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All Pets (necro, magician, beastlord, druid, shaman, enchanter) have the same item slots as players, with the exception of the following: only ONE wrist, finger, ear slots. They also do not have a charm or powersource slot. While they do have a range slot, they will not use ranged attacks. Since pets are NPCs, they follow some unique rules while outright ignoring others.
Rules
- Rule #1: Pets will not equip an item that is No-Drop. If you give your pet a no-drop item, they instantly destroy it.
- Rule #2: Pets will always equip (or re-equip) the item of Highest AC.
- Rule #3: Pets will always equip (or re-equip) the weapon with lowest delay
- Rule #4: Magician, Necro and Beastlord pets summoned using Spire Servant & Higher focus come with a special "Mod2 Cloak" in their back slot.
- Rule #5: ONLY Magician pets will come pre-summoned with their most current set of summoned jewelry & plate armor
- Rule #5: All pets ignore the required / recommended level to equip and use an item, but...
- Rule #6: Pets must meet required level stated on weapon proc (if any) to proc weapons.
- Rule #7: Never give a pet an item usable in the back slot once you are level 70 or higher. Refer to Rule #4 & below note.
- Rule #8: In order for your pet to retain items and buffs through a suspend cycle, you must purchase Suspended Minion rank 2 Alternate Ability.
- Rule #9: Pets ignore all RACE and CLASS restrictions on items. You can give your pet shoulders that are DEF SK only, and you pet will use it...as long as it's not no-drop.
- Rule #10: Pets ignore LORE tags on items. If for some reason you decide to give your pet a LORE weapon, and then another one - it will use both.
Pets do not have a maximum stat caps (that we know of). This makes it benefial to give pets magician-summoned armor with stats we personally may find meaningless, like +10 strength or +15 atk, etc.
Special note on pet focus & their back slot:
Spire Servant & higher focus provide a special cloak that adds Mod2 stats for your pet.
Somewhere around Enhanced Minion V most important mod2s are capped (100 avoidance, 35 shielding, 35 spell shield, 35 strikethrough, 35 stun resist. At this point only DoT shielding, Dmg Shield Mitigation & other minor stuff is not maxed. Higher levels of EM focus increase these, and also the +hp regen, +mana regen and worn DS (damage shielding). Worn DS for pets work the same as players - it means nothing unless a spell damage shield is also in use. DS adds to that DS buff - so for those without a means to DS their pet, this is largely a meaningless stat.
You should be aware that all pet focus cloaks come with NO AC. This means if you hand your EMXV pet a 1ac item usable in the back slot, it will immediately equip it and stop using the focus cloak with all the maxed mod2s, dramatically crippling the pet until it dies and you summon another.
Pet Gear
Magicians can summon a complete arsenal to give pets, typically called pet gear or pet toys. They start summoning useful pet gadgets in their 50s. Do not hesitate to tell the mage you are grouped with or raiding with to provide you with a set of pet gear; this is part of their contribution. A good magician will never make you ask; just like a good shaman will not make you ask for unity or a good ranger will not make anybody ask for their group +atk buffs.
Summoned items such as pet gear is TEMPORARY and NO-BANK. This means you cannot place any summoned item in any bank slot, and any summoned items on your person will vanish after you have been logged out of EQ for 30 minutes. However, almost all summoned items are 'placable' meaning you can place them in neighborhood plot or house. Some people choose to stock up on pet gear and store them in this fashion so they can restock as-needed; some servers (like Luclin) are blessed with dedicated bazaar vendors that provide vast array of pet gear for cheap, usually 24/7.
The first pet gear was summoned individually i.e. the mage summoned a fist of ixiblat; the mage summoned a muzzle of mardu, etc. The mage then either handed you all the items, or your pet. It was a somewhat tedius thing for a magician to gear up a bunch of pets.
A couple expansions ago their spells were revised to summon a clicky. When you click it, it unfolds a bag full of items. This dramatically decreased the amount of physical storage required for a suit of pet gear. Additionally, the magician can now target you to receive their summons instead of having to give them to you.
All magician summoned pet gear is pet-only. In the item field, the RACE is marked as NONE. This prevents any players from actually using their summoned toys - largely because these summoned toys are far more powerful (in some cases, like weapons) than items available to players.
The current (Veil of Alaris) best set of magician-summoned equipment for pets are:
Folded pack of manaforged plate -- click it to un-pack a bag of plate armor & belt.
Folded pack of manaforged armaments -- click it to un-fold a bag of weapons pairs. You have fire procs, cold, magic, +hate, reduce hate options. Folded pack of Alteris Heirlooms -- click it to unpack a bag of jewelry (the jade bracelet should be used due to +atk stat)
Summoned: visor of vabtik -- pet mask with worn melee haste
By giving your pet a full set of magician-summoned gear, you dramatically increase it's survivability (via +ac, +hp, +mods) while considerably boosting it's dps (via +haste, +atk, +str, +proc).
Using the above gear set, you can increase your pet (in addition to using pet focus item):
570 AC
4780 HP
23% haste
+72 ATK
+120 STR, DEX, AGI (note: +sta does nothing for pets)
+9 shielding
+25 accuracy
+13 avoidance
+2 weapons that proc 690 DD
...and in case anybody wonders, the pet DPS increase via gear is a combination of all things like having item haste and the increases to offense stats like +str, +atk, +accuracy. These increase the percentage your pet hits for max damage, considerably. The weakest addition is the least apparent - weapons. Even at level 95 with max pet AA, two weapons proc'ing seems to parse out at only 50dps. However, for those leveling up - your pets do not start duel-wielding naturally until somewhere around 40 - but if you give them two weapons they start much much sooner (teens or 20s).
For very young pet classes, you can effectively turn your pet into a unstoppable god by giving them this stuff; but your pet won't proc the weapons until it's at the required level. The +HP on high level weapons > procs on low level weapons.
Other gear:
You can give your pet other gear.
From level 1 until your 30s, you can give your pet a high-damage 2-hand weapon to increase it's maximum hit damage. The formula to determine this is advertised weapon damage x2 +1. So a 40dmg 44del 2h-Slash weapon would produce a pet that now hits for 81 dmg. Your pet will stop accepting high-damage 2-hand weapons around level 40 when they start duel-wielding well, or if the weapon damage would produce hits less than their normal damage.
Pets ignore weapon delay, and swing at their own hard-coded attack delay. So giving your pet a 18 delay dagger will not benefit you at all regarding making it hit faster.
You can give your pet various dropped gear. Attunable gear will automatically be converted to no-trade & therefore destroyed once the pet zones, which includes being suspended. All defiant gear is attunable, but the pet will not destroy visible armor. Some of the best defiant gear produces better AC & stats than the best magician summoned gear...but it's far more costly, rare- and the differences vs mage gear are small.
There are no weapons in the game with a "slow" proc that can be used on a pet. These have all been marked as No-Pet for a few years now. Since pets are NPCs, and ignore any class/race restrictions on items - some fairly common class weapons with slow procs were highly desired pet weapons, allowing pet classes to solo things never intended. So don't bother looking, you'll just waste time.
Always remember: All items given to a pet are forever lost to you. You cannot retrieve them during normal game-play. The only way to retrieve pet items is to have an enchanter charm your pet, and then for your pet to be killed by another player while under their charm. This is how the invisible mod2 cloaks are eventually updated to the item databases.
Pet Focus
Remember, starting around level 70ish - the most powerful way to "twink" your pet is by obtaining the most powerful pet focus item you can. There is no focus message when you summon a pet with a pet focus item equiped. The easiest proof that your pet focus is working is seeing your pet hit for higher maximum damage. Higher level focus increases the levels on some pets - so that is another quick & easy way to see.
To focus a pet, it is just like focusing a regular spell. You must have the item equiped, and then cast a spell that summons a pet. Once your pet has been summoned, you no longer need to wear that focus item (if for some reason it's not your perferred item to use).
An existing pet can never be upgraded with a higher focus; nor can a unfocused suspended pet be "focused" when you unsuspend it. Pet focus occurs ONLY upon the creation of your pet. If for whatever reason you are not wearing your pet focus item when you summon a pet - you must destroy it and summon another to gain the focus benefits.
Pet focus does a variety of things (or can with the higher levels of pet focus)
- Increase pet base HP, AC and min/max hits (all do this)
- Increase base pet level (some do this, with higher level increases for raid foci allowing current maximum player levels to be reached)
- Increase pet stats like Attack, Defense, Offense
- Starting with Spire Servant & onwards, pets summoned with foci equiped come with a special Mod2 cloak worn in their back slot. Pets otherwise have zero Mod2 stats.
For more information regarding pet foci, how to obtain & where they come from - see this thread.
Pet focus items are limited/restricted from the following aspects:
1) required level to equip the item (duh)
2) which level-ranges of pets the focus will improve (IMPORTANT!@!)
This means just like other worn focus effects, pet focus also "degrades" as you level.
Just as a FYI on what's happening behind-the-scenes...pet focus doesn't actually "focus" anything. The use of a pet focus item on an appropriate pet results in you summoning a unique, seperate pet model.
For example, our level 87 & 90 pets can be focused with 10 different focus effects:
Enhanced Minion V
Enhanced Minion VI
Enhanced Minion VII
Enhanced Minion VIII
Enhanced Minion IX
Enhanced Minion X
Enhanced Minion XI
Enhanced Minion XII
Enhanced Minion XIII
Enhanced Minion XIV
So there are 11 seperate level 87 warrior pets and 11 seperate different 90 rogue pets...one model each for non-focus, then another model for each focus level. Which one you summon is determined by the focus you are wearing, if any. That's a lot of necro pet templates! Now add beastlord warders and 4 types of magician pets...and the creation of a pet focus item is anything but simple!
Feedback, additional information, corrections - please reply to the thread.
-scrat
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