There are two kinds of pet classes: those that help you kill monsters, give you power, help your party, act as a batter, or otherwise just generally serve some purpose.
And then there are MY pets.
I think the problem here is that I’ve grown too used to playing a Necro. A Necro’s pet is pretty simple – you point him at something, he meanders off and attacks it. He might even possibly kill it. If you’re lucky.
However, now that I’m back to playing Pessum, my lovable theurge, I have a whole new set of pets. Pets I like to refer to as “Complete and Utter Bastiches.”
Having a pet zombie isn’t the greatest thing in the world. They tend to wander off, become easily distracted by shiny things, drop bits of themselves off into your soup, leave behind mysterious odors, and generally make having house guests one embarrassment after another. But they are friggin’ DRAGONS compared to elementals.
Oh, sure, elementals have this great casting distance. You know why? That’s so you can fire them off and then run like hell before they start causing problems! And you know why you can spam-cast twenty of the little bastiches? You HAVE to cast twenty of them, because the first five will run completely past your target playing grab-ass and totally ignoring your instructions. The next five will take up a position behind you, for reasons not yet know. The next four will immediately fall over dead. The next three will trip over the bodies of the preceding four and kill themselves. The next one will charge off after you target, who by now is just starting to return from chasing your first batch of grab-assers, whom all have died. FINALLY, your next one will charge straight at your target. Only to fall over and die two feet in front of it.
Your last one will appear in time to watch you die and stand there giggling.
Don’t even get me started on their “effectiveness” in PvP. You try and launch a few earth elementals at an oncoming enemy, and the genius paladin in your party will assume it’s a cross-breed between a dwarf and a troll, and stab it in the back of the head as it runs past, all the while screaming about “abominations in the Eye of the Lord!”
And it’s no use trying to motivate them, either. You summon them, barely get started on your pep talk, and they’re dead. You could even bake a tray of cookies, and before they get a chance to knock them all over and grind them into the carpet, they’re dead.
At least a zombie has enough sense SOMEWHERE in that rotting skull to notice that a monster beating on you is bad. They may not do anything to stop it, of course. But they might notice it.
Not an elemental, though! They’ll stand idly by, listening to you scream, curse, whimper, and generally make a poor show of things. THEN, after you die, they’ll drop over dead, muttering something like, “Woah, that guy really kicked our butts, didn’t he? You probably didn’t see, cause I was really laggy there, but I got in some REALLY good shots. Too bad I couldn’t stick around for five more seconds!”
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