Having lept into the wide open arms of the Dark Side recently, I've been doing what I usually do... testing. Short version is, at this time I don't think pet stats are as crucial or valuable as some would have you believe. I've seen discussions like this elsewhere and they usually boil down to firebreath, which as I've observed doesn't change that much regarding the pet's stats comparing sub par to perfection. I do agree that this is a very important trait of our pets as it is not resisted, I just don't see the million dollar value of doing one more point of damage per round. I'm just hung up right now on the value of it's contributing stat by the playerbase here I guess. I have however drawn some conclusins recently about melee damage/attribute stats and their performance against high AR mobs. I've noted that as the damage per round lessens overall, variance comes into considerable play even if one pet's base melee damage is only 2% higher than anothers. Can anyone out there effectively plead the case for the value of near/max pet stats?
There's no breakpoint, the formulas are all linear. If you're talking about dragons and white wyrms, and grinding/farming, I think it's worthwhile to get an above-average dragon if it costs like 50k or less. For dragons, I'd say 800+ HP, 104 or 105 HP, 800+ STR. I believe swing speed improves at 1% per 2 DEX, or thereabouts. So a 105 DEX dragon will hit stuff about 2.5% faster than a 100 DEX dragon. When you factor in spells and firebreath, maybe that means they kill stuff 1.5% faster? At 100k/hour, that's 1.5k gp saved per hour, so a 105 DEX dragon for 50k pays for itself after 33 hours of farming :/
I think it matters most at bosses where lots of people are piling on. Whatever you can do to get yourself to the top of the loot table could pay off big.
That's a real good point. When it comes to dishing out the plat, I'd hate to get trumped by 2.5% more melee damage and what-not. I'm still on the fence about hits and fire breath damage though. 40 vs 41 ... *shrugs*.
Just get 825/825/105 dragons. Problem solved. Oh, and one more thing, the real difference comes from your tamer. Get a dexxer tamer or eval int mage tamer and rock that leader board. Oh, and one more thing to consider: Casting times, FB delays etc. Have you considered that high int might outweight the other stats due to increased mana reg? One FS may be worth several swings.
Yes, of course I have. Recorded some results. I'm airing the apparent intrinsic value would-be buyers bring upon 1 point of fire breath damage. There have been beasts on the market > 1 million for their max hits stat alone with claims that 41 vs 40 fire breath is not only "where it's at" but, is the only thing that matters... even skimping on not only dex but int as well in favor of the almighty hits stat. When I posted, I was under the impression that this really isn't the case and looked to confirm it with my peers. And yeah, of all my tamers... my eval one is becoming my favorite
IIRC, isn't personal and pet damage totaled separately (and even, separately by pet)? So your casting damage won't add on to your dragon damage. The real secret in my experience is to ensure your pet has full mana before engaging a boss. I did something like 13 taming quests and got kill credit for 8 reptile tamers and 8 beast tamers. My dragons were pretty good to begin with (I used my first bonding slot, before all the taming quest nonsense, on a 7xGM dragon). But even when everyone had two bonded dragons fully trained, I could still get the kill on those guys the majority of the time by focusing on one tamer boss or the other, whichever I though I could get my dragons next to with a full mana pool.
I don't know any of the math behind it, I just go based off of experience. From my experience the few stat difference being closer to max stats doesn't make enough difference to be noticeable. From my experience, when it comes to being highest dmger to get the kill on boss/champs/holiday bosses, the health of your pet is by far the most important thing. When your pet is 100% health it moves faster, does its max dmg always, and seems to cast higher end spells (not proven, just my perception). That being said on champs, timing is very important, because generally the first pet on the target takes the dmg, so attacking very soon after but not taking dmg is to your benefit. I've taken the kills on lots and lots of champs with what would be considered crap dragons: 816hps 812str 100dex 444int 807hps 823str 105dex 438int These are my only 2 bonds that I have and ever use, my char is provo, so no eval or weapon dmg to add to their dmg. I always keep them 100% health, even if they buff themselves, and have taken kills against plenty of eval tamers/ tamers with close to max stat dragons far more often then not. They are generally always 5x gm with magery in the 92-100s.
Good point about health for firebreath, and max stamina for swing speed (only matters if the enemy has a mace, I think, as normal combat damage doesn't hurt pet stamina, IIRC). For spells, health doesn't matter in terms of pet behavior. The spell cast is always randomly chosen from among the available spells the pet can cast given their magery skill and available mana. For non-human NPCs, it's un-interruptible. I thought the tamer bosses switched targets often enough that you couldn't really control whether or not yours happened to be the one taking damage for a time. Or the one it was beating on would either die or get pulled back by its owner. So all the more reason to ensure you have two heavily trained pets on them as one of them will get luckier than the other and not get beat on as much by the boss (maybe not at all if you're really lucky).
It's not about the 1 damage difference on the firebreath or even the 100 damage difference over the course of a 2 minute boss fight by having 105 dex and 825 str, it's about having the best baddest dragon/mare there is and others do not. The same way it is cool to have anniversary masks/sandals vs bod masks. The "perfect" pets are the 1st anniversary blue mask/sandals of the pet world. That is why we/they pay millions for a dragon. It has nothing to do with the 1 extra damage of fire breath. It is easy to get a dragon that is 820/820/103+ for next to nothing, so my advice would be to not bond anything less than that. After this many years of the server being up, there are plenty to choose from for cheap. I have spoken...and now another month of hibernation. Good day/night to you gentlemen.
if I am paying close to 1 mil for a pet it had better be gmed all the way so i don't have to waste play time training it....
