Test Update 8/5/2014 - Pet Changes Round Two

Denial

( That's what you seem to think is the only baseline to compare a pet.) Yes I think how a pet tanks on a normal basis should be based on how a tank tanks on a normal basis. Anything else is irrelevant to ridiculous. I don't see a lot of tanks log in and say I think I will only boost mob hate tonight in my group. After all who needs survivability.

(1000 mana from a spell bar, 1.5 second recast, 1 reagent needed. ) This is irrelevant info on what a spell cost to me a pet tank shouldn't eat and entire mana bar. The same goes for a warrior as we can rotate rest between mobs and rarely need endurance.

( Survivability running 100% of the time... So, you zone into a neriak HA and pop Last Stand for the first 2 mob pull? ) I use last stand when it is needed. This is depending on how many and of what I pulled. No I don't click LS just randomly as it pops but I normally use 3 basic combos that allow me to keep survivability running 100% of the time.

( That's the best possible mitigation for a tank in the game. It's not something a pet should be compared to at all. ) Also just so you know there are ways to keep survivability near LS when it down. No I didn't say raw mitigation but the same basic survivability. Therefore this is just more unhelpful statements to drive home a need for nerfs.

( Just cause a defensive warrior can tank it, or make the parse look like nothing, doesn't mean a pet should. ) When testing the tanking ability of anything I would say yes. You should pet tank as you normally would. Just like you should play a warrior as you normally would. To me what someone takes just standing there taking damage using nothing is an unrealistic scenario to begin with. I don't tweak parses I tank same way all the time. I think pets need to remain functional as the are a part of the class core. So what they take in DI is meaningless to me as a correctly played tank will out tank them every time. Granted I may not is a agro and stand there 5 hours but that to me is a joke. Why would I do that when I can use stuff to stay alive. It is an unrealistic situation and I don't try to base a classes ability on unrealistic situations.

(**Fixing** pets will fix their broken unintended tanking ability. ) More of the same post over and over.....

( Defend it with whatever cherry coating you want, the big daddy devs have made it known they also know pets were borked. ) Again more of the same. I use actual tanking between warrior and pet. Also it wasn't a 3 to 4 minute sweet spot some mentioned. Don't really matter how long it last if you rotate correctly a pet does much worse that a player. I think class abilities should be based on what a class can do weather its a mage, necro, beast, or warrior. Not what alot do who don't use what the class is capable of. One more time if the pet out tanks you normally. Then don't point to the pet as the problem because it isn't the pet its you.

Brutial
Warrior on Bristlebane

Please undo all pet changes, I think they were unnecessary.

I don't understand parses. Don't have a parser, wouldn't know how to run one, etc..

I just know my pet is worthless now. I was so excited to have been able to purchase a EM17 focus after completion of many raids and didn't even get to enjoy it or see what it;d do as the nerf came out within hours of acquiring it.

How is it that mages with a EM15+ (which imo only a small percentage of mages have EM over 15) pet would cause such a rift in the entire EQ game.

I wasn't able to solo/molo CoTF T1 or T2 nameds before nerf, RoF T2, VoA T2 nameds, never been able to take Roon or Shoon on my own, etc...

Maybe I am just a bad Mage, or EQ player, but the game was tough enough for me where I had to be cautious in all recently added content (ToR, Argin, PoW) and also had to be careful in T2 and above content of CoTF, RoF and VoA.

Now, I have to be careful in VoA T1 content at lvl 100. Pet dies very fast even with J5 cleric mercenary, my interest to play has been demolished, my interest to purchase any future expansions is also gone as it will only be another part of Norath where my pet will be even more worthless than what he is now in current content.

Please reconsider any/all changes that have been done to pets and just revert them to what they were before.

Thank you,
Sostenes

2882 hits over ~34mins
EM12 naked air pet (RoF T1) summoned by level 96 magician vs trash mob in Plane of Shadow

DI1 = 37.6%
DI20 = 3.7%

Bashan showed he tanks significantly better than a pet. That’s the deal. It’s the starting place before consideration of any of the proposed changes being discussed.

In addition to that starting place as you move to multiple mob encounters PC tanks have an even greater advantage. And multi-mob encounters are a routine part of this game.

In addition to all of that Pets already can’t tank or are a bad choice to tank in 2 of the 3 zones released in recent history.

So if the aim is to actually keep customers then what we are doing here equates to an unnecessary risk to the business. One that isn’t justified.

Engaged two mobs this morning. I'm posting the Firband the Black just because it's in my log file. If I could get Firband out and run a parse with just him against my pet I would. The adds killed me quickly so no chance of getting a reasonable log this morning.

This morning I did a /reset aa command on the test server. These are with a EM15 earth pet with burnout and two summoned swords and my merc on reactive. No other buffs, no aa's.

Firband the Black on 8/7/2014 in 19sec
Total
--- DMG: 33290 (100%) @ 1752 dps (1664 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 162190 @8110dps
Jabtik
--- DMG: 33285 (99.98%) @ 1752 dps (1664 sdps)
------ Total: 33285 -- Slash: 28824 -- DirDmg: 2492 -- Bash: 1434 -- Kick: 535
------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG)
------ Attempts: 50 -- Hits: 33 -- Misses: 15 -- Defended: 2 -- Accuracy: 68.8%
--- DMG to PC: 162190 @8110dps
Tweelis
--- DMG: 5 (0.02%) @ 5 dps (0 sdps)
------ Total: 5 -- DirDmg: 5
------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG)
------ Attempts: 1 -- Hits: 1 -- Misses: 0 -- Defended: 0 -- Accuracy: 100%
--- Special: X
Special: 7: 7th yr vet G: Glyph K: Kiss S: Staunch X: Slain $: Saved by DI
Produced by GamParse v1.0.3

/G Tanking summary for: Jabtik --- Total damage: 162190 --- Avg hit: 6238 --- Swings: 39 --- Defended: 9 (23.1%) --- Hit: 26 (66.7%) --- Missed: 4 (10.3%) --- Accuracy: 86.7% --- Dodged: 2 (6.3%) --- Parried: 2 (5.9%) --- Blocked: 5 (12.8%) --- Riposted: 0 (0%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

Jabtik - vs - Firband the Black
Attempts 39 100%
Missed 4 10.26%
Dodged 2 5.13%
Parried 2 5.13%
Blocked 5 12.82%
Riposted 0 0%
Absorbed 0 0%
1788 2 5.13%
2510 8 20.51%
3234 1 2.56%
3957 1 2.56%
4680 2 5.13%
6127 2 5.13%
6850 2 5.13%
9020 1 2.56%
10467 1 2.56%
11190 1 2.56%
11913 3 7.69%
13360 1 2.56%
16253 1 2.56%

Here's the info for the Frost Giant Captain, same one in Eastern Wastes as all my previous tests. As noted above, this is a fresh EM15 earth pet with summoned swords, reset aa command, J5 merc and burnout rank 2.

A frost giant captain on 8/7/2014 in 765sec
Total
--- DMG: 1415267 (100%) @ 1850 dps (1850 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 4468811 @5880dps
Jibarer
--- DMG: 1415262 (100%) @ 1850 dps (1850 sdps)
------ Total: 1415262 -- Slash: 1251824 -- DirDmg: 107170 -- Bash: 38718 -- Kick: 17550
------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG)
------ Attempts: 2122 -- Hits: 1348 -- Misses: 612 -- Defended: 162 -- Accuracy: 68.8%
--- DMG to PC: 4468811 @5880dps
Tweelis
--- DMG: 5 (0%) @ 5 dps (0 sdps)
------ Total: 5 -- DirDmg: 5
------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG)
------ Attempts: 1 -- Hits: 1 -- Misses: 0 -- Defended: 0 -- Accuracy: 100%
Special: 7: 7th yr vet G: Glyph K: Kiss S: Staunch X: Slain $: Saved by DI
Produced by GamParse v1.0.3

Player (or in this case pet) DPS
Jibarer -vs- A frost giant captain: -- DMG: 1415262 -- DPS: 1850 -- Scaled: 1850 -- Slash: 1251824 -- DirDmg: 107170 -- Bash: 38718 -- Kick: 17550 -- Non-crit rate: 100% -- Attempts: 2122 -- Hits: 1348 -- Missed: 612 -- Defended: 162 -- Accuracy: 68.8% -- Avg Hit: 1049 -- Max hit: 1435 -- DMG to PC: 4468811

Spells and discs
A frost giant captain on 8/7/2014
Jibarer - 94
--- Earth Elemental Strike IX - 94
Produced by GamParse v1.0.3

Tanking Stats:
Tanking summary for: Jibarer --- Total damage: 4468811 --- Avg hit: 4334 --- Swings: 1391 --- Defended: 246 (17.7%) --- Hit: 1031 (74.1%) --- Missed: 114 (8.2%) --- Accuracy: 90% --- Dodged: 23 (2%) --- Parried: 55 (4.3%) --- Blocked: 118 (8.5%) --- Riposted: 50 (4.1%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

Jibarer - vs - A frost giant captain (BASH)
Attempts 701 100%
Missed 60 8.56%
Dodged 12 1.71%
Parried 29 4.14%
Blocked 57 8.13%
Riposted 21 3%
Absorbed 0 0%
1213 37 5.28%
1516 13 1.85%
1623 111 15.83%
1640 1 0.14%
1954 1 0.14%
2028 34 4.85%
2034 14 2%
2444 12 1.71%
2542 8 1.14%
2856 15 2.14%
3055 5 0.71%
3266 17 2.43%
3569 4 0.57%
3676 10 1.43%
4013 1 0.14%
4082 3 0.43%
4088 14 2%
4498 8 1.14%
4595 3 0.43%
4606 1 0.14%
4618 1 0.14%
4909 17 2.43%
5109 2 0.29%
5320 18 2.57%
5338 1 0.14%
5622 6 0.86%
5645 1 0.14%
5656 1 0.14%
5730 21 3%
5845 1 0.14%
6056 1 0.14%
6136 3 0.43%
6141 13 1.85%
6262 1 0.14%
6342 1 0.14%
6552 10 1.43%
6649 4 0.57%
6772 1 0.14%
6783 1 0.14%
6963 6 0.86%
7162 5 0.71%
7373 11 1.57%
7596 1 0.14%
7676 5 0.71%
7784 8 1.14%
7999 1 0.14%
8189 7 1%
8195 1 0.14%
8412 1 0.14%
8605 6 0.86%
8628 1 0.14%
8703 5 0.71%
9016 8 1.14%
9142 1 0.14%
9216 3 0.43%
9427 16 2.28%
9729 3 0.43%
10154 1 0.14%
10170 1 0.14%
10243 1 0.14%
10477 1 0.14%
10574 1 0.14%
10756 4 0.57%
10974 1 0.14%
11270 1 0.14%
11783 6 0.86%

Jibarer - vs - A frost giant captain (SLASH)
Attempts 665 100%
Missed 54 8.12%
Dodged 11 1.65%
Parried 24 3.61%
Blocked 60 9.02%
Riposted 28 4.21%
Absorbed 0 0%
1623 115 17.29%
1948 1 0.15%
2028 24 3.61%
2034 26 3.91%
2327 1 0.15%
2444 18 2.71%
2468 1 0.15%
2542 2 0.3%
2856 17 2.56%
3055 6 0.9%
3266 14 2.11%
3569 1 0.15%
3676 10 1.5%
3991 1 0.15%
4082 3 0.45%
4088 14 2.11%
4105 1 0.15%
4300 1 0.15%
4498 16 2.41%
4504 1 0.15%
4595 2 0.3%
4829 1 0.15%
4909 15 2.26%
5109 4 0.6%
5320 20 3.01%
5622 4 0.6%
5730 16 2.41%
6136 5 0.75%
6141 16 2.41%
6170 1 0.15%
6552 9 1.35%
6565 1 0.15%
6570 1 0.15%
6649 1 0.15%
6672 1 0.15%
6950 1 0.15%
6963 11 1.65%
6987 1 0.15%
7088 1 0.15%
7162 5 0.75%
7373 11 1.65%
7590 2 0.3%
7676 1 0.15%
7784 10 1.5%
8120 1 0.15%
8189 3 0.45%
8195 12 1.8%
8212 1 0.15%
8605 5 0.75%
8703 3 0.45%
9016 5 0.75%
9040 1 0.15%
9216 1 0.15%
9427 18 2.71%
9563 1 0.15%
9621 1 0.15%
9729 1 0.15%
10162 2 0.3%
10243 3 0.45%
10466 1 0.15%
10756 2 0.3%
10757 1 0.15%
10798 1 0.15%
10888 1 0.15%
11270 5 0.75%
11401 1 0.15%
11783 5 0.75%

Jibarer - vs - A frost giant captain (KICK)
Attempts 25 100%
Missed 0 0%
Dodged 0 0%
Parried 2 8%
Blocked 1 4%
Riposted 1 4%
Absorbed 0 0%
1214 6 24%
1218 1 4%
1221 1 4%
1224 2 8%
1228 2 8%
1230 3 12%
1233 2 8%
1237 1 4%
1248 1 4%
1535 1 4%
1548 1 4%

IF these changes manage to make it live:

i) RS pet needs restoration. This became a serous defensive off-tank tool right when it was introduced in DoDH. Turning it into a puff is a horrible idea. It EVAPORATES. No kidding.

ii) Aegis of Nefori and Ausipice of Shadows will be used a LOT and need their damage absorption upped significantly and recast time lowered. Remember how they used to work? Complete absorption of X hits?

I'd like to have that back, but I know it won't happen, so how about a compromise? The damage absorbed, cast times, and recast times need to be looked at.

Aegis takes too long to cast considering the differential in helpfulness between that spell and Auspice. (I've been playing with this in a Cooper HA and both buffs disintegrate very quickly and then there's a very long recast.)

By the way, as often as those spells will be used, our DPS will suffer badly.

iii) A baseline must be set that is NOT predicated on how an EM20 pet will sustain damage in current content. The high end should not dictate how other pets perform. Use the EM15 pet so it's a target for groupers as a baseline and scale up from there. This baseline should be announced so we all know how to judge what's going on.

IMO that baseline is a variant of the old

"Mage and pet can solo a blue out of the box"

to

"Mage with EM15 and Merc can molo 2 DBs with relative ease." And scale up from there so the EM20 people saying "look how much better we are doing than when we were at EM15!"

As I've already said, these changes shouldn't even be made, but it is made worse when it is a sweeping change of every pet and sub-pet (like our groundswell DOH!) for all classes. When you experiment, change variables one at a time and judge the response. This IS experimental. In experiments you never change everything and say WTH when it goes live..

With this HUGE across the board change you will be inundated from all sides from all the pet classes, and just end up with a huge pile of sloppy spaghetti over your desks wondering how to placate the players and be true to your vision.

iv) Again, this whole thing never should have happened in the first place, as wrong-headed analyses and class envy of mages (hybrid of crappy tank and crappy wizard) were the impetus behind the uproar. Every time I see "OP" when applied to Mages I simply /boggle.

v) It's not a BAD thing to say "oops". Just say "oops" OR make the changes so moderate as not to alienate such a large part of your player base. And do that with a smile, and we will probably smile back. Say "oops" or some variant of that and let's get on with the whole community still liking their OWN classes and being responsible for what is right and good for change.

vi) Rather than make a qualified "oops" just say "oops" and scrap the whole thing. It is simply nuts. Just look at the outcry. For WEEKS it is all I've seen on these boards. Put it to rest, man, and it won't hurt a thing. Just leave it be, and dig out from all the OTHER stuff that's surely piling up in your in-boxes by now.

Seems all these tests are from Argin Hiz. Arent the trash mobs there all root immune and thus removing a sizable part of the earth pets defense? Has anyone parsed the difference in hp and ac on the em15 and em20 pets? Currently it looks like youll do singles easy until the cows come home but not solo multiples in the very end zone of the group game. I would say that is not half bad.

4k HPS is not even remotely comparable to what Paladins and SKs push out in self healing while in survival mode.

Pets have no 'survival mode' and certainly not when the mage is spamming heals aka no aegis rotations.

You are again posting parses of passive DI mitigation without even taking into account what players have available to them in a stressful situation.

Nyrlem is absolutely correct and so is Bashan.

And before you try to shift all the blame onto the devs, Aristo/Roshen's posts showed that they had no clue about what the actual parity between players and pets were. Just the statement that the old pets out-tanked players in nearly every situation says they had no idea what was going on, and were going off of your carefully tailor made DI parses that in no way captures practical scenarios.

I said even before these changes what the logical outcome is going to be - necro pets become trash, earth pets become the only viable mage tank for current content, and BST pets become the best tanks as a whole not because they out-tank mage earth pets but because BSTs have the absolute best active abilities. All of this has come to pass.

Having read the earlier post I went to Argin Hiz and got my A** KICKED. It was horrible. I use EM19 btw, which isn't EM20 but it's not bad either. I try to get singles as often as I can with my velious snowball, fade, and companion, but sometimes you have NO CHOICE but to get adds.

I was fighting blue trash and got an add. One add. One blue add.

It was me,my merc (on reactive), and my pet. I'm not a bad Mage, and can usually handle even ferocious situations, but these TWO BLUES made me gate out of there.

Wow. Now that was a real eye-opener. Could it be just bad RNG stacks? Maybe. But man,those mobs were ripping my fully buffed earth pet to SHREDS.

sigh

grumble

Bara

The RS pet nerf in combination with the normal pet nerf is completely devastating to mages. One / the other has to be reverted. Otherwise, mages are a broken class for soloing/moloing.

Have you seen a full group geared war in that situation? We were in the tunnels and had 2 mercs on reactive and when we would get 2 it was a very bad situation. even under defensive his hp bar was jumping around to dangerous levels, and we wiped once because of a 3 pull. So I would say yeah, sounds about right.

Well he said he's using EM19 so not the best comparison there eh?

As I keep saying ad nauseam there should be a "golden standard" by which pets are then scaled.

When Mages were finally getting back on track, Rytan implicitly agreed that a Mage pet out of the box with his Mage should be able to handle a blue mob with relative ease. Everything additional scaled from that standard. And thus we raced for foci.

We need a new golden standard, since mercs arrived.

I think a reasonable standard is that a Mage with EM15 AND A J5 MERC should be able to handle 2 blues out of the box (and fully buffed) without too much stress.

This gives the players with lower than EM15 a target to shoot for, and players at the raid level a level to shoot for a better target than EM15. And thus we'll race for foci.

Using that reasoning, my EM19 pet, which is a raid-focused pet, shouldn't have been walloped even as my RS pets were evaporating into thin air.

It was an eye-opener. Really. I couldn't believe it. That keeps looping 'round and 'round in my mind as I think of it. I just can't believe it.

Bara

I don't really play a pet class, just seems to me that almost every post reacting to these changes mention the inability to tank 2 or 3 blue/white/yellow depending on EM level and zone. Partly due to RS nerf, partly due to main pet no longer being able to handle multiple mobs. Point being, that the pre-nerf pets were just so very good at mitigating that it didn't matter that they lacked evasion or activated abilities. Now that they don't have the same afk tanking power, it seems logical to me to go for better runes perhaps, or some other means of survival in multimob scenario, in light of how many mages seem to use this as a measuring stick. Which is logical, since mages don't have much in way of CC they need pets to be able to handle more than one mob at a time. Or so it seems to me.

It was one parse back then. Makavien, after refusing for a while claiming it wasn't a worthwhile method of testing did one parse. And u did one vs an array of trash mobs with various debuffs that had too many variables to be statistically relevant

One parse

This comment stood out to me the most in the thread. It tells me that tanks have problems compared to magician pets, as has been the general opinion throughout all of this. It's like when everyone was starting shadowknights to swarm, rangers to headshot and berserkers to decap. Going back further, it's like when everyone was running six wizards around for manaburn teams.

It tells me that one aspect of the class is overpowered and potentially broken, only in the case of the magician it's a more key aspect than the other classes. It tells me that people playing other classes are noting that, and moving over to abuse and exploit the new flavor of the month class before nerfs hit. After that, people who have been playing the class longer than it's been the flavor of the month are going to get upset because they knew they had something good, but were doing their best to not draw attention to it.

Also, I would really encourage the devs to put up a fish on Test with lower rank EMs for people to test or people playing group geared mages to copy and test specifically using group focuses only. They're not going to get good parses related to grouping mages from test with all those testcopied EM20s from Firiona Vie. It's going to end up hurting grouping mages in the end much worse than raid geared mages if they don't have that data.

actually the problem with many are they were not used to using their runes and when to use them. They have fine activated spells and AA, they just have to learn like a tank, when to use them to give the healer time to catch up. as for CC, there are many places that you can go and pull singles, you just have to practice at it. for the places you want to go that requires it, here is a novel idea, get someone that can grab a single to join you

Should that be true for all classes then? If not, why?

I have also seen many switch from tank and healers to mages, another dps classes because its less stress. in the old days tanking wasn't nearly as stressful as it is now. you have split second decisions to make or you die and the group wipes. a dps can make a mistake and it wont cause the group to suffer, thus being way less stressful. Mage is the easiest to switch to because of the pet, and the lack of support needed to help them catch up. Healers are the same as tanks they have to be reactive in a split second to keep the group going.

Yeah, but the damage caps on a lot of the pet stuff is very low, for whatever reason, maybe devs didn't like the single target tanking potential (why they removed the original aegis with no cap at all iirc). Also, fortify companion apparently has a 15 minute cooldown (presumably with max hastened AA, but unsure here) which seems long.