I hear a lot about how uber the mage lvl 99 earth pet is, and i've seen it in action and witnessed how it can take more of a beating than a lvl 100 j5 tank merc, by a fairly solid margin. I know that mage pets are obviously the best, but i'm curious how far behind the other 2 pet classes pets lag behind. If you were comparing strict tanking capability, and with the necro using their 'tank' pet and a Bst using their 'tank' stance buff on their pet, how far behind the 99 earth pet are they? Are they both still better than a lvl 100 j5 tank merc? And between those 2 'lesser' pet classes(necro vs bst), which pet is tougher, and by how large of a margin? What about in damage output? I'll exclude the mage fire pet, as you can't easily compare it to the necro 'rogue' pet or a beastlords pet with it's 'damage' stance buff. But if you were to compare the Air or Water pet to the lvl 100 necro assasin pet, or the lvl 98 Bst pet, how far behind are they? Anyone have any idea of the standard max hits(non crit, just max regular hit) are for each of the 3 pet classes, with a readily available focus(twitching snood/EM12), at lvl 100?
You should care about average pet dps, including crits, procs, and spells, not the max hit. Max hit has no useful meaning without the rest of the context. For that matter, comparing pets by themselves, rather than the entire class, is also a mistake. There's also AA to consider....grab a beastlord and a mage with the same number of AA. The mage is likely to have focused on some AA's that improve pet defense, while the beast has likely focused on AA's that improve his own offense and defense, rather than the pet AA. And that's the way it should be...the classes use their pets completely differently most of the time.
Well, I know that the classes are whole entities and play vastly differently with different strengths. That's obvious. I'm not saying I would choose one class over another based solely on it's pet(If i was, the obvious answer would be mage). I'm just curious how the pets compare. There's plenty of resources to help me figure out the differences in spells, AA's, and overall playstyle of the 3 classes, but there is almost no information about the last 2 expansions worth of pets themselves. Specifically because I am rather aware of the strengths of Necro's and Beastlords, because I know which important utilities and survivabilty features they get, I am curious how much they 'pay for it' in the pet region. The reason I specifically asked about max non-crit hits is because that was something concrete I could gauge. I know it's not in itself a fair estimate of a pets overall average DPS. But I tried to ask the most specific questions as I possibly could, because if I asked a vague question like 'which pet has the best overall DPS', I know I'd just get people telling me I need to be more specific. Then when I'm specific, i get people telling me to be more broad
Otto, if you want a specific example, a necromancer in my group pet tanked Deathglider in Beasts' Domain at level 95 when my J5 mercenary could not hold up. Beastlord and especially mage pets with proper gear and focus are even sturdier.
I'm curious if a lvl 100 beastlord could pet tank most of the stuff that we hear about lvl 100 mages pet tanking. As I said, I know the bst pet will be weaker than the mages lvl 99 earth pet, but I'm trying to get an idea how big the difference is. Would the fact that BST's have slow and better pet heals make up for the difference in pet tanking ability between lvl 98 warder and lvl 99 earth pet? Or is the beastlord pet significantly weaker, to where it's not worth thinking too much about beastlord pet tanking anything relevant at level 100? And hows about necro pet tanking at lvl 100? And between BST and necro, which pet makes the sturdier tank at lvl 100? Are they both so far behind the earth pet, to where it's not even worth trying to pet tank anything at lvl 100? Or is the pet's toughness close enough that the BST or Necro can use their other spells and abilities(such as slows) to bridge the gap? I guess i'll take my previous question about pet max hit's/damage off the table, as I am well aware that with all 3 classes, their DPS styles are very different, and the percentage of their damage that comes from the pet is understandably different. I'll just see if I can get an answer about the pet tanking aspect.
My beastlord pet with http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=106744 ,and 2.0 effect, and offensive stance, and a ton of pet defensive aa's, tanks like a beast. That's all there is to say, he's a beast. Also, when beastial bloodrage is active, he crits for 6600+.
my "tank pet" does just fine against a decent amount of rof T2 named. again its all in the playstyle/gear/AA of each class that makes the difference. again as a necro when im concentrating to much on my pet im not focused solely on dps thus the balances change ... knowhutamean jellybean?
I haven't ever extensively parsed average pet dps between all the classes that can summon pets (not sure anyone has recently) I can say though as far as max hits go depending on mage pet type, mage pets with a group focus will hit around 1600-1800 max hit roughly, beastlord pets will hit for around 1400, necro pets (depending on pet) will hit around 1000-1200 max. As far as non pet classes that can summon permanent pets go: Enchanter (800ish) > shaman (650ish) > presumably sk and the rest.
So beastlord pets are a bit stronger than necro pets? I actually guessed it was gonna be the other way around. It seemed like historically, in the 1-60 game, necro pets were pretty close to mage pets, DPS wise, but weren't very good for tanking anything. But I guess if that is correct that necro pets are the 3rd tier of the 3 'true' pet classes, that is fair enough, as necros seem to have the biggest toolset, and sounds like they have the highest personal DPS. I have a shaman, which is my current main, and yeah, 650ish is about right(I think i see 652 with a rk2 version of the 97 pet)... I was surprised to see that the top SK pet actually hit slightly harder, just under 700. Both his and my pets were rk2. The difference might have been due to the fact that SK's get pretty solid pet haste buffs(which include about 17-18% damage bonus) at the top levels, where as the shamans pet generally just gets the shamans group buffs, which that SK pet also had.
The level 49 necro pet was pretty amazing, but through the 50s both necro and mage pets dropped considerably in relative power. At 61, the mage pet largely recovered (ignoring the mage epic 1.0, of course), but the necro pets became little more than another, weaker, dot. I'm not sure when the necro pets started to recover their relative strength.
Before starting this thread, I already had a lvl 93 beastlord, and was trying to decide between continuing him up to at least 98(the final BST pet level), or leveling up a necro. As I've implied earlier in the thread, I enjoy both classes playstyles and bag of tricks, so my biggest deciding factor was about which of the 2 classes had the better pet. Mostly as far as tanking goes. I ended up powerleveling up a necro over the past few days, he is now lvl 78. As i've been leveling him, each time I hit a new pet level(at least after lvl 60 or so), I've taken my necro and my beastlord to the combat test dummies in my guild hall. I took any pet focus items off both characters(to get an comparable base pet for both), and I would summon the beastlords pet that fit the appropriate 5 level tier that my necro was in. At each level rank so far, the necro *TANK* pet has outdamaged the beastlord pet by a healthy margin. Almost every parse ended up with the necro pet doing 55% of the total damage while the BST pet did 45%. I've tried these parses buffless, and with each classes respective pet haste buff. I was surprised to see that the necro pet generally held that 55% even on parses where the pets were buffed for the whole parse, as the beastlord pet hastes in these level ranges are 85% hastes, where as the necro pet haste remains only 70%. Necros finally get an 85% haste(matching what BST/MAG had for about 30-40 levels) at lvl 97. At each rank, the max non-crit hits for the necro tank pet were always a bit higher, around 2-5ish higher max hit. At the current rank, an unfocuses, unbuffed(no pet haste buff) lvl 77 necro tank pet has a max non crit of 145. The lvl 78 BST pet with the same criteria has a max hit of 141. With pet haste buffs, the necro goes up to 155, BST up to 150. I also did some parsing at the various ranks using the necro rogue pet(the 75 rogue vs the 73 bst pet), and in those cases, the parses showed the necro pet doing 60%ish of the total damage, with the beast pet doing 40%ish). But the parsing I did with the rogue pets was less extensive. When including the relevant level beastlord pet proc buff(which of course I know is fair to include, it's part of the beastlord overall pet package), the parsers were closer, and sometimes short term the beast would spike past the necro pet. But over 5 minute or so parses, the necro pet would win by a small margin. Usually 52% to 48%. It's worth noting that I could not get my parser to pick up the necro pets lifetap proc, which should also be considered just as fairly as the beastlord pet proc. I'm not sure what it hits for with my lvl 77 necro pet, I'm unsure if anyone has been able to document the exact numbers for the necro pet lifetap procs. But it did have a higher proc rate than the beastlord pet proc(which hits for 343 with the lvl 79 pet proc spell). I have not tested tanking ability yet, as that is harder to parse accurately. I'm hoping, that if the difference in dps follows through to difference in tanking ability(especially since necros get 2 pets at each 5 lvl rank, one that is intended to tank, one that is intended to melee dps), I will be pleased with the lvl 97 necro tank pet. TLDR; So, at least up to lvl 80, when speaking of pure damage output, necro pets are ahead of beastlord pets by a clear margin, with both necro tank pets and necro rogue pets.
A mage pet is intended to tank while the mage nukes, the Beast pet is intended to assist the beastlord in combat, and the necro pet is most often used for its superior backstab DPS. That said, the best of each class manage some amazing feats, that encourage average folk like me just work to become better.
For the parses up until level 80, no pet focus. It says that somewhere up in that wall of text, but i don't blame you for skimming. I used no pet focus because I didn't have 2 of the same one readily available, until level 80 where I had 2 of the EM5 earrings that drop at F2 Temples. It's worth noting that for those previous parses, the beastlord had significantly more pet crit/flurry AA. Also, to update the progress, my necro is now 87, and I just compared the 87 necro tank pet vs the 88 Bst pet. In this case, both focused with EM5 from the 'Chipped Shards of Dread' earring. The necro is also now pretty close to caught up with the beastlord, as far as pet AA's go. At this rank, the beastlord pet took a HUGE jump, where as the necro pet progressed to a more expected level. The BST pet max hit more than doubled from the 83 warder. The 83 warder had a max hit of 241, the 87 warder had a max hit of 502. The necro pet went from 248 max hit(82 tank pet) to 376 max hit with the 87 tank pet, which is a pleasant enough upgrade from one rank to the next, but no where near the jump the BST pet gets. The 5 minute parse ended up with the BST pet doing 53% of the total damage, and the necro pet doing 47%. I'm actually surprised the necro pet parsed that close to the BST pet. Perhaps necro pets have a higher innate chance of dual wield/double attack or something, or possibly higher ATK/Accuracy, as the necro pet got in more hits than the beastlord by a substantial margin, in the same time frame, in every parse, even though the BST version of pet haste has 15% more haste. So I guess my 'testing' over the past few days would show that 'historically' necro pets were above BST pets, but starting with the House of Thule expansion(86-90), BST pets jump clearly ahead of necro pets. This is kinda disappointing for me, as I've really enjoyed the necro playstyle and toolset, and was looking forward to utilizing that toolset alongside a beefy pet. I'll try to withhold full judgement until I hit 90, and can test the House of Thule era necro rogue pet. Perhaps that gets a bigger damage jump, and maybe the developers were trying to put a larger differentiation between the tank and rogue pets during HoT. As I've said previously, I'm more concerned with pet tanking than pet dps. The Necro himself is already getting some rather impressive personal DPS at level 87, so I won't be fussed if the pet's DPS falls behind. But I would be mildly disappointed if the pets tanking ability is considerably weaker than the beastlords.
Necro pets are quite solid as a tank at level 100, I dunno about at 90ish. I did see a necro tanking HoT at 91 with no problems whatsoever.
well I play a 100 mage and 100 bst, both are fully rof t2 geared, I also play cleric and wizard and box them all but anyways. I honestly use bst pet for all pet tanking, yes earth pet does tank slightly better, not a whole lot, but its better, but BST make up for it for the other defense AA's and heals. Xorbb group mission 2, bst pet is tanking the named whole time its active, yes and mage pet does just as good, but I don't have to worry about heals as much. I do the same thing in Chapterhouse group mission 2, BST tanks named. just make sure he is geared. as for dps, I think water pet and bst pet are pretty close. but overall man, they are all good pets, choose the class u like the play the most. end of story
Each tier will have differing results per class as each expo generally had dev favor towards one pet or the other. I'd say between the classes the closest they will and have ever been to each other is the 96+ ones. Necro pets have always been lacking but the 97 tank is just as sturdy as the mage/bst tanks albeit without some more tanky tools from the primary class. That said, on top of the tools mag/bst have, their pets also start proccing the 2hit dmg avoidance buffs which are invaluable for tanking - something I'm not aware of necro having. Personally, I've never been happier with all 3 pets - makes it difficult on which one to play!
even though they can, necro pets werent made to tank, necro pets were made for DPS, a true necro kites, a true necro pet massively backstabs your friendly mob in the back, being my main is a necro I am +1 in this knowledge -100 on spelling
