Debuff pet suggestion?

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary

I'm running into a situation where a pet with decent debuffs would come in handy. A good example is TT2-2 or 2-3 against Warlord, since the cleric(s) would normally be too busy to do their own debuffs.

Anyone have any suggestions for a good debuff pet? I'd prefer to capture one with debuff skills already on it (and level it up in the cube) then completely reconfigure one, unless you guys can give me a compelling reason to.

Currently I use a Ninetailed Firefox with it's level 4 howl which comes in really handy with a pure arcane wizzy doing DD. Howl + Amp + Extreme Posion means boss goes boom! b:victory

Any ideas?

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Lunar lupin has a huge howl built in.
The grimalkins have a large threaten.

I've not found anything with both. (Pierce of course is overwhelmed by ironwood)

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

ninetail with howl
remove fireball
add shrill and threaten

Now you have a very nice DD pet with debuffs (top 10 dds in game).

Or, if you feel like leveling a pet
Get a level 3 scorpion, put fleshream, howl, threaten, shrill

WaffleChan - Sanctuary

Id suggest a well rounded defense pet over one with higher attack, possibly one of the bears, etc. You may want it to live boss AOEs :P

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Get the Armored Bear or Cuddly Pup so that you have Frighten, that's good for evil bosses like Wurlord. I'm not sure if Zoologist has that one. If she has that skill scroll then it would be another good one to add to your "support" pet. Otherwise I'd say grab a Kowlin and max it's two debuffs and let it DD. (b:sad Kowlin is my favorite DD pet. Highest DPS of all of the pets I own outside of the legendary ones.)

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary

I don't use anything other than my herc on AoE bosses. I tend to have my pets die on me otherwise. b:surrender

It's a shame I don't know the level 90 dps of the lunar lupin, though i could also just use the Firefox, I do like the pet!

tweakz

You won't have much use for a debuff pet in squads as Clerics have their Elemental Seal, and you have Ironwood, Myriad, Amp. All applied pet skills build aggro (which includes these debuffs) as well. Herc's do great DPS w/o applied skills and pets are dmg reduction free in TT, so you want a pet that can do some DD. A ranged pet can do DD while being out of short ranged AoE. What this means is no time wasted healing so you can debuff / DD more.

Mamiko_mao - Sanctuary

Like the TC said... when clerics are too busy to debuff the enemy for you, a pet's debuffs can make a major difference.

I have a Frost Antelope I've been using for this purpose, but if a Firefox has better DPS/HP/Defenses, I wouldn't mind (plus it saves me the trouble of levelling/spending money on the Antelope).

I heard from a friend that a Tabby Plumdrop also has debuffs, but I haven't actually checked it out myself so I wouldn't know. You could try that?

tweakz

Mamiko_mao - Sanctuary wrote: »

Like the TC said... when clerics are too busy to debuff the enemy for you, a pet's debuffs can make a major difference.

If the cleric's tied up, and you're doing debuffs: that's 2 mag casters down that will not be using the Howl Debuff anyway. If you have left in the squad a single wizard, barb, blademaster, and archer: wouldn't it be wiser to use a high dps pet rather than one risking aggro with Howl? The circumstances calling for a customized pet for just such occasions are too rare to make it worth the investment. On the other hand, Howl is great for grinding and as mentioned a Lunar Lupin comes with Lv5 Howl and can be used at no cost for those rare occasions.

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary

You know, I'm gonna try that. The next time I am in a squad against Warlord I'll use my Firefox with howl and see if it steals aggro. A Herc with a level 5 bash steals aggro if I forget to turn off bash (made that mistake only once so far).

If it does steal aggro, then the only situation I've come across for a debuff pet would be kind of useless. b:surrender

Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary wrote: »

You know, I'm gonna try that. The next time I am in a squad against Warlord I'll use my Firefox with howl and see if it steals aggro. A Herc with a level 5 bash steals aggro if I forget to turn off bash (made that mistake only once so far).

If it does steal aggro, then the only situation I've come across for a debuff pet would be kind of useless. b:surrender

Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

I have yet to steal aggro with my scorpion using threaten and howl..... Skills that do not cause damage have less aggro on them than skills that do cause damage, that is why if you lure a mob using slow, even if the attack hits, and you recall your pet, the mob does not come after you...

Now if you had a tank much lower level than your pet, than I am sure even threaten and howl could steal aggro,

tweakz

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

that is why if you lure a mob using slow, even if the attack hits, and you recall your pet, the mob does not come after you...

Slow generates a lot of aggro, it's because the lure target isn't damaged that it doesn't respond. Iif your pet loses aggro, it can regain it faster/ better with Slow. Using Slow can also prevent it's losing aggro.

The dmg reduction in TT can make a difference in aggro holding ability since pets are immune. It also depends on the build / play style of the barb.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

tweakz wrote: »

The dmg reduction in TT can make a difference in aggro holding ability since pets are immune. It also depends on the build / play style of the barb.

This would be the biggest thing, I think. If the tank is not very good at keeping aggro, than problems will happen. On the other hand, I have been able to cycle through 3 attack skills and one debuf skill non-stop before and the tank was able to keep aggro, so it really comes down to the tank.

Mamiko_mao - Sanctuary

tweakz wrote: »

If the cleric's tied up, and you're doing debuffs: that's 2 mag casters down that will not be using the Howl Debuff anyway. If you have left in the squad a single wizard, barb, blademaster, and archer: wouldn't it be wiser to use a high dps pet rather than one risking aggro with Howl? The circumstances calling for a customized pet for just such occasions are too rare to make it worth the investment. On the other hand, Howl is great for grinding and as mentioned a Lunar Lupin comes with Lv5 Howl and can be used at no cost for those rare occasions.

Edit: A Veno debuffing isn't losing out on DPS. Myriad + Amp Damage are significant contributors to DPS for other squaddies. In my case I then go back to human form and cast Ironwood, Venomous, and Lucky scarab. Ironwood is also an additional layer of debuff. You just have to watch the pet skills and use them when they cool down. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I have an antelope with Howl 5, Shriek 5 and Roar 1. So far, the Antelope is barely able to keep aggro on itself (mostly because I haven't replaced its crappy Icicle yet), which is when I use Roar to make it attract the mob again. Howl by itself, or even with antelope damage, does not generate enough (or any) aggro to steal a mob from the tank. Neither does Shriek generate any/much aggro (I've tried).

I intend to replace Roar with Threaten and Icicle with Flesh Ream. Then I'll take it to Ancient Evil and try it out. b:laugh

xxxdsmer

roar actually could be upgraded as an agro skill. friend of mine has that skill on 'er herc and absolutely swears by it (for an agro skill), and icicle could also be upgraded as it would increase the agro making of the skill (it is an elemental bash, and all bashes make agro)

that if you're trying to get the antelope to try and hold mobs attention better, and if ur just tryin to get ream on there, i'd go with replacing roar w/ ream

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

Roar's good for getting aggro, not so good for keeping it, because of its long cooldown.

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Roar is a quick, save-your-life agro skill. It doesn't generate agro like ream or bash do.

xxxdsmer

@mayfly: which is why my herc's got bash3 (currently limited by mine and pets lvl, but goin up in lvl when possible) instead of roar3

@sevas: i havent seen ream make agro, then again i havent a ground pet with ream3 on it either, but bash is certainly my choice for a pet agro skill, and life's become alot easier since having put it on my herc and evn on my cub so it keeps agro so i can lvl it lol

Sevas - Heavens Tear

If it deals damage to a mob it generates agro. Or so I have been told. Bash just generates it faster than ream does. (Kowlin comes with L4 Ream! b:victory)

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

xxxdsmer wrote:

@mayfly: which is why my herc's got bash3 (currently limited by mine and pets lvl, but goin up in lvl when possible) instead of roar3

My pentastral beetle king has roar 4, bash 4 and flesh ream 4.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Roar's good for getting aggro, not so good for keeping it, because of its long cooldown.

As best as I can tell, roar wipes the aggro table and puts your pet on top with aggro equivalent to about 3k-6k damage depending on its level. This might increase with pet level, I haven't been able to test that.

A consequence of this is that immediately after your pet roars, if someone who hadn't even attacked the mob before lands a big hit which exceeds roar's aggro, they will pull aggro off the pet. So you have to train your group a bit - if they see the sword appear on the mob, they need to stop attacking for 5-10 sec to let the pet/tank regain aggro.

I think the barb version does the same thing, except it gives the barb like 50k damage worth of aggro. My herc died in the middle of a TT3-1 boss fight. I revived and asked the barb to roar, but it still took my herc about 3 minutes to get aggro back from him. It's not really conclusive (I suppose my herc could do as much damage in 3 minutes as the barb did in the previous 10), but I'm not really concerned about testing the barb version at this point. The pet version I'm pretty certain about how it works because I've used it extensively on FB bosses.

Sevas - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If it deals damage to a mob it generates agro. Or so I have been told. Bash just generates it faster than ream does. (Kowlin comes with L4 Ream! b:victory)

Aggro comes from the skill use, and from damage. The damage/debuff skills all seem to produce about the same amount of skill aggro (i.e. level 1 Bash produces as much skill aggro as level 1 Howl). So the only difference between Bash and Flesh Ream is that Bash can be used more frequently (8 sec cooldown vs. 15 sec), and the different amount of damage the two skills do.

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=259391

stefyyyy

dharma or kwlin best dd pet i use in fb tt.. his dmg not that hi so he never steal agro like a golem or a scorpion would do... as for debuf skill i have yet to see any agro power... best agro skil bash..ream.. roar... also use bramble on barbar sure make your pet live longer.. or even archers b:chuckle

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Well, if you can find a veno with a pet at the same level as you it's easy to test.

From general playing I'd agree that debuff skills don't generate very much aggro, but they do generate some.

There was a big long post a while back where someone had their pet hit a monster once (with various skills and normal attacks) and then they counted how many heals it took before they stole aggro - that post estimated that every level of a pet skill (and skill) was worth about 1-attacks worth of aggro. It would be easy enough for you to test this way as well.

Edit:
The two commonly advised debuff pets are the lunar lupin and the steelfang grimalk. Both come with outlevelled debuff skills.

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary

xxxdsmer wrote: »

roar actually could be upgraded as an agro skill. friend of mine has that skill on 'er herc and absolutely swears by it (for an agro skill), and icicle could also be upgraded as it would increase the agro making of the skill (it is an elemental bash, and all bashes make agro)

that if you're trying to get the antelope to try and hold mobs attention better, and if ur just tryin to get ream on there, i'd go with replacing roar w/ ream

I ran into a veno in a bh69 that had roar on their herc. It totally sucked. I'd aggro a mob, bash it a couple of times and then our wizzy would start up. She'd send in her herc, roar the mob, the wizzy would pull aggro with his next spell and die.

Roar on a herc is a Very Bad Idea, in my opinion.

Btw, I used my FireFox with lvl 4 howl on Warlord in TT2-2. It didn't pull aggro off the mob. I might go and level it's howl up to level 5 just for kicks now!

Funny thing is: I was thinking of investing money into my Kowlin and making it a debuff pet, but the FireFox does more damage and would cost loss to upgrade howl on. I may just egg my Kowlin soon, I've been using my Eldergoth Marksman to pull lately with better results on average.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

ElonaFiorna - Sanctuary wrote: »

I ran into a veno in a bh69 that had roar on their herc. It totally sucked. I'd aggro a mob, bash it a couple of times and then our wizzy would start up. She'd send in her herc, roar the mob, the wizzy would pull aggro with his next spell and die.

I agree with your conclusion, but would like to add that this is the wrong way to use roar.
Becuase roar appears to wipe the hate list (or at least smacks the pet right to the top) the right way is for everyone to unload their hugest damage skills - and THEN to roar, which cancels the aggro back down.

I think they'll STILL grab it back too quickly, but this way round keeps aggro on the pet for longer than the other way. Roar on auto would usually be a terrible idea.