STR or INT? On a rune beetle

[Mordha]

So my whacky thinking, if I keep a rune beetle as is, not changing magic schools, I’m better off with INT at 700. My thinking is, they have bleed and rune corruption and as such, don’t get much of a bonus having str at max, which is 686 on one I’m building up.
Maybe I have it wrong but don’t pets get a bit of a spell damage boost from higher INT? I think they get a little bit of extra mana regen, probably not much.
I’ve already completed one round of training points and at 100% for the final round, so I figured I’d ask as I can still make changes to make STR at cap work.

 

[Pawain]

My usual reply.

When everyone has a serpentine dragon, high Intel is useful.

The pet will do more instances of melee damage than other damage.
Make str 700.

 

[Khaelor]

And here is where I will disagree.

Rune Corruption pets are one pet where I would advocate there is nothing wrong with going 700 int over str. Why? Especially in a group setting, more instances of RC equal more dps for everyone. The difference ends up being possibly 1 more RC per minute and that can equate to a lot more dps for everyone involved.

 

[Pawain]

How much mana in 10 min is going from 370 to 700?

RC helps the group. But you hope your beetle is just doing normal attacks at that time. So you give up some damage.

I need a better calculator to decide if the 700str dps is more than 5 more RCs with lower DPS over 5 mins.

 

[celticus]

Are these Runies ok for CHIV/AI/RC? Or points are way too low for most of them?

 

[Mordha]

I was just coming back to do some adds here, when Khaelor nailed what I was after. My group does a Scalis event on a regular basis. Last time we did this event, on the last Scalis, I switched to my fire bug, which has poisoning, RC and AI. With discord in effect, the RC made for some better moments. Sadly, I had a heck of a time keeping the bug alive, but I somehow did.
So, my thinking was, maybe, just maybe a rune beetle would be a better pet to bring. With high poisoning (120ish) and RC. My thought is this could be a better support pet. If I was after high damage, I'd go with a chiv/AI hiryu or a chiv/AI cu. But that is not the goal here!. But I do want to be sure my pet can survive too, as I throw heals to the others pets too and can't focus on a single pet.

 

[Mordha]

Are these Runies ok for CHIV/AI/RC? Or points are way too low for most of them?

I seem to recall hearing Chiv on a rune beetle is nice, however, you won't be able to add AI. Rune beetles are loaded with bleed and RC, not to mention Magery and Poisoning.

 

[Khaelor]

@Khyro uses a discord rune beetle for Scalis. That way it's not wasting mana on poisoning/magery. If people are cross healing, pets really shouldn't ever be lost on Scalis (sadly most UO player fail in this department)

 

[Khyro]

Rune Beetles spawn with overcapped Intelligence, 375-450 is the range. So they can't get capped STR anyways. For testing sake, we will assume the following:

----------

Rune Beetle A
INT: 375 (min spawn)
STR: 699 STR
110 Scrolls
MR: 30

Damage (against 0% Resists): 107-148
Mana Regen over 60 Seconds: 246

----------

Rune Beetle B
INT: 700
STR: 645
110 Scrolls
MR: 30

Damage (against 0% Resists): 104-143
Mana Regen over 60 Seconds: 300

----------

So comparing these 2 beetles, Rune Beetle B would hit for 3-5 less damage per hit pre-resists. Factor in resists and that number is going to be about halved (1-3 per hit). However, it will regenerate 54 mana per minute, which is nearly 2 rune corruptions, or 10s of RC uptime.

Say your pet never loses stamina and always swings at 1.25s, and it also never misses. You pet would be doing 48 - 144 more damage per minute with base attacks if it had 699 STR. (This would actually be less when you consider miss rate, and stamina loss).

So to answer the question, when is an extra 1-2 RC per minute better than more STR? Whenever that extra 1-2 RC would allow for more than 48-144 damage to be done per minute. In a group setting (even with only 2-3 people) this would probably always be the case. I would even argue that a RC pet for a NecroMage Tamer would still be better running max INT to keep a higher uptime on RC, so your spells consistently hit harder.

 

[Pawain]

Ok my better calculator arrived.

Just like a Giant or fire Beetle. You prob cant get 700 str anyway so go with what you can and put intel.
RC is always good with a group. A noob with a 110 giant beetle reduces time to kill on high HP targets when with 1 or more tamers. Poison compensates for non mount somewhat.

@Mordha Have you checked mana usage on the bug? Does it go to 0 as fast as other pet types.

A Rune Beetle with a good build with AI/Chiv would be a lot closer to OP than the Ram.

 

[Mordha]

It’s hard to say at this point, Pawain, as the rune beetle is still a 4 slot with points in the planner, ready to burn. But based on what I’ve seen at the crazy mage, with a 450 int (he was born with 450int) the mana goes as fast as with pretty much pet type we have. The way I see it, it comes down to how much gets regenerated where it matters, which is why I was looking at “ignoring” str and maximizing int. This rune beetle, currently, has 459 str (for the sake of discussion). And I was thinking about how to get the most mana regenerated as an important thing, more so then trying for max damage.
The reality is, there will be no way my pet can avoid all damage incoming, so my next thing was a much HP as I can add (that number is 750, assuming I don’t change magic’s).

@Khaelor , if I were to go disco on the rune beetle, is it worth scrolling to 120? We always have a bard discording Scalis. I realize it would basically ruin the rune beetle if I didn’t scroll to 120, but in this situation it’s not really needed.

 

[Mordha]

I almost forgot, I agree with you Pawain, a chiv/AI/RC rune beetle would be crazy. Also off topic, a little bit, if I built a rune beetle with chiv, there would be no doubt I’d go with max STR (whatever value that would be on a rune beetle).

 

[Pawain]

LOL. Make 2 beetles. The original with mana regen and 1 with 120 disco.