Upgraded pets not actually an ugrade?

DwarvesR · 07-03-2006, 02:51 PM

So I take my level 45 Necro in to CT. Don't happen to have the level 46 pet spell on me, since I haven't seen an Adept on the broker, and don't play my necro all that much, so haven't had the Ad3 made yet. Early in the session a named drops a box that has the Shadowy Assassin Ad1 in it. Perfect! Later on I ding, scribe the spell and woot! An actual shadowman instead of a fromless cloud! Nice kukris too.

But the numbers it's putting up look smaller than my old M1 stalker's numbers. Not by a whole lot, but it's still noticaeble, so I actually pulled my (capped at level 45) M1 pet back out, since we're only fighting things in the 44-46 range anyway. After the play session was over, I possessed the pet and examined all of its skills. This is what I saw:

Then I pulled out my old Stalker and looked at its stats, seeing this:

Virtually identical stats on the pet itself, but the skills on the newer one are doing about 15-20% less damage, although the new pet does get a new skill. Being on a 1 minute timer though, that means the new skills adds at most about 10 DPS. Not a really big boost, and not enough to offset the 15-20% lost on the other skills.

Still. . .benefit of the doubt. Surely the Adept 3 will improve upon the prior master. I had a guildie sage make it for me. Scribed it. Possessed it.

And it *is* an improvement on the Ad1, but still not up to the level of the M1 it replaced. The Shadestrike is better too, but still only up to a max of 12 DPS upgrade.

As an FYI, all shots are taken with Pet Stance to offense at Ad1. My "Teachings of the Dead" group STA/INT buff was App1 for the Stalker M1 and Assassin Ad1 shot, but was improved to Ad3 for the Ad3 Assassin. Nothing else changed, though, so these are valid comparison shots.

Guess I'll have to see about finding a master pet so I can actually improve the prior one. In the meantime, I'll use my Assassin simply becuz it has a chance to hit the higher level content that the prior pet doesn't since it's capped at 45. :smileysad:

Mentla · 07-03-2006, 05:06 PM

I read these numbers the same as you - are we misunderstanding something? Seems madness to me!

Jal · 07-03-2006, 06:16 PM

Basically the way ive always understood spell upgrades is thus.Master 1 at one tier is upgraded by master 1 at next tierAdept 3 at one tier is upgraded by Adept 3 at next tieretc etcLesser version may improve slightly but the difference wont be so noticable as a direct upgrade ad1->ad1/ad3->ad3/Master->Master.

Xalmat · 07-04-2006, 04:19 AM

General rule of thumb, new pets are always better than old pets because new pets have combat arts that old pets do not, and new pets continue to gain levels while old pets do not. This applies from level 1 to level 70 and beyond.More precisely, if your new pet is equal or greater rank (IE: go from Adept 3 Grim Spellbinder to Adept 3 Grim Thulian), the new pet will be better in every way than the old pet. If your new pet is one rank lower than your old pet (IE: go from Master 1 Grim Spellbinder to Adept 3 Grim Thulian), then the old pet will slightly outdamage the new pet for one or two levels until the new pet catches up. If your new pet is two or more ranks lower than your old pet (IE: go from Grim Spellbinder Master 1 to Grim Thulian Adept 1), then stop everything and bring your new pet to Adept 3 as soon as humanly possible.This was a much debated point when the level cap was 60, and the general consensus was for Nightshade Adept 3 vs Shadowy Assassin Master 1: Nightshade was better against higher level mobs because it has a one level advantage, whereas Assassin is better because it deals much more damage against lower level monsters due to the Master 1 damage increase.Pet abilities scale with level, from level 1 to level 70, and are directly influenced by their upgrade rank.

DwarvesR · 07-04-2006, 12:30 PM

Jalek, in my experience, the Apprentice 1 of a replacement spell is better than the Adept 1 of the spell it replaced, and generally an Adept 1 replacement is better than an Adept 3 from below, and an Adept 3 replacement is better than the prior Master 1. There are exceptions here and there, but for the most part, this is the pattern I've seen.

Xalmat wrote:
General rule of thumb, new pets are always better than old pets because new pets have combat arts that old pets do not, and new pets continue to gain levels while old pets do not. This applies from level 1 to level 70 and beyond.

I addressed this in my initial post. The *1* new combat art that the Assassin gets over the Stalker adds an average of 9.76 DPS at Adept 3 and a max DPS boost of 12.2, if we assume that it hits for maximum. Hardly a bump to get excited about� upgrading for. I also stated "so I actually pulled my (capped at level 45) M1 pet back out, since we're only fighting things in the 44-46 range anyway." I then further stated "In the meantime, I'll use my Assassin simply becuz it has a chance to hit the higher level content that the prior pet doesn't since it's capped at 45," so I am quite obviously fully cognizant of both of your underlined points and fully intend to use the Assassin upgrade for that exact reason -- it can hit higher level mobs that the Stalker will whiff on due to the level cap of 45 on it. My complaint is that the damage numbers are still lower then the prior M1 at the time of replacement - that's it, nothing more.

Pet abilities scale with level, from level 1 to level 70, and are directly influenced by their upgrade rank.

I am looking forward to leveling up more so the pet's numbers will continue to improve. I have a screenie of the Stalker's M1 CA's at level 38, and the numbers from 45 are about a 10-15% improvement, so theoretically the numbers for the Assassin will improve by about 20-30% over the lifetime of the spell. What I'm miffed about is that this is an apparent exception to the rule of spell upgrades that I've seen on all of my toons, that the replacement spell once gaining "spell +14" level tends to be an improvement over the prior spell, even when of lower tier (see my reply to Jalek prior to quoting you). In this case, the pet will *eventually* grow to be an improvement, but I'm still taking a DPS hit for a couple of levels until it actually does "grow" to be better. As I said in my prior paragraph, my complaint is the dps hit. And since my dps is still rather insane, it's not much of a complaint. It still seems an oddity, though, and that's why I pointed it out by opening this thread.

Message Edited by DwarvesRUs on 07-04-2006 02:32 AM

Za · 07-06-2006, 01:24 AM

The basic facts are simple...There's really only 1 pet progression path.... Pets level from 1 - x, at the same pace is its owner. App1 - Master1, pets skills get boosted by a good percentage. At certain levels, pets get renamed, and the older named pet simply stops growning from that point on... the new named pet simply picks up the progression from that point onward. The results of this is that a L23 Master 1 pet will have better CAs and attack than a L24 new pet with Adept 1 rated skills. Which is better... that depends on what you're fighting. The L23 pet will be blue to you at L24... wo if you're fighting L24 mobs, just know that your old pet is going to hit then as if they were yellow mobs... becasue to your pet, they are. If you're fighting blue mobs, then your pet will see them as even.The reason most people see the old Master pet as better for at least a few levels is that the hit/damage modifiers don't really start to hurt until +3ish levels... thats the point that mobs turn orange to a player... Orange mobs are ALOT tougher to hit than a yellow mob... so if for example, you use your L23 Master pet, and you're level 27 fighting even conned mobs... your pet is having to overcome the modifiers of fighting a mob 4 levels higher than it is... at this point the pet will miss more often and do less damage simply becasue the mob its fighting is much higher level than it is... So now that L27 adept 1 pet starts looking darn good, simply becasue it can hit and damage on an even level with the mobs you're fighting. This is even more obvvious if you're L27 fighting L29 mobs... Those mobs are yellow to you, but red to your old Master 1 pet.So my advice when you hit those brancing levels... If you're fighting mobs your level or lower, use your old Master pet. If you're fighting mobs higher level than you, your new pet, even though it may be lower tier, will have an easier time dealing with the level difference.

DwarvesR · 07-10-2006, 02:00 PM

I dinged 48 and screenie'd the level 47 M1 vs the App1, Ad1, and Ad3 Level 48's. Consolidated it into a spreadsheet rather than post the screenies, since they're kinda big. Interesting that the Ad3 has almost 300 more power than the App1, but still lower than the prior M1 :smileysad:

Nice upgrade in the Grim Distortion spell! It looks to balance out the loss of DPS on the other 4 spells that comes from the downgrade to Ad3. But. . . a few more levels and it should "grow" to be better overall. Can't wait.

And out of curiosity, what is up with the absolutely *insane* WIS score on the mage?

kenji · 07-12-2006, 09:37 AM

simple answer.. u can use the older pet if u feel its more "good" but as soon as u lvl up, your older pet wont lvl up anymore, so u have to use the new pet...

make another screenshot when u hit lvl 60 )

RapidFis · 07-17-2006, 07:11 PM

We just need a mitigation increase for upgraded pets, like there should be. It makes no sense not to. I get adept 3 tank pets to hopefully tank better, not just to have better skills.

Teh · 07-23-2006, 03:45 AM

Great post! I have a question, actually, I made a post about this, its up top. Why sometimes when possessing your pets you see 4894/2754 (example) and then 30 minutes later the pet only has 3k or so hp's? any ideas? Is the Rotting Thrall the warrior or tank pet? I have adept 3 and damned if I see a difference between it and the Undying Adherent except for about 200 hp's. 200 hp's for ten levels is horrid. Anyway, nice post, very informative.

07-03-2006, 02:51 PM	#1
DwarvesR General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,390	So I take my level 45 Necro in to CT. Don't happen to have the level 46 pet spell on me, since I haven't seen an Adept on the broker, and don't play my necro all that much, so haven't had the Ad3 made yet. Early in the session a named drops a box that has the Shadowy Assassin Ad1 in it. Perfect! Later on I ding, scribe the spell and woot! An actual shadowman instead of a fromless cloud! Nice kukris too. But the numbers it's putting up look smaller than my old M1 stalker's numbers. Not by a whole lot, but it's still noticaeble, so I actually pulled my (capped at level 45) M1 pet back out, since we're only fighting things in the 44-46 range anyway. After the play session was over, I possessed the pet and examined all of its skills. This is what I saw: Then I pulled out my old Stalker and looked at its stats, seeing this: Virtually identical stats on the pet itself, but the skills on the newer one are doing about 15-20% less damage, although the new pet does get a new skill. Being on a 1 minute timer though, that means the new skills adds at most about 10 DPS. Not a really big boost, and not enough to offset the 15-20% lost on the other skills. Still. . .benefit of the doubt. Surely the Adept 3 will improve upon the prior master. I had a guildie sage make it for me. Scribed it. Possessed it. And it is an improvement on the Ad1, but still not up to the level of the M1 it replaced. The Shadestrike is better too, but still only up to a max of 12 DPS upgrade. As an FYI, all shots are taken with Pet Stance to offense at Ad1. My "Teachings of the Dead" group STA/INT buff was App1 for the Stalker M1 and Assassin Ad1 shot, but was improved to Ad3 for the Ad3 Assassin. Nothing else changed, though, so these are valid comparison shots. Guess I'll have to see about finding a master pet so I can actually improve the prior one. In the meantime, I'll use my Assassin simply becuz it has a chance to hit the higher level content that the prior pet doesn't since it's capped at 45. :smileysad: __________________ Jonna - 78 Inquisitor, Keodan - 77 Fury, Elynna - 90 Coercer, Clarisse - 90 ShadowKnight, Gotter - 90 Warlock, Kyeda - 66 Necromancer, Spirrita - 66 Defiler, Darlana - 75 Dirge, Meylota - 54 Warden, Guuk - 60 Monk, Briarra - 55 Brigand, Dactylus - 51 Mystic

07-03-2006, 05:06 PM	#2
Mentla Loremaster Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 682	I read these numbers the same as you - are we misunderstanding something? Seems madness to me! __________________

07-04-2006, 04:19 AM	#4
Xalmat EQ2Achieve.com Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 5,895	General rule of thumb, new pets are always better than old pets because new pets have combat arts that old pets do not, and new pets continue to gain levels while old pets do not. This applies from level 1 to level 70 and beyond.More precisely, if your new pet is equal or greater rank (IE: go from Adept 3 Grim Spellbinder to Adept 3 Grim Thulian), the new pet will be better in every way than the old pet. If your new pet is one rank lower than your old pet (IE: go from Master 1 Grim Spellbinder to Adept 3 Grim Thulian), then the old pet will slightly outdamage the new pet for one or two levels until the new pet catches up. If your new pet is two or more ranks lower than your old pet (IE: go from Grim Spellbinder Master 1 to Grim Thulian Adept 1), then stop everything and bring your new pet to Adept 3 as soon as humanly possible.This was a much debated point when the level cap was 60, and the general consensus was for Nightshade Adept 3 vs Shadowy Assassin Master 1: Nightshade was better against higher level mobs because it has a one level advantage, whereas Assassin is better because it deals much more damage against lower level monsters due to the Master 1 damage increase.Pet abilities scale with level, from level 1 to level 70, and are directly influenced by their upgrade rank. __________________ EQ2Achieve - Your guide to all EverQuest II Achievements

07-04-2006, 12:30 PM	#5
DwarvesR General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,390	Jalek, in my experience, the Apprentice 1 of a replacement spell is better than the Adept 1 of the spell it replaced, and generally an Adept 1 replacement is better than an Adept 3 from below, and an Adept 3 replacement is better than the prior Master 1. There are exceptions here and there, but for the most part, this is the pattern I've seen. Xalmat wrote: General rule of thumb, new pets are always better than old pets because new pets have combat arts that old pets do not, and new pets continue to gain levels while old pets do not. This applies from level 1 to level 70 and beyond. I addressed this in my initial post. The 1 new combat art that the Assassin gets over the Stalker adds an average of 9.76 DPS at Adept 3 and a max DPS boost of 12.2, if we assume that it hits for maximum. Hardly a bump to get excited about� upgrading for. I also stated "so I actually pulled my (capped at level 45) M1 pet back out, since we're only fighting things in the 44-46 range anyway." I then further stated "In the meantime, I'll use my Assassin simply becuz it has a chance to hit the higher level content that the prior pet doesn't since it's capped at 45," so I am quite obviously fully cognizant of both of your underlined points and fully intend to use the Assassin upgrade for that exact reason -- it can hit higher level mobs that the Stalker will whiff on due to the level cap of 45 on it. My complaint is that the damage numbers are still lower then the prior M1 at the time of replacement - that's it, nothing more. Pet abilities scale with level, from level 1 to level 70, and are directly influenced by their upgrade rank. I am looking forward to leveling up more so the pet's numbers will continue to improve. I have a screenie of the Stalker's M1 CA's at level 38, and the numbers from 45 are about a 10-15% improvement, so theoretically the numbers for the Assassin will improve by about 20-30% over the lifetime of the spell. What I'm miffed about is that this is an apparent exception to the rule of spell upgrades that I've seen on all of my toons, that the replacement spell once gaining "spell +14" level tends to be an improvement over the prior spell, even when of lower tier (see my reply to Jalek prior to quoting you). In this case, the pet will eventually grow to be an improvement, but I'm still taking a DPS hit for a couple of levels until it actually does "grow" to be better. As I said in my prior paragraph, my complaint is the dps hit. And since my dps is still rather insane, it's not much of a complaint. It still seems an oddity, though, and that's why I pointed it out by opening this thread. Message Edited by DwarvesRUs on 07-04-2006 02:32 AM __________________ Jonna - 78 Inquisitor, Keodan - 77 Fury, Elynna - 90 Coercer, Clarisse - 90 ShadowKnight, Gotter - 90 Warlock, Kyeda - 66 Necromancer, Spirrita - 66 Defiler, Darlana - 75 Dirge, Meylota - 54 Warden, Guuk - 60 Monk, Briarra - 55 Brigand, Dactylus - 51 Mystic

07-10-2006, 02:00 PM	#7
DwarvesR General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,390	I dinged 48 and screenie'd the level 47 M1 vs the App1, Ad1, and Ad3 Level 48's. Consolidated it into a spreadsheet rather than post the screenies, since they're kinda big. Interesting that the Ad3 has almost 300 more power than the App1, but still lower than the prior M1 :smileysad: Nice upgrade in the Grim Distortion spell! It looks to balance out the loss of DPS on the other 4 spells that comes from the downgrade to Ad3. But. . . a few more levels and it should "grow" to be better overall. Can't wait. And out of curiosity, what is up with the absolutely insane WIS score on the mage? __________________ Jonna - 78 Inquisitor, Keodan - 77 Fury, Elynna - 90 Coercer, Clarisse - 90 ShadowKnight, Gotter - 90 Warlock, Kyeda - 66 Necromancer, Spirrita - 66 Defiler, Darlana - 75 Dirge, Meylota - 54 Warden, Guuk - 60 Monk, Briarra - 55 Brigand, Dactylus - 51 Mystic

07-03-2006, 06:16 PM	#3
Jal General Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: UK Posts: 1,345	Basically the way ive always understood spell upgrades is thus.Master 1 at one tier is upgraded by master 1 at next tierAdept 3 at one tier is upgraded by Adept 3 at next tieretc etcLesser version may improve slightly but the difference wont be so noticable as a direct upgrade ad1->ad1/ad3->ad3/Master->Master.

07-06-2006, 01:24 AM	#6
Za General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,084	The basic facts are simple...There's really only 1 pet progression path.... Pets level from 1 - x, at the same pace is its owner. App1 - Master1, pets skills get boosted by a good percentage. At certain levels, pets get renamed, and the older named pet simply stops growning from that point on... the new named pet simply picks up the progression from that point onward. The results of this is that a L23 Master 1 pet will have better CAs and attack than a L24 new pet with Adept 1 rated skills. Which is better... that depends on what you're fighting. The L23 pet will be blue to you at L24... wo if you're fighting L24 mobs, just know that your old pet is going to hit then as if they were yellow mobs... becasue to your pet, they are. If you're fighting blue mobs, then your pet will see them as even.The reason most people see the old Master pet as better for at least a few levels is that the hit/damage modifiers don't really start to hurt until +3ish levels... thats the point that mobs turn orange to a player... Orange mobs are ALOT tougher to hit than a yellow mob... so if for example, you use your L23 Master pet, and you're level 27 fighting even conned mobs... your pet is having to overcome the modifiers of fighting a mob 4 levels higher than it is... at this point the pet will miss more often and do less damage simply becasue the mob its fighting is much higher level than it is... So now that L27 adept 1 pet starts looking darn good, simply becasue it can hit and damage on an even level with the mobs you're fighting. This is even more obvvious if you're L27 fighting L29 mobs... Those mobs are yellow to you, but red to your old Master 1 pet.So my advice when you hit those brancing levels... If you're fighting mobs your level or lower, use your old Master pet. If you're fighting mobs higher level than you, your new pet, even though it may be lower tier, will have an easier time dealing with the level difference.

07-12-2006, 09:37 AM	#8
kenji Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 718	simple answer.. u can use the older pet if u feel its more "good" but as soon as u lvl up, your older pet wont lvl up anymore, so u have to use the new pet... make another screenshot when u hit lvl 60 )

07-17-2006, 07:11 PM	#9
RapidFis Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 19	We just need a mitigation increase for upgraded pets, like there should be. It makes no sense not to. I get adept 3 tank pets to hopefully tank better, not just to have better skills.

07-23-2006, 03:45 AM	#10
Teh Lord Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 35	Great post! I have a question, actually, I made a post about this, its up top. Why sometimes when possessing your pets you see 4894/2754 (example) and then 30 minutes later the pet only has 3k or so hp's? any ideas? Is the Rotting Thrall the warrior or tank pet? I have adept 3 and damned if I see a difference between it and the Undying Adherent except for about 200 hp's. 200 hp's for ten levels is horrid. Anyway, nice post, very informative.