Test Update 8/08/2014 - Pet Changes Round 3

They should be compared passively then you get the benefits of the activated abilities on top of that.

That is how the entire tanking scene is balanced .

I'll explain one situation to you so you understand more clearly.

Say a paladin was to take an average hit lower then a warriors passively (which they don't)
Then you add holy guardian and their heals on top of that they would be out of balance and quickly fixed.
The above is what as happening with pets.

That whole issue is like old news 3 test patch's and 3 months ago .

Unless you want your pet to end up underpowered you should be doing passive parses so the baseline (which is what they are fixing) is tuned properly behind a passive warrior.

It has really nothing to do with soloing / moloing /raid tanking.

Doesn't it take a lot more AA to max PET DEFENSIVE rather than a PC DEFENSIVE? Maybe that's why pets are the choice option for a Range DPS group.

The real problem is AA are too easy to accumulate now. Which is WHY there are more Mages running around with these pets.

Change enhanced minion around.There should be a wider gap between EM15 and EM20.

I have never actually added up my defensive aa but there's a boatload just think combat stability / agility

dear god, no.

max pet defense AAs is probably somewhere around 300-400, PC for maxed out defense is somewhere around 1100.
that's just passive - if you include activated, and depending on how you define that, would put pet at 500-600 and PC at upwards of 1500-2000.

A Magician is a poor man's tank, a poor man's wizard, and a penniless cleric.

The Mage is a hybrid class. We can do damage with long-casting spells (bad wizard), poorly tank with a (not-a-tank) pet, and can patch heal at best. Most people don't want to be a crummy wizard. Or a crummy tank. Or worse, both.

Except for those of us at the insane asylum. The Mages. Are you tanks with this strident crusade considering taking up a Mage,now? Most would say no. And do you know why? It is BORING, most ofthe time.

And please, we should stop defining tanking solely on the basis of DI spread. Brother. That is so misleading it almost seems like deliberate shenanigans.

The ONE thing we can do is molo.

ONE.

THING.

Hurray! Even though it takes a long time to, say, finish a mission, we can do it (hours and hours in some cases.) When faced with "bad" mobs we can do that, but then suffer a cooldown period until the NEXT bad guy.

Big deal, we have found some niche that we are comfortable with, although at a snails pace. It's FUN for a great many of us, and Tanks complaining about "too powerful" pets in such a limited, restrictive context baffles me.

Really, why do you care. That's rhetorical, btw.

I understand the devs have found some mathematical anomalies they want to fix, but what I don't understand is presenting "just the facts ma'am" and then making judgment calls as "TOO POWERFUL" You can't say on the one hand "Golly I just want to show data," and then on the other hand rant at Aristo in a 50 page post.

GF

Pet is getting whomped on vs multiples, does ok vs singles....

How to fix?

Change it's main mitigation (prism skin procs) to defensive triggered rather than offensive triggered?

Then it won't be triggered much in raid content....

Change it to both, offensive and defensive triggered?

Then it will be too much....

Not if adjust it properly. Lets say it's currently triggered at 10% of attempted hits by pet (I have no idea what it is, but that seems closeish). If we change that to 4% of attempted hits, and add it so that it's also triggered at 7% of incoming attempted hits, as an example, it shouldn't be much of an increase to single mob mitigation, but should help a good bit vs multiple mob mitigation. And hey, guess what, wouldn't change the DI values so many seem stuck on...

Of course, you can adjust those numbers, to be wherever you think they should. But, it does seem like long term 'easier' solution to one of our main complaints.

IF you do this, then I think the tanking values for the magician pets was about where they needed to be, in the round 2 parses (DPS still needs looked at, bad).

Revert RS pets back to where they were. As you've seen, they were well tuned, and not what the problem was.

Comparing pets to real players just does not compute, in most situations. Whether it's a water pet moloing (ya, it was getting heals, so, that's NOT AFK soloing) a trash mob... rogues can do the same, and about 3x more dps to boot...

To comparing tank pets to real tanks, who can actively decrease their incoming damage by 1/3 of what is 'passive', where pets cannot.

The devs should come up with a standard of what they want pets to be able to tank with how much healing, based on vs MOBS, then work toward getting that balanced.

Then, all the pet haters can see if they can consistently do better than what the devs have set as a goal of what pets should be capable of tanking.

IMO, the highest group EM focus pet should be able to easily tank 2 DB mobs almost indefinitely with just a merc healing. The highest raid EM focus should be able to easily tank 2 yellow mobs indefinitely, if pet has activated stuff going.

I feel actively played, good tanks can do better than either of those, in the respective gear(highest group gear/augs and raid gear/highest augs).

We USED to be able to SOLO named (before mercs)....

We USED to be able to SOLO 3 dark blue cons at a time (before mercs)...

We never USED to have to heal or rune pet, to do either of the above (before mercs OR swarm pets)

EM20 Earth pet burnout 3, iceflame 3, hate proc weapons, cleric merc buffs only:

Shoon in 1268s:

/tell Nylrem Mobstopper -vs- Shoon: -- DMG: 3769912 -- DPS: 2973 -- Scaled: 2973 -- Slash: 2520472 -- DirDmg: 1153086 -- Bash: 58239 -- Kick: 38115 -- % dmg as normal: 68.5% -- % dmg as critical: 31.5% -- Non-crit rate: 79.6% -- crit rate: 20.4% -- Attempts: 6313 -- Hits: 4514 -- Missed: 1160 -- Defended: 639 -- Accuracy: 79.6% -- Avg Hit: 835 -- Max hit: 2336 -- DMG to PC: 14599831

/GU Tanking summary for: Mobstopper (Nylrem) --- Total damage: 14599831 --- Avg hit: 9001 --- Swings: 2503 --- Defended: 635 (25.4%) --- Hit: 1622 (64.8%) --- Missed: 246 (9.8%) --- Accuracy: 86.8% --- Dodged: 55 (2.5%) --- Parried: 65 (2.8%) --- Blocked: 146 (5.8%) --- Riposted: 62 (2.7%) --- Absorbed: 307 (12.3%)

Hits only (no idea how Daegun gets a pure 20 different values only):

Figuring 3883 being DI1, at 504 hits of 1622 total = 31%

Mobstopper (Nylrem) - vs - Shoon
Attempts 2346 100%
Missed 231 9.85%
Dodged 55 2.34%
Parried 58 2.47%
Blocked 137 5.84%
Riposted 60 2.56%
Absorbed 291 12.4%
3496 15 0.64%
3884 504 21.48%
4811 70 2.98%
5738 62 2.64%
5999 1 0.04%
6665 48 2.05%
7592 62 2.64%
7667 2 0.09%
8501 4 0.17%
8518 64 2.73%
9335 1 0.04%
9445 61 2.6%
10170 2 0.09%
10372 58 2.47%
11004 3 0.13%
11299 49 2.09%
11838 3 0.13%
12226 67 2.86%
13153 48 2.05%
14080 52 2.22%
14341 1 0.04%
14887 1 0.04%
15007 46 1.96%
15175 1 0.04%
15934 41 1.75%
16009 1 0.04%
16843 3 0.13%
16861 46 1.96%
17677 1 0.04%
17787 37 1.58%
18714 30 1.28%
19346 1 0.04%
19641 33 1.41%
20568 25 1.07%
21495 71 3.03%

Exactly

Several Solutions have been suggested, ultimately up to the devs to figure this one out.

Everyone seems to agree on this, including those on "the other side of the fence". Despite what we all agree upon, the developers should take a very close look at this.

This makes sense (group), as compared to the old standard of a pet tanking a blue out of the box, with a SOLO mage (no merc.)

This makes sense (raid), although my 'standard' in both group and raid focuses was a bit more conservative.

Exactly, and this is why this whole debacle is so infuriating. We're being asked to change what we've always been doing (save PoP and shortly afterward, when our pets were castrated.)

Same EM20 Earth pet vs yellow con trash in WK, same buffs in 574s

/tell Nylrem Mobstopper -vs- An ursarachnid spinecrusher: -- DMG: 1949071 -- DPS: 3396 -- Scaled: 3396 -- Slash: 1408984 -- DirDmg: 495254 -- Bash: 24750 -- Kick: 20083 -- % dmg as normal: 64% -- % dmg as critical: 36% -- Non-crit rate: 78.3% -- crit rate: 21.7% -- Attempts: 2779 -- Hits: 2002 -- Missed: 483 -- Defended: 294 -- Accuracy: 80.6% -- Avg Hit: 973 -- Max hit: 2336 -- DMG to PC: 2553279

/GU Tanking summary for: Mobstopper (Nylrem) --- Total damage: 2553279 --- Avg hit: 4078 --- Swings: 1032 --- Defended: 298 (28.9%) --- Hit: 626 (60.7%) --- Missed: 108 (10.5%) --- Accuracy: 85.3% --- Dodged: 22 (2.4%) --- Parried: 32 (3.3%) --- Blocked: 59 (5.7%) --- Riposted: 30 (3.2%) --- Absorbed: 155 (15%)

276 DI1 hits divided by 580 total hits (46 bashes) = 47.6% DI1 hits

Mobstopper (Nylrem) - vs - An ursarachnid spinecrusher
Attempts 960 100%
Missed 103 10.73%
Dodged 20 2.08%
Parried 31 3.23%
Blocked 55 5.73%
Riposted 26 2.71%
Absorbed 145 15.1%
2135 276 28.75%
2244 1 0.1%
2245 1 0.1%
2370 1 0.1%
2379 1 0.1%
2402 20 2.08%
2673 13 1.35%
3007 4 0.42%
3211 20 2.08%
3322 1 0.1%
3612 1 0.1%
3748 19 1.98%
3978 1 0.1%
4145 1 0.1%
4217 2 0.21%
4287 17 1.77%
4824 18 1.88%
5212 1 0.1%
5362 19 1.98%
5427 1 0.1%
5626 1 0.1%
5900 18 1.88%
6438 19 1.98%
6637 1 0.1%
6976 18 1.88%
7229 1 0.1%
7513 14 1.46%
7848 3 0.31%
8052 15 1.56%
8305 1 0.1%
8589 13 1.35%
9108 1 0.1%
9127 10 1.04%
9665 10 1.04%
10203 8 0.83%
10268 2 0.21%
10462 1 0.1%
10740 7 0.73%
11278 7 0.73%
11478 1 0.1%
11816 4 0.42%
12083 1 0.1%
12354 4 0.42%
13817 1 0.1%
13821 1 0.1%

As many have pointed out though, DI hits on pets aren't the be-all-end-all like Daegun tries to make it.

Incoming dps as well as the amount a real tank is missed/defends is much higher than pets, and they have activated abilities that increase these amounts. This is also why they can tank multiples easier than pets, because many hits don't even hit them.

That being said... the earth pet is probably tanking single targets a bit better than developers envision it to be.

It tanks multiple targets MUCH worse than magicians envision it to.

Precisely. As for multiples, since our pet avoids so poorly, the DI variances often add up to drain your hp so much that you're left in a healing/rune loop, or it kills your pet outright.

It is this TWO MOB SCENARIO (2 or more) that needs the most attention. I've been running doubles today with my meager EM19 pet, and he has been getting slaughtered.

Slaughtered.

This isn't to say I can't pull miracles out of my bunny hat, because I can, but it takes an enormous effort to merely keep my pet sustained while doing MAYBE 20 percent of a soft burn.

Current Situation:

1. Pet does fine on a single blue mob.
2. Pet struggles mightily against 2 blue mobs.
3. A standard should be set to define "good" in such a way that it jibes with our historic ability (before mercs).
4. Our RS line needs to be reverted.
5. To accomplish (3) the developers could reinstate runes (to a degree) for one thing, and in other ways suggested by Nylrem et al.

Bara

this is a very correct response.

2 or more, as in cotf HA even con mobs you could tank 2 with rs pet splitting or earth pet getting healed by bot cleric hot's helped.

the mage has no splitting tools or snaring tools to help us with any fights.

if and when the mage gets fixed to the way the whinny warriors wanted, the devs need to address the addition of some pacify, root, snare or fd tool to the mage. these changes are hurting the mages ability.

it wasn't the mages that upped the hp, ac, dps of mobs that was the devs programming.

mages devise ways to win the fights, and others learned over the years how to do it easiser.

just means now there will be silence from any class in how to do things easier.

I really hope for the sake of the game something good comes of this but right now I am still rather pissed.

Except that this was a cherry-picked fight out of (how many?). I've been playing the same game with those same mobs the last 2 days, and have been able to complete the battle 1/13 times on average. I closely watched the heals and runes you used so as not to skew my results.

This is because those mobs HIT SO HARD and so fast your pet HP plummets like an elevator with a snapped cable.

That's a lucky fight. I challenge ANYONE to do that fight with an EM 15 self-buffed pet and 1 merc in front of an audience and beat it regularly. Say, 8 out of 10 times. You know, to show us all how easy it really is.

Heck use EM20. I say you can't do it. Prove me wrong. I'll show up whenever you want me to. (Just give me time to get to these forums and respond.)

I want to see it up close and personal, as Bob McCay used to say.

If you can do that I'll come onto these forums and say OMG Wow. I'm a crappy Mage because he can perform that feat regularly. Cross my heart. I'll have Danny put a Banner up on the Mage Tower declaring "I AM A CRAPPY MAGE" so everyone knows.

Prove me wrong. I dare you.

I double-dare you.

GF

On the AA front alone, not even close.

Then you factor that the PC must also obtain how many pieces of relevant gear and augments vs a single piece of gear?

^ I hate that argument (the whole you only need an ear that many people always say). It's a tired and old argument. I personally try to never use it. But in this case it is very relevant given your question Guado. No it takes a lot less aa to max a pet out defensively. It also takes a lot less gear (one piece of gear) and no augments and BAM - you've got a tank.

But like I said, I hate that argument. I will, however, use that argument to refute the line of logic quoted from your post.

I actually feel the gap between EM15 and 19-21 is too small. Should a raid focus pet face-roll group content? Sure, why not. They should be undeniably weaker than raid geared tanks, but I have zero problem with a raid focus pet going to toe to toe with or outperforming group tanks. You raid for that gear, it should give you bigger returns than it does compared to your group geared colleagues. This highlights a larger melee vs caster balance problem though. The gap between raid gear and group gear for tanks and melee is huge. The gap between raid gear and group gear (and rk3 vs rk2 spells) has always been too small. A group geared mage can function a whole lot closer (pet and owner) to their raid geared counterparts than a group geared tank can relative to their raid geared counterparts.

Wow, I finally agree with Daegun. The difference in Em from group to raid should be much larger. Compare a rogue with an end game dagger vs a group rogue, HUGE difference. A mage with a raid level Em, should be overpowered in the group game, like any other raid tank or dps class is. The difference now seems to be almost too low to tell the difference.

Now that they found out the issue with the DI problem, I hope they change EM to be much more meaningful now.

Ok I Figured i should post my finding as one of the few raiding Nec on test.I have em 20 have all my aa and a full aa healer merc.

First tanking current content is possible with this current set of nurfs. You do have to use Boneshild and Aegis. You will need to be able to solo pull mobs (your a necro if you cant re roll) You can not take 2 current content mobs at once it will be death without running fort and slowing both mobs. Names are doable with fort running and slowed. Make sure your swarm are there to back up pet death so you have time to summon your waiting in the wings minion.

Devs Why are the NEC pets the weakest of all. You even gave the SK (our melee hybrid) pet more AC then ours. The DPS between the 3 classes are pretty balanced so why make the necro pet so much weaker to were it is literally a full time job for me to keep him up with a full aa merc and em20. How is a group geared necro without rnk3 spells and em15 going to take it. You call the 97 pet a war why is he falling without boneshild and Aegis on trash. It seams to me the Necro has always been the solo artist of the game that was why i picked it POP time frame.

Lastly a question did you do these nurfs for the mage pet to be able to tank current content and then make the other pets weaker then the mages pet making only the mage viable as a pet tank?

Unfortunately that is unlikely. The exponential curve created by the linear EM rise added to the Sturdy Companion AA made it necessary to almost completely flatten the upper level EM curves. I haven't seem them (yet) state any desire or plan to change that in these rounds of balancing. I don't have their curve-fitting expectations or data, so I could be talking out of my behind.

Given our nerf experience over the last year 14 months (I don't bother to recount them) I believe the above statement to be true.

Hope not.

I don't disagree, but in general the gains that casters get from going to raid gear are dwarfed by what melee classes get. In return the casters start out better than melee, relative to dps rankings/etcetera.

I tried it again. While I was yet again successful in beating the initial two, when I sarcastically pulled another one on top of my pet and continued to fight it readily enough, I got yet another roamer, and my pet died tanking 3.

I lived though, unlike a lot of the other DPS classes who find out they failed at something by pretending to be a hover board.

I guess in a way you were right. Sort of. My actionable sarcasm worked against me.



On another note, someone had wondered how a mage pet would do without a merc healing it, and just the mage providing all of its support. I offer this sample on an Argin Hiz yellow con to take it out of the numbers perspective and into a real practical look.

I didn't use anything long recast, just spammable mage stuff.

I took the time to use my harvest while mid combat too, which is a 12 second cast time. That is 12 seconds on one of the highest DPS output exp mobs in the entire game (that doesn't have some kind of haste / atk buff) with zero intervention from... anyone. I ran in a lot of circles, and cast random spells, because it was kind of boring. The mob died way way way before I could have run OOM. But here it is anyways:

Anyone else remember when we could solo one mob without hitting a ton of runes and heals? Especially with a raid focus... An enchanter can (almost) stun lock that single mob, and combined with runes and decent DPS it's definitely doable with no mercs (and not even any damage taken). If you see that Erudite corpse in the first video, I discovered it isn't doable (at least with T1 group gear, 6k AAs, and Rk 1 spells) with two mobs

The devs very well may have different views, but I personally think the amount of work, time, and mana required to kill two mobs right now with a raid focus is absurd. As many pointed out, having a dedicated healer is not the equivalent of "my pet can't die even if I'm AFK." If you have an issue with mercs, that's another story. Right now with two mobs, my pet requires constant attention to live. With an EM 20 focus. I don't mind if I have to hit a spell every so often to assist my pet, but right now it's absurd.

And yes, other classes simply can't do it. Which is why we fundamentally cannot compare classes on one point and say they're too strong. Nor can we separate the game into "DPS" and "Tanking." Look at the 16 classes. Look at all the spells they have. Count how many don't fall into those categories (and we haven't even gotten to AAs). There are so many classes that have so many different facets that it's nigh impossible to quantify the value of each class. So just because we have decent DPS and can tank situationally (and there are a number of mechanics that prevent us from doing so beyond the PoW) does not make us overpowered.

Rangers are my favorite example of this. Fully raid geared/auged/AAed rangers are actually good tanks for most content. And they are also a DPS class. And they have a variety of pulling tools and ghetto CC tools. And they provide Auspice in a raid environment which is immeasurably useful. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Rangers being good in a wide range of areas. Enchanters are the masters of crowd control. Is Vinelash sometimes a better CC option than enchanters have? Sometimes it is. And that's absolutely fine. This game goes so much deeper than DI spreads and DPS parses.

So what is wrong with three classes being able to do what others in some cases can not? The closest the three pet classes get in a theoretical DPS scenario is competitive. In nearly any situation we do not win, and in some we fall far behind (fast exp groups anyone?). And with the changes we are most certainly behind a player tank in every scenario that doesn't involve pets avoiding mechanics. And because of the differences in how defenses work I'd be willing to bet we no longer have an advantage in multiple mob encounters against quasi-tank classes. And our pets can't tank with any melee, which is a disadvantage that no player tanks (or quasi-tanks) have. So are our three classes now jacks of all trades? Where do we excel? When I (and I think most people) chose a mage, it was for the complete package that brings the best solo class in the game (or comparable to Necros). We solo for xp slower than a number of classes, so the only logical assumption is we are able to solo tough content well. Now with a raid focus and max AA we're having trouble moloing two current content trash mobs. So regardless of parses (of which I've provided myself), something is very wrong here. If you think the current state is too powerful, or even adequate, I'm sorry but I completely disagree.

Baramos and Danille summed up the problem: we're falling way behind players in multiple mob encounters even with raid foci. And our RS pets are in a gimped state. So both of those issues need to be fixed before this change can be in the ballpark of being acceptable.

I believe the rs pet needs reverted .

I believe the mitigation on your earth pet is balanced right now.

I believe groundswell stance needs changed to a non extendable 25% flat mitigation buff with a 10 minute reuse.(but if you get this all spells and abilities need to hit your pet from now on)

If your pets don't get the above negative effect then they should only get a 10% non extendable 10 minute reuse defensive type of disc.

I believe you need a 10 minute reuse ae taunt.

I believe Necromancer warrior pets need boosted just 10% behind the mage earth pet mitigation wise.

I believe you are hiding the important data behind walls of complaints and are going to end up underpowered because of it.

I believe defensive aa /spell should not even land on the fire or the water pet.

If anything for survival on raids they just need a no recast hp buff that drops when they hit the top of the hatelist.That can NOT be recast if they are at the top of the hatelist already.

You have always had to heal your pet with no mercenary soloing.

Unless you just chain summoned them I have also played a mage since planes of power and until house of thule she was on my warriors account.