There currently is ONE, ONLY ONE item in the entire game that offers a pet bonus to the Soldier Mastery and that is the wonderfully odd Mythical Guardian of Death’s Gates. While it is indeed a very interesting item to use on it’s own and a decent skeleton death knight build can be made with it. As we see time and time again many builds are doomed from the start due to the very simple reason of an overall lack of item support for said build. While I would LOVE to see more pet support from ALL masteries in the game (i.e IEE) there perhaps will be none ever implemented so the bare minimum should be skill bonuses to items already found in game.
Here comes the Mythical Touch of the Everliving Grove! Pet vindicator, why yes. Yes, I have built and enjoy playing that even if a majority never even give it a thought to try~ However I think that these gloves would help out soldier nicely too! +2 to either Field Command OR Squad Tactics of course would NOT be game breaking by any means and wouldn’t even be enough to encourage more people to make/use death knight pet builds but it’s a step in a good direction for both the Soldier Mastery & the item itself.
I like this idea a lot. I would like to see more support in Pet items for other masteries as well. There’s quite a ton of items that are merely used as filler but could be improved to incentivize more experimentation with the other masteries.
A good example is Reaper’s Leggings which has bonuses for Pet skills but no real Pet bonuses. It also has +3 to Oleron’s Rage and i think +3 to Aura of Conviction would make more sense in this case. There’s the Mark of Broken Oaths which has a little bit of lore and belonged to an Inquisitor so some bonuses to Inquisitor skills (like Inquisitor Seal or Word of Renewal) would make sense.
We could also use some Elemental to Pierce conversion to finally enable Pierce Pet builds. It is the only damage type not supported for Pets and i understand that the three main Pet classes have no real support for Pierce damage but that’s why it would be interesting. It could enable more experimentation with Inquisitor which has so many useful skills for Pets. And Nightblade could get its own niche despite being the worst class for Pet builds (i have already played and finished a Winter King Pet Trickster and i’m finishing an Acid Pet Witch Hunter so i have experience with Nightblade on Pet builds). The Mark of Broken Oaths or Coven Manipulator Pendant could be used for this.
I really believe we need more support for other masteries in Pet items because there’s just too many people who dismiss the idea of trying to mix different masteries with Pets. It is not an unviable playstyle. I have beaten many endgame tasks on Ultimate with builds using a combination of Pet class + Non-Pet class.
+2 to Word of Renewal doesnt mean you should instantly pick Inquisitor’s mastery for it. That tiny bonus isnt worth it at all.
Pet Death Knight has no pet resistances to speak of (except Master of Death, I suppose), which instantly makes the concept a non-starter.
As someone who’s played a pet Vindicator, a pet Deceiver, and a Skeleton Apostate, the real money comes in the form of Steel Resolve, which grants flat damage and Aether + Chaos resistances, and comes fairly easily in equipment slots that can afford to give up pet items for it (pants & boots, primarily, belt is a harder sell because the pet belt items are good). Pet Resistances are just too vital to ignore when trying to make a pet build, which is why Demo and Arcanist pets suffer more than the traditional pet classes, even when there’s much more offensive potential in Flame Touched and IEE, respectively.
It’s okay that Soldier isn’t meant for pet classes, even with Field Command + Squad Tactics. No amount of +skill bonuses will make up for the fundamental flaw in lacking pet resistances, and while I’d love to see pet resistances sprinkled in more items and devotions, it’s not going to make the concept suddenly viable.
Necromancer Pets are either incredibly frail by nature (skeletons base HP is too low to make resistances matter too much) or they can be respawned easily. Ghosts from Reap Spirit and Bonescavengers Deathgrips are nearly unkillable and they are temporary to begin with which makes resistances pointless. And Blight Fiend can be made temporary with Unstable Anomaly which again nullify any need for resistances. Also, Soldier offers a lot of HP, resistances, armor, armor absorption and other defensive benefits to the player which makes choices for equipment, components and augments a lot more flexible. You need to consider this as well. If Nightblade is capable of having decent Pet builds then there’s no way Soldier can’t do the same. I’m also finishing a Death Knight Pet as well. I will share results once I’m done with it.
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