What stats actually affect pets and how? also, why pet stats on gear?

[Thunder Buddy]

There are some places in the game where i'm not sure if i'm making good decision, based on the tool tips provided. For example one skill increases pet size and damage. Is that just attack damage? What about spells? Does it affect bleed, poison, ice lightning or fire damage that generate from pet attacks? If i have a sword that increases poison damage and my pet does poison damage does it affect my pet too?

Finally, why do i have to have entire trees and gear sets focused on pets in order for them to be effective? This causes issues in fights with targeted skills or the fact that every ranged monster in the game seems to ignore pets and prioritize attacks on the player. If all my stats are terrible in order to use pets effectively, then I become glass build and die to arrows or targeted skills etc. Would be better probably to just have pets scale off player stats and adjust it so that it's fair and reasonable.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Headhunter:

Finally, why do i have to have entire trees and gear sets focused on pets in order for them to be effective? This causes issues in fights with targeted skills or the fact that every ranged monster in the game seems to ignore pets and prioritize attacks on the player. If all my stats are terrible in order to use pets effectively, then I become glass build and die to arrows or targeted skills etc. Would be better probably to just have pets scale off player stats and adjust it so that it's fair and reasonable.

Because no one yet has figured out how to make good pet classes without destroying balance. So they resort to forcing players to hyper focus on pets. The problem is if it wasn't like this, every dps build would have pets running distraction and so forth. I'm exaggerating of course, but that is the crux of it.

Basically a pet class done correctly is stupid OP, so nobody does them correctly.

[Thunder Buddy]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by Headhunter:

Finally, why do i have to have entire trees and gear sets focused on pets in order for them to be effective? This causes issues in fights with targeted skills or the fact that every ranged monster in the game seems to ignore pets and prioritize attacks on the player. If all my stats are terrible in order to use pets effectively, then I become glass build and die to arrows or targeted skills etc. Would be better probably to just have pets scale off player stats and adjust it so that it's fair and reasonable.

Because no one yet has figured out how to make good pet classes without destroying balance. So they resort to forcing players to hyper focus on pets. The problem is if it wasn't like this, every dps build would have pets running distraction and so forth. I'm exaggerating of course, but that is the crux of it.

Basically a pet class done correctly is stupid OP, so nobody does them correctly.

I get what you are saying, but why include them in the game if it will always amount to being a poor selection? I do think they did a better job than other ARPG at making pets feel interesting and allowing you to actively control when they use skills, but if i'm just going to have to go stand in a corner and hope i dont get shot, I don't think it's worth adding to the game.

[andrew.thiele]

For much of this information you can open the in-game Game Guide [G]:

Minions
Minions are allies of the player that are summoned by skills, items, passives, or other effects.

Minions automatically attack enemies and will run towards the player if they’ve strayed too far behind.

You can also manually tell your minions to target the enemy under your cursor using the [A] key, by default. If there’s no enemy at the location you target, your minions will move there before picking a new target to attack. You can also use this command to have your minions break things like crates.

Minions summoned by a skill will typically be granted additional stats from skill tree nodes. Modifiers your character has (such as from passives and items) will not apply unless minions are specified.

For example, a passive node that grants “increased physical damage” will not apply to your minions, but “”increased minion physical damage” will apply.

A minion will prioritize using a skill that has just come off of cooldown if it has multiple to use, assuming there is a valid target in range.

Companions and Totems are two types of minions that have additional mechanics.

Outside of the Game Guide, typically you can use [Alt] and/or [Ctrl] to see additional information on tooltips/passives/skill nodes/gear, etc. Also, hovering over stats in your character sheet can provide further information as well.

[Thunder Buddy]

Originally posted by andrew.thiele:

For much of this information you can open the in-game Game Guide [G]:

Minions
Minions are allies of the player that are summoned by skills, items, passives, or other effects.

Minions automatically attack enemies and will run towards the player if they’ve strayed too far behind.

You can also manually tell your minions to target the enemy under your cursor using the [A] key, by default. If there’s no enemy at the location you target, your minions will move there before picking a new target to attack. You can also use this command to have your minions break things like crates.

Minions summoned by a skill will typically be granted additional stats from skill tree nodes. Modifiers your character has (such as from passives and items) will not apply unless minions are specified.

For example, a passive node that grants “increased physical damage” will not apply to your minions, but “”increased minion physical damage” will apply.

A minion will prioritize using a skill that has just come off of cooldown if it has multiple to use, assuming there is a valid target in range.

Companions and Totems are two types of minions that have additional mechanics.

Outside of the Game Guide, typically you can use [Alt] and/or [Ctrl] to see additional information on tooltips/passives/skill nodes/gear, etc. Also, hovering over stats in your character sheet can provide further information as well.

thanks for this input, i'll try these things out to see what these other tips reveal. I wasn't aware that they existed, that my be due to me not paying enough attention.