Lore Pets questions

[Achilles6]

I have my Lore slot opened. For concept reasons, I'm looking at Warworks, Drones, or Polar Lights. Looking for advice on which may work best, which is the worst and why. On either side of the T4.

Thanx in advanced.

[Draeth Darkstar]

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Lore_Slot_Abilities

[RevolverMike]

Think he's looking for an opinion.

Warworks used to be king of damage, so that would prolly be "best".

[Darth_Khasei]

Originally Posted by RevolverMike

Think he's looking for an opinion.

Warworks used to be king of damage, so that would prolly be "best".

I think the implication is after reading the page and understanding the pets he will be in the best position to provide his own opinion on what is best for him. Clearly not knowing the build or the desire of the person its hard to give an educated opinion as it may not apply to his style of play or personal preference.

I could cook the man a fish dinner, but he will be back a week from now looking for moar. I would much rather teach him to fish so he will leave me the f alone or something like that.

[Agent White]

And you can't really hit us with 'concept reasons' and not tell us the concept.

And it's kind of coming down to picking nits with Lore Pets. For the most part, they all hit like trucks, some just hit like bigger trucks (Cimerorans) and some like smaller trucks (Seers) but you're still getting hit by a truck. So most of it does come down to just flavor.

If you're looking for just straight up damage, go for the T4 that gives you a boss and a lieutenant both with +DMG. The other T4 gives you a boss pet and invulnerable Support lieutenant, which can be nice but you have to figure it's a 5 minute uptime on a 15 minute cooldown so it isn't like you'll be relying on that support heavily.

Warworks is definitely the go to from that list if it's pure damage. As said, they were the kings until the Cimerorans deposed them.

[JuliusSeizure]

Originally Posted by Achilles6

I have my Lore slot opened. For concept reasons, I'm looking at Warworks, Drones, or Polar Lights. Looking for advice on which may work best, which is the worst and why. On either side of the T4.

Thanx in advanced.

For straight DPS, the Warworks are far superior. However, for AoE damage and -Regen debuffs the Drones are the better of the two. This debate is a tricky proposition because even though War Works will significantly out DPS the Drones, the -Regeneration available on every attack from the Drones actually causes these two Lore pets to be a bit closer in single target performance than most posters realize.

I still prefer the superior AoE in Drones and adequate single target DPS when you factor stacking -regeneration.

All that said, Vicky is one bad *** robot... You can't go wrong between these two.

Edit:: And that would be Core for each Lore route. If you want buffs/debuffs from going radial then none of these three are particularly notable.

[Blue_Fenix]

Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure

Edit:: And that would be Core for each Lore route. If you want buffs/debuffs from going radial then none of these three are particularly notable.

For that matter, which Radial Lore Pet buffs ARE notable? I mean, they've pretty much all got a heal, but it's hard for me to tell which of the various buffs on offer are particularly exciting or hard to get from other sources.

[LineNoise]

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=26

If you want a pure DPS ranking, someone did that for you already.

It depends a lot on your character, though. Warworks and Cimerorans are the top pure DPS, but they're all Smash/Lethal. If I'm playing a Katana, I want to take Phantoms or Polar Lights or something so that I can get some other damage types.

I tend to only take Total Core pets anymore, with a few rare exceptions, because the situations where I'm actually *using* Lore, I really just want a metric boatload of damage.

As far as useful Radial Lore, there are a few standouts among the morass of "healz0rs". Phantoms Radial gives you Adrenaline Boost. Carnival Radial offers Forge. Seers Radial offers Fortitude (beware, Seers are also the weakest set for actual damage). Rikti offers AccelMetab. Rularuu: Crystal of Vigor and Storm Elementals: Hurricane. Of these, only AB, AM, and Hurricane seem to be really worth the loss of DPS from the Core.

Of the three you named, in the Core, the Warworks are flashier, better for killing a big AV, but Vicki is melee, and thus a bit more likely to get dead. Drones and Polars are better AoE, they're pure ranged, and they're graphically minimalist. Polars also KB a lot, much like having a pocket Peacebringer. You choose.

[Draeth Darkstar]

Originally Posted by LineNoise

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=26

If you want a pure DPS ranking, someone did that for you already.

It depends a lot on your character, though. Warworks and Cimerorans are the top pure DPS, but they're all Smash/Lethal. If I'm playing a Katana, I want to take Phantoms or Polar Lights or something so that I can get some other damage types.

Two nitpicks (this is also directed at the fellow touting the -regen on Drones):

First, the DPS rankings include -regen effects; it would be impossible to compile the DPS of those pets on a Rikti Pylon without including their inherent -regen; he says as much himself when discussing the Longbow, because so much of their effective DPS is in -regen.

Second, Warworks damage is more than half Energy. The only powers they have that even do Lethal at all are 50/50 Lethal/Energy, and those crit for full energy damage, making them 3/4ths energy on a crit. Vicky also has a pure energy attack and both the ACU's attacks are pure energy. They also have 50% stacking -regen on all their ranged attacks.

Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei

I think the implication is after reading the page and understanding the pets he will be in the best position to provide his own opinion on what is best for him. Clearly not knowing the build or the desire of the person its hard to give an educated opinion as it may not apply to his style of play or personal preference.

I could cook the man a fish dinner, but he will be back a week from now looking for moar. I would much rather teach him to fish so he will leave me the f alone or something like that.

Yes, that was the point.
Also noteworthy is that the wiki page includes the DPS ranking.

Edit: To throw my actual opinion in, since people apparently didn't appreciate my objective stance, Warworks are significantly more powerful than your other choices and are an excellent option if they aren't offensive to your concept.

[blueruckus]

Something that hasn't been mentioned in support of Drones is the range on these guys. Their single target attacks have a 120' range and their cones are at 60'. This extraordinary range means that they'll spend less time running around trying to catch up to enemies and more time blasting away.

For AVs, you'll get better performance out of warworks but drones aren't too far behind. On Pylon runs, I take it down in about 33 seconds with Warworks and about 40 seconds with Drones.

For everything else, I'd say Drones are more ideal since they're swapping between many targets and not running to chase them.

Also, they fly and that's always a plus.

[Achilles6]

First off, thank you again for all the replies. This is what I was looking for. I've been to the wiki page, but to be honest, seeing thoughtful / reasoned discussion works better for me.

I generally hate knock-back as much as standing in lines. Polar Lights are out.

Luckily this is a case where I can have my cake and eat it too. I'm gonna go with the Drones first, then work on getting Warworks and then I can switch as needed.

and they all rejoiced....

[JuliusSeizure]

Originally Posted by Blue_Fenix

For that matter, which Radial Lore Pet buffs ARE notable? I mean, they've pretty much all got a heal, but it's hard for me to tell which of the various buffs on offer are particularly exciting or hard to get from other sources.

Seers has perma-Fortitude for 5 minutes and is probably the best overall buff. The Carnival line grants perma-Forge, while the Phantoms grant significant periods of Adrenaline Boost. The Storm Elementals have a massive -ToHit debuff that can be a game changer while active.

These are the best radials IMO.

[JuliusSeizure]

Originally Posted by blueruckus

their cones are at 60'.

Just to reiterate: This is why Drones utterly outpace Warworks for AoE contribution.

[JakHammer]

One thing no one has mentioned is that the Radial T4 recharges in 10 minutes. The T4 Core takes 15 Min to recharge.

So in a 35 min span you can have the T4 Core twice or the T4 Radial 3 times. If you have a high personal DPS, then 15 minutes of the right kind of buff may be better overall that an LT.

But the T4 Radial Boss only lasts for 3 min and 20 seconds. So you only get the Boss for a total of 10 min either way. My experience running solo is that in most of the fights where I need or want Lore help the LT class pet gets burned down very quickly, and a lot of fights are over in less than 3 minutes, so I tend to take a T4 Radial as my everyday Lore slot.

Just an alternative idea.

Jak

[Arbiter Hawk]

Originally Posted by LineNoise

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=26

If you want a pure DPS ranking, someone did that for you already.

There's been at least one significant Lore DPS balance pass since this compilation - i22 included a bug fix that was preventing 8 or so Lore trees from proc'ing Interface or benefiting from any Alpha slots. I also made a balance pass on them around the time of i20.5's release in an attempt to bring all of the sets within a reasonable margin of performance.

It's probably worth re-evaluating Lore pet DPS rankings if what you're interested in is maximum DPS performance.

[Derangedpolygot]

Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk

There's been at least one significant Lore DPS balance pass since this compilation - i22 included a bug fix that was preventing 8 or so Lore trees from proc'ing Interface or benefiting from any Alpha slots. I also made a balance pass on them around the time of i20.5's release in an attempt to bring all of the sets within a reasonable margin of performance.

It's probably worth re-evaluating Lore pet DPS rankings if what you're interested in is maximum DPS performance.

That would explain why my Shield Robot Drone wasn't enhanced for defense. I thought something was off.

[Ideon]

Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk

There's been at least one significant Lore DPS balance pass since this compilation - i22 included a bug fix that was preventing 8 or so Lore trees from proc'ing Interface or benefiting from any Alpha slots. I also made a balance pass on them around the time of i20.5's release in an attempt to bring all of the sets within a reasonable margin of performance.

It's probably worth re-evaluating Lore pet DPS rankings if what you're interested in is maximum DPS performance.

If I remember though, the table which is there was done with only Cardiac Core Paragon slotted to get an idea of base values, so no interface was included.

Still, the patch is nice, my Robotic Drones can activate Interface again. You mentioned some didn't benefit from Alpha slots. If I remember from my thread about Lore Pets not triggering Interface, Carnies, Robotic Drones, and Storm Elementals were there. Did they also not benefit from Alpha as well?

The balance pass is another thing to consider.... Deus_Otiosu, I hope you're looking at this thread. XD

Also - have you thought about giving some of the Lore Pets more attacks so they're more competitive with Cimerorans (where the Boss pet has five attacks, and the lieutenant has four attacks)? It would help their attack chains a little, I think.

[Ideon]

Originally Posted by JakHammer

One thing no one has mentioned is that the Radial T4 recharges in 10 minutes. The T4 Core takes 15 Min to recharge.

So in a 35 min span you can have the T4 Core twice or the T4 Radial 3 times. If you have a high personal DPS, then 15 minutes of the right kind of buff may be better overall that an LT.

But the T4 Radial Boss only lasts for 3 min and 20 seconds. So you only get the Boss for a total of 10 min either way. My experience running solo is that in most of the fights where I need or want Lore help the LT class pet gets burned down very quickly, and a lot of fights are over in less than 3 minutes, so I tend to take a T4 Radial as my everyday Lore slot.

Just an alternative idea.

Jak

Remember T4 Core Pets also get 30% Damage bonus, which the T4 Radial Pet won't get.

[JakHammer]

Originally Posted by Ideon

Remember T4 Core Pets also get 30% Damage bonus, which the T4 Radial Pet won't get.

Ah Ha! I did NOT know that somehow. Explains a lot. Thanks!

Jak

[Noyjitat]

Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk

There's been at least one significant Lore DPS balance pass since this compilation - i22 included a bug fix that was preventing 8 or so Lore trees from proc'ing Interface or benefiting from any Alpha slots. I also made a balance pass on them around the time of i20.5's release in an attempt to bring all of the sets within a reasonable margin of performance.

It's probably worth re-evaluating Lore pet DPS rankings if what you're interested in is maximum DPS performance.

Id just like to be able to use them more frequently than we currently can. When you get them to T4 they should at the very least recharge much quicker.