What is the deal with you people and pet torches
 

This shouldn't cause anything to attack with their offhand

Then... even stranger, i see the mage sword + torch combo. Wtf kind of blue beta 99 brainwashed weird shit is that? Just use two mage swords?

Also, I see lvl 20 and below pets visibly dual wielding 2 weapons given to them. Until 24, they should only show 1.

Please don't name shame the countless pets that died holding a Rusty 2h + torch for me to get where I am now.

Pouring one out for the true OG's

"Gebarn","Gebartik","Jonekn",Leneker","Vobn","Vobt ik","Zabaner", I'm sure I miss a few of you little minions.. Thank you for your service.

They should be able to dual wield 2h weps. Need to test that.

Torch + 2h does nothing before 24 and with the pets innate damage at 24, I see no real point in the 2h.

They're showing both weps before 24 and shouldn't for sure.

Maybe Dolabeard cares enough to join me on this one.

They use torches so group members can easily identify the charmed pet from the other mobs.

I have bugs open for these. I think Haynar is overworked though :(

Truuuuu

Since no one actually answered the question, it's to force dual wield since NPCs won't dual wield unless explicitly given an offhand in classic -- or, at least, so goes the rumor. In this case, torches are the most affordable and light offhand (counts as a weapon, oddly). And, indeed, it also helps identify them but that's not the real intention.

Don't mage pets dual wield at 20 if given weapons?

Good question. It was skills based, not pet-level-summon based. Sometimes the highest summon of the previous circle would have a high enough skill while the lowest of the current circle would not.

Examples are auto-dual-wield and offhand-double-attack. Classically the highest 39 pet would have these (just offhand-double-attack at first, then auto-dual-wield later on) but the lowest 44 pets would not. This was fixed later by tightening the level range of the 44 summons from 33-37 to 36-37 (I found a dev post from Absor about it). Level 36+ pets (as in, their actual level) would have these abilities but level 35 and under pets would not.

I'm actually not sure if the highest 20 mage pets could have dual wielded but it wouldn't surprise me. I know the highest 24 necro pet could dual wield.

I like my pets lit.