Setting up a Mage Pet Tank

[Effico]

Hi All,

Question is for Mage`s who are successfully tanking named in T3 and T4 of VoA.

I have a Level 95 Mage and i`m assuming the Facet of Earth is the pet of choice. What is the highest level pet achievable with this spell? I can`t seem to summon anything higher than level 90.

What i`m not quite sure of is how to buff and heal him during the fight.

Should i spam heals and Aegis on him throughout or should i leave that 2 the healer merc (s) and concentrate on dps?

What items are best to give him (i honestly don`t know whats best apart from the pet swords with the aggro proc.

With regards to healing, will 2 healer mercs be enough and should 1 be set to reactive and the other balanced ?

Group set up is currently cleric, mage, warrior, shaman, wiz and necro. Thinking about dropping out the warrior for another healer merc and using Petesamprass bot for healing or else dropping the warrior and cleric for 2 healer mercs.

Any advice would be greatfully received.

 

[deathstryker]

I don't have a high enough character to play in VoA yet, but if this helps any.. You'll want to have a pet foci item. Currently I have Enhanced Minion 8 on the 86 air pet and my pet is at least level 87 to 88 whenever I summon it. I will only assume that the same pet foci affect will apply and do the same thing on the level 91 air pet. Which given the same detail you should be able to summon a level 92 to 93 air pet then. Obviously the higher the pet foci you have the more dps/hp/level the pet will be when you summon it.

 

[Quackanator]

As a group mage at 95 + Earring of Faint Echoes (EM XI from Conductor in Wind Song) Earth pet will be lev 91 with about 20k hp more than Hot Group EM VIII focus. With a raid focus pet (Sepulcher Raid or ToFS event) pet will con even at 95 I believe.

Buffing
Gear: Comes summoned with armour, but I always give it focus items+mask+weapons (enraging or whatever else it dosent matter so long as noone else is in melee)+the empty bag the gear came in.
Self buffed: Chaotic Assistance /Arcane Intellect
Pet Buffs prior to engaging named:
Steelstance (42k Rune 33% damage mit wiat for it to refresh before engaging) /Iceflame armour(Absorbs 2 hits wooo) /Virulent Talon (22k Proc x 30 woot)/Frenzied Burnout (hide the pet flurry spam) DS+ Molten Veil + Surge of Arcanum, velocity (for the slow as ldfgjfdlj pet).

As Pet is engaging Named
Hotkey 1: Fortify Companion AA, Servant AA, Host AA for pet spam. Molten skin, /rude to named
Hotkey 2: Silent casting+Spire+Focus+Heart of flames+Imp Twincast
Hotkey 3 Optional: Pet DA Then nuke and pray for those 100k twincasts

During fight you can cycle steellstance, Iceflameward and aegius though I just cycle steelstance, agius spell + agius AA to avoid the stackign problem. if pet is getting hammered throw in a Promised Amendment and or Companions Blessing AA or Replenish AA. I usally only have one cleric so if you have two clerics, then healing would be a lot less and you can dps a lot more.

I used to have Divine Aura up for pet at low HP to heal it but thanks So E for nerfing that strategy. I dont use DA now except at the start to give myself time to get spells off while spire+improved twincast+heart of fames is running.

Not stating that this is the best method, just what works for me on most T4 named, obviously not for all named, [Deathleaper and Archon with his 4 sec stun is a pita with a slow as dfgkh pet ]

 

[Dinekus]

Beware of pet da few patches ago it was broke or fixed to where pet da causes something like a fade... So it its still tht way be prepared to eat dirt

 

[stacks3]

This wont be a post able to answer your questions about VoA, but I'll tell you my experience with mage pet tanking so far.

I run 3 mages, 1 bard, 1 shaman, 1 cleric merc. I PL'd them to 95 with 2k AA or so- they didn't fight a single mob themselves before then, skipped VoA completely and went to Shard's Landing (RoF). First thing I did was level to 96 while camping the EM12 earring (easy camp), which made the level 96 air pet summon as a level 97 (aka yellow to me).

For named pulls in RoF, one cleric merc is good enough heals to handle pretty much any T1 group named and I've been able to take out every T2 named that I've tried so far needing only the occasional group heal from my shaman. The pet(s) themselves almost never need direct player healing.

I toss burnout and ice armor on the pet for buffs, and let 'em at it (I still use air pets btw). On a named I'll use frenzied burnout and fire core. I'll probably start playing around with other AA and buffs soon, but have had 0 problems with just the basics. The pets pretty much never die unless the character dies somehow. I'd wager that they're better at tanking then a merc, and probably a raid geared player as well.

I'm assuming that RoF T2 named is no easier then VoA T4 named, so if that is actually the case, you should only need one healer merc. With two, I imagine it'd be pretty rare to die vs. anything.

I had no idea the power of the mage team before I tried it myself. In under two weeks starting in HoT T1 gear I leveled from 1-100 and have close to 100 RoF T1/T2 items.

My advice, regardless of content: Drop the warrior for sure. Consider dropping the cleric if you're not going to bot it- the only advantage it seems to have over the cleric merc is that you may need to quickly cure some debuffs. But the shaman should be able to do that too, and is probably more useful in other ways. Also, if you have RoF, just go there and skip VoA.

 

[Effico]

Thanks stacks.

What camp in particular drops the em12 earring?

I badly need it.

 

[lilwizzie]

Cragbeak.

 

[hoppy96pgtbs]

It's also attunable.

Twitching Snood

 

[eqitchy]

Stacks,

Why Shammy over Enchanter with that group, heals? melee buffs for pets?

 

[stacks3]

I have an enc on the bard account if I really need, but I don't see needing it except for buffing. Slowing isn't really the big highlight of having the shaman/enc- it does come in handy when there's more then a couple mobs at once, but having the backup healer is > anything the enc can offer.

The sham's saved me a few times with backup heals. Usually the merc can handle things by itself, but there are certain named where the extra healing is nice (especially nasty AEs). I can also cure debuffs that the merc will be too busy trying to heal through. Pet/char buffs are nice too (4 pets proccing puma seems to add pretty decent dps).

There's probably a lot better group setups then mine, but I'm happy with it If I can ultimately do all the group content in RoF by myself, then it doesn't matter too much (although the group tasks are a BITCH so far).

 

[Quackanator]

with new expansions I've always used enc as part of group when leveling over shammy... mostly coz with new expansions it's a wipefest for exploring and trying out new named/quests/camps etc. Chanter makes the initial exploring and leveling so much safer than having extra healing on hand. Slower to be sure but faster than CR for than wipe x4 chars multiple times.

Of course once all chars reach max level and start on new gear and tank can take on the content and several mobs at the same time then it's time to swap the chanter out for a more useful char.