[DoD+] The Raging Servant line of pets.

Dear TLP mages, here a new paper at the old mage class forums about our beloved gargoyle pet which changed our life starting with the DoD expansion :

The Raging Servant line of pets (spells).

/wave

Adon

Nice write up thanks for sharing

Sure would be amazing to have lower level versions of this spell added, although I guess it's moot since it would just transfer all the aggro to the mage on Motm targets.

Will they ever un-**** mages for early era raids? Sigh.

Actually there is, kind of, a lower version of this spell since DBG changed in May 2017 the way two Kunark specific pets, Rage of Zomm and Dyzil's Deafening Decoy, work. They flagged them 'swarm pet' -which they were not for seventeen years- so that you can have them up in addition to your regular pet. You can even use them both at once and technically have three pets up, starting in Kunark era.

Of course, they are less powerful as the Raging Servant line, but they do the job, I was nicely surprised when I tested them after the patch which turned them into swarm pets. DDD has quite some hitpoints (3kish) and can intercept and hold a mob quite well. Try them out on the new servers when these hit Kunark and tell us your stories

This is very nice, thank you. Have you parsed/played with Servant of Ro lately? Some of the revamps they have done to that line have made it very nice dps and an excellent compliment to RS on burns or "oh crap" moments.

Thank you Played yes, parsed no, because I have not finished all my dps AAs and am atm working on ... Servant of Ro, have 2 more ranks to finish the line. Therefore it was meaningless to parse an unmaxxed Servant of Ro. You could parse it yourself very easily, just need to watch the direct damage (spell damage) done by "Soandso's pet", the few points the gargoyle -which is also "Soandso's pet"- does at launch of the spell won't change the non-melee parse. Also the flat values make it easy to parse if there is any filtering needed.

However, the revamp of it is a 100% win-win :
- the bolt fires off every 3 seconds for the entire duration of its lifespawn for significant damage (>3500 at max level in SoF) ;
- the revamped bolt has an inbuilt -100 fire resist modifier ;
- the drake will be your level at maxed AAs, combined with the resist modifier it means the boll will land often if not everytime on a maloed named ;
- the drake will not melee anymore for 1 to 4 instead of casting its bolt if in melee range (lol) ;
- the drake has now some hitpoints and will not poof on first aoe.

Only benefits !

[NOTE] I just finished the Servant of Ro AA line for the SoF era. The bolt makes 3900 damage and the drake is level 81 !

Raging Servant is your best DPS spell regardless of situation. You should be casting it even when you do not have a Gift of Mana proc. Maximizing uptime on these pets by standing close to the target to minimize their travel time will also increase your DPS.

If your goal is Raid DPS on a Mage, you want to maximize the Companion's Fury and Extended Swarm AA lines, followed by your nukes. Servant of Ro did recently receive a nice buff, but it's damage pales in comparison overall.

I haven't really felt the need to utilize the Pet Stop mechanic as described in this guide. Allowing pets to get into Frenzy by low health is beneficial for overall DPS as well.

I agree with Gladiatoreq (Ave, Firionae, grindotari te salutant !), however Servant of Ro cannot be compared to the Servant line of spells because ... it is not a spell. It'as a "burn AA" with a refresh timer meant to be used on bosses and nameds or in crisis situations, whereas the gargoyle is used all the time. As for its dps, we can do the maths quite simply, if no resists the dps would be 3900 x (45:3)/45 = 1300, meaning the AA gives the mage an additional 1300 dps during 45 seconds only, so the longer the fight, the lower the sdps will be of course.

As for Pet Stop it is meant to be used on very hard hitters where the issue is not dps but survivability. We want indeed the gargoyle to enrage because its autoriposte will boost the dps considering the high hit values of the Raging Servant pets. Having the regular pet enraging is a bit risky for a margjnal increase in dps.