Please help me understand Magician Pets and Focus

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Sweety D, Oct 5, 2021.

  1. Sweety D Journeyman

    I am VERY new to EQ. So I have no idea what I am doing. I have spent hours reading guides and forum postd about Mage pets and focus items, and I am still lost. I need a 101 tutorial that assumes I know nothing about the game. Everything I have read uses abbreviations, jargon and vernacular that I don't understand. I have a level 50 Warrior, I stopped playing that class, and now I am level 51 Magician. I love the mage, but I am so lost. Here is what I need help with:

    I need to know, step by step what to do with focus items. What are they? How do I use them? Why are there so many? When do I use them? Why do they say "temporary"? They seem useless. I equip them and summon a pet right? This is supposed to make me summon a higher level pet, right? When I do this the pet is the same level as before. I am totally lost on focus and what it's for.

    Also, how do I now what gear my pet is using? (I know the answer is "you don't) - I give it items and I just assume it uses them? I understand there is no UI. But I don't know what items to give the pet. Also, If I dismiss the pet, or if it dies, do I need to give them items again? What if I decide I want to change the items my pet is using, seems I can't.

    Pretend I am Micheal Scott and I need Oscar to explain this to me like a 5 year old. (if you don't watch 'The Office' you won't get the joke.

    TL;DR .. What is Pet Focus? & How do I check my pet's inventory?
    Duder likes this.
  2. Zipe The Healer

    Hello,
    An items Focus is a characteristic some items have that improve your magical or melee skills.
    I'll give you two examples.
    This item doesn't have any focus:
    [IMG]

    And this gloves, have a Focus, more precisely.. .they have a pet focus:
    [IMG]

    So, many items have pet focus. Depending on the era you are... But on Modern eras Pet Focus are on Mage/beast/necromancer earrings. If you play on a Time Locked Progression server, where older expansions are current, you can find Pet focus on other slots, like this gloves.

    What Pet focus do, is increase the power of your pets, and that doesn't only mean the level; a power increase doesn't necessarily mean a level increase for your pet. It makes it hit harder and able to take more hits.

    You must wear a Pet Focus item and then Summon your pet. If you get a new Pet Focus, kill your peat and Summon it again while wearing the item.

    About the items that the pet is wearing; on modern eras, a mage pet while wearing a focus will have summoned armor and masks already equipped (armor that you can summon individually he have it equipped automatically), but you can still improve it by giving him the proccing weapons that you summon as well. Also, you can also give him summoned jewelry to increase its hit points.

    Only way to know if a pet is wearing an item is by checking the chat message that it says when an item is given to him... I forgot the exact wording, but it's something like: Thanks! I'll use that Flamming Sword!

    Besides that, you can give to your pet any item that is tradeable; while you level you'll find Defiant armor (if you are not playing on an older era/expansion). You can give that Defiant armor to your pet and he'll get stronger since it's usually better than your summoned armors and weapons.

    Good luck!
  3. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    EDIT: posted the same time as the one above which helps a lot.


    I am not real familiar with pet focus and admit to being slightly lost on it all too. I did find some of this useful:

    https://www.paullynch.org/eqguide/guides/pet-focuses/

    Also:
    Description: Focus items make pets stronger. If you equip a focus item while summoning a pet, the pet will be an improved version of itself. The pet will have better defensive and offensive stats. A quick recap of what pets come with when summoned:
    https://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2789

    The above one is prob out of date but lacking any info it might be all we have.

    It would be great if a tenured mage could pop in with some short, concise answers.
  4. Metanis Bad Company

  5. Zanarnar Augur

    The above posters got the basics pretty well covered. I want to note something that will sound odd at first but then make sense.

    NEVER GIVE YOUR *FOCUSED* SUMMONED PET A CLOAK.

    WHAT? why you ask? When you summon a pet while wearing a pet focus, it is created with a clock on it that increases its power in relation to the focus your wearing. This is how it works behind the scenes, so if you hand your focused pet a cloak, it will lose everything but the (possible) level increase. (not all focuses result in a higher level pet, especially early on in the game)

    Some more notes: Yes, after you summon your pet you could un-equip the focus item if you had something much better to wear in that slot. Summoning focuses DO NOT STACK. So you if you had both Minion of Darkness and Minion of Eternity focuses on your gear, only the stronger one would take effect. (In this case, Eternity)
    Gyurika Godofwar and Stymie like this.
  6. Randomized Augur

    Pet Focus technically enhances your pet - some times via levels, but mostly through their defensives means (meaning they can take more of a beating than they did before).

    Most pet focus items come on gear, so it's passive. As long as it's equipped, it will work when you cast your "summon pet" spells.

    Some items can be bought that are a one time use (gives you a buff until you summon a pet).

    Pet focuses come in a lot of different "tiers" if you will. I, II, III, IV all the way up to I think XXXII (which is current content raid, i may be off on the number, but you get the point). A tier is only good up to a certain level.

    So I think EM18 (Enhanced Minion - pet focus), is good for levels 100-110. If summoning a pet above level 110, EM18 will no longer affect your pet.

    Disclaimer, numbers may be off, just used for explanation.
  7. Gialana Augur

    The others have given great information. In addition, when your pet dies or you dismiss it, it loses any gear/weapons you've given it. If you die, your pet also dies. When you summon a new pet, you'll have to give it a new set of weapons and armor in order for it to function the same as your previous pet of the same type.

    Magicians can summon many items that have focus effects. If you hold down right mouse click on the item, it will bring up the item window. Toward the bottom of the window, and you may have to scroll down, it lists what the focus is, what it does, and what levels it's good for. For instance, here's a screen shot of one item that magicians can summon. If you have it equipped while you cast a buff, the duration of the buff will be extended by 15% as long as the spell level is 60 or less.

    [IMG]

    Other items will increase the duration of detrimental spells. Some will increase the damage done by spells, and sometimes they will only affect one type of magic (fire, cold, magic, etc.). For all of them, you have to have the item equipped before you cast the spell in order for the spell to be focused.

    These items are temporary since they can be summoned on demand. That's the tradeoff. Even though pet armor and weapons are temporary, your pet won't lose them when you camp. If, however, the items are in your inventory, they will disappear after you've been camped for 30 minutes.

    Whether or not the items are worthless will be something you'll have to decide. I personally never bothered with them since I didn't want to summon them every time I logged in. Also, defiant (defiant cloth for magicians) armor has most of the important focuses, and it's not flagged temporary.

    There's also no point in stacking like focus items; only the best has any effect. So if wear an item that has 15% damage bonus to fire spells and another that has 25% damage bonus to fire spells, you'll only get the 25% bonus.
  8. Sweety D Journeyman

    THANK YOU!!! You all have no idea how much this helps.

    Each of you are so kind to take the time to give me detailed answers, and to be honest, this is what I like about EQ most... The community! The players are so helpful.

    I may be a Mage by night, but I am a software engineer by day. And I always say an online cooperative experience is only as good as it's development team and users (players). And, EQ has the best of both.

    Just as an FYI I am playing current content, not TLP. I am on the Bertoxxulous server.
    skattabrainz and Stymie like this.
  9. Visitor Augur

    Focus items have value, but, at 51, what you really could use is a family type guild. Leveling to 60 is almost a gimme, what with merc assistance and some defiant gear. The thing is that EQ has several dozen expansions, and so many options to gain levels. With best buffs on you and your pet, you become very hard to kill, unless you get to many mobs on agro. Changes have been made to make it a lot easier- faster to level in the lower levels, with good buffs lower characters can handle several yellow mobs, but later, most folk need help with yellow mobs (or reds).
    You did not mention which server you play on, but, most servers have helpful guilds that members will try to advise. a visit to the guild lobby off Plane of Knowledge, are boards that you can see who is inviting to family type guilds (as opposed to High end Raid guilds). Info on pet Focus, the previously mention Cloak has a melee mitigation equal to the EM value, so EM1 means 1% less damage taken, best raid Focus atm, is EM29, so pet takes 29% less damage from hits. There are other focus, extended range, reduced mana cost, etc. Also as you level up, the range of higher buffs that will stack on you and pet rises,-- A 72 character can get level 115 buffs, making them almost mind blowing powerful against mobs of level.
    Keep grinding, find some friends or at least friendlies.
    Stymie likes this.
  10. Stymie Pendragon

    I never heard or read that EM level determines the percentage of incoming damage equal to it's number. Are you sure about that? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe it works that way. Do you have a link because a quick Google search turned up nothing.
  11. Visitor Augur

    The item is called Cloak of Enhancement, it is possible to look them up on Zam. The Process that players used to get a look at them involves separating the pet from its owner and killing it as mob so that the cloak shows as loot.
    Or so i understand.
  12. Randomized Augur

    Much easier way to do it is take off EM item, summon pet, attack pet and parse damage over X amount of time
    Dismiss pet
    Put EM item back on, summon pet again, and attack pet for same amount of time and parse

    Compare parses. Still don’t think EM# = damage reduction % though. Would seem much too easy and overpowered
  13. Visitor Augur

    There are also other stats on the cloaks, fortunately others have gained and posted on Zam.
  14. Zanarnar Augur

    https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=114230
    Cloak of Enhancement XX

    MAGIC ITEM TEMPORARY
    Slot: BACK
    STR: 0+82 DEX: 0+2 STA: 0+45 WIS: 0+45 INT: 0+45 AGI: 0+45
    Attack: +40 HP Regen +127 Mana Regeneration: +102 Endurance Regeneration +102
    Effect: Innate Defense XX (Worn, Casting Time: Instant)
    WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
    Class: ALL
    Race: NONE

    The worn effect is: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=40659
    1: Increase Melee Mitigation by 20%

    I just picked one at random but you get the idea.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Stymie like this.
  15. Stymie Pendragon

    I stand corrected! It's always nice to learn new things:)
  16. Accipiter Old Timer


    That's easier? :confused: