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

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

  1. Krag Lorekeeper

    Wow, my head is spinning from those parses. How is anyone supposed to read any of that data, there are a million different variables going on there, the numbers mean just about nothing. You basically are saying that if a mage burns over 60% of his mana, with a merc healer going nuts, they can survive a double pull. Ok that's fine, but is a little obscene for just trying to get some exp against group mobs, no?? I don't know if you are getting desperate to show some data, that will grab the attention of a dev?

    Stepping back a little if you can. Do you really think that nerfing pets will help this game's health? Will it make any other class better? Don't you think this game is mainly casual players who just want to log in and be able to do something? Why are you trying to take that away? You found a bug that was causing incorrect DI for pets. That doesn't mean that pets were overall tanking way better in all situations, then they wanted them to. They fixed the issue and simply needed to re-balance the pets. Re-balance doesn't mean nerf them more, it means bring them back up to where they can still fill the tanking role properly after the change. I think the have done a decent job so far of getting pets back to a reasonable level, even though I am really hoping they tweak them up more, at least the dps and EM difference between pets.
  2. ~Mills~ Augur


    This isn't helping this thread with on topic info so I'll stop responding.

    But you are wrong about pet runes and their intended use. Again this can change if the devs want them to be required spam now. There cast time merely made them an option to make up for lack of AA, weak EM focus whatever. Just because they have fast reuse doesn't mean they were not created and intended to be oh use. I know this from being around and reading and participating when some were added and tuned. Not because Daegun tells me so or me guessing based on their recast time.

    Pets never threatened actual tanks even prior to any fix. Except when the tank was undergeared, poorly played or if the mob had a PC only aspect to it.
  3. sojero One hit wonder


    I posted parses for necro pet, I didn't have to use my pet blocks and runes against trivial mobs, only againstyellow and higher after the 4th round of tuning, and wars dont have to use ls and nttb just to survive, only to survive against non trivial situations, ie multi pulls, or heavy hitters (named), the same as for pets now.

    some classes can slow, some cannot, that is part of the parses because that is part of their tool sets, and thus are balanced around them.

    asking for someone to show a full out war stacking all his discs vs a pet that is not using all theirs is not apples to apples.

    if you want to show a tank against a slowed target, then show a mage pet aginst a slowed target. That would be fair. Then you would need to show the necro and bst pets with outside support too, because it takes 2 to slow for the war and mage pet. you have to keep it singular because every variable you add, takes it out of proportion.
  4. Daegun Augur


    I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it this way.

    The developers of this game have disagreed with you:

    To respond to this:




    As I said at the very beginning. If you want to understand the nature of incoming damage you must:

    1) know what the base damage is before anything else happens
    2) know what abilities exist and how they modify that damage
    3) how to actually play the class (your own and others - clearly some don't know how to play their own class)
    4) get creative and think outside the box for other variables that will inevitably play in

    Now I did #1 ad nauseum. Those of us who have been doing such parses and looking at mitigation, defense etc for more than a decade now saw the problem plain as day. This "afk" parsing approach ... widely criticized. I know how defensive works. The knights know how defensive works. The knights know how their own abilities work. And all of us appreciate the impact that baseline mitigation and DI spread has on survivability. Others? Not so much, but then again this isn't new to the tank community. We had these debates literally a decade ago.

    Now, for you Krag: I'm glad you see how complicated it gets when you start trying to simulate real life play. It should make your head spin ... it makes mine spin. It is inconceivable to expect you can absolutely anticipate 100% of everything 100% of the time. Parsing real life workings can't capture it all. What if you add a druid to the mix tossing in debuffs? What if the mob is slowed? What if you have a real cleric using the shining line which reflects disproportionately stronger heals on targets with heal focusing aa? What if the paladin is chain stunning? What if you have a shadowknight clicking his epic and there's a monk in the group spamming stunning kicks and 2 mage air pets casting their stuns independently.

    What if ...

    What if ...

    What if ..?

    What you can see are obvious flaws in the basic foundations ... that #1 which was astronomically broken before and is now just "mostly broken" still today. You can see the patterns and the trends quite easily, and it still does not look remotely balanced. I would hope Aristo is paying close attention to this conversation.
  5. feiddan Augur


    I very well may be wrong about their intended use. But clearly, they can be used for tanking each and every mob and spammed regularly.

    Enchanter runes saw a recent nerf. I'm not sure what the devs had intended, but enchanters were capable of tanking raid mobs and the hardest group missions with ease. These were seen as too strong and performing better than intended, so a recast was added - I still see enchanters mass pull HA's and tank them all at once. What was the intention of enchanter runes? I'm not on the dev team nor a mind reader, so I can't say for certain - but this looks like one of those cases where smart and skilled players find a niche because of the tools available to them, finding fun in unintended playstyles.

    The abilities that Bedavir spammed are spammable. They are incredibly powerful, by my analysis of the data. The balance point is for Aristo to determine - how powerful are these abilities, and ought they be a regular part of the arsenal of players? If they are not meant to be in the normal rotation, does rotating them create an imbalance and pets being too strong? Would the proper solution be to nerf the abilities or add a longer recast?

    I'm sorry that you have tools that you feel you shouldn't be using. Fact is, you do have these tools in your class' toolbox, whether you want to use them or not - and as such, it adds another layer to this discussion and the question of balance. 60%+ avoidance for the magician earth pet is incredible (higher than any player character will realistically achieve) on top of the DI spread and still comfortably doing 24k DPS in group gear.
  6. Gnomeland Augur

    Did Daegun just seriously parse mage pets by letting the swarm pet take aggro in a short fight and act as though this shows how well the pet tanks? That's the equivalent of rooting a mob to the side and saying 'LOOK, they do 0 DPS to you when they're rooted! The pet only takes damage when root breaks while you're nuking!"

    The data manipulation has reached comedic levels. Aggro bouncing with swarm pets does not work in any extended fight unless all your DPS, both merc and player, are capable of dropping their aggro every 10 seconds. That works for necros; it doesn't work for mages.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  7. ~Mills~ Augur


    As have I and I never claimed the sky was falling at this point after these changes. All I said was necro pets could use more tweaks upwards possibly beast pets as well to close the gap between them and mage pets for tanking trash mobs. Or tune based on our pets being able to handle 2 trash mobs when supported for a reasonable amount of time to get slow, cc or help to them. And accept that mages tank pets can do more then that. Many people have shown why this is still needed and added their feedback. This is continually lost in the wash of very well presented data from one person. That often is framed or misleading. The sheer volume of everything is ok right now or nerf them more from one poster overwhelms the other feedback. I just want other parses and feedback on this to be heard as well and not let it get washed away in the spam of highlighted this and that under these conditions.
  8. Daegun Augur

    Nope, Daegun just seriously parsed mage pets by letting the swarm pet take aggro to show you how perfectly capable a group geared mage is of handling a double pull of (unslowed) mobs in the end game zone.

    Bingo.
    Xeladom and Khauruk like this.
  9. Gnomeland Augur

    What you showed wasn't tanking. It's how to CC with a mage. It's the equivalent of a paladin rooting a mob to the side on inc and saying 'BEHOLD! My paladin is able to handle 2 mobs on by taking only the damage from one mob!" The tactic vs. 2 mobs only works because you aren't applying aggro to the mob you are tanking with the swarm pet. That's how mez works. Why don't you pull three mobs with a necro, mez one, root another, and say 'BEHOLD! Necros are able to handle three mobs in AH molo! Their pets are obviously OP!"

    You're parsing pets' tanking ability. You're not parsing a class's grand sum of abilities. An enchanter's able to reduce incoming DPS on stunnable mobs by over 70-80% by chain stunning. Does that show enchanters are a great tank?
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  10. ~Mills~ Augur


    Bingo.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  11. Igniz Augur

    Luckily, it's easily reconstructed if the pet had Iceflame up - Look at the spells cast by the pet. If Iceflame Strike pops up, iceflame was on the mob.

    If I wondered if Daegun was biased about pets, I'd consider using Iceflame and then anecdotally remembering I "might have forgotten Iceflame" propaganda, or worse: manipulation of data. Especially, when it is as easy to find out if a certain buff was active or not. If nothing else, Daegun at least is a great rhetoric who probably could make a fortune as a lawyer in the US!

    As sweet as those parses are, even my head has started to spin from the multitude of grossly different parses with different settings, different not specified mob types, and mobs selectively slowed / unslowed / rooted / trained / deflected / drunken / dead / reanimated / embroidered / perma-stunned / kited / charmed / bribed / lost / misplaced / on vacation or in retirement to emphasise the point he cares to show in his most recent setting on parses ...
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  12. strongbus Augur


    Ohh we know how potent our abilities are. It the fact that we see no reason to use them all for each fight.

    Is it not the same for a tank. you have all kinds of abilities but you don't use them all on each fight. you pick and chose based on the zone and mobs and the number of mobs you have for each fight.

    in each zone we might decide that in giving zone on the weaker mobs(db and lower) that we only need to use the bear min support on our pets. And it would go up form there ending with names giving it everything we got.

    But I think we will have to agree to disagree on what bear min support is and maybe at what point even giving everything we got is not good enough.

    good example of this is there was someone in the other post on this stuff saying he considered it to OP if a necro could pet tank one mob and be ccing another one.
  13. Danille Augur

    Hey guys, sorry I have not posted in a few days. (Was at SoE live)

    There is no way that the current group of developers at SOE will change the primary role of a pet class to be able to run non-melee groups by utilizing their pet as main tank.
    Same holds true for each pet classes' ability to solo or molo current content via solo tasks, unlike group dependent classes.
    Wayylon likes this.
  14. Wayylon Augur

    Sounds like good news from the real source, thanks Danille
  15. wingz-83 Augur

    Asking you to mem a pet heal or a vie of some kind is an oh S*** stuff now?
    Just say what you mean. You shouldn't have to do anything more than what you already are with pets the way they currently are. Aka, godmode.
    Xeladom likes this.
  16. ~Mills~ Augur

    If expecting a pet to tank white con or dark blue con single mobs slowed with a dedicated healer merc is god mode. With very rare help with spike prevention and proc/lazy heal help. Then yes I want to maintain god mode.

    If expecting a pet to tank yellow cons or two dark blue mobs slowed with a dedicated healer merc and some owner support to help with spikes and proc/lazy heal help is god mode. Then yes I want to maintain god mode.

    If expecting a pet to tank two yellow con mobs or have a chance to tank some named (that are not deemed pet unfriendly by their abilities) that is slowed with two dedicated healers and major owner support and proc/heal help is god mode. Then yes I want to maintain god mode.

    What I don't want is to be forced to use everything I have spammed on my max AA'd pet with a raid focus with a dedicated healer merc with full mage toys on a slowed mob that is DB in con becoming the new acceptable. While someone tells me its ok like this in their opinion despite 14 years to the contrary. While that someone knows when played properly he can tank any mob he wants way better, with no group makeup limitations, can position it as he sees fit and can laughingly tank 2-5 mobs at once with less dps then pets see with 2 mobs should he need to.

    All of which has been the case since inception. With the only difference being mercs expanding what is possible with an additional dedicated healer for the pet and the fact that player power in general has grown and mobs that were harder or gimmicky are strictly avoided as then average joe player simply cant play well enough to kill them or be expected to find 5-11 friends to help them. See how awful everyone claims PoW is because you have to group, see how much complaining there is when a named is actually difficult and requires a class or two or goes beyond stand here and press attack after clicking this tank disc, see how much complaining there is when a pure tank and spank named is tuned to required 2 groups of healing and dps to win.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  17. strongbus Augur

    no having some of our pet support stuff up is not a oh s**** stuff. It asking that we have to use it ever time it refreshes on 1v1 trash mobs. spamming the runes/heals/vies during a named or 1v2+ fight is ok as that is a oh s**** stuff. but any 1v1 trash mob should not require us to spam these spells, use yes spam no
  18. wingz-83 Augur

    You can easily do what you describe in grelleths or breeding grounds, heck even Epicenter. Easily.....but you want to do it in the end zone of the current expansion. You don't see any problem with this is even more amazing. I couldn't do what you describe as a paladin without using a bunch of activatables and defensive clicks etc, but for you tanking this stuff without using defensive abilities via a pet is just another day in eq life.
  19. RangerGuy Augur


    Right because thats how this all works. Those classes designed to be better solo capable used to go back into the prior expansion in order to actually solo. In original EQ they want back to .... hmm wait they played in current content. Well then certainly back in Kunark they had to go back to original oh wait they didn't then either. Well certainly when we get more recent like OOW, SOD, HOT, VOA they had to go back to older stuff to solo hmmm not there either. Seems they always handled current content solo. Maybe its my line of thinking thats broken and not pets or solo classes. Maybe this is just a call for nerfs based on some facts that while true really amount to a hill of beans.
  20. strongbus Augur

    so you think we should have to spam our pet support spells just like you have to use up a bunch of self support stuff?

    how long dose it take a palaldin to molo a trash mob in cotf t2?

    When I have done stuff on test server to test out my pet form the time I pulled to the time the mob was dead was a avg of 90 sec.