Question about Purples on pets

What happens when you put a purple (the level 50 purples, not the PVP ones) on a tier 1 or tier 2 pet? I keep hearing that there is a problem with doing that, because even when you're level 50, your tier 1 pets are 2 levels below you, and your tier 2 pet is one level below you. (Am I using those terms right? Is tier 1 your weakest pets, and tier 3 your strongest single pet, or am I using the terms backwards?)

I think the school of thought is, since purples are Character-wide uniques. You get more mileage out of putting them into the strongest powers first. AKA your Boss's. Same goes for most other types of powers, not just pets.

Other than the chance for build up proc and possibly 1-2 others for the regen & hp buff, I can't see any other reason to slot the soulbound allegiance set in a pet - the other bonuses are pretty sad and mostly useless to a mastermind, since your pets don't benefit from them. The proc is very nice and slotting that and 2 of the 3 IO's in the set that give good enhancement ( acc/dam/rech, dam/end or the damage) would give you the 16% regen and 3% hp boost which are the only good bonuses the set gives. The other IO's in the set don't give good enhancements - to much recharge (which is wasted on pets) and not enough damage.

I had thought there was actually a problem with it, like you didn't get your set bonuses, or the enhancements don't actually do anything. It's really just because of a preference?

For example: I use a lot of procs on my tier 1 mercs. They've got Achilles Heel Chance for Resistance Debuff, Touch of the Lady Gray Chance for Negative Energy Damage, Edict of the Master 5% Defense Bonus for pets, and I'd like to give them Sovereign Right 10% increased Resistance. That would only leave me 2 slots to enhance their damage, end, and attack bonus. It would be nice to be able to put a monster enhancement in those two slots.

A better example would be Thugs Enforcers. You want to put defense enhances on them for their Maneuvers power, and the two Def Debuff procs would be handy on them as well.

As far a set bonuses go it's sad to say but Blood Mandate has you covered and enhances your pets quite well plus Defense=survivability in most MM's. 3 sets = 13.63% to AoE defense, 11.25% Ranged defense plus bonuses to fire/cold/energy/negative.

Yes you can enhances your pets via secondary slotting or proc them but I find it oh so much more useful to just anytime slotting an MM saying Blood Mandate times 3 and working from there. The purple and red bonuses are just lacking. If you have the primary or secondary for it (Demons/, Thugs/, Zombies/ or /Storm) use that 4th pet to slot the hell out of the +resistances, +defenses for a free +20% to resistances and +10% to defenses.

I usually slot 1 pet that way (the tier 3 one, actually). And I agree you're right Blood Mandate has awesome bonuses (I also like how it doesn't use the super rare salvage to make it).

However, you would not want to play mercs without the Achilles Heel and Lady Gray procs on the lower tier pets. It's a huge difference in playability!

And, at this point, given peoples' answers I'm now druling over the possibility of giving them to my Enforcers on my Thugz MM, then purpling them up on the last 2 slots.