Petco: A Pet/Summon Math Reference

flowcyto · July 2014

To take a break from leveling alts and testing activation times, I figured I'd use the parser to re-look at the pet powers in this game. I had mapped out their abilities on my own base dps sheet, but that was going by tooltips and approximate attack times. Now I can more easily analyze how each pet actually performs relative to each other.

Sooo.. I present: a thread wholly about Pets. Hurray!
(Update: for info on some Device-derived pets and for some sample Pet builds, please see the 1st reply)
(and for some info on extra things like the Backup! devices and the newer Mech Monstrosity ultimate, see replies later in the thread)

= Summary of Content (in order) =
Post #1:
- General Pet-Related Info
- Pet Stat Scaling Factors
- Pet Power DPS Comparisons
- Dealing w/ Pet AI Issues
- Pet Build Benefits
Post #2:
- Misc. Pet Power Notes
- About Device-Related Pets
- Some Device Pet Testing
- Sample Thematic Pet Builds
(replies later on in this thread also contain some other misc. info - like on 'Backup!' Devices, AoED/aura testing for pets, & the Mechanical Monstrosity ult)

= General Pet-Related Info =

Pet powers encompass both permanent and temporary pets. Pets are singled out from other attack powers for their unique, more-limited scaling and AI that is independent of the player. Pets can continue attack even when the player is not, can be targeted by friendly or hostile sources, and can die independent of the player.

Permanent Pets: come with their own pet bar (for issuing commands), last till they (or you) die, and otherwise follow the player when not engaged (unless commanded otherwise). Each permanent Pet power that's active adds a 10% (base) energy penalty to the player that is multiplicative (3 pets = 1.1*1.1*1.1 = 33.1% penalty, and so on); this means that having an array of them can quickly make your normal powers much more expensive. This is part of the reason why many Pet Master builds use the Support role: better energy management (with the other main reason being stronger ally/pet aura benefits).

Temporary Pets: are similar to permanent pets in most ways. However, temporary pets (as you may have guessed) have a fixed maximum duration, cannot be directly controlled, and come w/ no energy penalty when active. Temp pets also tend to have higher base dps than permanent ones, to help make up for them requiring energy and time to be re-cast, and do not have a pet bar. Their scaling, general AI, and abiltiy to be targeted is the same as w/ permanent pets - but they are considered on 'Assist' mode at all times.

Vs. Entity Powers: Pets are distinct from what I call 'separate entity' powers, which are summoned and also uncontrollable, but (unlike pets) scale w/ most normal player stats (though many are not able to crit). Entity powers also cannot be targeted by players or enemies and thus cannot be 'killed' or buffed. Entity powers are things like Dust Devil, Fire Snake, Gas Arrow, and Ball Lightning. They could also be classed as 'DoT's (as per some of their tooltips), though that is not specific to entities.

[Before, I had considered Collective Will to be a temporary pet (as per its tooltip), but it is actually an entity spell as well due to its scaling not matching that of pets (like entities, it scales w/ Offense and bonus dmg, among others), and its inability to be targeted or killed.]

= Pet Stat Scaling Factors =

(since the On Alert patch) In general, Pets do NOT scale w/ most Player-related stats, like most passive dmg bonuses, +Offense, and -resist%. If it's not covered here, then it's likely something that pets don't directly work off of.

For their own scaling, Pets receive:
-> The 'all damage strength' bonuses from the PSS and SSSs (not via non-SS'd stats, and not via Ego_Str's innate bonuses).
-> Half of the player's general (listed) critical strike%.
-> Half of the player's general (listed) critical severity%.
-> Most pets: approx. +6.3 to +2.75 maxHP per 1pt in player SSs (combines PSS & SSSs; the HP:SS range decays w/ increasing total SSs).
`-> Drones, Muni Bots, Command beasts: the SS to max HP scaling is reduced (64% to 57% of the benefit that most other pets get).

Spec- or power-specific crit bonuses (like Slaughter for combos, or Vindicator's single-target_AoE crit% options) do not affect pets directly. Resistance debuffs that only specify working for the player (ex. Night Warrior's -resist, Detect Vuln's -resist) also do not affect pets. Similarly, most toggle/forms (ex. Enrage, Concentration) only affect the player and not pets (w/ Force's IDF being the exception).
`-> Even though most toggle/forms do not affects pets, it's generally still worthwhile to get one in a pet build since they can offer large bonuses to damage and/or healing for the player (as well as help w/ energy management).

- Pets have a basal ~5% crit rate that is independent of the player's own.
- Pets have three basic starter max HP ranges (Low= drones, muni bots, command beasts; High= ritual pets & march of the dead; Medium= the rest, w/ Medium and High scaling up max HP the same).
- Pets innately take reduced dmg from AoE effects, to help them w/ survival.
ofc, other things can affect pets too..

Non-direct Factors that can affect Pets:

-> Aura effects (includes: slotted passives like AoPM, AoED, Med Nanites, etc.; spec passives like Sentinel_Sentry Aura, etc.) (AoED includes the Ebon Lightning proc; AoPM's stats add to the Pet's own and are treated as non-SSs for them).
-> Buffs (ex. Furious or Reckless from powers like Howl or Call To Battle, Redirect Force, sigils, IDF, shields, heals, etc.)
-> Debuffs on the same target (ex. Shredded's -Physical/Slashing resist, Devoid's -Dimensional resist, Spec tree debuffs like Trapped or Wither, etc.)
-> The Commander spec tree (most of these bonuses are additive, but allow pets to scale somewhat w/ SSs in various other respects: damage done, max health, healing done or taken, etc.)

The Commander tree is pretty self-explanatory, but is considered to be quite valuable to Pet Master builds for optimizing pets. The main drawback is that Commander does nothing directly to boost the player's own power (unlike other spec trees), so there is a significant opportunity cost to consider. This is why builds w/ only 1-2 pets may be better off by not taking Commander spec.

= Pet Power DPS Comparisons =

Groundwork: lvl 40 Hybrid FF player, no SS's or gear, no stars, and using the ACT parser (source #1, #2).

Each test was ~3 minutes long - just letting the pet(s) attack the whole time. A regen dummy (which have ~20% innate resist) was the target for each test.

More details here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1M2Q1K5LS7zTXAVx0iuR37lznN6u_Yxmk6uYmDajcA/edit#gid=0

Here's a quick n' dirty summary of that sheet, using some rounded values:

Tyrannon's Familiar
rank 1: 63.0 dps
rank 2: 74.0 dps
rank 3: 90.0 dps

Ritual of Arcane Summoning
rank 1: 52.5 dps
rank 2: 71.5 dps
rank 3: 69.5 dps

Ritual of Primal Summoning
rank 1: 65.5 dps
rank 2: 75.0 dps
rank 3: 95.0 dps

Ritual of Ebon Summoning
rank 1: 66.0 dps
rank 2: 72 (Ranged) 74.5 (Melee) dps
rank 3: 90 (Ranged) 91 (Melee) dps

Ritual of Radiant Summoning
rank 1: 34.5 dps
rank 2: 47.0 dps
rank 3: 54.0 dps

Support Drones (attack mode)
rank 1: 29.0 dps
rank 2: 42.0 dps
rank 3: 54.0 dps

Munitions Bots
rank 1: 50 (Bot) 96.5 (Turret) dps
rank 2: 56 (Bot) 105.5 (Turret) dps
rank 3: 59 (Bot) 128 (Turret) dps

Attack Toys!
rank 1: 61.0 dps
rank 2: 86.0 dps
rank 3: 119.5 dps

Air Elemental
rank 1: 83.0 dps
rank 2: 82.0 dps
rank 3: 93.5 dps

Arctic Beast
rank 1: 42.5 dps
rank 2: 55.0 dps
rank 3: 68.0 dps

Void Horror
rank 1: 60.5 dps
rank 2: 71.5 dps
rank 3: 86.0 dps

Command Animals
rank 1: 75.0 dps
rank 2: 95.5 dps
rank 3: 111.0 dps

Summon Nightmares (charged)
rank 1: 90.0 dps
rank 2: 120.0 dps
rank 3: 114.5 dps

Pyromancer Blades
rank 1: 114.5 dps
rank 2: 135.0 dps
rank 3: 155.0 dps

Summon Shadows
rank 1: 184.0 dps
rank 2: 219.5 dps
rank 3: 262.0 dps

March of the Dead
rank 1: 162.0 dps
rank 2: 162.0 dps
rank 3: 203.0 dps

- The undead made from Resurrection Serum's Reanimator adv and Rebirth's Grave's Consequences adv function and scale as Device Pets, and not as normal pet powers, so they have not been listed here (see Device Pets in next reply).

(for notes, special attacks, parsing info, and other details that help explain some of my data, please consult the spreadsheet)

Pet AI, as many of us prob know by now, can be quite troublesome sometimes.

-> Even in isolated testing, some pets will not attack continuously because they shift between ground_hover and flying mode (which many of them have). This puts a ~0.2-0.3 sec delay on their next action, and can considerably affect their performance.
`-> One way to help influence a pet to stop 'stuttering' like this is to get them somewhat airborne, as they are more likely to switch between TPs if grounded and near their target. Leashing and re-activating the pet (w/ the command keys) can sometimes fix the behavior by forcing the pet to re-adjust its pathing. Ofc, the target itself may move and that could either correct or re-introduce the problem. (There is no sure-fire fix to this that I am aware of, unfortunately)
`-> Not all pets are prone to this behavior- the ones that are prone to it have been labelled as 'erratic' in the notes on the spreadsheet.

-> Sometimes (especially when out solo) pet arrays simply refuse to attack when the player does, even when toggled to 'Assist' or commanded to attack by the player.
`-> Re-summoning has a chance of working, but is not reliable. One more reliable way to 'goad' a slew of pets is to lead w/ a summon or temp pet like Summon Nightmares, which can sometimes kick other pets into action. Another option is simply getting the pet to take damage by something like a splash AoE, which usually works but isn't always feasible.
`-> Another viable option to dealing w/ idle pet arrays when solo is to build to be relatively self-sufficient w/o the pets (this is generally a good idea), and run in Hybrid mode with most_all permanent pets de-summoned when out solo.
`-> There is the possibility that pets with >1 model option may bug out depending on the model chosen, and perhaps changing the model set can help fix the behavior. This is just conjecture, however, and may not always work.

-> Pets take a 'snapshot' of the player's stats when they are summoned, and do not usually dynamically adjust w/ the player's own stats. This is particularly an issue sometimes when you first log in, as the game may not have loaded in of your all scaling stats to the pet, causing them to have much lower health than they should (for ex).
`-> Re-summoning the pet will 'update' them, as will changing zones.

-> Some pets have special attacks they get when ranking up that cause them to deal more AoE dmg, but this sometimes comes at the cost of lowering their potential single-target dmg. Unfortunately, Pet AI isn't too bright, so they can start using the special AoE attack over their normal attack that deals more single-target dmg, and even vs. 1 target. There's no way of directly controlling most of these attacks, and since many are on an internal cd (icd) any cd-reduction given to them could actually exacerbate the problem.
`-> If single-target dmg is more of an issue, some pets will be of less value to rank up (for ex. compare R1 vs. R3 of Muni Bots to R1 vs. R3 of Attack Toys) this could help save some advantage points for a build that has other priorities (since adv points tend to get spread thin for Pet Master builds). Ofc, if your goal is to improve a pet's AoE dmg, then the special AoE attacks may not be a bad thing to have, either.

= Pet Build Benefits =

To balance some of the negatives to handling Pet AI mentioned above, here's some basic perks to having Pet-heavy builds in CO:

-> One of the biggest advantages of having an array of pets is that they can regularly distract or preoccupy mobs in large groups, allowing some heat to be taken away from the players.
`-> The Arcane Summon is especially good at this due to it using Challenging Strikes. Some pets like the Rituals, the Familiar, the elemental pets, the shadows, and the Attack Toys are also rather sturdy and pretty well suited to this task.

-> Similarly, pets often grab the attention of mobs over players when only going off of proximity aggro- ie. pulling a pack of trash mobs by just hitting one enemy means that most mobs can gun for pets nearby than for you or other players first. This can make pets act as a sort of fodder. Although this can lead to some pet-deaths, it's a nice alternate means of distraction, since many enemies like to unload at the start of aggro.

-> Another big advantage is that Pet builds can allow Support characters to attain potentially strong dps values for their role's innate damage-oriented limitations. This allows one to have strong healing along w/ a viable dps build (though at the cost of devoting many power slots to pets, and the stigma of being a 'healer' even if you aren't).
`-> Most of the highest dps pets builds use AoED and have a decent base crit rate, since AoED's Ebon Lightning interacts very well w/ pets. Other auras have their merits, ofc, but a fitting one depends on the primary goal of the player.

-> Pets allow Support-focused characters to still do some some damage and control in the background while they are preoccupied with other tasks- like healing/shielding, debuffing, and res-ing.

-> Pets can apply some potentially useful buffs or debuffs for you and the team:
-Ritual of Primal Summoning (Furious from Howl)
-Tyrannon's Familiar (power siphon)
-Command Animals (Deadly Poison; mini-Shredded @ R3)
-Summon Nightmares (Disorient @ R1&2)
-Air Elemental (Disorient @ R3)
-Attack Drones (-6% dmg resist @ R3)
-Ritual of Arcane Summoning (Challenging Strikes)
-Arctic Beast (snares)
etc.

-> Pets can CC mobs, either passively or via your command, and even while you are preoccupied:
-Travel Form removal (ex. Primal Summon, Void Horror, Command Animals)
-Knockdowns (ex. Arctic Beast, Command Animals, Air Elemental @ R3)
-Knockbacks and Repels (ex. Attack Toys!, Air Elemental, Void Horror, Attack Drones @ R2+)
-Stuns/Paralyzes (ex. Radiant Summon @ R2+, Dr. Destroyer's Head device)

-> Support Drones and the Radiant Summon offer a means of background healing that in itself can sometimes be sufficient to keep tanks up in 5-man content vs. bosses. Although neither pet can outright replace a healer, they can provide a means of 'maintenance' healing, ala powers like Conviction and BCR for players.

-> If you have a passive healing aura that's innate (ie. Seraphim, Med Nanites; NOT spec-ones like Sentinel Aura) then you can proc Honor in the Arbiter/Overseer spec trees when solo just by having pets out and nearby.
`-> Pets also offer a means to benefit from Honor by active healing of them in general.

-> While grouping, most Pet builds will be used in the Support role. Although this role hampers your own damage (and max health) a bit, it does come with its own notable perks: strong self- and group-healing, the best CC bonus of the roles, better energy management, and much stronger Aura passive effects on players (vs. the Hybrid role).
`-> If one is worried about getting 'the healer' stigma while playing in Support, then one can let their allies know that they are a pet build and not planning on being a pocket healer.
`-> Macros can be engineered to convey this message at the push of a hotkey- for ex:
"/bind 8 say Greetings! I am in the Support role to optimize my pets. Although I can help the team, I am not a committed healer. Thanks and GL heroes!"
.. (minus the quotes) will have you notify those around you of this when you press the '8' key (customize the /bind macro however you want in terms of message or the key used).

-> More Pet Quirks:

(moved to next reply)

(7-10-2014: Updated the spreadsheet w/ some extra testing and some device tests)
(7-13-2014: Updated the sheet w/ more tests and the post w/ some benefits and sample builds)
(7-04-2017: Updated pet scaling factors to include the general SS bonus to pet dmg; re-vamped Sample Builds to be more up-to-date)
(5-06-2020: Edited to correct some syntax, links, and typos)
(1-24-2021: Quick edit to better clarify Ritual pet powers in the Misc notes)
(10-13-2021: Added note in the Device-Related Pet section on device pets having extra classifications)
(3-11-2022: Added a content summary at the intro, and cleaned up some notes here and there)

flowcyto · July 2014

= Misc. Pet Power Notes =

- Ritual Pet powers do not take energy to summon at baseline, but require the player to stay in or near the summoning circle, or the pet will fade after a couple of seconds. More than one Ritual pet power also cannot be summoned at the same time. The Unbound Ritual advantage changes all of these properties to make them function more like normal pets. It allows the pet to follow you around anywhere w/o the circle, allows you to have more than one Ritual pet summoned, and attaches an energy cost to the summon.
`-> This does also come at the cost of not being able to get the Ritual pet to R3, but it's generally a good idea to get the Unbound advantage when using these types of pets.
- March of the Dead's max duration increases by 0.1sec per 1 point of Int (and the Forced March adv doubles the scaling).
- The Radiant Summon can take a pause or slight re-position before each action. This is likely due to it being the only pet that has to dynamically decide between healing and damage behaviors w/o any player input.
(note also that the Radiant Summon's AI used to be quite inactive- that has since been fixed, and it is possible that the somewhat erratic behavior is a side-effect of that update)
- The ghouls (R2 March of the Dead) don't seem to have been upgraded in their attacks.
- Some of the pet's base HP values don't rank up properly.
- Melee pets with a ranged spell typically still favor getting w/in melee range instead of staying out. I could not reliably test the ranged options for those pets because of this.
- R3 of Summon Nightmares seems to be a dps drop vs. R2 (and you lose the Disorient from the hound).
- R3 of the Arcane Summon seems to be a dps drop vs. R2, since the golem's basic attack seems to have a longer delay.
- Command Animal's Feral Bleed (R2+) cannot be Ruptured.
- Command Animal's Feral Bleed (R2+) works w/ Massacre's Bloody Mess and DE's Phlebotomist advs.
- Command Animal's Shredded (R3) cannot be used by Tiger's Bite.
- Arctic Beast's Chilling Bite debuff does not count as 'Chilled' for the player (does not interact w/ Hard Frost or Shatter).
- Clinging Flames applied from the Ebon Ritual does not count towards proc-ing Thermal Reverberation for the player, but can be used towards Rimefire Burst.
- Disorient applied from a pet source can still interact with player powers such as Gust's damage bonus and Telepathic Reverb.

= About Device-Related Pets =

Some pets can be gained from devices, and most of these share similarities to Temporary Pets. There are some key differences, however, and aside from most of these pets taking up device slots instead of power slots.

Special Device Pet Scaling:

- Device pets do NOT scale up their max health w/ player SS's.
- Device pets' damage does NOT scale w/ a player's +Offense, passive dmg from SS's, or crit/severity.
- Device pets have fixed crit rates on their own attacks, w/ many attacks having 0% crit. The base crit severity seems to be ~25% (same for normal pets).
- The Commander spec tree does not appear to affect device pets.

- Auras and buffs appear to affect Device Pets as per normal Pets (AoED's Ebon Lightning also could proc from them, where crit-enabled, so 2ndary aura_buff effects can work).

- Many devices (pets included) scale w/ player CD reduction stats, some however do not (ex. Khusor's Doom). It is likely that devices whose cd counts down radially scale w/ CDR, whereas those that count down vertically do not scale.
- Device Pets do not appear to get the same AoE resistance that normal Pets do. This could be in return for many of them having higher max health.

(as always, for more info, please see the spreadsheet in the first post)

- Update (Oct 2021): It appears that device pets have different classifications, and this means that certain types of device pets cannot be used w/ others simultaneously. Credit to @redcastle56 for this extra info (which is also further down in the thread):

redcastle56 wrote: »

There are two kinds. Toggle based, and independent.

Toggle based pets
will usually have in the description that if you toggle the device off or the pet dies, it goes on cooldown.

Usually last longer (300 Seconds)

You can only have 1 toggle based pet out at a time. If you summon another toggle based pet, the first one will disappear and go on cooldown.

If the pet times out, or you toggle it off, just that device goes on cooldown. You can immediately summon another toggled pet

However, if the pet dies, there appears to be shared cooldown all toggle based pets.

Most permanent devices that summon pets are toggle. This includes the Vibora bay gang summon that drop from TT, Revenant of Firefight, Robot Factory (and any robots summoned from it), Destroyers head, etc. Also includes the skull of the necromancer, and bone whistle pets, and gun drone.

Independent pets
Shorter duration. (30 sec, or 180 sec)

Once summoned, will stay around no matter what. You can even remove the summoning device from the device slot.

Most of the charged summons are independent, unless it mentions the toggle mechanic. Most of the ones you can buy for 5 until rec at the until rec store are independent.

I think that pets that are summoned as a chance from devices are independent, but need to confirm. (things like Tele Pheremones, Armband, Gremlin etc)

Sidekicks are a different class. You can have a sidekick and a toggle out at the same time.

Backup devices also are a different class. When you summon a backup, there is a short (5 sec) cool down on all backup devices. When the backup device finishes, just that device (all versions of it, which I would assume means regular and retro of just that hero) go on 5 min cooldown. The toggle pets are not affected by the backup devices.

Partial 'Device Pet' DPS Comparison:

(note: unless noted otherwise, DPS figures are only for uptime, and do not factor in downtime when the device is on cd and the pets aren't active)

Resurrection Serum - Reanimator adv (power slot)
rank 1 + adv: 100.0 dps (1 min duration)
rank 2 + adv: 100.0 dps (2 min duration)

Rebirth - Grave Consequences adv (power slot)
rank 1 + adv: 300.0 dps
rank 2 + adv: 300.0 dps

Dr. Destroyer's Head
35.0 dps
base cd: 5 mins
duration: 60 sec

Psionic Echoes
632.0 dps
base cd: 5 min
duration: 20 sec

Khusor's Doom
378.0 dps (94.5 dps per gnasher; 6 max, 4 avg)
base cd: 5 min*
duration: 60 sec

Ragged Proletariat's Armband
600.0 dps
base cd: 15 min
duration: 180 sec

Teleiosaurus Pheromones
300-375 avg (not uptime) dps
per Hatchling: ~175 dps
per Corusactor: ~350 dps
base cd: toggle (30 sec to reactivate if disabled)
duration: 30 sec per Hatchling; 60 sec per Coruscator

-> Device Pet Misc. Notes:

- Device Pet AI cannot usually be controlled or influenced beyond what they/you first attack. They may not always pick your primary target when summoned, but can pick whatever is nearest to their LoS when they spawn.
- Khusor's Doom's cd (5 min) is not altered by player stats.
- Gnashers from Khursor's Doom can apply snare.
- The drone from Dr. Destroyer's Head takes ~20sec between attack cycles.
- Res Serum's Reanimator adv and Rebirth's Grave Consequences adv function like a Device Pet, but using a Power Slot instead of a Device Slot.
- The ghoul from Res Serum's adv does not appear to be stronger at R2, but does last twice as long.
- The undead from Rebirth's adv don't seem to be affected by rank at all. Max duration of undead scales w/ Int (~0.05sec per 1 Int, base 30 sec)

= Sample Thematic Pet Builds = (note: these builds may become outdated in the future)

Preface: Initially, I wasn't going to include much building advice in this reference, as the topic was meant to cover empirical data, and it's too easy for my own personal prefs to seep in besides. However, to help make the guide more complete, here's some sample setups displaying how diverse Pet-heavy builds can be. Hybrid builds or builds w/ only 1-2 pets weren't considered for this criteria.

-> Damage-focused
- Terror from the Nether - AoPM + Ebon Ruin and Paranormal pets
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Int and Pres (minor) Con and Dex/crit]
- The Wolfpack - AoED + Bestial SN and 'savage' pets (melee build!)
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Str and Pres (minor) Con and Rec/End]
- Punk 4 Lyfe - AoED + Muni and thrashing pets
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Ego and Pres (minor) Con and Rec]
- The Shocking Conjurer - AoPM + Lightning and Sorcery rituals
`-> [ Gearing: (major) End and Pres (minor) Con and Rec]
- Hot n' Cold Barrage - AoED + Elemental dmg and pets
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Int and Pres (minor) Con and Dex/crit]

-> Versatile Support
- Psychic Debuffer - AoAC + Telepathy w/ debuffs & CC
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres and Int (minor) Con]
- Arcane Barrage - AoPM + Sorcery pet build
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Int and Pres (minor) Con]
- Force of Not-Nature - AoPM + Force and tech companions
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Int and Pres (minor) Con]
- The Fiery Warden - AoPM + Heavy Weapon w/ pet backup (melee build!)
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres and Str (minor) Con]

-> Healing-focused
- Better Living Through Science! - Med Nanites + (mostly) tech pets
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres (minor) Con and Int]
- The Celestial Army - Seraphim + Dimensional-based powers
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres (minor) Con and Dex/crit]
- Fart In Your General Direction - AoRP + Earth/Wind summoner
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres (minor) Con and Int]
- Lightbound Ranger - AoRP + Archery-based healer w/ some CC & pets
`-> [ Gearing: (major) Pres (minor) Int and Con]

.. I tried to sample from a wider array of abilities, while still keeping things functional. Feel free to modify anything to suit your goals or tastes.

--
And that's it for now!

- Other misc notes are also covered in the spreadsheet. Ofc, I prob missed some things here and there. Feedback and corrections are welcome. Thank you for reading, and I hope this was helpful.

aiqa · July 2014

Nice testing, summon nightmare is particularly interesting since r2 allows you to take the adv to make them "permanent".

jairevans · July 2014

Thanks!

I tweaked which of my summons had ranks in them some with this and the results have been fantastic.

flowcyto · July 2014

Glad its helping, and yeah if ranking up Summon Nightmares r2 + night terror is the way to go, it seems.

theravenforce · July 2014

flowcyto wrote: »

Glad its helping, and yeah if ranking up Summon Nightmares r2 + night terror is the way to go, it seems.

This was one of my favourite things to do on a Mind AT, run into a group and summon these on every single target till I had an army of them, back them up with Ego Sprites etc

Thank you very much for testing this.

Question...do you know roughly how much of a buff pets in general (Device Pets included) gain from Draysha Gas?

superalfgorn · July 2014

Wonderful thread, thx.

PLS sticky!!!

flowcyto · July 2014

theravenforce wrote: »

This was one of my favourite things to do on a Mind AT, run into a group and summon these on every single target till I had an army of them, back them up with Ego Sprites etc

Thank you very much for testing this.

Question...do you know roughly how much of a buff pets in general (Device Pets included) gain from Draysha Gas?

anytime

Unfortunately, I lack most devices atm. Does the tooltip for the draysha gun give any hints or numerical values? For players I think the bonus it gives is additive or passive dmg-layered, and if so it'd prob have a more marked effect on pets if it worked.

If I get the resources to, I may add in some device-based stuff as extra material, along w/ other things.

bravehoptoad · July 2014

Sticky! This needs a sticky in the worst way.

shadowzero66 · July 2014

The Ghouls from Resurrection Serum's advantage are missing. Granted they might be more difficult to test.

alexandrafreya · July 2014

A very impressive guide I must say, Thank you for the hard effort it must have taken

The pet scaling I've been vvondering on for quite some time so I am glad to have more light on that one.

Ermm..Did you ever test Device Pets at all?....I usually find scaling vvorks differently on them and just vvondered if that truly vvas the case or not.

Anyvvay, Thank you for the guide; it vvas very enlighten to read

Alexandra.

flowcyto · July 2014

shadowzero66 wrote: »

The Ghouls from Resurrection Serum's advantage are missing. Granted they might be more difficult to test.

Yup, that would be a bit tricky. I'll throw them in once I get a good method for it. My suspicion is their base dps is the same as R1 March of the dead, but we'll see.

Ermm..Did you ever test Device Pets at all?....I usually find scaling vvorks differently on them and just vvondered if that truly vvas the case or not.

Yeah, I'll get around to devices when I can, and look into their scaling.

vorshoth · July 2014

This has been amazingly useful to me, as I typically play with pet builds since the pet AI is a bit better at doing damage than I am with my crummy laptop's lag and spluttery at running Champs sometimes.
Made me try a few powers I avoided because they seemed a bit iffy to me based on the tooltips: for example, summon nightmare seemed weird to me, not least on the roleplayer side because nowhere in the tooltip does it say what the summons actually looks like, so I avoided it, until this data made me tempted to have a look.

Something I'd note is that the Resurrection Serum ghouls seemed a bit hardier than the march of the dead ones, but it's weird since you have to have a supply of enemy corpses to summon them.

Also, there's ghouls raised via the advantage on the self-revive power in infernal, I believe.

flowcyto · July 2014

Ah yes- the Rebirth adv. That will be even weirder to test. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for pointing that out.

Updated the OP (2nd reply) w/ some prelim Device-related pet info, and some other misc notes related to the pet powers. Also updated the spreadsheet accordingly.

Fortunately, the test dummies corpses in the PH count for Res Serum's Reanimator, so testing that wasn't too bad. I dun have many in-game resources atm, so dun expect me to blow them on the Phermones for a mere test character yet. We'll see..

shadowzero66 · July 2014

flowcyto wrote: »

Ah yes- the Rebirth adv. That will be even weirder to test. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for pointing that out.

Dark Transfusion yourself to death and then use Rebirth.

flowcyto · July 2014

shadowzero66 wrote: »

Dark Transfusion yourself to death and then use Rebirth.

yup, was prob going to use DT for it, on some more thought.

astewart42 · July 2014

So, based on the very long list of problems you cited with pets, is there any empirical reason to actually TAKE pets?

What are their advantages? As a Solo PVE player, do they work on the hardest encounters?

What would be a sample Pets build that works?

Awesome work, btw.

flowcyto · July 2014

astewart42 wrote: »

So, based on the very long list of problems you cited with pets, is there any empirical reason to actually TAKE pets?

What are their advantages? As a Solo PVE player, do they work on the hardest encounters?

What would be a sample Pets build that works?

Awesome work, btw.

All good points! Yeah, it comes off as too critical of pet builds by just going over their AI issues. I wasn't really sure I wanted to turn this into a general guide, but I'll try to balance it a bit more at least.

I dun expect this thread to be stickied since its not really meaty enough (and because it highlights some AI behavior issues, plus various other reasons), but I will eventually include it in a signature. Want to publish at least one more document before doing that.

tdits · July 2014

astewart42 wrote: »

So, based on the very long list of problems you cited with pets, is there any empirical reason to actually TAKE pets?

What are their advantages? As a Solo PVE player, do they work on the hardest encounters?

What would be a sample Pets build that works?

Awesome work, btw.

Aura of Ebon Destruction.

flowcyto · July 2014

Updated the guide w/ some more tests, some sample builds, and some perks of using pet builds. May be the last major update I do on this one for a while.

Thanks, everyone, for ur feedback thus far!

patternwalker · August 2014

I just discovered this thread. Thanks so much for doing this, flowcyto! I agree this should be stickied.

flowcyto · December 2014

Thanks again for ur feedback, all. This guide prob doesn't warrant a sticky (these forums have too many as is). I've put it in my sig to help people find it, though- no biggie :x

Updated the guide w/ some initial testing from the Teleiosaur Pherms (kindly donated to me by Jimhsua)- in the device pet section of the 2nd post.
Its tough to nail down concrete numbers for the dinos due to the random nature of the device, but the dps figures given should be a rel decent base estimate.

darekliftar · July 2017

Thanks so much flowcyto. If you have time I would love an update of this. I realize how much time that could be though so I completely understand if that is a no go. I do know that I definitely have seen my summoned pets health change with change of stat equipment without re-summoning so they may have changed something. I am also curious if you feel the ai has been improved since 2014. Then lastly I will try and test some more but I do think intelligence is effecting pet damage.

flowcyto · July 2017

Like I mentioned already in the guide, pet health is tied to SS's, so that will scale as you gear ur 3 SS's up naturally. As far as Int: again, that's because its an SS for you atm. Non-SS'd Int does not boost pet damage alone anymore, and I've tested that a few times now. That said, thanks for getting me to look into the SS's 'all damage strength' scaling, as that is affecting pet dmg and I missed that before.

If I were to do a considerable update the guide again, it'd prob be to re-do the build examples.. though I didn't originally want them in the guide, and powersets are still being revamped by the devs. Most of the changes since 2014 would be to the powersets themselves, and not to pet mechanics in particular.

flowcyto · July 2017

Alright, just re-did all the builds in the last section. Hopefully they are a bit more relevant now.

darekliftar · July 2017

just fyi I got this from a guys guides on steam who seems to keep his stuff really up to date and has been great guides:

Honor: Healing or shielding an ally will grant you a stacking buff that boosts the strength of your next attack. The damage buff offered from this is quite sizable (up to 30% extra if you fully stack), but requires some micromanagement to maximize the damage output of it. Unfortunately, this effect can only be activated by using explicitly targeted heals, so no heal aura damage boosts!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=122228214

flowcyto · July 2017

Yea that 'guy' is Bluhman; he's on the forums here too

He's a good player w/ great guides, but that is a bit off-topic for this thread..

Anyways- yea Honor can work when healing pets, and I already pointed that out in the guide:

-> If you have a passive healing aura that's innate (ie. Seraphim, Med Nanites; NOT spec-ones like Sentinel Aura) you can proc Honor in the Arbiter/Overseer spec trees when solo just by having pets out and nearby.
`-> Pets also offer a means to benefit from Honored when solo by active healing of them in general.

He's not quite correct about healing auras not working, as Seraphim and Med Nanites still can proc Honor passively (just re-tested that w/ pets, and its still true)- just that other healing auras don't seem to.

jebidiahbeetus · February 2018

I wanna bump this thread and ask a few questions. About a year or two ago I requested a Mastermind-style character and decided to go with the pets I liked and ended up with mostly a darkness/paranormal build what also included the Pyromancer's Blades. I remember that it handled trash mobs fine, keeping the pets alive wasn't too tedious, and although there aren't any human pets (unless you count the Arcane) I still had fun with it. I've been getting the urge to revive this character again, so I would like to know about a few things not mentioned so far.

For example, what are the stats for the Mechanical Monstrosity? Which Backup! device would be the best choice of the five options? How do the Loyal Sidekicks rank in terms of least to most effective at their role? I have only ever used Indy Kid as a permanent sidekick and he doesn't seem too effective in his role as melee, so he's mostly just for thematic reasons. I have never had a Duratok or Watt Earp or Valiant teddy and so on. Since most pet's AI tend to rush enemies with melee, would a ranged sidekick like Pistolwhip be a better choice to hang back and attack from a distance? (also, are devs ever gonna give us a permanent Hardy Davidson?)

I ache for my Thugs Mastermind so much, i'd give anything to have hired goons at my disposal again. I hope that with the right balance of pets, devices, and buffs i'll be able to create a faithful tribute to one of my favorite play styles.

flowcyto · February 2018

I don't have the dps tests for Monstrosity, but for ref its base stats at R1 are:
68 energy
90 sec cd (~30 sec uptime)
1.67 sec full activation time
~17.7k health
Spit = 312 dmg (50ft range)
Swipe = 438 dmg (10ft range sphere)
Electrocute = 438 dmg (15ft pbAoE)
Lunge = 560 dmg

Compare to some other base numbers:

Pyro Blades:
43 energy
20 sec cd (~20 sec uptime)
1.67 sec full activation time
~2.5k health
base attack = 101 dmg

Tyrannon's Familiar
36 energy
perm pet
2.87 sec full summon time
base melee attack = 68 dmg

The Mech Monstrosity is basically a burst dps pet cd, which it is quite good for compared to the other pets, but you have to take into account its temporary uptime and longer cd. It basically takes the place of a dps Ultimate for a Pet build, so get it if you value that.

As far as the temp Backup! devices: they all are high burst dps for when they are up, and I think Nighthawk is the best for burst AoE cause he uses Ricochet Throw, but any of them give solid burst dps against bosses. I don't have any easy way to test or acquire all of them, unfortunately (including the perm Sidekicks), so I can't give you any hard numbers there. For the Sidekicks, though, I imagine their numbers aren't too diff when they are committed to dpsing; I may instead look at the various debuffs or buffs they provide instead and see if any of them work w/ the rest of your build (or w/e ones just match your desired theme).

Ranged pets do generally have a better chance of not standing in as much AoE, but many harder bosses have very large AoEs that can still hit them anyways. You wouldn't still generally want to bring pets to high-end content anyways, though.

jebidiahbeetus · February 2018

I have temporary versions of all five Backup! characters, if I give them to you in the game would you be able to test them out?

flowcyto · February 2018

If you want, you could copy your toon w/ any unbound devices to the PTS and mail them to me (pm me if you wanna follow up w/ that). I don't want to bind/take any of your devices on Live, but for the PTS everything is basically expendable, so I could do it there.

flowcyto · February 2018

Okay, its limited testing, but the temp Backup devices generally do similar base total dmg against one target (12.5-14.5k dmg over about 12-15 sec). Some sample parses:

(ignore Eld Bolts; that's my end builder here)
Defender:

Ironclad:

Kinetic:

Witchcraft:

Nighthawk:

The main diffs are the range and AoE properties of their attacks. Their diff attacks pretty much behave like the player versions, so you can surmise their range and properties. Generally: Defender, Witchcraft, and Nighthawk are ranged, and Kinetic & Ironclad are melee. Even w/ the ranged heroes, though, you prob want to summon them w/in 50ft of a target, else you risk them being summoned and not doing anything. Like most device pets, they seem to attack the most convenient nearby target, and not necc yours.

Hope that helps some.

darkdiablo · August 2021

Hey, Flowcyto! I'd like to suggest a petmaster build into a damage-focused category.

Meet Algruuf the Terrible, an offensive necromancer:

(EDIT: Build is moved into a separate thread)

Parsing showed that this build is capable of maintaining 5k DPS in a controlled environment. Of course, in endgame fights like cosmics it'll be much less but I'd still wager that Algruuf can deal over 2k DPS at them, that's while buffing everyone else's damage and debuffing resistance towards AoE attacks (PA and FC builds will be happy).

Hopefully that is worthy enough to go into the collection!

flowcyto · August 2021

Hey, thanks for the build submission- it does indeed look strong for pet dps. I didn't intend for this thread to be about posting and reviewing other player's builds, though, so I'd ask for people to make a new thread on the Builds and Roles forum if they want to post a pet build, or to ask for help w/ one.

darkdiablo · August 2021

flowcyto wrote: »

I didn't intend for this thread to be about posting and reviewing other player's builds, though

Fair enough. I just noticed there's no build involving undead-ish pets so I figured such a suggestion would make sense. Anywho, moving it to its own thread!

redcastle56 · October 2021

I discovered something about device pets.

There are two kinds. Toggle based, and independent.

Toggle based pets

will usually have in the description that if you toggle the device off or the pet dies, it goes on cooldown.
Usually last longer (300 Seconds)
You can only have 1 toggle based pet out at a time. If you summon another toggle based pet, the first one will disappear and go on cooldown.
If the pet times out, or you toggle it off, just that device goes on cooldown. You can immediately summon another toggled pet
However, if the pet dies, there appears to be shared cooldown all toggle based pets.

Most permanent devices that summon pets are toggle. This includes the Vibora bay gang summon that drop from TT, Revenant of Firefight, Robot Factory (and any robots summoned from it), Destroyers head, etc. Also includes the skull of the necromancer, and bone whistle pets, and gun drone.

Independent pets

Shorter duration. (30 sec, or 180 sec)
Once summoned, will stay around no matter what. You can even remove the summoning device from the device slot.

Most of the charged summons are independent, unless it mentions the toggle mechanic. Most of the ones you can buy for 5 until rec at the until rec store are independent.

I think that pets that are summoned as a chance from devices are independent, but need to confirm. (things like Tele Pheremones, Armband, Gremlin etc)

Sidekicks are a different class. You can have a sidekick and a toggle out at the same time.

Backup devices also are a different class. When you summon a backup, there is a short (5 sec) cool down on all backup devices. When the backup device finishes, just that device (all versions of it, which I would assume means regular and retro of just that hero) go on 5 min cooldown. The toggle pets are not affected by the backup devices.

Was a bit of a surprise till I figured out what was going on.

flowcyto · October 2021

redcastle56 wrote: »

I discovered something about device pets.

There are two kinds. Toggle based, and independent. (...)

Ah, that's interesting! I didn't do as much testing on the device pets way back when, so having more up-to-date info on them is helpful. Thanks for looking in to this more; I'll reference this reply w/ the extra info so far in the guide.

areee · October 2021

I am curious. Does the Recovery sspec "Super Charged" affect pets ssince once you are above 90% energy your crit chance actually increases on your character stat sheet.

flowcyto · October 2021

areee wrote: »

I am curious. Does the Recovery sspec "Super Charged" affect pets ssince once you are above 90% energy your crit chance actually increases on your character stat sheet.

It may, though I'll prob go w/ a somewhat longer parse to test it (maybe 5 min or so), just to lessen the impact of rng. Here's some basic parses using a lvl 40 character w/ a 2.2% base crit (and 50% base severity) and a few pets on a Regen dummy (R1 Muni Bots, Arcane summon, and Sorc's Familiar).

No Super Charged buff:

~6% is around what should be expected w/ ~5% base pet crit + 2.2%/2 from the char sheet, so this result seems to check out.

-
With the Super Charged buff (using CoAP to keep energy above the threshhold):

5% + 17.2%/2 = 13.6%

( Sampling of a more detailed view, just to show that these attacks are all coming from the pets:
https://i.imgur.com/NU0B0LF.jpg )
-

So it seems like Super Charged does indeed work w/ pets, since it updates the char sheet amount for crit%.

(not much of a dps change in this case, but this is just using partial build w/ weak stats and weak pets.)

areee · October 2021

flowcyto wrote: »

areee wrote: »

I am curious. Does the Recovery sspec "Super Charged" affect pets ssince once you are above 90% energy your crit chance actually increases on your character stat sheet.

It may, though I'll prob go w/ a somewhat longer parse to test it (maybe 5 min or so), just to lessen the impact of rng. Here's some basic parses using a lvl 40 character w/ a 2.2% base crit (and 50% base severity) and a few pets on a Regen dummy (R1 Muni Bots, Arcane summon, and Sorc's Familiar).

No Super Charged buff:

~6% is around what should be expected w/ ~5% base pet crit + 2.2%/2 from the char sheet, so this result seems to check out.

-
With the Super Charged buff (using CoAP to keep energy above the threshhold):

5% + 17.2%/2 = 13.6%

( Sampling of a more detailed view, just to show that these attacks are all coming from the pets:
https://i.imgur.com/NU0B0LF.jpg )
-

So it seems like Super Charged does indeed work w/ pets, since it updates the char sheet amount for crit%.

(not much of a dps change in this case, but this is just using partial build w/ weak stats and weak pets.)

Thanks for finding it out. I use it in a couple pet builds. One of which my energy builder is ice with the 15% crit bonus, which I know doesn't go to pets. Still half of, currently, 37% crit total is a nice 18% added to their 5% and command buffing 20%. 43% crit rate and it shows. ^..^ Can't wait to see how it ends up at 40.

flowcyto · October 2021

Sure thing 8) Hope that build keeps being good for you at max level too.

warcanch · October 2021

(Because I'm too lazy to check)

Have you guys tested the dps produced by the Champions' pets? The ones we all get as drops from the Anniversary Event. The ones that have 15 seconds of play and a 5 minute cooldown.

Are they about on par with a decent ULTIMATE power? Or are they simply worthless and only there to have as an "oh look who I have as a teammate/pal/etc" for 15 seconds every 5 minutes?

flowcyto · October 2021

warcanch wrote: »

Have you guys tested the dps produced by the Champions' pets? The ones we all get as drops from the Anniversary Event. The ones that have 15 seconds of play and a 5 minute cooldown. (...)

I assume that these devices are the 'Backup!' devices we've had around for years - just w/ a re-skin, and if that's the case then I've already parsed them earlier in the thread. Here's a quick parse on a test character who had an Anniversary device (Platinum Defender) on Live, though:

Seems to comport w/ the old tests (around 13k total base dmg over 12-15 sec). Their uptime is very low, so you basically should just treat them as a burst dps cd on a very long timer.

areee · November 2021

Well I couldn't get the pet parser to work for me but with the build below, 95 Pri, 293 and 319 Secondaries. I was able to eyeball the dps going up against PoV at about 5-6k steady dps.

https://aesica.net/co/herocreator.htm?v=37&n=&d=1267046JYDSO000000M000M801MG00MX05MW04NO037Q035H037P037R034E01LI01MV04MY040Us60mbK438W10000000000&e=

flowcyto · November 2021

Hm, I just can't see that build managing very high dps as is. When I parsed it w/ Heroic & Vigilante gear and R7 mods (mostly for Pres), I was only getting about 1.7k dps vs. a Regen dummy:

However, just subbing one of the pets (the arcane summon, just cause I trained it last) for R3 AoED (in Support role) did boost dps by a very large amount (up to 4.3k):

Although this is a more extreme example for AoED (due to the crazy number of pets and Ebon Lightning procs), it does show how good AoED can potentially be for pet dps

-
And just out of curiosity (to get more data outta this, since I'm already here), I also tried out AoPM and AoAC (instead of AoED), just to see their relative effects on a large pet array..

w/ AoPM (~2.1k dps):
https://i.imgur.com/fs3ejyl.jpg
w/ AoAC (~1.87k dps):
https://i.imgur.com/w8GnLvB.jpg

Didn't seem like AoAC had that much of an effect on overall dps (though the frequency of some special pet attacks increased). AoPM had a more considerable effect on dps, though it's ofc dwarfed by what AoED could do.

areee · December 2021

Found the reason. I got 1.2k dps on the dummy. Then I switched my block I got at level 6 for AoED and got 2k dps on the dummy. Then I went out and did 6k dps on a PoV.

OVs are squishy to summoners. ^..^;;

PS: AoEd increased overall DPS by 50%

flowcyto · December 2021

Hm, well I guess that explains the 5-6k dps figure you were getting earlier. Thanks for re-checking it.

Petco: A Pet/Summon Math Reference

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