Unofficial Guide to Iron Defender Pets

[Beld]

Very informative, thank you!

I think EVERYONE should know this, if they plan to make an artie:

If your pet dies in a quest, and there are no shrines to use, and you have already used your 'raise defender' feat, then you CANNOT get your pet back if you exit the dungeon before raising him. This is especially bad if you fail a quest and it boots you from the instance before you raise your pet. You have to relog to get him back. I was fooling around in Redemption on elite, and Lars died since I had no means to heal him (noob move, I know, but I honestly thought he wouldn't die since he never had before on any of my other toons) and my pet died as well... but before I could raise him, we were booted from the dungeon for the fail, and I could not raise him outside. I tried summoning him to me, I tried raise, I tried dismissing him; all gave me the message, "Your pet is too far away to receive communications from you." My pet was still dead when I recalled to town and I still got the same message. I even went as far as trying to raise in the bar. Nothing. I had to relog to get him back. So if you think you're going to fail a quest or he's too low to keep alive and there's no shrines around... DISMISS your pet before he dies, then summon him again when its safe. (Until they fix this bug, this is the safest way I've found to keep my pet without relogging.)

I hope this helps. I found this out the hard way.

But other than that, you did a very good job with the guide. My guildies and I have bookmarked this thread already.

-Jess

I have had this issue and my pet re-appeared when I zoned into a tavern. So far, every time I have had a dead pet stuck in a quest, this has worked for me.

Also, I have found that you cannot equip docents and modules that have a guild slot on them. Not sure if this is WAI or a bug, but thought I would throw that out there.

[hwarchild]

Awesome guide, +1. I do have a few questions:
Does the racial summoning enhancement line have any relation to the Arti pet and if so how does this work? For example, can you summon 2 dogs this way, and would the racial dog gain the enhancement line benefits of your Arti pet?

Similar, one of the downsides of the old racial pets was they spewed grease all over the place. Do Arti pets do this?

You mentioned the pet can open doors and pick up soul stones. Any other interaction tricks it can do worth mentioning? For example use runes, grab collectibles, interact with npcs (possibly with intim/bluff)?

If the pet dies, does it affect quest exp in any way such as the 5% loss for hirelings, or is it treated more as a summon?

Thanks again for the very nice compilation of pet info.

[Ikuryo]

Awesome guide, +1. I do have a few questions:
Does the racial summoning enhancement line have any relation to the Arti pet and if so how does this work? For example, can you summon 2 dogs this way, and would the racial dog gain the enhancement line benefits of your Arti pet?

Similar, one of the downsides of the old racial pets was they spewed grease all over the place. Do Arti pets do this?

You mentioned the pet can open doors and pick up soul stones. Any other interaction tricks it can do worth mentioning? For example use runes, grab collectibles, interact with npcs (possibly with intim/bluff)?

If the pet dies, does it affect quest exp in any way such as the 5% loss for hirelings, or is it treated more as a summon?

Thanks again for the very nice compilation of pet info.

I can answer some of that. You can take the racial line and have two dogs following you around. Your Arti pet bonuses do not apply at all to the other pet and after awhile the racial pet dies really quickly. The racial pet spews grease but the Arti pet spews fire and acid. I had the grease from racial light on fire with the fire from Arti a couple of times, making for a burning slick. The pet can use runes that it has the stats for but you can not go through interaction trees of dialogue so its hard to use the other skills on an NPC. Anything the pet picks up is not accessible. If it picks up your soulstone and dies your stones will both drop but there is no other way to get your stone from it. I do NOT recommend having your pet pick up anything quest related that you will need later. Its possible you can have a pet with a key unlock and open a door but other quest items become unaccessible once the pet picks them up.

I did not see any xp loss from pet dieing.

[hwarchild]

I can answer some of that. You can take the racial line and have two dogs following you around. Your Arti pet bonuses do not apply at all to the other pet and after awhile the racial pet dies really quickly. The racial pet spews grease but the Arti pet spews fire and acid. I had the grease from racial light on fire with the fire from Arti a couple of times, making for a burning slick. The pet can use runes that it has the stats for but you can not go through interaction trees of dialogue so its hard to use the other skills on an NPC. Anything the pet picks up is not accessible. If it picks up your soulstone and dies your stones will both drop but there is no other way to get your stone from it. I do NOT recommend having your pet pick up anything quest related that you will need later. Its possible you can have a pet with a key unlock and open a door but other quest items become unaccessible once the pet picks them up.

I did not see any xp loss from pet dieing.

Thanks for the prompt, concise response. +1 for you as well

[tfangel]

You can take the racial line and have two dogs following you around. Your Arti pet bonuses do not apply at all to the other pet and after awhile the racial pet dies really quickly. The racial pet spews grease but the Arti pet spews fire and acid. I had the grease from racial light on fire with the fire from Arti a couple of times, making for a burning slick.

I did this for a while, and it was actually quite glorious. The arty dog kept most aggro, while the other dog went bonkers going after every random mob it could, and for some reason never seemed to draw aggro to me. It was also pretty fun seeing two metal dogs running around solo in an adventure. I didn't have a huge problem with the dragonmark dog being killed really quickly, but then i also didn't try him out on too high level quests. Groups would have hated me though, i spent a LOT of time on the ground. Mob gets near, dogs grease and fire, usually killing whatever was on me, but laying there unable to do anything sucked.

What also sucked, when i got flame turret, i discovered you can only have it or the dog out, and the dog locks out other summons for a LONG time, while FT only does for seconds. Flame turret > summoned dog in my eyes. It damages better, also draws aggro to itself, not you (lets see fire wall do that, heh. fun to watch archers going at it an not you, so you can pick them off better). So i dropped the dog, although the one dog is pretty good.

[Drakos]

What also sucked, when i got flame turret, i discovered you can only have it or the dog out, and the dog locks out other summons for a LONG time, while FT only does for seconds. Flame turret > summoned dog in my eyes. It damages better, also draws aggro to itself, not you (lets see fire wall do that, heh. fun to watch archers going at it an not you, so you can pick them off better). So i dropped the dog, although the one dog is pretty good.

Just to clarify this a little. The "dog" that cannot be out at the same time as the flame turret is the racial summon one. The Artificer Iron Defender pet can be out at the same time as the flame turret.

On Lamannia, I did a Multiclass Pale Master Artificer and wad able to have the Iron Defender, A summoned Skelly (Pale Master Enhancement) and a regular spell summon all at the same time.

[Cauthey]

I didn't see it in your guide, but it would be worth noting in the Module crafting section that there appears to be NOTHING that you can do to improve a Module via standard Cannith Crafting.

I saw a disjunctioned Module on the AH, and it motivated me to bring a spare fire touch module to the crafting hall so that I could improve it. I was able to disjunction the Module, but the Module was NOT COMPATIBLE with the Cannith Crafting stations.

It would appear that the only Module customization you can do will be through handwraps, mechanical trap parts, and the Rogue trapmaking workstation.

[CarpeNoctu]

Seriously helpful guide, I greatly appreciate it.

If only I'd thought to look for it before I paid 5k for the acid module of pure good on the ah the other day lol

[shaggz076]

I have noted a few comments regarding your dogs ability to p/u your soul stone but not target barrels when told. They can also activate levers and open doors which can be very handy as well. (I.e. My weakling Arti can't pull the lever in the butchers path but my BigBadWolf can.... Yes thats his name... If you have a problem with it you can discuss it with him...)

[varsh]

equipped my doggy with DT that I put greater false life, magma guard and earthgrab guard. There was no change on its hp, and guards did not go off once over several hours of gaming.

So there might be an issue with DT not working properly on the dog.

[Drakos]

I finally got around to updating this thread to include information from update 11 and update 12. Again I'd like to thank everyone for their contributions in making this 1 of the best guides available.

[Edward_Deus]

One thing that you missed is that you can instruct your pup wo be a watchdog. Target an individual, such as an NPC you must protect or the squishy mage of the party and tell your pup to "Use" the target. The use button will have switched to a shield icon and your little pup will now follow the target and commence to laying some serious hurt on anything that gets near.

Actually quite useful in a party as there is a bit of autonomy in Defensive stance....at least there is sometimes.

Please also be aware that there is a glitch in the Pet's animation call strings. If your pet is the subject of a special attack such as trip, there is a good chance that the pet will stop responding and be 'stuck' in an attack animation. The only workaround for this is the "dismiss/rebuild" option.

[bauboDDOforums]

...Also, I have found that you cannot equip docents and modules that have a guild slot on them. Not sure if this is WAI or a bug, but thought I would throw that out there.

Yes I wish I had read that before I spent 10K plat on the AH.

Thanks for the Pet guide too!

[BBattleshield]

Apologies to the Arties in the room - but i am finding precious little info regarding the Racially Summoned Pets. Iron Defender is one of the Racial Summons, but no where can i find a list of stats, skills, Pros/Cons, etc....

Does anyone know of an in-depth Iron Defender User Manual that is NOT the Arti-class pet?

Thanks to all !!

[thx.janus]

Very good guide, thx a lot.

Just one thing:

Incidentally they also climb ladders, it is actually quite amusing.

While this might be amusing, im 99% shure that the ladder climbing is the reason for the dogs to bug out. Everytime I see my dog climb a ladder, it shows the floating-and-not-attacking behavior after that. If I can manage to prevent the climbing, I don't remember seeing that bug at all.

The problem is, I like the Hunter Of The Boxes so much, that I don't want to miss it. But the dog will constantly chase boxes, even if there is a ladder. So sooner or later I don't pay enough attention and the dog climbs again.

The only thing that seems to help is to dismiss and resummon it. Of course, this will lose the ship buffs and I have to start buffing resistances :/

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

I dont even raise my dog until after Im done buffing on my airship. It seems every time I res him on the ship, the ladders bug him out.

I have many fewer problems playing afterwards when I do it this way.

[RedDragonScale]

I dont even raise my dog until after Im done buffing on my airship. It seems every time I res him on the ship, the ladders bug him out.

I have many fewer problems playing afterwards when I do it this way.

You know...you can have your Dog interact with all +Stat altars and Elemental Resist altars, right?

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

You know...you can have your Dog interact with all +Stat altars and Elemental Resist altars, right?

Oh I know... I used to buff him all the time. Just that I'm always crossing my fingers that he wont bug afterwords, just to find out he's dead weight again. I'll be looking forward to this fix big time...

[GeoffWatson]

I have a +1 seeker module of pure good but I cannot give it to my pet. I'm lvl5 and chaotic good. The module has a white umd 18; min lvl 4, Iron defender required (umd 20) and required trait good (umd 20) write up. Isn't my pet good since I am? Isn't my pet lvl 5 same as me? Why can't I have my pet use this module -what am I missing? Thanks.

Give him the "Good Dog" enhancement.

Geoff.

[Feanor74]

+1 rep for this very good guide for all those Arties out there that care for their cute little iron friend (and do lot let them rot in boxes as some others do).

I think I found an error in your "attribute development chart" of the pet. I tested it on a dummy toon and got the following attributes (without augmented summoning):

L1 L2 L3 L4 L4
-------------------------
STK 15 16 17 18 19
DEX 14 14 15 15 16
CON 15 16 17 18 19
INT 6 6 6 6 7
WIS 10 10 11 11 12
CHA 10 10 10 10 12

So as you said correctly, STK/CON rises +1 point per level and INT/WIS rises +1 point per 4 levels.
But it seams to me that DEX/WIS rises +1 point per two levels. Perhaps some1 can verify this and the OP can update his guide.

Btw: I got a question about augmented summoning. It adds +4 to all attributes as intended. Feat description although says that it also adds 50% fortification to the pet but in my pets char sheet, fortification is still 0%.
Is this a bug of the feat, just bugged in the display of the char sheet or am I missing something?