Here is my evaluation on the pet skills, which have all seen a boost to their Crit damage in the 1.0.4.0 update:
Ground Slam: Ground Slam can hit roughly ~30K per projectile with heavy investment in Physical damage if you invest 12/12. Each projectile gets a 10% increase from before the update, not sure about how long its move animation is or if multiple projectiles hit a large enemy at the same time. If two projectiles can hit a large enemy simultaneously, then it’s roughly equal to what a basic weapon attack will hit for.
*NOTE: Here are the items that grant skill points to Ground Slam: Mythical Fiendmaster Raiment, Mythical Rifthound Leggings, Bloodsworn Codex, Mythical Blessed Cleaver of Mogdrogen, Mythical Binding Emerald of Mogdrogen, the Overseer, Eye of Dominion (has a chance to grant skill bonus). The only way you can reasonably have a shot at 22/12 Ground Slam is if you use the full Mogdrogen’s Peace set, and trying to build around that set in general just leads to very weak pet damage as a whole. High crit damage, for sure, but not a lot of damage to boost with those crits.
Ember Claw: At 12/12, this move does 175 Fire and 150 Chaos damage, presumably with no weapon damage component whatsoever, meaning it does less damage than a typical weapon attack would do for well-designed pet builds. The extra 33% Crit damage is roughly a 12% damage increase over the previous version. This is the worst move of the pet abilities by a good amount.
*NOTE: Here are the items that grant skill points to Ember Claw: Mythical Rifthound Leather Boots, Mythical Fiendblood Spellblade, Mythical Valepiercer, Mythical Warpbreath Arbalest, Mythical Shard of Command, the Overseer, Eye of Dominion (has a chance to grant skill bonus). It’s much harder to grant all skills in Occultist for pet builds than it is for all skills in Shaman, so trying to overcap this skill is even worse than it looks. Using the Shard of Command means you’re not using the Sovereign Ruby, and there’s no way anyone will reasonably agree to that.
Lighting Strike: At 12/12, this move does an average of 485 Lightning Damage with 33% Crit damage. It’s a level 25 that only does 50 points of damage less than the level 50 skill Infernal Breath - even when including the DoT component - which is trivial to overcome with the fact that not only is pet gear far more favorable to Lightning pets than Fire/Chaos pets, but RR skills/devotions are easier to obtain for Lightning as well. Overall, a level 25 pet skill easily overtakes a level 50 pet skill.
*NOTE: Here are the items that grant skill points to Lightning Strike: Mantle of Mogdrogen, Stormbringer of Malmouth, Mythical Shard of Command, Eye of Dominion (has a chance to grant this skill bonus). Realistically, you’ll only see lightning pets use the first two items, so this skill is seeing 18/12 max. There is no reason to gimp your build to take it to 22/12.
Infernal Breath: At 12/12, this move does ~200 Fire Damage, 175 Chaos damage, and 155 Burn damage per second. It is much easier to increae %Pet Fire Damage than it is to increase %Pet Burn Damage, so having a level 50 skill provide only a marginal increase over a level 20 skill on the same pet is inexcusable, especially as it only provides 25% Crit damage compared to Ember Claw’s 33% Crit damage. This move’s flat damage needs to see an increase. Burn pets are not worth writing about; however, with the new gun + amulet combo that converts 90% of Burn Damage to Poison damage, this will see marginal use in a Poison pet Cabalist. Keep in mind, however, that skill points are extremely rare among Cabalist pet builds, and when you have a primary weapon and amulet taken by MIs and a headgear that provides +Skills to neither class, the player will be extremely hard-pressed to find skill points to give to this move.
*NOTE: Here are the items that grant skill points to Infernal Breath: Mantle of Lost Souls, Mythical Rifthound Legwraps, Mythical Channeling Orb of the Covenant, Mythical Warpbreath Arbalest, Eye of Dominion (has a chance to grant this skill bonus). Not only does this skill do far little damage at 12/12, but it is completely unreasonable to try and overcap this as well, as the Rifthound Legwraps do far too little for summoners to take this over Wildshorn or Bysmiel MI pants (Aether resistance and +Undead Legion are the only reasons to wear this), and it’s attempting to encourage either using the Lost Souls set or the Covenant set, and the Lost Souls set will win out every time. There needs to be far better gearing for this skill.
Blight Burst: At 12/12, this move does 350 Acid Damage, 168 Vitality Damage, and 125 Poison damage per second. The instant cast and the 10m range makes this a much better move than the Hellhound or Briarthorn skills.
*NOTE: Here are the items that grant skill points to Blight Burst: Mythical Rotmender’s Hat, Mythical Shadowfiend’s Cord, Mythical Fiendflesh Greaves, Mythical Fiendblood Spellblade. While the Rotmender’s Hat is utterly obsolete, the belt and boots alone grant +6 to the skill. A few other worthy equipment pieces and some +all skills in Necromancer and you can easily boost this to 22/12. The best designed skill out of all the pet attack skills.