Sancus is right, but I would add unless you are soloing you will have a hard time justifying using anything other than the Water Pet. Situationally, you can use other ones from time to time. For example...Air Pet - I use 6 air pets to do the OMM Vox raid.
I feel the need to point out that there is a HUGE difference between raid and group focus pets. With group gear, water pet requires someone else tanking. Unless of course your fighting old content. Otherwise assume air pet and possibly earth on named.
That's true, the Necro rogue pet has almost 500k more hps with EM31 than it does with EM23. The mage water pet is even more.
depend what era your in.. i love my fire pet at level 60 for soloing light blues. DPS is not close to water. Use it exclusively for grinding AA in Velks - luclin era. (not viable without luclin heals) my lvl 60 oakwynd mage has 500 aa now, mostly from soloing velks with a fire pet.
I box mage. For a period I had ENC, CLR, MAG so my MAG pet was my tank. Now I box ENC, SHD, DRU, MAG, so my MAG pet is my backup. As a Mag box, I have much more limited experience with MAG than people who main it. With that said, this is what I do. I full time have a water pet out even when it's the tank (because DPS is king) BUT I have an earth pet in the pocket. The pocket pet doesn't lose its buff timers. That pocket earth pet has Pet fort, fury, Aegis, IDA and sometimes even full spell shielding. I full time the water pet and if it dies the earth pet steps in immediately. MAG has a AA melee rune so you can even go as far has hotkeying a swap that uses those AA defensives and uses suspend minion to get that pet out. You can't use suspend minion while your water pet is in combat but you can un-suspend your earth pet once your water pet is dead. Yes. The Swarm pet kill command is super important. The swarm pets are the biggest problem for tanks. I think a lot of people are down for hitting stop and back but it's the qswarm that is actually causing all the chaos. Need to kill those swarm pets off when the tank needs a move.
Please clarify your focus for others reading. Up until the current expansion, mages with a raid focus are practically playing a different class than mages with a group focus.
I find earth pet doesn't aggro as fast as air. Air tanks way better than water. My spell DPS is waaay more than pet DPS. 121 Air pet (EM30) wearing a full suit of conflagrant with nice pieces in all other slots can tank 3-4 mobs easily in LS with a merc healer where water would be eaten, and earth couldn't reliably hold aggro. So my choice is Air, gear it well, try not to die.
I know this an old thread, but somebody needs to provide actual correct information. So here goes... Magician pets have always been designed as situational. You use the best one for the situation your in.. 1) Fire pet has always been for soloing with taunt on and tanking. It has a MASSIVE self casted DS, decent hps, low melee dps (Because of massive self DS) some upper levels the pet is perma rooted except to follow you, and cannot run over to the mob when you tell it to, but does have ranged spell damage. This pet is the King of soloing as a mage. (Self healing and running mobs not withstanding) 2) Air pet is strictly for stunning caster mobs that Heal and Gate. lowest dps, lowest hps. This pet is used in Group situations as all Raid mobs are immune to stun far as I know. 3) Water pet is the highest DPS pet. Decent hps. This pet is for Raiding, and anytime max dps is desired in a group setting. 4) Earth pet is the best Tank. Highest hps, good dps. Most often used pet (Especially at low levels under 60+) for fighting mobs that run at low health both solo and in group content. (Godly in level appropriate dungeons where the pet proc lands root, think Lguk, Seb etc and running mobs training your group). Examples: Lguk group has no driud, rngr, brd, or sk/nec (No snare class) Earth pet for root. Lguk group has snare class player, use air or water pet, probably air for stunning healing mobs. Lguk group has snare class and paly/active clrc, or Enc, (stun classes) water pet for dps. Lguk group has no tank class, earth pet as MT with taunt on. Soloing in any outdoor zone, and/or mobs that don't flee at low health, Fire pet all day. Raiding any raid mob, water pet. Exceptions for off tanking adds with Earth pet instead. Group has all things covered, water pet. Most of the responses here reflect what I'm saying, some added some wrong info, but nobody really came out and said what pet is for what situation, yall mainly said "I use x pet for z" or "dps > all". Magician pets are and always have been situation, use your critical thinking skills folks.
The OP specifically stated he's 117. The fire pet becomes a caster starting in Kunark at which point it becomes an extremely niche pet. Kunark is also when the water pet starts backstabbing, making it a much more dps focused pet. Kunark is also when you get your epic pet. So, the window where you might consider using a fire pet as your main pet is basically limited to a vanilla TLP launch.
The best answer is to use suspend companion. Do this... Summon an earth pet in the GH, hit all of your offensive / defensive pet AA, buff / gear it, suspend it. Then summon water pet, use the water pet. If the water pet dies, hit your personal AA defensive runes because you're about to be summoned, un-suspend the earth pet and send it in. The defensive pet AA do not wear off while in the pocket, so your earth pet will have those running regardless of if you burned them already or if not you can let them fade and then use them a second time. This maximizes DPS at all times with a ready to go Plan B tank. Yes, you could have a water in the pocket but if the water pet can handle the job, why is it dead? The occurrences where you need air or fire are too rare to worry about generally.
How pets operate from 1-50 isn't representative of how they function in the 30 expansions that follow. There's barely any stat or dps differentiation between pets in that range so you're exclusively looking at their unique abilities: Air -> ~2.5 stuns per minute, unreliable for interrupts and not a significant source of damage mitigation, but the best group pet when not pet-tanking as it at least contributes *something* Earth -> easily broken root, not a replacement for snare, detrimental to groups if the pet isn't being properly controlled, some use cases when soloing Fire -> 43pt self DS vs 25pt casted DS, not a massive source of damage even in classic but better than the alternatives if pet tanking Water -> n/a
Since we're in LS now my pet team makeup has changed a little. (4 mages and 1 enchanter) I use 2 air pets and 2 water pets. (EM 32,31,31,30) I put taunt on both air pets. With taunt on, both my air pets bounce around a lot in the mobs target window. I use the air pet now over the earth because the air has better aggro and DPS. Plus with an EM 32 the pet seldom, if ever, gets into any trouble. I would use the earth for my group's tank if the air pet had issues, but it doesn't. It never dies. The one thing to remember if you're using a pet as your tank. The idea is for the pet to survive and keep you and your group alive. It's not about having the most DPS possible for your pet tank. It stays alive, you win. Your pet dies, you either gate or die, you lose. The air pet for me, does a great job, so it stays. Victory is King.
If you're just doing a one-off mission for progression and want to reduce variables, then do whatever works for you. Most of the time you're either grinding or farming, in which case kill rate matters. Water pet generally tanks that content just fine while also providing significant dps. Obviously you can still do that content with an air or earth pet and if that makes your setup feel more consistent then go for it, but clearly it's not ideal to trade dps (which is always beneficial) for additional tankage (which is situationally beneficial) when then content doesn't require it.
