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

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by Aristo, Aug 12, 2014.

  1. Necromonious Augur

    Lifetaps are kinda unfair. It is both survivability and damage all in one. Shadowknights should have to choose. You can either heal yourself, or damage the mob. Not both. Lol, sorry little role reversal.

    Anyway, knight's probably don't memorize a lot of DPS spells for the same reason dps classes with spells ignore roughly half the dps spells in their spellbooks. Because either their benefit is marginal, or it is at too great of a cost (in this case, the spell slot, time, mana, etc). I'm going to be in the same boat, wondering if there's a reason to devote a precious spell gem to a mage pet heal that is only barely worth the time to cast **if** I get a crit....I'd wonder if I should rather only use runes (which are actually worth a crap) and dps and let the pet possibly die, at least the group would be more equipped to deal with the situation because the mob would be that much closer to dead...than wasting my time trying to chain pet 28k heals when a pet is taking 20-30k dps from multiple mobs
  2. Daegun Augur

    Lifetaps are also a lot less predictable as anyone who has played a necro or sk will be able to tell you.

    Most heals are based off raw base + Criteria potential. For sk and necro, you've got:

    -nothing crits
    -nuke crits, heal does not
    -nuke does not crit, heal does
    -both crit - jackpot

    Is it damage and a heal all rolled in one? Yes but the damage is pretty weak.

    All in all, sk self healing outside of epic I've anecdotally experienced is quite a bit lower than paladin self healing. Taps get the job done, but the way they are balanced (double crit jackpot vs no crit suck as opposed to say - a paladin) makes it much less predictable.

    Ps - your pet will only ever see '20-30'k dps on t2 trash if you are pulling 3-4 mobs each with about 8-8.5k dps and your pet is simply standing there ... And you don't help them.

    Run the math. Single mob 8k base averaged down to 3.5k with intervention. Assuming you don't slow the add you're looking at 3.5 + 8k dps - 11.5k total dps. If you're ever caught taking 20-30k dps - you screwed up your pull. 3 mobs is about 24k assuming you do nothing to help and do not slow any of them. 4 mobs ... 32k.
    Sheex likes this.
  3. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    I would challenge you to level up a knight to 100 and see what it's like. I did that with a necro recently and it's been a good learning experience. More folks should play more toons to see the other side of the coin.

    And no beastlord comparison? They get disciplines as well, but I guess that's not convenient enough to your analogy to be worth mentioning. In theory the hybrid classes have more stuff, therefore they are more powerful? I've seen monks do things rangers would struggle with, so those rangers with a spell bar on top of their disciplines must be doing something wrong, eh?

    Interestingly enough, it seems like most of the community agrees that pet abilities are (at least) a little bit underpowered. But instead of asking for those to be increased, or to have them perhaps given as AA abilities so it doesn't impact what spells you're memming (this would be a decent compromise, no?), folks are sticking with the "revert all changes" line.
  4. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    Exactly this. The base damage on my biggest tap right now (short of 36m reuse Leech Touch) is 7879 damage, and that's a longer (25s) reuse tap. The "standard" tap is 4043 hp base (12s reuse). It reminds me of dps'ing with a wizard - either you're critting and it's amazing, or you're not and it's mediocre. These are also with a 1s cast time, and you'd be astounded how often we get interrupted even with 1 mob. In short it's nowhere near as reliable as an actual healer.

    I wonder - would it be possible to have necro pets lifetap proc or cast? That might be a good, class appropriate way for them to offset their weaker stats compared to the mage earth pet.
  5. Daegun Augur

    Another thing to consider for sk is that they are on different timers with lockouts. A sk wanting to maximize sf heal potential has to dedicate 4 spell gems to 4 different lifetaps and still can't chain them nonstop. Cooldowns can and will get in the way.

    4 taps = 1/3 of your spell bar occupied.
  6. menown Augur

    I vote for giving SKs swift DoTs. Then I can start soloing on my SK instead of my Necro. Make it happen Daegun!!
  7. Khauruk Augur


    Beastlords, Rangers, Druids, and SKs should all be getting dots that are max 4 tick duration in order for them to be more worth using.

    It's not your point, of course, but non-necro/sham dots really need to be revamped, for a decade now.
    Sheex likes this.
  8. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    I agree. It'd be nice to have 1-3 high damage, super high mana cost dots I could actually use to some reasonable degree of effectiveness, instead of 9 that are borderline meaningless.
  9. Toxicaust Journeyman

    I mentioned in the last thread that I couldn't post a parse because my Gamparse was not working correctly. Beimeth responded in the thread asking me what version I was using. I sent him a detailed PM with my log and screenshots last week, but I'm still waiting for a response. So, again, as I'm unable to submit a parse, let's make sure we get some group-geared necros posting parses in this thread, thanks.
  10. Necromonious Augur

    Slowing and spamming runes is not killing the mob...with my gear and the way slow works on high levels, I'm far better off just dps'ing. A resist on slow (which is likely on T2) is wasted time, extra wasted mob uptime for the pet to take more damage

    No, my friend, spamming "intervention" spells against singles is just something YOU do to make your parses look good. And if I have multiples, I can't imagine a scenario where it isn't preferable to refresh aegis, groundswell, use RS, or prep a twin-cast spear or some heavy dps. There would have to be a time where all of those are on cd, and even then, I'd probably use an AA like replenish before I'd ever waste a second on mage pet heal.

    edit: I'm not asking for a boost to mage/necro pet spell defensive because I want it all. They're definitely better than they were before. But before they were useless. A spell gem for a necromancer especially, is an incredibly important thing. Seconds spent DPS'ing believe it or not, is still a survivability measure, as a dead mob deals no dps. Now that I have these new defensives clogging up my spell gems and a need to use them, it would be nice to know that using them is actually a good decision, mathmatically, in the given situation. Beastlord's, at least, have that security, in knowing their defensives can put up solid numbers
  11. Daegun Augur

    Slowing the mob and spamming runes uses up a surprisingly small amount of your time. I know - because I just did it yesterday over and over again.

    Cascading + block + heal + nuke/stun/skeleton

    4 spells

    8 longer dots
    6 longer dots + 2 swift
    7 longer dots + swarm
    5 longer dots + 2 swift + swarm

    With 8 long dots even spamming runes I was standing around a good quarter of the time doing nothing. Swifts or swarm pets gave me more things to do. Swarm + swifts + conventional dots and I was still having some down time. Average damage output not using burns, cooldowns, spires etc was a cool, ridiculously laid back (ie not much effort) dps over 17k with all fights averaged.

    Remember that all of your runes/blocks have shortmoderate to moderate refresh timers. Even spamming them on refresh you're going to have 75 percent or more of your time.
  12. Necromonious Augur

    Aegis has a very long cast, for mages anyway, compared to any other spell they own. You know what else takes very little time than slowing? Casting marnek and ignite thoughts which creates hundreds of thousands of potential damage in seconds. Sure you'll get those down too, I'll just be way ahead on damage done. Offense is defense too, you can't prove that the spike that would kill your pet wouldn't come 10-20 seconds after I killed the mob that you would have otherwise still been fighting. And a resist completely derails you and makes all your effort a waste (minus the scintillate damage lawl)

    There should be no second where you are doing nothing on a necro. Do you want me to line up a rotation for you? Assuming you've correctly staggered marnek + 3-5 DoT's with your swifts and swarm, then you have just enough time to weave in Impel for Blood (incredibly useful for the huge dps boost you can get from the recourse) during the 1 second of downtime before your swarm or first swift dot refreshes, and that's assuming NO runes were used

    Edit: oh I didn't know if you knew this, but necromancers get 3 swift DoT's at level 100 that don't share cooldown

    What? No, just no. First off, you need heavy damage fast the harder the mobs get. And by the description you were giving, I think your dps is really low (for necro)
  13. Daegun Augur

    Sounds like you have a hard decision to make then. Risk it and dps nonstop or slow down your damage and make your pet sturdier. When a ranger steps up to take anything they take a huge hit to their damage by simply equipping a shield. The most potent knight discs actually decrease personal dmg output. Opting to cast defensive spells and heals is more potential dps lost. Simply equipping anything BUT a shield results in much lower damage output from warriors, some aa burns actually increase damage intake and offensive discs cannot be used while a defensive disc is running.

    Your last post makes it seem like the decision is not intentionally designed that way or a flaw. It's not. You've got a choice now just like everyone else. Be prepared to not only make that choice but to accept the consequences of that choice. Roll the dice and try to kill it faster but decrease your pets chance at survival.

    It's not even a matter of whether you can or if the tools are available.

    Right now, necromonious, it's very clear that you simply don't want to need to use the tools you have.

    I'm fully aware of what spells necros have and how to use them. I've also plainly stated I wasn't trying and used no other extras. First time in the zone not knowing what to expect or how much I would need to support my pet - and being disappointed it wasn't as hard as I was hoping it would be after reading the crying in these threads. Point is - I wasn't really trying to optimize dps. In a scenario where more support an patch healing would be needed, having all that extra time with slow roasting dots would have come in very handy.

    Even so, I'd like to see parses from a group geared tank who can even match those piddly not-trying numbers while tanking with a merc - or even in a full group with adps support without burning any cooldowns.
    Zentara likes this.
  14. Necromonious Augur

    It was designed as a flaw. Pet defensives were originally designed so that pet classes could heal and protect their pet, by themselves, without a healer. With the combination of introduction of mercs + pet AC boosts + stagnating pet defensives, pet defensives became useless.

    Now, they have a use again, but they are still newer versions of old spells designed for non-merc play, and the pet classes function completely differently around them, in regards to how they dps and what spell gems they need to do it. It hits the one that needs them the most and has the fewest spell gems to spare. This entire balancing process is knee-jerk, pound the square block into the round hole, sort of crap. I've said it a million times before, they should have waited until the next expansion
  15. Zentara Augur

    It's interesting that the pet classes actually realize they have spells that can *already* increase pet survivability dramatically, but don't use them--and are so strongly refusing to accept the need to use them.

    Keep in mind the stated purpose by the devs: "pet tanking is too strong right now, and we want more active player interaction for survivability" (paraphrase). There is no way to argue against that really, since they've stated it's the entire purpose.
    Dre. likes this.
  16. Necromonious Augur

    You know what else is funny? That people think that just because pets were powerful, that players were never putting themselves in a challenging situation where they needed to "turtle up" with defensives and CC.

    Like you assumed all the pet classes just went around pulling 1 of the "looks fairly weak" blue con animals at a time and going "man everquest sure is borrrring!". Pet classes weren't using defensives as much before partly because....well, the defensives kinda sucked. Especially the heals. I remember reading the mage boards about tanking named and what defensives to use and how to stagger them and someone would ask about stopping to cast the heal and people would be like "lololol"
  17. Daegun Augur

    Aristo's actual post:

    Effort to keep them alive but not so much that trying to keep them alive isn't worthwhile.

    You have been shown many times that the effort pays off.
  18. Daegun Augur

    BL + Warder Solo (not molo) in Argin-Hiz:

    Methods: No mercenary was used. Beastlord played the part of tank, dps (if you can call it that) and healer all in one. Two fights slow and steady, didn't bust myself trying to eek out more dps - just keeping a cautious eye on pet health but I was generally casting more often than not. Fight one ended at 81% mana, second mob pulled and fight two ended at 57% mana.

    DI:
    [IMG]

    Round by round:
    [IMG]

    Spells cast:
    [IMG]

    Healing:
    [IMG]

    DPS averages:
    [IMG]

    Average dps on warder: 3968
    Group geared BL + warder outgoing dps without support: 8601

    Group SK with bard overhaste and other sundry adps:
    [IMG]

    Average incoming dps (cycling discs/abilities): 7511
    Average outgoing dps with bard overhaste/adps: 9666

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

    BL fights:

    Fights took just over 5 minutes apiece but this was the result of managing all incoming and outgoing dps instead of focusing on interventional (non-healing) support and outgoing dps. With a wizard merc, BL + merc will be mowing through mobs both faster and with a much higher margin of safety than a necromancer/mage would paired with a healer merc.

    In the round by rounds you can clearly see where Nefori and Auspice were used. As with most pets, it's not a matter of going from 100 to 0 lickety split, but rather a continuous attrition with some rounds being slightly higher than others. As such, I didn't wait for an "ideal" time to use them - it wasn't necessary and would have actually increased my mana burden via healing.

    All healing came from Salve of Blezon, with promised amelioration firing every 21-22sec and the beastlord warder heal over time (plus burst heal on expiration). Because of how parses catch it, the healing "total" only captures what came directly from Salve of Blezon.

    25 casts of Blezon = 1,366,793 healing = 53,471 heals per cast (some of this was lost on a crit heal and "overhealing").

    -Heal available every 5 seconds, spammed for the average above - that's 10,700 healing per second.

    Max turtling down heal potential (used every 5 seconds assuming worst case scenario):
    -Without any crits and assuming no over healing (ideal) - 9k heals per second if needed
    -With 100% crits (pipedream unrealistic ideal) and no overhealing 17-18k heals per second
    -With no overhealing (ideal but unlikely) and no overhealing - you're looking at a heal potential of up to 13-14k heals per second just from this one heal.

    For those moments where you're brutally getting thrashed on, overheal/underheal aside - you've got the ability to offset 13k damage per second just by casting this one spell every 5 seconds (1 sec cast, 4 sec refresh).

    Beastlord tanking capability is in a world of its own. Fewer and less potent interventional avoidance spells than necromancer, but heal potential that goes way beyond what one mercenary can handle. The trade off is lower effective dps at ranged, but as has already been parsed a BL using a cleric merc can still put up healthy dps numbers in the upper teens.
  19. Siddar Augur

    At no point do I ever recall pet classes saying they want to be able to heal there pets better then a cleric could.

    The entire idea is DPS, Main Healer, Tank in one class is bad

    Pet should be strong enough to survive trash mobs with a cleric merc healing them just as Tanks are. Pet classes should be able to heal pets less efficiently then a cleric merc when solo, and assist the cleric merc with healing pets versus named.
    Numzan likes this.
  20. Numzan Augur

    and we do already top off pets, atleast some do.

    the first round of tests had us spamming heals so much so on x2 white cons we lost the pet with a bot healer and merc. I hope the round 4 of tests show much better.

    Id like to know how many mages/necros, feel the need to not bother carrying forward feeling as I have.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.