Samael – in depth look

[JaytB]

Hi all,


Some of you might be wondering what’s so special about a Samael companion, or if it’s worth spending that much gold on.

Since there aren’t any topics about it, I figured it might be useful to some to write this post. This way you can make an informed decision on whether or not it’s worth it for you to spend your hard earned gold on.

Since I don’t PvP, I’m looking at it from a PvE perspective.


This topic will be divided into 4 parts

1. Stats
2. Passive abilities
3. Arcane abilities
4. Closing comments

1. Stats

One of the main reasons people buy pets/companions is probably for the stats that they permanently add to your character.

Samael definitely doesn’t disappoint in this category as you can see in the screenshot below…



+25 to Primary stat, +10% Damage, +10% Crit, +10 INT, and 100 Health.

If you’re a sorcerer, it would mean you get a permanent +35 INT (25 primary + 10 INT) increase. It’s also, at the time of posting, the only companion in game that both buff your Damage AND Crit by 10% permanently.

For a rogue, the +25 to primary stat would be +25 DEX, while a warrior would get +25 STR. The 10 INT, for a rogue, would also mean a bit added HP, Dmg and little crit over the already decent 25 DEX, not to mention the 10% Damage and Crit increase.


2. Passive Abilities

Let’s take a closer look at the passive abilities and how they change while leveling up. Like the other Arcane pets, Samael gains a new/better passive abilities every 10 levels.

If you’re just interested in the numbers at end-game or the details about each passive (like damage dealt, duration of passives, visual effects…), you can skip this part and read the info under ‘TL;DR Passives summary’ further down below.


Level 1 - passives



Toxic Clench: Damages a target and has chance to apply toxic poison DOT (Damage over time). Poison has a chance to spread every tick.

Details

This basically attacks and damages a single target + has a chance to poison that target for 8 seconds, with damage dealt every second. Every second a target is poisoned it can additionally poison another nearby enemy and that enemy can poison the next etc… This basically means that when you’re fighting large mobs, the chance to deal a lot of poison damage on many of them is very probable and definitely noticeable, especially at the current end level (see later in this post).


Level 10 - passives



Wraith’s Bane: Damages a target and has chance to apply toxic poison DOT. Poison has chance to spread every tick. Chance to slow 5%.

Details

At level 10 there’s the added 5% chance to slow an enemy down for about 3 seconds.


Level 20 – passives



Viral Grip: Damages multiple targets and has chance to apply toxic DoT. Toxin has chance to spread every tick. Chance to slow 10%, chance to panic 5%.

Details

At level 20, compared to level 10 you’ll get true AoE damage. It doesn’t seem to be limited to 1, 2 or 3 targets and basically damages all targets that are close enough to Sammy. Additionally, the chance to slow increases to 10% for 3 seconds and there’s an added 5% chance to panic an enemy for 3 seconds. Panic is basically the same as the stun from Arcane abilities of pets like Slag or Clyde, but then without having to use your arcane ability. Panic also works on bosses.


Level 30 – Passives



Contagious Embrace: Damages multiple targets and has chance to apply toxic DoT. Toxin has a chance to spread every tick. Chance to slow 20%, chance to panic 10%

Details

Compared to lvl 20, the chance to slow increases from 10% to 20% and chance to panic from 5% to 10%.


At level 30 and above, passive abilities remain unchanged. Maybe we’ll see something new at the lv41 cap but currently only the Damage, which is the same for all Arcane pets, increases. See screenshot below for a screenshot of the stats at lvl 36.

Level 36 stats




Hidden passive abilities

As if the passives in the description weren’t enough, there are 2 extremely cool extra party abilities that aren’t described in the stats sheet of Sammy.

1. Health refill every 2 seconds (122 HP @ lv36)
2. Mana refill every 2 seconds (47 MP @ lv36)

The amount of health and mana is a fix amount depending on the level of the companion. At level 36, it adds 122 health and 47 mana every 2 seconds to all your party members in its relatively wide range.

Note that this refill only works while in a dungeon, so not in towns, and that the ability is automatically activated as soon as Sammy attacks his first enemy. Once activated, it’ll remain active during the entire time you’d spend in that dungeon. You can see that it’s activated by the big green circle around Sammy that’s cast on the floor (see screenshot below)




TL;DR? Passives summary

In case you’re just interested in the numbers and details of each passive ability at end level (lvl36 at the time of posting this), below you’ll find a summary of Samael’s passives with the most important details about them…


A. AoE (Area of Effect) damage

Samael deals AoE damage to enemies within its proximity, every second. The range seems to be something like a circle with around 6m diameter around Sammy (3m directly away from him in all directions). It doesn’t seem to be limited to x targets and can therefore be considered a true AoE damage skill. Or in other words: lots of fairly high (for a pet) damage to big mobs. AoE damage numbers go from 100+ to around 300 damage.

See screenshot below for an example of Sammy’s AoE dmg. Note that this is only the AoE damage without any poison damage or any skills used (the green numbers are me healing myself). I positioned my sorcerer to the right of the mobs so the damage done to me wouldn’t mix up with Sammy’s damage




B. Poison damage

Each second Samael attacks, it can cause poison damage to 1 enemy (maybe more but it seemed to always start with 1 enemy). Poison damage duration is about 8 seconds per enemy, while damage dealt is around 60+ to 100+ poison damage per second.

The cool thing about that poison damage in not only that it can crit, unlike for example poison damage from Nox bolt from a rogue, but also that each poisoned enemy has a chance to spread that poison damage, every second, to an enemy nearby. That new poisoned enemy has then again a chance to spread poison damage every second to another enemy and so forth. In the end it means that the bigger and tougher (the longer it takes to kill) the group of enemies are, the more damage this poison will dish out.

You can see when an enemy is poisoned by a white circle appearing beneath them, while white smoke appears above them. The visual effect lasts only briefly, while the poison effect lasts for 8 seconds.

In the screenshot below you’ll see the visual effect of poison damage on 1 enemy…




In mobs, this poison damage can spread quickly. Each additional enemy that’s affected with poison damage will show that white circle and smoke effect briefly.

In the next screenshot you can see the spreading of poison doing its work (multiple white circles with smoke)




C. Slow and panic

At lvl 30+, Samael has 20% chance to slow an enemy down and 10% chance to panic. As far as I could see, there doesn’t seem to be any visual effect associated with these 2 passive abilities, at least not when they kick in.


Slow

Slows an enemy down, much like the AoE component of a sorcerers’ ice skill and seems to last around 3 seconds. This skill seems to only work on mobs and not on bosses as far as I could see. The slowed down enemy can still attack you or your teammates, it’s just slowed down in movement speed.


Panic

This is a great passive skill and works basically the same as the stun skills that various pets have as Arcane ability (like Slag for example). Only here it’s a passive skill. Its effect lasts about 3 seconds and shows the typical stun animation when it’s active. The best thing is that it can stun bosses too.


D. Free Health and Mana refills for your entire party

As described in the topic ‘Hidden passive abilities’, at level 36, Samael heals your entire party with 122HP and 47 MP every 2 seconds.

You can see that the ability is activated by the large green circle below Sammy (see screenshot below).



As described earlier in the topic ‘Hidden passive abilities’, the refill only works while in a dungeon. It activates automatically when Samael attacks its first enemy and then remains activated as long as you’re in that dungeon. Everyone within, or on the edges of the circle, will receive free health and mana refills.


Video of Samael’s passives in action

The video below contains an example of the damage dealt by Samael’s passive skills. Note that in the video I wasn’t using any skills, only health pots to stay alive. I hope this gives an idea of the damage Samael can deal in a group of mobs. Of course, the larger the group of mobs, the more damage you’d see. I could only handle a small/medium size group of mobs and stay alive, so that’s what you’ll see in the video. The larger the group, the better the damage dealt would become.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQmGOt72l3Y


3. Arcane ability

Samael’s arcane ability is much like the various stun pets around, only here it’s called terrify (see screenshot below). Its cooldown time is around 22 seconds.



Terrify works on bosses too and has a fairly high chance of stunning any enemies for about 3 seconds.

As you can see in the screenshot though, there’s also a 10% chance to instantly kill an enemy. The cool thing about this is that this skill works on more than 1 enemy at once, although you’ll need a seriously big group of enemies to see it ‘banish’ more than 1 simultaneously. It does what it says, it instantly kills an enemy that’s banished.

In the screenshot below you’ll see how it looks in game.



The yellow text ‘*Banished’ shows that you insta-killed an enemy and appears only briefly on screen. You’ll also see an insanely high damage number of -100000 sliding off your screen (yes, 100 thousand O.o).




4. Closing comments

My goal was to give you an objective view of the stats and passive/arcane abilities of Samael. That way you can decide for yourself if this pet/companion is worth it for you or not, without having to spend a ton of gold to find out.

I tried my best to get the facts straight through experimenting and watching recorded videos of solo runs, but if you see anything that feels off feel free to let me know.


As always, leave you constructive feedback below