Pet toy question

[the wharf rat]

Pets have a class (rogue etc.) If you give them a piece of
equipment that's not useable by that class will they equip it? How
do you tell if a pet actually uses something? You can see weapons
but will they use rings and so on?

[Tony]

Post by the wharf rat
Pets have a class (rogue etc.)

They don't really. They have some class defining abilities. Some pets
backstab, but they're not rogues.

Post by the wharf rat
If you give them a piece of
equipment that's not useable by that class will they equip it? How
do you tell if a pet actually uses something? You can see weapons
but will they use rings and so on?

You need to read the more than excellent post on this over at the
Magician's Tower, here -> http://eq1.eqsummoners.com/viewtopic.php?t=26262

But this answers your query,

4. Pets ignore both the class and the race tags.
Pet gear simply says none/none (or other things, depending on the piece)
because they don't want PCs using powerful gear intended for pets only.
The item can say it is only useable by barbarian wizards for all the pet
cares and it will still equip it.

[the wharf rat]

Post by Tony
You need to read the more than excellent post on this over at the
Magician's Tower, here -> http://eq1.eqsummoners.com/viewtopic.php?t=26262

Thanks, that was perfect.

Finally something to do with all that "it would be uber gear
if not for the required level of 79.5 and the fact that random trash drops
of ragged simple defiant cloth sandals have better stats"

[Lance Berg]

Post by the wharf rat

Post by Tony
You need to read the more than excellent post on this over at the
Magician's Tower, here -> http://eq1.eqsummoners.com/viewtopic.php?t=26262

Thanks, that was perfect.
Finally something to do with all that "it would be uber gear
if not for the required level of 79.5 and the fact that random trash drops
of ragged simple defiant cloth sandals have better stats"

That's a great writeup, except that unless they changed things recently,
the bit about weapon damage seems to be incorrect.

If you watch a pet for a while, you'll find his maximum damage, the
hardest he ever hits. If you hand him a weapon, and then watch him for
a while, you'll find it may or may not change his hardest hit. If the
damage listed on the weapon is high enough that double that damage
number is higher than that maximum damage you saw him do before, that
will be his new hardest hit, and in general the overall damage of the
pet will also be raised correspondingly.

This is easiest to see at very low levels.

To prove my point (or test to see if I'm wrong) I just made up a brand
new mage and went into the tutorial. Opening a few barrels got me a
bow, which sufficed to buy the level 2 water pet and some malachite,
lets see how it does.

OK, his high end hit is 12, although he also hits for 6 4 8 3... but he
hits for 12 a lot, and never for more.

Now, off to Huoo in Gukta who sells rusty weapons, I buy a selection.

First the rusty axe, with a damage of 6. Testing, does nothing to
change his high end hit.

Summoning a fresh pet, I give this one a rusty scythe (8/51). As
expected by my theory, he's now doing 16 damage on high end hits, along
with some 14s, a couple 15s, and a 9... I'm not running a parser but it
looks like his average damage is up too. Oops, dinged 3 while testing.
Lowest hit I can get out of him seems to be 3

Summon pet number three, and test him to make sure my being level 3
hasn't changed his damage output. Same as before, although I got a new
low end hit of 1.

Now for the big gun, rusty two handed sword, (9/50) New high end hit
is, as I expected, 18; the lowest I can coax out seems to be 5, as rare
as the 1 is when weilding nothing. This seems to indicate a +4 damage
per hit across the board, although without much longer parses its hard
to say for certain.

Goign from a max hit of 12 to a max hit of 18 is a nice jump, but the
article you quote seems to say it can't possibly happen, you'd need to
give that pet at least a 24 damage weapon as I read it, (which would
then do a whopping 48 damage), or even if thats not quite right, at
least a 12 damage weapon (which would give 24 damage hits).

What I think they are forgetting is that high end hit with a weapon is
twice the damage listed on the weapon, so what you really need is
something more than HALF the highest hit of your pet, much easier to
arrange.

[Lance Berg]

Additional test.

Got a crude defiant club, which is 4 damage but has a 1 magic damage in
addition. Gave it to the pet, knowing that the pets native damage of 12
would beat that of either the weapon (max hit 8 based on 4 damage) or
the weapon with its magic bonus (max hit 10 based on 4+1 damage).

I hoped that the Magic damage of 1 would beat the pets native magic
damage of 0, so he'd do max hits of 14... but no, he still did max of 12

Since I'd had the theory that even high end pets could be boosted a
little by using this sort of trick, I'm saddened to report that it
didn't work out.