More Tuning for Progression Servers: Raids and Player Pets

The team would rather make a small change and see how that changes player habits on Ragefire and Lockjaw, than make a big change and risk making mages unwanted in raids.

Also:

Raid targets on progression servers now have the ability "Mark of the Old Ways". This will reduce the resistances and melee damage output and increase incoming melee damage of summoned companions with increasing severity based on the total number of summoned companions that are attacking the raid target.

If I understand that correctly, it's not just 20% less damage from the pets to the mob, it's 20% more from the mobs to the pets, and as you say, on top of the base nerf.

Hmm if that's all, wont change much. Just means you summon more pets and it takes longer. Though combined with melee dmg reduction might just even out. At least its a % they can adjust if needed.

Yeah, Roshen is making it sound like its a knob they're willing to adjust moving forward, so it has some potential.

Woah... be careful there... there are no "nerfs", just 'appropriate tuning'.

Welcome to the Live experience!

Roshen you need to tell us if this pet number limitation on raids includes all pets such as SK pets, enc, pets, pets which are proc'd by weapons for a short time. Do they all count toward the 2%/3 pets nerf?

If so you need to understand that your going to keep raid leaders from wanting people using sk pets, enc pets, pet proc weapons, shaman pets or any other non mage/necro pets on raids as they are all lower dps.

You're pretty much going to force pet classes who main a nec/mag now to reroll because you cannot come up with a more creative solution. (FYi I was rerolling my main from mage to rogue eventually anyway, so w/e I'll just do it sooner but..) We're not going to want more than 3-9 pet classes in a 72 man raid if all these other pets count toward that total, it will force other classes to stop using some of their abilities.

He specifically says in the post that its only mage and necro pets. Although that should target SK pets as well since they're the same as necro spells.

And thank god for that - Killing the mage class should have happened a long time ago.

So mages now...actually have to nuke...and if they cant nuke Naggy...well welcome to the world of Wizards and Sky raids, now your no better than anyone else!

Good riddance to Mages (and I have 5 of them).

Have raid leaders ever wanted Sk's to use pets?

I feel like people are nitpicking (like always).

Just let this play out. The only mobs that NEEDED to be pet walled were sky mobs, and those have been changed also. The dps is not going to be an issue.

No-one brings shamans, chanters, and sk's for their pets.

All NPCs that were made harder on progression servers have been adjusted for the upcoming update.

Roshen, Thank you for the answer. I don't love the answer but I am glad it was at least discussed and an answer was given. Thanks again.

i play a single mage and i don't raid. i'm sick of being castigated and penalized because of the actions of 3rd party program users which were NEVER a part of classic EQ,

If you don't raid, most of the mage changes don't affect you (minus the defensive change and it's more putting them in line with classic). You'll be OP still in groups, just less so solo, as was intended (in my opinion, I also play a mage-main).

Does this mean that Wizards will actually be able to land spells in Sky on bosses Keeper of Souls and higher? In the current buffed state Wizards melee does more than any spell damage.

one of the main reasons i've played a mage for 14 years is because i can solo with it. no clue what i'm going to do if i'm forced to actually group with people. /shudder
maybe you could extend the raid debuff into a group one as well? that would screw the mage botters without penalising soloers like myself.

This is the most important question that needs to be addressed. Right now wizards are better off autoattacking with staff of the wheel then trying to nuke in Sky

thanks for the fix, as long as regular groups can kill these mobs without relying on pets or meatgrinder, i'm happy.

I was getting worried but i'm glad you guys are working on it now i can level a second account as a cleric like i wanted instead of a mage

Then why not just make bosses ignore pet agro? It keeps their dps desirable and completely stops mage walling.

These sound like good changes. I think most people agree that the buffs on the bosses were overdone and that they needed a reduction in power.

Only on this server. When my guild is killing things an decides to pet wall, usually after too many tanks die or clerics die/go OoM pet walling is like the contingency plan and shamans, enchanters and shadow knights(after the get rezed) are expected to summon pets to help out with finishing the mob. It's a bit lame but that's been the state of raiding on the progression servers

Not sure how these changes will affect those classes but I honestly don't think anyone that plays those classes really cares that much since they aren't normally in groups and raids for their pets.

Thank you so much DGB.