P1999 pet xp today, experiences

[Odeseus]

Playing as a mage (level 57) after the pet xp nerf, it is VERY annoying but isn't a reason to quit my mage quite yet. The big problem, as just about everyone has mentioned, is pet aggro.

For instance, I was killing guards in kaladim/BB for some xp. I had looked up their hp and did the math, I needed to nuke them 3 times to make sure pet didn't do 50% of the damage. I nuke once at 80%, which drops the mob to around 60ish%. At this point, its 50-50 on whether or not I'll have agro on me. If not, I wait till 50% to start casting another nuke. This drops to mob to 30% or so, and I have agro literally EVERY time. Now I have to pray root procs so I can get 1 more nuke off and more or less kill it.

If I wait till after 50% to nuke (say 40%) for the second time, I still get agro every time. But the big problem is that while kiting and hoping root procs, pet is still doing damage. Quite a few times pet would kill the mob before I could get the final nuke off, so pet steals the xp and all that work is for naught.

So since I have to kite mobs around at some point praying for root, I can't really do any dungeons or any areas that I don't have kite room. Really limits your choices in what you can kill. So either be ready to kill twice as many mobs as you would normally kill to gain a level, or be prepared to kite because of agro issues.

Now that I've typed all this, I thought of something. Since I have to nuke so much, I'm not chaining pets. I'm keeping the same pet because he isn't taking as many hits due to shorter fights and I don't send him into battle as quickly because I have to med up for 3 nukes before I even attempt to kill anything else. Possibly, if I gave my pet stun whips, that will be enough to keep agro while I nuke. Going to test this out later tonight.