Thoughts on Meditation / MR for Pet Healing

[Dizzy]

I'm trying to decide if I want to keep any Meditation on my character for pet healing. I use my GD for tanking, and would like to keep him alive rather than rebuilding his skills after each death. (I also prefer to go with "natural" skills instead of supplementing with jewelry at the highest levels; I'm ok with a +10 Meditation to boost it at low levels, but would rather have a real 120 Taming instead of 100 Taming with another +20 on jewelry)

Here's my current skills, all real:

Lore 120.0
Taming 117.6
Magery 106.6
Meditation 38.3
Music 115.6
Peace 120
Vet 105

I used to rely on vet for healing, but with the masteries (esp Empowerment since I don't have Consume Damage available, I assume I need a Vol III to get that), I'm using Meditation a lot more (it's easier than bandies and I can do it from a distance). I supplement with just a couple of bandies when I need it.

When I'm killing / taming Greater Dragons, I use the Peacing a lot, and if the GD stats are too low, I kill it off with my turtle and get a fresh GD to spawn. During the killing, I'm wearing a suit with max MR. I start with about 180 mana and by the time the GD is near death, I'm usually down to about 150 mana. At the end, I switch to my luck suit, and often run out of mana quickly and supplement with Vet to keep my turtle healed.

Which would be better?
- Raise my Magery to 120 for greater healing (I can't usually do this during battle because Empowerment is more effective).
- Raise my Vet to 120 for greater healing (advantage is it's not dependent on mana).
- Magery/Vet at 100 each, and keep 40 on Meditation to help with my mana regeneration?

I'm thinking about the 120 Magery / 120 Vet / 0 Meditation option because I can always turn off empowerment briefly while mana rebuilds and rely on vet during that time.

 

[DJAd]

I love consume damage. I would say try and pickup a level 3 taming then see if you have enough med to keep it running. It's pretty nice.

 

[Dizzy]

The Vol III might be out of my price range. However, as luck would have it, I picked up this just tonight:

 

[Katrina Blade]

whats the ui you are using that shows you caps ?

 

[Dizzy]

I'm using EC with Pinco's.

I'm not sure how accurate the caps are, or maybe I don't know how to read it. Meditation +20 with a cap of +15 makes no sense to me.

 

[drcossack]

I'm using EC with Pinco's.

I'm not sure how accurate the caps are, or maybe I don't know how to read it. Meditation +20 with a cap of +15 makes no sense to me.

15 is the cap for imbuing. Legendary Artifact Jewelry can go above that - it does it with HCI & DCI as well, and other mods - LRC, FCR (you've seen 1/4 jewely by now, I'd guess), and I'm not sure what else applies. I think EP can go to 35%, but I'd have to look.

 

[Zandor]

Honestly without eval magery on a tamer just takes up skill points. My advice would be ditch peace and music and add eval and mystic. For times when you need peace you can exchange them off a soul stone. Peace is handy but mostly pointless anymore. A good invis is just as effective. I think disco is way better than peace. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Dizzy]

Disco's better for hunting, but Peace is better for Taming. And you have to be able to gate your pet back to the stable since it's not bonded.

 

[drcossack]

Honestly without eval magery on a tamer just takes up skill points. My advice would be ditch peace and music and add eval and mystic. For times when you need peace you can exchange them off a soul stone. Peace is handy but mostly pointless anymore. A good invis is just as effective. I think disco is way better than peace. Just my 2 cents.

Recall/gating non-bonded pets*, mind blast, res'ing, and healing, but that's about it. I'm currently playing my tamer w/out Eval and I'm not crazy about it, but I wanted to try Weaving/Vet as a combo for a while. Unfortunately, there aren't too many situations while out hunting where my pets end up dying - Shadowguard is about the only time since I don't use a GD there (but whoever I go with does, I'm not totally insane), and even then it doesn't happen 100% of the time.

Agreed on peacing for general use, but the masteries are FANTASTIC. As is Discord against bosses.

*Assuming you don't tame in Fel Destard, which is where I usually go for my Greater Dragons due to the larger supply. I exit the dungeon, recall, then log to retrieve because I keep forgetting the pet isn't bonded.

 

[Dizzy]

This thread isn't *too* old. I've stoned off Peace and worked up Discord, so depending on if I'm taming or fighting, I can swap out that bard skill. With that nice Legendary jewelry above, this is what I settled at:

120 Magery
120 Discord / Peace
120 Music
120 Taming
120 Animal Lore
80 Vet (+10 Jewelry for better healing and res %)
40 Med (+20 Jewelry)

I also picked up a Vol III, and I decided I needed the meditation to maintain the Consume Damage (without Med, I'd have to stop the mastery, switch to vet while I rebuilt mana, then turn mastery back on).

I also decided to keep Magery at 120 for both the greater heal amount and the ability to gate, but I carry a mage weapon for DCI and higher magery gives better protection.

Of course, when I'm battling a greater dragon or something with the mastery active, I sort of wonder what else I can do besides watch. I can't cast spells because I need the mana for the mastery, so I just sort of stand there.

 

[Merlin]

Consider adding skills with what you're equipped with... i.e., Crystalline ring to get to that 120 magery, and saving skill points, plus 20 focus to help mana regen. You can get one of those talismans with the +10 focus as well, or the Obidence belt which has +10 focus. Look for scrappers with skills you need like magery, meditation.

That jewel you picked up is nice and might work in the mean time as long as you're not wearing it out too fast. Vet of 90 probably would be more than suffice, but that's your call depending on your play style.

You definitely have some wiggle room with skill points there. I'd also strongly recommend the level 3 taming primer to get the Consume Damage bonus. It's pricey, but if you're going to be playing this tamer as one of your top 2-3 toons, it's well worth it.

 

[jeza]

I run with 120 taming lore vet music peace GM magery a decent luck suit 1300 or so and a tiny bit of LMC/MR
before masteries it was perfect but now I'm lacking mana fast when I use them.
If I use a mastery I'm very quickly out of mana so I can't heal myself or my pet at a distance or invis etc.

Of course I could try and add med in there as you did but I don't want to lower vet I need the stable slots, taming lore music peace are needed at 120 real skill for masteries effectiveness so it would mean lessen magery and adding + magery and + med on the suit but if I do that i'll lose luck.
And if I have to redo my suit anyway better to simply add as much LMC/MR/MI as possible and leave my skills as is IMO.

 

[Dizzy]

With Masteries, you get additional stable slots. And I hunt with 2 suits, use the EC to swap as needed.

 

[Zalan]

Another good option ring wise and easier to obtain than Crystalline Ring is the KoTL ring.Treasures of the Kotl City – Ultima Online