Pet Mitigation: Parses and Discussion

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Daegun, Apr 18, 2014.

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  1. Daegun Augur

    Recently as part of side-bar discussion that can be found here:

    https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/stumbling-stance.210010/

    I had mentioned my anecdotal experiences with why pets seem to fair so much better in 1 on 1 encounters than player tanks. The general consensus had been that these pets had huge hit point pools and therefore were just easier to heal/overheal - representing safer alternatives than group based tanks. I, however, had noted just passively watching mobs beat on my EM15 earth pet <Roger>, that they didn't hit him nearly as hard as frequently as my own player tanks. I had no parses to back up this anecdotal experience ... until now. Granted, these parses are not hours long - but the results are still statistically significant. Mobs were pulled 1 at a time to a static place in Karana. No debuffs, no slows. Cleric mercs healing. I tried my best to keep Vies off. Pet had spell hold and simply backed off not attacking for the duration. Warrior had identical buffs, did not auto attack. I did not use any special abilities - this is a raw ac on ac comparison for passive mitigation. I tried to keep vies off to keep the parses clean and fairly representative of passive mitigation.

    Test subjects:
    <Roger> Current tier Earth pet, EM15
    Buffs: Cleric Certitude, Burnout, nothing else
    Later parse: Cleric Certitude, Bard ac songs, Burnout, nothing else
    Gear: What he was summoned with + haste mask + 2 aggro swords.

    Bedavir - Magelo below.
    Buffs: Cleric Certitude, nothing else
    Later parse: using shield --> Using shield plus ac songs x3, steadfast defense, field guardian to crank up ac.

    Fight 1: Roger vs Tree
    Mob dps on Roger: 4817
    DI spread:

    [IMG]

    Fight 2: Bedavir vs Tree (dual wield, just certitude)
    Mob dps on Bedavir: 5998
    Bedavir's ac: 10118, heroics listed in magelo

    [IMG]

    Fight 3: Bedavir vs Tree (shield)
    Mob dps on Bedavir: 5515
    Bedavir's ac: 10442, heroics listed in magelo

    [IMG]

    Fight 4: Bedavir vs Tree (shield + ac buffs)
    Mob dps on Bedavir: 5015
    Bedavir's ac: 13838, heroics listed in magelo

    [IMG]

    Fight 5: Roger vs Tree (cleric buff + bard songs only)
    Mob dps on Roger: 5085
    Roger's ac: Nobody knows - but it's effectively higher with group geared focus than a raid geared tank.

    [IMG]


    -----------------------------

    Conclusion: Pets don't just have a massive hit point pool, they have superior passive mitigation with GROUP focus than a raid geared tank. Pair that with a big hit point pool, and that is why they are so much easier to heal.

    I know these parses are short ... but holy cow. In light of the recently revealed ac equation, my biggest question for the devs is this: Do pets have ac softcaps with diminishing returns? Based on these parses my guess would be no. I have not seen parses like this for player tanks in over a decade.

    Please feel free to discuss ;)
    Serriah_Test, Tharrg, Dre. and 2 others like this.
  2. Daegun Augur

    Running a parse now with EM15 water pet ... I'm really curious ...
  3. Daegun Augur

    Fight 6: Water pet with certitude and burnout buff, nothing else
    Mob dps on Roger: 5830dps

    [IMG]
    Dre. likes this.
  4. Delbaeth Elder

    Check out a tank merc. They don't avoid so well but their mitigation is superb.
  5. Karthos Augur

    Darn it! You just let the cat out of the bag. Now I'm going to have to replace both my mage bots with something else. Well it was fun while it lasted and at least it will be much easier to level up from 85 instead of 1.
  6. Daegun Augur

    I'll dive more into the numbers later but given the big difference in hit spread I'd wager the reason the dps levels are so close is precisely that - the avoidance bit. Having said that, I'd much rather mitigate like a group geared pet than avoid like a raid geared warrior at baseline. Pets take very predictable, smooth incoming dps. DPS does not kill tanks, spikes do.

    Ill run longer ones later and include PC tanks in group gear. Will also parse BL and Necro pets. With how ac works with pets, I bet their DI spreads will be similar.

    Remember, those comparative parses above we're run with raid gear.
  7. Kreacher Augur

    Honestly I posted parsed results in RoF beta against the ToV raid dragons. Exactly the same result . They got hit for the lowest DI value over 90% of the time. I posted results against a warrior raid tank and the DI distribution was way higher

    The simple story is that earth pets have a superior HP count and a superior mitigation. Add to that they get innate melee/spell blocks it's pretty easy to see why guilds pet tank.

    PoWar I think has the right idea. Allow pets and their groups to be effective, but get to get back up if need be against a stronger opponent.

    YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS, NOT ABLE TO BOX PLANE OF WAR..


    :)
  8. Daegun Augur

    A little more data.

    Earth pet hit/miss/defended:
    Attempts: 2673
    Hits: 1985 (73.7% accuracy)
    Missed: 227 (8.5%)
    Dodged: 94 (4.1%)
    Parried: 81 (3.2%)
    Blocked: 174 (6.5%)
    Riposted: 112 (4.6%)

    Bedavir hit/miss/defended (no shield):
    Attempts: 981
    Hits: 551 (56.2% accuracy)
    Missed: 119 (12.1%)
    Dodged: 94 (12.3%)
    Parried: 106 (10.8%)
    Blocked: 0 (0%)
    Riposted: 111 (12.7%)

    Bedavir hit/miss/defended (shield):
    Attempts: 1634
    Hits: 820 (50.2% accuracy)
    Missed: 229 (14%)
    Dodged: 148 (12.2%)
    Parried: 200 (12.8%)
    Blocked: 66 (4%)
    Riposted: 171 (12.5%)

    Water pet hit/miss/defended:
    Attempts: 680
    Hits: 518 (76.2% accuracy)
    Missed: 51 (7.5%)
    Dodged: 22 (3.7%)
    Parried: 16 (2.5%)
    Blocked: 48 (7.1%)
    Riposted: 25 (4.1%)

    ----------------------------------
    ---------------------

    Average "Hits"

    Earth pet + certitude + burnout: 3733 <4817dps>
    Raid geared warrior (10442ac using shield) + certitude: 5787 <5515dps>
    Raid geared warrior (13838ac using shield) + certitude + bard + self ac skills: 5336 <5015dps>
    Earth pet + certitude + burnout + bard songs: 3692 <5085dps>
    Water pet + certitude + burnout (no songs): 4099 <5830dps>


    My thoughts: Knowing the nature of "dangerous" damage and the type of rounds that kill tanks ... this is the reason pets do so well compared to player tanks. This is a comparison of group focused pets vs a raid tank, and I suspect the results are related to player tanks having diminished returns on ac where pets seem not to. Alternately, the point of diminishing returns for pets is set significantly higher. Pets have lower avoidance, but the earth pet was also not meleeing. This is not a head to head comparison of a "functioning pet" vs a "functioning warrior" - simply a comparison of passive mitigation and relative ac values.

    Having said that, as a tank I would rather mitigate like the pet and have significantly lower avoidance like the pet than have superior avoidance of the warrior and the inferior mitigation of the warrior. The warrior's health ping-pong'd a ton more than the earth pet:

    Roger with ac bard songs:
    [IMG]
    Max Round: 27742 damage
    ** Now eyeball the number of rounds > 20k

    Bedavir with shield until 500s - after 500s add in bard songs + field guardian + SD ac disc:
    [IMG]
    Max Round: 41958
    ** Now eyeball the number of rounds > 20k
    ** Now eyeball the number of rounds > 30k
    ** Now eyeball the number of rounds > 40k (more than one)
    To see the power of ac, look what happens to Bedavir after the 500sec mark - that's what happens when a player warrior tank goes from 10442ac to 13838ac. Even though average incoming dps only dropped from 5515 to 5015, look what happens to the round by round spikiness. Unfortunately, it takes over 3000 visible ac to get to this point, and it's still worse than the pet.

    Which of these tanking modalities will be easier for anybody to heal?

    By a long shot from a passive mitigation standpoint - the pet.

    But ... this does not accurately reflect a player tank who actively uses their innate abilities. True, the pet on autoattack does have some further "passive mitigation", and the pet owner does have fortify companion for a disc of sorts, but player tanks have numerous methods to curtail their incoming dps.

    But ... this isn't a group focus pet compared to a group focus tank. This is a group focus pet compared to a tank in raid gear.

    Tomorrow if I have time I'll run significantly longer parses and hopefully run a few with a group geared warrior/sk/paladin as well as necro warrior pet and BL pet in defensive mode.
    Dre. likes this.
  9. Daegun Augur

    Water pet version of <Roger> with nothing but certitude (no ac songs)
    [IMG]
    Max Round: 28925

    Mage rogue pet # of rounds > 20k in 379sec: 15
    Warrior 13838ac with shield # of rounds > 20k in 373sec: 8
    Mage rogue pet # of rounds > 30k in 379sec: 0
    Warrior 13838ac with shield # of rounds > 30k in 373sec: 2

    These parses are too short and the differences aren't significantly stark enough to draw any firm conclusions other than that a basically buffless EM15 mage rogue pet has comparable passive mitigation to a fully buffed, bard song'd raid geared warrior using his shield. The warrior has a large passive avoidance advantage which accounts for the difference in average incomming dps: ~5000 average incomming dps vs ~5800dps.

    ---------------------
    ------------------------------

    I need longer parses - I'll get them tomorrow. The pets are easy. 3 cleric mercs on balanced/efficientx2 can heal the pets all day long and stay at 1% on aggro meter. I can set it up and walk away for hours to get a nice long parse. The warrior will be a bit more challenging as I'll have to sit there and click his aggro discs periodically, but I can do that for a good 30-60 minutes while I watch movies with the kids tomorrow.
    Brogett and Dre. like this.
  10. EQsince1999 New Member

    Only slightly off subject...

    But I thought mage pets were born with haste masks as well
  11. Daegun Augur

    They are (or should be). I know for a while there they were bugged and didn't. Out of habit, I still hand the mage pet a mask at the same time I give them weapons.

    You did just give me an idea though. We know the stats on the armor that pets are summoned with. Knowing that, you could give pets an alternate but superior set of gear where you know the absolute difference in AC. If you can give the pet 200 to 400 more known ac via gear and see a much larger impact on incoming DI spread than repeating the same process with a player tank - it'd be safe to assume that pets are not subject to any diminishing returns (softcaps) on ac. This still would pose a challenge as ac's relative value will change on a mob by mob basis.

    My bet is that pets not being PC characters will see more "bang for their buck" with each extra point of ac given to them than a PC would.
  12. Potawatomi Augur

    This has already been done at eqmagetower.com with parses etc. to show the difference.

    Also, what is the point of all of this? Comparing a tank who isn't using any disc or abilities vs a pet that is constantly procing a vie isn't going to prove much. Mobs are designed to take into account a player using their abilities.
    Enkel and Ravengloome like this.
  13. Ravengloome Augur


    Yeh lets make this an apples to apples comparison, otherwise it just looks like a nerfcall...

    After the last few fiascos with nerfs this expac has seen the last thing we need to do is have a huge amount of the player base (mages/necros/beasts) getting slammed with a nerf.
    Enkel likes this.
  14. Tobynn Augur

    For quite some time now, the general consensus has been that pets get hit at the low end of DI all .. day .. long, and not that pets have lottaHPs. There is no revelation here.
  15. Fendy Augur

    I'm a druid. My pet dies too fast to parse numbers.
  16. Ineptocracy Leader Elder

    I dont see any vie (iceflame proc ) in those parses. At all. Please show it to me.
  17. Iila Augur

    You just need to find the right parse mob. I'd recommend setting a clr merc to reactive, then gating to commons and looking for a hill giant. That should provide a good parse mob for the druid pet.
  18. Karthos Augur

    Thank you for all the work you're doing. It was obvious what has been going on for quite some time but numbers are hard to come by. Would it possible to toss in some numbers for other classes as well? I'm particularly interested in Rangers and Bards.
  19. Tual Augur

    Also, what is the point of all of this? Comparing a tank who isn't using any disc or abilities vs a pet that is constantly procing a vie isn't going to prove much. Mobs are designed to take into account a player using their abilities.

    Roger only used Cert, Bard songs, and burnout according to Daegun, so I'm not sure where you came up with the "constantly procing a vie."
  20. Fendy Augur

    Actually my post was meant to be a joke. A druid pet is barely a speed bump. I was wondering why a thread that got barely noticed in the class/warrior forum was resurrected in this forum talking about pet classes rather than class/casters forum.
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