Summoned monsters and pets that are either a burden or die instantly

Greyhawk5

Greyhawk5

Was Amorais
My main toon is currently trying for triple completionist. Going through a Druid life, I've gone for all the trees I can think of that can enhance my wolf. Single class as well so the wolf is decent level. Got him some above average gear for a filthy casual like myself. We seriously need pets to use character level not just pet class level as they are even more useless if you multiclass.

He dies on average at least once per EH module. If he doesn't die he eats up all my spell points needing constant healing.

I've reached 15th. I no longer even summon him. After me getting 140+ kills and he has 2 I think why bother? Pets are a key component of some classes. Why are they still utterly useless? Even hirelings are better than them at the moment. Also my summon nature's ally mob has about enough time to go "aha!" before it dies. At least MS spells have the Hezrou which has some survivability. NS spells have basically a cameo appearance in any given battle

I think we could do with a look at pets and summoned monsters. At least make them semi-useful
 
Ferreae

Ferreae

Well-known member
My doodad's and dark hunter's puppers USED to be fine in EE, and even on R1.

Don't bother with them for the most part now. Their latest quirk been suffering: they growl, charge off randomly to go pull from two rooms away, maybe up some stairs...then bring all the mobs back since it was too far for them. And no, not on aggressive either, just the normal 'neutral/defend'.
 
Greatpumpkin

Greatpumpkin

Well-known member
I gear my pet for Tripping. The harder the quest, the less it procs, but unless I need to save my pet to pull a lever, it provides some comedy relief.

As someone else said, summons are for Normal. On anything else, they're targeting delays. Useful in their own way, but not for too long. Having said that, I'd love to see an augment that or filigree that gives Summons an extra 5 min. Sometimes beer just has it's own schedule ...
 
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LunaCee

Well-known member
I just recently was doing solo runs of EE with Skeletal Knight, the Magus Dream Reaver, and Sledge the level 22 hireling in level 28+ content with them working just fine. Yeah pets, hirelings, and summons mostly suck immensely in heroic. But once you throw Primal Avatar shared mantle on them and stack on the all the epic cheese sauce so they are sitting on 2,000 to 3,000 HP, innate evasion, and +20 or better to all stats? They work just fine. The problem is that you basically are shackled to Primal Avatar and being level 23+ for them to function.
 
G

Greywolf

Well-known member
Yeah, pets/hires don't really contribute much until 23+ as LunaCee said, Shared Mantle + Natural Shielding from Primal and they can actually contribute. Can add hirelings Sadiele at 23 or Tarlov Snowtrack at 24 with your pet, they are both TWF which works decently for mantle procs. And at cap, Teal is not a bad meat shield up to R4.
 
N

Necrodancer

Ancient beyond measure
LunaCee said:
I just recently was doing solo runs of EE with Skeletal Knight, the Magus Dream Reaver, and Sledge the level 22 hireling in level 28+ content with them working just fine. Yeah pets, hirelings, and summons mostly suck immensely in heroic. But once you throw Primal Avatar shared mantle on them and stack on the all the epic cheese sauce so they are sitting on 2,000 to 3,000 HP, innate evasion, and +20 or better to all stats? They work just fine. The problem is that you basically are shackled to Primal Avatar and being level 23+ for them to function.
Click to expand...

Correct. There's also, gear sets, feats, filigrees and augments designed specifically for hirelings and any other summoned creature. On top of my head

Deadly Diabolist set can provide up to 12 points to all stats for minions.
Necklace of Mystic Eidolons once upgraded, adds augmented summoning that provides +4 to all stats and an extra 50% fortification. Augment summoning is also available as a level 28 augment from IoD on top of that.
The Cry of Battle filigree set can add up to +4 to all stats and 20 melee power, prr and mrr.
Inspiring Bond adds 25 prr and mrr to all your creature and auto res them after 2.5 seconds every 3 minutes.

I don't remember the name of the player but there's someone (and they uploaded video proof on youtube) who "soloes" R10 using a stormsinger and a plethora of hirelings from collector's edition of various expansions. Quite a bit expensive but kudos to them anyway.
 
Owlbear

Owlbear

Well-known member
The key is to not only have 1 pet but have as many as you can have. This way enemies don't know which one to target 😂
The Wolf pet on my Druid rarely dies in (Epic) Elite by the way. And keep in mind the wolf is not designed to be a tank. So don't use it as one. Use some of the Druid buff spells and a Mass Regenerate once in a while. But yeah they aren't adding much to be useful. Mostly just aggro switching and sneak attack oppertunity.
 
Greyhawk5

Greyhawk5

Was Amorais
Thats the problem though. They contribute little but end up needing a lot. All that time gearing up for random pets and whatnot is better spent gearing myself and casting spells on myself. Having to chain cast mass regenerate due to me losing 2hp and my pet(s) losing 200hp is just a bind. Plus resummoning the nature's ally after every battle since they inevitably get pegged in the first few seconds of the battle

As for a pet army. I have the scarecrow that moves at the same speed as a glacier, the figurine cat thing that is massive, the rat thief that dies in 3 hits and a hire. The hire is easily by far and away the most useful of them all.

With my wolf and a summoned mob all on-screen at once its absolute chaos trying to find anyone.
 
Baahb3

Baahb3

Well-known member
Pets (and hierlings) need some help. Well a lot of help. The fix to augments coming for Pet gear will help, but they still need more. Either lots of augment slots on gear or some inherent boni. What they suffer most from is their to-hit. It is just too low for even normal content now. The PA mantle is required for them to do any real damage but for a pet focused build, it is not too much to sacrifice.

This is at level cap with all the goodies mentioned in other posts. Your pet can get pretty good stats. With my pet and 5 hierlings I can do EE/R1 pretty well. The incorporeality of reapers can be annoying but they eventually roll the 50% and take it out.

https://imgur.com/a/617xQcy

https://imgur.com/ZhQlk61
 
L

LunaCee

Well-known member
If I was to make a suggestion to the developers for a partial fix that would help in heroics?

An additional benefit aimed at the limit one summons from Summon Monster or Nature's Ally. Give the summoned creature +1 base CR worth of stat adjustment for every two heroic levels of the caster (Max +10) but not exceeding the current level of the summoner. So a Hezrou from Summon Monster IX isn't CR 26 until your spell caster is level 26 themself. Doesn't save the lowest level summons long term. But it would significantly open up how long one can get value out of the V-IX summon spells quite a bit.

Rangers would probably still be sad faced with their Nature's Ally IV spell being a CR 14 instead of 4... but at least it would live more than two seconds in heroic. For almost everyone else though it helps slightly close the gap in effectiveness before epic destiny talents.
 
Smokewolf

Smokewolf

Frequently banned member.
Greyhawk5 said:
My main toon is currently trying for triple completionist. Going through a Druid life, I've gone for all the trees I can think of that can enhance my wolf. Single class as well so the wolf is decent level. Got him some above average gear for a filthy casual like myself. We seriously need pets to use character level not just pet class level as they are even more useless if you multiclass.

He dies on average at least once per EH module. If he doesn't die he eats up all my spell points needing constant healing.

I've reached 15th. I no longer even summon him. After me getting 140+ kills and he has 2 I think why bother? Pets are a key component of some classes. Why are they still utterly useless? Even hirelings are better than them at the moment. Also my summon nature's ally mob has about enough time to go "aha!" before it dies. At least MS spells have the Hezrou which has some survivability. NS spells have basically a cameo appearance in any given battle

I think we could do with a look at pets and summoned monsters. At least make them semi-useful
Click to expand...
This is by design.
 
RangerOne

RangerOne

Well-known member
I was so happy to get the owlbear hireling long ago but he tends to die pretty quickly. The shield guardian on the other hand has actually completed quests for me after I have died. Make hirelings like shield guardians.

Frogo is another suicide hireling. You have to watch him carefully.

In epic the summoned meteor storm from the Moon destiny (brain just shut down) is fun. He'll grab agro and the two of them will spin around each other while I zap them from a distance.

My rangers don't even bother with summon spells. Even my dark hunter put no points into the wolf companion.
 
ACJ97F

ACJ97F

Well-known member
For a second I thought this was another R7+ caster post. 😁

But, seriously... when we were using pets more, they came in handy for things that require a score higher than most of the group.
Between Aug / Improved, PL Druid, the Filigree set (random bug needing re-equip), Great Summoner (Magus), Herper Leadership,
and the ship buff (Sellswords), and whatever else I just forgot.... you can get a pretty reliable whatever-opener.
 
M

MrBill

Well-known member
Ferreae said:
My doodad's and dark hunter's puppers USED to be fine in EE, and even on R1.

Don't bother with them for the most part now. Their latest quirk been suffering: they growl, charge off randomly to go pull from two rooms away, maybe up some stairs...then bring all the mobs back since it was too far for them. And no, not on aggressive either, just the normal 'neutral/defend'.
Click to expand...
I hear ya. My DH wolf was always rowdy breaking boxes,snarling and hopping around. But now, as you said, he runs off across the dungeon and then either gets killed or brings back all the mobs.
 
Justfungus

Justfungus

Well-known member
Baahb3 said:
Pets (and hierlings) need some help. Well a lot of help. The fix to augments coming for Pet gear will help, but they still need more. Either lots of augment slots on gear or some inherent boni. What they suffer most from is their to-hit. It is just too low for even normal content now. The PA mantle is required for them to do any real damage but for a pet focused build, it is not too much to sacrifice.

This is at level cap with all the goodies mentioned in other posts. Your pet can get pretty good stats. With my pet and 5 hierlings I can do EE/R1 pretty well. The incorporeality of reapers can be annoying but they eventually roll the 50% and take it out.

https://imgur.com/a/617xQcy

https://imgur.com/ZhQlk61
Click to expand...
If you look at the 'PET' stats, it is easy to see that DDO has absolutely nothing to do with D&D. That .. ok .. pet would level cities
by standard D&D rules. They are at Demigod level.... and that is a 'pet'. Next time someone says, You can't do that in D&D, remind them that this is not D&D.
 
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