Test Update 08/12/2014 - Pet Changes Round 4

Except that SK isn't a DPS/Solo class like a Magician is. You are comparing the classes which you can't do, Everquest wasn't made to be cookie cutter, which is what you're implying with that post of yours.

Also, if you're having issues against hard mobs I think you may have a problem with the way you play your class, as I have at least 3 SK friends that play regularly and they need no help other than a merc. ( Not trying to be rude and say you aren't skilled at what you do, I'm just telling you that what you just said doesn't compute for me as I've SEEN it done, since I've been playing Mage.

Thanks for the personal attacks, and no other than aggro issues recently on raids I do just fine. I don't think I could molo any rot or argin names due to lack of dps, but that's why I group with other people and have a dps box.

The char select info says I'm a good soloing class, so it must be true, right? That's one constant defense getting tossed out by the against changes crowd. I'd say I'm a tank/solo class based on what it says there, and that's clearly the bible?

I agree it's not a cookie cutter game. But that doesn't mean the rules don't apply to some classes and they do to others. The gap in what baz/ts geared pet class versus anyone else can accomplish in this game alone is astronomical, and that's not good for the game. So either pets are too good or everyone else is too bad. The devs appear to be saying it's the prior.

The reality is one group of the community expects a completely different balance in how the game works because they are a "soloer". Mercs just exacerbate the problem. I'm all for pet tanking, but it needs to carry similar or at the very least roughly equivalent challenges to what player tanks deal with, and that looks to be exactly what the devs are trying to accomplish.

Sheex, that wasn't a personal attack on you bud, I'm being honest. I've seen SK's molo rot and argin hiz nameds, plenty of times. For instance, they all have their hunter in RoT and AH, yet it was all Molo.

SK's are a tank/solo class, I agree. I don't think you understand the fact that being a DPS/Solo class is a bit different.

What you're doing now is diverting from my original post. A magician should have to support their pet solo, I fully agree. However, I think when you put a cleric merc into that equation it should be a totally different situation. Like I said previously, we don't have near the amount of disc's/ tanking abilities of a Warrior, Pally or Shadowknight. We have our pet front end loaded with raw HP/AC, from an AFK standpoint they are better, but only from an AFK standpoint. They lose any advantage as soon as those tank classes choose to use their discs/AAs. I'm not asking for pet classes to have pets on par with a Discing pally/sk/war. I just don't want to support them as much as I'm currently doing with a merc out moloing( on test ), as if I wanted to do that I'd just solo and get much better EXP and not take the plat loss of a merc.

When this issue was address, your leader in this cause, "daegun" said we should have the devs look into our heals/runes..LOL are you kidding me?

Also, lets not forget his entire post at first was about getting tanks an up because current content was/is too hard.

Sheex I understand your point of view, I was a tanking class. I just don't think you understand the concept of diverse classes and what EQ tried to do with their class setup.

Since day 1 Mages have been able to solo in Everquest, after 15 years they decide to tweak the pets on a huge scale, you're going to see Magician's upset. Instead of attacking them and saying, "well I can't do this why can you" Maybe you should try to understand where we are all coming from, instead of having so much class envy you're green with jealousy.

And this is the problem right there. A group of people are expecting everything to be equal. That would make for a boring game. EQ has flavor because different classes can excel in different areas and are played differently. Some are very dependent on others, some are not. What I keep hearing from the pet obsessed tanks is they want pet classes to have to play the same game as them. That would essentially make pet classes the same as tank classes. Different visual representation, but the exact same game play. Yes, the pet is toe to toe with the mob rather than the player, but if the pet class has to use the same amount of active support as a tank, that difference is just ethereal. Playing one or the other becomes a choice of if you like the look of a robe vs. armor.

There so much wrong with your post I don't even know where to begin.

Tell me the t2 name molo'd and post logs. I'm in full t1 raid gear and max most things and I'd be surprised if a non paladin/undead knight could molo any of those names. I've done all the hunters going back to house when they were current and done all but Grael in cof. We don't do enough dps for the fight to be quick enough to be reasonable, and eventually we go down. I only say I can't molo these because the mage's defense is constantly...knights can do this too so don't nerf us, or if you do nerf them too! We can't, unless you'd like to prove otherwise.

I have 8 lvl 100 toons and have played most classes up to at least 70. I'm not envious of anything. But it's not a reasonable expectation that someone should be able to molo a huge majority 70, 80 or even 90%) of the game with such ease in an mmo where we're supposed to depend in other players at a certain point. And then to have those folks say that they don't want to heal their pets and use their tools because it's a distraction or underpowered? Lol.

I group with a nec guildmate in the evenings and we often debate the advantages/ disadvantages of pets. They definitely have a place and value in the scheme of things, but insisting they are fine "as is" despite what the devs are saying/doing is laughable. I did a heroic nec mainly because I wanted to learn right when the pet stuff started being discussed and it's been an interesting experience. He's up to 8k as and mostly t2 cof group gear and it's a pretty powerful (but odd) class.

I have no leader and don't agree with everything Daegun says. I'm not attacking anyone, and there has been a ton of valid feedback from pet folks based on these changes. Nec pets need love, mages need a way to deal with adds that won't be overpowering against singles, etc etc.

But the pet community expects an experience well above and beyond anything the rest of the 13 classes does, and that's not a reasonable expectation.

No one is saying it should be identical. There are drawbacks and there are benefits. But it's not unreasonable that pet folks should have to devote a larger focus on keeping the tank alive versus just face roll burn and repeat.

Currently there isn't really a happy medium and that's what they're trying to accomplish with the changes.

The challenges pet users face are not remotely the challenges player tanks face and again a few of you are getting duped by Daegun's 1v1 parses on 'a forest elder.' It's already been shown that mage and necro pets, at the minimum, take a drastically higher amount of DPS vs. several mobs due to the # hit runes and the lack of % mitigation options which are available to all player tanks. No amount of parsing vs. one mob is ever going to show this deficiency which is why Daegun has never posted a parse vs. several mobs for the 1-2 months he's been crusading this issue.

The logic is pretty simple. Against three mobs, you pop a 35-45% defensive, you take 35-45% less DI damage from all three mobs. Against three mobs, a mage pops his # hit runes, he achieves what is effectively 35-40% avoidance vs. one mob, and takes full dmg from the other two, amounting to an effective avoidance increase of less than 15%.

17,000 DPS vs. less than 6,000. It's not difficult to understand the difference between these two concepts. Yes, the DI charts for pets looks great. No, the incoming DPS does not, and had you paid attention to the sum of parses and not just the one scenario Daegun has posted over and over and over again, you'd understand that.

As to the idea that pets ought to be balanced according to player tank standards - sure... When they start tanking the way player tanks do. But they don't, do they? Are player tanks disabled in PoWar? Are player tanks disabled when a player is in melee range? Are player tanks incapable of taunts, AoE taunts, and maintaining AoE aggro? Are player tanks incapable of breaking mez? Do player tanks not have massive disciplines to fallback on?

A paladin is able to keep a level 100 stunnable mob locked down from 100% to 0%. Go parse the DPS on that and come back.and tell me this shows paladins are >>>>>> SKs and warriors because they take 0 DPS in 1v1 trash situations.

The pet community expects to continue what they have been able to do for 15 years. Even at the horrible low points they still did more solo then any other class could dream of. Outside of over geared raid toons. Expecting to continue down this path is not unreasonable especially with the introduction of mercs. Again if you want the ability to play a pet class then do so, don't say well my sk can't dps as much so you should have to do less dps and focus more on tanking because I say so.

Lots of group dependent classes now box one toon to do what they lack and then pop two mercs to get by with just about everything. Somehow thats ok but the original group from a toon makeup is being bastardized by a select core of tanks. You guys are drawing lines in the sand based on your circumstances and claiming its for the good for everyone. Its not. Aristo made changes because pets were not taking upper DI hits thats broken, pets suddenly becoming so support dependent to tank is another issue entirely and he seems to be addressing it further with continued tuning upwards with AC and HPS to get it back to reasonable again but with upper DI hits now. Anything less is bad for the game in general no matter how much people want to claim otherwise as at no point were pets ever better then tanks or threatening their roles.

I'm sorry Sheex, like I said the SK's who molo'd RoT and AH are friends of mine, I can see if they have logs but I doubt it as they almost never parse ( tank classes generally don't unless it's for a very specific reason, specially molo ). Also, you may be maxed on most things, but they are max on EVERYTHING, I don't know if this is the difference between you guys but I would suspect so. They are t1 raid geared as well. ( I'm really not trying to be a comparing you to them, but I've actually seen them molo the nameds I'm talking about so I know it's possible.)

I didn't say that I want pets to stay as is, in fact if you look back through pages you'll see I admit they were OP ( before the stealth nerf ) and indeed needed to be brought down a peg..Instead of small change in pets it was a very drastic change though. It's why we're on change 4.0, with each change increasing the pets power.

Do I think classes should be diverse and able to do things others can't? Yes I do. Why? Because EQ isn't cookie cutter, not all classes are the same or equal. Some are harder to play than others, some are easier to learn but harder to master. That is why we love EQ.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have to cast a rune here or a heal there, but having to chain cast to keep a pet up, or constantly use AA runes or spells while employing a merc isn't the way Mages were intended, how I know this is because from inception that's not the way they've been. Solo, sure. Grouped with a cleric? No.

Enchanters get mez, Bards don't even have to stop to cast ( sing ), SK's have FD along with a ton of tanking discs and lifetap spells to keep them up, Warriors are beefy as all h*** and when they disc there isn't a single class that can compare. I could go on but need I?

I want pet's in a place where we can solo, self sufficiently. When you add a cleric into the group, I expect them to be able to keep them up well for the most part on any given trash. Nameds I would expect to have to help support a bit, but not diverting more than 20% of my time into heals/runes. The cleric is there for a reason, not to just stand around sucking my plat.

If you think this is unreasonable I don't know what to tell you, this is the way the dev's are pointing as the first nerf has been modified several times increasing the power of pets each time.

You may say you have no class envy, but when you say, x class can do this but y class can't, that's showing your true motive and how you really feel.

Edit: Since we're on the next page I wanted to also add..RS pets still need an increase on their AC/HP as they are still dying much to quick in a raid setting ( even on live ) OR the amount of pets needed for a fully effective Salvo needs to be dropped down a bit, as is I almost never get the full salvo hit which is effecting my DPS, Mage DPS was not to be fiddled with in this perf( pet nerf )

Again, tell us which mobs in t2 and I'll go give it a try. Willing to bet I'm as maxed out as your pals. The easiest one I could find in rot was Garath Sulfada and I would lose molo without rog box and his additional merc, that probably quadrupled my kill speed if not more.

Envy is completely the wrong word. I'm fine with what my toons can/cannot do, that's why I have more than 1. But that doesn't mean if someone can achieve 90% of the progression with 25% of the effort involved that I'm not going to say that seems a bit out of whack.

The majority of the pet folks posting here are saying exactly that - don't change them. I think the devs are doing it fine the way it's being done currently with changes and feedback.

Pet folks (still) have it pretty darn good.

Sheex, you know you compared SK to Mages in the way they solo, saying if you can't do that why should Mages. Not sure why you're trying to say you didn't. To me that is envy, I guess we both understand envy as two completely different things?

As for the nameds in T2, why not look at your hunter achievement? They molo'd them all. If you have the same gear and the same AA and they did what you could not then I'd have to assume there was another variable. Maybe it's experience in moloing, maybe it's skill at the class. Not saying your a horrible SK, I just know what I've seen and for you to try to say, it's not possible..Well that just makes me laugh.

Just because some Mages say something, don't lump us ALL in the same bunch. I do 200k+ on a good raid burn, most won't touch that. A lot want their pet to hold 50% of their dps, I think that's completely ridiculous.

It's obvious that what Mages want is a viable tank on trash and nameds, this doesn't mean we don't want to throw a rune or heal here or there, but it doesn't mean we want to spend 50% of our time on runes/heals.

Like I said 20% of the time throwing a rune or heal on a named mob while pet is tanking is ok, no reason it should be more with a cleric in group ( merc or otherwise ). Soloing is a totally different story, I think we need to spend a good portion of our time helping the pet out, healing or rune.

If you make it so that pets need support on every mob with a merc, you're basically killing our solo game. If you can't wrap your head around that, then I don't think you need to be involved in this conversation or this thread.

Also! RS pets need an AC/HP raise as is they make Salvo almost impossible to get a full powered nuke off. I know you guys already threw some to them, I think they need just a little more ( nothing huge, just a tad more AC/HP or some more mitigation or avoidance )

I appreciate all that you data parsing players are doing. In my limited playtime i'd rather login and work towards goals than play calculator all day ( to quote Rainbowdash). Keep it up guys, so i can play the game when i login.

And they will continue to be able to do so post these changes. Just not quite so easily.

Have no issues at all with the tuning. What I'm arguing about are the folks whining saying it was perfectly fine previously, don't change it. It wasn't, and I'm glad devs are addressing it.

No, they didn't molo Master Sage and that's ridiculous to assume because they have the check mark they molo'd it. Box crews are one thing, moloing is another. Give a real example or it's just defensive bs and posturing.

I get it. Pet folks want to send in their pet and blow up the named, and that if you have to devote too much to keeping the pet alive then it is negatively impactful on dps and what's capable at all.

All I'm arguing for is a middle ground, which if reading the original post that's exactly where devs are shooting for.

Sheex, what server are you on and what's your main ( SK) name? I'd like to look up your Magelo please.

Drinal and haven't used Magelo in years. But have full t1 cof raid gear in every slot other than helm being burden of truth reward, Freedom of the Power.

If your sk friends claim to molo all t2 names, I want some of the crack they're smoking.

And you are wrong. Not every pet class is a mage and not every pet is the same. So no we are not getting by nor do we just have to work harder at it now. My raid focused pet with max AA, non stop support from me and the mob slowed just gets by on single trash now. Unless you look at weak mob parses from the entry zone of the expansion. Toss in a time where 2 mobs are on aggro be it a roamer, scripted or timed add, bad pathing and rather then having some time to get it under control my pet vanishes in a round or two and I barely have time to fd. Or toss a weak named or mini from a quest or task and again my pets toast now. So sorry if you say its fair now that mage pets get by with more work now and everyone else is just sol but its not.

Aristo has two options to not kill necro and bst pets: he either tunes our pets to be more inline with the earth pet, which is still capable of handling 2 yellow con mobs in argin and getting by with more work after the changes. Or he tunes our pets to do just under that like 2 dark blue mobs from argin or one yellow mob in argin with minimal support and ignores that most likely mage earth pets then tank 2-4 mobs at a time like a player tank can. Then we can say pets are getting by now after the changes just with more support.

I've repeatedly said nec pets need to be beefed up and a lot of the community continues to seem to agree, tanks included. Base line tuning on mag earth pet seems to be a bad thing.

The big problem here seems to be people not considering, that healer mercs aren't part of the mage class. They are a hired healer to take the place of a group healer. I see people saying we should have to spend time healing our pets. I agree, I either have to heal my pet or get someone else to do it, which is what my healer merc is for. I hire it and give it half of my exp, so I can dps the mob, instead of spending my time healing my pet.

If I were in a group with a player cleric and my pet was tanking, should I have to sit there and heal my pet along with the cleric against normal exp mobs?? That would be ridiculous to expect! Pets should need no help, with a dedicated healer in the group healing it, against anything but tough named mobs.

As far as the necro pet goes. I have a 100 necro that I have played since 99. I will say that I sometimes play my necro without a pet. I NEVER play my mage without a pet. I believe that necro pets should be tough and close to an earth pet, but the mage class relies on their pet to survive.

Seems easier if they would have just given non pet classes another active merc...sheesh.