Test Update 01/11/17 - Patch Notes and Discussion

Classic! Maybe post of the month material there.

Something is very broken with pets on test.

Here is a parse of my max AA, EM 23 Earth Pet on A Syldon drill sergeant on live (Burnout Rk. III and Surety Rk. II):

/g Tanking summary for: Puksu -- Total Melee -- Damage: 16736345 -- Avg hit: 7784 -- Attempts: 2584 -- Riposted: 36/2584 [1.39%] -- Parried: 61/2548 [2.39%] -- Dodged: 34/2487 [1.37%] -- Blocked: 104/2453 [4.24%] -- Defended: 235/2584 [9.09%] -- Missed: 199/2349 [8.47%] -- Hits: 2150/2584 [83.2%] -- Real Hits: 2150/2584 [83.2%]

Incoming DPS was 12207

Here's the same mob with the same conditions on test:

/g Tanking summary for: Puksu -- Total Melee -- Damage: 17851574 -- Avg hit: 12852 -- Attempts: 1679 -- Riposted: 35/1679 [2.08%] -- Parried: 33/1644 [2.01%] -- Dodged: 22/1611 [1.37%] -- Blocked: 70/1589 [4.41%] -- Defended: 160/1679 [9.53%] -- Missed: 130/1519 [8.56%] -- Hits: 1389/1679 [82.73%] -- Real Hits: 1389/1679 [82.73%]

Incoming DPS was 19725

That's a 65% increase in average hit and an accompanying 62% increase in incoming DPS. I don't know if this is related to the changes in how AC is displayed or something else, but I cannot stress how large of a nerf this is. I had 15.8 times as many DI 20 occurrences on test and approximately one third as many DI 1 occurrences.

Pet mitigation needs to be fixed before this goes live.

I guess all the jokes and sarcasm about Pets was taken seriously. You guys better zip about mod rods or they will become self only in the following patch.

Honestly I'm not completely convinced this isn't some dev's idea of cruel humor...

My guess is it's related to the fact that pets have no softcap.

That is, a player might have shown as having 15k AC when in reality they had 4k, but a pet that had 15k AC actually HAD 15k AC, (Read: Way too much) and now post-split they can actually (Read: easily) see the real AC values for players, they've adjusted pets down to match.

That's a complete and total guess not based on any type of fact or authority whatsoever.

Please don't let negative changes to pets go live, we've seen enough of this.

I'm pretty sure it's a bug, because no sane person would make a change this drastic.

For reference, here's my Mage tanking the same mob:

/g Tanking summary for: Sancus -- Total Melee -- Damage: 5056222 -- Avg hit: 11731 -- Attempts: 589 -- Dodged: 47/589 [7.98%] -- Blocked: 34/542 [6.27%] -- Defended: 81/589 [13.75%] -- Missed: 77/508 [15.16%] -- Hits: 431/589 [73.17%] -- Real Hits: 431/589 [73.17%]

I took 15900 incoming DPS.

So my Mage with H-Int Type 5's, SD Type 7 augs, a Combine PS, and no AC aug in my shield is taking less incoming DPS and has a lower average hit than my max AA, max focus Earth pet. I'll also add that was with merc buffs only, I didn't even put on self buffs.

Necro and Beastlord pets will fare even worse.

Not really sure what else to say.

/Agreed

Necro in full TBM raid gear (less AC than T2 EoK group gear) vs EoK only mobs from this month (including raid mobs)

/G Tanking summary for: Kunon --- Total Melee --- Damage: 41528954 --- Avg hit: 9728 --- Attempts: 6305 --- Dodged: 553/6305 [8.77%] --- Blocked: 331/5752 [5.75%] --- Defended: 884/6305 [14.02%] --- Missed: 969/5421 [17.87%] --- Hits: 4452/6305 [70.61%] --- Absorbed: 183/4452 [4.11%] --- Real Hits: 4269/6305 [67.71%]

So a Silkie in T2 Group gear will have that much better avoidance and mitigation than raid focused mage pets?

I could only image what those numbers would look like for a T2 Group Geared tank with and without their stances and other discs....

This would be where you all you Tank types jump in against this nerf to avoid those parses from appearing and getting you guys nerfed from the collatoral damage those parses would cause as the pet classes fight against it.

Very nice changes.

While you are at it, could you please also add a field for the current worn item attack value and its (current) cap including the relevant AA?

Thanks

Tlail

Wow. Parses percents (dodge/parry/block/miss) seem in line but mitigation seems bad.
Please don't break mage pets (but you can disable their ability to taunt in raids if you like)

Now I am really, really scared.

I don't scare easily, but we (3 players, 6 subbed accounts) are completely relying on my pet tanking.

If this goes live we are out of commission :-(

Sancus, I was wondering if you have posted your results in the bug thread? I saw other posts related to pet tanking, but perhaps the case would be even stronger if your data and name is there also?

Interesting. I guess it is a difficult story to tell that pets have higher AC than tanks, even though the resulting damage mitigation is worse; it could create a lot of noise, which could lead to the change... to maintain status quo, new mechanics for pet mitigation could be developed, which is a cascading dependency, always not ideal in software development. Balancing and debugging such new pet mitigation mechanics could take time and resources...

I see three options (given above Beimeith hypothesis is true):
A) Communicate the difference, and tell it will be adjusted later
B) Develop and balance a fix that lowers AC while keeps mitigation
C) Remove the ability to see AC on pets until further notice.

I like A the most, it changes least code, and good communication goes a long way. If not that, then C, no nice pet info upgrade, but at least our pets (and playability for a lot of us) is not broken. It does not seem realistic that a balance neutral fix can be developed in a short time. Especially since a lot of buffs that can land on pets are AC based, keeping all the different buff situations balance neutral would seem to be almost impossible (I think, I am no expert!).

If this issue only popped up on the bug fora yesterday, it might not have hit the team yet, but I am guessing that someone changed the AC from 15k to 4k, so ideally DB are already aware of it and have a strategy for it (or it is brewing in someones mind). It is unlikely that they will go live with it, it would negate the "Quality of Life" goal of the patch, and be detrimental to the brand value that they have built up with EoK etc. At least, I really, really hope that is the case.

Why would they adjust a hidden number you can't see? I guess it's possible they screwed up the AC summing function when they removed some preprocessors to get the softcap code into the client again, but there is no reason to adjust NPC AC that you can't see down.

Until and unless they give us a pet stats window, all we can do is guess. Ever since the great focus earring nerf of 3.5 or so years ago, my necro has tanked better than her pet. The only thing that keeps me from doing it more often than I do is the difficulty in applying dots (too long cast time, too many interrupts) while tanking. Why they'd have to nerf pets even further is a mystery, so I also hope this is a mistake.

Mistake or not, however, they have a long history of pushing broken content live once it hits Test because they allow insufficient time for testing and feedback between Test and Live patches.

I looked at the number displayed, but I do not understand the meaning of it. For example, the AC now shown as xxxx/yyyy. Now the tip said it is chance of taking less damage, when it shown like 5324, what does it mean? It means I am taking 5324 points less damage per 10000 points? How do I know what my opponent's Offense stat? We normally do not know the NPC's stat. Could someone explain this to me? Thank you.

Pets have been under assault for the better part of two years now at least. I really have no idea how mages in particular continue to play the class when a huge component of said class routinely gets stealth nerfed, downgraded, or just outright changed for the worse for no reason.

You can see Merc AC which probably works the same, and its like 1/3 the value on Test then it is on Live atm for same merc

Do I understand the patch notes correctly that instead of reporting AC, they're now reporting one statistic called "Evasion" and another one called "Mitigation"? Or do they still report "AC" but we don't really know whether they're talking about evasion or mitigation when they throw the number on our stats screen? If the merc AC value on Test is 1/3 of the value on Live, has anyone tried tanking with a merc to see how much worse off they are on Test than on Live? (I mean, they're terrible on Live, but they could be simply unplayable on Test.)

On a related note, has anyone tried RS or necro swarm pets yet to see if the pet nerf affects their mitigation, as well?

Hmm maybe they screwed up their #ifdefs like maybe the NPC branch is #ifdef'd out even on the server or something.

they report 2 stats for AC and 2 for Attack. When you mouse over (on default UI) it will tell you which is which.

So it says "Armor Class 1234 / 5678" or something. Then the tooltip over each number will tell you which is which