Mage pet EM focus question

I made a conflagrant earring for my mage when he dinged 106, so he got EM18 with that earring. That was a huge upgrade for him.

He's been higher than 111 for a while now, but I had not noticed the earring stops focusing his pets past level 110, which really surprised me. I thought pet foci usually worked til the quintet past where they came out (i.e. 106 would focus to 115).

So, now I need another pet focus already, and I don't really know where the easier ones to get are located. Usually I pick this up from the forums or chat. I know I can do a click-fest on Zam and figure it out (kinda), but I thought maybe someone could point me in the right direction.

Looking more for easy to get (scrub ), versus higher EM tier. I just want one that works for his current pet (so, up to 115). And then, of course, he'll ding higher to 116 in a couple months, so if it works to 120, even better.

Look at the link under EM18
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/search.html?q=Enhanced Minion X
EM18 (conflagrant) does stop at 110 pet.

At lvl 111 you choices are:
Earring of Telotaxis (drop in Mearats, EM21, prestige)
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=134014

Summoner's Trinket of Insecurity (GMM drop, EM21,prestige)
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=134970

Summoner's Secret Dawn Earring (needs TBL uninhabited muhby, tradeskilled, prestige, EM21)
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=133823

Shivery Earring of Summoning (ToV named, EM21, non-prestige, attunable)
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=136834

Yellow Crescent of Yeuof (named in CS CoV, EM22, non-prestige)
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=139746

I did not include raid earrings, and EM 20

Thanks.

Unfortunately, all those are probably out of my range right now. Perhaps the GMM one. Haven't spent any time there at all.

Oh well, unfocused pets for the (weak) win

Shivery Earring of Summoning is an attunable gear, can be bought at bazaar (300-400K on BB, dunno about other servers)
And a solo mage lvl 111 is not going to progress far. And a group lvl 111 can handle a GMM named.
Just go for it.

Not solo, I three box. I'm just not very good

I make plat slow enough that I probably wouldn't spend 300k on an earring (unless the pet focus is still good to 120, then perhaps).

I will check out GMM with my group, hopefully that gets me some results!

Just checked, they're both only good til 115, so I'll likely just skip it, since I'll ding 116 in December anyway.

Sometimes I really hate how they itemize this game.

Historically the largest gap between an unfocused and focused pet was the lack of a Cloak of Enhancement on unfocused pets. ToV (111+) unfocused pets actually come summoned with Cloak of Enhancement XIX. Therefore, the unfocused pets aren't nearly as bad as they have been historically.

The lowest EM level that will work at level 120 will be EM 22.

what server are you on, Tatanka? if you've made it to 115, the Crystallized Velium Ore for Summoner's Velium Infused Earring (EM22) ought to be very easy to source

Sancus, thanks, that's good to know. As I said, I was surprised to learn that my pet wasn't getting focused, because when I would run parses, the damage was actually pretty good.

Knowing this now, I'll not worry about it til the new expac comes out, and see what becomes available.

Made it to 115 using Overseer

Haven't even done anything in TBL or ToV, yet!

This is great news! I had no idea even after all these years. Wow. Great news for BST, MAGE, and NECRO.

Can I be sure though that SK and say Shaman pets do NOT COME equiped AT ALL (even in COV) with any BACK item? I keep giving my SK pet and Shaman pet whatever back item I can make or find or buy that is just trash but is still better than nothing. I hope that is correct? Cheers.

I was under the impression that Shaman, SK, Druid (non pet defined classes) pets came completely naked

Enchanter, Shaman, and SK pets come summoned with Cloak of Enhancements as well. It looks like the Rk. II ToV pets come with Cloak of Enhancement XXIV and the Rk. III ToV pets come with Cloak of Enhancement XXV.

Holy crap on a stick! Again I always thought the Enchanter, shaman and SK pets were naked little things upon summon. Now I feel stupid for throwing in some back item on them and negating the Cloak of Enhancement. I will need to test this out.

Was this ONLY as of COV? I had noted back in Ring of Scale when we got to level 110, the SK pet (Rank II at least), conned an even 110 to my then 110 SK and then the Enchanter pet also conned 110 to my then 110 Enchanter. The Shaman pet was always light blue. For the SK pet and Enchanter pet I noticed quite a bit of difference in survivability vs older expansions and attributed this to it just being a higher level.

By the way, was this ever announced or how the heck did you figure this out?
Anyhow thank you for this information!

I don't know when non-EM pets first received Cloak of Enhancements, but it's been the case at least since RoS. At ToV launch, Enchanter pets did not have a Cloak of Enhancement, which was fixed about nine months later. I can confirm that the level 98 SK Rk. II pet does have a Cloak of Enhancement VIII currently, but I don't know if that change was retroactive or not. I did not test the others.

You can determine what EM cloak your pet has equipped via testing because each cloak comes with an Innate Defense buff that provides mitigation equal to its rank (e.g. Cloak of Enhancement XXV has a 25% mitigation buff).

I tested against "a jungle crawler" in Feerrott, the Dream, here are some values:

vs 41% Shielding, 0% SPA 168 PC:
DI 1 = 758, DI 2 = 931
DI = 931 - 758 = 173
DB = 758 - 173 = 585; pre-shielding DB = 585 / (1 - 41%) = 991

vs 35% Shielding, 8% SPA 168 lvl 98 SK Pet:
DI 1 = 805, DI 2 = 964
DI = 964 - 805 = 159; (173 - 159) / 173 = 8%
DB = 991 - (991 * 35%) = 645; 645 + 159 = 804 (one off b/c truncation)

vs 35% Shielding, 24% SPA 168 lvl 113 SK/Shm/Enc Rk. II Pet:
DI 1 = 777, DI 2 = 908
DI = 908 - 777 = 131; (173 - 131) / 173 = 24%
DB = 991 - (991 * 35%) = 645; 645 + 131 = 776 (one off b/c truncation)

vs 35% Shielding, 25% SPA 168 lvl 113 SK/Shm/Enc Rk. III Pet:
DI 1 = 775; DI 2 = 905
DI = 905 - 775 = 130; (173 - 130) / 173 = 25%
DB = 991 - (991 * 35%) = 645; 645 + 130 = 775

Edit: The level 98 SK pet has a Cloak of Enhancement VIII (8), not XIII. Roman numerals are hard.