Test server patch notes

*** Progression Servers ***

- Made further adjustments to the power curve of pets prior to the release of the Shadows of Luclin expansion.

Wonder what this means, since the agents aren't up still for hate/fear/sky I guess I'm gonna box a few mages up to like 30 and see how they are.

EDIT: And this

- - It is now possible for a pet to be the target of an NPC's melee attacks if it has the highest aggro with other players in range.
- - This behavior can be adjusted on a per NPC basis and will currently be disabled for all current and previous raid difficulty NPCs.
- - It is additionally possible for some NPCs to ignore the hatred generated by pets and instead attribute a portion of that hatred toward the owner. This behavior will be in play on raid targets on progression servers.

So if this is true and I'm reading this right, pets can now tank for exp groups with melee classes in them?

Woah these are very huge changes. Melee classes can rejoice! Not to mention the aggrieved to the Mage as well. I foresee raid bosses munching on mages in large quantities for anyone trying to Mage wall bosses!

- Adjusted how NPCs choose a melee target when they are rooted: NPCs will now choose to hit the target that they hate the most that is within melee range. Previously NPCs would simply hit the nearest hated target.

this is worth noting as well since its a pretty huge change

Finally a change that will actually do something about pet walling as a tactic. This just made the first couple of expansions a lot more interesting from a competition point of view.

Beastlords are going to have a hell of a time with pet procs if this goes live...

Air pets may not be so popular

Woah woah woah.

So Mage pets (or well any other pets for that matter, but mostly Mage's..) can tank now with melee? O_x

22 mage pet seems to be same strength on both live and test, not sure if the lowering of pet power part is in on test since they have gone past luclin and that same flagging thing is what is screwing up the instance npcs from spawning right now apparently.

Sorry I typed in the quoted text and could not edit the post to correct that, my apologies to the poster

Amazing and long over due changes.

It's huge for rogues, Rangers , bards etc that can now much more easily get group invites in groups with a Mage and no real tank... Which will be virtually every group around . It's also huge for tanks that arnt very well geared and can not worry about getting rolled by mobs when jabartik can take all the damage. Should be a LOT more earth pets now as well. Will be fun

I agree, this is going to alter the group dynamics in the leveling game. Super excited about this even if what it said about pre-luclin pets means a major nerf.

I think the pet aggro on raid mobs is also necessary too. It's about time mages had to watch their aggro like wizards.

I do more damage on Ragefire with one mitigated nuke than my pet does the entire time for most fights. Using my epic pet now will actually be a detriment to me because of his stun procs will be useless added agro compared to the damage he does. THANKS, DBG!

Glad to have my class nerfed repeatedly! Mages do have to worry about their agro on raids. Because their pets don't do damage to raid mobs. So, they are nuking as much as wizards are.

So no big deal, pets are useless on raid anyway?

This is far from a nerf to mages. It essentially lets them fill the tank role in groups now

I would trade my epic pet in for lure of ice during kunark. I will not be using a pet on raids if their agro is even remotely an issue. The couple hundred damage isn't worth the potential wipe of the raid. Mwapo doesn't need Mwapet to make the parses!...... I miss him so much.

It's not a nerf to mages in group content, overall, maybe... But it sure is a nerf on raid content.

Yeah, I'm not sure what will happen to epic pet, especially on raids.

Actually unsure how earth, air, and epic compare in terms of aggro and crunchiness vs. PCs.