TruthScape.com  9  TruthScape Skill Secrets       9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning            9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Understanding, Using and Benefiting From Familiars                 9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Using Familiars in Combat

Scrolls, Combat Special Moves and Right-Click Attacks How to Use Familiars for Combat Support

You do not get combat XP for any hits that familiars make when they participate in combat with you. This fact has led many people to believe that using familiars for training is counterproductive, since they “steal” XP away from the player. Others have responded to this claim saying that you don’t lose XP, because you do as much damage as you would otherwise, and the familiar just lets you kill monsters faster.

The truth is that both viewpoints are right to a certain extent, depending on the circumstances; it’s also true that this debate is more complicated than most people on either side realize. In this topic I’ll explore these issues, to help you make a more informed decision about whether or not to use familiars as you level your skills. I’ll also discuss the related matter of cross-training with the Slayer skill.

The answer is yes. And no. Maybe. It depends. J

First of all, if you’re really just training combat and you don’t care at all about drops, then don’t bother using a familiar in combat. Since they really cannot help you do more damage yourself as they fight, there’s no point. If you are after drops, then a familiar will clearly help to at least some extent, by speeding up kills. The question is whether that comes at the cost of XP.

My initial view on this matter was to agree with those who say that familiars don’t impact XP: they simply add to the damage you were already going to do. For example, if you were going to hit a 24 on that dust devil and your familiar hits an 8, you still hit the 24 and get XP for that. The dust devil is now 8 points closer to dying than it would have been otherwise, but after it dies you will just be able to damage the next one.

The problem with this has to do with the last hit of an encounter. In nearly every fight, your final hit will not do the total potential damage it might have done if it were the first hit, but rather only the amount necessary to finish the monster off. You only get XP for the damage actually dealt, so if the monster has taken damage from a familiar, this can indeed reduce the XP you might otherwise have gained.

Let’s take an example. Suppose I’m fighting nechryaels with a barker toad familiar; nechs have 105 HP. Ignoring regeneration effects, suppose I hit a 21, my toad hits a 7, I hit a 33, the toad hits a 4, and I hit a 28. The nechryael has taken a total of 93 HP of damage. My maximum hit is over 40, but the monster has 12 HP left. On my next swing, assuming I finish it off, I’ll get XP for 12 HP worth of damage, even if I would have hit much higher had the nechryael not been nearly dead. Let’s say my potential hit for that attack was 25 HP—if the toad hadn’t been there, I could have done 23 HP of damage on that hit (12 HP plus the 11 HP the toad did.) So in that respect, I lost out on 11 HP worth of XP.

But the complexity doesn’t end there. J Let’s say that the “dice roll” for that final swing was really a 20 instead of a 25. Here, the toad helped me finish off the monster early: the nechryael had 12 HP left instead of the 23 it would have had if the toad hadn’t done 11 HP of damage. In turn, this allows me to more quickly start on the next nechryael, where I can do full damage. Without the toad there, I’d have had to keep fighting to get the last 3 HP.

So which of these effects is more important, and what’s the final answer? The truth is that I don’t really know, but I suspect that it’s mostly a wash. On some kills the familiar will cost you XP, and on others it will actually allow you to get more XP, by saving you from having to finish off a monster that’s nearly dead.

It does seem that you will get most benefit from your familiars with the least chance of losing XP, if you use them on monsters with a large number of HP, rather than a smaller number. But really, this isn’t something I’d worry about much either way; and since the improvement in monsters killed per hour is clear, as long as the familiar is really helping out and you want the monster’s drops, I’d use it.

Fortunately, this issue is far less complex than the one about generic combat XP. While you don’t get combat XP for damage done by familiars, Slayer XP is awarded based on the kill and not individual hits, and you receive no penalty for a summon doing part of the damage to kill something on a Slayer assignment. Any damage your familiar deals is going to help speed up your kills, and thus speed up your Slayer training.

Apparently, when the Summoning skill was first released, there was a problem where a familiar finishing off an NPC would cause its owner to get no Slayer XP. This has now been fixed; you get all the Slayer XP for any kills your familiar makes. In fact, even if the familiar does more than 50% of the damage on the monster—an unlikely event—you still get full Slayer XP.

Of course, the downside of using familiars for Slayer is that only a small percentage of Slayer monsters are in multicombat areas. By definition, you cannot control what Slayer assignment you get, so in many tasks you won’t be able to use familiars for Slayer anyway. But if you do get a monster for which there’s a useful summon, be sure to take advantage of it. Also remember that many Slayer monsters that used to only be in single combat areas are also now in rooms in the chaos tunnels; this includes “high profile” monsters such as jellies, gargoyles and nechryaels.

Scrolls, Combat Special Moves and Right-Click Attacks How to Use Familiars for Combat Support