Examination of Pet-Enhancing Buffs [Possible Bug, and Suggestions]

dpencil1 · November 2017

As many Sorcerers that use pets from the Daedric Summoning skill line know, these pets (Winged Twilight, Clannfear/Familiar) do not benefit from increased Spell Damage, but rather scale their damage only with Max Magicka. I wanted to do a more comprehensive analysis of all possible pet-enhancing buffs to better understand how to get the most out of my pets, but also to look for areas of inconsistency. I looked specifically at the Greater Storm Atronach, Twilight Matriarch, Volatile Familiar, Maw of the Infernal, and Warden Bear (Eternal Guardian). The following data was accumulated from isolated experiments on a target dummy. The format of this post will be: Findings Chart, Chart Explanation, Discussion and Suggestions, and Raw Data.

Findings Chart:

Chart Explanation:

- The rows represent each damage source.
- The columns represent each way a damage source could be buffed. In the case of Master at Arms vs Thaumaturge, only one of these would be possibly useful for any particular damage type (N/A is used to designate that this buff would not be possible for that damage type). The Additional CP category just refers to having more CP, but not necessarily on a node that directly buffs damage. This only applies up to 100 CP in the Blue tree, as this adds more Max Magicka until capping there. So if something benefits from Max Magicka, it will benefit from Additional CP.
- The distinction between the Familiar basic attacks and player-activated Damage Pulse is important, as you can see they do not behave the same. Also, an enemy NPC will recognize the Damage Pulse as damage "from the player" instead of from the pet, and can draw aggro toward the player.
- The Warden's Bear benefits from all possible buffs. It also attacks at the rate of once every 1 second rather than the other pets that attack once every 2 seconds. It doesn't have access to a buff like Daedric Prey, though (marked as N/A).
- Maw of the Infernal, being a monster set, cannot crit, so things like Crit Chance or Elfborn are irrelevant (and therefore marked as N/A). You'll notice, however, that Maw's Fiery Breath fails to gain the same penetration buffs as the melee attacks, which seems like a bug.

Discussion and Suggestions:

- There seems to be a consistent rationale about most of these buffs (at least when considering similar damage sources against each other), but again, it really seems like the lack of the Lover Stone or Spell Erosion to positively effect Maw of the Infernal's Fiery Breath, while at the same time positively effecting it's melee attacks, should be considered a bug.
- Now regarding the Basic Attacks of the Sorcerer pets, the fact that CP has no effect on them, especially when considering the Storm Atronach, seems very odd. Is this simply an oversight from when CP was initially implemented, I wonder? Also, it seems very strange that the pets borrow the player's Crit Chance (including the extra 12% from the Spell Precision node in the CP system), and yet they do not recognize Major/Minor Prophesy.
- Finally, if we look at the Warden Bear, it seems that the current thinking of the dev team is to allow all buffs to effect the pet: Spell damage, Magicka, player Penetration, Major/minor Sorcery/Prophesy/Breach, CP. If this is the case for the Bear, why not for the Sorcerer pets?

So my main suggestion would be to go through all pets (both from skills and sets) and unify them to behave like the Warden's Bear, where all buffs are applicable. Base values may then need to be adjusted accordingly, but the end result would be more understandable for players and would allow sets that buff Spell Damage to be equally useful to pet and non-pet Sorcs.

Raw Data:

The following is the recording of damage for non-crit and otherwise non-buffed attacks. The Non-combat CP numbers act as a new baseline to compare later values with CP.

No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover, CP
Storm - 2697
Scamp - 676, 2245
Twilight - 2456
Bear - 1645
Maw - 2824, 2054

WITH Max Mag buff, No: Breach, Lover, CP
Storm - 2801
Scamp - 734, 2439
Twilight - 2667
Bear - 1718
Maw - 2824, 2054

WITH Breach, No: Max Mag buff, Lover, CP
Storm - 3144
Scamp - 787, 2568
Twilight - 2862
Bear - 1918
Maw - 3292, 2394

WITH Lover, No: Max Mag buff, Breach, CP
Storm - 3144
Scamp - 676, 2501
Twilight - 2456
Bear - 1852
Maw - 3196, 2054

WITH CP (non-combat), No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover
Storm - 3021
Scamp - 780, 2591
Twilight - 2833
Bear - 2080
Maw - 2824, 2054

WITH CP (Ele Expert), No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover
Storm - 3021
Scamp - 780, 2924
Twilight - 2833
Bear - 2311
Maw - 3231, 2350

WITH CP (Spell Erosion), No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover
Storm - 3021
Scamp - 780, 2963
Twilight - 2833
Bear - 2386
Maw - 3292, 2054

WITH CP (Master at Arms), No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover
Scamp - 780, 2591
Twilight - 2833
Bear - 2465
Maw - 3503, 2054

WITH CP (Thaumaturge), No: Max Mag buff, Breach, Lover
Storm - 3021
Scamp - 780, 3154
Twilight - 2833
Maw - 2824, 2548

Thanks for reading!
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Zer0oo · November 2017

A few things to add:

The twilight has 2 attacks if she is in melee range. One is the normal lightning one and the other is the physical melee attack which i believe scales of weapon crit.

The pets scales with ancient knowledge (But not sure if all attacks do really get affected)

Other things:

The 2 normal sorc pets can not cc break which especial for long lasting ccs a big dps lose(e.g. vHOF drain shots or ground root trap). The attro cc breaks after a few sec but it is still missed up-time. (Dunno what the warden bear does when he gets cced but you can cc break for him with the ulti). All pets can be snared and knocked back.

The pets are sometimes affected by mechanics that can cause harm to your group members:

I think they still can connect the chain lightning(they can only connect it, they will never get the first hit) at the mage in vAA and sorc pets getting like every player the lightning(Main boss mechanic strom of heaven) in vAS

The Necropotence set is not affected by the 20% max stat increase from cp. (That makes it equivalent to a set that gives ~2625 and is affected by the stat increase which is even more funnier if you think that Draugr Hulk gives 2540 Max Stamina without any downside)

Beardimus · November 2017

Great work @dpencil1 this stuff is great to know!!

dpencil1 · December 2017

I just want to quote Zer0oo from another thread here, in case this thread ever does get some visibility by the devs. Perhaps they can work on these remaining problems with pets in the trials fights listed:

Zer0oo wrote: »

vAA: they can connect chain lightning but they will never targeted first by the mage
vAS: the storm of heaven also affects the sorc pets which can kill the pets or can kill other players
vSO: world shaper will kill the pets
vHR: not sure but the used to get the star shower at the execute phase but i think they changed it, but i think they still die when someone breaks free per synergy (e.g tank)
vMoL: they work very well in there on all bosses but i think you still have to re-summon the pet at the first boss or it will bug out and not attack
vHoF: the pet is kinda tricky(but still ok to use) on the 4th boss since drain shots/traps will cc it for the whole duration and the lightning ring on the middle boss will kill pets really fast if you don't watch out. The last boss you only need to watch out that your pet does not attack the main boss when you have to kill the little spheres on the sides.