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Note: from the July 24, 2002 Patch Message: Altered pet summoning spells so that they always summon the most powerful pet possible, instead of pets within a 5 level range.

Note: from the January 26, 2005 Patch Message: High level shaman pet should now automatically dual wield.

General Pet Info

Mirrored here with permission from Tulisin; original post is here.

Believed to apply to Shaman spell-based pets as well, although, since our higher level pets die easily and (now) innately dual wield, most Shamans normally do not bother to gear them up.

The most relevant section, IMO, is Section No.1.

While my other post was a guide to approximately what price you should expect to spend in the bazaar to get a decent boost of stats for your pet, this guide is intended to dispell rumors and spread knowledge about what a pet can and cannot wield. This guide is intended for the mage community, but the information should be accurate for most pets. Please post feedback if I got something wrong, with proof, if possible.

Section #1: Rumors dispelled:

1. Pets cannot equip no drop items.
They simply can't, at one time NPCs were allowed to but that is no longer possible, if you try to give a no drop item to your pet, your pet will either hand it back to you, or simply obliterate it.

2. Pets ignore required and recommended levels on *gear*, but not on *procs*.
Even if an item has a required or recommended level of 75, a level 5 pet will gain 100 % of the stats that item grants. However, if a pet is lower level than the required level for the proc on a weapon, the proc will not go off.

3. Pets ignore the lore tag.
You can hand your pet two of the same lore weapon, he will equip them both NP.

4. Pets ignore both the class and the race tags.
Pet gear simply says none/none (or other things, depending on the piece) because they don't want PCs using powerful gear intended for pets only. The item can say it is only usable by barbarian wizards for all the pet cares and it will still equip it.

5. Most weapons are *not* better than pet weapons for pets.
Pet weapons are incredibly powerful for pets. They have high-powered damage (and in the case of TSS weapons) anger procs. In addition to the procs being very powerful, OoW + weapons have a 200 % procrate. This means that those procs go off twice as much as a normal weapon. In addition, the pet weapons have a hearty amount of HP, which can be very useful for pets. There are very few weapons that can compete with pet weapons. A few exceptions would be: utility procs (snare, slow, etc.), and very powerful or hard-to-resist DDs/DoTs.

6. Ratio is unimportant on weapons given to pets.
To start with, pets have a built in delay, they'll swing a 100 delay weapon and a 5 delay weapon at exactly the same speed. Damage on a weapon *can* have an effect on pet damage, however, damage on the weapon must be more than half of the pet's regular hit. Thus, if a pet hits for 50 normally, the weapon must have a damage of at least 26 (25x2 being exactly 50). So while giving a low level pet a high damage weapon will yield massive DPS increases (a level 12 pet can hit in the triple digits with a 60 damage weapon), high level pets are impossible to find damage upgrades for due to the fact that half their max hit is 50 +, and such high-damage droppable one-handers don't exist.

7. Pets don't benefit from being given foci.
They simply don't, giving the fire pet a nuke foci shows no increase in nuke power. I don't believe melee foci have been tested (Dodge II and such) but I doubt they have any effect.

Section #2: What stats to look for in a piece of pet gear:

Procs (weapons only): Procs can have a massive effect on pet damage or utility, depending on the proc, but not always (refer to rumor #5).

Ratio (weapons only): See rumor #6.

AC: AC has been determined to have a very large effect on pet tanking power, look for stuff with lots of AC.

Assorted mods: Spell Shielding, Shielding, + DS, accuracy, etc. can all helpt the pet a lot, unfortunately finding these on droppable gear is very rare. Haste is *not* recommended, as a simple summoned mask + a haste buff will easily make the pet hit the 100 % cap.

HP: HP is very helpful for pets, especially when you're giving them all sorts of expensive gear. More HP is useful not only when the pet is tanking, but also for eating AEs and the like.

Mana: The only pet that casts spells is the fire pet, his mana pool is huge and his mana regen massive, giving him a couple hundred more mana from gear would have very little effect.

Strength: This stat has been shown to have a marked increase in pet offensive power. It should not be the first stat you look for, but is important if you want to max your pet's damage potential.

Dexterity: Beastlords tell me that dex buffs definitely help their pet's procrate. I'm going to assume this is helpful to buff up. Procs add damage, but they're not the pet's main method. Look for this, but not as the main thing.

Agility: Little effect on pets, but it will help defensive procs and tanking slightly, definitely nowhere near the effect of AC.

Stamina: Pets have a *set* amount of HP, this cannot be altered by stamina, thus, stamina is useless. Last I heard the devs might be looking to alter this, but as of the moment don't bother with stamina.

Foci: See rumor #7.

Section #3: But what slots does my pet have?

Pet slots are very similar to PC character slots, with a few exceptions.

1. Pets only have a single ring, bracer, and earring slot.

2. Pets do not appear to have a charm slot, if they do it would have no effect as pets could not alter the stats on charms.

This leaves us with:

A primary weapon slot
A secondary weapon slot
A ranged item slot
A shoulder slot
A legs slot
A chest slot
A head slot
A foot slot
A hands slot
A arms slot
A back slot
A face slot
A *single* finger slot
A *single* wrist
A *single* ear slot
A neck slot

Now, when you summon your pet, these slots are unoccupied unless you are a magician over 60 with a pet foci. For higher level magicians, focused pets come summoned with some weak plate armor pre-equipped:

Slot-Focused Armor AC

Chest-17
Head-10
Legs-10
Hands-9
Arms-8
Feet-8
One wrist-7
Empty Waist Slot-0
Empty Face Slot-0
Empty Range Slot-0
Empty Neck Slot-0
Empty Back Slot-0
Empty Shoulder Slot-0
One empty finger slot-0
One empty ear slot-0

Knowing that your pet has armor is important for upgrading an already equipped pet.

Section #4: How do pets upgrade?

It happens often, your pet is already equipped with a piece of gear and you want to give him something new. Of course, you could always resummon, but then you'd lose everything else on your pet. Pets don't just use the last item they're given, they have rules about when they'll upgrade.

Weapons: Pets upgrade weapons for delay. If you gave your pet two rockin' uberproc weapons with tons of HP that had 20 delay, and then handed him a club with 0 stats and 19 delay, he'd destroy one of the uberweapons in favor of the lower delay one. Delay also determines what he'll wield in mainhand. The pet's mainhand gets roughly twice the procs of the pet's offhand. So if you want lots of procs from your uber proc weapon, make sure it has lower delay than the other weapon you're giving to your pet.

Armor: Pets upgrade armor for AC, plain and simple. They'll take a 1 AC upgrade over +1,000 HP every time. That doesn't mean that 1 AC > 1,000 HP, simply that thats how pets upgrade. For high level mages, when shopping for pet armor, make sure it is at least one more AC than the armor the pet comes pre-summoned with, or it won't be equipped.

Section #5: Special notes.

Shields/two-handers: At a certain point in your pet-summoning life, magician pets will stop equipping shield and two-handers. This happens at a point (sometime in the 20s/30s) where the pet realizes that a two-hander or a shield would severely hamper his DPS by not letting him dual-wield. As a result, he won't equip any two-handers or shields, simply letting them rot in his inventory or destroying them.

Nothing beats the mage summoned belt, don't even try looking for upgrades in that section

There are two very special items that SoE decided pets could not use:

1. Weighted Axe, back in the day people were using this to let pets hit for massive amounts due to the high damage and the fact that pets ignore the downside (the delay). This item has a hidden "No Pets!" tag on it.

2. Di`zok Oracle Shillelagh, AKA "The Slowstick". SoE didn't like mages getting such a powerful slow. This is the only item marked with the "No Pets" tag. However, this is not the only slow proc that could be given to pets, just the only one nerfed.

Section #6: Help, Tuslinin, my pet won't equip what I gave him!?1?!1

1. Was the item no drop? See rumors #1, 'tardslice.

2. Pets have an undetermined number of inventory slots. If you have given the pet lots of items, eventually he has no room to put anything (even if it is an upgrade) and begins destroying things.

3. Make sure it is an upgrade for your pet. See Section #4.

4. Your pet may be too high to be using a shield/two-hander, check the special notes.

5. Is it a pet-banned item? See special notes.

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Tulisin Dragonflame - Erollisi