As a raid geared warrior, I can solo (no merc) the 80 mobs in Working Overtime HA in bixie, so does that mean warriors should be nerfed? I mean come on people. If you know how to play your class well you shouldn't suffer because someone else can't do it.
I think this could have been avoided by just having the merc go innactive after 5 minutes of no key strokes from the player( or 10 minutes, whatever ). That way there was no way for the player to "afk kill" Again, I'm not saying that pets didn't need a bit of a power adjustment, I just think it's a bit more than should be. I think the stealth nerf was good enough. You will always see at least a Magician's in current content,if not all pet classes. They will still be able to mostly do what they did, they'll just have a box now ( probably a shaman ). It's crazy to see how many classes hate against each other for being different. Like, oh crap! You can solo!? That's kinda OP bro..But in return I'd say..Damn man, you can tank that named? 1 tank it too, no tank swaps? That's kinda OP bro.. Everyone has their specialty and out preform other classes in some area. You're fixation with a solo/dps class and how they have become more powerful when you add a healer to it, is just weird to me. You add a merc to a warrior and he can molo now, couldn't before. An SK can do magical things with a healer too! Hell even a Pally can throw a dps caster up, tank, heal and blow that crap up. But yet it's not ok for a pet class to preform like a pet class and be able to do 3 things, not nearly as good as the pure classes they are imitating?? Pets can tank, sure..Real tanks are better ( when actively played, like any REAL tank would play ) We can heal for sure! Not even close to a real healer class however( not even close to healer mercs). And as far as DPS, I don't get why you're upset we can do this too as we're all ( pet classes ) dps types. Everquest is an amazing game, it's made up of diverse classes which bring something to the others. They are NOT ALL ALIKE. This is a GOOD thing. Those of you who wants EQ to be THAT game, well I don't think you're going to get your wish. By design the classes have been vastly different from inception. I think it's time these envious class haters get on board with that because it's not going to change.
They're freaking out because after a few years of flying first class, they're in the process of getting moved to business class with many of the rest of us, not even looking at the poor folks in coach. Even when something is hilariously out of whack (rage of the forsaken, priest da stacking, swarming netting 10x faster exp than any other method, etc) there are still people here complaining about the change. When swarming and beaming was at its peak, remember the huge posts and drama and account cancellation threats and class envy class envy class envy accusations? Same story, different chapter.
As per what happened with pets, i would be careful what you say you can do on these forums. All it takes is 1 person to say you can do x and in come the nerfs. On a more srious note towards how the patch affected myself as a mage. I was never the shining example of what mages could do i never really stepped foot in cotf "more because of lack of knowledge of the zones and my own self doubt as to what i can do as a mage" I have dabbled a little in rof and voa zones. All in all my biggest problem with the changes is the way my dps was handcuffed> i do think in some situations i should have to help heal with my merc or use runes, However when im fighting 1-2 db's in outdated content i dont feel i should be babysitting my pet non stop. On a name fight i totally expect to be weaving in my runes and heals "again im not a shing example of what mages can do" However i realize some mages felt the changes less than others, its more skill and experiance. Are pets fine as is? Idk that i would say that. Did they go to far? I dont think what i say would matter as im not geared and aa'd like others and my opiinoins are biased. But i do feel that the changes have impacted alot of things we are capable of when mages "solo" in almost every case it refers to mage and merc. the 1 thing that bothers me substatially is that i see alot alot of people talking about their box team.... While i chose not to box some others do. But if people think our abilities should be balanced around boxing then eq as a whole needs to change the way it looks at group make up.
I am pointing out to all the nay sayers that warriors need a group to do anything. Even still I doubt me saying that will implement a nerf. I could just as easily be lying. Food for thought: 13th anniversary tasks required you to solo with no merc. How many warriors other than myself finished them at the level intended? I doubt I am the only one.
How about: slightly less dps wizard that can solo summoning things, which is the vast majority of what matters in this game at the high end. The mages in my guild do just fine in the parses, they're not "bad" by any use of the term. They're not beating a wizard in burn but they're definitely up there. I would call a very strong pet that (still) fills the role of a player tank very effectively on most situations a pretty fair tradeoff. Compare a monk and a rog. The rog does a bit more dps, but the monk has some utility and sturdiness that offsets that in some ways. IE, there's a small price for the extra versatility.
Summon items that you give to a pet that is not useful in any way. Woo. Where did you find a 'very strong pet'? I'm EM21 and it's worse than it was in VoA. What sort of things are you tanking? Kurn's? Befallen?
I meant solo mobs that summon, not summoned items. "Very strong pet" is coming from what the devs are saying, and looking at *any* form of numerical analysis from either side of this drama infused argument. The OP showed some pretty decent evidence that the sky hasn't fallen. I'd like to see more parses at the group level em12-16, and while there are some from Daegun, those are all apparently flawed because of who did them in his crusade to drink the tears of others.
Devs are wrong. I'm not certain what you're trying to get across here. Pets can't tank what they used to. The sky has fallen. Their only purpose is now gone, leaving us with wasted spell slots, 4-5k of wasted aa, and a wasted focus on an earring.
.....ok? How about looking at what your fellow pet users are experiencing on this very thread. Your pet on 8-20-14 No one's saying it's not a little harder. But saying their "only purpose is gone" is flat out ridiculous.
They can't tank, their dps is irrelevant in a group or raid setting, they can't heal. What use are you talking referring to?
Sheex is correct. Mages aren't hurting on the DPS front, and our pets are still capable of moloing well. There's still a few points I personally would like to have addressed, but overall the sky hasn't fallen. As for EM 15 vs 20 pets, I honestly cannot find a difference mitigation-wise. EM 20 pets have about 5% more HP, but otherwise there's no difference that I can find (other than DPS). My guess is the devs don't want any pets to be too powerful, but personally I'd hope there would be larger differences in raid vs group pets going forward, just as every other class is gets significant benefits from raid gear (though, admittedly, some more than others).
While I can understand wanting a raid pet to far outshine a group one, this could cause another disparity. I've been hearing it all day from necro/mag about how this is going to kill the group mage/necro, they are all doomed. But I mean if lowered pet dps and 5 % lower hp is all the diff between EM 15 (stupidly easy to obtain) and EM 20, isn't that essentially a win/win overall? Raid mage gets to be just a little more uber, Group mage isn't screwed?
It seems like a tricky balance point there too, especially given it's based off of 1 piece of gear instead of the total combination. Raid gear right now is ~35% better stat and heroically? I would think that pet stats should correspond to that trend, and as we all know a little extra can often be the dividing line of a tough fight and one handled with ease.