy more time in place of a shield flash or something for your mezzer, if you're using one. Our pet as mentioned already, can also be used as a tank. He is very weak, just like a shaman pet. But I have done TBL missions where i needed a second tank on a mob, and so he filled in just fine with solid healing support. You can use your pet to tank the last 1-3 mobs of current content while u go off and pull (lil drogbone has done this in Mearatas). Allowing you in some cases to not only be the groups tank, but its chainpuller as well, depending on how fast your group is chewing through those mobs. The key thing to do is to inform the healers that your pet will be tanking the last 1-3 when you go off to pull. Many healers don't add pets to their extended target window, and many who do wont be expecting your pets damage spikes when it happens, so you may even want to go a step further and use a social hotkey to announce that 'heal my pet, my pet is tanking' kind of thing. Key note: you need them to be aware, because 95% of them won't react in time if they're not anticipating it You turn your pets taunt on when down to 1-3 mobs, and you cycle through the targets one by one, until he has successfully taunted all of them. I tend to keep AE aggro pulsing during this, and just watch for the taunts, until i know he has taunted each mob and is likely second on aggro for all of them. Then i feign death rq so that he is ontop of the hatelist and run off to pull. If 3 mobs, you definitely want to be using defensive discs on your pet. The moment you return to camp, you can turn pet taunt off and regain aggro on everything that he was tanking using your own taunts. Earlier in the year, i had it explained to me that mobs which cast mez 'normally' cast it on the first mob on their hatelist. I don't know if this is always true, however many spellcasters have nasty things such as stuns they may cast shortly after being aggro'd. There have been times over the years where it is very helpful to have your pet aggro the mob before you so they can eat the nasty spell, rather than it slowing you down. There have been AE's that don't affects pets as well, such as Lanys big AE in the final cotf mission which takes palce in the void. So you can set it to taunt, back out for the AE, and then return.) In some older expansions where you might get banished, your pet can stay on aggro when you get the banish, giving you time to run back to the mob before it resets.. You could also aggro mob through doors and things using your pet. Trying a /tar mobname00 (and guess the 00 number) then hope the pet can do enough damage to cause it to summon you through after it died or feigned death. I think that covers everything that I've ever used my pet for /ponder. Mages have nukes that rely on having a bunch of pets popped as well 'of many' line iirc. So he is helpful for that. SHD spell "Abhorrent Sacrifice' does an AE nuke around your pet. Worth noting if you ever use that. There is a good argument to not use your pet on raids, because sometimes when healers try to target you, some of them may use a manual click on your name on the extended target window, and accidentally click the little green bar underneath which instead targets your pet. Causing you to not get the heal that you may have needed. Personally I prefer to use my pet and take that gamble, but its a solid argument.
Do our sk pets still shield us? I havent seen a message for that for years, the other day i noticed "xxxxx ceases to protect xxxx" message.
