I can't choose a Lore pet and it's driving me nuts. Please help.

[Extor Prime]

So after experimenting with various Lore pets on a private server, I narrowed the pool of candidates somewhat, but I still can't make a final decision. I'd like some feedback from those who actually use the pets on a regular basis. The toon in question is an Ill/Cold controller. The current pool of candidates is:

 

1. Longbow Radial.

- Upside: it's a competent crew; the cataphract constantly fires the big plasma blast (-regen) and the warden constantly heals; in fact, she does well keeping the cataphract alive and even helps out my daft Phantasm when it gets hit. Considering that I have no heals in my arsenal, it's very useful.

- Downside: the cataphract is rather awkward-looking, and the warden is just plain ugly. Cataphract disappears after 3 minutes and change. Majority of damage is S/L. Also, according to the DPS tests, Longbow are quite mediocre in both single-target and AoE department.

 

2. Phantom Core.

- Upside: they are very thematic for my character (they look just like Phantom Army). They put out good DPS against single targets. And they can fly (not that I particularly need them to).

- Downside: Mediocre in AoE department. Provide no buffs or debuffs.

 

3. Warworks Core.

- Upside: very good-looking. Good single-target DPS (second best according to DPS test? or maybe even THE best since the Cimerorans were nerfed?). Provide -regen debuff (though not as strong as the Longbow one I guess?).

- Downside: rather abysmal in AoE scenarios.

 

I know Banished Pantheon Radial has the distinction of being the only offensive untouchable lore pet, but they aren't particularly thematic for my character and I don't think I want to use them at all.

Could someone help me break this analysis paralysis?

[Myrmidon]

Thematic wins every time.

[Vanden]

I think you better recheck the Longbow Lore, because the majority of its damage is decidedly not S/L.

[Extor Prime]

17 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I think you better recheck the Longbow Lore, because the majority of its damage is decidedly not S/L.

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Longbow_Radial_Superior_Ally

 

Looks mostly S/L...

[Vanden]

Plasma Blast - Energy

Energy Barrage - Energy

Grenade - Smash/Lethal

 

Note that Plasma Blast and Energy Barrage are also both about 3 times as strong as Grenade.

[Extor Prime]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

I think you better recheck the Longbow Lore, because the majority of its damage is decidedly not S/L.

Fair enough; so are you a Longbow lore user and are you happy with them?

[Vanden]

Longbow are very good. I'm not a Radial Lore user, though, I find them all too weak.

[Extor Prime]

59 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Longbow are very good. I'm not a Radial Lore user, though, I find them all too weak.

Does the Nullifier contribute enough damage to the overall DPS to justify himself?

[Vanden]

The lieutenant pets are not great; they're about as strong as a perma-pet from a control set. As an incarnate power with 1/3rd uptime, they won't set the world on fire. However, going Core gives both pets a 25% damage boost at tier 4, that and the fact that there are two attackers means Core Superior pets are putting out much more damage than Radial Superior.

[Extor Prime]

Great, thank you.

 

Anyone else, any votes/opinions about other choices?

[Chance Jackson]

2 hours ago, Extor Prime said:

Great, thank you.

 

Anyone else, any votes/opinions about other choices?

I would only do longbow Radial if I were an MM (which Is one of the t4 lores I had on live)

I say go with War works the lt provides decent enough AOE to stack with the AOE you already put out but if you want to go AOE get the Cloud core lore

[Liam1986]

I went TSOO on my ninja MM and Arachnos on my Crabby and only made those guys for the singular purpose of having thematic lore pets.

[Heraclea]

I went with Cimerorans for Heraclea mostly for thematic reasons.  If I collect enough threads I will probably also make Knives or Talons of Vengeance as well.

[Maxzero]

 

Banished Pantheon Radial.

 

The Boss pet has good ST and AoE attacks (with great coverage) that also -res.

 

The invincible support pet is the only pet with an AoE attack (which mean it can take some agro but since its invincible...). It's also probably got the best buff of all Lore pets: a AoE +regen (100%), +recovery (100%) +recharge (25%) with 50% uptime (30 sec duration, 1 min CD). Really impactful.

 

Plus they look cool.

[Ideon]

Should mention the DPS chart is a little out of date now, all of the lore pets had their damage bumped or nerfed for a planned issue 24 beta build which didn't make it to live (homecoming right now is on issue 25/26).

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Patch_Notes/2012-08-08_Beta#Lore_Slot_Adjustments

 

Plus whatever changes homecoming added on top of that.  Someone needs to do a new DPS list, haha

[Abraxus]

I have Longbow at T4, and or the 5 minuets that they are around, they do what I need them to do.  They work thematically for me, but I don't actually depend on them that much.  For BAF trials, for the Escaped Prisoner stage, they are invaluable.  Other stuff, they contribute to the over all efforts of the team when I choose to deploy them, and that is sufficient.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Abraxus

[Vanden]

The way I've always looked at it is that having a Core Lore, even if it's not the Superior T4 version, is like having another Scrapper on the team in terms of how much damage they add. However, the Radial support pets are nowhere near as effective at supporting you as a Defender or even a Mastermind teammate would be.

 

Now, for farmers, any Lore at all is going to be obliterated by the enemies that typically get farmed, so you pretty much have to go Radial with the invincible pets to get anything at all out of the slot. But that's not a typical scenario.

[TungstenShark]

14 hours ago, Maxzero said:

 

Banished Pantheon Radial.

 

The Boss pet has good ST and AoE attacks (with great coverage) that also -res.

 

The invincible support pet is the only pet with an AoE attack (which mean it can take some agro but since its invincible...). It's also probably got the best buff of all Lore pets: a AoE +regen (100%), +recovery (100%) +recharge (25%) with 50% uptime (30 sec duration, 1 min CD). Really impactful.

 

Plus they look cool.

This. All of this.

[Shadowsleuth]

TungstenShark's Avatar makes me wish there was a lore version of Mako's spirit sharks.
 

[Razia]

8 hours ago, Vanden said:

The way I've always looked at it is that having a Core Lore, even if it's not the Superior T4 version, is like having another Scrapper on the team in terms of how much damage they add. However, the Radial support pets are nowhere near as effective at supporting you as a Defender or even a Mastermind teammate would be.

 

Now, for farmers, any Lore at all is going to be obliterated by the enemies that typically get farmed, so you pretty much have to go Radial with the invincible pets to get anything at all out of the slot. But that's not a typical scenario.

That's if you farm with a melee. On my Fire/Time/Dark Corruptor none of the pets is going to die on a +4/x8 map.

[Extor Prime]

I have BanPan radial on my farmer and it is indeed a useful per, but I don't like the looks of them. As in at all. 😞

 

I guess I'll go with Longbow Core after all. With the 15 minute CD and 5 minute duration, they are less of a pet and more of a bomb I will drop on something that is hard to crack. Might as well go with the best option available, -Regen being a lovely supplement to my less than stellar DPS.

[ed_anger]

I really wish the devs hadn't made the most useful pets these giant creatures, in an AV fight I can no longer see what's going on as the view is blocked by towering incarnate pets.

[Abraxus]

Yeah, I'd have preferred they just be normal, or perhaps slightly larger than normal size.  But, giant-sized, especially when there are many of them does obscure your view of the battle.

[Tamorand]

Knives of Vengeance Radial Invul mob has the highest damage buff of the Invul pets - @ 30% I use that on my TW/Fire Brute - I haven't done the math but since I am not able to maintain 100% at cap on my brute (not easy to maintain 675% for very long, especially if you have a door sitter) I would think that might outweigh the AOE a pet can provide.
But I'd love to be proven wrong if someone could quantify a TW Brute with T4 Double Hit, T4 Musculature, T4 Degenerative.  But for now Damage% is king in my toon's book.

[Justisaur]

Banished has -resists, which are going to be multiplicative with all the damage you already have and is going to be significantly more than the extra damage from KoV.  The invuln pet also has a rain of damage of it's own.

 

Say you're at 500% damage and add 30% damage, you're now at 530% which means you really just increased your damage by 6%.  100 damage becomes 106 damage.

 

If you do -30% resists, you just increased your damage 30%, so you're now doing 130 damage.  The question is if it can apply those resists fast enough and to enough mobs that you're really doing more than 6% more damage.  I think it does, but only time tests would really tell, and those are somewhat random, so it's possible for differences to be drowned out in noise.