The Occultist skill Aspect of the Guardian is an enhancement node to Blood of Dreeg. BoD definitely affects and buffs pets but I can’t find a definite answer as to whether AotG also affects pets in the same way or whether its benefits are “caster only”.
This question has been asked before but back then, didn’t attract very high-quality responses. The skill description isn’t entirely clear and the research I’ve done around the web is inconclusive too.
What I have noticed is that - on my character info panel - my pet “acid/poison resist” % doesn’t change after casting BoD with a point in AotG. I’d have expected it to do so if it was buffing my pets.
Edit: The answer
Yes, AotG does affect pets, but there is a fairly minor bug (linked) which means that the Pet section of the character info panel can show the wrong info if you have a Will ‘o’ Wisp pet active. I was unlucky and reproduced this bug, which is why I couldn’t see the change in the pet stats after casting BoD/AotG. More info & screenshot in the bug post.
The benefits from the base skill “Blood of Dreeg” in fact apply to pets - meaning for example that they get the health regen from the skill.
“Aspect of the guardian” is a different story though. It only works on the player and on so-called player-scaled pets. These are pets like e.g. the Guardians of Empyrion from the Oathkeeper mastery.
“Aspect of the guardian” is essentially a PLAYER bonus.
“True” pets like Familiars, Hellhounds, Briarthorns and so on don’t take over player stats. They have their own stats regarding health, offensive and defensive ability, resists etc. The stats for this type of pets are mostly determined by everything that says “Bonus to all pets”. Hence the Poison & Acid resistance and everything else from “Aspect of the guardian” won’t be applied to “true” pets.
TLDR: Base skill “Blood of dreeg” affects pets (since they are “allies”), “Aspect of the guardian” WON’T buff pets.
Aspect of Guardian affects all pets because all it does is be added to Blood of Dreeg.
Just tested and it does. You need a pet active for the pet stats in the character page to update when a stat that affects them is active. Poison res went from 52% to 80% with Blood of Dreeg having Aspect active.
@Norzan - I tried what you just described with my cabalist and I did not see what you described regarding poison resistance changing in the pet section of my char panel. I had my whole pet arsenal active too at the time (8 skeletons, a blight fiend, a crow, a hellhound and a spectral lobster thing from Hysteria rune). I believe they are all “pet scaled pets” and not “player scaled pets”.
I guess this is a slightly obscure aspect of the game, perhaps not so widely-understood. Serves me right for trying out an unusual build
The “real question” I’m trying to answer of course is whether I want to max AoG or to ignore it in this build. If it doesn’t help my pets then it’s worthless to this char. If it helps my pets as BoD does then it looks quite strong.
Orly? Thanks @Norzan. When I get home from work tonight I’ll:
Get my eyes tested
Try that again
But I’m sure last night I did exactly what you did and didn’t see the % acid/poison resistance change at all.
Assuming I’m not just going blind, I wonder if I might have seen strange results because I had 12 pets (13 if including will o’ wisp) active at the time and not just the one.
@Norzan - thanks for your info & screenshots. It seems that together we have found a bug (albeit a very minor one). I was certain that I had tried that exact same thing last night as you posted above. With your screenshots as proof, I tried again in a few different permutations and I found out why I got the wrong result last night.
The Pet info panel shows the wrong info if I have a Will ‘o’ Wisp pet active (in pet slot #1). I’ve found I can reproduce it at-will, so I’ve reported it as a bug with a screenshot (linked above). It includes what I saw last night, where the acid/poison resist stays at the pre-buff value of zero. If I dismiss the WoW then the panel shows the correct info again.
Thanks for clarifying to both of you!