So my exp with a mage is begining game raiding on TLPs and such. I went back over to live and started leveling my 90 mage. I was always told the only pet I needed to worry about was the water one, it's the 2nd best tank, 2nd best DPS and a solid choice for everything. So I am about to hit 117 and get the water pet do I want to use that one over it? Then use the Earth pet when I get it for tanking and the water for everything else? And the fire pet is for raids because of the high DPS etc? How viable is using the fire pet on things like Klandicar, Shei, or doors where I position the pet on the mob or it's spawn point preflight?
Before you worry about which pet is optimal in every situation, I humbly implore you to learn when and where to use your /pet back off, /pet leave, /pet go away, /pet return, /pet stopfuknhittingthewrongmob keys/skills. Because lawd knows, these basics are not being used often enough... All love to the pet users tho. I luv em. Till I don't. Conq
Fire pet for style. Water pet for DPS. I haven't seen a recent breakdown on the effective HP of water vs air vs earth pet.
For tanking, Earth > Air > Water (note that air stuns, so it can perform better vs stunnable single targets than earth despite worse statistics). For DPS, Water > Air > Earth. Fire pet is a strictly inferior option in all scenarios, particularly in raids.
if tanking earth pet with agro weaps 100% of the time. if dps with a real tank or in raid water with weaps best suited for the mobs.
You assume I don't know about this. I did raid with the mage up through 90 before I took an EQ break. But thank you anyways I figured as much. I leveled last night and the water pet took more damage noticably doing the T2 ToL. However it wasn't significant enough to shelf it for the Air one. It did however destroy the Air pet in DPS. I tried the fire pet I have, the one you get at 114 I think. Used it on Shei because you can set pets up before you start it. And it opened up on the DPS was pretty amazing the first 30% before it pulled agro and died in 2 hits lol. The fire pet might be viable but very situational.
I box 4 mages and this is my setup. I use the earth pet as my tank. It can handle multiples and rare mobs. It can can handle mission mobs with no trouble. It takes a tremendous beating that the other pets can not take. The key to EQ is the last one standing wins. The earth pet gives me the best chance. As for the other 3 mages. I use 2 water pets for DPS and the air pet for the stun component. When there's a new expansion with leveling, I'll use the air pet as my tank till the earth pet becomes available. As for the fire pet. Bag it, at this point it's an inferior pet.
Each pet type has innate high resistance to one particular element, notwithstanding the resists they inherit from the mage. This can be situation-ally important: Air = cold resist Earth = disease resist Water = poison resist Fire = fire resist Also the higher level (Vocarate+) fire pet is really a range DPS pet, which is situational in its own right (or wrong), and doesn't improve with AA and buffs all that much. The fire pet is basically flat ranged damage and hasn't scaled with AA like the other (melee) pets.
I don't know about level 117, but as of level 105 the water pet is doing twice the dps of air/earth and roughly 8 times the damage of a fire pet just nuking from a distance. Using anything else is highly situational. Air pet's stun just isn't really required anywhere and doesn't make up for the lost dps, earth pet you might use for a really hard hitting group named but even a single merc healer can effortlessly keep a water pet tank up in 99.9% of group content, and the fire pet would exclusively be for the rare raid encounter where a pet can't effectively melee due to damage shields or other mechanics.
The 117 water pet is the same. Using it over the air pet and my DPS doubles. I have been running some current content and then some of the older missions for exp and the pet tanks just fine. I figure i will keep and Earth one up with the suspend companion if there is a named that needs something a little stouter to tank. then swap them back when its over.
I haven't seen anything the water pet can't tank with a healer, so why would you use anything else? This is with EM31, but any decent EM water pet should be able to tank any group mob or boss. Maybe if you were getting several mobs at once, use the Earth pet?
From some analysis that uhm, Altinak? did recently, there are substantial survivability differences between group/raid EM that mirror the disparity in plate tank gear to the point where yeah, an EM31 water pet can tank named NoS mobs with a healer while the EM23 (or whatever the OP has) will get stomped. Sancus' post is the best advice. I'll add that mages should try using water whenever they can to maximize DPS, but don't be ashamed to just ride an air pet around until they get a nice EM earring.
Groupgeared: Airpet for tanking, if the waterpet can't take it, as long as you are sure that puller brings singles. If you expect multiple mobs, earthpet for tanking. Waterpet in any other case. Monster summoning with reclaim-clicky to fast regain mana, once you have alteast some of the aas. Suspend minion for your actual pet, chaincast highest monster summoning and reclaim until > 90% mana.
If you raid and have a nice EM earring this is the way to go, if you're a group geared player and stuck with a EM 25 or lower earring I would suggest work with them and see which one you like best at what you're doing..is pet MT or just DPS etc. If you're group geared there is no one size fits all
The one caveat about water being the be all/end all for all scenarios if you have a raid level focus is that while the pet can handle any single group mob, it's ability to tank multiple mobs is an issue. Yes you can RS off tank if you want the extra work involved with that... whereas an earth pet (or even air) can tank 2-3 mobs with much less stress and involvement. I prefer as a security blanket pet tank to use air over earth for the extra DPS that air provides. Having said that, earth is a better tank and it the ultimate security blanket for pet tanking. I used to use earth during TOV/COV because I felt air could not handle multiple tanking mobs. But in TOL/NOS air can handle all tanking responsibilities I ask of it. If I know I am going to have 1-2 mobs then I use water and just deal with the add, but if it is unknown I prefer air in the solo/duo game.
I agree with everything said on here, but I was soloing mobs in EW with water pet and merc but for whatever reason my 114 Earth pet has gotten smacked down multiple times. Is it something with the mobs in EW, I feel like the earth pet should be tanking them with ease. Also to mention sitting above 35k AAs. Just thought it was very strange.
I would find it helpful if player's who respond listed their: -EM item level (EM31 vs EM27 etc....) -how much achievements they have completed (those who have completed most previous expansion achievements will have a drastically easier time with all their max stats increased) -Tier of equipment they use and from which expansion -What equipment the pet is equipped with (do they use expensive crafted weapons vs summoned weapons) Sometimes I read responses in the forums and they make things sound easy. Wife and I go try what they said and it goes sideways due to the HUGE difference in power & survivability between the expert posters and us less accomplished players. Love the discussion though and appreciate everyone who takes the time to offer advice. Us who only pay a few months a year are terrible at remembering all the details. The experts who keep up with the game are the best source of information and all the nuance.
In the context of Mischief in Seeds of Destruction (lvl 85). I play 3 mages and a bard (with healer merc). I use 3x air pets in group settings and 3x water pets in raids. I'm not saying this is optimal but it does get the job done. I've wondered how much stun loss I am getting using 3 air pets since as far as I can tell they frequently fire off stuns at the same time. It might theoretically might be better with one earth pet with taunt on and 2x water with taunt off. But then again I tend to send out pets on various targets in addition to gargoyles when I get loads of adds. In which case, air pets all with taunt on seems really handy. Also, I'd mention with multiple pets all taunting you really get increased benefit from the iceflame buff procs. Since aggro is bouncing around there is more total hits absorbed by the 2 charges per proc. The extra damage from all water pets (group setting) does not seem worth it to me because max tier jolt of many dmg is smoking pet damage any way you slice it. Of course in any event you have an official tank use water.
Always tank with the highest DPS pet you can. No sense tanking with an Earth pet, if a water pet could tank whatever you are fighting. You are just giving up DPS. Water first choice, if that pet can't tank, then Air, if that pet is having issues, then Earth.
