I've been reading multiple posts about how our charmed pets, and even Booboo, are now accepting weapons and can even dual wield.

1) Is this true?
2) If it's true:
-What kind of cheap weapons should I be giving my pets?
-Is it reasonable to give them 2h weapons?
-Are there class restrictions? I can't use 1hs weapons, but can my charmed pet?

I've never played a necro / mage, so am clueless about the nuances of pet equipping.

Thanks,
Plendil

1) Yes, I give weapons to my DC pets to get a 4th attack out of them
2) I usualy give them fine steel weapons. The weapons don't affect the pets damage and on the delay I'm not sure. Never parsed it, but to my knowledge pet attack delay was fixed to a number like a year ago.

If you have a window that covers all the melee damage, you will notice that the pets "attack type" will change once you give them weapons (eg. from "bite" to slash or crush or whatever).

They would probably follow the same rules as beastlord pets which so far do not benefit from the dly and cannot use 2hs...the main advantage is that the pets skill caps are higher for 1hs and 1hb than for biting and also theres a dmg max bonus when theyre given a weapon with a certain amount.

Thats all supposition though based on a BstLord board I read :)

Avendesoral - Dark Druidess of Zebuxoruk

Ah hmmmm .. reason to pull booboo out later to test this.

;)

Basic rules for equiping pets:

1)Pets max damage becomes the greater of its inherent max or (weapon damage rating)*2

2)Pet attack delay is never changed by weapons. Delay is only used to determine which weapon is actually wielded.

3)Pets will use procs if the pet is sufficient level to do so. Same level restrictions as PCs.

4)If you give the pet multiple weapons, the order does matter. First weapon is equiped in primary slot. Second weapon in secondary, unless it is a primary only weapon in which case it is either discarded or equiped in place of the currently equiped primary weapon (only if it is faster).

5)If the pet is already equiped and you give it a new weapon, it will use the faster weapon.

6)2H weapons will only be equiped by pets that do not inherently Dual Wield. On pets which have DW skill but do not DW without weapons (such as level 24/29 Mage pets and any Enchanter pet), you have the option of 1 2H weapon of 2 1H weapons. If the pet will DW w/o weapons equiped it will not equip a 2H weapon.

7)Pets will not under any circumstances equip a no-drop item. You can hand it to them, but it will be destroyed instantly upon you hiting Trade.

I think that covers everything important.


Get some Gnoll Hide Lariats for your pet and have him stun for you ;)

OMG gnoll hide lariats on booboo!!!!!!!#$@#@!!

procs are wonderful =) my SO is an enchanter with dire charm, we spent some time shopping the bazaar to outfit his pets and now he carries around a collection of weapons for use in various situations. he's got weapons with ykesha/other dds, darkness/snare, stuns, etc. you can pick up some nice proccing weapons for 100 or less.

weapons like this are best used with a dire charm or regular charm pet, not with booboo. when your hunting is done and you are ready to go, make sure you release your charm and kill it to collect your weapons off its corpse. never let your pet die while charmed or you lose your toys =)

Booboo is so studly he should be able to stun without a whip! =)

Good post Zyphyr, thanks!

with yaks and those stun whips double wielded by pets could stun and do some heavy damage

hmm, nice info thanks.. guess it's back to SK for me. :)

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Kenuon Windrunner

I can tell you, giving weapons to a pet, especially proccing weapons, has a definete good effect. In Maiden's Eye I charmed a Spectral Wolf (None of the Ravenous Beasts were low enough at the time :( ) . Before I gave him weapons, he hit for as high as 139, sometimes 3 of those per round, and he bashed. After giving him a Gnoll Hide Lariat and a Serrated Bone dirk, Savage Spirit,Shield of Blades, and Girdle of Karana.. he became the nastiest pet I had ever dealt with. He would regularly QUAD for 141s, kick for decent dammage, proc Stun, and proc Darkness. Add the haste effect and the dammage shield.. he was a monster. With regen on, I never had to heal him. I could literally pull, and let him go, and never have to do anything. He'd usually end the fight with 95% health too, fighting vampires, bats, toilers, shadows, skeletons.. it was nuts. The only downside was when charm broke.. heh a pet that hits like that, and can stun and snare you can be bad if his snare fades at the wrong time ;)

I could literally pull, and let him go, and never have to do anything.

You had to pull? I find in ME people are more than will to pull for me. =/

Where do the lariets drop? I've AEed a bit in the paw with no success (man those things are nasty for their level) and the outside is always overcamped.

The lariats drop randomly from any Gnoll in Paw or just outside of it.

Not really common, but frequently easy to get by just running into SK and auctioning to buy them for a modest price (10-20pp is a fairly normal range). That is what Mages generally pay. You might be able to get the price dropped a little by offering to throw in some buffs.

Yea I did the same as Darck charmed a Spectral Wolf in ME sat at DSP zone gave him a 13/25 magical 1hb, and Water crystal Staff; Savage Spirit,Sheild of Blades,GoK,never regened him (they have a natural regen of 3% per tick after each fight) and just let him go, he hit for 141 insanly fast, bashed for 45, was just sickening to watch him at work I would pull and 0let him kill them in under 1minute 30 seconds. Wizards that would Quad in there more than a few times would lose control zone and leave me with there 4 mobs and my mob would root the 4 and just let pet go from mob to mob and kill them all.

If you're 60 you won't agro any mob inside Paw except for Ishva Mal. Just run around invised or not and look for a gnoll with the lariat. Ask him for his whip.

One thing I found with giving weapons to pets. If you give your pet two weapons that are identical, it will only use one of the weapons. Give your pet two different types of weapons. I gave my pet two gnoll hide lariats and after I was done, I killed the pet and found one lariat on the corpse.

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Kenuon Windrunner

Since we're on the topic...

What are some other good, cheap, easily available proc-ing weapons which I can give to my pets?

I've so far used:
Serrated Bone Dirk
Gnoll Hide Lariat
Velium Weapons

Plendil

/bazaar
Slot: Primary
Type: Any Effect
Class: Warrior

or something like that. My favorite so far has been the Embalmer's Skinning Knife. I want to try giving it to a pet to see how many stacks of bandages he'll summon before I finish hunting.

Yaks and Wakizashi of Frozen Skies are both nice weapons too.

-Quelm

edit: He summoned exactly 0 stacks of bandages. Booooo. :p

OK so someone want to put a guide up with exactly how the damage/delay etc of weapons affects a pet, reading through a bunch of posts tends to give conflicting reports.

Essentially what are we looking for? High damage? low delay? proccing? Damage doesn't affect it? delay has no bearing? etc etc you get the picture .... I hope.

I guess its becuase I don't have much money and can't really afford to go buy weapons to find they do nothing at all. I may even have a weapon thats laying around that I could be perfect and don't even know it.

Our mage friends have already done alot of work for us. :)

Magician Pets FAQ (http://pub6.ezboard.com/fthemagicianstowerfrm29.showMessage?topicID=288.to pic)

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Kenuon Windrunner

as someone posted above go into...
/Bazaar
All effects
Primary

But dont do warrior only, pets can use any class weapons.

I usually tend to go for -200pp weapons, just looking for a high dmg proc. Or I will look for a proc that is highly usefull (ie. Stun).

As for Dmg/Dly on the weapons effecting how the pet performance, i havent noticed any difference.

I am really temted to go all out and buy a locustlure for the slow proc, would come in handy in given situations.

There is also Di'zok Oracle Shillelagh; with proc Torgors insects. I think the slow is around 35-40%. Only thing i dont like about it is the proc lvl on this thing is like lvl 46 or something, so alot of my dc pets tend to be to low to get the proc =(

The only problem with things like locustlures is the cost if you somehow don't manage to kill your pet at the end of the session online.

Bladari, I'm not sure WHAT is goin on in your sig...and not sure I want to know.


Plendil

Locustlure works with a DC pet... just be carefull not to let him die while charmed since it cost around 4-5k. Unfortunately, 30% slow didn't seem to make as much difference as I hoped, but maybe I'm just spoiled from watching shaman and chanters. My pet is really good at procing slow at the end of the fight;P

However, "your [dire] pet lacks sufficient will" to use a di'zok oracle Shilleleigh. Theoretically it will work on a regular charmed 51+ pet but I haven't successfully tried it yet.

I also like the ranger root sword for 50-100 (ebony blade or something). One warning... do not give root weapon and stun weapon to hasted temporary pet in an enclosed space.

There are tons of nice and fun cheap weapons for pets, but overall, nothing beats a 10pp gnoll hide lariat.

Rimer

Can't seem to find Gnoll hide lariats for sale anymore, and I hear the price has gone up quite a bit from 10pp. It seems that the popularity of charming has made changes in bazaar.

Got to love a market economy ;)

Plendil

I've been twice to Infected Paw since I found out about quadhitting pets. Both times there were gnolls around with whips in hand. If there weren't and I was really desparate, I'd probably AE the zone to get respawns and if no one was there.

When asking gnolls for whips, it's a simple task of DT'ing them with moonfire. :p

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Kenuon Windrunner

I noticed a pet gets 4 slots it can equip. My question is can pet's use trash armor items for those slots to enhance AC. Probably not, considering that I wouldnt give my pet anything of real value in pp worth for protection. Just a thought to free up weight on me and save some hps for the pet to kill longer.

Whaddyathink?

I don't know about trash armor, but we've had some success giving charmed pets mage summoned haste items with increases in their haste IN ADDITION to Savage Spirit.

The mage items were given after they'd already been given 2 weapons, so they were able to use these items from slots "3" and "4".

Plendil

I aggree. When I give my pet a muzzle of mardu (or something similar sounding mage summoned mask) in addition to hasting him he appears to hit faster than just hasting him. I suspect that, like a player, he can combine spell haste and item haste to reach his haste cap (whatever that is... the mage boards confuse me).

Rimer

p.s. if any mages are trolling or if anyone has mage alts I really appreciate the mages who leave summoned items for sale in bazaar so I don't have to run around shouting or chase down a guilde when there isn't a raid;)