Workaround for 50% XP Penalty on Pet Damage?

[Lokked]

Regarding the xp penalty when your pet does >50% of the damage while solo, I recall from live, you could group with 1 person (perhaps another necro soloer) and stay far enough away from each other so as to not leech xp from each other's kills, and you would still receive "Party Experience", negating the XP Penalty. Is this valid for P99?

Lokked

PS. This also worked for getting the XP bonus due to being in a group, but in classic this was so small that it didn't matter, until they juiced it up in PoP, I believe (but then later nerfed it).

[Swish]

Yes, group with 1-5 others and the pet can do 100% of the damage for no penalty (often popular with a cleric/enchanter/charmed pet combo) :p

[Somekid123]

Not sure how it would work being separate in the same zones. There was a bug that was abused for quite sometime where you grouped with someone but in different zones and it disregarded the 51% rule but it definitely doesn't work now.

Test it let us know! ;D

[Lokked]

I tested by creating a new Iksar Necro.

All kills were done against the same Level 1 mob type (Scaled Wolf Pup). All kills were done at Level 1.

When I say with group, I mean grouped, but outside their XP leeching range.

Without Pet. No Group: 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 20): 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 1): 6%

With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 0% Damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does less than 50% damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 53% damage (10/19): 3%
With Pet. No Group. Pet does 100% Damage: 3%

With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 58% damage: 3%
With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 100% damage: 3%

In this next section, I tried to work out how much XP it takes to go from 1-2 and how much XP each kill is worth, but I couldn't get the calculation to give me a number that makes sense (unless Experience can be a floating point number, even then something is wrong):

From the Wiki:
The experience required to obtain a given level = L^3 * C * R * H
2^3 * 1.10 * 1.20 * 1.0 = 10.56
To an L1 char, an L1 mob is worth L^2 * ZEM
1^2 * 0.75 = 0.75

To get to 100% with 6-7% gains per kill, it would require 16 kills. 10.56 / .75xp/L1 = ~13 Kills, so there is something about the equation that I don't understand. It's possible the ZEM of Field of Bone is actually 0.66

Either way, it seems like we cannot get around having to either out-damage our pet or just eat the penalty. Was worth a shot.

Happy Hunting!

[Susvain2]

The mage focus items work on shaman pets. Prolly necros too. Get that mana back and nbd

[Thulack]

I tested by creating a new Iksar Necro.

All kills were done against the same Level 1 mob type (Scaled Wolf Pup). All kills were done at Level 1.

When I say with group, I mean grouped, but outside their XP leeching range.

Without Pet. No Group: 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 20): 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 1): 6%

With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 0% Damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does less than 50% damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 53% damage (10/19): 3%
With Pet. No Group. Pet does 100% Damage: 3%

With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 58% damage: 3%
With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 100% damage: 3%

In this next section, I tried to work out how much XP it takes to go from 1-2 and how much XP each kill is worth, but I couldn't get the calculation to give me a number that makes sense (unless Experience can be a floating point number, even then something is wrong):

From the Wiki:
The experience required to obtain a given level = L^3 * C * R * H
2^3 * 1.10 * 1.20 * 1.0 = 10.56
To an L1 char, an L1 mob is worth L^2 * ZEM
1^2 * 0.75 = 0.75

To get to 100% with 6-7% gains per kill, it would require 16 kills. 10.56 / .75xp/L1 = ~13 Kills, so there is something about the equation that I don't understand. It's possible the ZEM of Field of Bone is actually 0.66

Either way, it seems like we cannot get around having to either out-damage our pet or just eat the penalty. Was worth a shot.

Happy Hunting!

now what if you tried with Pet grouped with someone out of xp range and % dmg done by pet and % xp you get?

[Uteunayr]

Without Pet. No Group: 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 20): 6%
Without Pet. With Group (Level 1): 6%

With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 0% Damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does less than 50% damage: 6%
With Pet. No Group. Pet Does 53% damage (10/19): 3%
With Pet. No Group. Pet does 100% Damage: 3%

With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 58% damage: 3%
With Pet. With Group (L1). Pet does 100% damage: 3%

Fantastic. Solid test. I agree with the previous post, would be useful, just for absolute certainty, to attempt pet doing less than 50% damage on the With Pet, With Group, out of range scenario.

[Exmo]

Fantastic. Solid test. I agree with the previous post, would be useful, just for absolute certainty, to attempt pet doing less than 50% damage on the With Pet, With Group, out of range scenario.

Or out of zone.

[RaldoMcdaldo]

Start the fight with a low lvl nuke - send in the fire pet - heal the pet and med - reclaim pet when the mob walks or is at 12% - finish off the mob = 100% exp. I took a mage to 24 in less than 2 weeks playing 2-3 hours a day, and I didn't even play every day.

[Frug]

Start the fight with a low lvl nuke - send in the fire pet - heal the pet and med - reclaim pet when the mob walks or is at 12% - finish off the mob = 100% exp. I took a mage to 24 in less than 2 weeks playing 2-3 hours a day, and I didn't even play every day.

At low levels the reagent cost is a bit prohibitive. Once you get to 16 (maybe 12, if you're hitting cash mobs) this becomes workable (or have a twink feeding you cash).

[RaldoMcdaldo]

Absolutely, Frug, if you don't get cash somehow it won't work as well. At a bit over half a plat per reagent and approx. 2/3 to 1 blue bub per kill it was the greater part of 20 pp per lvl. I leveled this char. in E.C. where HQ bear skins and silks really kept me way ahead of the game so cost was not an issue. But "cost" can be viewed in many ways, especially time (if you're me) so the trade off was well worth the pp. and with a erudite mage, gear wasn't an issue either - he kicks ass naked.

[Velerin]

Malachite are 5 silver. That's what a decaying skeleton drops.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Malachite are 5 silver. That's what a decaying skeleton drops.

[Uteunayr]

It takes 2 bone chips per skeleton pet. Bone Chips go, on average, for 10pp a stack. A stack has 20, which means 10 skeletons. So 1pp per skeleton. It is significantly more than a Malachite per pet sacrificed for a Necromancer. This still isn't much to a high level character, or a twink, but if you're a new player pinching pennies, you're losing out.

Sure, you can farm them yourself, but you're still losing the potential 1pp per skeleton per kill.

[Lokked]

I'll do this test again to include the criteria mentioned earlier, and include some duo results if possible. If anyone wants to spare 20min, we can do the duo aspect with new necrosis in field of bone.

I purposefully left out that mentioned scenario because I believed the mechanic around groups and pet damage had been established.

In the name of !SCIENCE!

[Frug]

Malachite are 5 silver. That's what a decaying skeleton drops.

Just did a parse of my old log files. In no case did any of my decaying skeleton kills drop more than 1 silver, 9 copper.

I get your point, but using hyperbole to make it isn't necessary.

[Velerin]

Actually, if you count all the vendor items, cracked staff, rusty weapons, cloth armor, bone chips it probably works out to much more than 5 silver each...That vendor you buy the malachite from purchases these items too!

[Frug]

Actually, if you count all the vendor items, cracked staff, rusty weapons, cloth armor, bone chips it probably works out to much more than 5 silver each...That vendor you buy the malachite from purchases these items too!

That's a fair point.

[Zahr]

Is 20 in 3 weeks actually a good time? I did 1-12 in one night (6 hours) then 12-20 in another night (6 hours) by just making sure I grouped at places that had turn-in items for bonus xp.

[blondeattk]

I assume this exp nerf doesnt affect shm, as they cant equip pets with gear.?

[Uuruk]

Play on red