The Two Pet Families: Which Summons 'Bonus to All Pets' Actually Helps

Telling the two families apart

Two skills can both summon something - and scale in opposite ways.

• ▸Pet-bonus pets: the Occultist's Raven (Summon Familiar) and Hellhound are the classic examples - full companions whose icons appear at the top-left, accepting stance, move, and attack orders.
• ▸Player-scaled pets: the Living Shadow devotion, Blade Spirit, Wind Devil, Storm Totem, and Summon Guardian of Empyrion (an Oathkeeper skill, so it requires FG) are typical - closer to turrets or autonomous devices, computed as extensions of your own damage.
• ▸When unsure, check the skill's page or build writeups on the Japanese wiki - and note that this site's pet builds assume pet-bonus scaling when they pick gear.
• ▸Grim Tools' Pet DB and build calculator also show which bonuses a given summon scales with (see the Grim Tools article).

Pet-bonus pets: the [Bonus to All Pets] block is the main lever

Stack all the player-side +% damage you like - these pets will not gain a point from it.

• ▸Their % damage bonuses live in one place: whatever sits inside [Bonus to All Pets] on gear, devotions, and buffs - % damage, flat damage, resistances. Your own +% damage and All Damage % never apply.
• ▸Flat damage and DoTs inside [Bonus to All Pets] are added to each pet's innate base attack (the pet's equivalent of weapon damage).
• ▸The exception: area buffs like Flame Touched that add flat damage to weapon attacks also feed the base attack of pet-bonus pets standing in range, even though that is not a [Bonus to All Pets] effect - count this when evaluating gear and skills.
• ▸When a pet triggers a devotion skill, the conversion consulted is the pet's own global conversion - not yours.
• ▸Pet attacks never trigger your Weapon Pool Skills (WPS) or gear's on-attack proc skills; only devotion skills assigned to the pet fire from its attacks.
• ▸What actually decides their power: skill level (affects nearly everything), your character level (base stats), [Bonus to All Pets], and the rank of the granting item.

Player-scaled pets: extensions of your own build

These are your own skills on autopilot - whatever grows you grows them.

• ▸Player-scaled summons grow with your own damage bonuses - no pet gear required.
• ▸They apply your global conversions to their attacks; conversions granted via skill modifiers act as local conversions on the pet's skill.
• ▸Debuffs are not applied to player-scaled pets themselves, but fumble debuffs sitting on you do affect these pets' attacks.
• ▸Reflection caveat: when some player-scaled pets such as Blade Spirit or Summon Guardian of Empyrion strike a reflective enemy, the damage reflects back onto you.
• ▸'Pet build' conventionally means a build centered on pet-bonus pets - builds using player-scaled summons (Wind Devil setups and the like) are effectively caster builds in disguise.

In practice: stances and handling

• ▸1. Icon-displaying pets accept stance switching: Normal (middle ground), Defensive (stays close, fights back only), Aggressive (attacks on sight). Since v1.2.0.0, summons default to Aggressive.
• ▸2. For pet-bonus builds, compare gear starting with what is inside [Bonus to All Pets] - player-side +% numbers never transfer. The exception is area buffs adding flat damage to weapon attacks, which do reach pets in range.
• ▸3. Running player-scaled summons? Choose gear and devotions by ordinary build standards: your % damage, conversions, RR.
• ▸4. Both families gain base stats (health, OA, DA, and so on) from your character level, so they grow sturdier through leveling than you might expect.
• ▸5. Devotion skills can be assigned to pets and fire from that pet's attacks - decide which pet is the trigger when planning a pet build's devotions.

1. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Combat Mechanics — Confirms player-side +% bonuses not transferring to pet-bonus pets (dedicated bonuses as the main lever), flat [Bonus to All Pets] damage feeding base attacks, the area-buff exception (Flame Touched) reaching pets in range, the three stances with the v1.2.0.0 default, character-level base-stat growth for all summons, the power factors, player-scaled conversion referencing (global / modifier-local), fumble carry-over, reflection (Blade Spirit and others), and pet attacks not triggering WPS or on-attack procs.
2. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Glossary (Pet) — Confirms the two-family classification (Raven/Hellhound as pet-bonus; Living Shadow as player-bonus).
3. Official Crate Forum: Grim Dawn v1.2.1.6 + Hotfix — Official patch notes for the verified version.