Alpha slotting and Pets, still confused.

When I19 was first released, many people said that the Alpha slot doesn't work on "summoned Pets". I'm still not sure what's really meant by that. I tried asking in some of the channels no one seemed to know a clear answer, and my weak search-fu on the boards didn't help, so I'm asking this.
How does the Alpha slot exactly affect pets? Master Mind/Crab pets? Controller pets? pets from Patron Power Pools?
I realize the for example the Recharge or End Redux Alpha won't affect the pets themselves since slotting Recharge/End Redux in pet powers doesn't affect the pets directly to begin with. But what about Accuracy and Damage Alphas? Do they boost pets Accuracy/Damage? Do they even have any effect to begin with?

Thanks.

Easy enough for me to quickly test some of this;

Elec/Devices blaster, 16% damage bonus from sets. Target - lvl 1 hellions (after waiting for the damage buff from summoning the pets to subside)

• Gun Drone
  • -Without Musculature Radial Boost, enhanced to +98.3% damage. result - 111 damage (per tick)
  • -With MRB, enhanced to +112.6% damage. result - 119 damage (per tick).
• Voltaic Sentinel
  • -Without MRB, enhanced to +97.9% damage. result - 528 damage.
  • -With MRB, enhanced to +112.2% damage. result - 566 damage.

By no means am I as knowledgeable as most folks on these forums but I will share with you what little I do know about MM pets.

If you look at the detailed pet information in the game it tells you which type of enhancements you are allowed to place to buff your pets. If you put a damage enh. IO on a pet, that tier will have the damage on it's attacks enhanced by the value of the enh.

If you place an endurance reduction IO onto a pet that tier's endurance costs to run their respective powers will be reduced along with the cost to summon them. This I know with one billion % clarity.

The one power aspect I know players are not able to enhance is the individual recharge rates on your pet's powers. If you slot a recharge reduction IO on a pet you will only reduce the amount of recharge for summoning the pet.

There may be more than this particular aspect of pet powers that we are not able to buff. Range comes to mind. I've never tested whether this aspect can be buffed on pets.

I repeat you cannot enhance the recharge rate on a pet's attacks by any means, be that proc or otherwise.

Now being that the alpha enhancements buff each power you currently have by a certain %, slotting the cardiac alpha will result in a endurance reduction on every power in your build which accepts endurance reduction enhancements.

Now this last bit is off topic but I wish people on the boards would stop saying the alpha slot works "like a global enhancement." This is going to confuse a lot of nubs because they're going to read "global" and think of LotG.

So how about instead of saying the alpha works "like a global buff" we can say it's like a "universal buff." People will see the word "universal" and not think about LotG unlike with the word "global."

Milehigh77: I agree with the dislike of calling it a global buff but it isn't really a universal buff either. For example venge will not be affected by the spiritual boost,as designed.
I propose the term incarnate buff simply because if we're going to coin a term we may as well make a new one and assign it the proper definition. If enough people use it then the term will becone accepted and standard somewhat like a hami-o. New players have no clue what a hami-o is learning it is just standard while learning the game.

"Universal Enhancement" is becoming the normative description of part of the Alpha Slot power (the other major part is the Level Shift).

A 'Universal Enhancement' affects a pet if the power the pet uses can take that type of Enhancement.

Pets use several powers, and not all the powers they use can take the same 'slotting.' If you put a Hold Enhancement in Dark Servant, only it's use of Petrifying Gaze can make use of that Hold and increase the duration of it's Holds. That Hold Enhancement does nothing for Dark Servant's Twilight Grasp or Fearsome Stare.

If you use an Alpha Slot ability that has a Universal Enhancement for Holds, then your Dark Servant's Petrifying Gaze will benefit from it.

The Dark Servant can no long be slotted for Damage Enhancements. However, it's use of Tenebrous Tentacles can still have it's damage enhanced if you can sneak Damage Enhancers into the power, such as what happens with the Hami-O Peroxisome which is Mez/Damage. Thus, an Alpha Slot slotted with Damage should be able to enhance the Dark Servant's Damage from Tentacles. However, the Damage from Chill of the Night is flagged as non-enhanceable, and no enhancer will affect it.

Ah very good Z-Man.

As always you come through with a wealth of knowledge.

Problem with calling it just an Incarnate buff is that we have no idea if later Incarnate stat boosts will function in the same manner. By using such a broad term you don't gain any level of clarification, the term doesn't imply it's own meaning, and you risk possible future confusion. At least with Universal Enhancement you can draw some information on the mechanic just from the name, that its an enhancement with a larger scope. We could go with Penomni (almost all) Enhancement.

I'm pretty sure they DID do something specific with the Alpha slot enhancement.

I'm remembering a post (but dang it all if I can find it now) that specifically talked about it in regards to Mind Link.

Mind Link doesn't accept recharge enhancements, Choking Cloud doesn't accept Accuracy, and Fluffy doesn't accept Damage enhancements.

However, all three of them can get the boost to those aspects if using a multi-aspected enhancement. Recharge/Endurance, Acc/Hold, Acc/Damage, etc.

[If I'm remembering correctly] The Alpha slot was specifically said to NOT allow the multi-aspect type of work-around (or minor exploit or feature - depending on how you look at it).

So if the power (or fluffy's summon) doesn't SPECIFICALLY allow that type of enhancement, then the alpha slot won't enhance that aspect.

(so Mind Link won't get recharge from an alpha slot, fluffy won't get damage, choking cloud can't get accuracy, etc)

Of course I could be wrong here, but that's what I remember.

OK, just tested it and the Alpha powers are very smart: The +Dam from Musculature does *not* increase the damage of Dark Servant's Tenebrous Tentacles.

It does make Swan bounce higher, tho.

Thank you very much for all the informative posts guys.