IO'ing pet powers

Hi all,

Does anyone have some general tips and guidelines for how to slot and enhance pet powers?
I have played CoX for several years, always on non-pet ATs. But now I have a few pet-using alts approaching the levels where their pet powers are available, and I have only a vague idea of how best to use the slots in the pet powers – i.e. what aspects of the power to enhance, how many slots to use, and what IO sets to use.

Some general thoughts and guidelines would be much appreciated, or alternatively specific comments on the following (I fully understand if the latter is too detailed/time consuming for anyone to bother with):
- Controller/Animate Stone
- Dominator/Carrion Creepers and Fly Trap
- Crab Spider/Summon Spiderlings and Call Reinforcements
- Peacebringer/Photon Seekers

Also worth noting: I would like to use IO sets, but prefer to keep the total budget per character at no more than 150 million inf if possible.

Many thanks in advance to everyone.

Only bit of advice I have rally is to make sure you know that a proc will only go off in a pet's attack if that attack takes that kind of IO - so Trap of the Hunter's for example only goes off in Immobilizing attacks.

Here's what I tend to do though it can vary based on my specific goals for the character.

Masterminds:

Generally speaking for a quick and dirty set up with no real set bonus goals I'll try to slot the pets with 2 acc/dmg and 2 acc/dmg/end. At lvl 50 values these ED cap the acc/dmg and give you a nice amount of end redux since pets can often blaze through their end bars once they are buffed with the MM pets enhancing buffs. You also end up with a recovery bonus and a sleep resist bonus. Nothing major but its there.

I do try however to work the pet boosting uniques in as best as I can. those global defense and resistance bonuses for the pets is really worthwhile IMO. Not all MM sets have access to a power that takes recharge intensive pet sets but if I have one I try to get those 2 uniques into it.


Non-Masterminds:

Controller and Dominator Tier 9 damage centric pets don't really seem to need end redux so those I tend to slot one of two ways. Either with 3 acc/dmg hami's if slots are really tight or with 4 pieces of Expedient Reinforcement (acc/rch, acc/dmg, dmg/end, acc/dmg/rech) for the +global recharge set bonus and then I boost them to the ED cap on acc and dmg using enhancement boosters. It's an effective way to maximize my slot usage but thats not always an option for people so you can add an additional slot with an acc/dmg pet IO if you want to keep the bonus or use the same slotting I listed above for MM pets (2 acc/dmg and 2 acc/dmg/end) to just have the pet ED capped and ignore set bonuses. One note about Illusion's Phantom Army... while this pet can't be buffed by outside sources in the traditional sense it can benefit from the purple build up pet IO because it is technically buffing itself (and of course phantom army gains enhanced performance vs debuffed mobs).

Patron Pets:

Some of my concepts revolve around having a perma patron pet. It could be a mind/dark/soul controller (which is actually quite impressive btw!) that doesn't have a pet in its primary or a bootleg mastermind-ish illusion/dark/soul controller who literally has an army of pets (3 Phantom Army decoys, 1 Phantasm, 1 Dark Servant, 1 Patron Pet, a decoy spawned by the Phantasm, and I'll even give Spectral Terror an honorable mention). If I go for perma patron pets I slot with 4 pieces of Expedient Reinforcement (acc/rch, acc/dmg, dmg/end/rch, acc/dmg/rech) for the +global recharge set bonus and then I'll use Soulbound Allegiance acc/dmg/rech in the 5th slot to ED cap the pet to acc dmg and rech (if you have enhancement boosters you can also substitute a lvl 30 acc/dmg/rech from the call to arms set instead of using the purple pet IO)

Non-Traditional Pets:

Don't forget unorthodox pets like Gun Drone, Tornado and Voltaic Sentinel. These pets may not be what are typically thought of as pets in the traditional sense but they can be great places to use 4 pieces of Expedient Reinforcement for the +global recharge set bonus and if your AT has other pets it's a potential place for the recharge intensive pet unique IO's. Masterminds who dont have a recharge intensive pet power in their primary can still gain the benefit of those uniques if they take Storm Summoning as their secondary for example.

Not the most ideal, but I'm hardly a min/maxer. But you can also take the easy route and slot up the Recharge Intensive Pet IO sets in those that'll take them. Expedient Reinforcements has some nice set bonuses and the 10% resist proc can help improve a pet's survivability, especially those pets with already decent resists.