We are back in business -
Ishtak & Tree tanky setup averaging around 6 min kills. Same as before.
Mogdrogen dps version averaging around 2 min kills, faster than before. No issue with aggro.
Skeleton Cabalist back too being good with 2 min cally, faster than before.
And tanky Ishtak 
doing similar to my tanky Bleed pet conjurer at around 5:30 - 6min kills
In other words, atleast when it comes to my builds, only seeing buffs.
I did a bit of testing as well and the damage is completely fine. I didn’t feel any difference when it comes to combat. But they are noticeably slower when simply moving around. They can’t keep up with the player anymore which is sad. I enjoyed the smarter AI and capability of actually staying close to the player that Pets had in this game. Pets are way too slow in other games and have to teleport constantly which is annoying (Wolves in D2 Ressurected are particularly bad with the constant howling after each TP). Now, Pets also have to TP to you to keep up in GD. Not the biggest deal ever, but I just don’t like it.
Definitely agree, it is the only thing that seems to need tweaking.
They should put move speed separately or scale their move speed off of the player’s run speed
Far from exhaustive tests but my thoughts on pet stuff so far
The Great: Item/set skills to passive procs and perma wind devils. We have keys again! I had no interest in bysmiel setups or most elemental pets previously, but free up these keys makes them more playable and/or less awful to do 1 point pets additionally
The Okay: Damage is mostly there. Single target is still good to amazing, aoe has gotten better but I wouldn’t complain about a bit more
The Meh: As mentioned, pets move p slow, are usually trailing way behind and teleporting up. Not the end of the world but was nice when they would keep up. And a bigger problem, but itemization is still really stale, and takes some very good/specific setups to have any non-set options get close to sets.
Ok, so… been testing my setups.
It would seem that Beastcaller is finally not on a higher tier compared to other pet sets anymore.
Bysmiel’s Trinkets Elemental Birbs are making a comeback, Skeletons are back to being fun instead
of getting insta deleted by AoE, and Ghol is kind of really strong now.
Hellhounds kind of need their own set though…
1 min Cally kill with Ghol 
GT - Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
FoA/anno 2025 copium
Have done some more testing on beastcaller, bysmiel, non-set stuff. Haven’t tried diviner or ghol yet, although I know the latter has some potential op bomber aspects. Cough above
Beastcaller - generally still tanky, damage on most setups (still need to try acid) has been mid to great. Vitality is still the standout as it can use temp pet weapon (with flat RR built in) and gloves also with temp pets, but is arguably slightly squishier pilot for the tradeoff. Fire has good to great damage, cold is behind it as helm slot is blocked and no acid to cold conversion exists on pet gear. Chaos seemed far behind now, as did bleed, but could just need tweaked. Elemental pets in general are so much better to play now with wind devils and active to passive proc changes
Bysmiel - better, but still a tier behind Beastcaller from my testing. I think this is mainly a tri-elemental damage penalty thing and being extra thin skill points. Gate offhand pet actually seems like it does some aoe damage now. Can also be built with Primal Spirit focus. 2x birds is okay but without passthrough doesn’t really stand out.
The two big winners I’ve seen so far are Primal Spirit and passthru Bird. The former is absolutely worth at least one point every time now, and even on beastcaller set, I’ve seen better times using the Primal Spirit offhand over Briar offhand. Which is pretty crazy considering you have two briars. Passthrough bird is now everything you dreamed it would be. Storm orb damage with passthrough is great aoe clear and combined with being able to convert to a single damage type (unlike bysmiel), it feels noticeably better than double birds.
Just dipping into non-set testing again but this is hilariously better than any of my non-set results before the latest patch, and happy to see a bit of diversity show up
Why would people come to the conclusion that pet AoE would be dimished due to reduced Devo proccing? Devo’s don’t scale with pet damage anyway as far as I am aware, and all pet AoE comes from the mastery bar and is based on Pet Damage and a cooldown, which means that with the now much higher focus on %dmg instead of %total speed, Pets should have way stronger AoE instead…
yes they do, pets own devos assigned to them
even applies conversion if there is any pet conversion
Welp. You keep learning new stuff about this game 
I know the update concerning this was 2 weeks ago, and there was another major upgrade to pets since then, but how exactly is Crate reconciling not wanting “pet stacking” while simultaneously putting +1 Summon Limits to pets exclusively to sets (that also have great offensive / defensive bonuses)? Beastcaller’s Vitality being the big thing as it gives you 2 Briarthorns plus a Weapon + Gloves slot to stack temporary pets (and maybe converted Primal Instinct? I haven’t followed the meta in a while). Will Salazar’s Blade, Dirge of Arkovia, & the Yeti pet be given buffs so that they could be incorporated in builds that can’t take full advantage of class benefits?
I know most people lol at other pet comboes like pet Pyromancer or Pet Arcanist, but if you want to give them a distinct niche, the best way to do that is to provide good pet Health / Speed bonuses to the gear with Demo / Arcanist modifiers so that you can provide some distinct build options. Want to take advantage of big equipment bonuses with Conjurer? Pay by not having the skill points needed to cap everything you want. You’re already paying at the class selection screen by not picking “the Big 3,” give some way to incentivize picking other pet options.
It just feels to me that the core philosophy of adding double class pets to set bonuses clashes with the need to reduce pet swarming. The item granted pets just feel insignificant now compared to before when they worked well with main-class pets to pick off stragglers and provided a reason to engage in more “active” gameplay. Meanwhile, the class pets are getting so many buffs that it just feels like a no-brainer to combine as many skill points to pets as possible, straining an already point-starved class. There feels like there are few solutions to this.
why not put some new modifiers on some items that can be considered pet related
I feel Hellhounds need a modern set of their own.
Lost Souls has a feel as a design inspired by Cerberus and the souls of the dead in Hades.
Unfortunately this inspiration on the set does not play to the strengths of Hellhounds though and those wanting Hellhound build rather than skeletons.
