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Pet tanking

Started by Latang, June 12, 2017, 12:39:46 AM

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Latang

Well! Long time no play, but great to see the site still up.

I'm having a little fun playing eq again, am up to 105 (more or less - will be by tonight) and am just grinding out DH instances until my beast and bard are 105. Then I really want to head to Sebilis! nice way to gear up so we can take EoK on. But I DO have a question - seeing as I am relying on merc tanking for the meantime, can I drop the tank and use the pet to MT? Back when I last played that was never even an option, given that stepping within melee range automatically switched agro to a pc from a pet. I've heard, however, that beastlord pets have become tough as nails tanks. I doubt they'd be up for tanking a named in EoK, but if I'm honest I am getting a little frustrated with the merc tank. Brainless little twit.

If I CAN use the beast pet, should I gear him up? ie. Mage armor and weapons? or Normal weapons?

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Latang

Update! I did my nightly 3 x Gribble missions using pet for a tank, and it worked a lot better than merc tank. Pulling and sicking the pet on while it's inc, and it would be enough time before the mercs engage for the pet to more or less lock agro on them, and that's from blue to yellow con at 104. Next up will be heading to Lceasomething and trying stuff there. It was rock steady with a 99 merc cleric on balanced. I DID give it the pet toys / armor, because some awesome mage was selling the full set in the bazaar.

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

#2
Welcome back!!!

You want to use the defensive buff spell on the pet.  It helps the pet generate more aggro and take less damage.  The downside is DPS is down a bit.  Epic buff and hobble help out with pet aggro as well.  They changed the way procs process so you can pile on as many as you want and they all fire and do not block each other like in the old days.  Drop the tank merc for a DPS (wiz) merc.  The only time I run a tank merc is if I need to pull with the bard in tight quarters and I need aggro off the bard ASAP.  The tank merc grabs the aggro until I get my pet on it.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

I tried Sebilis last night. Wow. Cotf tier 1 group geared bard, beastlord, and a lvl 100 berserker vs. trash in that zone is.. umm.. embarrassing. I didn't even get down past the 3 spawn. I really wanted to camp the beetle that drops the 128/18 stick, since my 84/18 weapons could do with upgrading.

Problem was the pulling, I think. I will try again tonight, but I think I might be undergeared for OS. I might try the tank merc and a couple of healer mercs this time and just be patient. The trash has 6 mil hp for goodness sake, how much will the named have!. Still, the pet never died, he's still a tough little critter.

That's good news on the buffs stacking, I'll note down every proc I can stack on him and make sure he's buffed to the hilt :) Thanks Zorthaz.

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

Named are typically easier then the trash for the most part with about 30% more HPs.  With a bard and berserker try to get the Chef/Bartender/Froggy camp.  Tons of useful stuff drops for those 2 classes.  Watch the gear though.  In some cases they have an awesome clicky nuke, but are missing a major melee focus (cleave/ferocity).  There are 2 other bonus named in this camp.  Froglok repairman drops Bard only arms.  Froglok armsman drops usually legs and bracers.  The trash can rarely drop one of 3 augs.  Two are 45AC and 400 HP and the third is 65 AC and 210 HP.  All three have 40+ spell damage on them.  There is a safe spot to camp from in the tunnel under the stairs to the Chef room.

If you are camping Lcea for gear, be aware that the named that spawn usually have a wicked proc or aoe.  Make sure you punt the pet to the far side so the named are not facing the melee or cleric mercs.  One named there has a 160K cone AoE that usually spells instant death to the under geared.  Best advice I can give when pulling named while under geared is to use a temp pet to pull from max distance.  Let the temp pet eat the big A0E or DD while you haul ass back to camp.

The first time I tried to pull the Captain in Lcea with my bard, I tagged him and was immediately flattened by his DD.  EoK T1 gear is 4000+ HME and T2 is 4400 HME.  The AC on all of it is better then raid gear from the previous expansion.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

Chef is perma camped on my server. However, the people camping them are pretty cool. Rot gear is called out, and I have a 100 rogue on a 4th account that I can get to anywhere in OS. I tried camping the necrosis beetle last night, he didn't spawn. Managed to invis down to the safe spot in the corner down there. Which made it doable. However, thanks to people offering rot gear, I scored one of the 400hp augs, 2 bits of seb scale for the zerker, a wild lord's hat, knuckle dusters from the crypt, bard wrist and rogue helm. In 3 hours. How awesome.

But I tell you what, in CoTF gear, and under aa'd, the bard takes a freaking pounding on pull. Honestly, OS is awesome. Reminds me of Kunark / Velious years. It's actually dangerous again :).

Going back tonight, will see if I get the Cane from the beetle, then I'll be better at dpsing!

Ultimately then, I should be aiming for EoK legs/arms for fero/cleave?

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

The word on the street is Daybreak is going to fix the stats on the Seb armor in an upcoming patch.  I would gather all you can and hang on to it and see what it is like after the patch.  If you go run some TBM missions you can score some fists of the stranger that augged out with TBM augs and 11 dmg augs will get you 136/19 weapons.  Un-augged they look terrible at 37/19

Type 6 Aug Resplendent Sulstone of the Fist adds 86 DMG
Type 7 Aug 10/11 DMG
Type 5 LDON DMG aug 2DMG

37 + 86 + 11 + 2 = 136 DMG

Using an 8 DMG aug with proc will yield 133 DMG with 2 Procs.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

It turns out that I suck at pulling. Got chef last night, and just couldn't manage the pulling cause my merc would attack while I was splitting. So I did the daily tasks instead, got a good slab of exp / aa. The beetle camp was taken over completely by dress wearing mages, in both picks, so I will try again tonight.

The ratio of the TBM weapon is pretty good, but the OS is so much better, and they both have vampiric type procs on them. I always liked those procs, tho I'm not sure they are as good as other types. There is SO much I don't know about eq now, it's embarrassing, but as far as I know, ratio is still king... I am going to keep hanging around sebilis and watching raid SK's tank 5 mobs at a time.

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

Mark the bard as puller and the Tank merc will not attack until the mob is in camp/proximity of other toons in the group.  Something to put on your ToDo list: A)  head to scortch wood and get the Ancient Skelly camp.  The Plaguebringer drops an aug you want as well as a belt that has a raid level effect on it.  The effect adds 500 dmg to every proc (not debuff procs) after crit.  This is an easy way to bump dmg on any melee toon, but especially Bards and BSTS and Rangers with their proc on every swing disc/AA ability.  The procs on EoK weapons are insane compared to previous procs (except for lifetap procs, they SUX big time).  The aggro is insane as well, but Bards and BSTs benefit greatly from procs.

You need to get your bard a good shield and a Horned Wurm Slayer from Frontier Mountains Ancients quest.  The Wurmslayer has a permanent effect on it that reduces every hit on the wielder by 1500 points of damage.  It really helps with surviving the pull.  In seb I pull with the bard and then have him hit his aggo disc/aa and tank while I get the pet on the mob.  With a wurmslayer and shield he survives pretty good.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

Just for posterity, and to update anyone else thinking of using their pet for tanking.

When I first started back, levelled to 105 and hit HH Sebilis, I had virtually no pet defensive aa's, and didn't understand what I was doing at all. I managed to figure a few things out and geared up in seb with 3 chars, a little bit at a time. By the end of HH, I had virtually 3 full sets of the glowing armour, and all the weapons that the bard, beastlord and berserker could use. My pet couldn't tank very much at all.

Now, my pet tanking aa's are maxed (except divine, cause I don't know much about that one), and with EM18 he is tough as hell. I am still gearing up a little with my 2 secondary chars (bard and zerker) and my pet, with summoned weapons and armour, can so far tank every named I've come up against in Chardok and Kor Sha Lab. I use the summoned thal plate/weapons that I buy from bazaar, because I find that if I don't have them I can get the occasional damage spike that kills him. I also need to use the agro weapons from the summoned bag of swords, because otherwise my rogue merc and berserker can out agro him on burns. Either way, pet tanking with 2 cleric mercs and 1 rogue merc works really well. I haven't tried it with 1 healer merc in a tough area yet. Might give it a go tonight, but for my current bunch of named ph's that I'm pulling (Sepulcher guy, Stone spiked guardian, Cutter, Screaming Tormentor), I don't need more dps, I need safety.

I do have a question though. What happens when I activate pet divine aura? Does he keep attacking / keep agro? Or do mobs see the invulnerability and switch targets? Not sure what the aa is used for really.

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

I think this is something else that has been changed over time.  In the old days when you hit DA the pet could still do damage to the mob.  I think this has changed so that when you hit DA, pet can no longer dmg the mob.  I am not sure how taunt works under DA.  I would find an "easy" mob to test it out.  I will do some testing myself and report back.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Zorthaz

Ok... I attacked a mob and had my pet on it with taunt and the pet was holding aggro.  I hit DA and I was immediately tanking and the pet stopped attacking.  The pet did continue to taunt, but didn't do any damage to the mob until DA dropped.  I don't think this is viable if you want the pet to tank.

I would use the Companion's Aegis which is an AA rune you can apply every 30 seconds.  Companion's Blessing AA which can be applied every 12 minutes.  Fortify Companion AA can be applied every 15 minutes.  Mend Companion AA can be applied every 9 minutes.  You can also stack Aegis of Japac (Reuse 40s) and Auspice of Shadows (Reuse 50s) on your pet.  Make sure you have the epic 1.5/2.0 click buff on your pet as it reduces the damage they take.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

I use fortify companion on every named I pull. I find damage is a lot less spikey on warder when it's on. I'll be honest, but because the named is usually just a mob in the rotation, I don't always have a lot of mana, so I'm not sure abot companion's aegis. I haven't been using it, but.. if I'm honest, I forgot about it. I'll add it into my burn key and just mash it every time I think about it on named :). (I know it's haxxoring, but G keys on Logitech keyboards are awesome for Everquest :) )

1 more Vakazon earring in Kor Sha, 1 more Sepulcher face in Kor Sha, then to chardok for 2 more earrings and 3 more charms, then I'm fully EOK T2 / HH Seb, and I can sigh happily and go be OP in doing TBM progression or something. Actually, I could always actually do EoK progression I suppose... Been way too loot whorish.

Thanks for trying DA though, I was going to last night but was having so many damn problems just moving through a zone. I guess the DA is more for raiding beastlords than pet tankers.

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Zorthaz

Mana problems?
FPoS
Consumption of Spirit
PoS (another good click on named)
Tunic with Revitalizing Topor clickie
Miniature Horn of Unity on all three toons (another good click on named)
Bard mana song

...you must be trying to use all those DoTs.

-Z-
Savage Lord Zorthaz - 110 - Scaled Wolf herder - Tunare

Latang

Bah, only glistenwing. Chain pulling and chain nuking with 3 nukes can drain the mana, no matter how disciplined I am with the fpos =P

Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>