Question regarding pet resistances

Grim Dawn General Discussion
1

Hello everyone,

can pet resistances be over-capped? The pet screen does not show the percentage of additional resistances beyond the 80% (unfortunately).

If they can be over-capped, then they can’t be easily reduced lower than 80% by a curse or something similar, right?
I am asking because I want to know if it is somehow worth it to try to give pets some resistances above 80%.

Having said that, would it be possible for Crate to give the pet screen more information? Like being able to see the resistances above 80%? And also information regarding stun resistance, mind control, etc.?
And maybe also one additional tab for the pet screen of the pet image itself that gives information about the natural innate resistances that a pet has independent of any items?

2

Yes pet overcaps should work on same way as players, so isn’t bad idea to overcap vital ones. Also check pet builds in GT, there you have the overcaps values.

Also petition to add separate % pet damage values for different damage types and not all damage only.

Also paging pet experts @Maya and @thepowerofmediocrity

2 Likes
3

Yes they can. Showing overcapped resistances for the player was a quality of life feature added a long time ago, would be great if the same were done for pets now but I’m not holding my breath.

Yes, overcap does counteract resist reduction debuffs against them just like it does for the player.

I wouldn’t say it’s as necessary in general for pets as:

  • They typically can end up with magnitudes higher amounts of health than players. It’s not out the question for things like Briarthorns to end up with 70k or more health for instance.

  • Some of them like Blight Fiends are also easily replaceable with the transmuter so you can keep feeding corpses to your enemies.

  • Another niche case are pets like Reap Spirits and Bound Spirits that are largely unkillable allowing builds around them to go ham on offense.

It’s definitely worth overcapping a good chunk of them but some pet experts will tell you based on experience that builds around some of the more tankier pets like Ghol and Blight Fiends can make do without certain ones. The only mastery pets I’d say where overcapping every one by a significant amount is vital is with Raise Skeletons due to their fragility.

1 Like
4

Moon Moon has been summoned!

All in all, you’re going to have a hard enough time getting your pet resistances maxed, as there’s few pet equipment out there that has resistances to begin with, assuming you don’t venture into double-rare MI’s. For example, there are no gear (as in non-weapon, there are weapon components like Purified Salt ad Seal of Might) components that give pet resistances the way they are commonly used to patch up player resistances, and outside of jewelry augments, there are no augments that give resistances either.

However, most resistances definitely benefit from being capped - Pierce resistance is the only one where you can get away with 50-60% resistance. The main thing you have to worry about more than resistances is making sure you have enough pet damage. All the resistances in the world won’t help you if you only have ~1,000% worth of pet damage, so make sure you have certifiable pet nukes (Beastcaller’s Cowl, Ruby of Domination, or Call of the Grave with good uptime) so that you can kill the most dangerous enemies before they debuff you too much.

So definitely seek out to cap pet resistances, but don’t do something like remove the Mogdrogen devotion path to instead get the Ishtak / Light of Empiryon if your build doesn’t have the pet speed to do so. Even with over 100K health, Briarthorns can melt very quickly if you don’t have the proper defenses, but you also need the offenses to manage the fight to your advantage.

If you have any further questions, you can always send us a Grimtools of your current build, but I like to help out with generalities so that you’re not stuck with things that only apply to that specific build.

2 Likes
5

Yes, I definitely think the display of pet information should receive some love from Crate. It seems that was a bit neglected if you allow me to say that. I hope Crate will do something about that.

I also noticed that it is a bit tough to get pet resistances up. You mentioned the components. Yes, most of the components do not give resistances to pets (or other values like damage or OA/DA). I hope that Crate will take a look at components soon enough and make some adjustments. Having more components that provide pet bonuses would be great, and I think it is needed. The same is true for augments.

6

I think getting up pet resistances now is pretty good, better than ever even with a lot of changes. There are 4 main avenues for acquiring them that range from just starting out all the the way to end game:

Mastery Skills. Occultist gets Storm Spirit and Aspect of the Guardian to provide pets with free Elemental, Acid and Physical resistances. Shaman gets Oakskin and Emboldening Presence to provide pets with free Pierce, Aether, Bleeding and Physical resistance.

Necromancer gets it the worst just getting Master of Death to provide pets with Vitality resistances but Occultist/Shaman having the dearth they have is already an amazing start and taking even just one mastery out of them (e.g. Cabalist/Ritualist) is already a substantial boost.

Devotion. Various constellations are amazing sources for them. From experience, Wolverine is bountiful and immediately accessible. It’s affinity like Shepherd’s Crook also aligns with Mogdrogen. Typhos is in a similar position as well.

Equipment. A lot of Epic and Legendary equipment feature resistances for both the player and pets by end game. Before then, faction equipment is also notable for doing the same and with relevant pet stat bonuses and other nice things (like % pet damage/OA). For example:

Rhowari Shoulderguards.
Rhowari Cuirass.
Bysmiel Stormshroud Cuirass.
Solael Vile Pauldrons.
Coven Tamer’s Hood.
Coven Lifebinder Vestments.

Components and Augments. End game has Seal of Might which is a well-known and used one. Before then, there is Purified Salt and Imbued Silver for a chunk of pet Aether/Chaos resistance whilst also providing Aether/Chaos (and Bleed in the case of Imbued Silver) resistance to the player.

There are various augments for pet resistances, some of which are available mid-game at Honoured reputation for Devil’s Crossing, Malmouth Resistance and Order of Death’s Vigil:

Rifthound Salts.
Mender’s Powder.
Binding Dust.

More options open up at Level 90 for Acid and Bleeding resistance but I wanted to highlight a few again that can be used while levelling that aren’t too hard to get ahold of. Buying some of these and rotating around them to fill in gaps that the above methods don’t cover is a good idea. It’s also not a bad idea to use the one that covers whatever resistance you need the most for any given current area - Mender’s Powder is especially good for Homestead up to the Loghorrean and for the Barrowholm Ch’thonic rift up to Theodin as examples.

1 Like
7

Yes, I know there are some gear, augments, and skills that boost a pet’s resistances.

Thanks for the reply and the listings of some items.

Nevertheless, I hope Crate will take a look at components and find ways to add some more pet bonuses on them.
A general review of components (and some augments) might be useful anyway.

8

I wouldn’t complain at more options for pet resistances on components but as I said, i think the amount we have now is fine. I was able to level a Skellies Ritualist from 1 to 100 just fine with almost all of that done in Lokarr mind you (so 4 gear pieces had no pet resistances) and had very few problems outside of ones that other pet builds wouldn’t also have (e.g. Darius Cronley).

9

Yup and it becomes even more important when playing with Briarthorns or including Skeletons. Also needed if you go for Non-transmuted Blightfiends.

Birbs in my experience can make do without much interms of resistance, atleast outside of deeper SR shards.

Transmuted Blightfiends are Bombs and don’t care for such things. Reap spirits simply laugh at the concept of Pet defensive stats :yum:

Would love this too. Even though it is not hard to manually calculate the values since pets mostly roll with +%all dmg, would still be a nice addition atleast to GT if not ingame.

image
image.jpg600×504 105 KB

2 Likes