Shaman pet

[Kelor]

Does say a STR buff even effect the shaman pet? it only seems to hit for the dmg of its lvl and never goes past that.

[Gumbo]

Think this was talked about before and buffs don't help the pet except maybe a SOW.

[Aeateil-rodcet]

Spirit Quickening adds pet only haste, str, and I think some other stats.

[Danth]

I've not known raw stat buffs to have any appreciable impact on pets. Buff spells with some direct effect (haste, hit points, etc) certainly work.

Danth

[gortimer]

I've never noticed any improvement. I gave up on anything besides haste and HP buffs after I grew out of jaundiced bone gear.

[Pyrion]

STR should make the pet hit for its max damage more often. It won't increase max damage. Not sure if it's working, somebody should check that :).

[Troxx]

Str makes the pet more likely to hit at the higher end of range but not raise max hit.

Being npcs, pets benefit disproportionately to AC AND agility buffs - it does help them tank better and to a greater degree than player characters benefit. This is especially true for AC as there is no hard or soft cap.

Hp buffs increase hp pool.

Resists do help resist rates.

Stamina doesn't seem to help.

Dex does nothing for shaman pets.

Sow makes them run faster.

Regen does make them regen faster.

Haste makes them hit faster.


Whether these buffs are worth it depends on what you're trying to do. I generally str and haste pet - will regen if expected to help offtank and also give mitigation and hp buffs in these rare cases to help him not die.

[Pyrion]

One big piece of advice for shaman pet owners is to get a mage focus item asap. To be able to regain pet mana is yuuge. That way you can easily summon until you get a good one or even use the very mana intensive pet as a mana battery, to get a big chunk of mana when you desperately need it.

[Troxx]

Absolutely. Unless my pet might cause problems with mez breaks I always keep one up simply because it's 800 emergency mana in reserve.

[gortimer]

I always carry around that clucky skull thing with 5 charges instant cast lvl 34 pet. Using the mage focus item you can get 1700 or so free MANA in a matter of seconds during a fight. Has saved my shit so often. Don't bother recharging them. it's super expensive. Better off buying a new one for a few hundred plat.

[Mortiis]

I've not known raw stat buffs to have any appreciable impact on pets. Buff spells with some direct effect (haste, hit points, etc) certainly work.

Danth

This. Focus does work.

The easiest way without viewing logs is toss a haste on and check pre/post dmg.

[Troxx]

It is worth repeating this - confirmed with extensive parsing (dozens of hours worth) on live and more limited parsing on p99.

Pets as npcs do not have an AC hard or soft cap like players do. Each AC buff adds mitigation potential at a 1:1 return. For pets in this era - this also means agility does have an impact. Whether a summoned or charmed pet, if you're using it to tank or expecting it to get hit, those buffs will surprise you. Whether it is worth it or depends on what you're doing. If you're using a pet to tank or offtank it is well worth your time to apply buffs to pets.

The following do help your pet
Str
Hp buffs
Focus str stacks with maniacal if applied after
Agility
AC
Regen
Haste
Resists


The following don't seem to do anything:
Stamina
Dexterity
Charisma

Dogdog is meh for dps but properly buffed and with a passive regen of 30 - he serves nicely as an offtank. A fully buffed earth pet is a beastly tank.

[Kowalski]

Made a few changes to my shaman's pet...

[Mortiis]

It is worth repeating this - confirmed with extensive parsing (dozens of hours worth) on live and more limited parsing on p99.

Pets as npcs do not have an AC hard or soft cap like players do. Each AC buff adds mitigation potential at a 1:1 return. For pets in this era - this also means agility does have an impact. Whether a summoned or charmed pet, if you're using it to tank or expecting it to get hit, those buffs will surprise you. Whether it is worth it or depends on what you're doing. If you're using a pet to tank or offtank it is well worth your time to apply buffs to pets.

The following do help your pet
Str
Hp buffs
Focus str stacks with maniacal if applied after
Agility
AC
Regen
Haste
Resists


The following don't seem to do anything:
Stamina
Dexterity
Charisma

Dogdog is meh for dps but properly buffed and with a passive regen of 30 - he serves nicely as an offtank. A fully buffed earth pet is a beastly tank.

This should really be in the shaman guide. Thanks Troxx. I only found out through trial and error what worked and what didn't.

[Troxx]

It's not really new knowledge for those of that played a lot on live before here. Pet tanking is actually quite overpowered even with the 55 shaman pet. 30 passive regen is nothing to sneeze at and fully shaman buffed that pet can get close to 2500. Still - not a ton, but comparable to what a non raid geared level 60 (excluding tank classes) will sport. Shaman and to a lesser degree necro warrior pets really only lack in the relative departments of mitigation and resists. Fixing the mitigation arm of the equation is shockingly not hard with AC and agility buffs. Back in KC in my low to mid 50s, it was actually easier to heal my buffed pet solo than it was to heal a warrior or knight duo. My pet regen'd for 30 passive before regrowth and frankly took about the same or even less damage with AC buffs.

Mage earth pets were simply beastly with higher level and innate AC - and those AC buffs still stack with 1:1 returns from their starting points.

Even the crappy necro AC buff helps boner take a lot less damage from seafuries. I usually just root and dot them down to 35% and send in pet to melee them down. He takes a lot less damage with even the crappy necro AC buff.

Before anyone says I'm doing it wrong on necro - it's always too crowded to bother with fear kiting and with splurt and 3 min root I can keep 2-3 lined up while medding. I'd rather hassle less and get full do on each kill.