Are there any current guides (level 110) about mage pets ? Buffs, heals, swarm, etc...Trying to work maximum my level pet usage while keeping pet alive.
Mostly grouping or boxing and would like to be able to pet tank sometimes. I was able to pet tank quite a bit in RoS using EM24 air pet, but have struggled since working on TBL content using earth pet.
All pet AA's maxed? Including theft of essence? Primary Buffs: Burnout, either Iceflame Keep or Maloseniac Eminence(I'm lazy and use ME), Arcane Distillect, Velocity always Merc Buffs: If solo, Assurance, Vie, always Secondary Buffs: Aegis of Zeklor, Auspice of Esianti, as needed AA Buffs: Second Wind always, Fortify Companion as needed, Host in the Shell when Vie drops, Aegis as needed For Burns: Frenzied Burnout, Robe Click For Heals: Usually I let merc heal, but occasionally I supplement this with either Renewal or Promised, or toss an aegis/auspice in an "oh S***" moment. For buffs: Trigger Theft of Essence by casting Volley, or vs summoned spell. You can also trigger this by casting on your pet, pre-fight. Self buff: I use Elemental Earth form, so that my nukes proc a rune on entire group. Thaumaturge AA: Casts Chaotic Munificence, which procs a pet heal when nuking Sometimes, I toggle pet taunt off, and let reckless swarm pets do the tanking, then toggle it back on if my aggro gets too high. If fighting multiples, spam reckless swarm pets on add, taunt on pet. I'm sure I'm missing other things, but I can sustainably fight 2 mobs at once using this strategy. 3 is hairy in TBL though... It can be done, I just don't like it if I can avoid it. You just want pet higher on the agro list than healer, but to swarm off tank. This is a bit crude, so feel free to add to this. (I use Earth pet. If I know I'm only doing singles, Water works fine too, but the damage 'swings' are a little higher)
Mage pet tanking in TBL will work. But, there are a couple things you should be prepared for. The earth pet has a large HP pool and less avoidance than air. Healing is therefore super important. Be proactive on your box healers, not reactive. Having a couple merc healers will help, but won't guarantee any survival. Prebuff the mage pet tank for any difficult encounters. I throw everything on pet i can before named. Since i box, this allows me to focus on dps and healing during the fight. It also tends to shorten the fight overall. Be prepared for rough times when pet fort runs out. Be prepared to pet swap when it goes down. Your backup should be fully buffed. I also keep summon earth pet on my bar permanently in TBL.
Thanks for all the helpful information! This is exactly the type of stuff I was needing. - My pet AA’s are max except for fury and theft of essence. I will need to get those maxed. - I wasn’t using some of the AA buffs so using those should help too! - Good information on using pet and swarm pets. I need to work on balancing agro.
My advice was primarily for molo'ing, with a group or boxing you can do even more. In a group, you probably have to toggle taunt on, though.
TBL pet tanking is more problematic because so many of the mobs have AoE abilities that cause chaos on your healer mercs or just flat out kill them. With a real healer its no prob usually. Short of that, use group COH during fights to reposition mercs out of frontal AoEs and PBAEs that they are too dumb to avoid. If you are looking for pure exp, I still recommend RoS.
