question on life leech with pets

[Poo]

so i recently decided to try out a Saurosaurus and i was just leveling it up and noticed i had the option to add poisoning to him.

does anyone know if i add poison if that will kill off the Life Leech that he comes with stock?

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

No, it won't. Life Leech is a Special Ability, while Poisoning is a Magical ability. Honestly though, i'd leave Poisoning off of a Saurosaurus. Saurosaurus excel as Tanks (especially ones with 85 Physical/90 Fire Resist), and they use Life Leech to heal themselves through dealing damage. Every time a Life Leech pet deals melee damage, there's a chance that Life Leech will proc and heal them for 40% of the damage done, each time it does though it consumes 5 Mana. Poisoning isn't all that useful (victims with Magery/Mysticism just cure it once it ticks, and against opponents without Magery/Mysticism, the damage is so low it's not even worth it, not to mention some foes are completely immune to Poison status) and would detract from the Mana they have to spend on Life Leech.
A pet's Life Leech is the only ability that can heal through the Berserk effect. Chiv+AI Ossein Rams are particularly nasty with Berserk due to their innate Life Leech.

 

[Zara]

No, it won't. Life Leech is a Special Ability, while Poisoning is a Magical ability. Honestly though, i'd leave Poisoning off of a Saurosaurus. Saurosaurus excel as Tanks (especially ones with 85 Physical/90 Fire Resist), and they use Life Leech to heal themselves through dealing damage. Every time a Life Leech pet deals melee damage, there's a chance that Life Leech will proc and heal them for 40% of the damage done, each time it does though it consumes 5 Mana. Poisoning isn't all that useful (victims with Magery/Mysticism just cure it once it ticks, and against opponents without Magery/Mysticism, the damage is so low it's not even worth it, not to mention some foes are completely immune to Poison status) and would detract from the Mana they have to spend on Life Leech.
A pet's Life Leech is the only ability that can heal through the Berserk effect. Chiv+AI Ossein Rams are particularly nasty with Berserk due to their innate Life Leech.

A couple of questions if you don't mind.

1. There is a chance for life leech you say to work with each melee hit? Do you know the chance for that? I'd assume they need to hit successfully, but then is it just random if life leech will work or not?

2. Can life leech work with poisoning since that's also done through melee attacks? So that the pet can gain life leech when it poisons?

3. If poisoning doesn't work with life leech, are there any other special abilities, AOEs, or special moves that work really well life leech so that life leech will heal for more? I noticed you mentioned Chiv + AI. So I assume those help? Any others?

4. Would necromancy + AI on the Rams do well? I was trying out various combinations on a planner with ram using chiv and ai and it seems like I'd be sacrificing a lot with points at least with the rams I have gotten so far which are 50% or less in intensity ratings. Any other combos for the RAMs?

5. What's your opinion of dread spiders instead of RAMs?

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Not sure on the exact chance for Life Leech to proc, but it appears to proc around 40-50%. Yes, the melee attack needs to successfully land (so opponents with incredibly high Wrest/Parry pose a problem for Life Leech pets).
When the pet inflicts Poison via Infectious Strike, yes, Life Leech can randomly proc from that same attack.
Any ability that increases the pet's melee damage output, particularly Chivalry and AI, will increase the effectiveness of Life Leech, since Life Leech heals for 40% of the damage dealt.
Necromancy for pets is pretty lackluster. The damage spells are fairly weak, the debuffs are meh, they waste mana on Conduit which doesn't even work for them correctly (doesn't chain their single target spells like it's supposed to), and use of Curse Weapon at low health is unreliable. For Chiv+AI Ossein Ram, you want a high % rated 2 slot one. Even then, they can't get 120 Tactics and max out around 590 Health.
Dread Spiders are overall lower intensity than Ossein Rams, especially since a huge chunk of their total Intensity is used up by Magical abilities that become pointless upon switching to Chiv. 1,500 in Magery, 1,500 in Necromancy (Ossein Rams also have the 1,500 intensity in Necro), 100 in Poisoning. Their 100 Poison Resist also means they can't max out Physical, Fire, and Energy resists at 80.

120 Chiv+AI Ossein Rams can deliver some truly monstrous damage when under Berserk and Provo Buffs, which in turn allows them to self heal for a ton. Here's a screenshot of my 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram (Zeliek) delivering a 436 damage AI to a Balron while under Inspire/Invigorate and EoO. He wasn't even Berserk yet (wasn't below 50% Health). That's a 174 self heal if Life Leech procced.

 

[Pawain]

I just happen to be skilling one right now.

What is this spell? with red sparkes. It makes a spell noise but none of my Chivalry spells make this red sparkle.