Pets and Intelligence?

darekliftar · July 2017

I saw in a wiki that presecence used to scale pet health but it was changed to the heroes superstat but it still said pet damage scales with intelligence. Is this true. I have been toying with a pet build that does not use "aura of" passives so was thinking of having the primary stat be intelligence.

deadman20 · July 2017

You may want to check the date on that wiki because I honestly do not know anymore. Ever since On Alert, it's seemed like Pets have had their stat scaling dropped altogether and passive auras and specialization trees have had to pick up the pieces.

darekliftar · July 2017

Darn if I am totally reliant on passive auras that sorta messes up my main build part. What specialization trees are best for buffing pets?

deadman20 · July 2017

The first obvious choice for Spec Trees would be Commander, since it's specifically there for pets. The other Supportive trees could prove useful for your pets as well, since they'll try to boost them. These would be Sentinel, Sentry, Overseer, and Arbiter. You'll want to look over your pets, decide which tree will be most beneficial.

The Sentinel Tree's aura heals over time, that can be very handy for boosting your pets' survival. It's a common tree for healers to pick up with all of the different healing boosts it provides, especially if you go the route of a Crowd Controlling healer.

The next common tree for petmasters is Overseer, a Ranged Support tree. It is offensively oriented and its aura boosts Ranged damage. It also has a nice spec which will reduce your target's damage dealt if you crit them, which can pair nicely with one of the Commander tree's specs which allows your pets to crit more when you do.

Conversely, Arbiter is a Melee Support tree, operating much like Overseer does but being more valuable to users who fight in Melee range. Not a very common choice and can be hard to work with, but it is there.

And last but not least is the Sentry tree. This tree is more about defense than healing or damage. Its aura provides extra resistance and has a common specialization which gives you more defense from your equipment. It also has rather nice specs for healing and shielding as well as some Crowd Control specs. A rather great tree overall, but perhaps not the most potent choice for pets.

darekliftar · July 2017

Thank you very much I have totally gone another direction and have accepted using the aura of abilities. I am thinking of making this a separate post but how do you think ebon destruction compares to primal majesty pet wise. I am not really sure if pets have stats to take advantage of it as such but then if it raises my stats and my stats effect pet damage then it seems like pimal majesty might be better. On the other hand extra damage flat out seems nice.

flowcyto · July 2017

Yes, pets no longer scale off Int. If you want a bit more info on pets and post-On Alert scaling, I'd suggest the Petco guide in my sig. Also keep in mind that much of the higher-end content in this game isn't very pet-friendly atm.

As far as the 2nd spec in a pet build- it ultimately just depends on ur priorities and the make up of the rest of the build. You could make a case for pretty much any of them.

roughbearmattach · July 2017

Isn't Dex a good stat for petmasters? Don't pets use something like half your crit chance to determine their crit chance?

Maybe I am mis-remembering.

darekliftar · July 2017

I played with some intelligence gear in the powerhouse and it does effect pet damage, however I am at the point where I am playing with auras and I have found that ultimately primal majesty is the most useful mostly as it can bring damage up almost as good as ebon destruction but also will raise pet health and since you sorta have to support heal to have pets it helps all that stuff and your own health and such. Its just ultimately better. So it seems you should go presence as main and take primal majesty then intelligence as second (maybe recovery or end depends on how power works out). I am now setup pres primary, int secondary, and will do rec as tertiary (maybe end). One more thing for presence is its tree helps allot of the support healing you do for your pets too so it is another bonus. All in all I see why many pet builds do pres primary. I do not always see int as secondary though.

darekliftar · July 2017

OMG flowcyto your petco doc was just what I was looking for. Now Im gonna have to test int again because im just not sure anymore. I swear I saw it go up though but I just did some quick and dirty on test dummies with Tyrannon's Familiar -

flowcyto · July 2017

After some quick testing, it seems that the general dmg bonus from all 3 SS's you take will apply to pet dmg, though this is with any combo of SS's and isn't specific to one stat. Could also be scaling up due to Commander spec's 2nd tier options that use 2ndary SS's. I suspect the general SS's dmg bonus is subject to diminishing returns, like it is for normal attacks, and that bonus just depends on the overall stats and quality of gear.

I guess I didn't see this before cause every other passive dmg bonus I tried wasn't boosting pets (slotted passive, toggle, CoEW, any basic stat w/o SS'ing it- including Int, etc.) so I wrote them all off. I suppose it makes sense for SS's in particular cause its 'all damage strength' and not delivered via a self-buff. I'll update the guide after making sure of this, but thanks for getting me to look at it again.

roughbearmattach said:
Isn't Dex a good stat for petmasters? Don't pets use something like half your crit chance to determine their crit chance?

Maybe I am mis-remembering.

Yea, half of your crit% + some base crit (~5% last I checked). Dex SS can be nice to optimize pet dps, esp when using AoED, but due to the half-scaling (and shared DR w/ crit rating) its that imperative either. The highest dps pet setup is prob w/ EGO/Pres/Dex + AoED, but that does leave ya kinda squishy and ya could be an aggro magnet.

darekliftar · July 2017

I was looking at the EGO tree to figure out why EGO primary stat for max dps. Is it because of the mastery?

darekliftar · July 2017

Reading closer I see its because of the crits maybe along with that mastery

darekliftar · July 2017

Boy looking at that mastery im wondering if ego/pres/rec might be better than pres/rec/other

deadman20 · July 2017

Ego Primary is a surprisingly powerful alternative for supports with the specs it has, of course you'll still want to spend a lot in Presence for those auras and bonus healing. You'll get a lot more out of Ego Primary in regards to Crits and Defense by pouring everything into Presence as opposed to taking similar specs from Presence Primary and going with any other secondary superstat. Presence is just really good for healing and supporting in general, and has some nice other specs for that role.

flowcyto · July 2017

The main reason Ego PSS will give more pet dps is cause it also boosts severity via Follow Through, which pets will inherit half of. Pres PSS is still good for pets and support in giving a mix of potential defense + healing + CC + crit boosts, but Ego is better if you want a more dps-oriented approach for pets that still gives you decent defense.

To not be as squishy w/o Con SS, I'd prob pick between EGO/Pres/Con (ranged dps), PRES/Con/X (support/healing; X can be Dex, Int, Ego, or Str depending on the build and other scalars), or STR/Pres/Con (melee dps) for pet builds using a support aura and Compassion.

Pets and Intelligence?

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