So I just got my 25.5lvl pet buff (Boon Of The Lifeless), have the Adept I so happily scribe that and try it out. I'd read on the boards that it stacks with Agitation so I wanted to do some testing of my own. After some messing around with the spell it seemed as though when I was running both Agitation (also Adept I, although green now at 26) and Boon of Lifeless stacked that my pet was acting more like it had just Agitation on it. The proc that Boon Of The Lifeless generates (can't remember the name, Soul Claw?) with the red glow effect only seemed to be tried by my pet (Adept3 UA) when it was under the influence of Boon Of The Void alone. When I stacked the two I was only getting disease attacks and Dynasism from my pet. Admittedly I haven't tested this all that much inside out but was wondering if anyone else had similar results. With both Agitation and Boon running my power drains away at a fairly decent rate during battle so I'm also looking to retire Agitation unless it really is of worthy benefit in the stack line. Message Edited by Amiboshi on 12-09-2004 06:47 PM
I think like most spells you wont see much obvious effect till the spells are a bit higher lvl. With adept III agitiation and adept I boon the results are pretty clear. Agitation as it is a low level spell will continue to become of less importance but at 26 I can still see the results of using it vs not. Im sure by the time I reach 30 my fighter pet will have the hp and defense/offense where agitation would just be a minor tweek ..at least unless I find a master book for it then I could see its continued value for another few levels. M
I'm now fairly certain that stacking Agitation and Boon Of The Lifeless is a waste of time and mana. After playing around with Earthy Brand (Adept I) and Mark Of Miasmic (App2) I discovered that even though they "stack" as well (in that you get icons for each spell, instead of one overriding the other on the spell listings). The problem is that the benefits don't really stack, as you don't get two intelligence boosts, just cold boost from earthly, and disease boost from Mark. Whichever spell has the higher intelligence boost wins (Mark Of The Miasmic app2 beats Adept I Earthly). Mark of Miasmic gives me two more int then Earthly Brand so no point in casting it anymore, and I'm sure that Adept I Boon Of The Lifeless gives better defense/power boost to my pet then App3 Agitation. Definetly no point in running two "constant power drain" spells tandem if there are no extra benefits to the pet. Just an FYI, let me know if you come up with different results but at 26 Earthly Brand is retired (unless I need some cold resist) and Agitation as well. Message Edited by Amiboshi on 12-11-2004 01:25 PM
Other than in situations that need water breathing at 26 there is nothing else that uses the extra concentation slot so I generaly keep the other buff up anyway. As far as pets go ... there's no real evidence one way or the other wether there is a benifit to keeping both up. We dont know for sure if they do the exact same thing, so I use both (when soloing at least) the power use its pretty minor and easily recovered anyway. In a few more levels it wont matter much as the spells will be so low as to be worthless anway, but for now it doesnt hurt. In groups our pet buffs and group buffs dont matter much anyway so is a non-issue. M
Favor of the fallen Mark of the miasmic Magi's shielding Earthly brand pet So nope, no conc slot open. I was saying if I drop earthly brand because you dont get the int buff from it then you have a conc slot open. So you may as well keep it up for the cold defense. Unless you need to have unliving eyes up or something, then I drop it. Until you get another buff worth replacing it permanently with of course. M
