Mage Pet - Con Question
 

So my mage just hit 16! woot! Got my new pet and summoned / reclaimed until it conned Yellow. Once I hit 17, I will summon / reclaim until I get the White one....Once I hit 18 though - the pet would con blue whether it is 16 or 17.... Is there any way to make sure I get the best one? Been using the water pet if that helps....

Not a mage.. but got the idea from charming.. Maybe comparing max hit damage?

Yes, you have to compare the hits or if it's a fire pet you can tell sometimes by the amount of the DS non-melee hits to tell once the pet cons blue

Personally, I think you'll exp faster if you reclaim your pet every mob and I wouldn't worry which pet you get if you are soloing for exp. Don't try to outdamage the pet, that takes a ton of mana. Summon the pet, let it beat the mob down until the mob runs, back-off the pet, reclaim the pet, nuke the mob once to finish it, summon new pet and go to the next mob.

Go over here and check the column labeled "Melee Dmg". That's the minimum and maximum a pet a can hit for.

All pets of equal level hit for the same maximum amount (e.g. all Elemental: Earth summoned pets that are level 13 will hit for 18 max), and the inverse is also true. Hence when you see the max hit of a pet you can know what level it is.

That being said, and as already mentioned above, it might not be in your best interest to continually summon/reclaim pets to get a max pet every single time.

Depending on where you're hunting the levels of the pet don't always matter. I actually forgot about the pet not always being maxed out since on Live all the pets are buffed by the focus items. Good to remember this.