Mage pets, To arm, or not to arm?

[tankmankels]

Should I always give my pets weapons? If I find a rusty sword should I hand it over to Gabobn or should I summon my weapons for him? 2 handed or one handed? Whats the best scenario?

[J. Jones]

what level are you? depends on your playstyle. if you are <50, fastest and most mana-efficient way to level is chain fire pet as opposed to giving one pet weapons and healing. all up to your playstyle tho.

[tankmankels]

Just dinged 14 and I'm using a water pet and giving it my DS that I can cast.

[Stonewallx39]

Give your pet high damage two handed weapons. They can still dual wield two handed weapons (I'm like 75 percent sure) and ratio shouldn't matter since delay doesn't affect pet weapons. Also determine what your pet hits for without a weapon if it's greater than or equal to the damage of the weapon times two then you won't see much if any return giving the pet a weapon.

[curtischoy]

At that level just use the fire pet. The damage shield that it will cast on itself is insane. Try it out, the DS will eat mobs.

Also try out what stonewallx39 said. There is a post in the bug forum about the 2h stuff with pets and I can't figure out where it is right now and have no interest to test it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Feanol]

Done a fair bit of testing on my own Magician on Red and here's some information you may find useful:

-Pets do not have an innate dual-wield check until a player's mid-thirties summoning spells, so equipping them with two weapons at lower levels gives them additional damage (a % chance to swing with both arms)

-Pet damage is not supplemented by weapons UNLESS the weapon has a higher base damage than the pet at that level. So, handing a "Brutechopper (16/50)" to a low level pet that has a max hit of 12 will allow that pet to hit for 16! Somewhat inconsequential since your pet's damage quickly outpaces even the most lumbering weapon damage available. Weapon delay has no effect on the pet.

-Pets will make use of weapons with a "Proc" ability. I know I carry around a few Gnoll Hide Lariats for great, well established groups. Gives my pet the occasional stun hit.

And then there's Psychology!

It's my firm belief that a large high-level Mage pet with enormous, deadly looking weapons put's your group members at ease. Calm players are better able to react to sudden changes in combat and less likely to cast their spells too often and risk being low on manna. Looks awesome too. That's my opinion, anyway =p

[Fame]

Post makes me miss the broken rune sword days

[baalzy]

Originally Posted by Feanol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Pet damage is not supplemented by weapons UNLESS the weapon has a higher base damage than the pet at that level. So, handing a "Brutechopper (16/50)" to a low level pet that has a max hit of 12 will allow that pet to hit for 16! Somewhat inconsequential since your pet's damage quickly outpaces even the most lumbering weapon damage available. Weapon delay has no effect on the pet.

The damage should be twice the damage of the weapon. So a brutechoppered pet would be be able to hit up to 32. By the time a pet is high enough lvl to do more than 32 damage with its innate damage setting you'll be wanting to give it 2 one-handed weapons because it can dual wield at that point.