Importance of Mage toys for Necro pet at 115 on live…

How important are pet weapons and armor?

I main a 115 necro (maxed AAs with all expansions) on live and also have a 115 mage (autogrant only with only TOV). I really never notice a DPS or survivability difference when I have full mage summoned armor, focus, and weapons.

So I have just quit going through the process of reequiping my necro tank pet every time he dies… and he dies a lot.

Should I rethink this strategy?

I've never seen this kind of question answered with parses in modern EQ, so if anyone has done the work I'd love to see it!

Minimum haste mask and weapons will help dps. If necro isnt tanking, should be using the rogue pet, or even if it is people say rogue is strong enough to tank most content. The effect of the additional AC and HP may be largely higher at the early game than the late game once everything is maxed, maybe debatable.

Are you keeping pet focus ear equipped on both characters (and EM for the right pet spell casting level range)?

I have the 115 minimum EM earring. Can’t remember which one but I think from either CoV or ToL so I should be good right?

If your pet dies alot you might be doing something wrong tbh.

But mage gear helps pet survivability tremendously and the DPS from the proc swords is nothing to laugh at....assuming you have all the pet AAs at your level btw.

Yeah, I recently got a lot better with using a combo of rune spells/AAs to help with survivability and same goes for FD at the last minute. I’m moloing in ToL at 115 so mostly yellow cons. They can eat through my pet quick if I’m slow to the punch.

The spell data for EM has a level range for the spell level cast not of the pet itself or the item level. They are usually good for at least +1 level increase expansion from the level they were introduced at though so that ones fine I expect (for group, raid has a higher level range).
https://www.raidloot.com/spells?name=Enhanced Minion&effect=&class=&level=&view=

Rune spells are critical especially when going against higher cons. Also maintaining 1v1 fights, pets mitigate decently against 1 mob, but 2 will eat through def unless you are pumping heals and runes.

I don't know how much difference it actually makes and I didn't used to think it mattered too much, but during TBL, my ENC pet could not tank the chase loot mission single mobs reliably without pet armor. It could tank but eventually there would be a point where a bad round or the cleric merc getting behind and it would go down. However with full mage gear, I could rely on my pet against singles.

I agree with Deux. If your pet is dying a lot, chances are you're doing something wrong. Fluffy dies when Vrinda dies unless it's to a raid AE.

Remember that pets are NPCs and handle AC differently than the equivalent AC would work on a PC character. I will always take the highest AC and EM I can get for my pet, and that includes mage summoned armor. If you expect your pet to be tanking yellow con mobs, cast a fresh AA rune and Cascading -whatever- Shield before you engage each new mob, then reapply as needed.

Assuming you're using a cleric merc, be sure you've got the current level range Promised heal blocked and probably the group heal over time, as well. If you let the merc deal with it, it'll cast a Promised heal first, then usually a heal over time, and finally an actual heal worthy of the occasion. If your pet is taking damage from a yellow con mob, ain't nobody got time for that.

As for haste mask and pet weapons: yes, please! Your necro is the actual dps in the room, but those weapon procs add up, too.

Wait! The chase items drop more frequently in missions? I just assumed it was a super rare drop from any mob in expansion…

Man, I really struggle with the blocking spell thing. I really think I just delete them all and restart from the beginning. Since I have been blocking spells since level 50. Does anyone have a list of 116 ToL era spells I should block?

Just a bit curious here..... I've read some over the years that people will use fairly decent armor drops for their pets (like the current or recent T1 group armor, etc). Does this make a big difference over the mage summoned gear?

The balance is; if the enemy is strong enough that the extra gear is needed; odds are me or pet will die enough that the extra gear gets lost anyway.

I've also been instructed not to give proc weapons to pets on raids, because the added lag from the procs lowers total raid DPS...

But the Fero on "Dimensional Warrior Greaves" http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=41215 does increase DPS.

Yes but is the difference worth the cost of making some armor like Dimensional that you can lose on a bug or if you die vs highest level mage gear? imo no

The CotF pants along with the crafted CotF belt increase my lvl 116 Enchanter pet's (max aa) DPS by 40%. That plus the mage summoned weapons and he goes from 50k dps to 100k on a Shei mission.

If you are looking to max your DPS I can think of a hundred less effective ways to boost DPS that people spend much more time on.

I am sure there is more effective combinations of gear but that is really cheap and effective. With mats I had from overseer I made 100 pants and 100 belts in a few minutes and store them on a mule on a FTP account to pass out.

Judging from your avatar, I suspect your mage dies way more often than my necro does. That said, mage pets are more powerful than necro pets, and above a certain level they also come with gear (not weapons) preinstalled. For a few months I tried giving my pet either tradeskilled armor or the armor drops you're referring to, but found it was more bother than I was willing to deal with in exchange for the return. If it works for you, however, by all means do it! The object, after all, is to have the mob's HPs run out before your dps does. It's just more convenient for me to have a compressed pack of mage-summoned gear in inventory or housing storage than it is to keep track of individual armor drops.

I question whether or not added lag from pet weapon procs is enough to lower total raid DPS, but arguing with your raid leader over it is probably not wise. Events that force the entire raid into a small area, auras that damage everyone in sight every few seconds, splash/rain/group heals being required to counter those first two design choices - those are the things that caused me to lag horribly. Sometimes I'd lag from engage to event end, and other times the same event would be smooth as silk. I have theories, but no proof, and if I had proof, the devs would no doubt want me to share it with them.

For my pet, I focus on blocking the things that are actively harmful (like Promised heals) and ignore the rest. The only real damage from 17 kinds of spell haste on my pet is that they keep me from identifying the buffs I want that are missing. I also usually have druid skin blocked on my pet because mercs don't cast the cleric AC buff that goes with symbol. Better for me to just get a five hour cleric buff in the PoK lag pile than to have that AC buff drop and for me not to notice it.

Do you know the comparison when using summoned items instead of crafted?

I did it a while ago but don't have the numbers anymore. I'll run some parses next time I'm on.

I think you are thinking about ice encrusted, blood soaked, etc. I am talking about the TBL evolvers. Sorry for any confusion.