There was a ninja nerf that went live with the July patch & has been confirmed by Roshen over in the other thread. Pets' base AC was stealth nerfed after we were assured that nothing would happen without extensive testing on the Test server first. They're going to further nerf pet AC from AAs, which they say will go to Test first, but who knows. I'm worried that people like Karthanon will only parse the difference between the first and second nerfs instead of parsing the full impact, because the post from Roshen is buried in the middle of a huge thread. You'll have to compare it to parses from before July 16th to accurately gauge the full effect.
Love me or hate me, but thanks to me you will not need to worry about people not being able to parse the full impact. I have literally dozens of hours of parsing compiled - a very large sample that can be used for comparative purposes.
In order to survive -what- exactly? I'm not sure when "able to solo for experience" became "entitled to solo current expansion named" (else there are 15 other classes who should like to chime in here...) but as long as we're throwing history lessons around - similarly was the phrase "solo class" applied by the player community to describe the former, while the latter occurred as a side-effect of the imbalance that this thread is addressing. Well you see, that simply won't do. Balance would be if Mages are entitled to MonsterWarriors as a pet, Warriors would be equally entitled to MonsterMages as a pet, although that would seemingly reverse our archetypes. And really, I would rather not see pet classes get nerfed. There are plenty of alternatives (though they are few and far between on threads like this where people are getting emotionally involved). however, the core balance issues DO need to be addressed. I'd love to see honest and balanced proposals from the pet community; but there's a lot of noise to sift through on both sides of the debate.
I meant literally survive. When out solo, or in a group without a tank the only thing for a mage that stands between them and death is their pet. I get this is a social game, but being solo is part of the class description and last time I checked, you do get experience, even from named mobs. This is not inherent to just mages; other classes can do the same. Times have changed, mudflation of a lot of things have happened. Gone are the days where I could summon up a pet, buff him, give him some toys, sit in a corner and watch him solo all sorts of things with no outside help whatsoever; albeit at a hit to my personal experience. Now what you are referring to as solo is actually molo. If the devs don't want mages adventuring on their own as easily as they do now, leave the pet alone and get rid of mercs. That's the root of the problem right there. There aren't any balance issues. Again you are trying to balance pets around the availability of a healer. However, I have no problem with tanks getting a bump in mitigation and/or some sort of rune proc available to them like pets currently have; although I don't think it's needed. If somehow pets were replacing tanks in normal groups and raids though, I'm on-board 120%. Anyway, I have a little time today so I'm out to analyze the effects of this nerf. Will check back later.
Please read the descriptions provided by sony: https://www.everquest.com/classes I cannot guarantee these were the same as when EQ first came out, so it is the best I can offer. In no pet class description does it say the word solo, alone, without anyone else, or any other phrase of that sort.
Sorry, but you're wrong about this. Your link doesn't provide the full class descriptions given at the character creation screen. (2 out of 4 paragraphs for each of the pet classes.) Unfortunately I can't cut & paste the whole thing so here are the relevant excerpts which you can verify yourself on said screen: Bst: Beastlords can adventure solo well in many places. The beastlord is a great class for players who like the option of solo fights, but want to be able to help in a group. Mage: Magicians are able to adventure solo, but also provide value in a group situation. The magician is a good choice for players who enjoy managing a powerful pet Necro: Necromancers are a very self-sufficient class and often choose to adventure alone, though they can provide great value to a group as well. The necromancer is an excellent choice for the independent player who enjoys a wide variety of abilities. I realize the devs probably don't care what the class descriptions say, but the descriptions that you actually see when you roll a character do describe pet classes as solo classes.
It may just be my extremely immautre sense of humor, but after reading this post, I imagined a /micdrop at the end.
I will concede that atm the best I have is the online descriptions, I am at work and check between tasks, if you can post a screenshot that would be awesome, otherwise I will check when I get home.
Oh, I realize there was a stealth nerf. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't have /log on, so I've been depending on the log from my ranger from before the 16th, which unfortunately may not have all the pets hits available (for all mobs). That's the only thing I have to compare against. I've already separated out my log into pre-July 16 and post-July16 sections (thank you, grep) to examine. I think I'll have to first find out the date my wite's mage hit 100, though, or else the parsing is going to be a bit off (due to the fact we were still levelling then and had a lower level pet and a pre-twitching snood focus).
The fact that we have to post logs in order to prove a stealth change is the entire crux of the issue. Yes, mages are furious about the changes, but in all honesty a lot of the anger stems from them not telling us--that we had to come on these forums and get trashed and bashed and then finally have our point justified by SOE admitting the stealth nerf. Sure, these nerfs have drastically reduced my abilities--and I'm plenty upset about them on their own--but the element of deceit here is what really fuels my fire.
its simply u cant just think somethign changed if u want to prove it chance then you have to prtoove it or every time someone says that somethign changes that dident cuz they think it did whould fully unbalance the game even more. prove the change or its just another my j-boots got slower thread
Should they be expected to solo raid content? Cutting edge group content? Hunt named content solo? All I see is that they are self-sufficient in ways that other classes are not. I see no buried promises that they can do anything and everything all by themselves. Compare that to say a warrior or a rogue who ... solo ... literally can't do much of anything at all in terms of relevant content. Being a solo friendly class does not equate to a promise to do everything you want without any help. /micdrop
I just wanted to jump in here also. Some of the pet changes that we had planned to go to the Test server did go live in the Argin-Hiz patch. These changes were not intended to be part of this patch, which is why they weren’t included in the patch notes. That update included some of the AC changes and an early version of the damage changes. The damage numbers are not the final numbers but they are broadly similar to what is on Test now. Most pets are now doing more damage than they were before. The AC changes were incomplete (and did not include any of the Sturdy Companion changes), so in most cases pets will not be especially weaker than before. To remove these changes, we would be required to bring the servers down to do a full patch. At this time, we feel like it would be less disruptive to leave them in game than to revert the changes and reinstate them in the upcoming August update.
So as many said its a done deal already. There is no having ample time to test them or work with the team to get it right like was promised. You set what you wanted on test, players get to test it there but regardless its going live in August.
I'll still play my main, as his class is unaffected, but my two gold box accounts are no longer worth it. At least I'll save 30$ a month and 80$ on xpacs per year.
15 years of the 'quest and changes not intended for live still go to live. it's remarkable how this bush league stuff happens over and over. and by remarkable, i mean i'm waiting for the complete player wipe at some point in the future because the global file is out of room. i love everquest and i'm not going to unsubscribe my 29 1/2 accounts. but damn, man, someone needs to throw some chairs around the office and get everyone on the same page.
The problem with this is we can't test pre-nerf pets. Even if pets are not "especially weaker," I now have no ability to go out and get a baseline for comparison. Daegun does have tons of parses documented, but they aren't all inclusive and things like RS pets were not tested to my knowledge.
RS pets wouldn't live long enough to get a stable baseline. I did parse the skeleton swarm pets and they were mitigating on a similar level as most other pets. Perhaps not quite as well but very very similarly.
Roshen, lol, basically saying "sorry for the stealth nerf but on the bright side, once we nerf u again next patch it won't seem so bad because you're kind of used to it now" Why do I feel like I'm being fired politely
